Tag: LitFic

I went into this book anticipating a thriller. It is not that and that’s totally on me for assuming. I wish I had a better understanding of what to expect going in.

What The Latecomer is is a dysfunctional family drama, deeply character driven, and literary; exploring themes like class, privilege, race, sibling and family dynamics, and the echoes of grief and trauma across generations.

The story follows the wealthy Oppenheimer family of NYC beginning in 1972 when a tragedy results in parents Salo and Johanna meeting; through the 90s and aughts while the Oppenheimer triplets, born via IVF after years of fertility struggles, never live up to their mother’s idealized expectations of family; up to present day when the coming of age of their sibling, with whom they shared a petri dish, but not a womb, who wasn’t born until 18 years later, has impactful ramifications on their family unit.

This book is close to 500 pages long and it’s one to really settle in with and be patient. I found it well written and immersive and enjoyed the ride, but this is not going to be the book for readers who require a quick moving plot to keep their interest.

Definitely one to pick up if you appreciate messy family dynamics.

Thanks to Celadon Books for the ARC.

Abundance opens with Henry taking his son Junior to McDonald’s for his 8th birthday. He has carefully budgeted for the trip as well as an overnight stay at a rundown motel, which will eat up nearly all the cash they have, but Henry wants to make this birthday special and also use the night as a respite to prepare for a longed for job interview he has scheduled the next day. Henry and his son have been living out of their truck for the last few months, homeless, jobless, and making do on whatever cash Henry can scrape together as a day laborer.

The story flips back and forth between Junior’s birthday and the following day of Henry’s job interview to the previous years which have brought them to this point.

Their story is gripping, sad, frustrating, desperate; your heart breaks just a little more at each turn of events. Guanzon’s writing is seamless, you can almost sense an echo of the jingling of the last coins in Henry’s pocket as he contemplates how he’ll pay for food for Junior’s stomach or gas for their truck to get him where he must go. Reading this story is a visceral experience.

Abundance intimately explores poverty, destitution, and a system rigged against success for some. Henry has a felony conviction on his record which prohibits he and his child from receiving government assistance and allows for discrimination in housing, voting, and employment. Each chapter is titled by the amount of money Henry has because in America the life you lead, the options available to you, your worth, your rights, your dignity, are inextricably tied to your bank account.

Because in the land of plenty freedom isn’t free.

The roughly 25% of Americans who live below, at, or just above the poverty line understand this principle intimately.

Abundance is one of my favorite books from the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist. Once I started reading I couldn’t put it down. This impressive debut was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award.

Beautiful World, Where Are You is not an easily consumable novel and I don’t think it’s meant to be.  It’s a highly intellectual novel reminding me quite a bit of Anna Karenina, which I think it’s meant to do.

I previously read and enjoyed Normal People specifically for its richly drawn, dynamic characters whom we get to know intimately.  I was expecting more of the same from Beautiful World and unfortunately, from my perspective at least, that’s not what this novel offers.

Beautiful World focuses on four characters: longtime friends Alice and Eileen and their respective male partners, Felix and Simon whom they strike up relationships with as the book progresses. Much of the story is told through emails exchanged by Alice and Eileen, both of whom work in the literary sphere; Alice is a successful and reclusive novelist eschewing fame, Eileen a listless, low-paid editorial assistant.

While the book chronicles the love lives and friendships of these characters as with Anna Karenina they seem to exist more as a entertaining element and props to convey the thoughts and ideas of Sally Rooney on life, politics, modern society, capitalism, class, books, and the way art, specifically writing, intersects with our transactional world.

Now, the thoughts and ideas conveyed are incredibly insightful and acutely well written as one would expect of Rooney, but the deeply intellectual exchanges of these millennials seem far fetched in a distractingly contrived way to this millennial. It’s very classical type structure within a modern novel.

Plenty to appreciate here, though not the book I was anticipating or would have preferred.

If you’re looking for the millennial response to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina this one’s for you!

The Five Wounds is a multi-generational family saga focusing on three generations of the Padilla family in a small New Mexico town: Yolanda, the family’s matriarch, who has recently been diagnosed with an an aggressive and terminal brain tumor she wants to keep secret; her 33-year-old unemployed, alcoholic son Amadeo, and his 15-year-old estranged daughter Angel who arrives pregnant on their doorstep after a fallout with her mom.

These characters are all trying to break dysfunctional cycles in search of some measure of redemption.

Richly rendered characters, frustrating and precious in turn, whose story is filled with love makes for an excellent read.

Recently named an Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist!

After Saigon fell to communist forces in 1975 hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people became refugees. More than 100,000 of these refugees immigrated to the U.S. with thousands settling in New Orleans through Catholic church sponsorship and purportedly drawn by a climate similar to their native country. I knew about the influx of Vietnamese refugees in general, but was previously unaware of New Orleans being a specific destination.

Things We Lost to the Water is the story of a Vietnamese refugee family who settled in New Orleans in 1978. A mother arrives with her 5 year old and infant sons, her husband chose to remain in Vietnam at the very last minute, unexpectedly leaving her to make the journey alone. The story follows the family of three from 1978 to 2005, their displacement, sacrifice, assimilation, the impact to them as individuals and as a family as they navigate forging a life for themselves in a new country (or as life in a new country forges them) all told in gorgeous prose.

This book is on the Aspen Words 2022 Longlist and Barack Obama’s 2021 summer reading list!