THE DEW BREAKER by Edwidge Danticat

The chapters in this book are basically short stories.  One reviewer said that this novel should be read all in one sitting.  I agree with that observation, but I did not do that.  Consequently, it seemed disjointed to me, and I had difficulty putting all the pieces together.  The first and last chapters tell the story of a father who tortured political prisoners in Haiti, prior to becoming a barber in Brooklyn.  His daughter, a sculptor, is unaware of the terrible things her father did, and is delivering a statue of him to a buyer in Florida.  The chapters in between are mostly about people who are tangentially connected to this man, including Haitian men who rent rooms in the basement of the barber’s house.  In some chapters, particularly one about three women studying to become U.S. citizens, I was unable to discern if or how the characters were connected to the barber.  Besides being seemingly unrelated, the chapters moved at a snail’s pace and failed to hold my attention for very long.  Slogging through this novel a few pages at a time made it even more fragmented.  Another problem with this book is that I could not really grasp what caused the barber to change so radically from someone who seemed to delight in human suffering.  Does he become miraculously remorseful?  It’s not really clear, as he doesn’t seem to have a sudden epiphany, other than having found himself the target of a superior’s wrath.  Perhaps for once he feels what it is like to be the prey rather than the hunter.

CIRCE by Madeline Miller

Since I know virtually nothing about Greek mythology, the events in this story were mostly new to me.   In fact, I think not knowing what was going to happen was an advantage.   Circe is a goddess who has been banished to the island of Aiaia for performing witchcraft on both a mortal and another goddess.  Circe may live on an island, but she has adventures galore, as over the centuries a variety of both gods and mortals dock in her harbor.  She is granted an opportunity to leave the island to assist in her sister’s childbirth, and in that brief getaway we meet both the Minotaur and Daedelus. Back on the shores of Aiaia, Odysseus eventually lands and becomes Circe’s lover for a year.  Circe also comes in contact with his wife Penelope and their son Telemachus.  I gather the author stayed true to the events in The Odyssey, but perhaps she lets Circe off the hook a little too easily for some of her wicked transformations.  No matter.  I found the author’s version of Circe to be completely admirable.  Miller justifies Circe’s deeds as being the result of very human emotions, despite her divinity—love, jealousy, and self-preservation.  I liked this book so much better than The Song of Achilles, partly because the narrative is told from a woman’s perspective, but mostly because the pace seemed to me to be a lot more lively.  Most of all, though, Miller tells Circe’s story in a way that brings this ancient tale to life.

BENEDICTION by Kent Haruf

Although the dialog and language are just as good, I didn’t like this book as much as the first two in the series, Plainsong and Eventide.  Neither the characters nor the storyline quite lived up to my expectations.  That said, I still liked it, but I would have liked it better if the characters had been a little more…nuanced, maybe?  Dad Lewis (yes, everyone in town calls him “Dad”) is dying of cancer and has committed a few misdeeds that he cannot undo.  His gay son Frank has been out of touch with his parents for years, due to Dad’s disapproval.  Unless Dad’s wife Mary can find him, Frank won’t even know of his father’s passing.  The other unfortunate event in Dad’s life occurred when an employee embezzled some money, and Dad insisted that he and his family leave town.  The consequences of this event are so predictable that it wouldn’t even be a spoiler if I told you what they were.  The other main character in this book is the local pastor, Reverend Lyle, who, in stark contrast to Dad, is too liberal for this small, rural community.  His sermon about turning the other cheek infuriates most of his congregation, and then you can easily imagine what happens to him.  Before I talk myself into lowering my rating to three stars, let me just say that this novel needed a surprise or two to kickstart it into gear.

CITY OF GIRLS by Elizabeth Gilbert

Vivian Morris is 89 years old and telling her story to Angela, who has written to Vivian to find out about Vivian’s relationship with Angela’s father.  Four hundred or so pages later, we find out who he is, and Vivian’s story loses steam.  Until that point, though, her story is pretty animated.  She is banished from her parents’ home, after flunking out of Vassar in her freshman year, and sent to live with her Aunt Peg in Manhattan.  Aunt Peg runs a small, ramshackle theatre company, complete with showgirls, and Vivian soon puts to good use her excellent seamstress skills as the costume designer.  She also launches herself headlong into a lifestyle of partying that she surely cannot sustain indefinitely.  She eventually makes a stupid mistake in her choice of sex partners, and her world comes crashing down.  Vivian may not be a poster child for sexual liberation, but she does prove that a whole bunch of one-night stands does not make her a bad person.  I love this theme in the book that a woman with a hefty sexual appetite can chart an atypical course through life and still garner our admiration and sympathy.  As Angela’s father says late in the book, “The world ain’t straight,” and he’s not talking about sexual orientation.  He’s talking about how our path through life meanders in unexpected directions.  Ultimately, Vivian has to learn the hard way how to forgive herself, as well as those who have judged her too harshly and flung some very hurtful insults her way.

STERN MEN by Elizabeth Gilbert

My chief complaint about this book is that the pace is super pokey.  On the plus side, the storyline is good, and the writing is excellent.  Best of all, the dialog is snappy, sassy, and salty, and I could describe the characters with the same adjectives.  The protagonist is Ruth Thomas, a 19-year-old who has come to a crossroads in her life.  Fresh out of a stodgy Delaware boarding school, she has returned home to Fort Niles, a Maine island where lobster fishing is the only available career.  Ruth has ties to Lanford Ellis, the richest man on the island, and their connection is unveiled piece by piece as the story unfolds.  Ruth does not want to return to the mainland to attend college, but she really is too smart to spend the rest of her life in a lobster boat.  Her father is a successful fisherman on Fort Niles, but her mother lives in New Hampshire—again, for reasons to be revealed later.  The backdrop of the book is the lobster industry—its rivalries, territory disputes, superstitions, and certainly its hold on the people who do it for a living, generation after generation.  The crisp dialog is what really appealed to me, though, as these islanders occasionally say the darnedest things, such as, “A cat can have kittens in the oven, but that don’t make ‘em biscuits.” 

THE HOUSE GIRL by Tara Conklin

Josephine Bell is a Virginia house slave who is determined to escape.  She tried once before, but her very advanced pregnancy forced her to return to her master’s home.   What happened to her child becomes the subject of another story, as 21^st century attorney Lina Sparrow is searching for Josephine’s descendants.  Lina has been tasked with finding a plaintiff for a slavery reparations lawsuit that her firm is pursuing, and she has discovered that Josephine probably produced artwork that has long been attributed to her mistress.  Lina also begins to realize that perhaps her father is withholding information about Lina’s mother, who supposedly died in a car accident when Lina was a toddler.  The narrative alternates between Lina’s story and Josephine’s story, and I felt that the author crammed too many jagged side plots into this novel and that she should have focused a little more on the characters.  I suppose that the art angle is what ties Lina to Josephine in the first place, as Lina’s father is also an artist.  Josephine certainly deserves posthumous reparations, not only for having been enslaved and abused but also for not having received credit for her paintings.  However, there seems to be a lot of drama in Lina’s life as well, not only related to her mother’s fate, but also related to her career and work relationships.  I was particularly curious as to why the author threw in the intrigue about Lina’s mother, unless there was supposed to be some parallel between Lina’s mother and Josephine, neither of whom was able to be a part of her child’s upbringing.  I enjoyed reading this book, despite finding the characters to be a little flat and the plot a little too busy.