It's summer! And what a glorious summer Seattle is having this year! Temperatures consistently in the 80s with a few 90+ days sprinkled in, day after day of sun. It has been one for the books... and I mean the record books.
But as long as we're talking about books, let me bend your ear about what I've been reading. People talk about "beach reads" and "chick lit" for the summer, and yeah, I read my share of what I call popcorn, but I also tend to reserve my dark and serious books for these bright days. Don't want to be reading depressing stuff when it's dark at 3:30 in the afternoon, oh no.
So what stands out for me in the grown-up fiction realm this summer? Number one is definitely An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay. Followers of this blog will remember that last May I was eagerly anticipating its publication. [Quick plot recap for those who need it, Mireille is a Miami woman kidnapped while visiting her parents in Haiti and held for 13 days before she is released.] The novel exceeded my expectations. It's harrowing and there are some scenes where I just had to pretend I didn’t know what was going on. It’s also authentic, hopeful and compassionate. Gay very skillfully writes about violence without titillation of any kind. I can imagine a person reading some of the torture scenes in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and, well, getting off a little. You know? It's hard to resist the push of our culture's misogyny and glorification of violence. I mean, look at Fifty Shades of Grey. But Gay does not allow that in her writing. Mireille has had a bad thing, a series of bad things, happen to her. They are done by men, and Gay's not giving the reader anything but the ugly truth about that. One Goodreads reviewer said that for her, “An Untamed State is about what a woman absorbs.” That’s succinct and true, just like Gay’s beautiful writing. Another theme that stands out in An Untamed State is the notion of before and after in a life. Mireille's imprisonment and recovery both are dark and hard. The after isn't necessarily her release from the kidnappers.
The second novel I loved this summer is The Possibilities, by Kaui Hart Hemmings, a thoughtful book of grief and resilience. Hemmings is probably better known as the writer of The Descendants, which was made into a George Clooney movie a few years back. Like her more famous book, The Possibilities is about relationships’ complexities. Here’s my Goodreads review: “You know how you know and love someone; you think you know them better than themselves maybe even? And you love them, deeply, warts and all? And then they do something surprising. Not out of character, because that suggests they're an actor. Just something that you didn't see coming. That's how this novel is. Hemmings has written a book about long-time friendship and love and family, and I thought I could see where it was going, but then she surprised me with moments so perfect, so unexpected -- the whole novel captures that essence of how complicated and multi-layered people are.”
Stay tuned for more mini-reviews of what we read this summer. Now back to the sunshine… where’s my book?
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