The Summer without Men

Finished June 28

The Summer without Men by Siri Hustvedt.

This short novel is very engaging. Mia Fredrickson, the narrator and central character, had a breakdown after her husband of thirty years left her for another woman, a French woman that Mia refers to as 'The Pause'. She was hospitalized for a short time, diagnosed with a Brief Psychotic Disorder, and once she was well, decided to return for a few months to the small Minnesota town of her childhood. She rents a small house near the senior complex where her mother lives in a small apartment. She also gets a job teaching a group of teen girls poetry. 

Her mother has a group of friends that spend a lot of time together, and Mia thinks of them as the Five Swans. She regards them as women who "shared a mental toughness and autonomy that gave them a veneer of enviable freedom". We get to know these women. George is one hundred and two and has a great sense of humour. Regina is eighty-eight had married a diplomat and lived in several countries and had several relationships after her husband's death. Peg, at eighty-four spent her life in a smaller town nearby, and has six children and numerous grandchildren that she keeps detailed track of. Abigail, at ninety-four has osteoporosis and hearing issues, worked as a teacher, but is a textile artist with hidden depths that she gradually reveals to Mia. 

We also get to know the teenagers. Mia has taught graduate students for years, but she adjusts quickly to this younger group of students. Peyton, thin and tall, is still getting used to her longer limbs. Jessica is small but has a woman's body, and talks in a babyish voice. Ashley is self conscious, but confident of her developing body. Emma is shy. Nikki and Joan function in tandem and giggle a lot. Alice has moved recently from Chicago, and is interested in books and art. Mia teaches them three times a week for six weeks, giving them interesting exercises and prompts for their writing. 

Mia also starts getting anonymous emails that are nasty and critical. When she begins to engage with this unknown person, the conversation becomes very interesting. 

She also has emails with her husband Boris and her daughter Daisy. During the summer both Daisy and Mia's sister Bea visit her. 

She also engages with the family living next door to her house, Lola and Pete, and their children Flora, and Simon. Flora makes quite an impression with her stuffed animal menagerie and her Harpo wig. Lola makes and sells jewelry and is a calm and capable mother. Pete travels a lot for work and Mia seldom interacts with him. She hears the arguments between the couple and helps sometimes with the children when Lola gets overwhelmed. She describes Flora so well, I can see her in my head. 

Scattered throughout the novel are poems, some by other poets, some by the teen characters, but many of Mia's own, and this is part of the skill with language that Hustvedt has. She also has insights that touched me. One example is this:

Sitting across from her in the small apartment, I had the thought that my mother was a place for me as well as a person. ...But it was my mother herself whom I had come home to.

Her other insights about her mother were also interesting to reflect on. Mia cooks for her mother and visits, listening to her talk about earlier times in her life, and walks back to her rented house reflecting on her own life. She has weekly telephone sessions with her psychiatrist Dr. S. and spends time writing poetry. 

This is a novel that drew me in, that made me read slowly with attention, and that made me care about the characters. A gem. 

The Guest

Finished June 27

The Guest by B.A. Paris

A twisty mysterious suspenseful tale of the type I've come to expect from B.A. Paris. The couple at the center of this novel, Iris and Gabriel have been married a long time. Their daughter Beth is taking a gap year volunteering in Turkey for an organization that works with abandoned and abused dogs. 

Recently Gabriel was the first one on the scene when a teenager, Charlie died after going over the edge of a nearby quarry. Charlie was still alive and said some things to Gabriel before he died. Gabriel had coached Charlie a few years back, and was deeply affected by this tragic experience. He is now on leave from his medical practice for an indeterminate time. Iris has a home-based business where she works with homeowners to decorate and furnish their spaces. The experience that Gabriel had has made for a distance in their marriage. 

As the novel begins, they arrive home a day early from their holidays and find an old friend Laure in their home. Laure is distraught, and says that Pierre, her husband has told her he had a child with someone and has just discovered her. He hasn't told Laure who the woman is, but Laure has suspicions. Iris had long wanted children, but Pierre did not, so she feels very betrayed at this point and is trying to figure out what she wants to do. As Iris tries to escape Laure's presence, she finds new friends in the village, a couple near her age that recently moved into a large property that had been abandoned for years. Hugh and Esme are in a second marriage for both of them, with Hugh widowed with a grown child and Esme divorced. Esme is now pregnant and eager to make new friends as well as bring the old house back to life. Along with them is Joseph a gardener that Esme's parents knew, who has recently lost his job. Joseph is helping with the grounds of the house. 

As the friendship begins, the presence of both Laure and Joseph bring tension to the atmosphere. Most of the characters have secrets that they haven't shared that will soon come to be uncovered, unless circumstances allow them to stay secret. 

There is lots of suspense here, with tension between many of the characters, and the ending is unexpected and unnerving. A real page-turner. 

Inland

Finished June 26

Inland by Téa Obreht

This historical novel follows two characters in the late 19th century in the United States. Lurie has some memories of when he and his father were on a ship, running from something in his father's past. He knows from things his father said, that he was from Turkey, but he doesn't know what drove him to leave. He knows his father's name was Hadziosman Djuriƈ, although the landlady in the house they lived in made it Hodge Lurie when the hearse took him away. Lurie lived with her a while, doing chores, until she hit harder times and sold him to the Coachman, the man who collected the dead. Later, he was sent west with other boys, and worked for a man that ran a mercantile. As Lurie's life unfolds, one thing becomes clear: he can hear the dead that aren't at rest. From men he helped the Coachman collect, to a friend that dies from illness, he begins to understand what he is hearing. In the Midwest, where he now lives, he hears many voices, of the indigenous people, settlers good and bad, and many others. He becomes a man who makes his way by chance and wit, and spends a long time with a camel section of a military group. 

The other main character is Nora Lark, a wife and mother who lives with her family on a small plot in the Arizona Territory. 1893 is a drought year that followed other drought years, and Nora's husband Emmett left to go for water days ago. Her two older sons, Rob and Dolan, have now gone out after him, leaving Nora with her elderly mother-in-law who doesn't speak and has limited mobility, her youngest son Toby, who was injured in the eye, and a serving girl Josie. Josie, like Lurie, senses connections to the dead, and Nora finds this both fascinating and annoying and doesn't know whether to believe her or not. Of late, Josie and Toby have been claiming they see a monster near the property. 

As we gradually see the two stories connecting, we see the reality of life for people at the time, struggling to survive amid threats both human and nature. Emmett Lark owns a printing press and ran a local newspaper in town, but he hasn't been that willing to go against the political force that is in the process of both making their town less prosperous and denying a recent widow her property. Nora is a fighter that is impulsive and this has made her more willing to fight, and less able to see the consequences until they are upon her. 

The writing is beautiful and often speaks to larger truths. At one point Lurie says to a companion "The longer I live, Burke, the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions." There is a haunting quality to the novel, and I often had trouble putting it down. 

A definite literary gem.