STILL LIFE by Sarah Winman

Love comes in many forms, as does family.  In this case, we have a family of unrelated people, mostly—mostly people and mostly unrelated.  A London bar serves as the gestation point for most of this family, but a move to Florence, Italy, for some of the characters causes the scope of this family to expand.  Ulysses Temper (and, yes, there is a minor character named Penelope) is the main character who moves to Italy with his ex-wife’s daughter, Alys.  Ulysses and Alys, also known as “kid,” are not related by blood, but his parental instincts are much stronger than those of Alys’s mother, Peg.  Peg is the character who disappointed me the most.  She is supposed to be beautiful and adored by all, but she does not generate any charisma on the page.  What’s to love about a mother who sends her seven-year-old daughter off to live in Italy, even if their relationship is problematic?  Peg eventually marries the abusive Ted, but her victimhood does not make her more appealing.  However, all of the other characters are very warm and fuzzy, including Claude, a parrot who manages to make an astute comment on many situations, and Cress, a lonely soul who finds romance late in life.  Granted, Claude’s remarks, along with Cress’s prognostications and a number of unlikely coincidences, cause the novel to dip into the realm of magical realism from time to time.  No matter.  This novel is largely an ode to Florence and to close friendships that transcend age and geographical proximity.  The lack of serious conflict among the cast of characters also verges on the improbable, but their bond is an illustration of what can be, if not necessarily what is.

INTERIOR CHINATOWN by Charles Yu

The format of this book—a TV script—was very off-putting for me.  Plus, the author blurs the line between real life and Hollywood make-believe to the point that I was very confused.  Despite all that, he drives home the image of the Asian American stereotype, both in real life and in movies/TV shows, and the bigotry that stems from that stereotype.  Willis Wu apparently makes a living playing the role of “generic Asian man” in a cop TV series, but that label applies to his real life as well.   Several compelling truths emerge from his story.  For one thing, his great aspiration is to elevate himself to “Kung Fu Guy” in the show, and his father was in a fact a kung fu master in his day.  The fact that Willis still lives in poverty is a testament to the reality of how little he earns from these bit parts, especially since his character is always destined to die, and then he has to “stay dead” for six weeks before he can play another “generic Asian man.”   Another character in the novel is Older Brother, and I could not determine if this were some mythical successful Asian American actor or a real person in Willis’s life.  Older Brother reappears late in the novel as a lawyer who abandoned acting altogether, although Willis sees him as having achieved the ultimate pinnacle of success as “Kung Fu Guy.”  The heart of the matter is that Willis is propagating his own stereotype, even though he has to look in the mirror to remind himself that he does not look like other Americans, Black or white.

HAPPY & YOU KNOW IT by Laura Hankin

Who even knew there was such a thing as a playgroup musician?  Claire is one, having been dumped by her band that is now hugely popular without her.  She may be struggling to make ends meet, but she is performing kids’ songs for wealthy moms and their children.  These women may seem to have it all together, but they have marital struggles as well as financial struggles of their own, and their secrets spill out one by one.  Claire becomes privy to these secrets and wrestles with her conscience about what to do about them.  One particular eye opener has ramifications beyond this one cozy playgroup, and these women’s response is not exactly humanitarian.  Claire becomes more and more involved with these women, who include her in various other activities, but at times she seems to be the only one with a conscience.  Still, this book has a very frivolous vibe, and, although the playgroup has at least half a dozen women, the author really only explores the personal lives of three of them.  Whitney is the beautiful host with an apathetic husband and a burgeoning social media presence.  Gwen comes from old money and owns a stunning brownstone, but her charming and handsome husband is a philanderer.  Finally, we have Amara, the only black woman in the group and in many ways the most enigmatic.  She befriends Claire and has communication issues with her husband, hiding the expense of boutique vitamins and quitting her job to become a full-time mom without discussing this intention with him.  All the moms are shallow and self-centered at times, but the author endows them all with love for their families.  They also seem to be unrealistically and inconsistently compassionate at times, so that their characters’ true personalities are a little out of focus.

SISTERS by Daisy Johnson

Two sisters, July and September, are close in age but complete opposites in personality; they operate almost like conjoined twins with September clearly in charge.  They flee Oxford with their mother, Sheela, for reasons to be explained later, to their father’s nearly derelict family vacation home.  Gradually we learn the backstory of this family.  July is basically her older sister’s devoted acolyte, playing games in which September requires that July perform acts of vandalism, among other naughty deeds, and September’s demands are the direct cause of July’s self-inflicted wounds.  September may be a cruel tyrant, but she also serves as July’s protector when July becomes a target for bullies and pranksters at school.  Where is their mother in all this?  Sheela basically checks out and leaves the girls to their own devices.  Ironically, despite her lapse in parenting, Sheela writes and illustrates children’s books in which her daughters are the main characters.  She seems aware of their unhealthy relationship but not to the degree that she is willing to do anything about it.  This book has an eerie, spooky feel to it, and the twist, which is extremely obvious, is a long time coming.  I spotted it a mile away, because the author dangles too many clues, and the creepy mood is one of them, along with July’s dreamlike narration in which the facts are a little fuzzy.  The author also foretells the conclusion in an earlier conversation between the two girls.  Even so, I felt that the ending could be interpreted in two ways, particularly given the events at a drunken beach party, but the foreshadowing caused me to lean in one particular direction.

GILDED MOUNTAIN by Kate Manning

Sylvie Pelletier is a 17-year-old in 1907, living in a Colorado mining community where the workers, including her father, desperately need to unionize.  The work is dangerous, and the pay is miniscule, when the Company actually deigns to pay the workers at all.  Sylvie catches a break when she lands a job in town with the local newspaper, owned by K.T. Redmond, who has no qualms about telling the truth.  Because she speaks French, Sylvie then lands a summer job at the home of the mine’s owner, Duke Padgett, and gets a first-hand glimpse of how the other half lives.  K.T.’s advice?  Take notes.  Even as she develops a crush on Jasper, the Padgett heir, Sylvie becomes a valuable information source for K.T.  The content of this novel is largely serious, focusing on the deplorable conditions at the mine, but sometimes the author provides some much-appreciated comic relief, particularly in the witty banter between Sylvie and union organizer, George Lonahan.  On page 367, George makes this cheeky comment about the mining company president, whose name the miners jokingly mispronounce among themselves as “Bowels:”

“’Today Bowles made the union an offer of air and threw in daylight as a bonus.’”

Sylvie enjoys some wordplay of her own, inventing the word “underdonkey” and adding her own unspoken comment in a conversation with George on page 359:

“’Hackles!’  He slapped his thigh. ‘You’re a stitch, Sylvie Pelletier.’

I was a stitch.  A dropped stitch, which results in a great unraveling.”

Speaking of stitches, Sylvie can’t help laughing at George’s jokes, and neither could I.  At times this novel feels like a Cinderella story, and I could have done without the hints of future tragedies on the horizon.  Sometimes I think authors, including this one, convey a sense of foreboding as a way to soften the blow when the hammer eventually falls.  I would prefer to be surprised, especially by bad news.  Sylvie herself, however, is what makes this novel special.  She occasionally falters in the common sense department, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, but her commitment to justice, particularly for the underdonkey, never wavers.  Thank you to Book Club Favorites at Simon & Schuster for the free copy for review.

OH WILLIAM! by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton narrates this engaging novel in a conversational tone as she negotiates her grief over the death of her beloved husband, David, while at the same time dealing with her ex-husband, William, who is in an emotional crisis.  William is blindsided when his wife leaves him abruptly, shortly after giving him a DNA kit that reveals information about his mother’s history, which stuns him even more.  He coaxes Lucy into accompanying him on a trip to Maine to investigate his roots, and she obliges, despite the fact that the trip’s purpose is somewhat nebulous. She becomes his sounding board for his various grievances and his intermediary for an awkward meeting with a long-lost relative whose existence proves that William’s mother, Catherine, was no saint. Lucy and William both adored Catherine, but as her past unfolds during the trip, I was puzzled as to why.  I devoured this novel and love Strout’s writing, but William and his mother do not come off as lovable at all.  I can only surmise that Lucy’s own escape from unfathomable poverty caused her to be overly deferential to William and especially to his mother, who regularly introduced Lucy to friends as someone who had “come from nothing.”  This condescension did not really bother Lucy, although I found it abhorrent, until she uncovers the secret of Catherine’s own upbringing.   As for William, he accuses Lucy of being self-absorbed, but he is far worse in that department and extremely needy, without being the least bit sympathetic to Lucy’s grief.  When one of Lucy and William’s grown daughters asks Lucy if she and William are getting back together, I could only think, “Please, no!”

WRITERS & LOVERS by Lily King

Casey is a 31-year-old aspiring writer with crushing student loan debts that she acquired after blowing off a golf scholarship.  Barely keeping the creditors at bay, she waits tables at a posh Boston restaurant, where she meets Oscar, a charming, established author who is a dozen or so years her senior.  Oscar, whose wife died of cancer, is now the single parent of two ridiculously delightful boys.  Casey is grieving as well, as the death of her mother a year ago under weird circumstances seems to have fueled Casey’s panic attacks.  Meanwhile, Casey is also stringing Silas along.  He is an aspiring writer himself and falls more in her age bracket and peer group.  While she has an embarrassment of riches in the romance department, her already precarious financial situation takes a nosedive; she loses her job, learns that the space she rents is about to be sold, and discovers a possible cancerous lump.  This confluence of bad news would drive anyone to panic attacks, and writing is the balm that soothes her.  Plus, she eventually has to choose between the two men in her life.  She and Oscar’s lively and witty banter, not to mention his adorable sons, made me root for him, but she lusts after Silas in a completely different way, and he seems almost as broken as she is.  Bottom line:  I loved everything about this novel—the characters, the writing, and the storyline, which starts to fizzle near the end but then bursts into flower.  I did not expect that this book could top Euphoria, but this book has more heart and a more endearing cast.