So Misguided

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane | Book Review

April 30, 2024 / Monique

Hard to beat Stephen King’s blurb, “Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.”

Set in the summer of 1974, during Boston’s heatwaves and on the eve of the desegregation of schools, there is a murder of a young Black man on a subway station in “Southie”, a neighbourhood known for poverty, drugs, and housing projects. The Irish immigrants and descendants of Southie are in an uproar about sharing their school and having half of their kids bussed to a nearby Black school. So on the surface the novel is a police drama and the crime seems to be that four Irish-American teens have attacked an up-and-coming Black man, whose only crime was having his car breakdown in the wrong neighbourhood while he was en route home from his retail management training program.

That indeed is the crime, but the novel unveils the systemic racism and rule of law that undermines the welfare of those four teens who are fed lies from early on and jacked up on drugs fed to them by the neighbourhood watchmen who are running girls, guns, and drugs.

The Irish mob has a stronghold on the community of Southie until Mary Pat’s daughter is one of the teens on that subway platform. Mary Pat is one tough Broad and she has now lost both husbands and both children to Marty Butler’s gang of thugs and way of life. She disrupts his shit in a way that not even the police can, and it’s her story of hate, poverty and crime that is the real power of the novel.

This is America’s version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where human folly and racism lead to greed and cruelty at a scale that is nauseating.

If you enjoyed The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters or Hell of a Book by Jason Mott then Small Mercies explores the same depraved indifference to human life, and the corruption the erodes democracy and exacerbates inequality, poverty, and division among communities.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane is published by HarperCollins Canada. And NPR has a a great, indepth review.

True Biz by Sara Nović | Book Review

April 30, 2024 / Monique

Fantastic story about a group of teens making their way through high school. In their case, it’s River Valley School for the Deaf, and unbeknownst to them changes are afoot.

Charlie is new to the school and has only a beginner’s grasp of sign language because her parents operated on the hope that her cochlear implant would bring the promised hearing that the doctors preached.

For hearing readers, the novel is more than revelatory. In fact the author’s note has quite a list of schools for the deaf that have closed over the last decade and throughout the book are references to how the Deaf community is forced to struggle.

Charlie is assigned to Austin, the school’s undisputed king of the school. Austin comes from a long line of deaf family members. He’s the opposite of Charlie when it comes to signing and he lives almost exclusively in the Deaf community. Austin’s world goes wonky when his parents have an unexpected pregnancy and the baby is born hearing.

February is the school principal and she assigned Charlie and Austin as buddies in the hopes that they’d teach each other new things. Feb’s parents were deaf and she is a champion for the kids and the school, but so many things are out of her control.

If you liked the film CODA and the tv series Wednesday, then this novel set at a boarding school for deaf students is up your alley. It’s charming and has all sorts of deviant behaviour. I learned a lot about sign language, disability and civil rights, and the continued injustice that the Deaf community faces.

True Biz by Sarah Nović, perhaps ironically, is an enjoyable listen.

Maame by Jessica George | Book Review

April 3, 2024 / Monique

This book is as beautiful and colourful as its cover.

Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi, but for Maddie, it means woman. That is her family nickname. She is not the head of the household, but she is the most responsible. Her mum regularly spends a year in Ghana running a family business, then returning to London for a short time. Maddie’s older brother James is away working and travelling in the music industry, and he never picks up on the first ring. Maddie is busy working as PA in a hectic theatre company but is otherwise at home caring for her retired dad who has Parkinson’s.

This is a smart, funny, sad, beautiful book about a young woman growing up, and fighting microaggressions at work and family friction at home. In some ways Maddie is comforted by the sheltered upbringing orchestrated by her religious mother and her Ghana traditions, but in other ways Maddie is ready to break out on her own.

When her mum returns this year from Ghana, she encourages Maddie to move out of the house. The rollercoaster that ensues has a hint of Bridget Jones’s Diary as Maddie aims to reinvent and improve her social life (and love life). It’s joyous, funny, awkward and heartbreaking. But it’s also a story of depression, social anxiety, and grief. It’s about growing up Black and dealing with stereotypes.

Maddie’s parents moved to London as an opportunity for their children. But with an ill father and an absent mother and brother, Maddie has to navigate her identity solo. Her ability to speak Twi is mocked by various aunties, she has to deal with the “I’ve never dated a Black girl before” comments, a roommate questions her full-day of hair washing. The beauty of Maame is that Maddie loves to write and she has stories to share; the novel is presented as her telling her story through a mix of interior monologue, emails and texts, and background stories.

I think ultimately this is a story about belonging and the relationship you have with yourself. Maddie is worthy of so many things—especially positive attention from family, coworkers, and friends. I’m so glad she comes into her own.

The audiobook is great: https://www.audible.ca/pd/Maame-Audiobook/B0B1KJ4M3X?eac_link=mJg7UvxCdz4Q&ref=web_search_eac_asin_1&eac_selected_type=asin&eac_selected=B0B1KJ4M3X&qid=3FCSwMGe0W&eac_id=145-2640021-0791633_3FCSwMGe0W&sr=1-1

In Search of Perfumes by Dominique Roques | Book Review

April 3, 2024 / Monique

Travelogue meets memoir in this fascinating trot around the world in search of 17 of the world’s most precious ingredients that make up the majority of perfumes on the market.

Dominque Roques is a master sourcer of natural ingredients like rose, vanilla, vetiver, Peru balsam, and frankincense. Each chapter is dedicated to a different country and ingredient: Laos for benzoin, Madagascar for vanilla, Venezuela for tonka bean, India for patchouli, and more. At each stop, Roques introduces the reader to the properties of the ingredient used in perfume and to the politics of the country and to the small communities of people responsible for cultivating these luxury materials.

This is a story of small farmers, tree tappers, distillers, and producers who source the best ingredients, often with traditional tools and techniques. And their counterparts in the luxury food and fragrance industry who create amazing scents based on those source materials. The book is travelogue, history lesson, political science, agriculture and climate science rolled into one.

It’s a beautiful book to listen to, and I must order a print copy for reference.

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks | Book Review

March 18, 2024 / Monique

That old adage “write what you know” applies here. Tom Hanks’ debut novel showcases how legendary films with star-studded actors are made—basically on the backs of over-worked, highly skilled women. The multi-part story makes this novel feels like it’s actually a movie made into a book.

Part 1 is set in the late 40s, post-WWII. Bob Falls returns from war and meets his young nephew and namesake. Little Robert is a fantastic artist and uncle Bob takes Robby to Clarks Pharmacy and buys him comics and a milkshake—then he skips off to have a few beers with his motorcycle buddies and gets run out of town.

Cut to 1970 and Rob is an illustrator for an underground comic publisher in Oakland, CA, where he one day gets a letter from his long-lost uncle and it inspires him to draw his uncle’s story as a comic. In this case, flame-thrower Bob Falls becomes the alternative-comix antihero Firefall.

Cut to the present day and Bill Johnson, legendary director has optioned the rights to the comic book and is turning it into a superhero movie: Knightshade: The Lathe of Firefall.

Cue the cast: The rest of the book profiles various stars of the film, the director’s assistants, gofers, and everyone key to the production.

I think this would be a difficult book to read with the asides and footnotes, but Tom Hanks’ narration in the audiobook guides the way. As the creator, he emphasizes what’s important vs. an aside, and the myriad cast read their various parts, which helps this drama unfold in a comprehensible way.

It’s easy to see this as a story of men: Bob who goes to war, Robby who becomes the comic artist, Bill who directs the production with the original star OKB who gets fired in favour of Ike Clipper, etc. But I read this as a love note to the women who run the world. The opening part features Bob’s sister and mom to Robby. She nurtures the young boy’s artistic talent and looks after her brother. In following sequences, we meet Bill’s best hires: his director’s assistant Dace Mills (Candace, plucky shop assistant), who then hires superstar Al Mac-Teer (Allicia, hotel front desk staff extraordinaire), who then hires Ynes Gonzalez-Cruz (ride-share driver turned expert hand at problem-solving). We meet Wren Lane who is the title-lead Knightshade, and becomes part of the director’s inner circle. Each of these women are masters of their domain and they are rewarded for it. I wish more of the book’s reviews highlighted what I saw as a humble man bowing to the great women around him.

See the publisher’s description or check out the book on audible.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch | Book Review

March 10, 2024 / Monique

Prophet Song—2023 Booker Prize winner—is a heart-wrenching novel set in an Ireland where law and order is unravelling. A government oozing authoritarianism has enacted the Emergencies Act and is rounding up dissenters. Rebel forces are trying to regain control but the government has the upper hand and is using every measure possible to obscure from the world what is actually happening.

Eilish is caught up in the political turmoil when her union-leader husband disappears and her eldest son, only 17, runs away to join the rebel forces. She is a working mom with 3 other children at home and she is denied a passport for the baby. Her father has dementia and gets lost in his own home. There are so many reasons for her not to leave when given the chance. Indeed it doesn’t feel like a chance at all.

The magic of this novel is in its discomforting truths about unrest in Western democracies and where it leads.

The saddler’s is closed and the shutters are down on the fruit and veg shop where somebody has scrawled in blue paint HiSTOrY iS THE LAW OF FOrCE, a fist drawn beside it. She follows the road seeking another ATM, recalling something her sister said, the self-satisfied voice on the phone, history is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave, the statement is obviously false … History is a silent record of people who could not leave, it is a record of those who did not have a choice, you cannot leave when you have nowhere to go and have not the means to go there, you cannot leave when your children cannot get a passport, cannot go when your feet are rooted in the earth and to leave means tearing off your feet.
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Prophet Song is a dark novel about the pain of loss and separation, and I can’t help but think of the lines of women pushing baby buggies of belongings into Poland, migrants and refugees risking death in dinghies, whole neighbourhoods being bombed into submission and pushed into so-called “safe zones”— I felt immense empathy for those trapped by circumstance in the chaos of modern times. This is not some future or past too hard to bring to mind.

All the Colour in the World by CS Richardson | Book Review

March 10, 2024 / Monique

An absolutely beautiful and poetic story about a young art historian growing up in Toronto in the 20s and 30s and being shipped off to war in the 40s.

I listened to this as an audiobook and the phrasing of the sentences sounded more like poetry than prose. I loved all the art references and side notes about how different colours came to be used in art. And I got swept away in the love story and tragedy of this young man.

If you liked the beauty of Tom Lake, the historical references of The Sleeping Car Porter, or loved CS Richardson’s previous book End of the Alphabet, then give this a read.

Available on audible

Or see the retail links on the publisher site.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai | Book Review

March 1, 2024 / Monique

The Great Believers is a beautiful, gentle, heart-wrenching novel about a group of friends decimated by the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The story is told from two perspectives and timeframes. The Chicago 1980s story focuses on Yale Tishman and his boyfriend Charlie, who’s the editor of Out Loud magazine. They have a tight-knit group of friends who are quickly dying from AIDS. They are realizing too late that some earlier cases of pneumonia were likely the virus. Condoms and safe sex are new conversations and not everyone is onboard. It’s all a mess—and eerily similar to the shame and blame game of the early COVID days. The second storyline is Paris 2015 and is told from the perspective of Fiona, or Saint Fiona as her grown daughter likes to moan. Fiona’s brother was one of the first in the 80s friend-group to die and Fiona ended up being power of attorney for many of his friends. Fiona is reconnecting with another member of the group in Paris and it’s clear that she’s carried the burden of burying those beautiful boys for decades.

Beautiful boys abound in this novel. Yale is working on acquiring a private collection of works done by artists in Paris just before and after World War II. The donor is Fiona’s grandmother and she specifically wants Yale to have the works for the gallery he manages. She sees the connection between Fiona and Yale losing their friends to the same loses she suffered during the war. Likewise, Fiona’s stay in Paris coincides with the 2015 terrorist attacks on nightclubs and other venues, again where young lives are cut short.

This is a novel about love and all its forms. There’s clearly the love among friends, in particular the familial love you feel for your chosen family vs. your biological family, especially in the case for most of these boys who are estranged from their parents. There’s romantic love, unrequited love, self-destructive love, and self-love.

There are a few Shakespeare references to Hamlet, in particular the role of Horatio as the deeply trusted friend and, after Hamlet’s death, the keeper and teller of Hamlet’s story (insert Fiona here). But given the themes of love, I can’t help but think of Romeo and Juliet. Fiona as the nurse. There’s a Roman and Julien, there’s thugs and street battles, beautiful parties and costumes, the tragedy of young lives sacrificed. Surly there’s a joke about dying on one’s sword to be made?

Like other fans of this book, I can’t heap enough praise on to it. I found it emotionally moving but not distressing. The reverberations of the 80s are felt from the first page through to the death metal bass drop of the Paris nightclub in 2015. Oh boy, this was a good book.

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott | Book Review

February 26, 2024 / Monique

Hell of a Book is a hell of a book. This is a familiar refrain throughout the book, a running meme. The basic premise is that The Author is on cross-country tour to promote his first novel, Hell of a Book. There are many hilarious, insider jokes about how publishing works, the grind of promoting a novel, media training, and the various handlers who shepherd the author through each city’s schedule of events. This author is being run off his feet and by the end he has a break down. But the break down isn’t really about the tour schedule. The backdrop is that in every city, at every stop, there is a news story about the latest Black kid who has been shot dead by the police. The author is a Black author. He’s asked to speak to this tragic situation. But what is he going to say?

The Author’s story of growing up in a small town, and escaping to become a well-travelled writer, is told alongside the story of The Kid, a boy whose skin is so black that people can’t seem to not mention it. The Kid even suffers slurs from his lighter-skinned cousin who taunts him with the name “Soot.”

The twist is that the stories of The Author and The Kid may be one and the same. The Author has a wild imagination and often sees things that aren’t there. He sees The Kid often enough that it’s hard to know if The Kid is his imagination, or his younger self.

But the reveal isn’t whether The Author and The Kid are the same. The reveal is about what it means to be Black in America. Racism, injustice, and violence prevail, and it means that Black people live with the fear of that ugly eye noticing them, attacking them, destroying their families. They live with that sense of disbelief that the violence continues, that nothing seems to change, that identifying with your community could be fatal.

The Kid knows that his parents want him to be unseen and safe. Invisibility is safety. Don’t get noticed. The Author demonstrates how self-destructive this coping mechanism is but, between his story and The Kid’s, it’s clear that the anxiety and stress of racial trauma is generational. Why is there a collective head nodding about having the conversation with your kids about what it means to be Black and how you have to behave differently to survive? Why is that acceptable? And yet that’s the reality readers are presented with. What you imagine may not be someone else’s reality.

The Kid imagines a world where his father isn’t shot dead by police, where his parents aren’t afraid for him because of the colour of his skin, where he can look in the mirror and love who he is and what he looks like.

Is that not what we all want? Self love? During media training, the Author is told that his novel is a love story. I think it is. And we all have a choice to uphold or disrupt the narrative.

Check out the publisher site for where to buy the book.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin | Book Review

February 26, 2024 / Monique

A rollercoaster of a novel about friendship and ambition.

Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes readers on an emotional journey through the intertwined lives of two friends, Sam and Sadie, as they navigate the complexities of their friendship and their shared ambition to build amazing video games.

Sam and Sadie meet as kids in a hospital rec room where they quickly bond over video games. Sam is a patient and Sadie is visiting her sister. Their friendship blooms until Sam discovers that Sadie is also getting community service credit for their time together. They have a falling out and don’t reconnect until university when through happenstance they spot each other in a subway tunnel.

Sam and Sadie re-bond over video games. Sam is studying mathematics and Sadie is studying video game design. Sadie shares one of her games with Sam and it kicks off a grand adventure, which involves them quitting school (or deferring a semester initially) in order to create their game. Their game ends up having mass appeal and launches their careers.

This is the story about two best friends, who often fight like siblings but love each regardless. It’s about the enduring power of connection we have to friends who have known us since childhood. There’s a ton of emotional depth as Sam and Sadie explore the bittersweet nature of human relationships. Tragedy and poor communication pulls them apart multiple times but they always find a way back to each other.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow delivers! This novel is a must-read for anyone who has ever cherished a friendship that transcends time and distance. The cultural references from 80s and 90s art, music, and entertainment will provide anyone who grew up during that time a great sense of nostalgia. Highly recommended.