What a Wonderful World This Could Be by Lee Zacharias

What a Wonderful World This Could Be is a fascinating character study of a woman coming of age in the early sixties. Alex was a loser in the lottery that determines our parents. She was the illegitimate daughter of a father who committed suicide and a mother who seemed to believe parents owe their children food, clothing, shelter, and little else.

Alex becomes a young woman searching for guidance in a world where she'd always been alone. Instead of making her own choices, she follows whatever paths her life throws her way. She becomes a photographer because the first man in her life was a photographer. The second love of her life is a leader in the political counterculture, supporting civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War. She follows him into a collective where she lives with members of the Weathermen branch of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). The Weathermen (named after a line in a Bob Dylan song: “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,”) was a branch of SDS who believed in using violence to achieve their goals.

Alex is a brilliant choice for the main character. She is the perfect foil for a study of the people drawn to The Weathermen. She is also concerned about traditional values such as love, family, and kids at a time when society is moving on from the repressive fifties. This novel is not just an exploration of the politics of the time. It touches on multiple aspects of that time. 

 

Circle of Darkness is a beautifully written story set during the 1930s at an upscale Louisiana Inn, located near the site where the Norwegian Wood Plantation once existed. The spirits of the people involved in a tragedy at that plantation, decades earlier, have a presence in that area.

Sonja Shivera is a twenty-four-year-old woman who supports herself as a paid companion to a mean-spirited elderly woman. They don't like each other but Sonja needs the job and the woman, Althea Stone, needs someone to help her with daily tasks such as dressing. They are staying at the Moorcroft Inn where Althea enjoys playing cards and talking with her friends. Meanwhile, Sonja meets some people closer to her age. Among those are two men she finds interesting, Freddie Marsh, who seems to like her, and Hajime Tanaka, a mysterious figure who floats in and out of her presence. There's also a woman named Anya Cambion whom Sonja finds disturbing.

Sonja has unusual qualities. She often drifts off into her thoughts, losing touch with the world around her. Here's a section describing her first conversation with Hajime Tanaka:

My movements as well as my thoughts were burdened by a confusing fogginess. When I glanced toward the other diners, it appeared that a pale, shimmering mist separated our table from theirs. I blinked to dispel it and made an effort to focus on Mr. Tanaka's words.

Circle of Darkness is filled with complex characters and Sonja is certainly one of them. I loved her realistic relationship with her employer and with Freddie. I also loved the slow build of the writing as Sonja discovers her role in the mysterious events occurring around her.

The Reeking Hegs by Pete Peru

The Reeking Hegs is a satire beginning in the form of a noir fiction novel. Nick Seighton is sitting around his office with his secretary Gina Lorrabitchinner when a call comes from Dogsson, the district commissioner. Nick is offered a case to chase the politician Atiqtalik who is running for office even though an offensive letter has been discovered among the entrails of a pregnant woman known as White Cow Walrus. The noir style is quickly abandoned and this book changes into something closer to an adventure story.

The novel is filled with characters with names such as Reverend Fullalov, Judge Aswell Whynot, King Solid Fume III, Rob Roy Rogers, and Little Knowing What, who is often referred to simply as What, which allows the author to do a little parody on the Abbott and Costello routine. As these names demonstrate, the humor in the book often comes from words used in strange ways: misusing terms, running words together, or simply putting in phrases in weird contexts. An example of this last one is “We listened intently. Sometimes there seemed to be more than one voice, making it difficult to make out individual words. But the message itself was clear: ‘Eat at Joe’s.’”

The satire is not confined to book genres. Other subjects are also targets of its pointed humor. Here the authors are taking on politicians:

Atiqtalik sensed that everyone in the crowd was watching, waiting to hear what she’d say next. She was centre stage, and almost in control. Power was, she conceded, a large pleasure and her desire for more knew no bounds. This was before she developed her unbearable loathing of eyes. She felt like belting out a verse or two as the edge of the precipice rushed towards her and leapt. Swinging her fists she pumped out a dance hall chorus, “Man ist was man ist!”

Characters in the book die often, then reappear later without much of an explanation, like something out of the old Roadrunner cartoons. The story has sections where the villains are molluscs allowing lines such as “To be safe I searched for the salt cellar in my leggings - never trust a mollusc.” It also has an odd scene where one of the main characters attempts to turn into a fish.

I loved the humor but felt it became redundant as the book went on. Perhaps this style would be better suited to a shorter format. I recommend this book to someone who likes satire and is looking for a unique read.

A History of Wild Places has interesting characters and plenty of tension but in places there are sections where someone has abilities that are over the top, even for the world Shea Ernshaw created. There is plenty to like about this novel so if you can suspend disbelief enough to accept those, this is a great story.

There is an interesting theme of materialism vs living close to nature. This subject is common but Ernshaw handles the subject in an unbiased manner. I liked that.

I listened to the audio version. The volume was a little uneven so I had to keep turning it up and down but the readers were good and the performance captivating.    

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

The Four Winds is a powerful book. It is written well and left me thinking about man's inhumanity to man. I learned a lot about the dust bowl era and I was pleased that Kristin Hannah covered the environmental issues with farming practices that were a factor in that tragedy. The characters are strong. I came to care about them a great deal which made it a difficult read but definitely a five star book.

I am an Amor Towles fan. I enjoyed The Lincoln Highway even though I did not feel it came up to Rules of Civility or A Gentleman in Moscow. The writing style was wonderful and the characters were sympathetic and interesting. However, the plot had a number of situations where things should not have worked out but always did.

Eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson and his eight-year-old brother, Billy travel from Nebraska to New York in search of Duchess and Wooley, two young men Emmett met while all three were serving sentences in a juvenile work farm in Salina, Kansas. Duchess and Wooley took advantage of Emmett's release to break out of the camp then proceeded to steal Emmett's car, which, along with some cash in the trunk, was the only thing of value he had left after his father's death.

Emmett and Billy change their plans to search for their long lost mother who is somewhere in California. They hop freight trains to chase down the people who betrayed them. They cross the United States with little knowledge of where to go but always managed to make the right decisions based on little information and run into people who help them when they need them.

What I liked the most about the novel were the strange characters. Emmett is naive but sincere and determined to protect his brother. Billy has a young boy's interests but manages to think things through in ways that are well beyond his years. Duchess has a morality that is at odds with most of the world. Wooley thinks about some important things in a naive and slow way but has a fascinating philosophy on life that rings true in many ways.

I recommend The Lincoln Highway to readers who are looking for stories that are a little different and who don't mind suspending their disbelief.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vanishing Half is the story of two twin sisters who live in a town where everyone is a light-skinned African American. The plot follows these two sisters as they leave the town where they grew up and go off together. Eventually they split, with one sister marrying a dark-skinned black man and the other sister deciding to pass for white and marrying a white man who doesn't know anything about her background.

The book delves into the issue of “passing,” the term used for light-skinned blacks who decide to pretend they are white. (This practice was also dealt with in Philip Roth's novel, The Human Stain.) It's interesting how Stella begins to pass in a gradual way. She needs a job but finds she can't apply for most of the jobs she wants due to the racism of the time and place where she is living. So she applies for a position without mentioning her background and gets it. Little by little she has to live with this lie and little by little she begins to appreciate the advantages, which culminate in her marriage to her wealthy boss.

Meanwhile her sister, Desiree, ends up in an abusive marriage. She has to leave her husband and returns to the town where they were born. Both of the sisters have daughters and those two cousins get to know each other later in the book.

The concept of passing is an interesting topic on its own but what makes Brit Bennett's handling of it even more interesting is that she introduces a transgender man. I suppose she put this character into her story so readers will compare the process of changing from black to white with the process of changing from female to male. It was strange how different my reaction was. I sympathized with the trans man but the woman passing for white seemed to be living a lie, especially when she dealt with other blacks.

I like books that make me think and this one stuck with me for a long time. The characters were well-developed. I sympathized with them which kept me wondering what was going to happen next. This is a fine book, one I would recommend to anyone.