The Nickel Boys

"An infinite brotherhood of broken boys..."

How else could you describe it, this network of young men. Young men, grown into old men - if they're lucky - carrying the weight of racism and the heartbreak of their own past.

As our story opens, a secret graveyard is discovered on the site of an old reform school for boys in Florida. When the ground gives up its secrets, the men are forced to do the same. They look back on a nightmare of torture, abuse and terror in the Jim Crow south and the beatings they suffered at the hands of the white men who could get away with it.

The Nickel Boys is a tale that somehow manages to explain this torture with language that, at times, feels all too normal. Based on the story of a real-life torturous school, it bravely and quietly shouts the sins of generations. Young men locked up for nearly nothing, young men made wards of the state, young men forced to bend at the whims of the men in power. Some broke, some disappeared, some asked too many questions and were never seen again.

Colson Whitehead is a master, you guys. His book Underground Railroad won a Pulitzer and this book is another 'meat on the bones' tale that forces us to look back at this country's past without allowing decades to brush it away.

Our protagonist has a bright future, despite the poverty and the fact his parents abandoned him. A mixup - a slight misstep - and, he's thrust into The Nickel home for boys. Inspired by Dr. King, he is determined to right the wrongs through his own resistance, consequences be damned. You root for him, your heart breaks for him. And, Whitehead carries you through his story until a twist that changes everything.

This book feels complicated and simple and exquisite all at once. These broken boys...

The Testaments

"The world was infested with men who were certain to be tempted by girls who strayed out of bounds; such girls would be viewed as loose with their morals."

And thus is the reason behind the coup that led to Gilead. But, The Testaments is so much more than that.

The Testaments, if you've been living under a literary rock this year, is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. How long? Like, 35 years. I can't imagine the torture for those who read the book all those years ago and wondered what becomes of our handmaid and the world from which she appears to escape. It probably moved beyond torture to resolution; I mean, after 30+ years or so, you stop waiting for the sequel and come to your own conclusions. I feel like I cheated that I just read The Handmaid's Tale a few weeks ago and got to dive right in to see what happened next.

The Testaments is set 15 years after Offred appears to escape the clutches of her commander. She's not the protagonist here, though. Instead, Atwood (brilliantly) tells a story through three narrators. Two are young girls when their story begins, the other is the esteemed Aunt Lydia. They're telling the same story, but each through their own eyes. Each story is rich, compelling and haunting; each became more so when they came together.

The Handmaid's Tale (the book) gives hints about Gilead and the revolution that led to this patriarchy where women are categorized and treated by their ability to bear children. The Testaments brings that story out even more and we get a better understanding of what led to the overthrowing of the U.S. government and the rise of this religiously-couched new order. It shows how women were categorized into wives, Aunts, handmaids and Marthas. The power, the violence, the control... It all comes to life in this haunting sequel.

You'll be shocked (not shocked) to know that the dystopia was formed because men feared their ability to control themselves around women. And, you watch what happens as the women taught to be obedient come to discover that the world laid out for them is based on control and lies.

"Once a story you've regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories."

What's most remarkable here is the way Atwood tells the story. Her three women tell parallel stories, but each is an unreliable. Their tales weave neatly together and I left completely satisfied.

I'm not sure how much of this story is told in the Hulu series. I'm not sure if it's based entirely on the first book or if it takes liberties with the story. But, if the series needs an ending, the tale contained in The Testaments is a fantastic place to find it.

All The President's Men

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The Handmaid's Tale

I believe I may have been the last person on the planet to familiarize myself with The Handmaid's Tale. I didn't know anything about the book and I haven't watched a second of the insanely popular Hulu series. But, I was always intrigued and it takes a lot less time to read a book than it does to binge watch a TV series.

So, there I was, wondering, WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG?

I actually don't think a lot of people are aware that the show is based on a book; maybe that's because the book came out in the early 1980s. I actually only heard about it when the sequel was released last month. It was time to dive in.

You probably know the basic gist: we're in the future and the world has drastically changed. Fertility rates have dropped, women are now property, and some exist with the sole purpose of procreating. We never even hear the main character's first name as she narrates this unthinkable world. Slowly, she reveals details about her life but also the slow progress of how society ended up this way. She talks about walking through the city she had lived in, trying to remember what was there before. How when things change in that way, the past world slowly melts away.

It's about power, control, sexism, fear... And, it's absolutely riveting. The simple way its written makes the horror of the story feel even more real. 

In the introduction to the book, Margaret Atwood explains that she won't write about anything that hasn't already happened somewhere in the world. Reading that, then reading the book make the reality more chilling.

I'm working on the sequel now... 

The Gone Dead

Anticipointment.

That's a dumb word we use in TV news sometimes when a promo for a story gets you excited, then the story itself lets you down.

This book had a lot of promise, but not a lot of payoff.

I've read a lot of southern literature lately. Something feels good about books set in the deep south. I like the setting as character and there are a lot of incredible authors in the genre right now. So, I gravitated towards this book.

In it, a woman returns to the Mississippi Delta decades after her father's death. She hasn't been back since, but she inherited his old house and decides it's time to return, however briefly, to prepare the house for sale and maybe solve the mystery of  her father's death.

An up and coming black poet, Cliff was found dead in his yard in what the police declared as an accident or maybe even a suicide. Cliff's family and his daughter Billie never quite believed it and, given the racism of the 1970s when he died, she had good reason to doubt the official story. As she talks to people who knew her dad and meets up with a scholar who has written about his life, she also learns for the first time that she had gone missing the hours after her father's death. Why had no one mentioned it? Where did she go? And, who was covering it up now?

Are you anticipating? I was too. Then, I found myself anticipating and anticipating and never quite receiving the payout.

It's not that the story is not interesting. It is. But, it just takes too long to get to the good stuff. And, when it does, it follows the most obvious track.

I was anticipointed... And, wish I would have bailed out halfway through.

Three Women

This one. This is going to be hard to describe. But, I just shared with the woman who recommended it to me that this book was "so fascinating and so uncomfortable and I couldn't stop reading it."

I should probably explain.

First, a shout out to the woman who told me I should read this book. Kristi is crazy smart, well-read and wonderful. Her dad is one of three on one of the most popular radio shows in Spokane and I'm lucky enough to have met Kristi through him. She asked if I wanted to borrow it, then dropped it off at my house. But, she didn't just leave it on the porch in a plastic bag, which is what I would have done. She put it in a cute bag, added a card and included a candle - because she said she thought I would appreciate reading a book with a new candle burning. Isn't that wonderful? It really has nothing to do with the book, but I just wanted to say we should all be a little more like Kristi.

Anyway.

This book is billed as a revolutionary, groundbreaking, unflinching look at the concept of female desire. Over centuries, female desire has been misunderstood and dismissive. The author of Three Women actually set out to write a book about male desire, only to discover it was female desire that deserved more thoughtful exploration.

So, she dove in.

Taddeo followed the stories of three women in various parts of the country with complicated levels of desire. One woman is in a sexless marriage in which her husband won't even kiss her on the mouth. She aches to be desired and thinks she's found it in an old high school boyfriend. Another is a young woman who, as a teenager, had a sexual relationship with her high school teacher. The last is a beautiful, chic, successful woman whose husband likes to bring others into their relationship and likes to watch her have sex with other men. The book ping pongs between their stories and you feel yourself rise and fall as their emotions become intertwined with the desire they chase.

Guys, it's a lot. At first, it felt like you were reading someone else's diary. As the book continues, though, you feel like you're reading things most people wouldn't write down, let alone be able to admit about themselves. It's cringe-worthy, heartbreaking, fascinating... But, it can be really frustrating, too, and really hard to read.

Even Oprah said this book was groundbreaking feminism. I found what I learned disappointing. Not that the book was disappointing - not at all. But, what I took away was that women followed their sexual desire, couldn't detach from the emotional connections and found themselves in ashes while the men with the same desires simply walked away. The teacher, in fact, was named North Dakota Teacher of the Year. I found that - the reality of how female desire is portrayed and received - incredibly disheartening.

I may take away something completely different than you would. I feel like this book, more than most, is colored by a thick layer of your own personal experience. I also think there's a hell of a lot more that needs to be de-stigmatized about the way women satisfy their sexual desires.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

It's weird to be critical of a book based on such an incredible story of love and survival.

It's weird to be critical of a book that moves so quickly, you finish it on a single Phoenix to Spokane flight.

I'm about to do both.

Let's get weird.

I've seen this book for awhile now and never picked it up. I read and studied a lot about the Holocaust in college - fiction writing and historical - and something has to really stand out now to get me back to it. But, I was about to board a plane without a book and needed something to pass the time. This looked compelling enough and it was in paperback, so what did I have to lose?

The novel is based on the true story of a man imprisoned at Birkeneau who takes a job as the man who tattoos numbers on new prisoners at nearby Auschwitz. The job feels like cooperation with the SS, but it's a way to survive and even be given some "perks" in a truly horrific place. While carrying out his job, he meets and falls in love with a fellow prisoner. The rest of the book is their story of survival and a story of how they found love in the midst of human tragedy.

Is it powerful? In story, yes. But, for me, the pages simply flew by. It's not that I'm insensitive or even immune to the horrors that took place. But, the writing simply lacked the depth a story like this deserves. I can't explain why, but it left me wanting more. More lessons. More insight. More... depth.

A Holocaust novel should not be a quick read. But, I was uplifted (spoiler alert - but, it's written on the back cover, too) by the fact that their love did survive the camps.