AFTERLIVES by Abdulrazak Gurnah

In the early 1900s in East Africa, two young African men join the German army’s fight against the British.  Ilyas has a young sister under his protection but returns her to a life of physical abuse so that he can join the German colonial army in its fight.  The big question may be why, but the bigger question concerns his fate.  The other man is Hamza, who has never met Ilyas, but falls in love with his sister, Ayfia, after he has returned to his village after the war and she has been rescued by the man whom becomes Hamza’s work supervisor.  Both Ilyas and Hamza owe their literacy to the Germans, but Hamza suffers serious injuries that were not sustained in battle.  Ultimately, we have a love story set against a backdrop of European colonialism—first Germany’s and then Britain’s—in East Africa.  More importantly, I think, is the sense of community that surrounds these characters.  Some of their elders are obviously cruel, but others are willing to accept and assist someone like Hamza in need of a leg up.  Despite taciturn and even hostile exteriors, many people, including a pastor and a German officer, help Hamza become an asset to the community.  For anyone not familiar with the geography of East Africa or the impact of WWI on that part of the world, the historical aspect of this novel may be confusing.  However, the family saga is not.  It is easy to follow, and I found myself getting caught up in the lives of these characters, who like Hamza and Afiya, hope to catch a break after enduring so much adversity.

SIGNAL FIRES by Dani Shapiro

This novel opens with a terrible car accident.  Fifteen-year-old Theo is driving, because his older sister, Sarah, is intoxicated.  Another teenager in the car does not survive.  Sarah claims to be the driver, not only to protect Theo, but also because she so casually threw him the keys.  This tragedy becomes a secret that Sarah and Theo’s family will never discuss.  Years later a younger family moves in across the street, and, although the two families never socialize with one another, their lives become entangled.  This other family’s son, Waldo, has a genius-level IQ but is a disappointment to his father whose expectations Waldo will never meet.  Waldo’s passion is astronomy with a healthy dose of physics and maybe even a bit of metaphysics.  His interest in the death of stars leads him to a philosophy about the death of people as well, and his depth of perception is totally invisible to his father, who has anger management issues.  These two families are troubled in completely different ways.  Waldo’s is basically dysfunctional, while Sarah and Theo have guilt issues that go unaddressed.  The fact that their parents refuse to talk about the accident just adds fuel to the fire.  If you are thinking that this novel leans toward the melancholy, you would be right, but it is much more.  Sarah, Theo, and Waldo all have to figure out a way to navigate lives whose foundations are shaky.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

Gopi and her two older sisters live in England and are still reeling after their mother’s death.  Their father has decided to turn his energies toward making his daughters excellent squash players.  Meanwhile, their father’s brother and his wife, who live in Edinburgh, have offered to raise one of the girls.  Eleven-year-old Gopi, our first-person narrator, is the most likely candidate, but she is also the best squash player by far.  She becomes friends with a boy named Ged who plays squash at the same facility, and they both register for a major tournament that will take place in a few months.  This tournament becomes the focus of most of the book’s characters, but an overheard remark leads to events that threaten Gopi’s participation.  This book definitely has melancholy overtones, but the prospect of the tournament keeps both the characters and the reader engaged.  The specter of the dead mother looms over everyone, and too many decisions seems to require debate over what she would do if she were still alive.  This frequent review of the dead mother’s possible opinion stifles her family’s ability to move forward and into a life without her.  The father is obviously depressed and struggling to be motivated to keep the family afloat, while he suffers disapproval over his friendship with Ged’s mother.  I don’t want to make this post longer than the book itself, but Ged’s mother, who has very little to say in this book, is probably my favorite character.  What she does say is wisely protective of her son and not open to discussion, and she stands her ground firmly without wavering.  Gopi’s aunt is also intransigent on a completely different issue and in her mind is protective of Gopi.  In reality, her stance is rooted in a bias regarding what girls should and should not do.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

Aliocha is twenty years old and has been conscripted into the Russian army.  And if that’s not bad enough, he is on the Trans-Siberian Railway, headed to an unknown destination.  After being attacked by another conscript, he decides that escape is the only answer.  Easier said than done, but he enlists the help of a French woman, Helene, who has left her Russian lover, with no particular destination in mind.  Here are two people who don’t know where they are going, but this train is going to take them there.  Helene sees another spontaneous fugitive like herself in Aliocha, a total stranger, but Aliocha is not above using intimidation in his frantic effort to convince Helene, or even a child, to assist him.  Packed with tension, everything about this book is small—the number of pages, the timeline of just a few days, and the cramped space of the train, contrasting with the vast Siberian landscape on the outside.  The setting is perhaps a bit claustrophobic intentionally, adding to the feeling of desperation that Aliocha is experiencing.  However, Helene’s plight, serving as his accomplice, is just as dire.  This book speeds along at a much faster clip than the 60 kph train.

EITHER/OR by Elif Batuman

Selin, a sophomore at Harvard, was born in the U.S. but is of Turkish descent, speaks some Hungarian, and is learning Russian.  She has never had sex, never been kissed, and never been asked out on a date.  Her shoe size is eleven and a half.  This novel reads like a year-long diary and may contain an excessive amount of navel-gazing, but it had me at the first page.  Selin has a wry sense of self-deprecating humor, which contradicts her obsession with death, and she over-analyzes almost everything.  This novel is funny in an erudite sort of way and would appeal to anyone who likes a heavy dose of philosophy (Kierkegaard) with their fiction.  It is all about a personal journey—destination unknown—and  culminates in a really wild actual summer trip, sponsored by a company that recruits college students to investigate and write about foreign travel “off the beaten path.”  This whirlwind final section is absolutely my favorite part of the book and sets us up for a sequel.  Sign me up!  Selin’s freshman year is the subject of Batuman’s other novel, The Idiot, which I have not read.  If I had read it, I might be able to keep up with her vast circle of friends, with names like Svetlana and Lakshmi.  At one point she meets a guy whose name even she has trouble pronouncing, so that she just refers to him throughout the book as the Count, like a character in an Iris Murdoch novel.  To say that Selin is well-read is an understatement.  I am afraid that she puts me to shame in that department.

CALLING FOR A BLANKET DANCE by Oscar Hokeah

Ever is the main character in this story, but his prominence is not initially apparent, as he is only six months old.  Part Cherokee, part Kiowa, and part Mexican, we follow his development from an angry and unmanageable child to a man who works with troubled kids, although that transition seemed very abrupt to me.  His first wife, Lonnie, bears him three children, who become his responsibility when she becomes a meth addict.  Ever struggles to keep his family safe and whole and even adds a fourth charge named Leander, an adolescent whose fury and accompanying violence closely resemble Ever’s own issues at that age.  This book is largely about family, especially in the various Native American communities, but Ever’s relatives have problems of their own, especially alcoholism and drug abuse.  Both Ever and his sister, Sissy, both pin their romantic hopes on unworthy candidates for partners, making their journey toward keeping their heads above water that much harder.  This book bears some similarities to several of Louise Erdrich’s novels, and I found this one easier to follow in terms of the relationships between the characters.  Another plus is that this book has a very straightforward timeline.  However, there’s just not enough of a plot here to hold my attention.  The most memorable section of the book is the final chapter, but up until that point, the book is mostly poignant, with a feeling of inevitable hopelessness.

CHECKOUT 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

I do not understand why the New York Times named this one of the ten best books of 2022.  It basically has only one character—the female narrator—and no plot.  This book is mostly a litany of books and authors that the narrator has read and some nebulous stories that she has written.  For reasons I cannot fathom the author sometimes switches from first person to third person, making me wonder if both are the same character but always deducing that they are.  We get sidelong glances into her life with few real specifics until near the end when she describes two rather significant horrifying events.  There are several scenes with a guy named Dale, whom the narrator does not claim as a boyfriend “but often behaved just as if he were.”  His actions made me wonder why on earth she would spend any time with him, boyfriend or not.  To top it all off, paragraph breaks are at a minimum, so that I can flip to almost any page, and nonstop words occupy both sides.  For me, this book was a chore to read with no reward for my effort.