This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day so this week my reviews are focused on three books with very different perspectives on motherhood. Each offered something important in its own way and reminded me how, like so much of what women do, it is impossible to fit the role of mother into one finite slot. Off the coast of Korea’s mainland is an island called Jeju. There was ... Read More...
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
The Yoo family—Pak, Young, and their daughter Mary, have pinned all their American hopes and all their money on their new business. It’s a hyperbaric chamber that is supposed to help cure or improve all kinds of medical issues. Angie Kim’s new novel, Miracle Creek, begins while a session is in progress. In the chamber are two children with severe autism, one parent, and Matt, a ... Read More...
The Affairs of the Falcóns: A Novel
Life for Ana Falcón is walking a high-wire above a field of razors. She works long days at garment factory hunched over a sewing machine, while her husband, Lucho drives a cab at night. They live with their two small children in the bedroom of a cousin’s apartment in Brooklyn. A cousin who has made it clear they need to move on, but their jobs don’t bring in enough income to ... Read More...
Women Talking: A Novel by Miriam Toews
In the Mennonite community of Molotschna eight women gather in a barn to talk. Their meeting is a secret, made possible only because the men have gone into the city to bail out eight men who have been accused of a heinous crime: that of drugging and raping over 100 of the community’s women and girls repeatedly over a two-year span. It will take two days for the men to return ... Read More...
A People’s History of Heaven
It’s funny, being a girl. That thing that’s supposed to push you down, defeat you, shove you back, back, and further back still? Turn it the right way, and it’ll push you forward instead. A People’s History of Heaven was one of my winter picks. It’s set in a 30-year-old slum called Heaven in Bangalore, India and centers around the lives of five young girls: Banu, Padma, Joy, ... Read More...
Death is Hard Work
Bolbol’s father has just died in Damascus. Before he did, he made one final request of his son—he wants to be buried in the family’s plot in his hometown. It’s two hours away and without thinking Bolbol agrees. It’s only as he’s contacting his sister, Fatima, and his brother, Hussein, that the enormity of his promise hits him. This is Syria, a country being destroyed by its ... Read More...
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