THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell

This sprawling, multi-generational novel takes place in Zambia, beginning with its colonial beginning as Northern Rhodesia.  The family tree shown at the beginning of the novel is invaluable, as keeping up with who’s who is a formidable undertaking.  The three prominent matriarchs are Sibilla, Matha, and Agnes.  A healthy dose of magical realism accompanies the weird afflictions of Matha and Sibilla.  Sibilla has fast-growing hair over most of her body.  (I couldn’t erase the mental image of Cousin Itt from my mind.)  And Matha cries nonstop.  (Wouldn’t she have a dehydration issue?)  Agnes’s affliction is more mainstream in that she goes blind just as her tennis career in the UK is about to take off.  She lands in Zambia after falling in love with a man before discovering that he is black.  The timeline of the novel extends into the AIDS crisis and beyond—into a future in which the government implants a “bead” in the palm of everyone’s hand so that it functions similarly to a smartphone.  This invention may not be that farfetched, but the whimsical nature of many of the plot points seems to conflict with the seriousness of other events.  The focus on the horrific AIDS epidemic eerily foreshadows the Covid pandemic, especially since AIDS is referred to in the novel as simply “The Virus.”  There is a lot to unpack in this novel, as evidenced by its length, and that coupled with the convoluted relationships of the characters make this book more of a challenge than I had bargained for.

NAAMAH by Sarah Blake

Naamah is Noah’s wife, as in Noah of the Old Testament.  This is not a biography by any stretch.  Magical realism abounds, but then the premise of having two of every animal species on a boat is not exactly fathomable, either.  The supernatural elements, the lengthy dream sequences, and the appearance of God in the form of a bird all lend a biblical quality to the narrative but not in a good way.  The language on the other hand, is quite modern, and I questioned the multiple references to planets, including planet Earth.  I doubt the likelihood that people during Noah’s time thought of the Earth as a planet.  Given that I am not a biblical scholar, I don’t know how much of this story is in the Bible, but my sense is that the Bible’s focus is on Noah, not his wife, and that shift of focus is exactly the point of this novel.  Naamah sees God as cruel and unjust, especially with regard to the destruction of the rest of humanity.  She particularly laments the fate of children, as well as that of her female lover, and mingles with the dead children, who inhabit the bottom of the floodwaters in a sort of afterlife.  (An angel gives Naamah the ability to stay underwater for long periods of time.)  This book is probably full of symbolism, but I was at a loss to interpret any of it, nor did I understand the reason for some of the strange happenings, such as Naamah’s losing the ability to see the animals.  My biggest takeaway is that Naamah views herself as the mother of all humanity going forward, and that is a weighty assignment.

THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU by Michael Zapata

Adana Moreau, wife of a pirate and mother to Maxwell, writes a sci-fi novel called The Lost City.  She pens a sequel but destroys the manuscript shortly before her death in New Orleans around the time of the stock market crash of 1929.  A copy of the sequel resurfaces decades later, and we must wonder how it survived.  Thus we have two timelines:  one that follows Maxwell’s adventures after his father leaves home to find work and one that follows the discovery of the sequel in the early 2000s.  Parallel universes and theoretical physics play a small role in this novel, but these subjects are not the reason that the book is confusing.  One reason is that there are two characters named Saul; one is Benjamin’s father, and one is Benjamin’s grandson; Benjamin himself is the one who has the copy of the sequel.  After his death, his grandson Saul discovers the manuscript among his grandfather’s effects.  Saul and his disaster-seeking journalist friend, Javier, embark on a quest to deliver the manuscript to Maxwell and find themselves in New Orleans amidst the devastation of Katrina. Another reason that this book is hard to follow is that several characters tell first-person stories, and I had to be sure not to lose track of who was narrating and which timeline the story belonged to.  Also, occasionally a character reappears after having been introduced many pages ago, and then I found myself flipping backwards to reacquaint myself with them.  In other words, this novel presents a reading challenge but does not deliver a sufficient reward.

CODE NAME HÉLÈNE by Ariel Lawhon

Among the plethora of recent novels about women working in counterintelligence during wartime (The Lost Girls of Paris, The Book of Lost Names), this one stands out and ranks right up there with Transcription.  Plus this book is about real-life heroine Nancy Wake and proves that historical fiction does not have to be poorly written or trite.  I find that some popular historical fiction authors are good researchers but not necessarily good storytellers.  This novel, however, is gripping and has a juicy love story to boot.  The book follows two timelines that are only a few years apart, and they converge in a very nifty fashion at the end of the novel, with the earlier timeline giving us a broader perspective on characters that we know in the later timeline.  My only beef with this novel is that a wholly fictional character, Marceline, is somewhat overdone as a villain, and I think the author should have stuck to the facts at the end, instead of making Marceline so vicious.  The story opens with a hungover Nancy preparing to parachute into the French countryside to coordinate the retrieval of airlifted weapons and supplies to the Resistance during WWII.  In the earlier timeline she meets Henri Fiocca, the love of her life, and we also follow her progression from journalist to a woman of great strength and courage who risks everything to defeat the Nazis.  The unspeakable acts of cruelty that Nancy witnesses are almost too vivid, but her various hair-raising experiences and narrow escapes make for an edge-of-your-seat read.  I recommend that you not spoil the story by reading about Nancy Wake beforehand.

A BURNING by Megha Majumdar

This novel revolves around three characters, whose pivot point is Jivan.  She quit school, where PT Sir was her physical education teacher, after passing her 10^th grade exams.  Jivan now works in retail and gives English lessons to Lovely, an aspiring transgender actress.  Then she posts an inflammatory comment on social media that puts her in the crosshairs of the police, who are looking for a train bomber who killed 100 people.  Although Jivan was not involved in the bombing, she is soon behind bars with a court-appointed lawyer trying her case, which hinges somewhat on the testimonies of Lovely and PT Sir.  The latter is still puzzled as to why Jivan quit school and by sheer happenstance has found himself working for a political party who hopes to gain power in the upcoming election.  His job, unfortunately for Jivan, is to testify against accused criminals.  Lovely’s passion on the witness stand catapults her career into overdrive.  Thus, Lovely and PT Sir find their lives suddenly thrust in an upward trajectory that was previously unimaginable, whereas Jivan’s life is in a dangerously downward spiral.  Jivan makes some unfortunate judgment errors, particularly with regard to whom she can trust, but Lovely and PT Sir are the more complex characters and the ones whose stories held my attention.  They both face decisions about whether or not to ignore their consciences in order to better their own existences and to gain some modicum of power.  This book takes place in India, but the level of corruption and governmental retaliation is not entirely unfamiliar, even in the U.S.  Bigotry against Muslims is another prominent theme, and one particular act of violence on the part of mob vigilantes against an innocent man is actually just as horrific as the train bombing.