Short Stories in September Roundup: Alexie, Donoghue, Groff Anthology, Houston, McCracken, Moore, Svoboda, Walker
I gave myself an extra week to finish up the story collections I was in the middle of, so I’ve managed to read 13 during this challenge to self (including my first and second posts). Again I’m borrowing Marcie’s five-sentence review format to keep things simple.
The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (1993)
There are 22 stories in this fairly short book, so most top out at no more than 10 pages: little slices of life on and around the reservation at Spokane, Washington. Some central characters recur, such as Victor, Thomas Builds-the-Fire and James Many Horses, but there are so many tales that I couldn’t keep track of them across the book even though I read it quickly. My favourite was “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” in which Victor and Thomas fly out to collect the ashes of Victor’s father. Some of the longer titles give a sense of the tone: “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock” and “Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation.” I couldn’t help but think of it as a so-so rehearsal for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because a similar cast of drunks, jokers, relatives and basketball players populates the stories and a comparable voice prevails. (University library) 
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue (2002)
The title story is about Mary Toft – I thought of making her hoax the subject of a Three on a Theme post because I actually have two novels about her downloaded from NetGalley and Edelweiss (Mary and the Rabbit Dream by Noémi Kiss-Deáki and Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer), but the facts as conveyed here don’t seem like nearly enough to fuel a whole book, so I doubt I’ll read those. Donoghue has a good eye for historical curios and incidents and an academic’s gift for research, yet not many of these 17 stories, most of which are in the third person, rise above the novelty. Many protagonists are British or Irish women who were a footnote in the historical record: an animal rights activist, a lord’s daughter, a cult leader, a blind poet, a medieval rioter, a suspected witch. There are mild homoerotic touches, too. I enjoyed “Come, Gentle Night,” about John Ruskin’s honeymoon, and “Cured,” which reveals a terrifying surgical means of controlling women’s moods but, as I found with Astray and Learned by Heart, Donoghue sometimes lets documented details overwhelm other elements of a narrative. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff (2023)
Hard to convey the variety of this 20-story anthology in a concise way because they run the gamut from realist (Nigerian homosexuality in “Happy Is a Doing Word” by Arinze Ifeakandu; Irish gangsters in “The Blackhills” by Eamon McGuinness) to absurd (Ling Ma’s “Office Hours” has academics passing through closet doors into a dream space; the title of Catherine Lacey’s “Man Mountain” is literal; “Ira and the Whale” is Rachel B. Glaser’s gay version of the Jonah legend). Also difficult to encapsulate my reaction, because for every story I would happily have seen expanded into a novel (the gloomy character study “The Locksmith” by Grey Wolfe LaJoie, the teenage friends’ coming-of-age in “After Hours at the Acacia Park Pool” by the marvellous Kirstin Valdez Quade), there was another I thought might never end (“Dream Man” by Cristina Rivera-Garza and “Temporary Housing” by Kathleen Alcott). Three are in translation. I admired Lisa Taddeo’s tale of grief and revenge, “Wisconsin,” and Naomi Shuyama-Gómez’s creepy Colombian-set “The Commander’s Teeth.” But my two favourites were probably “Me, Rory, and Aurora” by Jonas Eika (Danish), which combines an uneasy threesome, the plight of the unhoused and a downright chilling Ishiguro-esque ending; and “Xífù,” K-Ming Chang’s funny, morbid take on daughter/mother-in-law relations in China. (PDF review copy) 
Waltzing the Cat by Pam Houston (1998)
The novel-in-stories is about Lucy, a photographer in her early thirties with a penchant for falling for the wrong men – alcoholics or misogynists or ones who aren’t available. When she’s not working she’s thrill-seeking: rafting in Colorado, travelling in the Amazon, sailing in the Caribbean, or gliding. “Everything good I’ve gotten in life I’ve gotten by plunging in,” she boasts, to which a friend replies, “Sure, and everything bad you’ve gotten in your life you’ve gotten by plunging in.” Ultimately she ‘settles down’ on the Colorado ranch she inherits from her grandmother with a dog, making this – based on what I learned from the autobiographical essays in Deep Creek – even more autofiction for Houston than her debut, Cowboys Are My Weakness, was. Although the final magic realist touch of having her child-self come to her with a box of photographs of traumatic memories is overdone, the themes of accepting vulnerability, seeking to freeze time and creating a home for yourself resonated, and the title story, about the death of Lucy’s mother, is a brilliant and heart-wrenching standalone. (Secondhand – British Red Cross, Berwick) 
The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken (2021)
McCracken is terrific in short forms: The Hero of This Book, a novella, was one of my top books of 2022, and I also loved her previous story collection, Thunderstruck. Five of these dozen stories are taken from different points in the lives of Jack and Sadie, English and American academics (who I inevitably read as McCracken and her husband, Edward Carey) who come from large-family zaniness versus claustrophobic mother–daughter melancholy. I kept thinking that McCracken’s are just the sorts of scenarios Lucy and Olive would have told stories about in Tell Me Everything: accidents, misfortunes; random connections. Travel is a major element in many of the stories, including to Denmark (in the title story) and Amsterdam. I couldn’t decide whether I preferred the Jack-and-Sadie material or the rest, but I had a favourite from each: “The Irish Wedding” cracked me up as much as it did Sadie with the accidental use of crass American slang, while “Proof,” about a man communing with his father despite his early dementia, is set on a boat trip I’ve made (in 2004!) to see puffins on the Treshnish islands of Scotland. (Secondhand – Dogs Trust charity shop, Marlborough)
Like Life by Lorrie Moore (1990)
Compared to Birds of America, this feels a little dated and the plots are overall less memorable. Still, the eight stories of Moore’s second collection are chewy with insight into relationships and the mindsets of youngish and middle-aged women, and there’s an effortless wry wit to her turns of phrase. Her exasperated would-be feminist characters remind me of Helen Simpson’s, while the cheese-selling protagonist of “Joy” made me think of an early Carol Shields story; and who knew a “cute meet” (aka a meet-cute) was a thing back then? New York City contrasts with the Midwest, most notably in “You’re Ugly, Too” and “The Jewish Hunter.” The title story, which comes last, crafts a weirdly muted dystopia built around shortages and marital misery; I preferred the (comparative lightness) of “Vissi d’Arte,” about a lonely playwright, and “Places to Look for Your Mind,” in which an empty-nest entrepreneur hosts an aimless young Englishman her daughter met on her study abroad year. (Secondhand – Bark charity shop, Berwick)
The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda (2023)
These 44 stories, mostly of flash fiction length, combine the grit of Denis Johnson with the bite of Flannery O’Connor. Siblings squabble over a late parent’s effects or wishes, marriages go wrong, the movie business isn’t as glittering as it’s cracked up to be, and drugs and alcohol complicate everything. The settings range through North America and the Caribbean, with a couple of forays to Europe. There are no speech marks and, whether the narrative is in first person or third, all the voices are genuine and distinctive yet flow together admirably. Svoboda has a poet-like talent for compact, zingy lines; two favourites were “my laziness is born of generalized-looking-to-get-specific grief, like an atom trying to make salt” (“Niagara”) and “Ditziness, a kind of Morse code of shriek-and-stop, erupts around the girls” (“Orphan Shop”). 
Winner of the Juniper Prize for Fiction. Published by University of Massachusetts Press. With thanks to the author for the free PDF copy for review.
In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker (1973)
I’d only ever read The Color Purple, so when I spotted this in a bookshop on our Northumberland holiday it felt like a good excuse to try something else by Walker. I had actually encountered one of the stronger stories before: “Everyday Use” is in the Close Company Virago anthology. In these Southern scenes (“a hate-filled state complete with magnolias, tornadoes and broken-tongued field hands”), Black women oppressed by fathers and partners gain what few advantages they can through deception or folk medicine. I liked “Entertaining God,” which opens with a boy abducting a gorilla from a zoo, and “To Hell with Dying,” about a friendship with an elderly neighbour in cotton country. Setting, style, characters; nothing drew me to any of the others or made me think I’ll read Walker again in the future. (Secondhand – Berrydin Books, Berwick) 
Which of these would you read?
Currently reading: I’m not good at picking up short stories in the rest of the year, but I’ve discovered that I really enjoy reviewing them for Shelf Awareness – the length and format of their reviews really suits essay and story collections. So I’m now partway through Save Me, Stranger by Erika Krouse (2025) for an early Shelf Awareness review. Another book I started in Northumberland, Dreams of Dead Women’s Handbags by Shena Mackay, I didn’t finish in time for this challenge but will either continue or set aside and pick back up next year. Both are fantastic!
Three on a Theme: Trans Poetry for National Poetry Day
Today is National Poetry Day here in the UK. Alfie and I spent part of the chilly early morning reading from Pádraig Ó Tuama’s super Poetry Unbound, an anthology of 50 poems to which he’s devoted personal introductions and exploratory essays. He describes poetry as “like a flame: helping us find our way, keeping us warm.”
Poetry Unbound is also the name of his popular podcast; both were recommended to me by Sara Beth West, my fellow Shelf Awareness reviewer, in this interview we collaborated on back in April (National Poetry Month in the USA) about reading and reviewing poetry. I’ve been a keen reader of contemporary poetry for 15 years or so, but in the 3.5 years that I’ve been writing for Shelf I’ve really ramped up. Most months, I review a couple poetry collections for that site, and another one or more on here.
Two of my Shelf poetry reviews from the past 10 months highlight the trans experience; when I recently happened to read another collection by a trans woman, I decided to gather them together as a trio. All three pair the personal – a wrestling over identity – with the political, voicing protest at mistreatment.
Transitory by Subhaga Crystal Bacon (2023)
In her Isabella Gardner Award-winning fourth collection, queer poet Subhaga Crystal Bacon commemorates the 46 trans and gender-nonconforming people murdered in the United States and Puerto Rico in 2020—an “epidemic of violence” that coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The book arose from a workshop Bacon attended on writing “formal poems of social protest.” Among the forms employed here are acrostics and erasures performed on news articles—ironically appropriate for reversing trans erasure. She devotes one elegy to each hate-crime victim, titling it with their name and age as well as the location and date of the killing, and sifting through key details of their life and death. Often, trans people are misgendered or deadnamed in prison, by ambulance staff, or after death, so a crucial element of the tributes is remembering them all by chosen name and gender.
The statistics Bacon conveys are heartbreaking: “The average life expectancy of a Black trans woman is 35 years of age”; “Half of Black trans women spend time in jail”; “Trans people are anywhere/ between eleven and forty percent/ of the homeless population.” She also draws on her own experience of gender nonconformity: “A little butch./ A little femme.” She recalls of visiting drag bars in the 1980s: “We were all/ trying on gender.” And she vows: “No one can say a life is not right./ I have room for you in me.” Her poetic memorial is a valuable exercise in empathy.
Published by BOA Editions. Reprinted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
I was interested to note that the below poets initially published under both female and male, new and dead names, as shown on the book covers. However, a look at social media makes it clear that the trans women are now going exclusively by female names.
I Don’t Want to Be Understood by Jennifer Espinoza (2024)
In Espinoza’s undaunted fourth poetry collection, transgender identity allows for reinvention but also entails fear of physical and legislative violence.
Two poems, both entitled “Airport Ritual,” articulate panic during a security pat-down on the way to visit family. In the first, a woman quells her apprehension by imagining a surreal outcome: her genitals expand infinitely, “tearing through her clothes and revealing an amorphous blob of cosmic energy.” In the second, the speaker chants the reassuring mantra, “I am not afraid.” “Makeup Ritual” vacillates between feminism and conformity; “I don’t even leave the house unless/ I’ve had time to build a world on my face/ and make myself palatable/ for public consumption.” Makeup is “your armor,” Espinoza writes in “You’re Going to Die Today,” as she describes the terror she feels toward the negative attention she receives when she walks her dog without wearing it. The murders of trans people lead the speaker to picture her own in “Game Animal.” Violence can be less literal and more insidious, but just as harmful, as in a reference to “the day the government announced another plan to strip a few/ more basic rights from trans people.”
Words build into stanzas, prose paragraphs, a zigzag line, or cross-hatching. Espinoza likens the body to a vessel for traumatic memories: “time is a body full of damage// that is constantly trying to forget.” Alliteration and repetition construct litanies of rejection but, ultimately, of hope: “When I call myself a woman I am praying.”
Published by Alice James Books. Reprinted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Transgenesis by Ava Winter (2024)
“The body is holy / and is made holy in its changing.”
Winter’s debut full-length collection, selected by Sean Hill for the National Poetry Series, reckons with Jewishness as much as with gender identity. The second half of the title references any beginning, but specifically the scriptural account of creation and the lives of the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths. Poems are entitled “Torah Study” and “Midrash” (whence the above quote), and two extended sections, “Archived Light” and “Playing with the Jew,” reflect on Polish paternal family members’ arrival at Auschwitz and the dubious practice of selling Holocaust and Nazi memorabilia as antiques. Pharmaceuticals and fashion alike are tokens of transformation –
Let me greet now,
with warm embrace,
the small blue tablets
I place beneath my tongue each morning.
Oh estradiol,
daily reminder
of what our bodies
have always known:
the many forms of beauty that might be made
flesh by desire, by chance, by animal action.
(from “Transgenesis”)
The first time I wore a dress in public without a hint of irony—a Max Mara wrap adorned with Japanese lilies that framed my shoulders perfectly—I was still thin but also thickly bearded and men on the train whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone, as if they hoped the dress were a joke I might let them in on.
(from “WWII SS Wiking Division Badge, $55”)
– and faith grants affirmation that “there is beauty in such queer and fruitless bodies,” as the title poem insists, with reference to the saris (nonbinary person) acknowledged by the Talmudic rabbis. “Lament with Cello Accompaniment” provides an achingly gorgeous end to the collection:
I do not choose the sound of the song
In my mouth, the fading taste of what I still live through, but I choose this future, as I bury a name defined by grief, as I enter the silence where my voice will take shape.
Winter teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. I’ll look out for more of her work.
Published by Milkweed Editions. (Read via Edelweiss)
More trans poetry I have read:
A Kingdom of Love & Eleanor Among the Saints by Rachel Mann
By nonbinary/gender-nonconforming poets, I have also read:
Surge by Jay Bernard
Like a Tree, Walking by Vahni Capildeo
Some Integrity by Padraig Regan
Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Divisible by Itself and One by Kae Tempest
Binded by H Warren
Extra goodies for National Poetry Day:
Follow Brian Bilston to add a bit of joy to your feed.
Editor Rosie Storey Hilton announces a poetry anthology Saraband are going to be releasing later this month, Green Verse: Poems for our Planet. I’ll hope to review it soon.
Two poems that have been taking the top of my head off recently (in Emily Dickinson’s phrasing), from Poetry Unbound (left) and Seamus Heaney’s Field Work:
September Releases, Part II: Antrobus, Attenberg, Strout and More
As promised yesterday, I give excerpts of the six (U.S.) September releases I reviewed for Shelf Awareness. But first, my thoughts on a compassionate sequel about a beloved ensemble cast.
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
“People always tell you who they are if you just listen”
Alternative title ideas: “Oh Bob!” or “Talk Therapy in Small-Town Maine.” I’ve had a mixed experience with the Amgash novels, of which I’ve now read four. Last year’s Lucy by the Sea was my favourite, a surprisingly successful Covid novel with much to say about isolation, political divisions and how life translates into art. Oh William!, though shortlisted for the Booker, seemed a low point. It’s presented as Lucy’s published memoir about her first husband, but irked me with its precious, scatter-brained writing. For me, Tell Me Everything was closer to the latter. It continues Strout’s newer habit of bringing her various characters together in the same narrative. That was a joy of the previous book, but here it’s overdone and, along with the knowing first-person plural narration (“As we mentioned earlier, housing prices in Crosby, Maine, had been going through the roof since the pandemic”; “Oh Jim Burgess! What are we to do with you?”), feels affected and hokey.
Strout makes it clear from the first line that this novel will mostly be devoted to Bob Burgess, who is not particularly interesting but perhaps a good choice of protagonist for that reason. A 65-year-old semi-retired lawyer, he’s a man of integrity who wins confidences because of his unassuming mien and willingness to listen and help where he can. One doesn’t read Strout for intrigue, but there is actually a mild murder mystery here. Bob ends up defending Matt Beach, a middle-aged man suspected of disposing of his mother’s body in a quarry. The Beaches are odd and damaged, with trauma threading through their history.
Sad stories are indeed the substance of the novel; Lucy trades in them. Literally: on her visits to Olive Kitteridge’s nursing home room, they swap bleak stories of the “unrecorded lives” they have observed or heard about. Lucy and Bob, who are clearly in love with each other, keep up a similar exchange of gloomy tales on their regular walks. Lucy asks Bob and Olive the point of these anecdotes, pondering the very meaning of life. Bob dismisses the question as immature; “as we have said, Bob was not a reflective fellow.” And because the book is filtered through Bob, we, too, feel this is just a piling up of depressing stories. Why should I care about Bob’s ex-wife’s alcoholism, his sister-in-law’s death from cancer, his nephew’s accident? Or any of the other unfortunate occurrences that make up a life. Bob and Lucy are appealingly ordinary characters, yet Strout suggests that they function as secular “sin-eaters,” accepting confessions. Forasmuch as they focus on others, they do each come to terms with childhood trauma and the reality of their marriages. Strout majors on emotional intelligence, but can be clichéd and soundbite-y. Such was my experience of this likable but diffuse novel.
With thanks to Viking (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
Reviewed for Shelf Awareness:
Poetry:
Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus – The British-Jamaican poet’s intimate third collection contrasts the before and after of becoming a father—a transition that prompts him to reflect on his Deaf and biracial identity as well as the loss of his own father.
With thanks to Picador for the free copy for review.
Want, the Lake by Jenny Factor – Factor’s long, intricate second poetry collection envisions womanhood as a tug of war between desire and constraint. “Elegy for a Younger Self” poems string together vivid reminiscences.
Terminal Maladies by Okwudili Nebeolisa – The Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate’s debut collection is a tender chronicle of the years leading to his mother’s death from cancer. Food and nature imagery chart the decline in Nkoli’s health and its effect on her family.
Fiction:
A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg – Her tenth book evinces her mastery of dysfunctional family stories. From the Chicago-area Cohens, the circle widens and retracts as partners and friends enter and exit. Through estrangement and reunion, as characters grapple with sexuality and addictions, the decision is between hiding and figuring out who they are.
Nonfiction:
We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood by Jennifer Case – Case’s second book explores the evolution, politics, and culture of contemporary parenthood in 15 intrepid essays. Science and statistics weave through in illuminating ways. This forthright, lyrical study of maternity is an excellent companion read to Lucy Jones’s Matrescence.
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan – Ten years after his Booker Prize win for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan revisits his father’s time as a POW—the starting point but ultimately just one thread in this astonishing and uncategorizable work that combines family memoir, biography, and history to examine how love and memory endure. (Published in the USA on 17 September.)
With thanks to Emma Finnigan PR and Vintage (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
Any other September releases you’d recommend?
September Releases, Part I: Berzinska, Falomo, Fubini
September is always a big month for new releases. I reviewed a load for Shelf Awareness this month (excerpts and links in tomorrow’s post, along with one more full review) and I’m awaiting library holds of some other big-name titles.
As often seems to be the case, my main roundup features one book each from fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Today I have short reviews of a set of sweetly fantastical Latvian short stories for middle grade readers, a Nigerian American’s autobiography in verse, and a short book about how prioritizing flavour might be the key to fixing a broken globalized food system.
The Skeleton in the Cupboard by Lilija Berzinska (2018; 2024)
[Translated from the Latvian by Žanete Vēvere Pasqualini and Sara Smith]
Something a bit different that still fit my September short stories focus: these nine linked fairytales feature sentient animals and fantastical creatures learning relatable life lessons. In the title story, Squishbod airs his closet once a year, which requires taking out the skeleton – a symbol of shameful secrets one holds close. Newfound friendship shades into obsession in “The Sea Wolf and the Hare” before the hare’s epiphany that love requires freedom. Characters wrestle with greed, fear and feelings of inadequacy or incompleteness. In “The End of the World,” which can be interpreted as a subtle climate fable, a thick fog induces panic. A puffin entertains thoughts of piracy. Spendthrift is compelled to have the latest in home décor while Mousekin frets over his lack of ambition. This is perfect for Moomins fans, who will embrace the blend of domesticity and adventure, melancholy and reassurance. I was also reminded of another European children’s novel-in-stories I’ve reviewed, Scary Fairy in Wicked Wood by Jana Bauer (translated from the Slovenian). The book is illustrated with whimsical drawings by the author, and a translators’ note explains how they assigned the creatures punning names. This is meant for children aged eight and up, but I loved it, too.
With thanks to The Emma Press for the free copy for review.
In September-released short stories, I also recently reviewed A New Day by Sue Mell.
Autobiomythography Of by Ayokunle Falomo
The title is adapted from Audre Lorde’s term for Zami, “biomythography” (Kim Coleman Foote also borrowed it for Coleman Hill). This collection reminded me most of Jason Allen-Paisant’s multi-award-winning Self-Portrait as Othello. Both books pair an investigation of identity with musings on history and art, and six of Falomo’s poem titles begin with “Self-Portrait.” Another nine open with “Lugard & I,” referencing the early-1900s white high commissioner/governor/governor-general who effectively created Nigeria. Falomo contrasts his childhood understanding of his country with the more complicated postcolonial vision that has emerged in later decades.
Drawing on the Bible and mythology, the poet spins meditations on genealogy and describes himself as if from the outside, via others’ perceptions (“If Found,”) and erasure of official forms. “To You in Your Dark Lake Moving Darkly Now” is addressed to his child in utero, and a major theme is figuring out how to be a father differently from one’s own father (on which, see also Raymond Antrobus’s Signs, Music; I’ll link to my review tomorrow). The form varies a lot, from fragmented stanzas to paragraphs. I was impressed. A favourite passage (and a sample poem below):
The past will remain
what it is—a pastiche
of regrets and joys—
but lest I be accused of being
tethered to it, here is the snail-
sized horse I’ve named
Forgive. No, Forget.
Remind me.
I have forgotten who I was.
I have forgiven who I was supposed to be.
(from “Autobiography Of”)
With thanks to Alice James Books for the advanced e-copy for review.
In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why flavour holds the answer to fixing our food system by Franco Fubini
Fubini is the CEO of Natoora, which supplies produce to world-class restaurants. He is passionate about restoring seasonal patterns of eating; just because we can purchase strawberries year-round doesn’t mean we should. Supermarkets (which control 85% or more of food stock in the USA and UK) are to blame, Fubini explains, because after the Second World War they “tricked families with feelings of value and convenience, yet what they really wanted was for them to consume more of this unhealthy, flavour-engineered food [i.e. ultra-processed foods], which is cheap to produce and easy to transport because of its industrial nature.” He gives a few examples of fruits that have been selected for flavour rather than shelf life, such as the winter tomato varieties he popularized via River Café, green citrus, and the divine Greta white peach that set him off on this journey in 2011. This is a concise and readable introduction to modern food issues.
While it didn’t contain a lot that was new to me and I found the prose only serviceable, I’d still recommend it to anyone wanting a quick and thought-provoking read about where food comes from. Fubini’s is a wise voice we would do well to heed; I saw him quoted in the Guardian the other day on how to choose ripe fruit.
With thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing for the proof copy for review.
Short Stories in September, II: Willie Davis, Gerald Durrell, Sue Mell and Lore Segal
Four more collections down. Two of them blend fictional and autobiographical modes. Two are set primarily in New York City, with another hanging out in Kentucky and the fourth touring Europe. Three of the authors were new to me and one is an old favourite. I’m borrowing Marcie’s five-sentence review format to keep things simple.
I Can Outdance Jesus by Willie Davis (2024)
I don’t often take a look at unsolicited review copies, but I couldn’t resist the title of this and I’m glad I gave it a try. Davis’s 10 stories, several of flash length, take place in small-town Kentucky and feature a lovable cast of pranksters, drunks, and spinners of tall tales. The title phrase comes from one of the controversial songs the devil-may-care narrator of “Battle Hymn” writes. My two favourites were “Kid in a Well,” about one-upmanship and storytelling in a local bar, and “The Peddlers,” which has two rogues masquerading as Mormon missionaries. I got vague Denis Johnson vibes from this sassy, gritty but funny collection; Davis is a talent!
Published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. With thanks to publicist Lori Hettler for the free e-copy for review.
The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium by Gerald Durrell (1979)
If you’ve read his autobiographical trilogy or seen The Durrells, you’ll be familiar with the quirky, chaotic family atmosphere that reigns in the first two pieces: “The Picnic,” about a luckless excursion in Dorset, and “The Maiden Voyage,” set on a similarly disastrous sailing in Greece (“Basically, the rule in Greece is to expect everything to go wrong and to try to enjoy it whether it does or not”). No doubt there’s some comic exaggeration at work here, especially in “The Public School Education,” about running into a malapropism-prone ex-girlfriend in Venice, and “The Havoc of Havelock,” in which Durrell, like an agony uncle, lends volumes of the sexologist’s work to curious hotel staff in Bournemouth. The final two France-set stories, however, feel like pure fiction even though they involve the factual framing device of hearing a story from a restaurateur or reading a historical manuscript that friends inherited from a French doctor. “The Michelin Man” is a cheeky foodie one with a surprisingly gruesome ending; “The Entrance” is a full-on dose of horror worthy of R.I.P. I wouldn’t say this is essential reading for Durrell fans, but it was a pleasant way of passing the time. (Secondhand – Lions Bookshop, Alnwick, 2021)
A New Day by Sue Mell (2024)
Three suites of linked stories focus on young women whose choices in the 1980s have ramifications decades later. Chance meetings, addictions, ill-considered affairs, and random events all take their toll. Emma house-sits and waitresses while hoping in vain for her acting career to take off; “all she felt was a low-grade mourning for what she’d lost and hadn’t attained.” My favourite pair was about Nina, who is a photographer’s assistant in “Single Lens Reflex” and 13 years later, in “Photo Finish,” bumps into the photographer again in Central Park. With wistful character studies and nostalgic snapshots of changing cities, this is a stylish and accomplished collection.
Published by She Writes Press on September 3. With thanks to publicist Caitlin Hamilton Summie for the free e-copy for review.
Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories by Lore Segal (2023)
The first section contains nine linked stories about a group of five elderly female friends. Bessie jokes that “wakes and funerals are the cocktail parties of the old,” and Ruth indeed mistakes a shivah for a party and meets a potential beau who never quite successfully invites her on a date. One of their members leaves the City for a nursing home; “Sans Teeth, Sans Taste” is a good example of the morbid sense of humour. A few unrelated stories draw on Segal’s experience being evacuated from Vienna to London by Kindertransport; “Pneumonia Chronicles” is one of several autobiographical essays that bring events right up to the Covid era – closing with the bonus story “Ladies’ Zoom.” The ladies’ stories are quite amusing, but the book as a whole feels like an assortment of minor scraps; it was published when Segal, a New Yorker contributor, was 95. (Secondhand – National Trust bookshop, 2023)
Postscript: Segal died on 7 October 2024, aged 96.
I’ll have a couple more reviews roundups between now and early October.
Currently reading: The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, The Skeleton in the Cupboard by Lilija Berzinska; The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue; The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff; Waltzing the Cat by Pam Houston; Dreams of Dead Women’s Handbags by Shena Mackay; How to Disappear by Tara Masih; The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken; Like Life by Lorrie Moore; The Long Swim by Teresa Svoboda; In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker
On Trying to Keep Still (Post-Northumberland Holiday)
What’s the point of going on vacation? Expanding your cultural horizons, seeing new things and places, treating yourself to fun experiences you don’t have in the everyday, and relaxing could all be good answers. Relaxation isn’t our strong suit when we go away; we often return from a holiday wishing that we had a few recovery days before resuming work. Some combination of developing a bad cold in the last few days of the trip, coming back to non-stop rain, worrying about our cat’s ongoing health issues, and my husband already having a manically busy start to the term has left me feeling like staying put for the foreseeable.
Apt reading for a coffee stop on Lindisfarne.
Jenny Diski understood that. Her collection of travel pieces, On Trying to Keep Still, was the one book I read in its entirety on our trip (along with parts of novels, poetry collections and many, many short story volumes). Essays and short stories were perfect reading for a public transport trip: ideal for taking out on a train or bus and reading one or a few. I’d earmarked the Diski for 20 Books of Summer but found a better setting for it after all. A couple of pieces touch on her traumatic childhood and time spent in a mental hospital as a teenager, which I vaguely remembered from her other autobiographical work. The essay “On Anatomy,” which doesn’t really fit with the others but may have been my favourite, matter-of-factly recounts her rape at 14, and her midlife diagnosis of Freiberg’s disease. Her doctor’s dismissive response to her debilitating foot pain was her first experience of age-related discrimination.
Diski expresses how troubled she is to have become known as a travel writer – through the two books of hers I’d previously read, Skating to Antarctica and Stranger on a Train – because, for the most part, she much prefers to stay at home and do nothing. Ironically, she ends up writing a travel feature on Lapland for the Observer, even though what she actually proposed was spending a few days in the polar dark. But the paper talked her into undertaking all sorts of uncomfortable adventures like a reindeer-drawn sleigh ride and sleeping in a tent – and this for someone who specifically hated being cold.
This is the stuff of Part Three. In Part One, she speaks at a book festival in New Zealand and resists the compulsion to skydive; in the long Part Two, she courts solitude by renting a cottage on a Somerset farm for two months. She holes up with a mini-library of silence- and seclusion-themed reads and shows her face only often enough so the owner won’t fret about her. (It took me a little while to work out that the farmer was Janet White, author of The Sheep Stell – quite a neat connection. Diski also lived with Doris Lessing as a teenager.) Here, too, Diski is delighted to eschew outings and exercise and just stay in comfort. The fact that she brought pristine Prada hiking boots tells you she’s no outdoorswoman. By the book’s end, she’s concluded it’s best to save the money and effort and just research or imagine your way to places instead. Tongue-in-cheek advice, perhaps, but the tone of cheerful indolence appealed to me. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
Sprinting to make buses, hours-long bone-shaking rides, heavy luggage: we were out of practice at using public transport, sure, but the rigours of this trip were a bit much for me. It can’t just be age, though at nearly 41 I do long for my own bed on any stay away from home. It’s partly a matter of accepting that chronic illness means I will have limitations. Much as we wanted to do the right thing by not driving, travelling by car is so much more practical and comfortable. Trips to the Continent may still be doable by train as European services seem reliable. But within the UK? Unless it’s a short city break, I’m not sure.
All that said, we did have a nice time. Our cottage in Berwick-upon-Tweed was spacious and we had unexpectedly glorious weather for daytrips to Bamburgh Castle, the Farne islands and Lindisfarne, Alnwick and Alnmouth, and especially the fishing town of Dunbar in Scotland. If you ever find yourself in Berwick, do walk the medieval walls (plus try a charcuterie platter at Atelier wine bar, sample the sweet or savoury offerings at Northern Soul Kitchen, and find time for a drink or two at The Curfew micro-pub). Speaking of drinks, we also enjoyed our time with friends in York, not least an afternoon at the annual beer festival.
Bookishness included a return trip to Barter Books, where my store credit got me a free book and badge; Berwick’s Berrydin Books and Slightly Foxed, as well as several charity shops; the “Books by the Sea” Little Free Library network; and the John Muir birthplace museum and trail in Dunbar. Muir was a forefather of modern environmentalism involved in the inception of the U.S. national parks system. I’ll have to seek out his memoir of childhood.
My modest book haul (compared to our previous trip to Northumberland, anyway) of 12 books is testament to great restraint; had we been traveling by car, I probably would have acquired more books at each stop. I majored on short story collections and novella-length works. And I’ve started reading several already!
Other reading experiences, on a rail replacement bus and on the nearly empty Bamburgh and Dunbar beaches:
If you had to choose, would it be far-flung adventuring or the comforts of home?
Summer Reading, Part II: Beanland, Watters; O’Farrell, Oseman Rereads
Apparently the UK summer officially extends to the 22nd – though you’d never believe it from the autumnal cold snap we’re having just now – so that’s my excuse for not posting about the rest of my summery reading until today. I have a tender ancestry-inspired story of a Jewish family’s response to grief, a bizarre YA fantasy comic, and two rereads, one a family story from one of my favourite contemporary authors and the other the middle instalment in a super-cute graphic novel series.
Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland (2020)
After reviewing Beanland’s second novel, The House Is on Fire, I wanted to catch up on her debut. Both are historical and give a broad but detailed view of a particular milieu and tragic event through the use of multiple POVs. It’s the summer of 1934 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Florence, a plucky college student who intends to swim the English Channel, drowns on one of her practice swims. This happens in the first chapter (and is announced in the blurb), so the rest is aftermath. The Adlers make the unusual decision to keep Florence’s death from her sister, Fannie, who is on hospital bedrest during her third pregnancy because she lost a premature baby last year. Fannie’s seven-year-old daughter, Gussie, is sworn to silence about her aunt – with Stuart, the lifeguard who loved Florence, and Anna, a German refugee the Adlers have sponsored, turning it into a game for her by creating the top-secret “Florence Adler Swims Forever Society” with its own language.
The particulars can be chalked up to family history: this really happened; the Gussie character was Beanland’s grandmother, and the author believes her great-great-aunt Florence died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It’s intriguing to get glimpses of Jewish ritual, U.S. anti-Semitism and early concern over Nazism, but I was less engaged with other subplots such as Fannie’s husband Isaac’s land speculation in Florida. There’s a satisfying queer soupcon, and Beanland capably inhabits all of the perspectives and the bereaved mindset. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs by Shannon Watters et al. (2020)
This comics series created by a Boom! Studios editor ran from 2014 to 2020 and stretched to 75 issues that have been collected in 20+ volumes. Watters wanted to create a girl-centric comic and roped in various writers who together decided on the summer scout camp setting. I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this set of six stand-alone stories, each illustrated by a different artist. The characters are recognizably the same across the stories, but the variation in style meant I didn’t know what they’re “supposed” to look like. All are female or nonbinary, including queer and trans characters. I guess I expected queer coming-of-age stuff, but this is more about friendship and fantastical adventures. Other worlds are just a few steps away. They watch the Northern Lights with a pair of yeti, attend a dinner party cooked by a ghost chef, and play with green kittens and giant animate pumpkins. My favourite individual story was “A Midsummer Night’s Scheme,” in which Puck the fairy interferes with preparations for a masquerade ball. I won’t bother reading other installments. (Public library)
And the rereads:
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell (2013)
I read this when it first came out (original review here) and saw O’Farrell speak on it, in conversation with Julie Cohen, at a West Berkshire Libraries event – several years before I lived in the county. I expected it to be a little more atmospheric about the infamous UK drought of summer 1976. All I’d remembered otherwise was that one character is hiding illiteracy and another has an affair while leading a residential field trip. The novel opens, Harold Fry-like, with Robert Riordan disappearing from his suburban home. Gretta phones each of her adult children to express concern, but she’s so focussed on details like how she’ll get into the shed without Robert’s key that she fails to convey the gravity of the situation. Eventually the three descend on her from London, Gloucestershire and New York and travel to Ireland together to find him, but much of the novel is a patient filling-in of backstory: why Monica and Aoife are estranged, what went wrong in Michael Francis’s marriage, and so on.
I had forgotten the two major reveals, but this time they didn’t seem as important as the overall sense of decisions with unforeseen consequences. O’Farrell was using extreme weather as a metaphor for risk and cause-and-effect (“a heatwave will act upon people. It lays them bare, it wears down their guard. They start behaving not unusually but unguardedly”), and it mostly works. But this wasn’t a top-tier O’Farrell on a reread. (Little Free Library)
My original rating (2013):
My rating now:
Average:
Heartstopper: Volume 3 by Alice Oseman (2020)
Heartstopper was my summer crush back in 2021, and I couldn’t resist rereading the series in the hardback reissue. That I started with the middle volume (original review here) is an accident of when my library holds arrived for me, but it turned out to be an apt read for the Olympics summer because it mostly takes place during a one-week school trip to Paris, full of tourism, ice cream, hijinks and romance. Nick and Charlie are dating but still not out to everyone in their circle. This is particularly true for Nick, who is a jock and passes as straight but is actually bisexual. Charlie experienced a lot of bullying at his boys’ school before his coming-out, so he’s nervous for Nick, and the psychological effects persist in his disordered eating. Oseman deals sensitively with mental health issues here, and has fun adding more queer stories into the background: Darcy and Tara, Tao and Elle (trans), and even the two male trip chaperones. It’s adorable how everything flirtation-related is so dramatic and the characters are always blushing and second-guessing. Lucky teens who get to read this at the right time. (Public library)
Any final “heat” or “summer” books for you this year?
Making Plans for a Return to Northumberland & A Book “Overhaul”
It’s just over three years since our terrific trip to Northumberland. We enjoyed ourselves so much that, when casting around for somewhere within the country to spend a week in September before the university term starts for my husband, we decided to go back later this week. This time we’re renting a holiday cottage in Berwick and travelling by train and bus instead of car – a decision that has already been complicated by rail replacement buses, but we’re making it work. The plan is to explore Berwick and Bamburgh; revisit Alnwick, the Farne Islands, and Lindisfarne (Holy Island); and venture into Scotland for a day trip. We’ll also stay with friends in York on the way up and back and attend York’s annual beer festival with them.
An Overhaul of Last Trip’s Book Purchases
Simon of Stuck in a Book runs a regular blog feature he calls “The Overhaul,” where he revisits a book haul from some time ago and takes stock of what he’s read, what he still owns, etc. (here’s the most recent one). With his permission, I occasionally borrow the title and format to look back at what I’ve bought. Previous overhaul posts have covered Hay-on-Wye, birthdays, and the much-missed Bookbarn International. It’s a good way of holding myself accountable for what I’ve purchased and reminding myself to read more from my shelves.
So, earlier this summer, I took a look back at the whopping 33 new and secondhand books I acquired in Northumberland (and en route) in July 2021; they are all pictured in my trip write-up post.
Had already read: 2
- How Far Can You Go by David Lodge
- Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor – It’s on my shelf for rereading.
Have read since then: 22 – I cannot tell you how proud I am of this number! A full 2/3!
- Until the Real Thing Comes Along by Elizabeth Berg (see below)
- The Girl Aquarium by Jen Campbell
- The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
- Home Life by Alice Thomas Ellis
- Talking to the Dead by Elaine Feinstein
- Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn
- The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
- The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
- Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard
- No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Facebook of the Dead by Valerie Laws
- An Advent Calendar by Shena Mackay
- Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham
- Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
- Thinking Again by Jan Morris
- Emerald by Ruth Padel
- Dear George by Helen Simpson
- Intimations by Zadie Smith
- Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor
- North with the Spring by Edwin Way Teale
- Female Friends by Fay Weldon
- Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Plus…
Partially read: 4
- A Keeper of Sheep by William Carpenter
- Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
- Vida by Marge Piercy
- The Truants by Kate Weinberg
Skimmed: 1 (A Childhood in Scotland by Christian Miller)
Gave away unread: 1 (Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback)
Total still unread: 7
Total no longer owned: 11 (resold, gifted or donated to the Little Free Library) – Getting rid of at least 1/3 of what I read seems like a pretty solid ratio.
I surveyed the pile of books still unread or only partly read and picked up a few to read beforehand or on the way back to Northumberland. I managed to finish one:
Until the Real Thing Comes Along by Elizabeth Berg (1999)
I think of Berg as Anne Tyler lite, likely to appeal to readers of Sue Miller, Catherine Newman, and Maggie O’Farrell. I’d read five of her novels and they are all at least moderately enjoyable, with Talk Before Sleep the best and Open House and The Pull of the Moon in a second tier. But this was pretty annoying and cliched. The plot is straight out of that Rupert Everett–Madonna movie The Next Best Thing. Patty is madly in love with her friend Ethan but, darn it, he’s gay. She’s also 36 and desperate for a baby. She can’t see another way to get one, so Ethan agrees to impregnate her. Works first time! Everything goes perfectly with the pregnancy, and he says he’ll try to act straight so they can move to Minneapolis to raise the baby. Reality does set in, but only very late on. My main problem was Patty: always complaining, putting no effort into her real estate career, and oblivious to when her parents are struggling. Ethan’s experience losing friends to AIDS is shoehorned in through one histrionic paragraph. This got better as it went on, but certainly wasn’t what I’d call fresh and convincing.
and am partway through another:
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patrick [Patty Yumi at the time of publication] Cottrell – An unusual voice-driven novel about a Korean adoptee mourning her brother’s death by suicide. I’m not sure I’ll stay the course.
I’m packing for the train:
The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium by Gerald Durrell
A House Unlocked by Penelope Lively
Vida by Marge Piercy
…along with plenty of other books in progress!
Short Stories in September (and R.I.P.): The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca
For the ninth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to read short stories in September; otherwise, short fiction volumes tend to languish on my shelves (and e-readers) unread. In the past few years, I’ve managed to read 11 or 12 collections during the month of September.
I don’t consider myself a great short story fan, so I was surprised to see I’ve already read 20 collections this year. Several were via a spring rereading of Carol Shields’s complete stories with Marcie (Buried in Print). Some other highlights: Cocktail by Lisa Alward, longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize; Barcelona by Mary Costello; The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro; and a speculative trio: There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (reviewed for BookBrowse), The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer (University of Iowa Press, 5 November; reviewed for Shelf Awareness), and How We Know Our Time Travelers by Anita Felicelli (WTAW Press, 3 December; forthcoming for Foreword Reviews).
First of my dedicated reviews for the month is a set of Mexican horror stories that happens to tie into R.I.P. (I always think that’s only in October, but it technically starts on 1 September):
The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca (2023)
[Translated from the Spanish by James D. Jenkins]
Esquinca channels classic horror authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe in these 14 creepy stories drawn from across his career. The settings include caves, forests and abandoned apartments; and octopi, cursed dolls and dreams are among the subjects. These characters are obsessed – or possessed. As in classic ghost stories, the protagonists tend to be researchers or writers whose absolute faith in logic is shaken by encounters with the supernatural. For instance, the narrator of the title story is a forensic entomologist who makes contact with his murdered wife; the undead feature in a couple of other stories, too.
Mysterious manuscripts and therapy appointments also recur – there’s a scholarly Freudianism at play here. In the novella-length “Demoness,” friends at a twentieth high school reunion recount traumatic experiences from adolescence (not your average campfire fare). “Our traumas define us much more than our happy moments, [Ignacio, a Jesuit priest] thought. They’re the real revelations about ourselves.” Masturbation features heavily in this and in “Pan’s Noontide,” which has both of Arturo’s wives disappear in connection with an ecoterrorism cult. I occasionally found the content a bit macho and gross-out, and wished the women could be more than just sexualized supporting figures in male fantasies.
My favourite story was “Señor Ligotti” (no doubt in homage to American horror writer Thomas Ligotti), in which a struggling novelist unwittingly signs away more than he intended when the title character offers him an apartment and then a publishing deal. The Gothic black-and-white illustrations by Luis Perez Ochando are surreal or grotesque, and recall Bosch, Dalí and Hogarth. There is an introduction by Mariana Enriquez, whose stories I found more memorable in general, and I was also reminded slightly of Agustina Bazterrica. I’m by no means a regular horror reader yet found this book consistently engaging, though I concluded it had more style than soul.
With thanks to New Ruins (Dead Ink) for the free copy for review.
Currently reading: I Can Outdance Jesus by Willie Davis, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue, The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan, The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken, A New Day by Sue Mell, Ladies’ Lunch by Lore Segal
Resuming soon: The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards, The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners (ed. Lauren Groff)
Up next: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy, Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis, Light Box by K.J. Orr, The Forgetters by Greg Sarris, The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda
Are you a short story fan? Read any good ones recently?
A Review for PKD Awareness Day: The Mourner’s Bestiary by Eiren Caffall
Today is PKD Awareness Day. Because the author and I both have polycystic kidney disease, I’m doing something I rarely do and reprinting an early review of mine that has already appeared on Shelf Awareness. I could hardly believe it when I was trawling through the list of review book offers and saw that Eiren Caffall also has PKD, then even more astonished to learn that it is a major theme in her memoir, which also weaves in marine biology and environmental concerns. An altogether intriguing book that, of course, held personal interest for me.
The Mourner’s Bestiary by Eiren Caffall
Eiren Caffall’s debut is an ardent elegy for her illness-haunted family and for the ailing marine environments that inspire her.
For centuries, the author’s family has been subject to “the Caffall Curse.” Polycystic kidney disease, a degenerative genetic condition, causes fluid-filled cysts to proliferate in a person’s enlarged kidneys. PKD can involve pain, fatigue, high blood pressure, kidney failure, and a heightened risk of brain aneurysm. Given Caffall’s paternal family history, she expected to die before age 50.
Caffall’s melancholy memoir spotlights moments that opened her eyes to medical and environmental catastrophe. In 1980, when she was nine years old, she and her parents vacationed at a rental cottage on Long Island Sound. They nicknamed the pollution-ridden site “Dogshit Beach”—her mother spent idyllic summers there as a child, yet now “both the ecosystem and my father were slipping away.” For the first time, Caffall became aware of her father’s suffering and lack of energy. She realized that she, too, might have inherited PKD and could face similar struggles as an adult.
In 2014, Caffall, then a single mother, took her nine-year-old son, Dex, on vacation to the Gulf of Maine. During the trip, she had a fall that prompted a seizure, and she and Dex were evacuated from Monhegan Island by Coast Guard ship. Although no further seizures ensued and no clear cause emerged, the crisis served as a wake-up call, reminding her of how serious PKD is and that it might afflict her son as well.
The book draws fascinating connections between personal experiences and ecological threats. Caffall structures her story as a gallery of endangered marine animals such as the Longfin Inshore Squid and Humpback Whale, tracing their history and exposing the dangers they face in degraded environments. Red tides (massive algal blooms) and floods are apt metaphors for physical trials: “the Sound was dying, hypoxic … from an overwhelm of nutrients flooding an ecosystem—nitrogen, phosphorus, imbalanced saline—the same things that overwhelm a body when kidneys can no longer filter blood properly.”
Re-created scenes enliven accounts of family illness and therapeutic developments. The lyrical hybrid narrative, informed by scientific journals and government publications, is as impassioned about restoring the environment as it is about ensuring equality of access to health care. Personal and species extinction are just cause for “permanent mourning,” Caffall writes, but adapting to change keeps hope alive.
(Coming out in the USA from Row House Publishing on October 15th)
Posted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
[I couldn’t help but compare family members’ trajectories. Like her father, my mother was on dialysis for a time before getting a transplant, from her cousin. Like her aunt, my uncle died of a brain aneurysm, which is an associated risk. It sounds like Caffall has been much more severely affected than I have thus far. She is 53 and on Tolvaptan, a cutting-edge drug that slows the growth of cysts and thus the decline in kidney function. But even within families, the disease course is so varied. A cousin of mine was in her thirties when she had a transplant, whereas I am still very much in the early stages.]
A shout-out to the PKD Foundation in the States and the PKD Charity here in the UK.
A related post: In 2017 I reviewed four books for World Kidney Day.
From the supermarket last week: a plum that wanted to be a kidney.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 