Later by Stephen King

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? My aunt and I share a love of Stephen King, and she passed along this title.

Why not 3 or more stars? Thanks to King’s writing skills and ability to fully inhabit a persona, Later is generally a good time. Readers will find this story easily digested in a sitting or two, and Jamie Conklin makes for an amiable narrator.

However. A well-written story with low stakes requires something to make it shine, and Later lacks that gleam. The use of the title as a literary device didn’t work for me; the payoff it promises fails to materialize in the closing pages, though little should be expected from the one dimensional characters we come to know (Villains gotta vill, right?). The supernatural and crime elements never coalesce either, but this may have more to do with the choice of perspective. The corrupt cop Liz as our narrator would have made for quite an ending. If only!

Most egregiously, King resurrects the Ritual of Chüd but deploys it weakly. Mr. King, if you’re going to reference It, a truly outstanding piece of literature, you better make it count.

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

5/5 stars

What's it about? Citizens of the town of Vasenka refuse to hear after occupying forces murder a deaf child. A powerful story of resistance, community, and the body weaponized.

How’d I find it? Kaminsky gave a moving reading at Folger Shakespeare Library in 2019 as part of the O.B. Hardison Poetry series, and I had to have a (signed) copy. In fact, the reading was so memorable that my spouse and I read large parts of the book aloud together.

Who will enjoy this book? Check out the poets featured in American Journal: 50 Poems for Our Time, also published by Graywolf Press. If you enjoy this brand of poetry, Deaf Republic will speak to you.

What stood out? The poems of Deaf Republic comprise one cohesive narrative, so while many of its poems can be savored solo, you’d be missing out on Kaminsky’s larger achievement. Yes, this is a book of poetry, but it’s also a protest, a play, a puppet show. Deaf Republic juxtaposes the experience of the citizens of Vasenka with that of people not in the throes of unrest (see the oft-quoted “We Lived Happily During the War” that opens the book), and evokes our responsibility as humans to speak out against injustice regardless of where it occurs.

Kaminsky also takes on in this project the illusion of silence — an “invention of the hearing” — and intersperses throughout the book illustrations of the signs that the townspeople use to communicate, functioning as lines or poems in their own right. Deaf Republic serves up poetic forms suited to a variety of performance: on the page, aloud, and signed.

Which line made me feel something? From “A Cigarette:” “You will find me, God, / like a dumb pigeon’s beak, I am / pecking / every which way at astonishment.”

Night Came With Many Stars by Simon Van Booy

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? I picked up this book at Sherman’s in Bar Harbor, Maine during a visit to Acadia National Park. Van Booy won me over with his lovely short story collection, The Sadness of Beautiful Things, and I looked forward to reading him again.

Why not 3 or more stars? Night Came With Many Stars tenderly follows Carol, who overcomes an abusive childhood to create a new family. While Carol is the book’s center, chapters focus on various supporting characters (her grandson, her father, her mother-in-law) at different points in their lives, but the jarring transitions and shifting perspectives even within chapters suggest that Van Booy isn’t convinced of his own structure.

Electric language could have redeemed the book’s obvious plot of happenstance and tidy endings. The prose, however, is messy, the Kentucky accents unconvincing. The sweetness of Night Came With Many Stars is more aspartame than sugar.

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

4/5 stars

What's it about? Sarah M. Broom unpacks her family’s history, her upbringing as the youngest of twelve children, and the social, cultural, and political realities of her native New Orleans East before and after Hurricane Katrina. A thoughtful accounting of homecoming and place.

How’d I find it? My spouse’s family has links to New Orleans and collected multiple copies of The Yellow House over the years.

Who will enjoy this book? This is a must-read for memoir lovers, especially because Broom manages to craft an intimate look at her family while remaining at a remove herself, a technique that serves her complex narrative well. The book evokes home in a way that reminded me of The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez.

What stood out? The first section of the book (“Movement I: The World Before Me”) draws the reader into its beautifully rendered portrait of heritage, gleaming with the author’s admiration for her family’s matriarchs. The Brooms and their wavelets of friends and ancestors comprise The Yellow House’s irreducible core, and you’ll yearn to return to them when the author focuses her attention elsewhere — another smart tool to reinforce periods of displacement. Despite some detours into platitudes (“namelessness is a form of naming”), Broom knows how to command the page.

Which line made me feel something? “When the presentation of the body stands in for all the qualities the world claims you cannot possess, some people call you elegant. Grandmother was that, yes, but sometimes elegance is just willpower and grace, a way to keep the flailing parts of the self together.”

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay

1/5 STARS

How’d I find it? This copy was sent by a friend who knows how much I love French literature.

Why not 3 or more stars? Illness and secrets make up the drama in this story of a Franco-American family reuniting in Paris during a catastrophic flood. The Rain Watcher understands neither stakes nor timing and simply runs out of gas, ending its tale in a sigh after bungling a long-awaited reveal. Reader, head for higher ground.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? A dear friend passed along this copy. Her review? “It was okay.”

Why not 3 or more stars? On an unnamed island, the titular authorities regularly disappear items from existence, making them impossible to remember or recognize. When the Memory Police begin targeting people who can still recall disappeared things, a novelist intervenes to save her editor. Red herrings abound: smuggled sculptures, a tsunami (that narrowly drowns our leads but we aren’t privy to their escape?), and strangers begging for refuge. A great story that would have been better served by a faster pace and less sterile writing (“So it was that evening came to the island.”). It was okay.

A Line in the World by Dorthe Nors, translated by Caroline Waight

3/5 stars

What's it about? Dorthe Nors explores the forces and landscape of Denmark’s northernmost coast in this contemplative collection of essays.

How’d I find it? I learned about this book through a review in Harper’s then found a copy at Normals Books & Records, which has notably good nature writing on offer.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of Roger Deakin’s Waterlog and Mary Oliver’s Upstream should try this one.

What stood out? A Line in the World captures the Jutland Peninsula and the surrounding islands in all their diversity, cultural quirks, and violent expressions of nature. You can almost feel the windslap on your cheeks in every paragraph. The book is beautifully illustrated by Signe Parkins, who appears in the essay “The Timeless.”

Which line made me feel something? From “The Tracks around Bulbjerg:” “The eternal, fertile and dread-laden stream inside us. This fundamental question: do you want to remember or forget? Either way, something will grow. A path, a scar in the mind, a sorrow that you cannot grasp, because it belongs to someone else. All that must be carried alone. All that cannot be told.”

The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

2/5 STARS

How’d I find it? Because I greatly enjoyed The Mountain in the Sea, I made sure to see Ray Nayler discuss The Tusks of Extinction in person at Lost City Books.

Why not 3 or more stars? The bones of this story entice: mammoths walk the earth again with some genome tweaking à la Jurassic Park, and the ability to download and upload someone’s consciousness just might save the species. From these strong bones hangs flab: frequent dives into character’s psyches that repeat previous points (Vladimir is infuriatingly one-note) and prolonged waxing on the function of Jacobson’s organ, cells that allow elephants to communicate and remember through smell. How I wish this would’ve been shaved down into a short story! As a novella, The Tusks of Extinction succeeds mostly in pumping readers for an extra $27, which was perhaps the publisher’s goal all along.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

4/5 stars

What's it about? A young woman flees colonial Jamestown to escape her life of servitude and starvation, only to battle the harsh realities of the American wilderness. A spartan novel of humanity, faith, and perseverance.

How’d I find it? I love me some Lauren Groff, so I bought this on publication day from Solid State Books.

Who will enjoy this book? This one will appeal to Annie Proulx readers or someone looking for a grown-up version of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet.

What stood out? Every novel by Lauren Groff has its own world and tone, which speaks to her versatility and curious mind. The Vaster Wilds shares the contemplation of spirituality with Matrix but gives equal attention to the corporeal, the effects of the environment on a body in crisis. The 17th-century America that Groff evokes is indifferent to human suffering but peopled with glimpses of thriving indigenous Americans that contrast with the girl’s struggle to survive.

Which line made me feel something? Upon seeing a bear gaze with awe upon a waterfall: “Then she thought that perhaps in the language of bears there was a kind of gospel, also. And perhaps this gospel said to the bears the same thing about god giving bears dominion over the world. And perhaps bears believed that this gave them license to slaughter the living world, including the men within it. And this thought made her shake, for if the gospel was changeable between species, then god was not immoveable. Then god was changeable according to the body god spoke through. And that god could change according to the person in the moment the soul was encountering god.”

Congratulations, the Best Is Over by R. Eric Thomas

3/5 stars

What's it about? In this charming essay collection, R. Eric Thomas returns to his native Baltimore, where he works through mental health challenges, buys his first home with his husband, weathers the pandemic, and navigates grief — heavy subjects sweetened by the author’s humor and vulnerability.

How’d I find it? I received this as a Christmas gift, but you should buy a copy from a Baltimore bookstore.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of David Sedaris and Phoebe Robinson might appreciate.

What stood out? As a recent resident of Baltimore, I delighted in Thomas’s rediscovery of his hometown. Thomas knows how to balance self-deprecating jokes with serious discussions of American life, which makes his work approachable. A standout essay is “Clap Until You Feel It,” a journey through depression to chase the feeling of an Oprah’s Favorite Things episode. Because many of the essays feel unfinished or abrupt in their transitions, I wonder how this book would have read if fleshed out as a memoir.

Which line made me feel something? “Am I my ancestors’ wildest dream? Babe, I don’t know. I’ll settle for being my ancestors’ weirdest dream. I’m the dream my ancestors had when they got indigestion.”