Literary Fiction

Book Review: NIGHT WATCH by Jayne Anne Phillips

| Jessica Crawford

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips is a 276 standalone novel published by Knopf in 2023, and the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Genre:

Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis:

In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.

The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.

Opening Line:

I got up in the wagon and Papa set me beside Mama, all of us on the buckboard seat.

My Thoughts:

This book, the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is stirring literary historical fiction. It tells the story of ConaLee and her family and the many ways their lives are affected by the Civil War.

The fighting has ceased, but not the grief.

The family includes a daughter of Irish immigrants working as indentured servants on a plantation, and the infant born of a slave raped by the master who can pass as white. When the latter leaves his pregnant wife to fight for the Union, he is obviously subjected to the horrors of war – but so are his family, left on the homestead to protect themselves from deserters from both sides of the war. After enduring the resulting traumas, ConaLee and her mother find sanctuary at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum of Weston, West Virginia, and its moral treatment regimen.

It’s common in these times. So many of our patients, all classes of society, find themselves sole survivors, nine years on, of our–national catastrophe. It is still–unspooling, O’Shea said, like malignant thread.

Important to note that this novel is written in a way that will turn some readers off. Dialogue is not in quotation marks. The flow of each paragraph meanders a bit. It worked for me, but it won’t for everyone. It is a very well researched book, and includes several photographs of the asylum as well as contemporary artwork of the Civil War era.

I greatly enjoyed this story overall, but the writing style did have me feeling rather distanced from the climax scene, making it much less impactful than it should have been, and I was underwhelmed by the ending as a result. But still 4.75 stars altogether!

Book Review: SANDWICH by Catherine Newman

| Jessica Crawford

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a 240 page standalone novel published in 2024 by Harper.

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Literary Fiction

Opening Line:

Picture this: a shorelined peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean.

Synopsis:

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

My Thoughts:

Life is a seesaw and I am standing dead center, still and balanced. Living kids on one side, living parents on the other, Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will of course. You have to.

Holy nostalgia, Batman!

This book is equal parts heart-wrenching and hilarious, and wholly bittersweet.

The main POV character is 54 year old Rocky, who tells us of this year’s annual week-long vacation to Cape Cod with her family, in which she is sandwiched between young adult children and elderly parents. I could relate so much, if not in particulars then in vibes, to the fond recollecting of these trips of the past, when the children were younger and the parents in better health. My own children, my spouse and myself are about a decade behind in age than the family in this book, but we just recently had a similar weeklong beach vacation that has become a tradition, where my parents joined us for part of the time.

This part of the story, the joyful reminiscences of past family quality time as well as enjoying one another’s company in the present, made me want to hug this book (alas, I took it in via audio format). There was also a very funny streak, often provided by either Rocky’s adult children or else her own internal monologue.

Less heartwarming but still appreciated was all the commentary about the bodies of middle-aged women. I myself have not yet had the distinct displeasure of perimenopause, but I sure know it’s coming for me before too much longer, and it seemed to be addressed really well here. Rocky rails against the betrayals of her own body throughout her adult lifespan, and how it never feels like it belongs just to her. Her family often feels the brunt of her hormone-fueled rage, but she is self-aware enough to recognize that some of the problem is hers, not all theirs.

Then there were more difficult aspects of the story: pregnancy termination and loss, mental health struggles. And the troubling knowledge that one’s parents are drawing closer to the inevitable end.

There is plenty of talk about sex in this book; there is no violence (but see the above content warnings regarding pregnancy). The audio narrator was amazing, except only that I absolutely despised the voice she chose to use for Rocky’s daughter Willa – a twenty year old lesbian described as butch, but whose voice sounded like an especially whiny prepubescent child. I greatly enjoyed the character of Willa – her voice, not so much.

This book made me laugh out loud, it made me tear up, and it made me wish I was physically capable of hugging soundwaves, so in all I think that’s worth five stars. Perhaps I’ll also make a note to revisit this one when menopause starts knocking at my door…

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Book Review: BEAR by Julia Phillips

| Jessica Crawford

Bear by Julia Phillips is a 304 page standalone novel published by Hogarth in 2024.

Genre:

Literary fiction

Opening Line:

The ferry from Friday Harbor left fourteen times a day-fifteen on weekends-to loop around San Juan Channel’s scattered islands.

Synopsis:

A mesmerizing novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor – a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods, by the celebrated author of Disappearing Earth.

They were sisters and the would last past the end of time.

Sam and here sister, Elena, dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works long days on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits the shape of their existence.

Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the plan to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger.

A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us – and within us – Bear is a propulsive, mythical, rich novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.

My Thoughts:

This is slow-moving literary fiction ruined by infuriating characters that I had a hard time understanding.

Sam and Elena are adult sisters living paycheck to paycheck with their ailing mother an the island off the coast of Washington State. A bear swims to shore one day, likely on its way to Vancouver in search of a mate. One sister is unreasonably distraught by this all out of proportion to the situation, while the other thinks it’s the best thing that’s ever happened. These differing views throw a wrench into their relationship.

That’s it, that’s the story.

When they first see the bear outside of their home, the women freak out, hide out of sight of the windows, and cower. They are upset that it takes the officers from the sheriff’s department something like 20 minutes to arrive after they call. What exactly did they expect them to do? Then, even knowing that their sick mother is likely to die soon, Elena repeatedly tries to call her sister at work and sends her a text that says only, “CALL ME,” and it turns out the urgent message is just, “I saw the bear again.” …okay? And? Then the dumb dumb starts to feed the wild animal.

Sam is the main POV character, and she is just the worst. Not only does she continue to be absolutely terrified that this wild animal exists on the same island as her and cause problems with her sister because of this, she is unspeakably rude to several characters who are nothing but nice to her. One of them she feels justified in being nasty to just because his financial circumstances are more comfortable than hers. She asks another for help, and the woman offers help, and Sam’s response is, “Screw you!”

Then, after very little plot but a WHOLE LOT of angst, the ending feels emotionally manipulative.

There is sex in this book, not in any scenes that the reader is actually present for, but referred to in some fairly graphic terms. There is a bit of mild violence.

It’s clear I was irritated by some aspects of the book, but the writing itself was good, as was the audiobook narration (other than there often being audible loud intakes of breath before each line, which seems like an issue with the editing, not the voice work). I liked some of the message regarding the sisters’ differing views on their lives in general. But ultimately, for the aforementioned reasons, this one was a miss for me.

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Book Review: HEADSHOT by Rita Bullwinkel

| Jessica Crawford

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel is a 224 page book published by Viking, and has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.

Genre:

Literary Fiction

Synopsis:

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.

My Thoughts:

You know how your very favorite books are not necessarily the same as what you would call the best books you’ve ever read? You can really appreciate the writing and what an author has done with their work, but then there are those books that just make you feel All the Things and just the experience of reading them brings you joy?

I would say HEADSHOT is well written literary fiction that’s really special in what it says about its characters—each individual girl’s life, motivations, hang-ups, and sheer physicality—and yet it didn’t really do much for me personally.

There are several powerful lines for quoting. For instance:

The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular.

In this way, decades into the future, boxing will be for Andi Taylor a kind of failed identity marker—something she tried on and wore around but that she later realized wasn’t her, or didn’t fit with the rest of her life, or her as a boxer didn’t fit the way the world needed her to be in order for her to survive.

It is this ability of Kate Heffer’s to rewrite the reality of her own desires that will allow her to turn every narrative of her life into a self-fulfilling truth. She is, in this way, able to perceive and remember only those events that fit with her current perception of the world around her.

There are people who, just by looking at disasters, implicate themselves in the violence at hand. These people, the self-implicating people, are far less likely to be victors, but they are more emotionally intelligent, and more likely to be able to see details that others might miss.

But I just wasn’t that into the story, such as it is. I got less and less interested in it as I read on. It gives play by plays of each match in the Daughters of America boxing tournament, and detours into making statements about each girl and her life—but the story ends when the two day long tournament does, and so there is no real call to become invested in any of the characters. And then it just kind of ends with a whimper.

Oh well, not for me, but I still appreciated some things about it, like the structure and insights into the characters and basically life as a human in general.

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Book Review: CLEAR by Carys Davies

| Jessica Crawford

Clear by Carys Davies is a 208 page novel published by Scribner in 2024.

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Opening Line:

He wished he could swim-the swimming belt felt flimsy and it had been no comfort to be told not to worry, the men couldn’t swim either.

Synopsis:

A stunning, exquisite novel from an award-winning writer about a minister dispatched to a remote island off of Scotland to “clear” the last remaining inhabitant, who has no intention of leaving—an unforgettable tale of resilience, change, and hope.

John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.

Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. The two men do not speak a common language, but as John builds a dictionary of Ivar’s world, they learn to communicate and, as Ivar sees himself for the first time in decades reflected through the eyes of another person, they build a fragile, unusual connection.

Unfolding in the 1840s in the final stages of the infamous Scottish Clearances—which saw whole communities of the rural poor driven off the land in a relentless program of forced evictions—this singular, beautiful, deeply surprising novel explores the differences and connections between us, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can survive despite all odds. Moving and unpredictable, sensitive and spellbinding, Clear is a profound and pleasurable read.

My Thoughts:

This book reminded me quite a bit of Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall. Lyrical prose, literary style, reflective writing about a language and a way of life on isolated islands going extinct, the deterioration helped along by outsiders taking advantage. But also like that other book, the overall story didn’t do enough for me. It was nice, but didn’t take me on a journey; I didn’t feel at the end like I had experienced much of anything besides atmosphere. And then the resolution was bit hard to swallow, considering the time period. 3.25 stars.

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Book Review: SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy

| Jessica Crawford

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy is a 198 page book published by David R. Godine May 7, 2024.

Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction

Opening Line:

Helen Cartwright was old with her life broken in ways she could not have foreseen.

The Synopsis:

Over the course of two weeks in a small English town, a reclusive widow discovers an unexpected reason to live.

Following the loss of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. She retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and “Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle—as though even for death there is a queue.”

Then, one cold winter night, a chance encounter with a mouse sets Helen on a surprising journey.

Sipsworth is a reminder that there can be second chances. No matter what we have planned for ourselves, sometimes life has plans of its own. With profound compassion, Simon Van Booy illuminates not only a deep friendship forged between two lonely creatures, but the reverberations of goodness that ripple out from that unique bond.

My Thoughts:

Well, if this wasn’t the sweetest thing!

Helen Cartwright was raised in England, moved to Australia, spent sixty years there, many of them as a pediatric cardiologist. She lived an entire happy life there. But after her husband and her son both pass away, she moves back to her hometown in England and waits for her turn to die.

Walking helped, and she tried to go out every day, even when it poured. But life for her was finished…Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle⁠—as though even for death there is a queue.

But then Helen encounters a mouse.

At first she intends to get it out of her home, then to bring it to a wildlife rescue center…but then she finds purpose and meaning again in caring for this little creature, whom she names Sipsworth.

Helen is certain now that the creature in her sink must surely have been a child’s pet that outlived his use as a companion and was left to die. Except he is downstairs in a pie box. Not dying. And for the first time in many years, against her better judgement, neither is she.

She even tells her new companion that if he passes away before her to keep an eye out for her husband and son:

“I want you to let them know that I’m fine. I wasn’t for a long time, but I am now.”

Not only do her interactions with the mouse bring her joy, he also winds up bringing other people back into her life: the owner of the hardware store where she initially intends to buy mousetraps, the librarian from whom she checks out books on mouse care, and others.

“You know what your gift to the world is, Sipsworth?” Helen asks him. “It’s that you bring out the best in people.”

A heartwarming tale about a renewed lease on life, meaningful connections, and found family, this story made me tear up while simultaneously pasting a wide grin on my face. I think fans of A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman might enjoy this (although I hesitate to make comps because I personally always find them disappointing – like although books share some similarities, what I loved about the other book, such as the tone or voice, is not one of them). A real treasure!

(Side note: I was originally concerned about HOW MUCH TEA the people drink in this book – but the internet tells me that each cup only contains 26 mg of caffeine, so really 15 cups per day should be safe for consumption–which is good, because these characters are probably not far off from that!)

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Book Review: I CHEERFULLY REFUSE by Leif Enger

| Jessica Crawford

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger is a 336 hardcover standalone novel published April 2, 2024 by Grove Press.

Genres: Dystopian, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Opening Line:

Here at the beginning it must be said the End was on everyone’s mind.

The Synopsis: Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.

My Thoughts:

This meditative dystopian story is brimming with gorgeous prose (and also a fair number of instances of turns of phrase I did not understand, prompting me to wonder if the author was not American–but it turns out that is not the case). In a bleak near future with collapsed infrastructure, a U.S. headed by a proudly illiterate president, and more and more people choosing to shuffle off this mortal coil in search of something better, Rainy and Lark have managed to make a happy life for themselves. When they let a young man board in their home, trouble follows right behind him. Rainy finds himself on the lam in a sailboat on a capricious Lake Superior. As he grieves for the life and love lost to him and attempts to evade those who would do him harm, he encounters numerous strange characters, along with a girl who needs him (and vice versa) more than either would like to admit.

It’s taken me all my life to learn protection is the promise you can’t make. It sounds absolute, and you mean it and believe it, but that vow is provisional and makeshift and no god ever lived who could keep it half the time.

But beyond the beautiful writing and the likable main character who was easy to root for, my overall feeling while reading this book was one of melancholy. So even though I appreciated the author’s skill with words (the main villain is described as a “relentless hellhound and necrotic Adonis”!), how glad am I that I set sail with Rainy on his journey? I’m still not sure myself. 3.75 stars

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Book Review: THE MORNINGSIDE by Tea Obreht

| Jessica Crawford

The Morningside by Tea Obreht is a 304 page long dystopian literary fiction novel (with the door left open for a hint of magical realism) first published March 19, 2024 by Random House.

“And I realized that I’d brought you into life at a time when everyone else’s debts had come due.”

This book is narrated by Sil, twelve years old for the majority of the story. She lives in a dystopian version of the world where climate change has really done a number on us. Everyone is expected to do their part to try to help the world heal. Eating meat is illegal. What food you do get depends on what ration cards the government has allotted you this week. Sil and her mother, refugees from a war torn country, are able to move to the once illustrious Island City as part of the Repopulation Program. With the changing tides, much of the island that was once inhabited now lies underwater. Sil and her mother move into the building where Aunt Ena serves as superintendent, a tower of apartments called The Morningside.

Sil’s mother and great aunt couldn’t be more different. As for the former,

The pronouncement of intent, the hubris of self-determination–these did not fit her notion of the universe

She teaches her daughter never to tell anyone their country of origin or to speak their mother tongue outside of the home, never to try to plan for the future but only meet challenges and opportunities as they come, and to leave the past in the past.

Ena on the other hand…

This was part of Ena’s magic. Familiarities you had come to take for granted were transformed by the act of her storytelling. Her version of things became the only one. She could change the reality of something you thought you’d known all your life.

With these two models in her life, even though Ena dies not long after their arrival in Island City (leaving the job of superintendent to Sil’s mother), Sil learns to look for signs of “the world beneath the world”.

I quite liked the writing and tone of this book, but I have to say, all of the characters annoyed me at one point or another. Sil would get so upset with Mila when she in fact was the one being unreasonable. I actually quite hated her mother at times. And at the end, you’re not 100% sure what the real story was with the reclusive wealthy artist Bezi Duras, or the daughter of the warlord Rait Belen, but I gather it’s supposed to be kind of left up in the air for the reader to continue thinking about. In fact, Sil even admits that what is true is not necessarily the point, or at least not the whole of it.

It had been wonderful to stand, however briefly, in the lighted rooms of Ena’s heart and know things as she knew them. But she was dead now. And were you really part of something if you were part of it alone?

This story is sort of unsettling and courageous at the same time, and I quite liked it, even if it’s the ideas I enjoyed more than the details. 4 out of 5 stars.

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Book Review: POOR DEER by Claire Oshetsky

| Jessica Crawford

Margaret, alone in the woods, stops screaming. She has just learned that some things are forever, and other things are never-again.

When Margaret is four years old she and her friend Agnes are playing together when events lead to the other girl’s accidental death. Margaret hears adults using the term “poor dear” (to her ears, Poor Deer) a lot, and thus is born the haunting personification (er…deerification?) of a child’s guilt, fear, confusion, and shame.

This was a very sad story. It’s well written, and your heart just breaks for young Margaret. However, I didn’t care for the ending nearly as much as I did the rest of the book. I did like that Margaret was searching for atonement, but the way the author chose to offer her this chance just didn’t really appeal to me. Although I did like how Margaret recognized that she might work toward forgiving herself to heal from her past.

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