Inheritance from Mother - Minae Mizumura

Other Press, May 2, 2017.

Four Stars

Set in Japan, Inheritance from Mother is the story of two sisters and their aging mother Noriko, as she declines in health and ends up in the hospital. Noriko is in her eighties, and she is vain, self-absorbed and manipulative. Although her cognitive function is declining, she is still able to control her daughters and have them satisfy her every whim.

Older sister Mitsuki is in her mid-fifties, with a successful career teaching French at a private Tokyo university. Although she is doing well at work, her marriage is failing – she has just discovered that her husband is having an affair with a much younger woman. Mitsuki sacrifices her own chance at happiness to fulfill all of her mother’s wishes, and yet she secretly dreams of the day that her mother will finally pass away. She carries the full weight of responsibility for Noriko, as her beautiful sister Natsuki has never been expected to help out.

The novel opens after Noriko’s death, as the sisters discuss their financial inheritance from their mother. Then the story moves backwards to when Noriko first ends up in the hospital, and the many calculations that must be made to put her in a suitable nursing home. Although money is a constant concern, there is another inheritance that Mitsuki receives – the learned behaviour of her mother and the constricting bonds of womanhood. Especially in Japan, where the feminine mystique is the image of honoured mother and dutiful daughter, Mitsuki struggles to put herself and her happiness first. This theme transcends Japanese culture, as the role of women globally is that of caretaker to everyone else.

The characters are somewhat cold and disconnected, but it’s hard not to feel empathy for them – even vain Noriko, who is struggling to accept the fact that she is aging and unable to continue with her life as she knew it. She hopes for a dignified death, even in the sterile and dehumanizing hospital setting. Meanwhile, Mitsuki is clear and honest with herself about her choices, despite her chronic fatigue and possible depression. When she does finally receive her inheritance, it isn’t about the money – it’s about gaining some breathing room from her life, and making time for herself.

This novel was originally serialized and published in short chapters, which likely accounts for its repetition and length. Although it is probably too long for a deathbed family drama, it also contains countless themes about motherhood and, more importantly, womanhood, that are explored thoroughly and intriguingly. Told in spare prose, the novel is touching but never melodramatic, as Mitsuki grows into her own woman beyond the shadow of her mother.

I received this book from Other Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Leavers - Lisa Ko

Algonquin Books, May 2, 2017.

                                  

                                                                                                                                          

Five Stars

 

Deming Guo is an eleven-year-old boy, raised by his single mom Polly in the Bronx. They live with Polly’s boyfriend Leon, his sister Vivian and her son, Michael. While unrelated by blood, the surrogate family forms a strong bond over their shared experience as Chinese immigrants in America. Although she is an undocumented immigrant, Polly works relentlessly as a nail technician to support her family, hoping to one day get ahead and live the American dream. However, that dream disappears when Polly fails to return home from work one day, never to be seen again.

 

No one knows whether Polly disappeared by choice or if something tragic happened to her. Without knowing if Polly will even return, Vivian is forced to surrender Deming to the foster care system, where he is eventually adopted by a married couple – older, white college professors who are desperate for a child. Moved upstate with Peter and Kay, Deming is renamed Daniel Wilkinson and forced to assimilate into his mostly white community. His adoptive parents have wonderful intentions, but they cannot truly understand what their son is going through.

 

Ko perfectly captures the confusion and pain of a young boy in a complicated and difficult situation. Polly’s disappearance is never fully explained to Daniel, and he is haunted and damaged by what he feels as her abandonment. The memories of the family he left behind cast a shadow over his seemingly idyllic childhood, and it is not until much later that Daniel understands that his mother may not have had a choice to leave him.

 

The novel catches up with Daniel at age eighteen – he has dropped out of college and is living on his best friend’s couch, playing unsuccessful gigs with his band. Through his music, he reconnects with his surrogate brother Michael, and Michael’s mother Vivian. Although they still do not know what happened to Polly, Daniel uses the information they give him to follow a trail back to China, where he is able to fill in the details about Polly’s past. He begins to understand why Polly made the choices that she did, both by coming to America and by sacrificing everything to give her child a better life than she had.

 

The alternating perspectives of Polly and Deming/Daniel create intriguing parallels between the two, as they both struggle to do the right thing for themselves and their loved ones. Both mother and son feel out of place in their worlds, and they are continually torn between their pasts and possible futures. These are very complex characters – they’re not always likeable and they make poor decisions in retrospect, but I couldn’t help but admire their strength, and their ability to grow and adapt to their circumstances. The Leavers is an eye-opening account of the immigrant experience and its effects on the children for generations to come. This stunning debut novel won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for a novel that addresses issues of social justice, and it is well-deserved and well worth the read.

 

I received this book from Algonquin Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fallout - Wil Mara

Forge Books, April 25, 2017.

 

Three Stars

A massive storm is about to hit Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, bringing with it the threat of flooding and evacuation. The storm alone is dangerous, but the situation rapidly gets much worse when lightning strikes the nuclear reactor that provides power to much of the state. The containment breach is immediate, and the spread of nuclear waste is hastened by the severity of the quickly moving storm system. With extreme wind and rainfall, the contamination has spread for miles before anyone even knows what has happened.

 

Conveniently, journalist Marla Hollis happened to be inside the nuclear plant at the time of the breach, writing an expose on the many safety rules that are being broken and ignored by the plant’s wealthy owners. Inside the building at the time of the explosion, Marla gains access to shocking information about the dangerous practices occurring at the plant – trapped inside, she releases minute-by-minute updates as conditions worsen in Silver Lake.

 

Meanwhile, at city hall, acting mayor Sarah Redmond struggles to control the situation, simultaneously dealing with flash floods, evacuation and increasing cases of radiation sickness. Sarah’s husband is an EMT on the front lines of the disaster, and he risks his own life to save as many residents of Silver Lake as he can from the threat of radioactive waste.

 

It is shocking to read about a nuclear disaster close up, through the eyes of these three characters who have very different perspectives and circumstances. The story is immediate, completely engrossing and very believable. Realizing how easy it would be for a disaster such as this to happen, not far away but right here in North America, is unsettling to say the least – as I’m sure is Mara’s intention. However, I just didn’t connect with the characters, who seemed formulaic and flat. So, while the plot was fast-paced and thought-provoking, I felt that in this case, the message overshadowed the medium. The story was lost in the author’s need to take a stand about the dangers of nuclear energy – although he makes a very good point.

 

I received this book from Forge Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dreams Before the Start of Time - Anne Charnock

47North, April 18, 2017.

Five Stars

Dreams Before the Start of Time is the follow-up to Charnock’s 2015 novel, Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind, which I also reviewed here. Although both can be read independently, they serve to enhance each other in unexpected and meaningful ways. While Sleeping Embers was filled with exciting new concepts, Dreams expands Charnock’s earlier ideas into the fully realized world she has created here.

Dreams speculates on the progress of human fertility, taking the scientific advances of today to their extreme conclusions – although it all feels very possible and real. In a near-future London, two friends find themselves pregnant – one by choice using a sperm donor, and the other by chance with her casual boyfriend. Both women decide to raise their babies in non-traditional families – Millie co-parents with her sister, while Toni (one of the protagonists from Sleeping Embers) decides to forge a relationship with her child’s father while determinedly living apart. The novel follows the progress of fertility forward through time, as Toni and Millie’s descendants embrace ever new technological advances in the creation of babies.

In this possible-future world, infertility is no longer an issue – both men and women can create a child by themselves, using their own stem cells. Laboratories filled with artificial wombs are home to designer, genetically modified fetuses. Traditional pregnancy is now seen as shameful and irresponsible, when safer alternatives are readily available. Charnock does not seem to imply that these advances are negative or positive, but simply issues that we will be forced to consider objectively as human progress marches forward.

In the five generations that follow from Toni and Millie’s pregnancies, readers are forced to consider the ethics of reproduction – and what it truly means to be a parent, when biology is no longer a prerequisite. There are moral questions about altering the genetic structure of fetuses, as well as the emotional implications of reproduction without responsibility. However, other than the more advanced scientific issues, these concerns are really not all that different than what we face now. Situations that seem shocking are actually closer than we think.

The interconnected stories feature recurring characters from the two families, with distinct voices and personalities. Despite this book being labelled as science fiction, and being filled with fascinating, original ideas, it is above all a complex character study. Although men and women no longer need each other biologically to reproduce, this is still a story about relationships and their many complications. These are unique people in unusual situations that may soon be commonplace. This is speculative fiction with a feminist slant, and the world needs more of it. I can’t wait to read whatever Charnock writes next.

I received this book from 47North and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Shadow Land - Elizabeth Kostova

Ballantine Books, April 11, 2017.

 

Four Stars

 

Kostova has an incredible talent for evoking remote locations – specifically the small corners of Eastern Europe – in a way that makes the reader feel as if we can touch, taste and smell everything she is describing. Her earlier novel, The Historian, is one of my very favourites, and once again she has inspired me to travel to the breathtaking locations that her characters are lucky enough to explore.

 

In The Shadow Land, a young American woman named Alexandra has just arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria to start a new job teaching English. Alexandra had an unconventional childhood in which her parents lived mostly off the grid, and hiking through the nearby Blue Mountain trails was their main activity on the weekends. On one such hike, her teenage brother Jack disappeared from the trail, never to be seen again. Alexandra has travelled far from home partly to escape this childhood trauma, but also because Sofia was a city that Jack had longed to visit.

 

As she is leaving the hotel shortly after her arrival in Sofia, Alexandra stops to assist an elderly couple into a taxi and mistakenly ends up with one of their bags. Inside is an ornately carved box with the name “Stoyan Lazarov” – and inside that are human ashes. Alexandra is appalled to have ended up with such a personal item, and instructs her own taxi driver to follow the couple, but they are soon lost in the busy city streets. The driver, Bobby, agrees to help Alexandra find them, and the two follow a series of clues that lead them through Sofia and across the Bulgarian countryside. Bobby seems friendly, but he has his own dark secrets, including an unnamed threat that follows him around the country.

 

Along the way, Bobby and Alexandra learn the story of the dead man, Stoyan Lazarov. They meet with his friends and family, and discover that he was a talented musician who studied Vivaldi in Austria – but when he returned to Bulgaria after WWII, he was labelled as an enemy of the Communist state and sent to a prison labour camp. Stoyan’s story illustrates the oppression, fear and violence that come from a totalitarian regime, and the shocking effects that continued for years afterward. These are just a few of the atrocities of the 20^th century, as people turned on each other in order to survive.

 

This novel feels like a great story (Stoyan’s) tangled up inside a mediocre one (Alexandra and Bobby’s madcap caper across the countryside). Stoyan’s story was heartbreaking and real, while the contemporary plot line is uneven, improbable and never quite believable. There were also a few loose ends that were built up and never resolved. I would consider this to be a literary beach read, where the serious is mixed with the silly. There are elements of suspense, but they are really secondary to character-building and the historical setting. While there is quite a lot going on in the plot, it somehow moves at a slow, meandering pace.

 

Most of all, I enjoyed the setting, and Kostova’s ability to showcase the beauty of the Bulgarian landscape and architecture – she highlights the small details that come together to form a sense of place. Through Stoyan – and to a lesser extent, Alexandra – there is an exploration of the inherent goodness of people vs. our capacity for evil. And while there is always fear in political oppression, we can see here that there is also room for hope, especially in the creation of art and music.

 

I received this book from Ballantine Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Kalyana - Rajni Mala Khelawan

Second Story Press, March 15, 2016.

Four Stars

Kalyana is an impressionable young girl growing up in the Fiji Islands in the late 1960s. The recent political independence of the island nation brought with it the news of the feminist revolution in America – stories of independent women who burn their bras and scorn marriage. Kalyana’s mother and her sister Manjula read these stories with excitement for the future of women’s freedom.

Aunt Manjula walks with a visible limp, which prevents her from marriage – because she has no opportunity for real romance, she ravenously reads trashy novels in the bedroom that she shares with Kalyana. When she feels trapped at home, Manjula teaches herself to drive a car and becomes a spectacle in their conservative community. Manjula’s independence, although it was not her choice, becomes an inspiration for Kalyana – and she was easily my favourite character in the novel.

Kalyana is a quirky child who is as precocious as she is endearing. When she makes friends with a boy at school, she has no idea that it will result in a life-long friendship and eventually marriage. Kirtan always saw Kalyana as more than just a girl, and their marriage provides her with the freedom she imagined as a child. When the two immigrate to Canada, Kalyana leaves Fiji – and their former way of life – behind.

The move to Canada also severs Kalyana’s relationship with her mother, which was strained already. Kalyana is haunted by a childhood incident of sexual assault and the shameful silence that followed it. Her mother convinced her to keep quiet about the experience, and Kalyana has suffered ever since, blaming her for her own destroyed self-confidence – until she realizes that her mother may have been speaking from her own experiences. Kalyana’s trauma is part of a cycle of abuse, made more shameful by her time and place – but still a universal problem for women.

This novel is about female empowerment and the importance of education for girls and women.  Kalyana’s mother weaves Indian mythology into their everyday lives, including the importance of Kalyana’s name, which means blessed and auspicious – although she does not always feel that way. Kalyana resents the fact that her mother didn’t prepare her for the modern world, but eventually she realizes that she cannot be free until she deals with the weight of the past.

Kalyana feels very much like a memoir, with its first-person narration and very personal, relatable issues. The political issues between the native Fijians and the Indian nationals living on the island were intriguing as well, and I knew very little about it beforehand. The disturbing content is authentic and believable, and it was fascinating to witness Kalyana’s growth into the woman she dreamed of being as a child in Fiji.

I received this book from Second Story Press and the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Scribe of Siena - Melodie Winawer

Touchstone Books, May 16, 2017.

 

Four Stars

 

Beatrice Trovato is a successful neurosurgeon living in New York. Orphaned at birth, Beatrice was raised by her older brother Benjamin, who named her after Dante’s muse. He insisted they honor their Italian heritage and learn to speak the language, which came in handy when Ben moved to Siena three years ago. Beatrice has never visited him there, and she is ready to change that – but before she can go, she receives the devastating news that Ben has died suddenly of a heart condition.

 

Since childhood, Beatrice has always had a powerful sense of empathy. It often connects her to her patients, and being able to feel what they feel has occasionally helped her to save lives. However, her empathic feelings are growing stronger, and beginning to impede her work. It seems like the perfect time to take a leave of absence and travel to Siena to deal with Ben’s estate, including the mysterious research he was involved with at the time of his death.

 

Benjamin was a microbiologist, but his interest in Italian history led him to research 14^th century Siena and its fall from power during the aftermath of the plague. When Beatrice reads through Ben’s papers, she finds intriguing clues that point towards a conspiracy to decimate the city – Siena’s decline might have been a political powerplay, caused by the city’s enemies and their intentional spread of the plague.

 

Also included in Ben’s research are the journals of Medieval painter Gabriele Accorsi, who seems to be somehow involved in the plot against Siena. Beatrice immediately feels a connection to the artist, and when she uncovers one of his paintings on the walls of Ben’s home, she finds an image of her own face painted by Gabriele. Inexplicably, her empathic connection to Gabriele draws her back in time, and she arrives suddenly in the year 1347. She is still in Ben’s neighbourhood, but nothing else is familiar, and it’s not long before her modern sensibilities get her into trouble. Fortunately, Suor Umilta from Siena’s Ospedale della Scala is in search of a scribe, and Beatrice takes the job in exchange for a sense of security in this unknown world.

 

Through her work as scribe, Beatrice soon meets Gabriele – and their connection in person is just as strong as it was through his painting. However, happiness is fleeting as they are threatened not only by the impending plague but also by the ruthless Florentine men who wish to destroy Siena’s political power. The details of Medieval life are intriguing and thoroughly researched, and the collision of art and science (and artist and neurosurgeon) is fascinating.

 

The Scribe of Siena is immersive historical fiction, seen from the modern perspective of Beatrice, a strong, capable woman who is able to deal with extraordinary circumstances. Of course it is not always realistic, and the time travel aspect is mostly left unexplained, but it is well worth it to suspend disbelief and enjoy this clever, entertaining novel. It will inevitably be compared to Outlander because of the plot, but I also think it is very similar in tone and character. I’m curious to see whether this novel is also expanded into a series, as I think it would work very well.

 

I received this book from Touchstone Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio

Flatiron Books, April 11, 2017.

Four Stars

If We Were Villains follows seven close-knit students, seniors in a prestigious acting program, as they fall into their very own Shakespearean tragedy. Studying at the elite Dellecher Classical Conservatory, the students are immersed in the plays of Shakespeare, secluded from reality in a suitably castle-like dormitory, reading antique leather-bound editions and drinking expensive whiskey in front of roaring fires. While not exactly comparable to most post-secondary education experiences, the dramatic world of these students is easy to become immersed in, especially as the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

The story is narrated by Oliver, an outsider among the group because he is merely upper-middle-class, as opposed to the vast wealth of his friends. As the novel opens, Oliver is just being released from prison, as a result of an incident that took place ten years previous at Dellecher. Detective Colborne, the officer that originally investigated the students, is ready to retire, but he is desperate to know who really committed the crime to which Oliver confessed. Oliver is finally ready to tell the truth, but even he does not know the whole story of what transpired on that fateful night.

The novel is set out in five acts, mirroring the structure of a Shakespearean play. As the students take on the roles they are assigned in plays such as MacBeth and Julius Caesar, they become so involved that their characters begin to cross over into real life – they take on frightening aspects of the heroes, villains and temptresses that Shakespeare imagined. Unsurprisingly, the violence of the plays soon spills over into their lives until a real tragedy occurs, shaking up their small community. Each of the seven is a witness to what happened, but only a few of them know who did it – and there are always more secrets to be exposed.

Although it is being compared strongly to The Secret History, this novel is really quite a basic whodunnit, embellished with excessive Shakespeare quotes – his words are not only sprinkled into everyday conversation, they actually form the majority of conversations between the seven friends. The result is affected and pretentious, but I think it was meant to be that way – like many of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, Oliver and his friends are too overwhelmed by their own hubris to see what’s happening right in front of them. And of course, the unlikableness of the characters always makes them more interesting.

I struggled with how to rate this novel, because there are certainly problems with it, and I did set it aside for a few days – but ultimately, it was entertaining enough that I felt compelled to finish Oliver’s confession. The thoughtful and intelligent concept of this novel outweighs any problems with its execution, and I will certainly continue to read Rio’s future novels, to see what she comes up with next.

I received this book from Flatiron Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Long Black Veil - Jennifer Finney Boylan

Crown Publishing, April 11, 2017.

 

Five Stars

 

Before reading this novel, I knew nothing about Jennifer Finney Boylan. While reading, I learned that she is known mostly for her memoirs about her life as a transgender woman, and that she published under the name James Boylan before 2001. Her work focuses on themes of gender identity and the many ways that we can be haunted by our pasts – with that in mind, this new novel is a natural progression from her non-fiction work.

 

Long Black Veil begins with a group of college friends who make the ill-fated decision to go exploring in an abandoned prison – Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. They have just celebrated the wedding of two of their friends, Wailer and Casey, and the group is in a festive mood, even as they wander through the dark, decaying rooms of the former prison. That is, until someone locks the doors from the outside, and tragedy strikes – one member of their group goes missing, never to be seen again.

 

Twenty years later, the body of the missing friend is discovered, hidden in the ruins of the prison as it is being excavated. Casey becomes the prime suspect in the murder, and the only person who can clear his name is his best friend, who went missing after the events in the prison and is also presumed dead. In fact, Judith is living across the country in an idyllic lake house, with a loving husband and a stepson that she has raised as her own child. If she comes forward to defend Casey, she will have to expose shocking secrets from her past and risk losing her family.

 

The novel is very confusing at first, as Boylan introduces a large cast of quirky characters, all with pretty absurd names (Wailer, Tripper, Falcon, to name a few). However, this confusion works to further the mystery plot, as we don’t find out who is missing, or even who is who, until well into the book. The shifting time lines also work to increase the suspense. The central mystery of events at the prison is not very convincing, but I think it is actually secondary to the aspects of character development that make this novel special. The writing is not perfect, but it is eclipsed by the originality of the story and the authentic thoughts and feelings of the characters.

 

The twists and turns of the story might seem predictable at first, but the main one is unexpected and unique. Ultimately this is a story of mistaken identity – the identity of the murderer, and more importantly, the ways that people learn to live with their own identity. The seemingly absurd mystery plot is really just a cover for the depth of the gender identity themes that this novel explores. Like all of us, these characters are haunted not only by their pasts, but also by the ghosts of who they used to be.

 

I received this book from Crown Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.