The Guest List

By Lucy Foley

William Morrow     2020

320 pages     Thriller

“And then the lights go out.”

WoW! How I loved The Guest List by Lucy Foley. It has everything that one yearns for in a psychological thriller—interesting characters, a creepy setting, plot twists and turns, and suspense. It took me nearly to the end of the book to figure out who was going to be murdered, and most surprisingly, the murderer.

The setting is an island off the coast of Ireland that has been converted into a special events venue. It has been chosen to be the wedding site for a powerhouse digital magazine editor (apparently the perfect woman) and a handsome, reality TV superstar (also perfect). The guests arrive by ferry boat, and as they arrive, the story develops. The wedding planners have created the perfect setting for the perfect wedding. What could go wrong? Well, just like in Agatha Christie novels, with bated breath, we know that something terrible can and will happen.

I was particularly enamored with the way Foley set up the novel. The chapters are divided by narrators, but she has drawn the characters so skillfully, the reader can keep distinct the huge panoply of characters and personalities. One of my complaints in many novels with a lot of characters is that the reader needs to keep a list to help remember the characters. Didn’t have to do it this time. The Crime by the Book reviewer says that The Guest List “is a delicious blend of classic crime setup and wicked, sometimes truly nasty, characters with a dramatic bent.” Among the characters are a group of men that went to boarding school with the bridegroom. Not much good can come from this reunion or these men. Other characters are more deserving of your sympathy, including the wife of the bride’s best friend, and the bride’s sister.

As the mystery develops and the plot thickens, the reader realizes that the terrible storm attacking the island, as well as the island itself, are terrific plot devices—almost as good as the murder itself. By the end of the novel, I was totally creeped out by the bluffs, the bogs, the caves, the cold, the rain, and the darkness. One character says, “Everything seems changed on this island. It’s as though the place is doing it, that we’ve been brought here for a reason.” And quite apparently, they were “brought here for a reason.”

I don’t want to disclose too much of the plot. Suffice it to say that it is nearly perfectly constructed. It is classic murder mystery at its best. The Guest List is on many best of the summer lists. And oh, the cleverness of it all. Very impressive.

You Exist Too Much

By Zaina Arafat

Catapult     2020

260 pages      Literary

I finished reading You Exist Too Much several days ago, and have not written about it until now,  in part because I have been processing my thoughts. I think ultimately I found it to be a fascinating look at the world through the eyes of a young Palestinian-American bisexual woman. The unnamed protagonist has led a fascinating life even though she is now just in her mid-twenties. She traveled to the Middle East for most summers of her childhood, flitting between her family’s cultural norms and the cultural norms she seeks in the United States. She works as a DJ but is determined to become a writer.

The young woman is constantly in love, often, but not always,  with women, and more often than not with women who are out of reach. Even though she has several relationships, she is constantly on the lookout for something more. She is often obsessed with someone for a time, but then moves on, not quite understanding why this is happening to her.

When she tells her mother that she is queer, her mother responds, “You exist too much.” Frankly, I loved that response, because it completely encapsulates this character. The interesting thing is that one could say the same thing about her mother. She exists too much as well, and her relationship with her troubled daughter is fraught with anxiety and volatility. The narrator desperately wants to please her mother, but seemingly is unable to find a balance between her mother’s demands and her own desires.

The most poignant chapters take place at a treatment center, where she is treated for a “love addiction,” whatever that is. It is in this place that the young woman begins to understand who she is, and how her culture and her upbringing has brought her to this place. She begins to resolve some of her risky behavior and consider a path forward for her life.

I particularly liked the review on NPR. This reviewer says, “it offers a messy, multilayered, flawed, insecure character as proof that multi-everything should be a category, because humans are too complicated for every other classification, and multicultural leaves out things like sexuality and mental illness. At once complicated and engaging, this is the kind of debut novel that announces the arrival of a powerful new author who, besides writing beautifully, has a lot to say.”

There are some indications that You Exist Too Much has some autobiographical characteristics, because Zaina Arafat has a similar life story. She is currently a  writing professor, which is where the book’s narrator is heading. In a very revealing interview, she says that as she created her novel she was “writing her way through it” by which she meant that she “didn’t know what the narrator was going to discover until it was revealed to her. I could only discover that by writing the scenes and reflecting on them off the page.”  

Finally, Arafat says that her intention was to explore internalized shame, and shame that is projected on you. This may be the most important outcome of the book. How do we raise our daughters and sons to not internalize those things that are spoken to them that causes shame? How do we create the strength in our children that helps them to grow beyond that internalized shame? You Exist Too Much helps the reader understand that it is possible to grow beyond shame.

Arafat writes of characters who come from the Middle Eastern diaspora. I think that we will expect more great writing from her.

Postmark Berlin

By Anne Emery

ECW Press     2020

376 pages     Mystery

In the eleventh entry of Anne Emery’s award-winning series, “Father Brennan Burke is coming off a rough stint in Belfast and he's been trying to obliterate those memories with drink ever since. His troubles intensify when the body of one of his parishioners washes up on the beach in Halifax. 

Meika Keller came to Canada after escaping through the Berlin Wall. Now a Canadian military officer is charged with her murder. Defense lawyer Monty Collins argues that her death was suicide. That's the last thing Father Burke wants to hear. Guilty of neglecting his duties as a priest when Meika needed him most, Brennan feels compelled to uncover whatever prompted her cry for help and led to her death.

The story takes us from the historic Navy town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the history-laden city of Berlin, as Brennan and his brother Terry head to Germany in search of answers. And while Brennan is determined to find out what accounted for Meika's death, nothing could have prepared him for the events that unfold. And in the midst of all this, Brennan and Monty must deal with conflicts between the two of them, which arose out of their time in Belfast and have yet to be resolved. “

One of the reasons I like to read mysteries is because of the details regarding the setting, and definitely this is the case with Postmark Berlin. We learn a lot about Halifax, Berlin, and Leipzig, as Father Burke travels around attempting to solve who may have murdered Meika. Or was it suicide? 

The reader feels comfortable enough with Father Burke to call him Brennan, and I found Brennan to be a very relatable character, filled with flaws but with an immense number of redeemable characteristics. He is responding to what he feels is his failure to help Meika, and his guilt is palpable.

I really knew nothing about East Berlin during its Communist days, nor did I know anything about the Stasi, the East German secret police. Brennan learns a lot as well as he travels, seeking information about Meika as a way of assuaging his guilt. Nothing is as simple as it looks, as Brennan soon discovers, particularly because he is relying on a postcard that Meika has received with a postmark of Berlin and a picture of Stasi headquarters. Who sent it to Meika? Why?

I had no trouble dropping into the lives of Brennan, his brothers, and his detecting partner, Monty, even though this was their eleventh outing together. Sometimes mystery novels spend too much time trying to catch the reader up on what happened before; I felt that Emery did a good job of keeping the reader updated. However, I did get lost in lots and lots of details. Too many details. In fact, I almost got bogged down in details that did not move the plot forward. The Kirkus reviewer says, “Sympathetic characters, a complex plot, and a slew of details of questionable relevance.” My feelings exactly.

Anne Emery’s website.

Side By Side But Never Face to Face

By Maggie Kast

Orison Books 2020

186 pages   A Novel in Stories

Maggie Kast is a woman with sensibilities very similar to mine. Although she tells the story of her life in fictional form (several short stories and a novella), we can’t help but realize that this is a memoir. When asked if this is autobiographical, she says, “Partly. Some characters are based on real people and some are entirely imagined.” She wanted to “heighten the reader’s sense of the mystery underlying the fabric of our daily lives.”

Greta is the main character and a stand-in for Maggie herself. She is married to Manfred, an Austrian Holocaust survivor. Theirs is a marvelous marriage, full of drama, love, tragedy, heartbreak, and happiness. They share several children; one with special needs and another who dies as a little girl in a traffic accident. Much of the book includes short stories about the family’s life experiences. She also tells stories about her parents, their life stories and the lessons she learned from them. Finally, the novella reveals that Greta has found new romance and love as an older woman.

Spiritual growth is a major theme of the book, the theme that I most recognize and connect with. At one point shortly after the car accident that killed their daughter, Greta comments to Manfred,: “Do you think there’s some sense in the way things are, no matter how bad or how good?” Manfred responds: “The world is mysterious. Who knows where a baby comes from! Or how I survived the Nazis? Or happened to run into you?” Her conclusion: “Somehow I feel there’s a god in this. I don’t know what I mean, but I’m drawn by a thirst or hunger in my body and mind. I think I sense something holy.” 

A couple of the stories deal with Manfred’s illness and death. These struck me with intensity, because at that point Greta is caring for him as well as a young child, a special needs son, and two young adults. These stories resonated particularly with me because I shared some of them with her, but also because of the anguish and resolve with which Greta participates in this major change in her life.

All is not pain and sorrow in these stories. There are some light moments and some great philosophical moments. I think that the reader needs to be in a particular frame of mind to read Side By Side But Never Face to Face. This is a remarkable woman’s life experiences and the reader must be ready to share those experiences with her.

I remain curious about why Kast told these stories as fiction, because the book would have been equally impactful as memoir. Greta is a powerful survivor. We are so proud of her journey and her search for identity. She is a person I would like to know, as I imagine I would like to know Maggie Kast. I highly recommend Side by Side But Never Face to Face. Love the title; wonder how it evolved.

I appreciate the publicist sending this book to me, because otherwise, I never would have found it.  

Unsheltered

By Barbara Kingsolver

Harper     2018

496 pages     Literary

Barbara Kingsolver is a beloved American author, most likely best known for The Poisonwood Bible, a condemning look at the culture of Christian missionaries. I read that book as well as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the story of the year Kingsolver’s family determined to live off what they grew on their farm. I also read and reviewed Flight Behavior, a fictional look at Monarch Butterflies.  Most, if not all, of Kingsolver’s books have themes of social justice in addition to well-drawn characters and appealing plot lines.

Such is the case with Unsheltered, a novel with two story lines alternating between two centuries (the 1870s and 2015-16). My Covid-19-addled brain had trouble sorting out which characters belonged in which century, and in which story line, but I soon caught on to the purpose and social intent of the book.

What binds both stories together are two crumbling houses in Vineland New Jersey, outside Philadelphia. In the 19^th century, Vineland was the scene of a Utopian community, begun by Charles Landis, who hoped that the village would evolve “into an epicenter for the country’s greatest thinkers, writers, spiritualists and entrepreneurs, as well as farmers and grape growers” (njmonthly.com).

Thatcher Greenwood and his wife moved into an old family home in Vineland in the 1870s. Thatcher is a teacher totally enamored with the work of Charles Darwin, but he is forbidden to teach those theories in his classroom. He befriends a naturalist, Mary Treat, (who, by the way, was a real-life naturalist) and discovers that she frequently corresponds with Darwin and other naturalists of the era. An unlikely friendship ensues, and Thatcher is given courage to defend his educational principles.

Then, in the 21^st century, Willa Knox, and her professor husband Iano Tavoularis, his father, Nick, and their family move into a similar crumbling family home in Vineland. Willa believes that this house may be the house that Thatcher Greenwood had lived in, and she believes that if she can prove this, the city might pay for its repair. In this way, the two stories intersect, some of it historically factual, and in other ways, fictional.

At the core, the book is about shelter and the need for shelter. Additionally, Kingsolver speculates about collapse—the collapse of houses, the collapse of the body, and the collapse of the social structure. Although only a minor part of the plot, the pending election of Donald Trump and the collapse of the political system is never far from Kingsolver’s mind, even as she explores the collapse of Charles Landis and the Vineland utopia.

Many of the characters are very well created. I was particularly drawn to Tig, Willa’s 20-something daughter, who comes to live with her family in the crumbling house and brings a sense of order to her family’s crumbling lives. One of her more poignant observations is: “All the rules have changed and its hard to watch people keep carrying on just the same, like it’s business as usual.” I also liked Kingsolver’s recreation of Mary Treat. She comes to life as an incredible woman going her own way, in contrast to Thatcher’s wife Rose, who is very conventional. Tig and Mary Treat would have been friends if they had lived next door to each other in the same era.

There is a lot going on in Unsheltered, and sometimes the themes get mixed up with Kingsolver’s own passionate sympathies, both political and natural. For example, Charles Landis shoots a reporter in the street for criticizing him. (Does that sound at all familiar?) I appreciated her bringing to my understanding a community I knew nothing about, and also for exposing me to Mary Treat. What a remarkable woman! I particularly like Kingsolver’s turn of phrase, and found myself underlining stray sentences and thoughts. For instance, Willa’s comment about setting up housekeeping in this broken-down house: “Nesting was ludicrous, given the doomed state of the nest.”

On the whole, Unsheltered is a successful venture. It is not a pleasant story, nor a joyous one. It showed me that there have always been times when people were under threat for choosing to bear witness to their beliefs; that there have always been times when society, like a house, can crumble; and that there are always people who believe in the enduring nature of truth and justice.

The Apartment

The Apartment

By K.L. Slater

Thomas & Mercer    2020

270 pages     Thriller

I wrote this review while I was sick. It is very incomplete, but it needs to be included in my “books read.”

As I have been healing from Covid 19, I have had trouble finding a book that would hold my interest. I was experiencing too much anxiety and too little energy. The Apartment by Karen Slater met my needs.

The Apartment is very skillfully written; it holds the reader’s attention all the way through. Part of the reason for this is the way the plot keeps moving, mostly because the reader gets immediately caught up in this “too good to be true” situation. Freya and her little daughter Skye will soon be homeless because of some  unfortunate life circumstances, when they are offered an apartment in the magnificent old Adder House near Kensington Palace. 

But nothing seems right from the very beginning, and  suspense fills every page. Freya is a very appealing character as is little Skye.  We want the best for them and yet we know that the best isn’t going to happen for them. There is a great deal of suspense, and I had trouble figuring out how all the pieces fit together. Unfortunately, the ending was quite rushed and the pieces did not all get tied up. That was a major disappointment in an otherwise taut thriller.

Interestingly, this book came out first as an Audible exclusive. The paperback and Kindle copies came out today, April 28. The Kindle Unlimited copy is currently free.

The Return

Well, I am learning that I can change my mind. I suffered for about a month with Covid-19, which took a great deal out of me, both physically and emotionally. I thought maybe it was time to quit writing my blog, but as I recovered, I realized how much I missed the exercise of writing that had become second nature. I found that I loved reading a book with the goal of forming an opinion about it. I enjoyed reading reviews from expert book reviewers. I enjoyed expanding my horizons by reading books outside my comfort zone. More than anything, I enjoyed finding ways that my life intersected with the book—with the plot, or the setting, or the author.

So, with that in mind and with the fact that while my life will never be quite the same, I want this part of my life to return to normal. I hope that my readers haven’t given up on me, and will continue to consider my thoughts on the books I read. Thanks for being here.