A Season of Perfect Happiness - Maribeth Fischer

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Would you? Could you? Choose a season of perfect happiness if you knew it was going to end and that you wouldn’t remember? This question is the premise of Maribeth Fischer’s upcoming A Season of Perfect Happiness. She explores answers beautifully through the life of Claire. Claire is clearly reeling from her former life in Rehoboth Beach as the book opens in Wisconsin.  We learn of her sorrow - the loss of a child and then a marriage. Her move to Wisconsin is one of survival. At first she doesn’t even dream of a new life. As she finds one first with Erik and then with his friends, she lives it in a constant kind of fear waiting for her past to catch up with her. The reader is equally unsettled in the way that the content is structured - we feel suspense and fear, joy and sorrow right beside Claire. 

Those feelings are what largely makes the novel such a success for me.I would not necessarily describe this as a book of suspense, and yet, I was on edge the entire time I was reading. What had Claire done? What will happen? Why on earth were so many secrets kept? Structurally, the novel is divided into parts and introduced with parts of a play that is part of the story. With Claire we come to know Erik, his children, his ex wife Annabelle, Eva, and Gabe. Together they create a season of happiness - one of best friends, but secrets abound. Through this template and flashbacks and glimpses forward, Fischer explores several things: the power of art - through Claire’s collages and the theater, friendship, a neurodivergent child and the power of family. She explores mental illness (I’d be more specific, but spoilers would definitely lessen the impact of the novel.) 

And ultimately, very skillfully and compassionately, Fischer explores a woman finding her voice. For me this through line was the strength of the novel. Claire’s growth is powerful. I think as I am reading that she is stronger than I could ever be, and then, she grows stronger. Her development challenges me to accept no less than the best in terms of my own willingness to accept some of what life brings. I feel like in some ways life consists of seasons of happiness interspersed with times of anger and sorrow where we forget happiness for a while. So even while the circumstances of Maribeth Fischer’s A Season of Perfect Happiness may seem extreme to some - all can relate to its rhythm - an excellent and thought provoking read. Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton, and imprint of Penguin Randomhouse for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Our Narrow Hiding Places - Kristopher Jansma

Genre - Historical Fiction

Our Narrow Hiding Places by Kristopher Jansma is a gorgeous book. Rooted in his own family history, Jansma tells the story of Mieke and Rod - two children trying to survive the Hunger Winter with their families in  Holland at the end of World War II. Mieke is reliving and recounting the story for her grown grandson as they each deal with their own reckonings. She is still looking for the story of her lost father in law who disappears during that time. He is battling issues personally and professionally that could be traced back to his grandparents’ suffering that winter. I am reminded again about the horror of war and evil in this book. I am also reminded about the beauty of love and hope. Jansma creates these side by side in this upcoming publication.

The novel is punctuated by vignettes narrated by eels and signed with mysterious initials. These vignettes are beautiful and poetic and speak to the power of language. I can’t share quotes as evidence, but please believe me. They further speak to mystery, quiet strength and survival. No spoilers, but the role these interludes fulfill is profound - felt reminiscent of an ancient Greek drama’s chorus. These eels have a more physical and practical role in Mieke’s childhood and survival during this time - I love the connection. Through Mieke and her grandson primarily, Jansma explores the impact of war on victims and on the generations that follow them. I feel helplessness in the face of this motif. And again, Jansma notes that these descendents are often, then, caught up in wars of their own. I appreciate the sensitive and respectful exploration of mental health. Mieke has to deal with the mental illness of her son and perhaps that of her grandson Will. Through Will we learn of his wife Teru’s ancestral connections to the bombing in Japan and her own struggles. In the midst of all of the horror, Jansma explores the fine line between good and evil, hope and despair. Mieke often sees only the darkness in her hungry and freezing world - she becomes tempted to join the evil forces just to survive, but she chooses to remain loving and good and fair, and is able to appreciate that in the others she sees trying to do the same. These moments of hope are so striking in the winter landscape. I also noted how often Jansma contrasted winter and storms and flooding with color and sparkle and fairy tales and joy. Even when connected with death, imprisonment, and mental illness these moments are beautifully written - again, the power of language. 

Our Narrow Hiding Places by Kristoper Jansma appeals to me on so many levels. The writing is beautiful. The motifs are powerful. The connection between past and present is complex and fascinating. We must think more about war, family, mental illness and determine where and how we can influence culture and do better for our people. I am grateful for Jansma allowing for hope and the power of love to transform people and families. I am further grateful for how he illustrates that healing can be in friendship or the hope of a new baby or other daily joys. If you are still reading, please know that I could go on and on…even more than I have. I have just begun to touch on what Kristopher Jansma accomplishes. Please read Our Narrow Hiding Places. Thank you NetGalley and Ecco Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

By Any Other Name - Jodi Picoult

Genre - Contemporary and Historical Fiction

Sometimes I feel as if the more the world changes the more it stays the same. Such seems to be the case in the world of theater as illustrated by Jodi Picoult’s upcoming novel By Any Other Name. Picoult explores through fiction set in the present and in the time of Shakespeare that William Shakespeare was not, in fact, the writer of the plays and poems credited to him. In the modern setting Melina Green feels she has been burned as a woman aspiring to write for the theater. An early experience of being dismissed by a harsh male critic has left her shy of trying again. When she researches and discovers that her ancestor Emilia Bassano may have written some of the plays of Shakespeare, she tries her hand again at a new play. In the Elizabethan times we follow the life of Emilia Bassano - courtesan, playwright, wife, and mother, learning of the struggle of women to work independently in this time. Her life is for this “modern” woman often horrifying. 

I love Jodi Picoult’s character development - her people never disappoint. Melina is certainly not perfect, but that is the beauty of Picoult’s writing. She consistently challenges us with complexity and a refusal to provide an easy answer. So here’s the thing. I understood her frustration and her response to her evaluation by theater critic Jasper Tolle; I can even relate to how she allows that one incident to shape her writing career moving forward. Her decisions seem perfectly logical and are in many respects. The evidence that women are not treated fairly in the theater world seems clear. I was able to feel her angst. But the implications of allowing the world to believe that Andre, her best friend, is the playwright added a layer for which I was not prepared. In many ways I learned right alongside Melina about the gravity of what she asked of a member of another marginalized group. Tolle himself who should be easy to hate - struggles with social cues and has to learn his own lessons and face his own negative role in Melina’s and other stories. The use of Melina’s play structurally to transition us into the Elizabethan age and Emilia’s life works beautifully and creates the comparison and perhaps the illustration that not enough has changed in the intervening years. But my visceral hatred of how Emilia is treated is proof enough that change has happened. How she is bartered to and by men, how she becomes a courtesan, her inability to escape abuse, her inability to utilize her talents - so painful to read. Along with excellence in character development, Picoult expertly crafts these two timelines - so differently, yet painfully similar. Her research is impeccable - says the old lady retired librarian. 

And says the old lady retired literature teacher, you don’t have to love Shakespeare’s (?) work to love this book, but the layers my years of teaching and reading Shakespeare added in terms of plotting and dialogue was for me a delight. I enjoyed reading the very words I have admired for so long in this novel as part of Emilia’s life. So I am left with two primary impacts. The first is, I’d like to teach Shakespeare just one more time with a more thorough look at the scholarship challenging him as the author. I just know - I can picture the students - that the discussion of the works would be so much more enriched and lively. Up until now, I didn’t take the scholarship surrounding anti-Stratfordians so very seriously, and I now feel compelled to give it all another look. While we may never know for sure - wow, credit should be given where credit is due and removed where it is not. I know Picoult had access to sources that I could likely never touch, and she used them well. The second is - my word - we should be very careful to safeguard our rights as women. I think I have been in danger of taking them for granted - because I wasn’t a part of the fight for them. I think that attitude is even more prevalent in women who are 10-30 years younger than I am. I won’t do politics here, but recent developments have dampened my assurance. A cursory google search will remind us that women have only been voting in the United States since 1920 - in spite of Abigail Adams’ impassioned pleas in the 1700s. Only since 1974, (I was 8!) have women been allowed to get a credit card or a mortgage in their own names without a man cosigning. My mom couldn’t get a credit card. My. Mom. In By Any Other Name, Jodi Picoult does what she does very well. She writes a novel to make her readers think - about a variety of issues - in this case about the rights of women and the marginalized. Progress does not equal a finished job; nor does any right seem to be guaranteed. She does give us hope but without providing easy answers. She provides a call to action even. I am a long time fan of Jodi Picoult’s books and her August 20 release is stunning. I will be recommending By Any Other Name far and wide. Thank you to NetGalley and Ballentine Books for allowing me to review an advance reader copy.

The Snap - Elizabeth Staple

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

I am grateful to have been asked to read and review the ARC of Elizabeth Staple’s The Snap. Set in the world of professional football management, I’m not sure I would have had the good sense to choose it otherwise. Poppy has worked hard to break ground as a female media director for a professional football team. She is in a firestorm, when the team’s coach unexpectedly dies - could it be murder? Through the current struggles, Poppy reflects on her time as an intern within the same organization. Many secrets are revealed along with the cut throat nature of the business. 

To be honest, Poppy was difficult for me to wrap my head around. Her world was vastly different from mine. Staple does a remarkable job of illustrating that world - that I found somewhat horrifying - in a way that the outsider can understand it. Within that world, I can better understand Poppy and her choices. Poppy is driven; she works incredibly long hours to reach her goals. WhileI can relate to that fairly easily, her setting requires a different set of parameters to reach that success. I’d love to clutch my pearls and say, “Well, I would never…” But part of the success of this novel is that Staple so clearly illustrates a toxic workplace that is especially damaging to women, I could see why she did what she did. Another very difficult character for me was the coach. I struggled as a teacher with being sometimes asked to believe that excellent athletes walked in rarified air. His character, for me, was the culmination of that attitude over years. The subtlety with which Staple developed him worked so well in this novel. In terms of plot, the murder mystery works well with the characters and setting to further illustrate the world of sports, big business, privilege, and intrigue created here. For me the ending isn’t tied up into a neat bow that makes it all “0k” for me, but, folks, isn’t that life?

I love being challenged by a book different from the norm for me. The Snap by Elizabeth Staple did so. I served as a teacher my entire career, a traditionally woman’s field. I welcome learning what other women experience in the world through reading. Packaged with a suspenseful mystery, this is an excellent read on a number of levels. Thanks to Penguin Random House and Netgalley for asking me to review this work.

Nice Work, Nora November - Julia London

Genre: Contemporary, Coming of Age, a bit of Romance

What a fun, thoughtful, and delightful read Julia London’s Nice Work, Nora November is. Nora November is recovering from a near drowning experience. She creates an anti bucket list and she tries to overhaul her life which she quickly remembers is just not that happy. She has suffered from depression and has lost strong relationships with some she loves through it - including her sister and cousin. She has met the perfect man as a hostage in an armed robbery and lost his phone number. She hates working as a lawyer in her father’s law firm. She does not follow through on her promise to maintain her late grandfather’s garden plot in a community garden. So…she vows to work on the garden, to learn to cook, to play basketball, to renew relationships, and to find the lost Jake. Her journey has its ups and downs but is a joy to read.  The copy I read was narrated by Karissa Vacker who brought Nora to life for me!

And, of course, Nora is what I loved most about this book. I am clearly a character driven reader. Nora is baffled at the beginning of the book; she can’t remember much of what led to her near death experience, but boy is she determined to change her life. She isn’t wallowing so much as figuring out what will make her happy moving forward. And listen, she doesn’t have a built in support system. She has alienated her sister Lacey and her cousin Walter. She has nothing in common with her social climbing, career oriented parents. Oh her dad is deliciously hateful. She misses her grandfather - who accepted her unconditionally - so much. But what is beautiful is that through her chaos and a variety of mishaps, some more serious than others, she builds a new family:  Kathleen who harrasses her in the community garden, Willow who is an unwilling partner to her mom at cooking class, Nick from the garden center. And while she doesn’t know it, she is circling closer and closer to Jake who has inherited a garden plot from one of his dying patients. Small world, right? And slowly Nora is working to repair her relationships with Lacey and Walter. I loved all of the people and all of the shenanigans. London expertly develops and manages it all - walking Nora forward in a believable way. 

I feel a little bored by my musing on my dislike of change. But gosh, I really do admire Nora’s desire to create a life that she loves. Her depression is portrayed honestly - right down to losing a therapist for insurance reasons - and being shamed over medication. Yet, it does not control the narrative or her life. I love that approach - not lighthearted, but hopeful. I am a huge fan of the list approach. I am list driven. I have always done better at work and on a project with lists. The checking off of items, I love it. And yet, yet, I’ve done few lists in this my first year of being retired from full time work. I’m not a trained counselor, so I won’t try to figure that out, but perhaps a list or two wouldn’t go awry for me. (Dear google, I see the blue underlines for my style choices. I’m doing it anyway.) Finally, I respond to praise - always have; I could explain why, but who has the time? Teacher observations? Way more stressful than the kids and the curriculum. Maybe I do miss the feedback though? Anyway, when Julia London gets us to the “nice work” part of Nice Work, Nora November, I could only think well done. Well done - what a book!