fiction

“Redemption in Indigo” by Karen Lord

June 17, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Recommended to me by: reading Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds

I bought an e-book bundle on the strength of this book being included. I tend to read e-books a little at a time while waiting for appointments, so it took me a long time to get through the book.

This is a retelling of a Senegalese folk tale. For once, the cover is not white-washed. I wish I had been reading a physical book so I would have had the ongoing reminder that of course the characters have brown skin. Even with the clearly Senegalese names, I realized after I finished the book that I had vaguely visualized the characters as white by default. I want to change my internal defaults!

I wasn’t sure I would like the book until quite a way into it. At the very beginning, a wife is pursued and appears to be in danger. Then it focuses on ridiculing a man for eating too much, and I’m not interested in watching people be shamed. After a while it focuses on a strong woman (the wife who is well able to take care of herself) and the story hit its stride for me. I loved the epilogue.

Recommended as a thought-provoking story about different angles on duty, where you get to know and appreciate the characters.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver

March 29, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s other books

This book has Barbara Kingsolver’s trademark combination of vivid characters and complex global issues. The issues in this book are climate change and, relatedly, mass production of cheaply made products that end up in landfills or the ocean. We get a clear picture of rural Appalachian life, including the exposure to unwarranted contempt from wealthier, more educated urban folks. Also including their vulnerability to climate disaster.

I was completely absorbed. Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Night Child” by Anna Quinn

February 12, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Katherine Macomber Millman

A powerful, heartbreaking book about a woman slowly remembering and coming to terms with the childhood abuse she endured.

It reminded me of Susan Palwick’s “Flying In Place” in the way her pain is visible to the people around her, and she receives a lot of skilled, kind help. For many people, the process is less visible and they receive less assistance.

Anna Quinn has skillfully fictionalized her memoir, with lots of present-time sensory details to balance the horror of remembered abuse. The focus is on recovery, not the abuse itself.

Highly recommended if you want to read about an emotionally intense healing process which clearly shows the lasting harm done by abuse and the hard work it takes to recover.

Anna Quinn’s blog post When Your Memoir Wants To Be A Novel

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Best of All Possible Worlds” by Karen Lord

February 12, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Recommended to me by: boxofdelights

From the back cover: “Karen Lord has been a physics teacher, a diplomat, a part-time soldier, and an academic at various times and in various countries. She is now a writer and research consultant in Barbados.”

Like their author, the characters in this science-fiction novel have brown skin, although sadly the cover of the edition I read is white-washed. The main character is a woman, and has a woman boss. Relatedly, this is an emotionally non-violent book. Violence does occur off-screen, but the emphasis is on relating, healing, and grieving, rather than on domination and victory.

I enjoyed the plot, but the reason I kept reading is that I enjoyed watching the characters relate to each other and themselves in a future where we’ve gotten better at not oppressing each other.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“This Is How It Always Is” by Laurie Frankel

October 22, 2017 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Novel

Recommended to me by: a friend

A wonderful multi-layered novel about a doctor, her poet-husband, and their five kids, the youngest of whom insists on wearing dresses. The family brims with love and wackiness as they struggle with the many dilemmas of being themselves. They shelter their youngest member as best they can from society’s dysfunctional responses to someone who does not slot neatly into the gender binary.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“My Brother’s Husband” by Gengoroh Tagame

October 1, 2017 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Translated from the Japanese by Anne Ishii

Recommended to me by: Yatima in the 50 books by POC community

Yatima found this graphic novel via its blurb by Alison Bechdel and recommended it enthusiastically. I loved it too.

Mike Flanagan, Canadian white guy, visits his dead husband’s brother and niece in Japan. They are both traditionally Japanese. Yaichi the brother has a lot of unexamined homophobia and buried emotions, but invites Mike to stay with them anyway. Kana the niece didn’t know that men could marry each other, but responds to Mike warmly.

The book handles relationships and emotions tenderly. Kana is adorable. This book is about the small things in life, meals and sleeping and showers, and the largest things, death and loss and love and relationships and coming out as gay.

The characters are kind to one another. There is something to be said for polite emotional reserve. Some drawings show what Yaichi is yelling inside his head, and the neutral things he says out loud.

As is traditional for Manga, the book reads right to left. I had to be careful to read the panels in the right order on each page. Apparently there are more volumes to come!

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.