Happy 2 years to the Book Report, which was born in response to a personal vibe shift and has continued to grow up throughout a still-ongoing global pandemic!
Being a bit of a dilettante/gemini/person with ADHD, I always find it surprising when I follow through on a long-term project. Not to get all E. M. Forster on main, but the fact of actual people reading this little newsletter really has motivated me to keep writing and thinking about the books I read.
So, thank you and I hope you continue to like reading the Report!
What I read in February:
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (2012)—This is a great book! Is it as good as Circe? No. But it’s still very good and I am glad that I read Circe before I read Achilles because I’m not sure I would have clamored to read Circe if I’d first read Achilles. This is for 2 deeply idiosyncratic reasons:
Miller does this thing (noticeable in both books but much more prevalent in Achilles) where the narrative is mostly in the simple past (good) but then inexplicably and abruptly shifts to the historic present tense (I don’t like it)1
Some of the novel is about true/first love and half of the novel is about war (duh!)—two subjects I don’t typically find compelling (is that wild to say? Sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m firing off a hot take)!
But she makes it work! Because she’s Madeline Miller!
If you like period pieces, non-hetero love stories, coming-of-age narratives, and balance between psychological interiority and Action, then you should read The Song of Achilles.2
Mercè Rodoreda, Garden by the Sea (1966/2020)—When life gave me lemons this month (the L train was held at Bedford for 1.5 hours), I made lemonade by waiting out the delay at McNally Jackson (and Muji, but this isn’t a Home Goods Report), where I found this lovely, kind of weird novel that’s set in 1920s Spain.
For such a short book, it took me a while to read, I think because I should have read it in one sitting rather than 10-15 pages at a time, as it’s kind of a vibe-based vs a plot-based narrative. There is a plot! And it gets a little juicy! Overall it’s pretty gossipy, which I love.
Some things I’d like to know more about are whether the style + tone of this novel is consistent with other Rodoreda works, the degree to which the translation captures the style + tone, how much (if at all) the author’s being Catalan factored into the style + tone, and whether some of the characters and dialogue presented as weird to me because I am not familiar with Catalan literature.
Read this if you like the aging-servant-reflecting-on-a-lifetime-of-labor-to-the-moneyed-classes-and-realizing-his-entire-identity-is-tied-up-in-the-house aspect of The Remains of the Day (1989) and if you like the “they-smashed-up-things-and-creatures-and-then-retreated-back-into-their-money-or-their-vast-carelessness-or-whatever-it-was-that-kept-them-together-and-let-other-people-clean-up-the-mess-they-had-made” element of The Great Gatsby (1925).
Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake (2022)3—Wilkerson’s debut novel was pretty much everything I hoped it would be: a compelling family saga that would be so well written and interesting that I could read it in a day.4
There’s a bit of a mystery structuring the plot—two estranged siblings learn just how much they didn’t know about their recently deceased mother—but flashbacks alternating between the novel’s present day of 20185 and its past of 1950s and 1960s Jamaica and England foreshadow the reveal heavily enough that the reader is freed up early on to focus on Wilkerson’s animating questions about identity, inheritance, and how global migratory patterns shape generations and individuals.
If you liked the setting, flashbacks, and mystery of Saint X (2020) but didn’t like that its white author incorporated dialect, and if you like novels about mid-century women making difficult choices and how those choices shape the rest of their lives and the lives of their children, then you’d probably like this book!
HEADS UP: There’s some parts with parents initially being not chill with their child’s sexuality. They come around in the end, but the parts where they are not cool at first may not be the most enjoyable read!
Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry (2021)—I have liked Henderson’s writing for I don’t even know how many years. She is so smart and funny! Obviously many people agree, as her memoir about her childhood/adolescence living with her grandparents in upstate New York is universally praised. This memoir is so good because Henderson is such a good writer (also reader—I listened to the audiobook, which she narrates, and it’s 👩🍳💋). She had some traumatic experiences as a child, and it’s hard to hear about them because it’s sad to think about what adults do to children sometimes. But she writes about it all with such skill and humor (it is mind-blowing how much I laughed while reading about so many sad things!!).
Read this if you love Sassy magazine, if you ever Acted Out as a teen by getting terrible haircuts or wearing skirts made of neckties, if you love metal and Fugazi, and if you admire grandmas who play nintendo, watch only the Mets and horror films,6 and don’t take no crap from anybody!
HEADS UP: I am not kidding about the trauma, specifically the accounts of child abuse, in this book.
What I’m looking forward to reading in March:
Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow (2022)
NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory (2022)
Danya Kukafka, Notes on an Execution (2022)7
In searching the internet for the name of this tense, I see that the historic present is a tense most commonly associated with classical narratives/is a specific classic rhetoric move, so OK, Miller is bringing that historical fidelity to her novel on a structural level, and I respect it. I still don’t like the historic present tense!
Shout-out to Friend of the Report, Caitlin, for suggesting this “If you like X” format. I’m trying it out! What do you think? Sound off in the comments/an email! If you love it, thank Caitlin! If you don’t love it, blame me!
Book Club selection for February.
A day=the day before Book Club 😬 .
The present day scenes are narrated in the present tense, which . . . we know is not for me, but somehow I managed.
Going to leave that low-hanging fruit on the tree. You’re welcome.
Book Club selection for March.