Category: literary fiction

The Trackers by Charles Frazier (Literary Historical Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4/5

Works Progress Administration (WPA) painter, Val Welch, heads West for an enviable New Deal commission in small town Dawes, Wyoming. His remit: to paint a mural in the town Post Office that represents the region. His chosen topic: “The Energy of America or the natural and human history of this place.” He is offered free lodgings at the ranch of the wealthy John Long and his wife, Eve, a former honky tonk singer with her own troubled past. Faro, a rather iconic tough cowboy (and complete horse whisperer) is one of those mysterious characters who draws you in against your conscious inclination.

When Eve runs off, Val takes a break from painting to moonlight as a tracker, criss-crossing the Depression riddled country in search of her. It’s a rich narrative, teeming with individual stories and told from a young (and somewhat embittered) painter’s eye. His search takes him from Wyoming to Seattle to San Francisco to Florida — each location suffering from the Depression in its own Hellish way. Each character — from the four leads to the many supporting — is both an individual and an obvious product of his or her history in these troubled times. We are treated to Val’s narrative commentary on the way, ranging from his own hopes and desires to his surprises to his inner rantings on subjects of government, greed, and some (previously unknown to me) dispiriting Supreme Court Decisions.

The deep dives (scattered throughout the story) on how the mural was conceived and executed were engrossing. It was to be done in “roughly the ancient way” and I enjoyed learning about how to make, tint, and use tempera paint, build scaffolding, and simply look at the world in a different (artistic) way.


The story is bold, expansive, and yet also intricately detailed. Excellent writing — see some of my favorite quotes below. I liked the balance between action and introspection, and I loved the description of the physical surroundings integrated with internal landscape of Val’s thoughts.

Highly recommended.

Some great quotes:
“Looking now, the missing element — and it was down in a deep crater — was the violence of the West. Not so much the physical geography, but the violence inherent in the concept of the West, the politically and culturally and religiously ordained rapacity smearing blood all over the fresh beauty.”

“Traveling the country, town by town, I felt a heady drift of grief and sometimes a breakthrough of optimism from the long Depression.”

“So the mural’s main argument, however it was shaped, was that this particular place held importance and was not forgotten after all.”

“The look seemed inhuman until I realized that just because I might never have felt or thought whatever passed through Faro’s mind and body in that flicker of time did not mean it wasn’t human.”

“Which struck me, a childless man with the first number in his age still two, as a better position on childrearing if you meant it metaphorically and if the floor wasn’t rock-hard hexagonal tile laid over a slab of concrete.”

“The higher the elevation, the more I felt like I was being rendered transparent by X-rays or gamma rays or whatever.”

“After all, the ultimate expression of Capitalism is not democracy. It’s a dictatorship not of individual men but of corporations with interchangeable leaders. I wasn’t sure if the Depression was straining the structural limits of our Constitution or simply revealing that its fundamental idea were faulty.”

“After Florida — a state equivalent to a hotel towel from somebody else’s bath flung sopping across your face — Wyoming felt clean and brittle, the light fragile as a flake of mica, the high air rare enough to be measured in the lungs and appreciated in its thinness, it’s lack of substance.”

Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 11th, 2023

The Vanishing of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander (Historical Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 3.5/5 Characters: 4/5
Margaret Small is not your typical protagonist. Seven year-old Margaret was “Vanished” (her words) in 1947 — left at St. Mary’s Hospital in Canterbury by her grandmother who never saw her again. St. Mary’s was an institution for people who were unwanted — those with disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome, polio, or “moral imbecility.” Though we never get a stated diagnosis for Margaret, she appears to have been “slow” or “simple minded.” When we meet her in 2015 at the age of 75, she is (still) unable to read or write.

In a dual timeline, the 75-year old Margaret recalls her past in a set of chunks: the sudden drop off at seven — scared, and confused; a confusing sexual experience when she is 22; sudden (scary) freedom at 32 when she is told she can leave the hospital and live in a small group home with the help of a Social worker / carer. As her social worker helps her come to terms with her life, he draws an analogy between people with disabilities and people who are gay 50 years before when that was illegal. There are several long lectures about how people with disabilities were seen as having illnesses (like being gay) and how they were put away for that reason.

While the end is ultimately uplifting, I found the (longish) story somewhat depressing and a little simplistic in terms of how her life could have easily been much better. The story did highlight how people were shunted to these institutions with no hope of “release” and no effort made to help them overcome whatever difficulties they had. While the story is not new to me, it was particularly upsetting to lump in people who literally could not care for themselves (severe mental retardation or extreme physical disabilities) with people who simply did not confirm to social norms at the time (usually due to some kind of sexual preference or action that upset someone else).

Thank you to Embla Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on Nov 16th, 2022

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear (Historical Fiction)

Writing: 3/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5
Elinor White has been trained to be a predator rather than prey which served her well during WWI when her home in Brussels was occupied by Nazis. It also served her well during WWII as she worked to protect her adopted country (England). But exercising those skills left their mark, and she finds herself torn between protecting those who can’t protect themselves and letting go of the violence that continues to haunt her.

A standalone (or possible new series beginning?) from the author of the Maisie Dobbs series, this book is kind of a mix between an historical novel and a mystery, with an emphasis on the former. It had a bit of a slow start but I was drawn in and found myself caring very much about the characters. I’m a big Winspear / Maisie Dobbs fan. I wouldn’t mind finding out more about Elinor White if this turns into a series…

Thank you to Harper and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on March 21st, 2023

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5.5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 5/5

Loved, loved, loved this book! It’s clever, witty, full of intra- and inter-personal insights and … it simply made me happy. Our narrator is a 26-year old writer for The Night Owls (TNO — think Saturday Night Live) whose goal is to one day write “non-condescending, ragingly feminist screenplays for romantic comedies.” The book opens with a grumpy and well depicted annoyance that her office mate — middle aged schlub writer Danny Horst — is engaged to a gorgeous and popular celebrity. Her curmudgeonly point? This could never happen if the genders were reversed. And this sets the stage for this laugh-out-loud and deeply satisfying examination of love, romance, gender stereotyping, and personal insight with plenty of grammar jokes, neuroses, soul baring and an extremely funny and yet poignant story of how she got her hamster tattoo.

It is a self-referential, Covid fueled, Romantic Comedy for our times. I always love Sittenfeld’s writing — it is clean, pointed, and intelligent (and allows her audience to engage intelligently) while never belaboring an obvious point and always remaining simultaneously funny and meaningful. I would love to see some of the SNL style skits her characters propose and the whole thing would make a great movie that would easily bear multiple rewatches. Great cast of characters.

Some great quotes — out of context and just a drop in the bucket:
“Did he realize I wasn’t yet wearing earbuds or did he not care? I suspected the latter; every day, things were said at TNO, often on camera, that would have constituted sexual harassment in any other workplace except the current White House.”

“Even with the baked-in sexism, even when I’ve barely slept. I just can’t imagine a job where I laugh more, or the people are more talented and hard-working. And to get paid to make fun of stuff that deserves to be made fun of and have this huge platform — what more could a misanthrope from Missouri wish for?”

“Another of my pet peeves is that the female characters used to all be sort of cutesy, like having flour on their nose after they baked cookies and not knowing it. And now they’re all a mess, like waking up really hungover and getting fired. I want to create characters who aren’t flawless but also aren’t ridiculous or incompetent at life.”

“Just to be clear, I do lead a life of quiet desperation. I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyone who doesn’t, or anyone who isn’t filled with ambivalence, because I assume they’d be incredibly shallow. But I’m sure I’d be ten times more quietly desperate if I were living in the suburbs with a two-car garage.”

“Aren’t we all just looking for someone to talk about everything with? Someone worth the effort of telling our stories and opinions to, whose stories and opinions we actually want to hear?”

“All of which was to say that the sketches I’d written over the years about the absurdity and arbitrariness of beauty standards for women had arisen not from my clear-eyed renunciation of them, but from my resentment at their hold on me.”

“I thought, not for the first time, that plainly expressing what you thought about fraught topics was significantly harder than writing banter between imaginary characters.”

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 11th, 2023

Homecoming by Kate Morton (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 5/5

A dual timeline story in the Adelaide Hills (Australian Outback). In 1959 an inexplicable tragedy occurs with a nasty, but generally accepted explanation which is never actually proved. In 2018 Jessica Turner-Bridges races back to Sydney when the grandmother who raised her suddenly takes ill. A free lance journalist, Jessica gets obsessed with the 1959 story which she has stumbled on and which — it turns out — is closely related to her family.

Vivid writing bringing to life the surroundings and individual, interconnected stories. Good pacing continually introduces new stories and sources that shift your understanding at the same pace as it does for Jessica. I kept thinking I knew what had happened but was continually surprised. There was a little more scenic description than I like (I’m not a visual person) but I was able to skim those sections if they got too long. Plenty of drama (but not melodrama — the events were dramatic but the characters got on with doing their best and didn’t descend into wailing and teeth gnashing). It was difficult at time knowing in advance what happened (and that is is awful) and watching the narrative slowly unfold to explain the details. On the other hand, in a weird way it is less stressful knowing the end as there is no way to avoid it.

Some beautiful commentary on books and reading and a nice array of literary and cinematic references. Some genuine and insightful reflection on loneliness, community, motherhood, purpose, identity, and the impact of events on a wider assemblage of persons than might be suggested by the event itself.

Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 4th, 2023.

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis (Literary / Historical Fiction)

Writing: 3.5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4.5/5
Five women find each other amidst the oppressive dictatorship in Uruguay in the 1970s. Together they manage to find and buy a small shack in a lonely coastal town where they can be themselves without fear, where they can blossom into themselves. They are “cantoras” or “women who sing” — a euphemism in this case for women who prefer women. Flaca, a relatively masculine butcher’s daughter; Romina, a Jewish refugee from Ukraine; Anita, renamed “La Venus,” a housewife who can no longer bear the standard life she is expected to lead; Malena, a schoolteacher with a hidden past; and Paz, the youngest at 16.


Following the individual and collective stories of these women through the long dictatorship and through the first years of recovery was far more captivating that I had expected. Based (I believe) on many interviews with people who had lived through this time period, the author really captured the experiences, feelings, and reactions of individuals without going overboard on the drama. I’m always appreciative of an author who recognizes that the subject can speak for itself when properly depicted without resorting to melodramatic finger pointing. Woven together in the narrative is the general persecution of people during an oppressive regime as well as the more generic persecution of homosexuals (in truth this persecution seemed to be more cultural and not actually related to the dictatorship, though the book jacket links the two together). The writing was full and descriptive, doing an excellent job of depicting the sensuality of the lesbian relationships and the pervasive tumult of feelings — fear, joy, worry, exultation — resulting from living through the period. I liked the reflection of each character as she considered her life and the larger situation into which she had been born. And her decision as to how she would participate — enjoy what she has? Take chances by working with those willing to rebel? Hide — either physically or culturally?


I learned a lot about Uruguay — I’m probably not alone in simply being unaware of this aspect of Uruguayan history. While not mentioned in the story, the all-knowing Wikipedia claims the 1973 coup that brought in the military was backed by the U.S. (I’m guessing to stop the perceived Community insurgency). Separately, the gradual opening of the culture to homosexuality, culminating in the 2013 right to same-sex marriage (the third country to do so in the Americas after Canada and Argentina), was also depicted through the stories of these women. The narrative brought together these two concurrent themes well — the book felt quite real.

A few good quotes:
“Histories tend to grow richer with time, gathering details as they pour down generations.”
“That the silence of dictatorship, the silence of the closet, as we call it now—all of that is layered and layered like blankets that muffle you until you cannot breathe. For many people it is too much. In Paraguay we have seen it. And so, here, none of you should carry the blame.”
“Furniture gave slow birth to itself: a table started as a plank on four stacks of bricks, then became a slab of swirled driftwood, found on the beach and dragged back home, cut, placed over the bricks at first until the attempt began to hammer on legs and to sand the knots and whorls on the top into a more even surface.”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 3/5
A transposition of Dickens’ David Copperfield from Victorian England to Hillbilly country (the Appalachians). Damon (quickly nicknamed Demon) Copperhead is born to a drug addled and largely unconscious single mother in a rickety trailer. Kingsolver’s first line (getting us right into Dickens territory): “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was in hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.” From this point, the book proceeds for 560 pages documenting the story of this one lovable and very lost boy through a childhood of poverty, foster care, addiction, and loss.

The writing is detailed, heart felt and persuasive — almost too much so as the absolute unfairness of almost everything that happens to Damon is described in such detail and with such clarity on his resulting feelings, it is literally hard (for me) to keep reading. His character is so complete and so genuine that you feel helpless watching him get crushed time after time by people and situations that were not of his making.

Aside from the emotional toll this book took on me, the storytelling was superb, with real depth ranging across a whole slew of people and situations. If you can squeeze out your emotional sponge and put it somewhere out of reach, you’ll love this wild storytelling ride. Some real insight into what it would be like to grow up in this environment.

Thank you to Harper Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 18th, 2022.

Maybe It’s About Time by Neil Boss (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5
A book for our times, this book tackles the Covid era through the intimate stories of two very different people who meet by chance and end up having a surprising impact on each other. Marcus Barlow has everything money can buy, but hates almost every instant of his existence. He works for “The Firm” which is a Dilbertian take on management consulting. It all sounds over the top, and the language is heavily laced in satire, but having lived this myself, I know it’s not terribly exaggerated!. Claire Halford has literally nothing money can buy as she hasn’t any money — only two small children and an STI gifted to her by her adulterous (and now long gone) husband.
When Covid enters the picture — first as a scary whisper and later with a terrifying bang, both characters (along with Marcus’ family, Claire’s neighbors, and Gavin — Marcus’ friend and Claire’s social worker) — are tumbled along in its wake.
There is not a single cliche in this book, despite the fact that the plot could easily have descended into any of the multiple opportunities for banality. We watch each person — from the main characters to the many supporting characters — navigate the confusing, overwhelming, and stressful landscape of lockdowns, shortages, and sudden deaths. As we watch, the taxing times give rise to surprising self knowledge and hidden depths of kindness, compassion, and the desire to behave ethically, despite the discomfort inherent in doing so.
As an aside, the book had a great “soundtrack” as Marcus played different tunes to support his moods (I recognized and liked every one). Also, excellent descriptions of food from multiple tables — from the over-the-top meals for Partners at The Firm, to high end bachelor cooking, to children’s meals cobbled together from discount tins, to vegan meals offered to the unenthused. The author also managed to show empathy for many situations without descending into blame or broadcasting heavy handed social agendas and he spiced the entire book with plenty of humorous and dead accurate social commentary. Very good writing — reminds me of David Lodge who is one of my favorite British authors with the same kind of precise, intuitive writing.
Highly recommended.

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 3.5/5

A low-cost housing complex (The Rabbit Hutch) in a dying small town in Indiana, a set of disconnected neighbors, and a build up to a freakish act of violence that somehow weaves them together. It’s a bizarre and convoluted story that races from humor to creepy and back again without a second thought, culminating in an act that brings all the loose strands together. The writing is stunning (see the quotes below), the wildly diverse characters rendered in full technicolor detail with ongoing and minutely documented social commentary attached to individual observations. The characters: a lonely online obituary moderator, a young mother with dark thoughts, a 70ish couple decidedly not keeping up with the times, and a group of four teenagers who have aged out of the foster care system, including Blandine who is seeking meaning in the writings of the mystics — Hildegard von Bingen from the 12th century in particular.

It’s brilliantly done, bringing psychology, philosophy, and reflection to bear on the ways all of these people trying to make sense of their own lives. The author has a pointed ability to see into the motivations, experiences, and fears of those who appear rather anonymous on the outside. From the mystics to sexual grooming to isolation to the environment to the effects of noise pollution (my favorite) — the book was intellectually interesting and humorous in places, but — I admit — overall had a doomed, hopeless feel. I made it a “daytime only” read. However, I did not find the end depressing — I think that is important to note, and I wish I had known that ahead of time!

New words (for me):
Misophonia — People with misophonia are affected emotionally by common sounds — usually those made by others and usually ones that other people don’t pay attention to. The examples above (breathing, yawning, or chewing) create a fight-or-flight response that triggers anger and a desire to escape.
Balayage: a technique for highlighting hair in which the dye is painted on in such a way as to create a graduated, natural-looking effect.

A few quotes, but there are a million more…

“Joan apologized three more times, then returned to her seat, feeling evil. As usual, when she confronted the world about one of its problems, the world suggested that the problem was Joan.”

“…the cackles and squawks of three tween girls overthrow the words on the page, infuriating her. They sound like chimpanzees. Just when Joan thinks the tween cackling will stop, it gets louder, engulfing her flammable peace along with the compartment.”

“Tiffany is insecure, cerebral, and enraged. Pretty in an extraterrestrial sort of way. Addicted to learning because it distracts her from the hostility of her consciousness; she has one of those brains that attacks itself unless it’s completing a difficult task.”

“She did bring a book, but she wasn’t reading it, just bullying the ink into sense.”

“And then on top of that — weaponzing a person’s isolation — it convinced every user that she is a minor celebrity, forcing her to curate some sparkly and artificial sampling of her best experiences, demanding a nonstop social performance that has little in common with her inner life, intensifying her narcissism, multiplying her anxieties, narrowing her worldview.”

“It’s moments like these when Joan fears she is a subject in some elaborate, federally funded psychology experiement.”

“She feels like a demanding and ill-fated houseplant, one that needs light in every season but will die in direct sun, one whose soil requires daily water but will drown if it receives too much, one that takes a fertilizer only sold at a store that’s open three hours a day, one that …

“They are elite, climate controlled, dentally supreme.”

“Frequently, Hope wondered what it would be like to vacation in her cousin’s psychology.”

“She always knew that she was too small and stupid to lead a revolution, but she had hoped she could at least imagine one.”

Central Places by Delia Cai (Literary / multi-cultural fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 3.5/5
A somewhat over-detailed but ultimately satisfying story of a young woman coming to an understanding of herself — the person she wants to be and the person she evolved from. Twenty something Audrey Zhou loves her life in New York City: her kind and conscientious NYC born and bred photojournalist boyfriend (Ben) and her job as a salesperson for a trendy NY magazine, but most of all she loves the extreme distance from her home and immigrant parents in Hickory Grove, Illinois. When her father has a potential health problem, Ben insists on accompanying Audrey home to meet her parents for the first time and learn more about her.

I was impressed by the way this book worked out — it really did focus on a single person’s experience, rather than another agenda heavy diatribe about racism in the U.S. Assumptions, biases, and exposed hypocrisies appear in multiple places, and the recognition of what part Audrey finds herself playing in all of that is worth the price of admission. The story did NOT evolve the way I expected it to, and I found I really liked the non-standard, unexpected ending. Some of the more descriptive sections contrasting her Hickory Grove memories and current experiences went on for a little longer than I needed, but I was overall quite happy with the book.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on January 31st, 2023.