Katie by Michael McDowell

 

Prospects aren't exactly cheery for Philo Drax, the daughter of a small-town seamstress in 1871, until a letter arrives from her estranged grandfather. His farm and well-being are being (mis)managed by the villainous Slapes, and he fears for his life. 

Hoping for reconciliation (and potentially an inheritance), she disguises herself as a housemaid and rushes off to rescue her grandfather. But alas, the Slapes have already sunk their grimy claws in too deep and Philo is unable to save him from a horrible death. The Slapes leave with his money and a newfound enemy in Philo.  

Philo's story is an absorbing melodrama but Michael McDowell (who wrote the screenplay for Beetlejuice as well as several novels -- including the incredible Blackwater saga) balances the weight of her story with his depiction of the Slapes. They are stupid, brutal, and scary, none more so than the titular Katie, a psycho psychic with a flair for blunt force trauma. But there is also something undeniably funny in the way he writes their dialogue (truncated and simple, like their minds) and I could not resist being charmed by their simple pleasures (though murderous thieves, they don't splurge on anything but theater).  

Katie shares a bloodline with Victorian penny dreadfuls. This is evidenced by its bloody, sensational plot and evocative historical setting. I particularly enjoyed the depiction of a boarding house that reminded me of the 1937 film Stage Door. It's a setting that is quippy and fun but also sobering in its depiction of what it is like to be a single young woman in New York City in the late 19th century. 

There's also a Pride and Prejudice sort of romance, rather swoony, and one of the saddest murder scenes I've ever read. What I'm trying to say is Katie has just about everything I could want in my entertainment: drama, suspense, romance, gore, humor. Check it out! 

Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

Family, friendship, love, and secrets… Ibeh brings us a story deeply unwrapping what it means to love, even when everything around you tells you that the love you feel is wrong.

The story revolves around Obiefuna and his journey of self discovery as he grows from a child into a young adult. His life is not without its obstacles, as he discovers quickly he is gay and that his mannerisms are seen as weak and feminine. In Nigeria, these qualities are frowned upon, the roots of their hate deeply ingrained in homophobia. Obiefuna does what any of us would do to survive: he hides these parts of himself.

But one can only hide for so long. His father eventually sends him to a (very rough) boarding school, and it is there where we see many of the books’ events take place. We see Obiefuna’s destruction and evolution, his death and rebirth. There is nothing else to do but adapt when you are thrown to the wolves.

While the story is primarily about Obiefuna, through alternating chapters, we also follow the perspective of his mother, Uzoamaka. We see her deepest inner thoughts as she watches her son change. It is through her that we start to see a different type of love, one that transcends what Obiefuna has always thought he understood. 

Told in third person perspective, the book has an elegantly straightforward voice with a serious tone that still allows for laughs and smiles. It draws us into an attachment for the flawed Obiefuna as his understanding of love is consistently challenged. If you’re anything like me, it’ll also pull out some tears.

It's probably my favorite one so far out of the books I read in 2024, so please check out this book. It's a very beautiful example of how sometimes, the very places that challenge us the most can be the very same places that show us the truest possibilities of what love can be.

- Leo H

Time Before Time by Declan Shalvey and Rory McConville

Tatsuo works for the time traveling smuggling business  known as The Syndicate. He and Nadia, an FBI agent, are now on the run from the The Syndicate after stealing one of their time machines. Thus begins the graphic novel series Time Before Time (you can read the first issue here). 

At first glance it looks like just another time travel book, but a couple of things set it apart:

In the usual time-travel thriller you will see one company or group in charge of all time travel but here they incorporate many different moving parts that make it feel real. In addition to the smuggling Syndicate there is the robot-fearing Arcola Institute and the hypocritical company the Union.  

In most time travel, even with all the tech, they still annoyingly stay in the general same time period. In Time Before Time, they actually use this ability for more than just escaping from people or chasing them, and, even better, they aren't safe even when they do escape one spot because other people have time travel, too, and the writers emphasize that.

The art is stylized, yet still gritty. Character drawings are lanky and action-oriented. They are wildly different from almost every other comic or graphic novel out there.

This, with all the other reasons (which I will not get into detail about due to them being spoilers), make Time Before Time a must-read for all sci-fi fans out there.

- Guest Review by Juvenile Patron Seth B.

Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale

 

If you're in the mood for an action-packed vampire story that is darkly funny, wildly violent, at points crude, and non-stop fun, have I got a recommendation for you!

Chris Stiles is (cue gravelly voiceover) "a Vietnam veteran they couldn't kill" whose dead brother's ghost leads him to a small Indiana town to hunt down some unknown evil. 

Bart and Del are stepbrothers dared to spend the night at the old Danner house, abandoned for almost a century after rumors of a gruesome double homicide. 

They don't find any ghosts, though. They find a walled up vampire! And he's thirsty! And EVIL.  

The book pretty much explodes from there, Stiles unloading bullets from his impressive arsenal and the boys wielding nunchaku and Molotov cocktails while they gather a militia of townsfolk. Martindale writes with gusto and glee and his descriptions are cinematic. See here this vision:

"There was a demon in the road. It stood backlit by hellspawned flame, its wings folding and unfolding restlessly, its impossibly long arms drooped at its sides and reaching all the way to the ankles." The light shifts, and it is revealed to be Chris with billowing overcoat tails and two shotguns. Look out vampires! 

Speaking of which, this is not the book to read if you want sensitive, moody vampires struggling with the ethical dilemma of blood-sucking. These are monsters of insatiable hunger and that's it. Once your friend, girlfriend, or neighbor is turned, the only thing they need is to be staked, beheaded, shot up with silver, or burned. Or all of the above. Often, all of the above. 

I wasn't sure how I'd like Nightblood, to be honest. It's very macho. But it's also a complete blast and well-written and I loved it. I'm thrilled that indie publisher Valancourt Books is re-publishing horror gems from the 70s-90s with their Paperbacks from Hell line and I'm excited to add a few to the library's collection. 

-Michael G.

Change by Edouard Louis

"What I'm writing shouldn't be seen as a story of the birth of a writer but as the birth of freedom, of being uprooted at all costs from a hated past." - Edouard Louis

Though it began with a sordid scene I would have preferred not to witness - which the author returns to later in the book with more context - this autobiographical novel quickly became engaging reading. It is about an extreme makeover - not as much in the physical sense - though there is a little bit of that - as in transforming the author's entire persona through enormous, unrelenting effort as he grows into young adulthood. 

This is not a story of someone maturing by way of the usual developmental milestones of life. Edouard Louis (the character shares the name of the author) spent his early years in an impoverished, intellectually empty, emotionally abusive, alcohol-soaked environment in a rural French village steeped in xenophobia and homophobia, the latter of which was a daily source of cruelty to him. He didn't learn even the most basic table manners, and sometimes had to beg for food for the family and to ask officials at his public school to reduce incidental fees because his parents were too embarrassed to do these things when they couldn't pay for things. The homophobic hostility he experienced from family, schoolmates and strangers, while deeply cutting, was also what propelled him to a better life. He becomes the only person in his family to be educated beyond primary school.

In his early twenties, Edouard found that the more educated he became, the more he realized he didn't know - and yearned to know. He couldn't overcome a sense that he had to continually do more to catch up to what others knew. So he read constantly - all the great writers and all the books recommended by friends - finishing a new book about every other day. 

He is tested by the world again and again, sometimes in ways that leave him feeling humiliated. Those sometimes humbling tests and their accompanying setbacks made him increasingly determined to elevate his life and in doing so, to once and for all sever himself from the hostile, oppressive home town milieu that he often feared would reclaim him and drag him back down. How he finally resolved this dilemma for himself comes at the end of the book.

I found it fascinating to accompany Edouard Louis and witness his phenomenal transformation from poorly educated, uncultured working class boy to Paris sophisticate mingling with royalty at that city's most exclusive dinner parties, and ultimately to globally recognized author whose work has been translated into several languages. He succeeded due to dogged determination to continually educate and refine himself, and he did so in a remarkably short time. All the while his parents rejected him and the direction his life was taking him. 

What resonated most with me and kept me reading was Edouard's forthright manner both in writing his story and in his interactions with everyone he met during his ascendancy. He has a knack for attracting people and forging friendships with sympathetic, caring, accomplished and wealthy people who help mentor him along the way and want him to succeed. There is some sexual exploitation in a few of these relationships but in most of them there is encouragement, generosity and solid friendship. This is undoubtedly due to Edouard's openness about his embarrassing upbringing without any self pity or intent to manipulate others. He's a likeable human being whose transparency in relationships helps propel him forward while he works like hell to achieve a life makeover.       

This is one extreme makeover, and  it was very satisfying to see this man overcome such a dead-end, mean start in life. For this gay writer, it truly did get better. His book tells how he made that happen. 

Reviewed by Marianne W

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Lauren has an interesting problem.

After coming home to her London flat from her best friend's bachelorette party, still a little drunk, she discovers that she has a husband. Except he definitely wasn't there when she left for the evening, and she definitely doesn't remember marrying him, despite what the wedding photos on her mantel and saved in her phone might suggest. Then, just as suddenly, this husband goes up into the attic to change a lightbulb, and a new husband appears on his way back down.

And so begins one of the strangest years of Lauren's life.

Equipped with a seemingly magic attic and a never ending supply of husbands, Lauren cycles through different versions of herself, based on the husband that emerges from her attic. Sometimes they barely have time to settle in before she sends them back up to try another. Sometimes she sticks with them for a little, trying them on to see if they fit (if you're getting dating app vibes from this, you're not wrong). Each new husband resets her life - oftentimes, it's cosmetic, like different paint colors and decorations in her flat, but sometimes it results in more seismic changes, like her sister suddenly single with no children, or a different job that she has no idea how to do. While her life resets with each new husband, time continues to move forward and Lauren begins to wrestle with some hard questions. Chief among them is this - how do you know you're making the right decision when the possibility of something better is just a short trip into the attic away?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The author, Holly Gramazio, is a game designer, and I think her skills in writing games lent themselves well in how this story plays out (pun absolutely intended). Like a game, we're dropped into the action right away, as we meet Lauren just minutes before she meets her first husband. As the story continues, more information is teased out. Sometimes it's small things, like Lauren figuring out that switching husbands wipes out any bad decision-making (which she absolutely takes advantage of), and sometimes it's big things, like when she figures out that her attic isn't just creating husbands. One of things that struck me about this story has to do with the fact that Lauren always gains a husband, and never just a long-term relationship, or fiancé (though once, the husband is someone she is about to divorce). There's something interesting about the idea of skipping out on all of those early relationship struggles, but now having to suddenly deal with the struggles of being married, and Lauren realizes that too, to a certain extent. In true magical realism form, not everything is explained - the magic attic just is, and there isn't an explanation as to why this is happening to Lauren. That didn't bother me, but I know that could be a turnoff for others. Lauren also has to sometimes go to extremes to get the husband back into the attic, and some of the decisions she makes in those moments will either be funny or shocking, depending on how you feel. I did find Lauren to be relatable and sympathetic, but we also don't get a full sense of who she is outside of this particular moment in time. Ultimately, I thought this was a fun read, and it has stuck with me since I finished it a few weeks ago, so I highly recommend it!

- Amy R.

P.S. Holly Gramazio designed her very own husbands generator and published it online, in case anyone wants their own taste of the magic attic: https://www.hollygramazio.com/husbandsgenerator/row.html#96113. I think I'll stick with this one for awhile:

Icarus by Kayla Ancrum

“Love, care, and tenderness. They are our birthright. They are not 'too little'; they are what matters most. When instinct tells you to pay attention and choose tenderness, do it.”

- Kayla Ancrum

This is a story of friendship, vulnerability, and being willing to put yourself on the line to chase after what your heart truly desires. Sometimes we find ourselves caught in a cycle of being isolated, overwhelmed, wearing ourselves thin, and we don't realize how truly awful it is until we are seen by others and experience their love. As we follow Icarus through his journey, these lessons become more and more apparent. 

Icarus is an art thief, breaking into the home of Mr. Black to steal priceless artwork and replace them with the forgeries his father makes. Forced into this life from a young age, he has intentionally walled himself off from both meaningful connection and the spotlight. Things change during a break-in when he is discovered by someone, and this moment breaks a crack in the walls Icarus tries so hard to uphold. Just like a crack does, it spreads until Icarus finds himself face-to-face with light he didn't know felt so good.

I deeply recommend this book. Please give it a read and let your heart strings be tugged, just like mine were. And if you find yourself wanting to chase after a light, don't be afraid to fly. For even if your wings melt, there will always be people to catch your fall.

- Leo H.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

Every year, as our Summer Reading Challenge gets closer and closer, I find myself increasingly stressed and therefore less likely to read. But once the challenge starts, the stress eases, and I find myself reaching for the fluffiest of books as a little treat (though, to be honest, I find myself reading fluffy books all the time, and there's literally nothing wrong with that). Enter The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

Olive Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in biology, studying at Stanford. After a few tepid dates with fellow grad student Jeremy (and after seeing how well he hit it off with her best friend, Anh), Olive breaks things off, and lies to Anh about dating someone new, just so Anh will take a chance with Jeremy. So when Olive spots Anh at the lab late one night when she is supposedly on a date, Olive does the only logical thing - she kisses the first guy she sees. Except she realizes that she kissed Dr. Adam Carlsen, who is not only a professor, but also a well-regarded scientist and researcher, and the reason why half of her fellow grad students either have nightmares or drop out before graduation. When Olive apologizes and explains the whole lying-about-dating thing to Dr. Carlsen, he shocks her by suggesting that they keep the ruse going. As time progresses, Olive begins to realize that Adam isn't as horrendous as he seems. Even worse, she catches feelings, feelings that threaten to explode the more they get to know each other...

This one hits some of my favorite romance novel tropes, like fake dating and forced proximity, with a secret softie of a male main character who would do literally anything if it meant Olive would be happy, though she obviously doesn't realize it right away. Even though I pretty much knew how the story would end, I was more than happy to go along for the ride. I wouldn't have minded a little more spice, but the amount we got was fitting to the story. It does have a third-act breakup, which is becoming one of my least favorite romance novel tropes, but I can forgive it since I loved everything else. There is a good reason why Ali Hazelwood's books have become instant bestsellers, and I look forward to reading more by her!

Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway

Confession: this may be considered sacrilege in literary circles, but I've always liked books about Ernest Hemingway and his orbit more than books by him. Yet I suspect I'm not the only one. His life was so huge and colorful compared to that of most of us. At times his personal adventures seem larger than his literary creations. Fun fact: three of Hemingway's four wives were from St Louis (Hadley Richardson, war correspondent and novelist Martha Gellhorn, and Vogue fashion writer Pauline Pfeiffer.) His fourth and last wife was the exception; she was from Minnesota. Mary Welsh Hemingway - also a war correspondent - was as complex as he was - talented and highly accomplished, courageous, likeable and unlikeable, magnanimous and petty, enjoying the world's favorable spotlight throughout her life, and ruined in the end by alcohol. This book is an incredible accomplishment by a retired Canadian civil attorney and law school Dean who spent many years tracking down and reading thousands of letters and documents and interviewing as many friends, family members and publishing world associates of Mary and Ernest Hemingway as he could locate. His voluminous findings have been integrated into a sensitively rendered interpretation of the last years of Hemingway's storied life and what it cost his wife Mary to spend these years with him as his mental health deteriorated. It wasn't only the writer that charmed the world who ultimately lost his mind. Though not the specific focus of this book, intergenerational, multigenerational mental and emotional health issues in this family are tragically evident in its pages. Depression, substance abuse, and suicide - all are expressed in various ways and patterns up and down at least four Hemingway generations and likely more. Gender bending was another multigenerational issue in the author's family. Hemingway was curious but also ambivalent about gender fluidity and sexual identity. In childhood his mother frequently dressed him in girls' clothing - perhaps planting a seed that bedeviled him into adulthood. He experimented with themes of gender switching in his writing as well as in his marital relations. Yet once his sons were grown, he angrily rejected the transsexual identity of one of them. Maybe that was a latent manifestation of how he felt about the clothes he wore as a little boy. Even if in close up you don't entirely like these people - Ernest and Mary - and you are especially repelled by their thoughtless destruction of animals and magnificent sea life, your heart is broken by the time you finish the book. Broken simply by the overall sadness of it. The Hemingways lived large, yet despite the richness of opportunity and life experience and the worldly glamour and respect they enjoyed, so many members of this family - including Hemingway's widow - came to sad and lonely ends. Reviewed by Marianne W

Cocktails with George and Martha by Philip Gefter

 

"Never again. It is like having an elephant sit on your chest for two hours."

    - My mom, remembering seeing the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

"It is still the truest rendering of love in marriage that I know. Call me a romantic."

    - From the preface, Cocktails with George and Martha

Ever since we learned about the custom of exchanging roses and books for San Jordi's Day on April 23rd (thanks, Helen Oyeyemi!), my partner and I have been dedicated observers. This year I received Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I don't think this had anything to do with how many martinis I drink, but it could be related. 

I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and could watch it just about any night. Like the author Philip Gefter, I find it a story about love in marriage, albeit through a scathing, harrowing perspective. From the beginning, Albee's dialogue crackles and Taylor is electric herself as the acerbic Martha. Burton transforms himself into the brilliant, embittered George and they ricochet off each other through the course of a drunken, vicious afterparty. George Segal and Sandy Dennis are perfect as the unwitting guests who fall prey to George and Martha's games. 

It was fascinating to learn about the behind-the-scenes of the movie. Gefter starts with a biography of playwright Edward Albee and describes the controversy that boiled around his play. Up until then, most marriages portrayed on tv were fairly conflict-free with delineated gender roles. Serious arguments, if there were any, would be conducted behind a closed door (off-screen). The dynamics between George and Martha, not to mention their antics, were condemned by some critics as obscene. That said, it was a sensation and touched on something in the zeitgeist.

Gefter links Martha's frustration ("She's discontent") with Betty Friedan's "problem that has no name" from her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique. Women were increasingly "discontent" with their lot and Albee unleashed onto the world a character who expressed all her frustration, resentment, and disappointment with terrifying articulation. Though it arose out of a particular era, Virginia Woolf remains a vital and vicious portrait of a marriage. It is about a specific, dysfunctional marriage, but it's also, ultimately, about marriage in general, and how frightening it is to live a truly examined life, bereft of illusions. 

The making of Virginia Woolf is laden with absolutely fascinating characters: Albee and his almost supernatural intelligence and wit, successful at such a young age; the obscenely glamorous Elizabeth Taylor and powerhouse husband Richard Burton, whose fame (infamy?) as a couple drove so many of the choices that were made about the movie; careful, introspective, insecure, and ultimately daring producer Ernest Lehman; and finally, perhaps the real star of the book, auteur Mike Nichols, whose work on Virginia Woolf seems to say to create a masterpiece you may need to be uncompromising, manipulative, and alienating. 

Into the Light by Mark Oshiro

A book told with a non-linear style and a sprinkle of a split perspective, Mark Oshiro delivers a story about belonging, community, home, and trust. It heavily utilizes themes of religion, neglect, abuse, and rejection, using the foster care system as a tool to convey them.

Manny is a Latino boy who's been living on his own for a long time. He's learned the rules of how to survive alone on the streets, but everything changes when he sees a television news program of a dead body found in Idyllwild, the secluded community where his sister lives. Eli lives in this very same community, strictly abiding by its rules and doctrines, but recent changes, events, and doubts form a crack in the neatly built foundation of his life. As the two boys' lives collide, we learn lessons of what family and community really mean. 

I enjoyed this book very much because of the writing style, in addition to the non-linear story telling. There's always a sense of suspense and you really get a feeling for how deeply impacted the characters were (are) affected by the world around them. One thing I learned after reading this book though:

Love will always find you regardless of who you are or where you go.

Check it out if you're interested!

- Leo H.

Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery by Linda Murphy Marshall

This book tells a story about a rather emotionally haunted house in Kirkwood, Missouri.

"Abraham Lincoln's comment that a house divided against itself cannot stand rang true in our home" the author wrote. She explains this both architecturally and psychodynamically. The Civil War era house in an upper class neighborhood that she grew up in looks beautiful and graceful from the outside, but rooms and spaces are awkwardly laid out within. On each floor, some rooms were left unfinished and empty. The same could be said of her family.

This is Marshall's account of growing up in that unusual house, and of the effects of her highly accomplished parents' neglect of both the house and their children.

The author grew up to become a language translator stemming in part from her constant efforts as a child to understand her parents' frequently cryptic and sometimes cruel ways of responding to their children's needs for emotional nurturance, safety and sometimes even critical medical care.

Marshall's retrospective translations of life in that house and family show how people can appear to have every economic, social and educational advantage while living disconnected, emotionally starved lives. The kindest thing I can think to say of her socially prominent, Washington University educated parents (long deceased) is that they weren't into parenting. That's putting it mildly.

Kudos to this woman for overcoming much of the childhood cruelty and neglect she experienced in the house called Ivy Lodge.

Reviewed by Marianne W

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

 

If you're in a reading slump, may I suggest George Saunders' A Swim in a Pond in the Rain? 

Adapted from his lectures to Syracuse MFA writing students, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain uses the writing of Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol, and Turgenev to explore what makes short stories work and how reading can, possibly, make us better people.

Saunders begins by introducing these stories as resistance literature:

The resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, and comes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being is worthy of attention and that the origins of every good and evil capability of the universe may be found by observing a single, even very humble, person and the turnings of his or her mind. 

Throughout, we are asked to sympathize with characters seemingly very different from us, separated by time, nationality, sex, social stratum—but alike in deeper ways. A good author can connect us to these characters. The more you understand a character, the easier it is to extend grace towards her. If it works in fiction, can it also work with our passive-aggressive sister-in-law? One hopes. (That comment about the potato salad was really too much).

Each story is paired with two essays by Saunders full of his wit and insight. I wondered sometimes if I would have enjoyed the story on its own without his commentary. Always, I looked forward to reading what he had to say. Each story had something to teach us about writing and reading.

It was like learning how to read again. How generous Saunders was to share these essays with us! With a library card, we get to experience what it's like to be his students.

As a bonus, Saunders provides a few writing exercises. Even if you aren't a writer, I would encourage you to give them a try, if for no other reason than to deepen your appreciation for good writing. If you did, let us know what the experience was like by commenting below or stopping by the circ desk!