Book Report: Long Bright River

11. Liz Moore, Long Bright River (2020) (5/23/22) (BB#4)

A mystery/thriller that goes deeper than mere plot, this book explores a particular place—the rough Kensington district of Philadelphia—and the dynamics of family, within the context of the opioid crisis. It begins with police officer Michaela (Mickey) Fitzgerald being first on scene of a reported overdose, which she recognizes as murder by strangulation. Soon, other, similar deaths are announced. And Mickey becomes increasingly worried: about her younger sister, Kacey, who struggles with drugs, whose ties to family are tenuous as a consequence. And who, she learns, has not been seen in over a month.

The story is told in Mickey's voice, leaping back and forth between "Now" and "Then" as she recounts, on the one hand, her day-to-day interactions and investigations as a police officer and, on the other, her and her sister's growing up, raised by their grandmother after their mother ODs and their father takes off, and the social dynamics of that time. The adolescent Mickey finds a place in an after-school program run by the police, where she meets an older officer who takes her under his wing. He encourages her to go to college—but that's "not done" in their social class. Becoming a patrol cop seems the next most logical option. 

The narration slyly reveals and conceals facts, allowing for some twists and turns. Many characters are introduced, making the final solution mostly believable (if only a little surprising, because that character in particular seemed to have a rather random presence in the story generally speaking).

Mostly, though, as I said, this is about more than simple plot. The dive into the past allows for an evolution to occur, one that is put to the test as the present-day events culminate.  And of course, not everyone is exactly what they seem—though some are, and friendships are lost as a result of suspicion. It's an interesting, well-paced book and kept me turning the pages. Can't ask for much more.

By way of excerpt, here's the very start of the book:

There's a body on the Gurney Street tracks. Female, age unclear, probable overdose, says the dispatcher.
     Kacey, I think. This is a twitch, a reflex, something sharp and subconscious that lives inside me and sends the same message racing to the same base part of my brain every time a female is reported. Then the more rational part of me comes plodding along, lethargic, uninspired, a dutiful dull soldier here to remind me about odds and statistics: nine hundred overdose victims in Kensington last year. Not one of them Kacey. Furthermore, this sentry reproves me, you seem to have forgotten the importance of being a professional. Straighten your shoulders. Smile a little. Keep your face relaxed, your eyebrows unfurrowed, your chin untucked. Do your job.

An aside: I have a habit of noting words I don't know at the back of books as I read them. This book had just one such: strigine, as in this description:

The girl behind the counter is thin and has bangs that go straight across her forehead and a sort of winter hat that holds them in place. The boy next to her has hair that's dark at the root and dyed a faded platinum toward the end. His glasses are large and strigine.

Moore is good at description, of both people and place. I appreciate that. And at 480 pages, I'm calling this a Big Book. My rules!

Book Report: The Sweetness of Water

10. Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water (2021) (5/20/22)

I believe I found this book thanks to President Obama's annual reading list (2021). It is a beautifully written debut novel about a short period of time immediately following the Civil War, in and near the Georgia town of Ox Bow. At its center, at the start, is one George Walker, an older farmer who's never had much interest in farming but who inherited his land and knows it intimately from his frequent wanderings in the woods. On one such, he bumps into a pair of newly freed slaves, brothers, Prentiss and Landry, and he takes them under his wing, developing a new interest in raising tobacco in the process. (It is perhaps not insignificant that George's father was from Connecticut, so George is not a hardened Southerner.) 

Meanwhile, George and his wife, Isabelle, learn from their son's best friend that their son, Caleb, was recently killed in the war—a coward, running from battle. In fact, that proves not to be the case. Other things, too, turn out to be . . . different from what had been assumed. There is violence. Alliances in and around the town begin to change as George becomes more of an outsider than he already was.

The first half of the book is slow, establishing character and place, mood and emotion. Then the cataclysmic event occurs, and the pace picks up. The effect is a bit schizophrenic—not necessarily in a bad way: the second half is simply quite different, and the characterization and mood become a little less assured, giving way to action. There is also a shift in focus, as characters move in and out of the picture.

I very much enjoyed this book, especially given that this is Harris's first book. I learned something, given the historical setting; I felt for the characters and their situations; I was satisfied by the outcome. 

Here's an excerpt, which explains the title:

Landry roamed the countryside as he pleased. The desire to do so, the fascination with it, had once been a fear: whenever he'd stood before the forest with Prentiss in the flitting sunlight, the darkness in its farthest reaches had always felt like a monster lying in wait, one who had taken down his name long ago, eager to stake its claim on him. That was the dread Prentiss was blind to and that Landry could not describe: that these were two different worlds. That this new one might consume them as it had consumed their mother, and Little James and Esther [all of whom had run away from the slaveholder], and then what?
     But it turned out that each step did not bring danger. The unknown led only to more clearings, more sunlight on the other end, and so it dawned on him that there was less to fear than he'd once imagined, which was maybe a truth he'd long wished to believe—that all danger carried the faint trace of comfort, all wrongs the hint of what may be right. How else to explain a world of cruelty that had also carried in it the great joy of watching his mother at the mercy of Little James's fiddle on a Sunday afternoon, the miracle of a fresh tick mattress, the sweetness of water after a day spent picking in the fields?

I will certainly be looking for Harris's next book. His use of language is so beautifully assured, the world he creates complex.

Observations

We have been back from Portugal and France for a few weeks now. I have observations:

✧ Americans are so loud! You don't need to yell when you're sitting three feet apart!
✧ We need more roundabouts—so many more, and so many fewer traffic lights, never mind stinking left-turn arrows.
✧ We also need fewer cars. Rush hour in nearby Santa Cruz, over the hill from Silicon Valley, is worse than rush hour on the périphérique encircling Paris, with its 2.8 million-plus population. Seriously.
✧ American divisiveness did not go away while we were blissfully elsewhere. On the contrary. Hoo boy.

Which has me re-rethinking whether moving to France might not be good for our health. I'm not sure I can stand watching this country get demolished by right-wing thugs. Though when I think about it, it's been going on for well over forty, maybe fifty years. I shouldn't be surprised anymore . . . But I can still be horrified.

A few more observations, however:
✧ I thrive on wilderness, on nature—natural nature. The parts of Europe we visited are very civilized. Even the birch forests are civilized. Never mind the eucalyptus plantations all over Portugal, in tidy rows, which simply should not be. (I kept wondering, what did this land look like before?)
✧ I like banter, wordplay, having language as a quick-thinking thing rather than a slow parsing-it-out thing. My case in point tends to be a restaurant, and chatting with the server. Simple understanding. I have that at home, I have that to some extent in anglophone countries. I do not have that when I'm struggling just to grok what's on the menu . . .

These are the two main takeaways from our trip, which ostensibly was to gauge the possibility of picking up and moving to Europe. The midterm elections in November will no doubt give us more food for thought. And then, 2024.

We tried being tourists (of sorts) when we first got back: went out to breakfast! sought out bakeries for the best baguette! went to the farmers market, where we bought sweet onions, orange beets, and snap peas, and bunches of banksias for the dining room table!

But then, I fall back into my old (not necessarily good) habits and routines so quickly. It's a little frightening. Am I really so stuck in my ways? Is this it?

Perhaps undergoing the rumpus of a big move would give me a new lease on life. Perhaps that's reason enough (never mind 2024) to think about this more seriously.

You only live once. And we're not getting any younger.

Book Report: The Maid

9. Nita Prose, The Maid (2022) (5/13/22)

Well, I wanted something completely different from the last book, and I got it. I was beguiled by a review I saw somewhere in passing that mentioned the "lovable and quirky" heroine of this "smart, riveting, and refreshing" murder mystery. I bit.

And yes, all of the above is true. I enjoyed this book, though it's slight and light. But there's nothing wrong with that. It was, in fact, exactly what I wanted.

The story is straightforward: a young woman, Molly Gray, is happily and proudly employed as a maid at an upscale hotel. She is (though it's not stated as such) on the spectrum: she has trouble reading people, and she is honest to a T. Which gets her into trouble when she finds a guest dead in his suite. We learn about her relationships (real or imagined) with various other people at the hotel: a bartender she's enamored with, a Mexican dishwasher, the doorman, and . . . the dead man's wife. We learn about her beloved grandmother, who died not long ago but who taught Molly, via aphorisms and sayings, how to get by in life.

Suffice it to say, there are twists and turns—including one I did not expect at the very end (though there were foreshadowings of something).

Here's a brief, randomly chosen excerpt, from when the wife appears at Molly's door, in tears.

I rush to the kitchen, grab a tissue, and bring it to her. "A tissue for your issue," I say.
     "Oh my God, Molly," she replies. "You've got to stop saying that when people are upset. They'll take it the wrong way."
     "I only meant—"
     "I know what you meant. But other people won't."
     I'm quiet for a moment as I take this in, storing her lessons in the vault of my mind.
     We're still in the entranceway. I'm frozen in my spot, unsure of what to do next, what to say. If only Gran were here. . .
     "This is the part where you invite me into the living room," Giselle says. "You tell me to make myself at home or something like that."
     I feel the butterflies in my stomach. "I'm sorry," I say. "We don't . . . I don't have company very often. Or ever. Gran used to invite select friends round from time to time, but since she died, it's been rather quiet here." I don't tell her that she's the first guest to pass through the door in nine months, but that's the God's honest truth. She's also the first guest I've ever entertained on my own. Something occurs to me.
     "My gran always said, 'A good cup of tea will cure all ills, and if it doesn't, have another.' Would you like one?"

I worried that I'd grow weary of Molly's odd pluckiness, but there are enough characters and situations that I was entertained all the way through. 

Book Report: Night Train to Lisbon

8. Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon (2004) (5/11/22)

I don't know why I thought this book was a mystery and would be the perfect diversion during any spare moments on our recent trip to Portugal, and more specifically Lisbon—because like any good mystery set in a particular place, it would illuminate the shadowy, secret corners of that city. Ha ha: wrong! It's not a mystery, unless you consider life a mystery. Which it is. But I think this author thought he was concocting a deeply philosophical examination of just what that mystery might mean. And maybe he succeeded—if you weren't hoping for a... mystery. Light and plot-driven...

Anyway, this book, clumsily translated from the German (which didn't help), features a Classics teacher in a Swiss Gymnasium, Raimund Gregorius, who one day sees a woman who—oh no! appears to be about to leap from a bridge! He saves her, of course, and she, who turns out to be Portuguese, gratefully accepts his help, then... writes her phone number on his forehead. He then goes to a used bookstore and, rather randomly, buys a book in Portuguese by a physician named Amadeu Prado, quits his classroom, and takes the night train to Lisbon. Of course! Wouldn't you? 

Once in Lisbon, he obsessively sets out to meet anyone and everyone who knew said Dr. Prado: sisters, friends, a childhood sweetheart, colleagues. He also meets local inhabitants who help him on his quest. And throughout it all, he reads Prado's book, and then is introduced to other writings of Prado. So we get Prado's perspective on life and its confounded mysteries, from his words, and the varied perspectives of those around him.

It's an interesting artifice, but I have to say: Prado went on... (the philosophizing! oy! I confess I sometimes skipped ahead). (It may not have helped that I was reading this book via Kindle. I don't like Kindle. The typefaces are not conducive to pleasure...)

At this point—it took me almost two months to read this book—I don't even remember if Mundus, as he's called, ever tried dialing the number that was scribbled on his forehead. If he did, he got no answer: the woman on the bridge never figures into the story again. The juxtaposition of Mundus's predictable, reliable, boring life as a Classics teacher and the (relative) wackiness of his just lighting out for parts unknown for no real reason at all is sort of dealt with, but always as a background to Prado—who is a sort of mirror to Mundus, but less entertainingly so. Prado is just fraught. At least Mundus is alive.

Mundus eventually goes home, because he's having dizzy spells and needs some medical attention. But maybe he'll return to Lisbon? We don't know. And we're not sure we care.

(Sorry: this report is more a rant, but I'm just so ready to be done with this book. I think a good juicy mystery is what's needed next!)