Book Serendipity, August to September
From Jennifer Croft’s superb Notes on Postcards (forthcoming in November):
I’d heard that story of Horace Walpole and the etymology of “serendipity” before. Tying together dangling threads is a good description of what I try to do with these posts, which arise from my reading.
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I have read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away!
The more accurate keyword would probably be “synchronicity,” which according to Carl Jung, who “believed in a universe of mysterious connections,” is “a meaningful coincidence in which an internal mental state somehow attracts a real-world parallel” (quotes from The Spirituality Gap by Ali Millar). An intriguing idea, that: somehow, by thinking about these ideas or details, I might be … luring repeat incidents to me?!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
What’s in a name?
- Girlfriends named Maddie (in Year of the Drought by Roland Buti) and Mattie (Tom’s in Pardon Our French by Alex Durand and Tom Carles); plus a granddaughter (in The Typing Lady and Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki) and niece (in The Land and Its People by David Sedaris) named Maddy.
- A character named Hattie in Leaving the Yellow House by Saul Bellow and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
- A character named India in Leaving the Yellow House by Saul Bellow and Family Family by Laurie Frankel (our second The Marriage Plot/Literary Wives club read this year in which the protagonist was named India, after Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell).
A daughter named Rebecca in Switzy by Emma Cline and Family Family by Laurie Frankel (where she’s known as Bex); and sisters named Rebecca (known as Becks) in one story of The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales by Kirsty Logan and The Long Road to Holy Island by Austin Suggs. Those are both nicknames I’ve had, by the way. The one nickname I detest is Becky.- A mother named Monica in The Summerhouse Trilogy by Alice Thomas Ellis and Apt Pupil by Stephen King.
- A Hilda in The Given World by Melissa Harrison and one story of Self-Help by Lorrie Moore.
- A Clare in Under Story by Chloe Benjamin, The Leveret by Anna Goldreich and The Given World by Melissa Harrison.
- A Sergio in Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong and a Serge in So Good to See You by Francesca Hornak.
- A son named Silas in Under Story by Chloe Benjamin and So Good to See You by Francesca Hornak.
- Compensation for run-over chickens in Year of the Drought by Roland Buti and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller.
- “Enough is enough” is a slogan in The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (where it’s also an essay title) and Yellow Pine by Claire Vaye Watkins.
Telluride, Colorado features as a setting in Almost Animal by Amy Irvine and in one essay of The Land and Its People by David Sedaris.
- A trip from Paris to see Chartres Cathedral in The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham and Shadow of a Man by May Sarton.
- Fleeting references to the Donner Party in Yellow Pine by Claire Vaye Watkins and The Nightingales by Emil Wilson.
- An essay about an Icelandic sheep ram, and the idea that one should ride geldings because they’re calmer and more reliable than mares, in Animals Taught Me Everything by Pam Houston and The Land and Its People by David Sedaris.
- The protagonist’s work performance declining due to dementia, and a tweed jacket, in Switzy by Emma Cline and Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer. (There’s also a tweed jacket mentioned in Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami.)
- German artist Käthe Kollwitz is mentioned in Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground (the title is from one of her works) by Pat Browne and The Book of Mating by Laksmi Pamuntjak.
- Child brides and incestuous rape are mentioned/feature in Almost Animal by Amy Irvine and The Book of Mating by Laksmi Pamuntjak, both of which I was reading early for Foreword Reviews.
- The keeping of goats in Almost Animal by Amy Irvine and American Daughter by Era Bell Thompson, both of which I was reading early for Foreword Reviews.
- In August I unwittingly started rereading two books that I’d first read in April 2013 (is 13+ years the ideal interval?!): I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron and Flush by Virginia Woolf.
- Men by the name of Christmas: the narrator’s parents wanted to name him Noel (but the German state didn’t allow it?!) in Botany of Madness by Leon Engler; and a main character is named Joe Christmas in Light in August by William Faulkner.
- To the narrator’s question of whether something awful has happened / they’ve done something wrong, a reply of “it very likely had but she hadn’t heard about it yet” in Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns and “Most likely. You know that better than I do” in Botany of Madness by Leon Engler.
- The idea that human–animal communication/connection is deeper than that between humans because it is beyond language plays a major role in three books I read around the same time: Animals Taught Me Everything by Pam Houston, Mitz by Sigrid Nunez, and Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer. (The Houston and Orringer both publish on 13 October and I was reviewing them early for Shelf Awareness.)
- The fact that children of alcoholics feel they have to make everything perfect to avoid conflict appears in Botany of Madness by Leon Engler and Animals Taught Me Everything by Pam Houston.
I encountered lines from the song “Closing Time” by Semisonic in Here We Are at the End by Sara Barnard (a specific reference to the pop song accompanied “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” – which I was amused to learn is actually a quote from Seneca!) and Family Family by Laurie Frankel (“You don’t have to go home. But you can’t stay here.” – not attributed, but I can’t but think she had the song in mind.)
- The stereotype of overachieving Asian Americans is mentioned or discussed in Family Family by Laurie Frankel, Miracle Creek by Angie Kim, and To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time by Matthew Salesses. There are Korean Americans in all three, and Korean children adopted into a white family in the Frankel and Salesses.
- A young woman is aghast at her mother getting rid of loved pet(s) in Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich and The Nightingales by Emil Wilson (both titled after birds!)
- A mention of the practice of buying single cigarettes from a city corner shop for 50 cents in Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad and Miracle Creek by Angie Kim.
- Saving turtles from the road in Yellow Pine by Claire Vaye Watkins and then a mention of someone else doing so in To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time by Matthew Salesses.
The lines “Leave as soon as you think to yourself, ‘This is a great party. I’m having a wonderful time’” from Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck are echoed in Emma Cline’s Switzy.
- A holy well is mentioned in The Given World by Melissa Harrison and Shiver by Brigid Lowe.
- A sexy pastor’s wife features in one story of Hail Mary by Funmi Fetto and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw.
- A flawed pearl is mentioned in Apt Pupil by Stephen King and A Desert between Two Seas by A. Muia.
- A mention of hara-kiri (literal) in Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima and A Better Death by Jonathan Romain; and as a metaphor in What I Don’t Know about Animals by Jenny Diski.
- Camel cigarettes appear in Miracle Creek by Angie Kim and Apt Pupil by Stephen King.
- A woman remembers being nicknamed an “ice queen” in one story of Everest by Ashani Lewis and Plum by Hollie McNish.
- A woman has to have a bowel movement in the labour ward in Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong and Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens.
- The challenge of being a mother in the film industry is discussed in Family Family by Laurie Frankel and So Good to See You by Francesca Hornak.
A three-year-old gets their own cereal breakfast in Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong and So Good to See You by Francesca Hornak.
- A woman feels guilty of neglect due to her eight-year-old son’s death in a lake in Under Story by Cloe Benjamin and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
- A viral scandal where photographs/video footage are misconstrued to make a woman look bad in Hum by Helen Phillips and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw.
- A misunderstanding causes a mother to be investigated for child neglect in one story of Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong and Hum by Helen Phillips.
Shirley Temples (the non-alcoholic cocktail) are mentioned in Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw.
- A woman impulsively takes a dishwashing job in Under Story by Cloe Benjamin and Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel.
- A scene of putting out sandbags in Rattlebone by Maxine Clair and The Long Road to Holy Island by Austin Suggs.
An unwanted mince pie in Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford and I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron.
- A child in hospital with acute appendicitis in one story of Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark by Celia Fremlin and Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens (and with suspected appendicitis in Shiver by Brigid Lowe).
- The Tennyson poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is mentioned in Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford and Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus.
- Having to get off an elevator at the previous floor because it doesn’t go up to the destination in Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel and Blood Is Dripping onto the Courtyard by Elvira Navarro.
- Realizing one’s bed is unmade in one story of Everest by Ashani Lewis and A Very British Midlife Crisis by Rob Temple.
- Confusion over the name of a possibly abused dog (with special powers!) adopted from a shelter in Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus and Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer.
- I encountered the phrase “She’s not worth it” in both Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw within 10 minutes!
Someone being pulled back into the womb in Under Story by Chloe Benjamin and Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 by Mirko Ilić.
- An apple orchard as a setting in Under Story by Chloe Benjamin and one story of Apple and Palm by Patricia Henley.
- “Little Nemo in Slumberland” as an image and metaphor in Switzy by Emma Cline and Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 by Mirko Ilić.
- A lost twin sibling – lost at birth in Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus and H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; lost later on in one story of The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales by Kirsty Logan.
- A portal to another timeline, and characters who are doubles of each other, in Under Story by Chloe Benjamin and Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel.
- A lesbian couple moves to a new house and the one woman feels isolated and sad because she’s recently had a miscarriage in the debut novels The New People by Andrea Uptmor (reviewed for BookBrowse) and then The Leveret by Anna Goldreich.
- Nagging a woman to use lotion on her hands as they’re the first place to show signs of ageing in Hum by Helen Phillips and one story of Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good by Eley Williams.
A couple of visual ones:
- I was reading The Land and Its People by David Sedaris at the same time as Country People by Daniel Mason, one of whose blurbs happens to borrow Sedaris’s title phrase.
- I was reading Botany of Madness by Leon Engler and encountered this passage on the day of the solar eclipse in Europe (12 August):
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Six Degrees of Separation: From H Is for Hawk to Notes from an Exhibition
It’s been several years since I last participated in Kate’s Six Degrees meme. I’m not sure why I fell out of the habit, after posting pretty faithfully from February 2020 until August 2023. This month I was drawn back by the individualized starting point: your book club’s current read. (See Kate’s opening post.)
So I start with Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, which I look forward to rereading for our next meeting in early October, and every link that follows is (or is connected to) a book we’ve read in book club.
#1 H Is for Hawk was a vanguard of a new trend in nature writing that came to dominate the Wainwright Prize list in the UK: blending a hard/sad personal story with a quest that involves travel and/or communion with the natural world. In the case of Macdonald (who now uses they/them pronouns), they work through grief for their father by taking up falconry and training a goshawk.
I went with some members of my book club to see the excellent film starring Claire Foy, followed by a Q&A with the author, earlier this year. Another early example of the misery memoir-meets-nature book vogue was The Outrun by Amy Liptrot (a Wainwright winner), which combines her struggle with alcoholism with her return to the Orkney Islands and her work for the RSPB surveying endangered corncrakes. Another link: I saw the film version with Saoirse Ronan, which probably surpassed the book, with a book club friend. We then tried to get the others interested in rereading it with us, but it only got a few votes.
#2 Liptrot lives in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, which is famous for its hippie artists and inclusivity (a Brighton of the North?). Among the other nearby residents (in the village of Mytholmroyd) is Benjamin Myers, whose experimental historical novel about Saint Cuthbert, Cuddy, we discussed in book club a year ago. I had skimmed it when it was first published, and enjoyed it in parts but thought it more pretentious than readable. It was not very well received by most members…
#3 …unlike the quirky and suspenseful Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent, which we’d read the year before and was a hit with almost everyone. Cuddy is set in Northumberland, and I associate Sally with that county because I read it on holiday there.
#4 Sally Diamond has some autistic-like traits, in terms of her lack of understanding of social conventions. We questioned whether this was an attempt by the author to reproduce the effects of trauma. The same book club member brought this up in relation to Sybil Van Antwerp, the protagonist of the most recent Women’s Prize winner, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which was our September read. I’d picked up on the characterization of her young friend Harry Landy as autistic, but Sybil herself? That hadn’t occurred to me. It just goes to show how discussing books in a group turns up fresh ideas about them.
#5 We had also talked diagnoses with one of our previous reads, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, who scrupulously avoided naming her protagonist’s mental health condition, though it seemed pretty clear to us that it was meant to be bipolar. Another connection: we read that novel as part of our official Women’s Prize shadowing in 2022.
#6 The Correspondent, Sorrow and Bliss, and Patrick Gale’s Notes from an Exhibition, which shares the theme of mental illness, are all among our top 10 reads of all time, with a score of 18.5/20. We’ve read two Gale novels now and he’s a reliable author for us.
Book Serendipity, March to May
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away! Feel free to join in with your own.
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- A sister named Fiona in The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright and Leaving Home by Mark Haddon.
- A parent burns a dirty magazine in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell and The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman.
- Sabbath chains, Gaelic sermons, and psalm singing on the very pious Isle of Lewis in John of John by Douglas Stuart (set in the 1990s), then Findings by Kathleen Jamie (essay from the early 2000s). I doubt any of the above can still be found there, though we did note “Respect the Sabbath” signs on playground equipment on our 2022 trip.
- A single mother who won’t answer the phone because she’s afraid of who/what it might be in Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates and The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker.
- An orphaned narrator named (Eva) Luna in Eva Luna by Isabel Allende and Fountainville by Tishani Doshi. Then I came across a dog named Luna in Transcription by Ben Lerner! And the main character in one story of Baby in a Box by Sarah Braunstein starts going by her nickname, Luna.
- There’s a Muriel Rukeyser poem in the anthology Night Feeds and Morning Songs (ed. Ana Sampson) and Rukeyser is a character in Sophie Ward’s Our Better Natures, which I was also reading at the time.
- Eating boiled ham in Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (and boiled turkey in The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker).
Checking a hotel room for bedbugs in Transcription by Ben Lerner and Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy.
- A young person writing in shorthand in I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and First Class Murder by Robin Stevens.
- A character named Emmie in Transcription by Ben Lerner and (no surprise here) Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory by Barbara Yelin.
- Noting that roses are not suited to a particular climate in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl.
- A Welsh character named Owain in Fountainville by Tishani Doshi and Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd.
- The Secret Garden is discussed/mentioned in Reading My Mother Back by Timothy C. Baker and Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth, and mentioned in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson.
- The protagonist is emotionless at their mother’s deathbed in Like Mother by Jenny Diski and Leaving Home by Mark Haddon.
- (Apologies: this one is grim.) A young woman is sexually assaulted with a bottle in The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine and The Truth about Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent (both Irish novelists).
- A husband is involved in a deliberate (suicidal) crash in Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Gleeson and one story of I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek.
- Ali Baba’s cave is used as a metaphor in The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King.
- A brother- and sister-in-law have an affair in the two Portuguese novels I read on my Portugal holiday, The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge and The Piano Cemetery by José Luís Peixoto.
- A woman describes her discovery of orgasm in The Half Life by Rachel Beanland and The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.
- ‘There are two kinds of people…’ thinking in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and one story of It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez.
- Money is hidden behind a boiler in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius.
The surname Callaway in The Half Life by Rachel Beanland and Calloway in The Watersmith by Yance Wyatt.
- Louise Erdrich, whose The Mighty Red I was reading at the time, is mentioned in The Madman’s Guide to Stamp Collecting by Robert Irwin.
- A minor character named Genevieve appears in Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen and The Watersmith by Yance Wyatt.
- The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich is the second novel I’ve read within eight months (after The Wedding People by Alison Espach) in which a reluctant bride is saddled with a groom named Gary.
- A mountain lion sighting in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer.
- A character has a love of Agatha Christie novels in The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel and Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.
- A character with the nickname Kitten in Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (particularly funny because it’s for a thug) and Kitten by Stacey Yu.
- Reading two queer novels with an academic writing course setting at the same time: Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
- A remark about the rare beauty of black hair with blue eyes in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy.
- An STD is evidence of a husband’s infidelity in The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain and A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello.
- Bottles being used to hold picnic meals / foraged blackberries (noted because these days it would be plastic pots for everything) in Zami by Audre Lorde (the 1940s) and The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain (the 1960s).
Kismet is a character name in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, so I was primed to notice the word being used in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (it’s a synonym for fate).
- A writer who faces the wall to work in The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain (Ted Hughes, that is) and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein (referring to Alice B. Toklas!).
- A painting of an Arctic tern features in The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge (on the cover) and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
- Hot milk is drunk in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (with Ovaltine), Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, and Kitten by Stacey Yu.
- William James is mentioned in My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy and Wise by Frank Tallis.
Algerian Muslim men appear in A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello and Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens.
- A pet cat was found on the shore in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Kitten by Stacey Yu.
- Bringing cherries to an invalid in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
- Sex with a woman who has a mastectomy scar in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and Zami by Audre Lorde.
- A sighting of a kingfisher as auspicious in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and Transcription by Ben Lerner.
- The idea that former lovers leave a mark on people in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Zami by Audre Lorde.
- Pet cat(s) do themselves a mischief by getting into paint supplies in Zami by Audre Lorde and Kitten by Stacey Yu.
- A Sandymount, Dublin setting in A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello and Hood by Emma Donoghue.
- An Irish family where the mother and one daughter move to the USA and the father and other daughter stay behind in Hood by Emma Donoghue and The Truth about Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent (both Irish novelists).
- The concept of a “funeral cake” in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
- A character regrets wearing eye makeup on an emotional occasion in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
My second Irish novel of the year that takes place over one week: Hood by Emma Donoghue (after One by One in the Dark by Deirdre Madden).
- A cat of confusing gender: Grace is male in Hood by Emma Donoghue and Bob is always referred to as “it” in My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy.
- The idea that it’s rare for a woman to a) be a good storyteller (in The Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev) or b) tell a punchline with a straight face (in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans – at least the man gets called out on his sexist opinion in this case). I also noticed the use of the word “caprice” in both books (and also in Turgenev’s First Love) because it’s unusual and I like it.
- Another grim, grim one: reading two books at the same time in which a woman is / women are drugged and raped while unconscious (A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot and Women Talking by Miriam Toews).
- I read two short stories in quick succession about a peasant porter who carries a broom: “A Real Durwan” by Jhumpa Lahiri (from Interpreter of Maladies) followed by “Mumu” by Ivan Turgenev.
- An older woman insists that she still is/has a little girl inside in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot.
The number 7 has magical significance for the author in Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt and A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot.
- A couple meets when they see each other reading the same book in an outdoor location: A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave; and The Great Gatsby in Sunset Park by Paul Auster.
- Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For is mentioned in Hood by Emma Donoghue; I was reading a Bechdel book, The Secret of Superhuman Strength, at the same time.
- Gnats are irksome in Sunset Park by Paul Auster and Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
