Francine's Spectacular Crash & Burn

Finished October 10

Francine's Spectacular Crash & Burn by Renee Swindle

The title character of this novel completely drew me in. She's a people pleaser, a young woman who was both dependent on her mother in some ways and supportive of her mother in others. When her mother dies suddenly, she is lost. She knows how the close relatives she has will react and avoids telling them, doing the necessary tasks when someone has died. Francine is also a hard worker at her job, a social media company called Peeps that connects people to others with the same interests. She is a glorified secretary for her boss Hayden, doing work that includes not only booking meetings and such but personal tasks like laundry and getting her coffee.

Soon after her mother's death, Francine hears a ruckus out on the street and ends up rescuing ten-year-old Davie from a group of bullies trying to take his iPad. After more encounters with Davie, the two connect in a way, both feeling like outsiders and suffering from loss. When Francine discovers that Davie's foster mother is Jeannette, a strong-willed woman with a temper that Francine had a crush on in high school, she grows close to her as well. 

As Francine struggles between trying to move forward with her newly rekindled interest in photography, and meeting new people, she also finds herself drawn to Jeanette for reasons in addition to wanting to maintain a relationship with Davie.

Francine has undeserved guilt and makes some bad choices, but she is well-intentioned and lonely, and she ends up finding friendship and support in unexpected places, and finding the strength to pull herself out of her own mess. 

I really liked Francine and found myself caring about her and about Davie. Highly recommended. 

The Door-to-Door Bookstore

Finished March 8

The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn, translated by Melody Shaw

This is a novel of loss, loneliness, books, and human connection. Set in a small town in southern Germany, the story follows seventy-two-year-old Carl Kollhoff, who works for the City Gate bookstore and delivers books to people's homes. Carl's friend. Gustav Gruber owns the shop and Carl has worked there for years. Recently, Gustav has moved into a care home, and his daughter Sabine runs the store. Although she grew up thinking of Carl as a kind of uncle, she seems to resent him now, and he tries to keep a low profile while at the store, as he also helps regulars find the perfect book for them. 

Carl has a number of people he delivers to, and he wraps these books carefully before setting off on his deliveries. He has nicknames of a sort for these customers, based on literary characters they remind him of. From a nun who is the last resident of her abbey to a retired schoolteacher, he knows each client's reading habits and a tiny bit about their lives. He also has a relationship with a cat he meets along his route, one that makes odd noises and is happy to have short interactions with him. 

One day, as he sets off along his delivery route he is approached by a schoolgirl who seems determined to accompany him. She calls him the Book Walker and introduces herself as Schascha. Over the days, as she keeps returning, she gradually insinuates herself not only into his life, but also the lives of those he delivers to. She helps him learn more about these people and try to help them in different ways. But Schascha has secrets as well, and some of hers have an impact on Carl's life in large ways. 

This is a story of unusual friendships, of people looking for love and meaning in their lives, and of how books make a difference. 

The Midnight Library

Finished December 3
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I received this book through a subscription service I joined recently otherwise I might not have got around to it for a while. I'm really glad I read it as I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It has so many themes that spoke to me: loneliness, depression, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, family divisions, and regrets. 

The main character here is Nora Seed a woman who has struggled with loss and guilt for a lot of her life. She was a very good swimmer and her father had high hopes for her to go on to the Olympics, but that isn't what she wanted. In high school, she tried different things, and got into music for a while, joining her brother's band as a singer and songwriter, but she got severe stage fright and had panic attacks and didn't want to fame that went along with such a public career. She got engaged, but never felt heard or appreciated in the relationship and decided not to go through with the marriage. Now, she's been living along with her cat in a small house in the town she grew up in and working in a music shop. When her cat dies, she feels that she has no one that would miss her. Estranged from her family, and unmoored, she decides to end her life.

When she awakens, she is in front of a building and she walks in to discover a library filled with books, and is met by her old high school librarian, a woman she liked a lot. Each of the infinite number of books on the shelf is a different version of her life, a possible world she could have lived in if she'd made a different choice at some point. It may have been a small thing, like letting her cat outside, or a large thing like travelling to Australia with her best friend, but every life would be different in some way. Nora has the opportunity to look at the regrets she has about her life, and decide to see what life she would have if she had chosen differently. 

I think this idea appeals to most of us in some way. What if we'd gone to a different school, majored in a different subject, dated a different person, traveled somewhere differently or at a different time. But is there really a perfect life? After all, none of us is perfect, so why should we expect our lives to be. 

This made me reflect on my own life and consider any regrets I might have, and think about how I feel about my life right now, right here. 

A fantastic read. 

The Grass Is Singing

Finished November 13 

The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing

This novel was one I was due to read with my book club this year, but plans changed. I decided to read it anyway since I had it on my shelves. 

To me this reads as a tragedy. The main character here Mary, grew up in South Africa and Rhodesia, moving around to different stations with her parents. Theirs was not a happy marriage, and Mary escaped to the city young, and became an office worker. Her emotional growth was a bit stunted, never leaving the phase of innocent teenage flirting. She was good at her job, and it was only when she overheard gossip about herself that she became dissatisfied with her life and began to look to marriage as a solution. 

Her impetuous marriage to a veldt farmer in Rhodesia was not the solution she needed, but it is where she found herself. 

We know from the beginning of the book her end, there on the farm, through an act of violence. The book takes us through how she got to that place, the various people that had a role in that life, from her husband Dick to their closest neighbour and the black workers that were on the farm.

This is an immensely sad book, and one mourns the forces that took these characters on this journey. Mental health is definitely one of them as we see the deterioration in both Mary and Dick through their time together. 

So well written, but so so sad.

Language warning: First published in 1950, this book uses racial terms that are not acceptable now.

The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am

Finished September 11
The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti A. Skomsvold, translated by Kerri A. Pierce

This short novel is told from the point of view of an elderly woman, Mathea Martinsen. Mathea has never really had friends and finds it very difficult to deal with other people. She never really talks to anyone except her husband Epsilon. She shops at the quietest time of the day, and when she goes out she waits until the neighbour across the hall has gone out first. She is torn between wanting to have made a difference in the world and not wanting to draw attention to herself.
One day, walking back from the shops, a man standing by the path asks the time, and she is startled and says what she thinks it is. Then she starts wearing her late husband's watch, but the man, even though he is often in the same spot, doesn't ask again. She decides to make a time capsule that will contain information about her life, but she has difficulty deciding what to put into it.
Before he died, she wanted her husband to retire, but he needed time away from her, and she was aware of it. She doesn't have filters really, and says what she feels more than is comfortable for those around her. This is an interesting view of life through the eyes of someone with a very different feeling towards life.

A Start in Life

Finished August 8
A Start in Life by Anita Brookner

This short novel looks at the early life of lonely academic Ruth Weiss. As the book begin, she is forty, looking back on her life to that point. Her major research has been on the women in Balzac's novels, and her immersion in the world of literature is her life now.
She looks back on her life, with her parents, Helen, a high-spirited and successful stage actress mother, and George, a quiet father who had inherited a stock of rare books from his own father, running a small shop of them. For the early part of her childhood, she had primarily been looked after by her paternal grandmother, a woman with a sad European past, who had brought from Europe a selection of large dark wood furniture, classic china and silver, highly pressed table linen, and a deep sense of order.

To the child it seemed as if all dining rooms must be dark, as if sodden with a miasma of gravy and tears. She imagined, across the unknown land, silent grandmothers, purple flock wallpaper, thunderous seascapes, heavy meats eaten at speed. Velvet curtains, the damask cloth laid over only half the table, the intricate siege architecture of the chair legs and cross bars.

As Ruth, named for her grandmother, kept to herself, escaping within the world of literature, she was also aware that although she loved her parents, they would be no support for her, for they were unable to even look after themselves properly. Following her grandmother's death, they hired a live-in woman to do the housekeeping and meals, Mrs. Cutler. George lost interest in the store and began to look for a buyer. Helen began to go straight to bed upon arriving home, supplied their with drinks and a light meal. The two slipped easily into an intimacy with Mrs. Cutler that prevented them from ensuring that she carried out her work, and the house fell into slovenliness, with poor meals.
Ruth concentrated on her studies, mastering French and venturing into the discovery of French authors, including Balzac. She went to college and planned to study abroad in France, where she would be able to do more research on her subject of choice.
But it is her parents, and their worries and lack of independence that would draw her back from her life of independence.
A look at a woman who life has for the most part, passed by.

The Lonely City

Finished June 29
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

 

I started this book in audiobook, but ended up finishing it in hardcover as the audiobook had issues with a couple of discs. Having recently read Solitude, I was wondering how much the two books would have in common.
Olivia is from Britain, but this book, part memoir, is from time she spent in New York City. Her loneliness in this new city led to her exploring the experience of loneliness, both her own and others. The word "art" in the subtitle is a key to the framing of this exploration for Laing. She looks at a number of artists whose lives and art speak to their experiences, many of them intersecting with each other during their careers. Her explorations begin with Edward Hopper and his famous picture Nighthawks. It moves from there to Andy Warhol, who she revisits repeatedly, looking at his famous interviews, and his Time Capsules, among other things. She looks at Valerie Solanas, her SCUM Manifesto, and her unique relationship with Warhol. She explores David Wojnarowicz's art and activism, including his Close to the Knives and photographer Peter Hujar, whom he had a relationship with. This also leads her to the photography of Nan Goldin, and her portraits in Ballad.
She looks deeply at the work and journals of Henry Darger, an outsider artist, whose work was only discovered after his death, and thus a subject of analysis by many.
She also touches on others such as Samuel Delany, and Greta Garbo.
During her time in New York City, Laing lives in various sublets, from the East Village to Times Square, and it is during the period in Times Square that she talks about the influence of the internet, being connected, and disconnected at the same time. It also makes her think of fantasy worlds like Blade Runner, and SimCity.
This book introduced me to so many artists that I hadn't been aware of before, and made me realize just how common loneliness is in our society. For Laing, art was a way of finding connection, or communicating with others. Definitely a book to get you thinking

The Cry of the Sloth

Finished June 29
The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage

This novel is entirely composed of letters, notes, and other writings by the characters. The central character is Andrew Whittaker, a middle-aged man, whose wife left him for about two years ago. Andrew inherited a few rental properties from his father, but they appear to be running into disrepair and the tenants don't always pay the rent. He is beginning to have financial difficulties because of this. Some of the letters included are signed by other people, but I wasn't sure whether they really were, as the first couple were praising Andrew, as opposed to the impression I got from his own struggling writing. Later in the book, I began to revise this feeling, believing that they were indeed composed by others.
The action here takes place over a period of four months from July through October, sometime during the Nixon administration. Andrew seems to me to be suffering from depression, with his mental state deteriorating over the course of the novel.
Besides the letters to his ex-wife, sister, mother, tenants, an old college roommate, and creditors, there is also a series of letters to potential contributors to a literary magazine that Andrew created and edited. It also is suffering from financial problems and he has an ambitious plan to hold a literary festival to raise the necessary monies to bring it back into the black. Besides letters, other writings include bits of the novel Andrew is working on, shopping lists, advertisements for his rental units, and signs aimed at the tenants.
The title comes from an entry in a encyclopedia set about animals that Andrew finds in his house, and reappears at several points in the novel as something that Andrew identifies with.
This is an unusual book, that forced me to slow down to read it.

The Lonely Polygamist

Finished June 13
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

This novel has three narrators, with the story moving between them. One is the polygamist of the title, Golden Richards. We see Golden's story from his childhood, his parents' marital issues and him following his father west. We learn that it is through his father that Golden has ended up in this community, as the husband of four women, the father of 15 daughters and 13 sons. Money has been tight and Golden has looked further afield for jobs for his construction company. He is working on a project he is reluctant to have his community know the nature of, and lives at the construction site, 200 miles away in Nevada, during the week. This has thrown off the routine of the marriages, and Golden finds himself drawn to a woman he sees one evening when he takes a walk.
He is a man unsure of himself, one who has let life take him along for the ride, doing what was expected of him, what he was told to do, but now he finds himself expected to make decisions, to take the lead, and he isn't prepared. Golden is also grieving the loss of a daughter, one born with a disability, that he had unexpectedly bonded with in a way he hasn't had the time alone with his other children to do.
There are issues with his wives, with the middle two, sisters, resenting his first wife, Beverly, who tends to make a lot of the family decisions. He can sense the frustration against him, and the frustration with the situation they find themselves in. He doesn't seem able to do anything about it.
Another voice belongs to his youngest wife, Trish. Trish is still grieving their stillborn son, and feeling less secure in her position in the marriage. Golden seems to be spending less time with her and less able to interact with her when he does. There are things at the house she lives in that need fixing, but he doesn't have the time.
The third voice is one of Golden's sons, Rusty. Rusty is his fifth son, the third child of his third wife, and a boy often in trouble. Rusty has been chosen by Beverly to live in her house instead of with his mother and aunt to deal with his behaviour, but it only serves to make him feel unfairly punished, and lonely for the house he wants to be in. His behaviour deteriorates instead of improving, and he wanders, making friends with a lonely man, and visiting Trish.
All three of these characters are lonely, desperate to be seen as individuals, to be loved, and yet also wanting to belong. As each of them reaches a point that will change their lives, they make choices, and those choices will affect both them and the rest of their family.
An interesting look inside a way of life I am totally unfamiliar with. Udall doesn't demonize polygamists, nor does he idolize them. He portrays them as people, people who grew up with this life, who have problems just like people elsewhere, and who have to decide what they want when faced with difficult choices.

The Drop

Finished March 25
The Drop by Dennis Lehane, performed by Jim Frangione

This short novel is a mix of genres, all taking place within a small couple of neighbourhoods. Bob Saginowski, a bartender who lives alone in the house he grew up in, hears a noise as he is walking home from work one day. He follows the sounds to a trash can, finding a puppy, badly beaten and left for dead. Nadia Dunn, the woman whose trash can he found it in hears him and quizzes him on what he is doing. After some hesitation, Bob agrees to adopt the puppy and names him Rocco after the patron saint of bachelors, dogs, and the falsely accused among other things.
Bob works at a bar that used to be owned by his cousin Marv, something Marv is still very resentful of. The bar is now owned by Chechen mobsters, who sometimes use it as a money drop for other activities. Bob faithfully attends his local church, but never takes the sacrament. He has something he feels that he cannot be forgiven for.
When Bob is approached by a psychologically unbalanced man, Eric Deeds, who claims the dog belongs to him, Bob is forced to take action, He has developed a tentative friendship with Nadia around Rocco, and feels a hope for the future that he hasn't had in years, one he doesn't want to give up. He also feels a strong connection to the dog and is outraged at the thought of giving him back to the man who beat him.
Meanwhile the bar has become a target for thieves, hoping to hit the bar on a night that it has been chosen to be the drop. The case draws the interest of a cop who attends the same church as Bob and begins to wonder at Bob's reason for not taking the sacrament.
An interesting tale of a number of lonely people, all struggling to find a connection that will make them feel less alone, even if only for a short while.
Frangione provides just the right tone and voice for this story.

The Library of Unrequited Love

Finished April 28
The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry, translated by Siân Reynolds

This short novel is the first novel for Divry. It takes place on the lower level of the public library in a unnamed provincial town in France. The librarian goes into work one morning to discover a patron who had been locked in overnight. She then says she can't let them out before the library opens as it would alert others to the patron had been in the library after hours, and proceeds to talk about the library, her life, her dreams, and other matters. The text is one long monologue by the librarian, although there are a few points where the patron obviously commented or reacted in some way, but we only get the librarian's words.
There are points where she seems to fall into an unhappy and untrue stereotype of librarian:

"Being a librarian isn't an especially high-level job, I can tell you. Pretty close to being in a factory. I'm a cultural assembly line worker. So what you need to know is, to be a librarian, you have to like the idea of classification, and to be of a docile nature. No initiative, no room for the unexpected; here, everything is in its place, invariably in its place."

But other times she seems to be more progressive. She espouses the views of Eugène Morel (a man I was admittedly ignorant of until now) a Frenchman who had the following view demands of libraries:

"...make it easier to borrow books, have longer opening hours, keep the collections up to date, have comfortable seats, special areas for children, and the underpinnings of the whole thing, the idea, the supreme aim, was that the people should be able to read."

and she feels that:

"...in my job, there's nothing more exciting, to make you feel wanted, than to be able to size up the person in front of you, guess what they're after, find the book they need on the shelves and bring the two together. Book and reader, if they meet up at the right moment in a person's life, it can make sparks fly, set you alight, change your life." 

She has dreams of more for herself, both professionally and personally, but lacks the hope or will to make these dreams come true.
This is a gem of a book, and I have to thank Ben McNally for introducing me to it.