Astrid Sees All

 By Natalie Standiford

Atria Books     2021

272 pages     Literary

Most young adults want excitement in their lives and the home town is not the place to get that excitement. It is no different for Phoebe, a young college graduate from Baltimore in the insightful novel, Astrid Sees All. Phoebe follows her college friend, Carmen, to the crazy lower Manhattan scene of the early 1980s. She has been devasted by the death of her father, but she knows that she must find something new in her life. The two young women descend on the East Village and find themselves enmeshed in an underworld that is both exciting and frightening. Phoebe becomes the fortune teller at the “it” club in the neighborhood. She disappears into a character, Astrid the Star Girl, and tells fortunes using the ticket stubs from the movies she and Carmen have seen—a brilliant plot device, by the way.

These are young women searching for an identity in the midst of shadows of all sorts, past, present, and future. We understand Phoebe to a certain extent but many of the other characters remain very elusive, including Carmen. There are no easy answers to the dilemmas that face them and no bright future, despite the fact that they are young, full of ambition, and drive. On the other hand, as they walk into the situations that are determining their future, we mature readers are cautioning those characters to be careful, to take it easy, and to not make such stupid decisions.

Astrid Sees All serves us best as a look at the gritty side of New York in the 1980s. We touch base with celebrities and scoundrels, druggies, as well as others as fresh and innocent as Phoebe. There is a lot of grief in the novel, but the plot keeps moving and the reader keeps reading. As we watch Phoebe weathering everything that has come her way,  we root for her survival. One reviewer called the characters “damaged young dreamers”, and that is a very accurate assessment of the lives we are reading about.

The novel has resonance in part because Standiford is a person who lived that scene and describes it so vividly. The book moves along surprising well, filled as it is with yearning and insight. It’s pretty dark, but I was able to move through it quite rapidly and appreciated both the dark and light of the story. All of a sudden this morning, I recalled one character and why she was included—I had not figured it out before. She is an old woman living in the building where Phoebe and Carmen are living. Addled by dementia, she wanders around the building knocking on doors, asking “What time is it?” Phoebe is extremely annoyed by her, but I believe the old woman is the voice of reason, calling on Phoebe and the others: “What time is it?” Time to get your shit together!                                                                            

 All of my children lived in New York City in their young adult lives, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. My oldest son and his wife left the city and moved closer to home before the arrival of their first child. The other two left when the city tanked following 9/11. I very much appreciated the crises that enveloped Phoebe and the other characters, including her mother’s anxieties, because my children suffered from some of the same discomforting situations, and I was frequently anxious for them.  On the other hand,  I missed the city’s charms when my children moved to more familiar territory and I had no reason to visit the city.

Astrid Sees All is on everyone’s radar right now. Standiford was interviewed via Zoom for our local library this week, and there are also many reviews and interviews of the author to be found online. Here is a one minute sharing of the plot by the author. After thinking about it for a couple of days, my opinion is that the book is extremely readable but surprisingly flawed.

Natalie Standiford has written several children’s and young adult novels. Astrid Sees All is her first adult novel. Here is her website.

Gaijin

 

By Sarah Z. Sleeper

Running Wild Press     2020

244 pages     

Here is a brief summary of Gaijin by Sarah Z. Sleeper.

The Japanese word gaijin means "unwelcome foreigner." It's not profanity, but is sometimes a slur directed at non-Japanese people in Japan.

Lucy is a budding journalist at Northwestern University and she's obsessed with an exotic new student, Owen Ota, who becomes her romantic interest and her sensei. When he disappears without explanation, she's devastated and sets out to find him. On her three-month quest across Japan and Okinawa, she finds only snippets of the elegant culture Owen had described. Instead she faces anti-U.S. protests, menacing street thugs and sexist treatment, and she winds up at the base of Mt. Fuji, in the terrifying Suicide Forest. Will she ever find Owen? Will she be driven back to the U.S.? Gaijin is a coming-of-age story about a woman who solves a heartbreaking mystery that has altered the trajectory of her life.

 When we think of Japan, we often think of grace and beauty, and Sleeper has represented that culture in a very poetic way. Gaijin is a coming of age story, perfectly appropriate for the adult reader as well as the young adult audience. Lucy is naïve as she sets out to Japan to find Owen, whom she considers to be her true love. She muses, “I clung to the notion that my dreams of the person and the place would match the reality.” As she begins her journey, she concedes, “I didn’t put it together then, the folly of searching for someone who didn’t want to be found, moving to a country I didn’t understand.” It is all a romantic dream. Luckily she has found a job and some fellow employees to aid her in her search—including Owen’s brother Hisashi.

 She discovers things about Owen that she wishes she had not known, including the idea that he might have committed suicide in the Aokigahara Forest at the foot of Mount Fuji. It is sometimes called the “suicide forest” because thousands of Japanese people go there to commit suicide every year. Luckily, he is still alive, but to tell more would be to spoil the plot. I first read about the suicide forest in the book The Three by Sarah Lotz.

The reader comes to a deeper understanding of the difference between realism and idealism when reading Gaijin. The plot is slender, but it enhances our understanding of a young woman who has a dream that she is unable to fulfill. Many of us have dreams that are unrealistic, and we come to admire how Lucy grows toward a more realistic understanding of herself as well as her understanding of Owen.

Gaijin is author Sarah Sleeper’s first novel after a career as a journalist. Here is her website. Like many writers, art imitates life, and she worked at a magazine in Okinawa, much like Lucy in the book. She says that she based her novel on the four years she spent in Japan, and on the challenges she faced in that country, including racism, sexism, and xenophobia.

 This is a lovely little book, a quick but satisfying read.

 

 

 

 

Where the Sun Will Rise Tomorrow

By Rashi Rohatgi

Galaxy Galloper     2020

270 pages    Historical Fiction

The Shortlist

Here is the book summary:

“It's 1905, and the Japanese victory over the Russians has shocked the British and their imperial subjects. Sixteen-year-old Leela and her younger sister, Maya, are spurred on to wear homespun to show the British that the Indians won't be oppressed for much longer, either, but when Leela's betrothed, Nash, asks her to circulate a petition amongst her classmates to desegregate the girls' school in Chandrapur, she's wary. She needs to remind Maya that the old ways are not all bad, for soon Maya will have to join her own betrothed and his family in their quiet village. When she discovers that Maya has embarked on a forbidden romance, Leela's response shocks her family, her town, and her country firmly into the new century.”

India in the early 1900s is a part of history that I knew very little about, other than a couple of movies—Gandhi, and A Passage to India. I had a vague understanding of the conflict between the Hindu and Muslim cultures of India and Pakistan, a subject dealt with extensively in the book. The two young women are attempting to negotiate life during a volatile time in Indian history. I enjoyed reading about the role of women and how Maya and Leela were attempting to alter history.

I found the novelized history of that time to be fascinating, knowing that the Hindu-Muslim conflict continues in the region. The Kirkus reviewer says, “The novel does an excellent job of placing readers directly into the politics of the time, highlighting the clash between old and new and between the region’s various subcultures.”

I am even more fascinated by the biography of the author Rashi Rohalgi, Wow! I would really like to meet her! She has studied marginalized peoples and lesser-known histories and is a professor of world literature in Norway. You will need to read her biography on her website to get the full picture of her incredible life journey. Here, also, is an interview with her as the book Where the Sun Will Rise Tomorrow was released earlier this week.

Beautiful characters. Beautiful cover. Fans of historical fiction will really enjoy this book.

A Girl Returned

By Donatella Di Pietrantonio

Translated by Ann Goldstein

Europa Editions     2019

170 pages     Literary

A Girl Returned is the totally spellbinding coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old, unnamed Italian girl, who is forced to leave the home in which she was raised and return to her birth family—a family that she has never met. She is left totally in the dark as to why this is happening; she believes that the woman who raised her is dying and that is why she has to leave.

The couple who raised her had considerable money; the family she is returned to is very poor. There are several children; three teenaged boys, a younger girl, and a baby. She cannot bring herself to call the woman “mother”, so she refers to her as “the mother.” Everyone is under lots of economic and emotional stress; the children have a great deal of work that they must do every day; and the parents treat the children with little respect and the back of the hand.

Luckily two of her new-found siblings welcome her into their lives. Vincenzo, the oldest son, and Adriana, the younger sister guide her through the transition, although Vincenzo dies unexpectedly midway through the narrative. The girl strives to gain a foothold in life, but she never stops trying to figure out what happened to her city mother, and the reason she was A Girl Returned is heartbreaking.

The girl suffers greatly from the loss of place—the loss of self. At one point she says, “I was an orphan with two living mothers. One had given me up with her milk still on my tongue; the other had given me back at the age of thirteen. I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart, I don’t know even now.” Yet, despite the anguish, she prevails, growing strong and resilient. Her spirit is indominable.

A Girl Returned is beautifully written and artfully translated. Ann Goldstein, the translator, also translated the Neapolitan Series of books by Elena Ferrante, and this book has somewhat the same feel. More than just another Italian novel, A Girl Returned explores some of the same family dynamics as well as some of the same scenery and story pacing.

I was entranced by the review in the Washington Post. The reviewer praises the author for her storytelling skills, her humor, and the way that “she knows just when and where to slip the pieces of her jigsaw into place — all while leaving emotional gaps, psychic wounds that can never heal.”

Lest the reader worry that this book may be too heavy a summer read, please be assured that it is less than 200 pages and it moves very quickly. Sad and heart-warming all at the same time. If you loved My Brilliant Friend, you will love A Girl Returned.

The Perfume Burned His Eyes

By Michael Imperioli

Akashic Books     2018

253 pages     Literary

Well, I really goofed on this book. I didn't recognize the author's name, and I didn’t know who Lou Reed was, one of the main characters. Where have I been? If you don’t know either: Michael Imperioli, the author, is an actor, best known as a character on The Sopranos. Lou Reed, was a famous singer from the 70s and 80s, and the title, The Perfume Burned His Eyes, comes from one of his songs. 

The story takes place when the narrator, Matthew, is in his teens, and Lou Reed is at a low point in his life and career. Matthew and his mother move from Queens to an upscale apartment and an upscale school in Manhattan. Lou Reed and his girlfriend live in the same building. In the truest sense, Matthew comes of age as he relates to Lou as well as to a lovely girl from his class, Veronica, who claims to be a witch and who turns tricks for spending money. He becomes acutely aware of the way others relate to the world, and he grows in his own strength and his own wisdom. Matthew’s view of the world is very much aligned with the city, in all its gritty glory. Finally, the world becomes too much for him and he loses touch with reality for a while. The Booklist reviewer calls him “Holden Caulfield without the cynicism.”

Years later, Matthew meets up with Lou Reed again, and as he watches him perform magnificently, he realizes that they both have come far. “It made me see clear the fluid and idiosyncratic possibilities in our lives, or maybe more accurately: the fluidity and idiosyncrasy that is our lives. It made me see that there are escape routes out of hell, and if we are fortunate we can make a clean getaway and survive.”

The Perfume Burned His Eyes is told completely from Matthew’s perspective. His mother is seldom in the picture, although she does help out when Matthew falls apart. We know Lou Reed only through Matthew’s eyes. We also are aware of Matthew’s very real anguish about Veronica.   Matthew is a moral young man, and he knows that he is treading on dangerous ground as he interacts with her and with Lou Reed. 

As I read, I was reminded of another New York coming of age story that I read recently, Neon in Daylight. Inez, one of its main characters is very similar to Veronica. As a matter of fact, sometimes I got the two confused.

Michael Imperioli said in an interview that he wrote the book during a difficult time in his teenage son’s life, and he had been spending  a lot of time thinking about teenage angst. I could relate to much of it—having gotten three kids through adolescence as a single mother, and now watching teenage grandchildren deal with their own anxieties. I believe that he captured the setting, the times, and the coming of age beautifully. It was a compelling read. 

Here is Lou Reed singing Romeo Had Juliette from which the title The Perfume Burned His Eyes came.

The Language of Flowers

By Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Ballentine Books     2012

322 pages     Literary

Book club is Thursday night, and I am fascinated about the potential discussion we will have about The Language of Flowers.

 

The premise is that each variety of flower, wild and cultivated, has an emotion attached to it. In Victorian times, one gave flowers that were connected with the emotion he or she wanted to convey. So, for example,  in the language of flowers, my favorite Gerber daisies convey cheerfulness. Giving Gerber daisies might be a good idea to bring to a hospital patient. The novel is followed by a glossary of flowers and their Victorian meanings.

Victoria, the protagonist of The Language of Flowers is a child who has been tossed about by the foster care system; she is so damaged that she fits nowhere. Her case worker says that she is “detached, quick tempered, tight-lipped, unrepentant.” At age 9 she ends up with grape farmer, Elizabeth, who tells Victoria that this is her last stop and this is where she will stay. Elizabeth grew up on a flower farm and she teaches Victoria the language of flowers. Victoria realizes that she has found her calling for life. She memorizes all the flower meanings, creating scrapbooks of pictures of flowers with their meanings attached. But even this idyllic setting ends up being just a way-station for Victoria, and within a year she is back in group homes until at age 18, she ages out of the system and is on her own. 

The narrative shifts back and forth from Victoria at age 9 with Elizabeth to Victoria as an 18-year-old out on the street, stealing food and sleeping in public parks. A wonderful florist names Renata sees Victoria’s potential and hires her to work in her shop. Renata is a wonderful character, who seems to see Victoria’s need for self-preservation and offers just the right amount of nurturing and the right amount of help.

Diffenbaugh tries to tackle a lot of subjects –adoption, foster homes, emancipation, homelessness, single motherhood, and attachment disorder—perhaps too many subjects, because I didn’t quite know where to place all my emotions. The least resonant part of the plot (for me) concerned the day of the adoption hearing, when Elizabeth is going to adopt Victoria, and suddenly Elizabeth backs out of the deal. The reasoning behind it is so nebulous that I never did quite figure it out. At that point, Diffenbaugh lost me as a committed reader, and I finished the book simply because my book club is going to discuss it this week.

What I did like particularly were the flowers and the way Victoria found purpose for her life in the flowers. As I was reading, I kept thinking of a young woman I know who has had a similar life experience to Victoria. She has found purpose for her life with animals, and a kind dog kennel owner has nurtured that love of dogs by giving her a job at the kennel. 

I also realized as I read The Language of Flowers that I was feeling emotionally manipulated by a contrived plot, and a lot of loose ends. I was let down by the ending, while at the same time I realized that the overarching theme resonated with me. The New York Times reviewer felt much the same way I did, but the Washington Post reviewer loved it. She found it “original and brilliant.” I guess that is why there are so many genres of novels—books to appeal to everyone. 

Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s website. I kept thinking her last name was dieffenbachia—which is a common house plant. I wonder what it’s Victorian meaning is.