Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

fiction

“Imperfect Birds” by Anne Lamott

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Based on the title, I thought this would be a sequel to Lamott’s Bird by Bird, about the process of writing. Instead, it is a novel about teenage angst, drug-use, manipulation, and lies, and adult anxiety, denial, and tense sobriety. In each encounter, characters are described by weight and attractiveness, as if that’s what matters.

I kept putting the book down because the casual lying and drug-use got almost physically on my nerves, and picking it up again because I’d come to care about the characters in spite of myself. I did skip a chunk in the middle. In the end, there is a small hope for authenticity and responsibility.

I don’t know whether the narcissism in this book is wildly exaggerated or terrifyingly realistic. Either way, I don’t want to read about it.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Gone-Away Lake” by Elizabeth Enright

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Recommended to me by: Marissa Lingen

The title sounded familiar and I thought I read it as a child, but the story itself didn’t ring any bells. Published in 1957, the book features two half-grown kids interacting with two elderly people living in abandoned summer homes, surrounded by lots of nature and lots of kindness.

Portia visits her cousin Julian for the summer, way out in the country. At 11 and 12 years old, they blithely leave the house every morning to visit their new friends at Gone-Away Lake and don’t return until dinner, without accounting for their time to Julian’s parents.

Portia and Julian are close friends without a trace of romance or self-consciousness. They only quarrel once, late in the book. Although the quarrel seems resolved, they each spend more time with friends of their own gender after that.

There is some emphasis on the stereotypes of girls being afraid more often and talking more, and boys liking construction and dirt more. At the same time, the stereotypes are gently questioned by the boys admitting to being afraid too, and the girls exploring right along with them.

Minnehaha and Pindar live peacefully in abandoned houses beside the marsh which used to be Lake Tarrigo, without most modern conveniences. Their day to day activities gently question our assumptions about what is necessary for happiness.

It’s a relief to read a book about emotionally healthy people enjoying their world and each other.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Torch” by Cheryl Strayed

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Recommended to me by: Willamette Writers Portland

In this novel, a rural Minnesota family reels from the mother’s cancer diagnosis. We see Theresa, only 38, and her partner and children grappling with her illness.

I loved the finely detailed setting. The trees, the bears, the snow, and the routinely-traveled distances all bring rural Minnesota to life. The characters not only see and hear, but also smell their environment, from the slightly rotten odor of the first spring thaw, to the shampoo and conditioner in their partner’s hair.

I was puzzled by the way the characters left their inner lives largely unexamined, and instead fell into casual sex, instant relationships, and sometimes drugs to manage their emotions.

Also, do they really have group and individual therapy in jail, even in rural Minnesota? It seems too practical and enlightened to be true in our punishment-oriented society.

This is a well-written book, but I found it hard to read. There is no physical violence, but the characters seem painfully unaware of the emotional violence they are doing to each other.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Disobedience” by Naomi Alderman

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Recommended to me by: Spirituality Bookgroup.

This novel about convention, betrayal, growing up, and finding center is filled with wisdom and grace.

Ronit grew up in a tiny, insular Jewish Orthodox congregation within London. She is the rebellious daughter of their revered Rabbi. Aided by her father’s sending her to an American university, she has escaped to a secular life in New York City.

Now, her father has died, and she returns to encounter her cousin Dovid, the Rabbi’s heir apparent, and his wife Esti. Esti and Ronit were lovers as teen-agers. Despite her marriage and orthodox beliefs, Esti still carries a flame for Ronit.

The characters and the setting drew me in completely while I was reading. Where I expected the triumph of prejudice and small-minded cruelty, I saw instead surprising compassion and open-hearted possibilities. I celebrated that two couples found ways to re-commit to their marriages.

As I thought about the book afterwards, I started to wonder about the emphasis on marriage as sacred, leaving Ronit as the marriage-disturbing lesbian outsider. While I enjoyed the book, I strongly disagree with that (possibly unintentional) underlying message.

Naomi Alderman’s blog: naomialderman.com.

Available at bookshop.org.

“National Velvet” by Enid Bagnold

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I received this book, originally published in 1935, with a childhood gift of six classic Young Adult novels. I’ve carried the set from home to home ever since, but hadn’t reread any of the books in many years.

Before I send the set off to my niece and nephew, I decided to reread “National Velvet,” since the image of Velvet struggling with her unruly stomach had been coming to mind.

I remembered the essence of the book – horse-mad young Velvet rides and wins a steeplechase race – but had forgotten most of the details, including that the story takes place in England.

The writing is gorgeously evocative. Here is the opening paragraph:

Unearthly humps of land curved into the darkening sky like the backs of browsing pigs, like the rumps of elephants. At night when the stars rose over them they looked like a starlit herd of divine pigs. The villagers called them Hullocks.

I paused there in my reading to imagine the Hullocks, reminded of a village I visited in southern England, ensconced in a narrow valley dropping to the sea.

It turns out that Velvet grows up in just such a village with her three older sisters, much younger brother, solid parents, and butcher’s assistant Mi Taylor. Their cramped living quarters are attached to her father’s slaughterhouse. Mi lives in an outbuilding, and their old horse has a rickety barn.

The girls seem young for their ages by modern standards. At fourteen, Velvet prances about pretending to ride paper horses. Her seventeen year old sister has her first beau. The girls can ride alone for miles among the Hullocks, but their mother tells them what to wear to the village fair. The family shares few words but much love.

I recommend reading this book for the layered details of village life and relationships. I was less interested in the wish-come-true plot, although to be fair I’m considerably older than the target audience of the book. There are sub-themes about news and fame and innocence which provide food for thought.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Lacuna” by Barbara Kingsolver

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Recommended to me by: Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s past books.

“The Lacuna” is both epic and personal, ranging across countries and decades and historic events, and also documenting the details of a child’s life.

The point-of-view character, Harrison William Shepherd, is unwanted by his father and only haphazardly cared for by his alcoholic self-centered mother. The book starts on a remote Mexican island in 1929, where young “Will” (his mother uses his middle name) and his mother are trapped with a rich man she hopes will marry her.

Will connects with Leandro, the native cook, who happily teaches him cooking skills in exchange for his help in the kitchen. Starting a matter-of-fact theme through the book, Will has a crush on him, but doesn’t reveal it. Leandro is young enough to be called “cook boy”, but old enough to be married with children.

Leandro gives Will swim goggles, and he discovers the wonders of the tropical ocean. He also finds a lacuna – a hole – an undersea tunnel that opens into hidden Aztec ruins. During the full moon, the tides help him get through on one breath.

Will starts keeping a journal, filling notebooks with his observations and stories. In another layer of plot, the book itself is supposedly compiled from the notebooks by “VB”.

Will and his mother escape from the island to Mexico City via another of his mother’s affairs. He spends two years back in a US boarding school, where his father calls him Harry. “Whoever pays the bill names the boy.”

Back in Mexico City, Harry joins the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as cook, secretary, driver, and friend. There, they call him yet a third name, Soli, because they can’t pronounce Harrison. Lev Trotsky, on the run from Stalin, comes to stay with them.

In the aftermath of Trotsky’s assassination, Harry goes back to the US once again, and discovers his father has died, leaving him a car. He simply starts driving, and settles in Asheville, North Carolina, where the Blue Ridge Parkway unceremoniously ended.

He takes up writing at last, successfully publishing two novels set in the Mexican past, but is eventually hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee and convicted of being a Communist. He escapes back to Mexico.

“VB” is revealed to be his secretary and help-meet in Asheville, Violet Brown.

The book is filled with layers of historical research. I learned about Mexican history, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Lev Trotsky, the American Depression, and the anticommunist movement.

However, I didn’t engage with the characters. The historical figures feel remote, and even Harry refers to himself in third person as the cook, or driver. He doesn’t make contact with his own emotions. As I read, I wondered what lesson or point I was supposed to be taking in.

Available at bookshop.org.