Recent Reviews
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is one of my favorite authors. No doubt, this Pulitzer Prize winner is a talented writer. But what I admire most is her persistent probing into the human psyche. What does it mean to be a person? Can we know ourselves? Can we really know the people we love? Strout’s books quietly invite readers to reflect on the nuances of family relationships. If you haven't read ‘Olive Kittredge’ and ‘The Burgess Boys’, I highly recommend them.
With “Oh William!” Strout explores the dynamics of a marriage. She revisits Lucy Barton, the protagonist of her last two novels. Lucy’s beloved second husband, David, has died, and Lucy has been pondering her life while grieving. Her ex-husband William, the father of her grown daughters, asks Lucy to join him on a road trip to Maine. His second wife has left him, and he wants to investigate a recently uncovered family secret. Romance is not the motivation; William needs Lucy’s company. Throughout their short adventure, Lucy thinks more specifically about her relationship with William and her initial attraction to him. With the passing of time and the help of a therapist, she is aware of just how little she knew about herself and William. Though her marriage lasted twenty years, she thinks, “William had always been a mystery to me. I am only saying: I wondered who William was.” Of course, she knew intimately William’s likes, dislikes, preferences and needs. But Lucy is wondering about something more profound, more complicated about their relationship.
Though Lucy is a successful 63-year-old writer living in New York City, she is still naïve and trapped within her youthful feelings of invisibility. Her voice is passive and distant. She has not psychologically moved beyond her impoverished childhood filled with neglect and disregard. Grateful for her writing career and kindhearted daughters, Lucy still doesn’t believe she deserves happiness. She tolerated William’s bad behavior in their marriage while making poor judgments herself. She reflects, “Who ever really knows the experience of another?”
Driving with William for hours in a car creates an opportunity for Lucy to understand more. Lucy and William query each other about different moments in their marriage and share their perspectives. The discovery of William’s family secret enriches their conversation.
When they return to their separate lives in New York City, Lucy comprehends a bit more about herself and her life with William. Without angst, she states on the final page, “Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves! Except a little tiny, tiny bit we do. But we are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries.”
This short novel is packed with thought-provoking insights about marriage and the complexities of human relationships. Another gem by Elizabeth Strout. 4/5
Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 pushed a shocked America into WWII. Few Americans were unmarked by what followed. Marianne Wiggins’ epic new novel ‘Properties of Thirst’ immerses readers into the life of one California ranching family in the aftermath of the attack. The book is a poignant love story, a family saga, and a portrayal of political events shaping personal lives. ‘History will always find you’ is Wiggins’ persistent theme. The building of a Japanese American internment camp and the water wars of the Owens Valley are how history finds this corner of California.
The story is set in Lone Pine, a tiny town nestled between the Sierra and Inyo Mountain ranges where many Hollywood Westerns have been filmed. Mt. Whitney stands tall in the distance. This idyllic location is where Wiggins begins her novel.
Rocky Rhodes had inherited his father’s fortune when he was a young man and transformed himself from an elite educated Manhattanite to a rugged California rancher. He built a beautiful adobe home in Lone Pine for his bride Lou. They adorned their home with fine furniture, rugs, paintings, and bookshelves that included Rocky’s favorite authors: Emerson and Thoreau. When his wife died of polio, and Rocky’s grief was raw, his sister moved West to help him raise his three-year-old twins, Stryker and Sunny.
In the decades since Rocky had moved West, the Los Angeles Water corporation had been buying the water rights of properties around Lone Pine, making farming untenable. But Rocky won’t sell his water rights. Through litigation and civil disobedience, Rocky has been battling L.A. Water to save the land he loves. “You can’t save what you don’t love” is the opening line and another recurring theme. Rocky detests L.A. Water for diverting the Owens River to Los Angeles decades earlier. He had watched Owens Lake dry up, asthma rates rise, and wildlife habitat wither.
After Pearl Harbor, the citizens of Lone Pine learn that the United States government will build a Japanese American internment camp called Manzanar, adjacent to Rocky’s property. The government sends a young lawyer named Schiff to design, develop and manage the camp. Ten thousand Japanese Americans from San Francisco and other places in the West will soon be incarcerated. Schiff succeeds in building the camp but eventually loathes the injustice and covertly helps the Japanese Americans. The Rhodes family and the Lone Pine community must also decide how to respond. Meanwhile, Schiff falls in love with Rocky’s grown daughter, Sunny, a rancher, gifted cook, and compelling character.
Wiggins has created a remarkable novel. (All the more remarkable as she overcame a stroke to finish it with help from her daughter, Lara Porzak.) Wiggins sketches her characters in rich nuance and captures California’s natural beauty in reverent detail. Readers are transported into the ethos and spirit of the 1940s American West. Though the family story is front and center, Wiggins illuminates the environmental despoilment and racial prejudice that have plagued our past. ‘Properties of Thirst’ is a superb saga of this history that always finds us.
Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed
This review was published in the San Francisco Examiner on September 23, 2021
San Francisco is the perfect setting for this tremendous, tragic novel by Nawaaz Ahmed. ‘Radiant Fugitives’ includes an eclectic mix of people, perspectives, and possibilities. In the microcosm of one fractured family, Ahmed explores the complexity of loving family members with divergent values and beliefs. Digging into one family’s disturbing dynamics, Ahmed links family conflicts to broader themes of sexuality, religion, and race. His novel captures the emotions that divide us and then delves into how these differences might be overcome.
The year is 2010. Seema Hussein is a forty-year-old Muslim Indian woman working for Kamala Harris’ campaign for Attorney General of California. Seema is about to give birth to an unplanned child conceived with her soon to be ex-husband, Bill. The novel’s omniscient narrator is their son, whom Seema plans to name Ishraaq. It is a surprising choice of narrator, but Ahmed makes it work.
Seema’s dying mother, Nafeesa, has traveled from Chennai, India, to be with Seema for the birth. Her younger sister Tahera, a doctor and observant Muslim, has also come to support her sister. The Hussein family has been estranged for fifteen years. In Seema’s apartment in the Mission, they cook, clean and talk about their lives. But the conversation is fraught as each woman attempts to avoid the emotional minefields of past grievances and present judgments. Hurt, betrayal and misunderstanding cloud many interactions. Nonetheless, moments arise when the sharp edges of their jealousies and resentments soften, and the tenderness of their love for each other is recovered.
Looming large is the patriarch, Naeemullah Hussein, who has not traveled to San Francisco for the birth of his grandchild. Naeemullah had doted on his daughters, especially Seema, who had basked in her father’s love. However, after Seema completed her Oxford education, her father sought to arrange her marriage. When she revealed she was a lesbian, he replied, “I’d rather have no daughter than one who makes me hang my head in shame.” Exiled, she moved to the United States, worked as an activist for South Asian queer organizations and eventually settled in San Francisco.
Seema’s banishment from the family initiated a cascade of conflict and emotional isolation. Tahera decided that she, unlike her sister, would adhere to the family’s expectations. She asked her father to arrange a marriage to an observant American Muslim. She relished replacing Seema as the favored child. Yet, her father derided her dedication to Islam. It becomes clear that Naeemullah’s narcissistic approach to love has caused a ripple effect of pain that required his wife and daughters to juggle their allegiances. Ultimately, Nafeesa regrets that she has never attempted to understand the struggles and sorrows of her daughters.
‘Radiant Fugitives’ also explores the ways that broader political culture affects individual lives. The novel tackles questions of faith, race and identity in our country’s political life. Of particular focus is Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Seema and Bill fell in love and married as they worked tirelessly for Barack Obama’s candidacy. As a Black man, Bill felt intense hope as he vigorously campaigned for Obama. Seema too was lifted by the poetry of the campaign, but the optimism of that moment faded. Obama’s pragmatism on many issues, including LGBTQ rights, disappointed her.
Using one family’s disputes and misjudgments as his canvas, Ahmed has painted a poignant family tragedy and a meditation on the wellsprings of conflicts. The story is adorned with verses from the Quran and writing from Keats, Wordsworth and Barack Obama. Obama best captures Ahmed’s theme, “All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort to find common ground.” Obama’s message for civic life could be Ahmed’s for family life. ‘Radiant Fugitives’ will inspire readers to seek empathy, withhold judgment, accept our flawed humanity and marvel at the miracle of being alive.
