Five Books for the Height of Summer

As you may have noticed, I’ve become terrible at blogging in a timely manner. But I’m still pretty good at reading in a timely manner! I’ve devoured five books since I last wrote.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I first read this apocalypse comedy novel when I was in high school, and I’ve read it multiple times since then. But I wanted to revisit it before Amazon Prime’s miniseries adaptation was released—and the series was a triumph, by the way! It’s always harrowing when books you love make their appearances on screen, but they did a masterful job with Good Omens—probably because Gaiman was the showrunner and screenwriter.

The book was as funny as I remembered—though some lines here and there wouldn’t fly in 2019 (and shouldn’t have flown back in 1990). But I suspect Gaiman is aware of that, which is why they didn’t appear in the screen adaptation. Now that we’re seemingly in the real end times, it was fun and almost bittersweet to dive into this lighthearted version of the world’s end.

The Ensemble by Aja Gabel 

Gabel’s debut novel tells the story of a string quartet, from its conservatory formation in the 1990s to its eventual end in the mid-2000s. Jana, Henry, Brit, and Daniel are not only dedicated musicians, but chosen family, and their family experiences just as many triumphs and heartbreaks over that decade as any family related by blood.

I loved this book. I was reading it while visiting Vegas for a wedding, and the connection between the musicians reminded me a bit of my MFA experience—a small, close group working nonstop together toward the same artistic goal. Made me very nostalgic. You know the old writing advice “show, don’t tell”? Gabel flagrantly disregards that advice, to great effect. Her narration is arresting, so not everything needs to be in-scene. I also appreciated how at the beginning of each section, Gabel includes a list of the songs that the quartet plays together. Pro-tip: you can find pre-made playlists on Spotify if you want to listen along.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Somehow I never read The Bell Jar in high school like everyone else on the planet? I enjoyed this one—I love the 1960’s trope of the casual, chatty narrator who’s not nearly as okay as they want the reader to believe. Of course, the novel was also quite sad, as it deals directly with depression. A big trigger warning is in order for self-harm; the second half of the book consists almost entirely of the narrator trying to kill herself.

That said, Plath’s writing is beautiful—delicate and blunt at the same time. I’m glad I finally picked the book up.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

My friend Gena loaned me this book, and at first I wasn’t a fan. It seemed to be written in the long tradition of “man writes lengthy, absurdist novel to prove that war is absurd,” à la Heller’s Catch-22 or Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Not my favorite genre. The reviews kept calling the novel funny, and it was—but in all the ways I expected it to be funny. What kept me reading was the Vietnamese perspective, which is obviously a departure from all the oh-so-very-white books in this genre. The narrator is not only a double agent—secretly a communist who has infiltrated the southern Vietnamese ranks—but also a refugee, who flees to the United States when the war is lost. Not only that, but his father was white, so the narrator feels as though he doesn’t fit in anywhere—he’s not fully Vietnamese, he’s not fully American, he’s not fully on either side of the war. He’s a sympathizer at heart, and that’s what gets him into trouble.

As I mentioned, I was underwhelmed—until the end of the book, when things took a 180-degree turn and I became deeply engrossed! It’s rare when an ending can change one’s whole perspective on a novel, but this one did it for me. I shouldn’t imply that it was a happy or funny ending—it was probably the most difficult part of the book to read, full of literal torture. But I appreciated Nguyen’s departure from the genre, the way he shook off the tropes and took the narrative in a new direction. Rumor has it he’s writing a sequel, and if so, I’m all in.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

Most of the writers I follow on Twitter have been raving about Chee’s essay collection basically since forever, and WOWWOWWOW were they right! This is a phenomenal book—it was difficult to put it down and pay attention to my friends while we were in Denver. As a writer, I liked the essays about writing best—but the essays about his AIDS activism in San Francisco and New York, his time as a waiter, and his teenage exchange program in Mexico were also incredibly compelling.

I think my favorite might have been the essay about his changing perspectives on tarot and also tarot’s potential use in character development? Or maybe the one where he grows an epic rose garden in the backyard of his Brooklyn apartment? I especially appreciated the one where he detailed how many times his first novel was rejected—that’s something all writers need to hear. It’s an excellent collection; I can’t recommend it enough.