Complicated Families | Reading

Fiction and nonfiction alike are rife with complicated families. After all, “all happy families are alike each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I love to read about complicated families: it’s a good exercise in seeing people complexly. And, they’re often just entertaining as all get-out. Here are my current top picks for complicated family stories.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Bird escapes from her terrible family life to a small town in New England, where she falls in love with Arturo Whitman and becomes his daughter’s step mother. When she gives birth to their next daughter, family secrets come very much to the front.

In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This is based on the true story of the Mirabel sisters, who rebelled against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. The story follows them from childhood, seeing how they are often at odds with each other, their parents, their husbands, each other’s husbands, and of course the dictator they all live under.

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

The Turner children must decide what happens to their parent’s house in Detroit, now virtually worthless, now that their mother is elderly. The thirteen kids have a myriad of opinions and memories tied to the house, including the oldest Francis, who saw the Haint, and Lelah, battling a serious gambling addiction.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

While this story is about Henrietta Lacks, the HeLa cells, scientific research, and how segregation and the medical system treated African Americans, it is also about Lacks’ children. The author works very closely with one of Lacks’ daughters, and tells the story of what happened to her family and how they reacted to learning their mother’s story.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Nella Oortman comes to Amsterdam to marry Johannes Brandt, and live with him and his sister Marin. He is kind, but standoffish; his sister is stern and serious. Nella feels out of place in this family, until she figures out the secrets they’re hiding, that threaten to unravel the whole family — including her. This book also delves into 17th century Dutch society, which we should all remember is where the Pilgrims fled to when the 17th century English were too loosey-goosey for them.

Watch this, read that | Man in the High Castle

This Christmas, my boyfriend got Amazon Prime (*not sponsored). We love to watch TV together, so Prime opened up a whole new world of shows. Our first pick has been Man in the High Castle. 

It’s based on the Philip K. Dick novel by the same name, which features an alternate history of post-war America where we didn’t win World War II. The eastern part of the country is ruled by the Nazis, while the west side is ruled by the Japanese Empire. The story focuses on a woman who finds a tape showing V-Day in Times Square and a man who is transporting rebel cargo cross-country. There is intrigue and creepy period-details (like a Leave it to Beaver-style family breakfast…where the oldest son is a Nazi youth). It weaves the alternative history details into the story in a way that is deeply unsettling and compelling.

If you enjoyed watching Man in the High Castle, the obvious starting point is the book. I have to confess, I didn’t realize it was based on a book so I haven’t read it yet, but it is the source material for the show.

Next, I would read another alternative history, The Plot Against America. It follows a young Jewish boy in the US when FDR loses re-election the Charles Lindbergh, an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer. It has a similar sideways feeling, where there are familiar elements of mid-century America, but horrible differences.

If you’re done with alternative histories, how about an alternative storytelling? Maus is a graphic memoir by Art Spiegelman recounting his adult relationship with his father with flashbacks to his father’s time in Nazi Germany. The twist is that Art and his father are mice and the Nazi’s are cats. It’s an interesting spin on the sub-genre of Holocaust stories and with great art to boot.

Finally, for a nonfiction book. This one isn’t an alternative history or a retelling, but does depict a different past than the one we are often taught in US history. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen tells the story of the US ambassador to Berlin and his family in the 1930s. While Americans are often depicted as almost unaware of the war until Pearl Harbor, these Americans are living in Berlin while Hitler begins his anti-Jewish policies. It shows an uglier side of Americans — one where we value nonconfrontation, disbelief, and appeasement over saving oppressed people. It has a similarly unsettling feeling to an alternative history and provides a counter to the conventional wisdom of American heroics.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman | Review

Since the paperback recently came out, it seemed appropriate to finally get to my review of Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman. This is a short story collection focusing on the lives of the 13 eponymous women. There is a wide breadth of time and age, with the youngest woman being the toddler Allegra Byron (that  Byron) to painter Romaine Brooks.

I bought this book thinking I would read it slowly, one story at a time. Instead, I read the whole thing in one afternoon. The stories are riveting and haunting, and will leave you scouring Wikipedia to learn more.

Mayhew Bergman varies her form a lot throughout the book. There are a wide variety of narrators, in the first- versus third-person sense but also in relation to the subject. Allegra’s story is told through the eyes of her nurse whose own child died of Typhus, while other stories are told through the eyes of thieves and lovers.

This was one of my favorite books of the summer, if not of the year. I highly recommend reading on the patio with a glass of rosé before the summer ends.

The Diviners by Libba Bray | Review

The Diviners by Libba Bray was one of those stay-up-all-night reads. It has fleshed-out characters, fascinating plot, and melds supernatural and real history together fantastically. Watch for more of my thoughts, and hopefully I’ll have a review to the sequel in a few weeks.

Empress Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

China is a country that I know embarrassingly little about. Considering I can name all of Henry VIII’s wives and their demises (Catherine – divorced, Anne – beheaded, Jane – childbirth, Anne – annulled, Catherine 2 – beheaded, Catherine 3 – widowed) it’s pretty pathetic how little I know about a major world power.

Enter Jung Chang, author of Empress Cixi. She wrote this lengthy, in-depth look at a woman who was never legally empress in her own right yet affected major change over almost five decades. According to the book and some internet research, Empress Cixi has been maligned by history and Chang sought to change the story. Though at times ruthless and imperfect, Cixi changed the face of China, becoming more open to trading with Western countries and dismantling age-old hierarchies.

I learned so much about China and so much about what I need to learn. I had no idea that China was ruled by the Manchu minority and the ethnic majority were Huns. I didn’t know about the conflicts with Japan, or Japan’s conflicts with Korea. I had heard of the Boxer rebellion but knew little about it. Reading this gave some structure to what types of topics I want to read about next.

This book was really fascinating but also flawed. One glaring flaw was the way that Chang continually made comments conflating western ways with modernity. The tone implied that it was not possible to be modern and also maintain Chinese culture, and that Empress Cixi was on the right path by trying to westernize the country in its cultural traditions. The book was also very long and dragged in places, though that is to be expected of biographies of world leaders.

Using this book as my guide, I have a much better idea of where to go next in my quest to learn about China. Right now, the graphic novels Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang  are on my TBR, in addition to The Opium War by Julia Lovell, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom  by Stephen Platt and People’s Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim.

Let me know if there are any books you recommend – I’m eager to learn more!

 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 1 – Alan Moore

In the continuing saga of Erin Discovers Comics, I picked up first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The league in question is made up of iconic characters from British literature: Mina Murray, Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, and Allan Quartermain.  They are recruited to fight the Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty.

I absolutely loved the concept. Literary figures as de-facto superheroes? Sign me up. This story was packed full of literary allusions and steampunk fun that made it a fun read. You could spend hours doing nothing but finding every literary allusion. The action and adventure was fast-paced and fun, and the ending left me wanting to hear more about the League and its adventures.

I have serious misgivings about continuing this series, though. On one hand, people at the turn of the 20th century were super white supremacist and misogynistic, including some of these characters. However, the Fu Manchu storyline was so incredibly stereotyped that I had to put the book down a few times. I think there’s a big difference between acknowledging that fact that the characters are racist and you yourself writing a racist storyline. The Chinese characters aren’t actually characters, they’re just stereotyped stand-ins. That doesn’t make for very interesting villanry nor does it make for good storytelling. I kept trying to tell myself that maybe there was a purpose – maybe there was a critique of how Chinese people were represented at the time or how our heroes were reacting to them, but if there was one I missed it.

And that isn’t even going into the weird rape scenes continuing with our literary tradition of overusing sexual assault as a plot device where is doesn’t even serve a purpose.

I don’t have a ton of patience for authors who can create alternate universes complete with sci-fi elements like anachronistic technology but are unable to conceive of a world where women and people of color aren’t treated like absolute shit. As soon as you start introducing historically inaccurate things, your excuse of “that’s just how it was” goes out the window.

There were definitely elements of this comic that I really enjoyed, but I’m not sure that I’m convinced that I should finish the series. I love the concept so much that I keep trying to talk myself out of my misgivings in hopes that maybe it wasn’t actually that bad. I think I might give volume two a try, but I definitely won’t be buying the omnibus edition unless I love volume 2.

Throne of Jade – Temeraire #2

Throne of Jade is the second book in the Temeraire series. Temeraire is a Chinese Imperial dragon living in England during the Regency era with his handler Captain Laurence. Laurence used to be a naval officer, before becoming Temeraire’s handler and joining the Aerial Corps. The second book centers around the conflict between England, who thinks they won Temeraire’s egg in a battle, and the Chinese prince who sees it as an affront to his country’s honor. Parts take place in England, on the sea, and in China.

Let’s start with the positive. I’m still loving the idea behind this series. The idea of talking dragons as the air force is such an inventive idea. I love Laurence’s discomfort with anything outside his Regency-era norms, Temeraire’s challenging of them, and how he is dealing with that and changing some of his ideas. Laurence has shown growth from doing his duty to being part of the aerial corps. I enjoyed the glimpse into Chinese history, which I know embarrassingly little about.

Now for the bad. I struggled to get through this book. When it opens, you feel like you missed a chapter or a prologue. It starts in the middle of a scene. There’s no real rising action, the story just kind of goes along and then all of a sudden climaxes (twice). So much time is spent on the boat watching the British and Chinese offend each other. Temeraire gets a cold.

This whole book just felt like there should be more plot (Laurence might lose Temeraire, after all), but it really just seems like it’s a blow by blow of a boat journey.

After this one, I need to decide whether I want to continue with the rest of the series. I think I’m going to try the third before deciding to abandon the series, but I was quite disappointed with this one.

His Majesty’s Dragon: Temeraire #1

I’ve started a new fantasy series! Or new to me, at least. The Termeraire series is set during the Napoleonic wars, where countries use dragons as their air force. These dragons are extremely intelligent creatures, able to carry on conversations and learn physics. Will Laurence is an officer in the British Royal Navy, whose ship conquers a French ship and wins a dragon egg in the process. After it hatches, it impresses itself upon Laurence, whose life is drastically altered.

This series was interesting to me because I wanted to read more fantasy, but was having a hard time finding a series I enjoyed. I came across this one, featuring one of my favorite time periods in one of my favorite countries and just had to give it a try. I was not disappointed.

My favorite part of this was the new, original take on dragons. These dragons aren’t just fire breathers, they are intelligent creatures. Termeraire loves to be read to throughout the book, especially from academic texts that Laurence himself does not fully understand. This intelligence lends an interesting dynamic to Termeraire and Laurence’s relationship, as well as their role in the army. Instead of vessels guided by their riders, they are active participants in strategizing.

It was also interesting how Naomi Novick made being in the Aeriel Corps as decidedly un-prestigious. It is the job of second sons and the occasional woman, not a Major in the Navy. Laurence’s family is not overjoyed to hear the news, and his fiancee shares in their sentiments. It is interesting, in part, because many authors would have made anything involving flying to be amazing and exciting in this time period. I think Novick’s choice works well, though, and facilitates the close bond between the dragons and their riders.

There’s a sort-of subplot with Laurence and a fiancee which I could have done without. It seemed a little shoe-horned into the story, which him showing much more guilt than affection toward her and her only being mentioned every few chapters as an aside.

Now that I’ve finished His Majesty’s Dragon, I’m looking forward to beginning Throne of Jade!

The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit

This book tells the story of the Manhattan Project in a totally different and inventive way. It is told from the plural first person perspective of the scientist’s wives. Transplanted to a completely unfamiliar town (not even knowing where they’re going until they get there), unable to see their families or tell them where they are, the women form a community around their shared confusion. They don’t see their husbands very much and they are civilian women living in a military/male world.

This book was pleasant and an interesting perspective, but the plural first person kept the novel from having any sort of plot. Instead, each chapter was a look at an aspect of their lives. There’s chapters on trying to (and giving up on) keep “proper” dress, chapters on parenting alone, on socializing with the scientists, on working. These little glimpses into life in Los Alamos were interesting. However, there is never a story. The story is the project, but since the women are not actually involved in the project, there isn’t much information about it.

I can’t decide how I feel about The Wives of Los Alamos. I enjoyed reading it, but I didn’t feel like I came away with anything when I finished. I feel like the story was more about life as a woman: having to follow your husband to a mysterious job, parent alone, adjust to life, and then at the end have to go back to your old life as if nothing changed. The setting didn’t really matter that much, it could have been any military story, professor story, pioneer story –  it didn’t have to be the Manhattan Project. I think that was what I struggled with, that the setting and time period didn’t really seem to have that much effect on the story. It seemed odd to set the story in such an interesting time and then not really do much with the specific setting.

A lot of people dislike the plural first person, but I thought it was well-done. Using it to illuminate their lives rather than to tell a plot heavy story allowed it to be used effectively and I think it worked well. It also underscores the sense of community and solidarity the women had. Not only does it bind them to each other, but it keeps the men and the women scientists separate, further emphasizing how the wives lived.

Overall a good, quick read but nothing too crazy especially if you’re looking for a plot-heavy or character-heavy book.