Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
4.5⭐
"Most of us prefer to believe we are the active subjects of our victories but Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
4.5⭐
"Most of us prefer to believe we are the active subjects of our victories but only the passive objects of our defeats. We triumph, but it is not really we who fail—we are ruined by forces beyond our control."
I’ll admit that I had put this book aside when I first received it a month ago. The subject matter- financial markets, Wall Street tycoon, the crash of 1929- wasn’t pulling me in. But eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I finally cracked it open three days ago and I have been immersed in it ever since. This is a book that takes time and patience. I did put it down a few times – not because I lost interest but because I needed to take a pause and absorb what I was reading. In general, I enjoy meta fiction when it is done right and Hernan Diaz takes meta fiction to a different level altogether with “Trust”.
It is hard to summarise this book without giving too much away. The plot revolves around a successful financier (and his wife) who not only survived the crash of 1929 but thrived and added to their wealth through well-timed investment decisions. He attributes his success to his strong intuitive capabilities, intense research and his acute understanding of the financial world. Needless to say, reaping profits in an era wherein the economy collapsed and investors and businesses lost substantial amounts of money, does invite questions and conjecture directed toward his investment practices, even inspiring fiction based on the life and times of said person with distorted facts and whole a lot of speculation. Now how does one protect his image and manage public perception? Who is he trying to convince? – Those in his close circle? Business associates? Family members? Himself?
“Trust” is a complex, layered novel divided into four parts- four distinct narrative styles in four distinct voices. This novel is composed of four intricately woven novels/segments - each presenting a different perspective on the events center to the plot - a work of fiction inspired by the main character and his wife, an incomplete draft of an autobiography written by the egotistical protagonist, a memoir written by the young woman hired by the main character as his biographer and the final segment is a part of the diary of the financier’s late wife. As the narrative progresses, and the line between fact and fiction gets blurred, which version of the events and the people involved rings true? Whose version can you trust?
With its unique structure, elegant writing, interesting characters (even the immensely unlikable protagonist) and the 1920s setting, Hernan Diaz’s Trust is a sharp, compelling and creative work of fiction. The first part of the novel does not quite give the reader an idea of the complexity and the intrigue of the plot that lies ahead. The final two parts of the novel were my favorite and the most absorbing part(s) of the book. I will definitely be looking out for more from this author.
“Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment.”...more
Our protagonist, seventeen-year-old East Oakland resident Kiara Johnson is struggling to make ends meet and kLonglisted for the 2022 Booker Prize!
4.5⭐
Our protagonist, seventeen-year-old East Oakland resident Kiara Johnson is struggling to make ends meet and keep it together for herself and her older brother Marcus who is unable to hold a job and would rather spend time (unsuccessfully) pursuing a career in music. Their father passed away when she was thirteen and her mother is currently a resident of a halfway house for reasons that are gradually revealed. Kiara also feels responsible for the well-being of nine-year-year-old Trevor her neighbor Dee’s son who is often abandoned by his mother and left to fend for himself. Kia genuinely cares for Trevor and her time spent with him is one of the few bright spots in her unhappy life. When her landlord doubles her rent and she is unsuccessful in securing gainful employment elsewhere, an unfortunate turn of events sees her take to prostitution in a last-ditch effort to avoid eviction and starvation. She tells herself that this is temporary and once Marcus gets a job or alternative avenues of income open up for her, she will stop. She still hopes for a better day when her brother would step up and take his responsibilities seriously and she would be free to choose the direction of her life.
"Most days I say I don’t believe in nothing, except something about the way the night colors everything makes me want to. Not in an afterlife, heaven, or any of that shit. That just makes us feel better about dying and I don’t really got nothing to fear about dying in the first place. I just think that the stars might line up and trail into an otherworld. Doesn’t have to be a better world because that probably doesn’t exist, but I think it is something else. Somewhere where the people walk a little different. Maybe they speak in hums. Maybe they all got the same face or maybe they don’t have faces at all. When I have enough time to stare at the sky, I imagine I might be lucky enough to catch glimpses of the something. Always get pulled back to this planet, though."
Kiara’s misfortune continues when she is picked up by the police. But instead of arresting her, the local officers take advantage of her situation. She soon finds herself in the middle of a shocking scandal that garners national attention. As she prepares to testify as a key witness, her life once again is thrown into chaos. While she faces threats from those who would do everything in their power to keep their abhorrent acts from being revealed in the open, she also finds support from her friends and allies who try to help her through it all.
The author had drawn inspiration for her story from the real-life Oakland PD scandal of 2015. In her notes, Leila Mottley writes, “When I began writing Nightcrawling, I was seventeen and contemplating what it meant to be vulnerable, unprotected, and unseen”.
At the end of the day, Kiara is herself a child, forced to assume the mantle of an adult, trying to navigate her way through a world that has not been kind to her and with no respite in clear view. The depictions of social injustice, sexual abuse and exploitation are immensely disturbing and I am not surprised that many have put this one aside midway. Kiara’s journey is a painful one, but she is a survivor and we keep rooting for her. The author’s writing is powerful and almost poetic in its delivery. Compelling, timely and relevant, Leila Mottley’s Nightcrawling is a brilliant debut. I am eager to read more from this talented new author in the future....more
Bill Furlong , coal and timber merchant lives with his family , wife Eileen and five daughters in a small Irish Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize!
Bill Furlong , coal and timber merchant lives with his family , wife Eileen and five daughters in a small Irish town. It is 1985 and though local businesses are facing an economic downturn, Bill is doing well enough for himself and his family to be comfortable if not affluent. In the days leading to Christmas, the brutally cold weather keeps him busy with work filling orders around his little town.
On his delivery route he arrives at Good Shepherd Convent that runs a home for unwed mothers and a laundry (Magdalen laundry) and witnesses an incident of abuse. Born to an unwed mother and raised in the guardianship of her kind employer, Bill is sympathetic to the plight of the girls whose situation is similar to his mother’s and grateful for the kindness of the Mrs. Wilson who never judged him or his late mother. He realizes that whatever goes in in the those facilities is not a secret to the locals but given the link to the church and school (where his own daughters also attend) and the deep seated influence of the church in the lives of the local community, people choose to look the other way and not engage in any action that would go against the church. Now he faces a moral dilemma – should he do what his heart says and be ready to face whatever repercussions might follow or should he follow the lead of his fellow townspeople and choose to ignore the obvious?
Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is a beautiful and heart touching novella that emphasizes the importance of human kindness and consideration for others. Powerful and thought provoking, this short novella will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. I'm glad that this was my Christmas read.
I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Ireland’s Magdalen laundries before reading this story. I was heartbroken on reading about the plight of those young girls and the children that were born in those facilities. I can only hope that some of them may have found kindness in people like Bill in a society that was in the most part unkind and unwilling to help.
“As they carried along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?”...more
“What it was like to leave Earth: A rapid ascent over the green-and-blue world, then the world was blotted out all at once by clouds. The atmosphere t“What it was like to leave Earth: A rapid ascent over the green-and-blue world, then the world was blotted out all at once by clouds. The atmosphere turned thin and blue, the blue shaded into indigo, and then — it was like slipping through the skin of a bubble — there was black space.”
In 1912, eighteen-year-old Edwin St. Andrew finds himself crossing the Atlantic after being exiled by his aristocratic family in England on account of his disparaging remarks on colonialism at his family’s dinner table. His travels take him to Canada and eventually he lands in the settlement in Caitte. Here, one day while walking in the woods, he experiences “a flash of darkness, like sudden blindness or an eclipse. He has an impression of being in some vast interior, something like a train station or a cathedral, and there are notes of violin music, there are other people around him, and then an incomprehensible sound” - an unnatural experience he shares in a letter to his family. In the summer of 1994, thirteen-year-old Vincent Smith is walking through the same woods recording her surroundings on video – a recording that her composer brother shares accompanied with his background score during a 2020 performance in New York City – a video that has a glitch- sudden darkness accompanied by violin music, a "whoosh” sound, a “dim cacophony”- that lasts a few moments. In the year 2203, an author by the name of Olive Llewellyn, a resident of the second moon colony, travels to Earth on a book tour to promote her post-apocalyptic novel, "Marienbad" which revolves around a pandemic. A passage in her novel describes one of her characters who, while traveling through Oklahoma City Airship Terminal stops to listen to a violinist and experiences “a fleeting hallucination of forest, fresh air, trees rising around him, a summer’s day”.
An anomaly? A glitch in a simulated reality? A file corruption? A break in reality? Are discrete realities bleeding into each other?
In the year 2401, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a security professional employed with the Grand Luna Hotel in the first moon colony - is hired by the Time Institute and is assigned to investigate these unnatural occurrences . Gaspery travels back and forth through time and space , visiting and revisiting the people and the places, witnessing the mysterious events. He meets the son of the aristocrat, the brother and a close friend of the young girl who recorded the video and the author who admits her passage was based on an experience she had traveling through the same terminal. He also finds a fourth individual – the violinist Alan Sami whose music features in those visions. In the course of his travels, he comprehends the fragility of time travel and the ripples that any anomaly can create and finds it increasingly difficult to exercise the “almost inhuman level of detachment” that is required of him on his mission knowing that any manipulation of the timeline will bring with it dire consequences for himself.
A lot is going on in this relatively short novel (my ebook was 252 pages long) but the author’s narrative is structured such that it never feels rushed or too heavy. The author combines themes of time travel, life-threatening pandemics, space travel and other futuristic elements in a tightly woven narrative. The speculative /sci-fi elements are presented in a light and uncomplicated manner and strike a fine balance with the human element of the novel and the themes of family, survival, hope and humanity. Initially, the multiple threads of this novel may seem a tad disjointed, but the author does a marvelous job building up the suspense and brings everything together with a surprising revelation at the end. I also found the discussion (from the perspective of Olive Llewellyn) on the factors that influence the popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction quite interesting.
“I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”
I fell in love with Emily St. John Mandel’s writing after reading Station Eleven– a feeling that was reinforced after reading The Glass Hotel. Naturally, my expectations were high for Sea of Tranquility. With masterful storytelling , themes that resonate and concise and straightforward prose in a well-paced narrative that keeps you turning pages till the very end, Sea of Tranquility does not disappoint! There are references to events and characters from The Glass Hotel and Olive Llewellyn’s novel "Marienbad" appears to be similar to the author’s Station Eleven .Though I feel reading The Glass Hotel prior to this novel would enrich the reading experience, Sea of Tranquility can be enjoyed as a standalone novel for those who have not read The Glass Hotel . I was thrilled to receive a skip-the-line loan from my local library! I promptly set aside my other 'current'reads and finished this book in a day. I know it is only April but I am confident that this novel will feature among my top 10 reads of 2022!...more
"At least 250,000 people died and only their closest relatives and friends remembered who they might have been; they could not be recovered, not even "At least 250,000 people died and only their closest relatives and friends remembered who they might have been; they could not be recovered, not even their names.”
Myriam J. A. Chancy's What Storm, What Thunder is a heartbreaking yet powerful work of fiction that revolves around the 7.0 magnitude 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti and left 250,000-300000 dead and many injured and homeless. The story is told through ten voices - ten individuals from different walks of life who lives are impacted by the ‘Douz/Douze’ as the locals refer to the earthquake. Eight of these people were in Port-au-Prince when the natural disaster occurred and two have family there but were not living there when the event occurred. The author gives us a glimpse of life before, during and after the quake.
“Douz: when something terrible happens to you, it feels like a dream at first. Not until the pain and the panic settle does it seem real.”
Different settings are used to tell the story - the marketplace in Port-au-Prince , a swanky hotel frequented by the affluent and those they do business with, the IDP camp where those displaced face other hardships and atrocities within the ‘tented city’ and the outskirts where displaced people are being relocated for employment .
We also get a glimpse into the heartache and despair felt by those who did not witness the death and destruction firsthand but whose roots and family remain in Haiti .
“There is no before, no way to think before. There is only the not knowing of how to put the before together with the now. Before is a distant memory. I am still waiting to hear from those I loved, before. Waiting to hear if I can say I love, still, or if everything will remain past tense, what it was: no beyond, no goodbyes: simply after.”
Haiti’s earthquake and its devastating effects on human life is not any easy story to tell, even in fiction. But the author has exercised considerable care and restraint while crafting the stories that make this novel, remaining as true to fact that fiction allows without unnecessary embellishment. While incidents of death, trauma and sexual assault are hard to read it is commendable that the author has not gone overboard in graphic detail . It is difficult to not be affected when you read What Storm, What Thunder. I had to take my time reading it and took breaks from the book in-between . A beautifully penned novel, Myriam J. A. Chancy's What Storm, What Thunder leaves you with a heavy heart....more
This was such a fun read! I started Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice right after finishing with The Thursday Murder Club which I truly enjo4.5⭐️
This was such a fun read! I started Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice right after finishing with The Thursday Murder Club which I truly enjoyed. The second book in the series does not disappoint.
The Thursday Murder Club - Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce and Ibrahim are embroiled in a new adventure when a person from Elizabeth’s past slips a note through her door asking to meet. What follows is a gripping mystery involving a double murder and missing diamonds, mobsters and mafia connections, MI5 agents gone rogue and twists and turns at every corner that keep you guessing till the very end. In a separate incident Ibrahim is brutally attacked and mugged by a local ruffian that leads to him being hospitalized and then recuperating at home. This propels his friends on a mission to find the person responsible for their friend’s condition and make sure he is punished. PC Donna de Freitas and DCI Chris Hudson along with their friend Bogdan all come to aid the investigations in their own capacities.
I loved Bogdan’s interactions with Stephen, Elizabeth’s husband who is mostly homebound and suffering from dementia. Ibrahim, though homebound, has a meaningful role to play in aiding his friends while dealing with his own trauma from his attack. I enjoyed getting to know more about Elizabeth’s past and her ‘connections’ which was not so subtly hinted at in the first book.
It was a pleasure to return to Coopers Chase Retirement Village and get to spend more time with the Club members and their friends. I just love the energy , compassion, wisdom and intelligence of this group of elderly (in age but not in spirit) sleuths who don’t let age dictate the way they spend their days .
With a perfect mix of interesting characters, mystery , intrigue and humor The Man Who Died Twice is an engaging novel. I liked this one even more than the first in the series and will be waiting eagerly for the next installment!...more
Theo Byrne ,an astrobiologist , is raising his son Robin alone after the death of his wife in an accident . The only child of an astrobiologist and anTheo Byrne ,an astrobiologist , is raising his son Robin alone after the death of his wife in an accident . The only child of an astrobiologist and an animal rights lawyer , Robin is a kind and sensitive child who loves spending time in nature and exploring the cosmos with his father.
Robin is also a special child and has been diagnosed with behavioral problems . Robin’s diagnoses include “two Asperger’s, one probable OCD, and one possible ADHD.” His teachers at school exert pressure on Theo in getting Robin treatment in the form of medication . Theo ,however, does not want to ply his child with psychoactive drugs and instead opts to enroll him in an experimental neurofeedback treatment for behavioral modification .
“Life is something we need to stop correcting. My boy was a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.”
At the heart of this novel is a father who loves his son and will do everything in his power to keep him safe and happy and a child who misses his mother and is trying to make sense of the world and people around him. Their nightly prayer “May all sentient beings be free from needless suffering” reflects their sensitivity and concern for the world they inhabit. Environmental and animal activism, space exploration , self serving leaders and climate change as seen and understood through the eyes of an innocent nine year old forms the framework of this imaginative and evocative novel.
You do not have to be a science major to fathom the underlying message of this novel. With its vivid descriptions of nature , heartfelt dialogue between father and son and exploration of how we interact with the world around us , Bewilderment by Richard Powers is not a lengthy novel as such but it is an immersive experience which will make you think and feel. Take your time with this book .It is best read with time and patience....more
*I read this book for the first time in November 2021 and just finished rereading it (which is something I rarely do!). I was drawn back to it two day*I read this book for the first time in November 2021 and just finished rereading it (which is something I rarely do!). I was drawn back to it two days ago while rearranging my shelves. I loved it as much as I did the first time!
This Tender Land is a beautifully penned, heartwarming novel that transports you to the 1930s Midwest. The story, narrated by the older Odysseus O’Banion to his great grandchildren, starts with Odie ‘not quite thirteen’ and his brother Albert students at the Lincoln Indian Training School in a small town in Minnesota , the only two white boys in a school for Native American children run by the shady Brickmans. The children at the school are provided the bare minimum, punished cruelly for any mischief and are offered to the locals to use as free labor. Mrs. Brickman , referred to by the students as the Black Witch, seems to take particular pleasure in punishing Odie for any reason she deems fit.
A series of unfortunate incidents results in the death of one of the staff of the school and Odie , Albert, their mute Native American friend Mose and little Emmy , daughter of one of their favorite instructors who recently perished in a tornado, are compelled go on the run. Emmy’s “kidnapping” from the home of the Brickmans make local news and the children , the 'Vagabonds' as they refer to themselves are pursued by the police, the Brickmans and and everyone who is keen to collect the reward being offered for Emmy’s return.
The Vagabonds start their journey in a canoe along the Gilead River, intended destination being St. Louis. What follows is a series of adventures and misadventures that takes them through different towns ,meeting people from different walks of life- some kind , some not so much and ultimately for each of these children finding themselves and trying to comprehend what they want their lives to be like in the vast world outside the confines of their school. While they band together with love and loyalty towards each other they also realize that what they want from life, what drives them and what paths their lives might take will be different .They learn, they change and they grow – together and as individuals.
“With every turn of the river since I’d left Lincoln School, the world had become broader, its mysteries more complex, its possibilities infinite.”
It is commendable how the author has touched upon themes of faith and forgiveness without coming across as too preachy. Part coming-of-age, part historical fiction This Tender Land depicts the struggle of people in the Midwest trying to survive in the depression era. The author’s vivid description of the people, the towns and the dwellings of that time period transports you to that era. With engaging narrative, beautiful prose, vivid imagery and a diverse cast of characters, this is a story that will stay with me for a long time. I simply fell in love with the Vagabonds and their story. A magnificent novel , this book really touched my heart and for that I have to thank the author.
“Our eyes perceive so dimly, and our brains are so easily confused. Far better, I believe, to be like children and open ourselves to every beautiful possibility, for there is nothing our hearts can imagine that is not so.”...more
Previously incarcerated for a decade for a crime she was set up to take the fall for, Tookie spent most of her prison time reading and upon release loPreviously incarcerated for a decade for a crime she was set up to take the fall for, Tookie spent most of her prison time reading and upon release looking for employment in a bookstore. In the present day , she works for an independent bookstore in Minneapolis owned by “Louise” and is married to Pollux , a former tribal police officer and a caring and generous man who is also an authority in Native American traditions and rituals . After a regular (and slightly annoying) patron dies while reading a manuscript covertly taken from the bookstore , Tookie starts feeling a supernatural presence in the bookstore and believes that it is Flora’s ghost haunting the store. Initially she is the only one who feels the presence and there are some entertaining and funny moments but when an unpleasant encounter with Flora’s ghost leaves her unconscious, Tookie realizes that she needs to get to the bottom of why Flora refuses to leave. With the help of her colleagues she starts to explore the origins and content of the mysterious manuscript which Tookie and her friends believe played a part in Flora's death and find a way to rid the store of Flora’s ghost once and for all - all this while working in the midst of a pandemic and worried for her family’s health and safety .While she delves into the details of Flora’s life ,Tookie gains perspective on her own past , life choices and the importance of the people and relationships in her present life.
“Ghosts bring elegies and epitaphs, but also signs and wonders. What comes next?”
Set in the most part in 2020 Minneapolis, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich covers a lot of ground in terms of current events such as the COVID pandemic, George Floyd’s brutal murder and the subsequent protests . With an interesting cast of characters , glimpses into Native American history and traditions and elements of magical realism in a real time setting, The Sentence is a masterfully crafted story that elicits both smiles and tears. I enjoy stories set in libraries or bookstores and The Sentence is no exception. The role of books and bookstores in times when people are forced to live in isolation from one another due to circumstances beyond one’s control is beautifully depicted throughout the story. Thanks to the author for including Tookie’s reading list at the end of the novel....more
Isabel Allende's latest masterpiece, Violeta, is a chronicle of a woman's life sweeping across a century of history, written in epistolary form.4.5/5
Isabel Allende's latest masterpiece, Violeta, is a chronicle of a woman's life sweeping across a century of history, written in epistolary form.
"There is a time to live and a time to die .In between there's a time to remember."
In her last days, Violeta Del Valle writes a letter to her grandson Camilo divulging in great detail the story of her life, spanning almost one hundred years starting with her birth in 1920 in the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic to 2020 when the world is being ravaged by another pandemic. Having lived through and been directly affected by the Great Depression, WW2 and political upheaval in her home country and around the world, her life has been an eventful one, to say the least.
Abandoning her devoted husband to be with her lover, conceiving 2 children out of wedlock and embarking on building her own career fueled by her own ambition and refusing to conform to the strictures imposed by restrictive societal norms, Allende's Violeta is a strong and willful woman who lives life on her own terms, makes mistakes and learns from them , takes responsibility for her own fate and reinvents herself every step of the way while gathering much wisdom in the course of her long eventful life. In many ways she is a woman who is way ahead of her time. Her story is one of family and friendship ,her many loves, loss and setbacks, courage and ambition. More importantly,in Violeta, the author portrays a woman with the indomitable will to survive , grow and prosper in the backdrop of volatile political climate , changing societal landscape and personal tragedy and upheaval.
Isabel Allende's prose is elegant and a joy to read. Among the strong female influences in Violeta's life, the characters of Aunt Pilar, Facunda, Teresa Rivas and her family and Miss Taylor are superbly crafted. Strong characters and masterful storytelling are typical of Isabel Allende's novels and in Violeta she does not disappoint.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review....more
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