Because she wasn’t a trendsetter. No one could hope to be like her. She was one of a kind and, because of this, very much alone. About whether she was pleased with this state of affairs or saddened, I was never entirely sure. Maybe she would have liked to belong. ‘She’ is Vera, Lucas’s teenage daughter. For most of her life he’s been absent; she was the result of a wild whim ... Read More...
Sweetbitter
“You know what I dislike? When people use the future as a consolation for the present.” Tess arrives in NYC in the summer of 2006 from somewhere, but it doesn't matter where because as far as she is concerned she didn't exist before passing through the tollbooth onto the island of Manhattan. And we shouldn't care either, which we don't, because in short ... Read More...
Before the Wind
At the most basic level Jim Lynch’s new novel Before the Wind is the story of the Johannssens—a sailing family in Seattle, Washington. Or as Josh Johannssen’s younger sister Ruby liked to claim “And there’s a reason we’re so good with boats: we have a higher salt content in our blood!” A fact which his long suffering older brother Bernard would point out was based on ... Read More...
All Things Cease to Appear
Last week I reviewed The Undertaking which is a marvelous read in that it allows the reader to fully revel in feelings of rage, disgust and retribution (which is necessary relief if you’re watching political news these days). This is not the case in Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear. It is much more attuned to contemporary times, when even though a ... Read More...
Green Island: A Novel
Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose. The narrator in Green Island is born on the night in 1947 when the tension between the factions in Taiwan explode into civil violence. Her father, a doctor, in attending a community meeting the next night and quietly asking ... Read More...
The Improbability of Love
When Annie buys a painting at a junk shop in London she has no idea what she’s getting herself into. It’s supposed to be a gift for a new boyfriend but when he’s a no-show she keeps it. The now ex-boyfriend is only one more disappointment in a life that seems to be stalled, in Hannah Rothschild’s new novel, The Improbability of Love. At 31 Annie has a temporary job ... Read More...
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