Breathless excitement...

Earlier this year I posted a review of two novels by Daniel Jose' Older.  My writing was stilted because for the first time since becoming more aware of diversity issues in the world of book publishing, I was a white woman reviewing books that were not set in my world.  I was aware of my white privilege and trying too hard.  Not this time!

I LOVE THE WORLDS CREATED BY OLDER, and yes, I am shouting.  Like his Bone Street Rumba novels, there is a connection between the worlds of the living and the dead, but that is not to say it is the same.  What is the same is the vibrancy of the language, the tempo set for the telling of the story, and the wondrous world created in Brooklyn.

Sierra Santiago is a graffiti artist (my words) busy painting a dragon on the wall of a building recently constructed and abandoned.  She notices that a tear has emerged in the eye on another mural, and suddenly paintings are beginning to fade.  Sierra's coming of age journey brings her to a full understanding of her life as a Shadowshaper.  Her abuelo, no longer able to speak clearly, begins the story, but Sierra must follow clues and make connections.  No spoilers ever in my reviews, but I want to live in this world.  It is the same feeling I had when reading Older's other novels.  

Shadowshaper is a YA novel, and this retired high school English teacher wishes she was still working with young adults.  Older shares the world of the Hispanic teens and the challenges they face due to white privilege - not just as barriers in how they are viewed by others, but how they view themselves.  Sierra is viewing herself in a mirror: "Her skin was another matter.  It wasn't bad skin - a zit here and there and the occasional dry island.  But once when she was chatting with some stupid boy online, she described herself as the color of coffee with not enough milk"(79).  This line will resonate with students of color.  Reminiscent of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, this knowledge that life could be better if only my skin was lighter feels like a slap in the face for me as a white reader.  I cannot imagine how a young person of color deals with this racism every single day.  Sierra also has an aunt who reminds her that her hair is too bushy.  

There are other subtle reminders of white privilege as seen through these eyes; Sierra and her friends attend Octavia Butler High School.  (If you have never read anything by this marvelous author of science fiction, I recommend beginning with Kindred.)  And one of my favorite conversations in the novel is not plot developing but another reminder of white privilege:

“Imma write a book,” Tee announced.  “It’s gonna be about white people.”

          Izzy scowled.  “Seriously, Tee:  Shut up.  Everyone can hear you.”

“I’m being serious,” Tee said.  “If this Wick cat do all this research about Sierra’s grandpa and all his Puerto Rican spirits, I don’t see why I can’t write a book about his people.”  (161)

I laughed aloud reading this because of the irony.  How many white people think they can write about other cultures and peoples without doing any research?  This quick bit of dialogue is a reminder of the inequities in our country.

I’m still not thoroughly happy with this review, but it is much better than my review of the Bone Street Rumba novels.  I am looking forward to many more trips into the magical realism of Brooklyn through the eyes of Daniel Jose’ Older.

Older, Daniel Jose’. Shadowshaper. NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2015. Print.

Why Book Groups Don't Work for Me...

Last year I read 65 books.  In the past, I have read as many as 104 books in one year, but when I look back on those longer lists, there are many books I do not remember.  Several years ago I began to take notes on every book I read; it may slow down my reading, but I prefer this connection between reading and writing.  Acquaintances will frequently ask me if I am in a book group and are surprised at my response, "Not traditional book groups."

I am in a Great Books group which meets monthly September through June (excluding December and January), but we read excerpts, short stories, essays, poems, and occasionally a play.  We only read a novel during the summer for September discussion.  However, I've missed the past four months due to other commitments.  I meet monthly with a group of Bookcrossers, and we exchange and discuss books but are never reading the same book for a group discussion.  This informal gathering of readers is my favorite book group.  We discuss books briefly and pass on those ready to share.  If no one is interested in a book, it is left at our bookcrossing zone.  (Bookcrossing is a fun website.  The premise is to register books and leave them places in the hopes that another reader will take the book and journal on his/her experience reading it.  There are also forums for book discussion.  No one is required to set up an account to explore the site.)  I belonged to three or four different monthly book groups beginning in the early 90s and stopped two years ago because I rarely had the book read in time for the meeting.

What I have discovered over the years is I am much happier choosing what I want to read, when I want to read it.  I usually try to have five or six books that are "next to be read."  But sometimes one book leads to another because of the topic or the author.  Sometimes I walk by my bookshelves, and a book speaks to me, begging to be read next.  I enjoy this freedom.

There are always challenges out there calling to me.  One appeared on Facebook this year starting as a blog someone posted; it had suggestions for broadening your reading choices: read a book published before you were born, read a book you should have read in school, read a book that has been banned, etc.  My regular reading encompasses every challenge on the list, so I signed up to see how quickly I could work through the 16 categories and completed 5 in January.  I usually follow the CBC's offering of Canada Reads because of my love affair with Canada and the works of Canadian authors - not just those readily available in the United States like Margaret Atwood or Louise Penny - but others I must buy in Canada.

In the past few months, I have become more interested in reading for diversity.  I have long been an advocate of teaching and reading more female authors and authors of color.  There is nothing wrong with reading books by dead white men, but we need to go beyond the past.  It doesn't take much effort to find blogs that make a person think more about what she is reading.  One of my favorites is American Indians in Children's Literature.  Debbie Reese has opened my mind on more than the portrayal of American Indians and introduced me to other writers.

One of those writers, Daniel Jose' Older, was the subject of my first posting this year.  Check it out!

New beginnings...again.

NOTE:  I started this entry on 2 February with the intention of posting it before anything else; however, I accidentally published a review I finished writing and could not figure out how to take it down.

It has been over a year since my last posting.  That sounds like the beginning of a Catholic confession, but it really is the sound of shock hitting me square in the forehead.  OVER A YEAR!  What the hell? But as I said in my last post of 2014, if I don't write the review immediately after reading the novel, I become too far removed.  So I have been doing some mental planning for changes in my blog.  This planning started over a month ago, but it takes effect now.

Beginning today, 2 February 2016, I will post weekly.  If a book asks me to write a review, I will write one; otherwise, I will write a report on what I have been reading.  I was truly shocked today when I realized my last posting was in 2014, and my new beginnings must start with commentary, however brief, on my reading for 2015.

2015 began with readings that appealed to the senses: Perfume by Patrick Suskind and The Bells by Richard Harvell.  I followed these with a fun middle school novel, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, which I had read previously, and Vermeer by Sandra Forty, a brief study of his art.  It was pleasant reading for those cold months of last winter.  Then I went through a few months with low and high points; I read a best seller, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, reminding me why I do not usually read best sellers: if it sounds like it is based on something that happened in the news, I'm not interested.  To clear my head of that drivel, I read a new YA novel by a Canadian author, Raziel Reid, When Everything Feels Like the Movies, and loved it.

I read wonderful mysteries like The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith and award-winning novels such as The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.  I bought and read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo before everyone was talking about it.  It has helped me; although I still have a lot to do, but it helped me understand why I am a disorganized person who easily adapts to clutter.  Understanding my mother's method of cleaning, I can see that what makes sense to one person does not always make sense to someone else.  Trying to get organized means beginning by throwing things away.  I am still throwing things away.  This is easier to do when you have reached my age.

After several years of saying I should read something by Louise Penny, I read Still Life and became a Gamache devotee.  I continued to read and enjoy anything by Carl Hiaasen, Stephen King, Alice Hoffman, and Neil Gaiman and based on recommendations from friends became a fan of Eowyn Ivey and Mo Hayder.  I read Toni Morrison's newest book, God Help the Child, and her first novel, The Bluest Eye.  I read Beloved again and decided I need to read all of her novels. This will not happen in one year, but the process has begun and reading them in order of publication suits my preferred author focus.

When classes started up at Alfred State College in August, I checked out the new books offered in the Hinkle Library.  Jacqueline Woodson's memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, is magnificent.  I have enjoyed her books for high school and elementary students for a long time.  Unfortunately, her works are a hard sell with the rural audience I have taught for most of my career.

As summer turned to autumn my thoughts gravitated toward Halloween.  I read two classic horror novels: Carrie by Stephen King and The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.  Having never read Carrie, I approached it as if Stephen King was a new author.  It was fun to have that mindset, which enabled me to almost experience his writing as others would have when the novel first appeared.  As someone familiar with his work, I was able to enjoy the stylistic choices he had in that first novel and how he has improved them over the years.  I have had a copy of The Exorcist since its first appearance in paperback.  The young Catholic girl was going to read it and risk damnation.  Well, I never got around to reading that novel until October.  It was a good read and literally fell apart as I turned the pages.  It is one of the few books I have ever thrown out.

Margaret Atwood's latest collection of short stories, Stone Mattress - Nine Wicked Tales, was written for her peers...those of us who have reached a certain age.  Marvelous.  And I finished out the year reading several YA novels and novels aimed at middle school audiences: Blue Balliett is a favorite author of mine along with the  previously mentioned Carl Hiaasen who is able to write for adults and younger readers with equal success.  And I entered the world of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  Wonderfully inventive use of time travel beginning with his collection of old photos.  I have since read the trilogy.

But I must take time to mention two works of non-fiction that both affected me for completely different reasons: The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.  If you haven't read Malcolm X, you should.  It is one of those books that I have been meaning to read for years and finally decided to read.  I learned so much about Malcolm X; Spike Lee's film enlightened me, but so many situations were explained and expanded on in the book.  Our lack of education regarding people of color in this country is deplorable.  Lack of diversity in literature of the United States has become a topic close to my heart and is an issue I will be exploring.  I have also become more concerned with chemicals in food even before they are processed.  Kingsolver's book describes her family's experiences eating locally for a year.  That year was transformative for all of them and convinced me that I should attempt to find more of my foods locally and eliminate purchasing food that has been transported long distances.  Eating locally means eating fruits and vegetables in season and preserving them for later use.  As spring emerges here in New York, I will be attentive to the local crops available at several local farmers' markets.  Between the racism and intolerance that is growing at a time when it should be a non-issue, and Monsanto's poisoning of our food and the bees which are necessary for plant life, this 60 something woman is disillusioned with her country.  The young woman I was 40 years ago never imagined life in our country would be so discouraging as she approached retirement.

Thus ends my overdue entry: an overview of my reading for the year and commentary on life as I se it..  I hope it encourages some of you to check back as I blog on a more regular basis.  And I hope you enjoyed seeing three of my favorite authors at work: I will never have as neat a desk as Joyce Carol Oates but am closer to Stephen King's style of clutter than Ray Bradbury's.

Bone Street Rumba Novels...a new series

Back in June my Book Riot Box included a novel by Daniel Jose’ Older.  I was not familiar with Older, but the novel was announced as the first in a new series.  Looking at the cover, I was delighted to see it was not a zombie or vampire series but something different – something new.  I set it aside while preparing for the Shakespeare Seminar I lead each summer, and it was lost among the many books waiting to be read.

Fast forward to November…because of my interest in diversity in literature I began following a controversy regarding a children’s book, A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall.  I will not explain the controversy, if interested, Google the title; however, one of the links led me to a panel discussion with Jenkins and other authors, including Daniel Jose’ Older.  I found his comments to be cogent, sincere, and eye-opening.  I began a search to learn more about him, and while reading his Facebook page, I had my “Ah Ha” moment: there was a photo of Half-Resurrection Blues.  And it became one of my first reads of 2016.

Older is an excellent storyteller and sucked me in immediately.  Carlos Delacruz is an Inbetweener: neither dead nor alive, he was partially resurrected.  He works for the New York Council of the Dead, and his territory is Brooklyn.  As the story begins, Carlos is the only Inbetweener but soon others appear, and he is in a battle with Sarco who wants to destroy the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead. 

Half-Resurrection Blues is peopled with a mixture of humans and ghosts, some of whom understand Carlos’ world.  Carlos does not know anything about his previous life.  The first face he saw as an Inbetweener was Riley, a ghost, and now his best friend.  But my favorite ghost is Mama Esther:

Then we enter the library, the only room in the entire house with any furniture, and everything’s all right again.  There aren’t even shelves, just stacks and stacks of books from floor to ceiling.  You’d think it’d be a chaotic mess, all packed in there like that, but somehow there’s a harmony to it: the books seem almost suspended in midair…Esther’s floating in her usual spot right in the center of the room.  That’s where her head is anyway.  Beneath that great girth smile, her wide body stretches out into invisibility in a way that lets you know she’s got the whole house tucked within those fat ghostly folds. (29).

If I ever return as a ghost, I want to be Mama Kate. 

The world of the living includes Baba Eddie and Kia, a sixteen year old girl who runs his Botanica.  Even at fourteen, Kia was knowledgeable and confident, “She bounced back and forth between customers, arguing about how much yerba buena to use in a spiritual cleansing and helping an old man who wanted to get his wife back from her new lesbian lover” (41).

But the world of Carlos Delacruz is filled with fear and violence: fear of the destruction of both worlds if Sarco is successful and the violent battle that ensues including a nearly indestructible being: the Ngk.  Carlos is in the middle of this from the opening when the Council of the Dead orders him to kill the other Inbetweener who has appeared, and Carlos makes a promise with unknown entanglements.  It is a dark urban fantasy.

And as I was finishing my visit to the dark world of Half-Resurrection Blues, the second Bone Street Novel, Midnight Taxi Tango, hit the shelves with a January, 2016 publication.  It picks up with some new characters and another battle threatening the comfortable, if sometimes uneasy, separation of the worlds of the living and the dead.

The end of Half-Resurrection Blues left Carlos with some complications in his life.  He is still the main character, but Kia evolves into a young woman of power and conviction.  Her background is developed, and her interest in capoeira forced me to Google it: what an amazing martial arts form.  Another human character, Reza, a lesbian taxi driver with a special twist to her job, joins the battle, and these three characters alternate as the narrators.  This time they are taking on the Blattodeons; pink cockroaches with primordial power.    

Maybe my experience with the first novel brought me to a better reading of Midnight Taxi Tango, or perhaps the idea of Blattodeons is more disgusting in my mind, but I found some of the descriptions absolutely horrific.  Reza shoots at a strange man and:

For a second he just stands there.  Angry holes pockmark his face, his hands, those long robes.  Little curls of smoke plume out of each one, and I can only imagine what the blowout from the exit wounds must be like on the other side.  Then I see the skin on his neck shudder; it’s moving.  It’s alive.  It’s one of those evil fucking insects, making its skittish, evil way up his chin and across his startled face.  (75).

I do not give spoilers in my reviews, but trust me, these descriptions will get the adrenaline pumping.

            Both novels are mesmerizing trips into a realistic urban environment.  Older has other published books including the highly acclaimed YA novel, Shadowshaper. I am looking forward to many more excursions into the worlds he creates.  Note: His books are available on Audible, and he is the narrator for Midnight Taxi Tango.

Older, Daniel Jose’. Half-Resurrection Blues. New York: ROC/Penguin, 2015. Print.

---. Midnight Taxi Tango. New York: ROC/Penguin, 2016. Print.