HORSE by Geraldine Brooks

It’s ironic that a book about a fast horse proceeds at a slow trot rather than a gallop.  It does gather speed in the home stretch but not enough.  Part of my problem is that I have zero interest in art and not much more in horses, although, granted, this novel has deeper themes at work as well.  Two timelines address the history of a real-life thoroughbred named Lexington who raced in the 1850s.  Jarret is the young slave whom the author conjures up as the only person whom Lexington really trusts.  In the modern-day story, Jess (a white woman) mistakes Theo (a black man) for a bike thief, but they eventually both become professionally interested in Lexington’s story and fall in love.  Racism figures largely in both timelines, and I have to admit that I was more drawn to Jess and Theo’s story, because I was so dreading that Jarret and Lexington’s would end tragically.  The nineteenth century timeline, however, is more seamless.  The 21^st century story tries to account for the whereabouts and ownership transfers of several paintings.  I could not keep the paintings straight, much less their convoluted history.  There is actually a minor third timeline in the 1950s that follows an art curator, and I felt that the author was trying to connect too many dots.  Geraldine Brooks is a terrific writer, but this book does not rank high on my list of her novels.  Putting it down was too easy, and picking it back up was not something I particularly looked forward to.

REAL LIFE by Brandon Taylor

Wallace is an overweight gay Black biochemistry grad student who feels like he is swimming upstream in an all-white world.  He describes himself as shy, but the dialog indicates otherwise, until it comes to defending himself against unjust accusations and racist remarks.  He feels that his suffering is basically a lost cause and that rising up against his tormentors will cause more problems than he already has.  He is smart and meticulous, and most of his friends are fellow lab researchers, but some of them are downright hostile and even sadistic.  No one goes out on a limb to stand up for him, although Brigit is a good friend who is Asian and therefore an outsider as well.  Wallace becomes involved with Miller, who has a violent streak and insists that he is not gay.  Uncertain about how this relationship is going to unfold, or if it even is a relationship, Wallace is lonely, depressed, and rudderless.  He is the only character that is fully developed, and his problems consume the entirety of this powerful novel that explores the plight of a Black man trying to make his mark in a society in which the deck is stacked against him.  His complaisance is so frustrating, and yet his dilemma is understandable, especially against the backdrop of sexual abuse he suffered as a child.  He knows he is a victim of circumstances that he cannot change.

MALIBU RISING by Taylor Jenkins Reid

History does tend to repeat itself, especially where families are concerned.  Mick Riva abandons his wife and children, multiple times, after he becomes a superstar singer.  His glamorous daughter Nina’s husband, Brandon, has just left her after he becomes a champion tennis player.  See the pattern?  Nina, after dropping out of high school to raise her three younger siblings, has become famous herself as a modern-day surfing pin-up girl.  Nina’s brother Jay is a world-famous surfer, and their brother Hud is a very successful and well-known photographer.  Their youngest sibling, Kit, is the best surfer of them all but hasn’t achieved the recognition that the other three enjoy.  Are there too many celebrities in this novel?  Most definitely.  And, by the way, Brandon left Nina for the #1 women’s tennis player.  Of course, Nina struggled to make ends meet before her career took off, but the family-owned restaurant helped put food on the table.  This is definitely a beach read, as the title suggests, with the biggest conflict being a falling out between the two brothers when one is sleeping with the other’s ex-girlfriend.  Other than that, errant husbands keep returning after their dalliances have run their course, one character turns out to be gay, and Nina’s annual party gets way out of hand, with guests—a mishmash of famous names and fictitious ones-- literally swinging from the chandelier.  The novel moves along at a good pace, and the author writes assuredly about sand and surf, but there just isn’t much substance here nor any reason to care about the outcome.

SHUGGIE BAIN by Douglas Stuart

The title character of this bleak, semi-autobiographical novel is a gay boy growing up with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow, and to describe it as dreary and depressing is a huge understatement.   The mother, Agnes, apparently resembles Elizabeth Taylor, but there is nothing beautiful about her behavior toward her three children.  Shuggie is the youngest and therefore the most dependent on Agnes, but, in reality, she is dependent on him emotionally, and he serves as an accomplice to her addiction at times.  Unfortunately, not even his unconditional love can sustain her.  Her needs interfere with his schooling, as he is habitually truant, and her craving for alcohol trumps his health and well-being every time.  A brief period of sobriety is cut short in the most cruel way, and, for me, this event is the most devastating one in the novel.  It is really the last straw, as far as her older children are concerned, as well as for me as a reader.  This book is at least 150 pages too long, I think, because Agnes’s family just becomes increasingly despondent as her problem rages on, unabated, page after page, with no hope on the horizon.  Plus, the dialog is full of Scottish dialect, which perhaps adds to the book’s authenticity but increases the thankless challenge of reading it.  The language did become marginally easier to decipher as I became more accustomed to it, but I would have gotten the picture with a lot fewer pages.

FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel

It’s Thanksgiving in 1941 in Honolulu, and we readers know what’s coming.  Joe McGrady, a police detective investigating a double homicide, heads to Hong Kong to track down the suspect.  However, he doesn’t know what he looks like or what his real name is.   Joe’s queries land him in jail on false charges, and he lingers there until the Japanese take over.  This is my much abbreviated version of the first half of the novel but doesn’t begin to cover all the details, including Joe’s many encounters during the 5-day trip from Honolulu to Hong Kong.  Joe is not a superhero, but he is someone we would all want in our corner.  He’s perceptive, thorough, and, at times, very lucky.  I could definitely go for more Joe McGrady novels, but this novel is also gripping because of the WWII timeframe and locales in the Pacific Rim that come under fire.  I appreciated that several women have significant roles in this novel—the girl he leaves behind, a sketch artist, a helpful prostitute, and the daughter of a Japanese government official.  The original manuscript for this novel was much longer than the final published version, and the cuts occasionally affect the continuity of the plot.  For example, at one point McGrady’s wrists are tied behind his back, and a few pages later, he places them in front of him on a table.  I reread the intervening pages about five times and never discovered when, how, or where his hands were freed.  I drew my own conclusion and moved on, but I think the gaps in the plot should have been patched up a little better and reduced the confusion that I encountered from time to time.  In any case, this is an action-packed thriller that checks every box and satisfies on every level.

LUSTER by Raven Leilani

Edie is a 23-year-old Black woman who is barely subsisting in every way and whose roach-infested apartment is about to be yanked out from under her.  So is her job, for that matter, and the reason for her firing lands pretty squarely on her shoulders.  With $32 in the bank, she is offered a lifeline by the wife of the man Edie is currently dating.  Obviously, Rebecca and Eric have an open marriage, but the idea of this odd triangle living under the same roof seems outrageous.  Plus, Eric and Rebecca are both white, but they have an adopted Black adolescent daughter, Akila.  Edie tries to become an advocate for Akila, with varying degrees of success.  Art is what sustains Edie, and she apparently has talent but not enough self-confidence or self-esteem to make strides toward realizing her potential.  Of course, it’s not easy to pursue any kind of career when you are dependent on the good will of your lover’s spouse to feed you and keep a roof over your head.  The whole premise of this book is absurd but not entirely in a bad way.  It surely makes the case that although your job may not define you, it is certainly almost a requirement for survival.  Edie makes some horrifically bad choices—snooping around Eric and Rebecca’s home and becoming complicit in their daughter’s shoplifting tendencies, to name just a few.  I definitely wanted her to succeed and find a way out of the mess that is largely of her own making.  Plus, being Black does not make her path any easier.  The most enigmatic character here, though, is Rebecca.  Why on earth does she allow her husband’s lover to move in?  To keep an eye on her?  To solicit help with their daughter?  To satisfy her curiosity?  Or is she just trying to lend assistance to a woman in need?

BILLY SUMMERS by Stephen King

Stephen King is a master of suspense, and this book exudes it, despite its overly familiar plot devices—a book within a book and a hired assassin planning to retire after one last lucrative hit.  King is obviously aware of the triteness of his subject matter, even going so far as to describe the one-last-hit-job plot as its own subgenre of noir fiction.  Still, he pulls this novel off as seemingly as effortlessly as ever, with characters that I enjoyed getting to know over the course of 500+ pages and only the barest hint of the supernatural.  Billy Summers is the stereotypical hit man in question who goes through aliases and disguises at a lickety-split pace and poses as a writer.  The book-within-a book is Billy’s autobiography, but I rushed through Billy’s backstory in order to return to his current situation in which he bonds with neighbors, especially children, agonizing over how disappointed they are going to be when they find out his vocation.  The hit in question takes place relatively early in the novel, but Billy suspects that his usual disappearing act after a hit is actually going to be more final.  In other words, this will be his final hit, because his employers will ensure that he doesn’t live to do another.  What’s really nifty about this book, though, is that Billy’s post-hit life takes an unforeseen trajectory, due to a good Samaritan act on his part.  Such humanity is not something we would expect of a hitman, but Billy kills only bad guys, of course, although the length of his victim list leaves Billy with no doubt that he, too, is a bad guy.