Fortunate Son

Finished March 1

Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley

I've read a few standalone books by Mosley, and I find they always have depth and make you think about the world in different ways. This one is no exception. 

When Tommy's mother Branwyn got pregnant with him, his father Elton wanted nothing to do with the situation. Branwyn managed on her own, and when Tommy was born with health issues, visited the ICU every day after work, hoping that he would survive. A doctor at the hospital, Minas Nolan, noticed her and began a courtship. He had recently had a son, Eric, and his wife had died in childbirth. His nanny Ayn did as well as she could but the child was inconsolable. When Branwyn and Eric meet, he is immediately calmed by her, and soon they become a small family. 

When tragedy comes to them, Tommy is separated from Eric, and though the two have a strong connection, they lose track of each other for years. 

Mosley shows how they class origins and the colour of their skin has a big effect on how they manage through life. Despite trauma and setbacks, Tommy gains the nickname Lucky, and feels that he is as well. Eric has a charmed life, and yet longs for something that he can't identify. 

When another tragedy brings the two back together again, they find more barriers between them and it is their found family members that each of them has gained along the way that help them find a way forward. 

This book explores social issues in America, particularly race and poverty, with the prejudices that underlie even the organizations that are supposed to support people. But it also explores outlook, and how each of us views the world we live in, and treats the people that we interact with along the way. A thought-provoking read. 

The Sweetness of Water

Finished February 10

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

This historical fiction novel is set just after the end of the United States Civil War. George Walker and his wife Isabelle have a farm a little way outside of a small southern town called Old Ox. George often walks his land and the forest that is part of it, partly searching for a creature his father told him of, and partly to think. Towards the end of the day, one he spent wandering, he comes across two middle-aged black men. Their names are Prentiss and Landry and they were recently owned by Ted Morton, George's neighbour. The two men decided to leave once they were emancipated, but haven't got any idea of the outside world or where to head. George has a burden of sadness on him, one that he soon shares with Isabelle, and the two reconsider their future plans. George determines to clear and farm some of his land, and he approaches the two black men to offer them work helping him. When George offers them work, they are grateful to be able to earn some to take them away and into a new life. But George's actions cause issues with others that resent the loss of their traditional social order. 

Trust grows between George, Prentiss, Landry, and soon Isabelle as well, and another family member who has seen things in the war that changed him. 

When a tragedy happens to this group, it becomes a larger issue, one that both destroys friendships and creates new ones. The trust between them becomes something more, and while there is hope, more tragedies happen in the town and this household. 

I found this novel moving and thought-provoking. Crimes lead to insults, and insults become crimes. An engaging debut novel that won attention from celebrity book clubs and was longlisted for the Booker. 

Friday Black

Finished February 10

Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This dark collection of stories had me both wanting more and needing to take breaks from reading. This is the debut collection for the author, and draws on his own experiences as a black man in the United States for some of his themes. The collection contains twelve stories, with some characters reappearing in other tales. 

The first story, The Finkelstein 5, draws on racism, white privilege, miscarriage of justice, and frustration at all these societal flaws. The second tale, Things My Mother Said, touches on poverty and religion. The third, The Era takes us further into dystopia with revisionist history, genetic selection, and bullying. Lark Street deals with abortion, relationships, and the onus on women. The Hospital Where has elements of pain and wonder set around healthcare and the things we do for our dreams. Zimmerland makes racism and violence a form of entertainment where there are no consequences. Friday Black takes us to a surreal dystopian version of Black Friday sales, where bodies are swept to the sides as sales take precedence. The Lion & The Spider takes African folklore, family responsibility, and takes us to the backroom of retail. Light Spitter has elements on incel culture, school shootings, and trying to change outcomes. How to Sell a Jacket As Told by Iceking brings us back to the characters and world of Friday Black on a less dark day. The following story, In Retail, is in the same world, but from a different point of view. The final story, Through the Flash, is set in a world where the days reset over and over, death and violence are ever present, and the characters are aware of it, and hope for a glitch in the system. 

These are dark stories, offering little hope for the future, but also stories that are gripping and captivating. Many of them relate to the world even more today than when they were written. 

Enough

Finished September 16

Enough by Kimia Eslah

This novel looks at three Iranian-Canadian women from different generations and shows us how they experience workplace racism and sexism, giving particularly emphasis to microaggressions. 

Sameera Jahani is a millennial and has just been hired as the manager of the Web and Digital Communications team at the City of Toronto. She lives with her partner Shannon in the queer village neighbourhood. 

Faiza Hosseini is the director of Program Support at the city, a position she's reached over many years at the city. She lives with her husband Robert, an executive who works less onerous hours, her mother Bibi, and her daughters Mina, sixteen, and Pari, seven. Mina is her daughter with Ali, her first husband, the one she emigrated from Iran with. 

Goldie Sheer has just been hired for her first job since graduating university, a three-month contract as a database administrator with the city. She lives at home with her parents, her younger brother Hussain, and her older brother Dariush. Dariush has recently moved back home after a relationship breakup and has had trouble adjusting to life in Canada, while the two younger children were born in Canada.

The three work in different departments, but their paths cross, and they come together over similar social issues. 

Faiza reports to the city manager, Howard Crawley, a man who seems much more forward-thinking than he is, partly because he has the tendency to farm his work out to those willing to do it as part of advancing their careers. Faiza is the latest one to do this, and she has been working as his assistant in all but name recently. She has just finished putting together a presentation on EDI initiatives, and applies formally for a recently posted position as Howard's assistant. 

Faiza has a great management style, focused on teamwork and respect, and she has built allies across departments. One of these is Voula Stavros, the director of Customer Service, who plays a key role in the novel. Bibi has a different expectation of what being a mother means than Faiza does, and this brings in a fourth generation in social expectations. 

Goldie is bright and looks for opportunities, and this both helps and hinders her in her new position. We also see her with her best friend Issa, who is black and experiences more blatant racism than Goldie does. 

Sameera is shown both in situations where she speaks up and situations where she doesn't, and this is something that she must think about in terms of her future. 

Throughout the novel, Farsi dialogue is mixed into the conversations and shown in italics, with English following where necessary for understanding. This is done in such a natural and seamless way and I really found this so helpful in giving a sense of culture, and showing how similar we are. 

I really enjoyed this book and also found it touched on issues that need to be discussed. This would be a really interesting choice for a book club. 

Her Majesty's Royal Coven

Finished March 8

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

This is the first book in a series by the same title, and is set around a group of women that took their adolescent oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven (HMRC), a longstanding institution, first started by Queen Elizabeth I, at the same time. All of the girls had some early schooling in the magical arts by Elle's grandmother, Annie, who is an oracle. Since then they have gone their separate ways, but still retain some friendships. 

There was a civil war in recent years that has hit many of them hard, and caused two of them to lose their partners. This is a wound for many that hasn't yet healed. 

Helena, the wealthiest of the girls, is now the High Priestess of the coven. Elle, a healing witch, is living a life as a normal housewife, with her partner unaware of her abilities. Niamh, who has multiple abilities, is working as a country vet, still mourning the loss of her partner. Leonie, the only black one of the group, has started her own more inclusive and intersectional coven called Diaspora in which she welcomes witches from all cultural backgrounds as well as lesbians and transgender witches. 

This book begins with a couple of young people. One of them, Elle's daughter Holly, is showing signs of magical abilities, and Elle asks Niamh for help in introducing the whole idea of witches to her, as well as giving her some training. The other is a young man, Theo, who seems to have extraordinary abilities and caused damage to the school he was attending. Helena has retrieved him and imprisoned him, and he is in great distress. She asks Niamh to come and help, even though Niamh is no longer part of the HMRC.

It is obvious from the beginning that Helena is the most traditional and staid of the group, as well as being the one who likes the power she wields. I enjoyed getting to know the way that this imagined world worked, with witches in general more powerful than warlocks, and them having separate administrative structures while still with the witches as the ultimate decision-makers. 

We also learn the mythology of their creation and the creatures, demons, that they, as representatives of Gaia, are supposed to hold the world against. There are different kinds of witches, with certain attributes and some, with more power, who have combined skills. 

I was quite enjoying this book and seeing how the different women lived, but few of them were complex characters, with none of the younger characters in the book having a real voice, despite their importance to the plot. 

I did get frustrated with some of the characters, and with some of the later plot elements, particularly with the note on which the book ended. I realize that it was likely structured this way to encourage the reader to continue with the following book in the series, but it didn't sit well with me. 

The Black Witch

Finished January 29

The Black Witch by Laurie Forest

This is the first book in a high fantasy series set in a world similar to our own. The current political situation is only a couple of generations old and unstable. The main character is Elloren Gardner, a 17-year-old who has led a sheltered life. There was a major war going on when she was very young, with her grandmother Clarissa a heroine for the winning side. Gardnerians made a pact with the Elvish people to create a peace, but it came at a cost to many of the other ethnic groups around. Elloren's parents were killed in one of the final battles in the war and she and her brothers Rafe and Trystan were looked after by their uncle Edwin, who brought them up in a remote pastoral part of the country. 

Near the beginning of the story, Elloren is surprised by an announcement from Edwin that she will be joining her brothers at Verpax University, to study to be an apothecary like her mother. Her paternal Aunt Vyvian, at the core of the Gardnerian government is on an unannounced visit and wants to wandfast her to the son of a prominent family.

This is a land of magic, where children are tested for magic at a young age and then classified into ranking based on their magical ability. Many other nations of being have magic as well, magic unique to them. Elloren has been told that she doesn't have magic, but she suspects she might have a different sort of magic. 

As Elloren is immersed into a world of diplomacy, rivalry, and infighting and forced to deal on a daily basis with beings she has had limited to no contact with before, she must navigate this with limited help from others. 

She finds herself living with two others, one a being said to be evil incarnate, of whom no males are allowed to live, and the other a half breed that is outcast by most of her mother's people. She must earn her tuition with labour after refusing to bow to her aunt's will, and work in the kitchens with those who both hate and mistrust her. 

Worst of all, she is the spitting image of her warrior grandmother and people assume she is like her in all other ways as well. 

As Elloren meets individuals of different beings, she finds more in common with them than she does with some of her own people, and she finds herself making choices that will shape her destiny. 

This is a story of a world of prejudice, with a caste system, and betrayal between former allies. It is a world where some are trying to build bridges, while others are planning mass genocide. 

It is also a world of unpredictable magic, of dragons and elves, fae folk and werewolves. A world where maybe anything is possible. 

I found myself totally immersed in this book, and immediately placed a hold at my library for the next in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing what Elloren and her friends get up to next. 

The Ballad of Black Tom

Finished September 26

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

This short novel has a lot of atmosphere. It is apparently inspired by a Lovecraft story. The story begins with a young black man, Charles Thomas Tester, known as Tom, taking on a task of delivering a book to a house in a white neighbourhood in Queens. It is set in the 1920s, a time of open racism and police brutality, and Tom does what he can to put food on the table and pay the rent for his father Otis and himself. Otis is not well, and unable to work himself, but he is a musician, and he's tried to teach Tommy what he can. Thus Tom often takes his guitar and busks for money. 

Taking on a task asked of him by someone who stopped and listened to him, is not uncommon, but Tom can feel the evil of the book he carries and he feels compelled to take a risk and remove a page from the book so that its full evil cannot be used by the strange woman, Ma Att, that he delivers it to. But this act sets off ramifications for Tom that he has to deal with. 

He is approached by a man, Robert Suydam, who pays him a lot of money to come to his house and perform, and Tom is aware there is something strange about the request. Suydam tells him a story about a Sleeping King and refers to the Supreme Alphabet. There is a police officer, Malone, and another man working with him, Howard, who menace Tom, and try to intimidate him. 

His father fears for him, and he goes with him to a club, the Victoria Society, where he meets an old friend Buckeye and asks for advice. 

Tom takes his own actions in response to the men trying to control him, and becomes something more than he expected after he learns he has nothing to lose. 

This is a story that is unsettling and dark, and so well told. Gripping.

The Steep and Thorny Way

Finished July 20

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

Set in small town Oregon in the summer of 1923, this teen novel follows biracial Hanalee Denney as she tries to make sense of the stories she hears about her father's death over a year earlier. 

Hanalee's parents met by chance in Portland, and went to Washington state to get married as Oregon did not allow a black man and a white woman to marry. They returned to the small town her mother, Greta was from, and farmed there. 

Now the young man, Joe Adder, who was convicted of killing her father Hank, but hitting him with his car is out of jail. Joe is back in town, but not accepted back into his father's house, and is sheltering in sheds and abandoned buildings. He's back to talk to her, because he promised her father he would keep an eye on her. 

Since her father's death, Greta has married long-time family friend Clyde Koning, a local doctor, and he now lives in Greta's family's home. When Joe insists that he didn't kill her father, and there was someone else who saw him alone before he died, Hanalee starts asking questions. 

When a local girl insists that she's seen Hank's ghost and that he is trying to talk to Hanalee, Hanalee has to decide whether to accept help to try to see this ghost herself and find out what her father so desperately has to say. 

This novel taught me a lot about this time period in Oregon. The Ku Klux Klan was very active in the state, and was particularly trying to gain influence over the younger generation. This was also a time of bootlegging, with it being Prohibition, and many local men ran stills and hired others to deliver their products. It was also a time of other prejudices besides racial ones, and that is part of this story as well. 

There is a lot going on, but Hanalee must face up to what is happening in her town, and how it affects her and those she cares about personally. This is a coming of age story in a difficult time under difficult circumstances, and the characters feel very real. I also found it interesting that portions of the plot were inspired by Hamlet.

A great read. 

We Are Not Like Them

Finished June 9

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

This novel is very interesting. Written by two women, black and white, about two women, black and white, who grew up as best friends, but now face a situation that threatens their friendship. 

The story is told in alternating voices by the two characters, beginning with Riley Wilson, a black television reporter in Philadelphia. Riley grew up in a supportive family, and is very close to her grandmother Gigi, who is now in hospital after a health incident. Riley often hears her grandmother's voice in her head, reminding her of things she's told her before, of live advice, of guidance in decisions that need to be made. Riley's story opens with one of these statements "You can't trust white people,' and yet we learn that Gigi was also close to Riley's best friend, Jen. Jen came into Riley's life when they were kids and Jen's mom Cookie dropped her at Sunshine Kids to get looked after while she was working. The two girls bonded quickly and have been there for each other when needed, although they've seen each other less as adults. 

Riley moved away to go to university and then for journalism jobs, but has recently moved back home and is hoping for a shot at the anchor position in the near future. 

Jen went straight into working after high school, mostly waitressing, but now works in a dental office. She married Kevin Wilson, who was in sales when she met and married him, but then decided to follow his father and brother into the police force. They've been trying to start a family for a while and Jen is well into her pregnancy this time. 

The act at the center of the story is told at the very beginning of the book, when fourteen-year-old, unarmed Justin Dwyer, a black kid, was shot by police officers, one of whom is Jen's husband Kevin. 

We see how each woman reacts to the story, how the community reacts and how Riley, Jen, Kevin, and others have choices to make along the way. 

This book is emotional and challenging, but it brings forward a lot of questions and issues that are ripe for discussion. Seeing how the two main characters navigate their way through this is enlightening. 

My copy included an interview with the authors that really added to the story, as well as discussion questions. This is definitely one that would be a great choice for book clubs. 

The War Librarian

Finished April 17

The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong

This historical fiction novel has two timelines. One is in France towards the end of World War I in the fall of 1918, and the other is in the United States in 1976.

In 1918, Emmaline Balakin was working at the Dead Letter Office in Washington, D.C. and came across a letter that was from someone she used to know. The letter had been sent back unopened by its addressee and Emmaline had opened it to determine who it should be returned to. She ended up doing the unthinkable and answering the letter, but it also inspired her to enter the field of war librarianship, and she ended up being sent to France to look after one of the small embedded libraries at a war hospital. 

In 1976 Kathleen Carre has been accepted as one of the first women to enter the United States Naval Academy. She has dreamed of this and trained physically for it. Kathleen was brought up by her grandmother, who served as a driver in World War I, and who has cautioned her about how the military may not meet all her expectations.

As we follow both women, we see how the reality of their situations is different from what they expected. Emmaline discovers the horrors of war, as the hospital she is at specializes in facial damage and gas victims. She also discovers the realities of racism as she sees the black soldiers treated differently than the white ones, with less access to amenities and less care for their health issues. When she finds that the War Department and the ALA who have co-sponsored the libraries have also censored some materials, she is determined to speak up about the wrongs she sees.

Kathleen finds that there are some men in her class, as well as men higher up in the hierarchy who aren't happy about women being at the academy and take every chance to make their lives miserable. She also discovers that the black members of her class, whether male or female, are also prejudiced against. Without her closest confidante, her grandmother, she must try to determine who she can trust, and who she can't as she realizes that she can't face up to the challenges by herself. 

As we gradually learn of the threads connecting these two women, it was interesting to see how the same issues came up in both time periods, as they still do today. 

I read this book quickly, not wanting to put it down, and I needed to see what happened to the women involved in this story, as well as the men who touched their lives. It was both inspiring and depressing as I saw how little progress has been made on relevant issues over the years.