June has been another busy month, but I still managed to get some reading time in the books (dad joke). Our garden is absolutely exploding with all of this hot weather: tomatoes, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, and basil are all thriving. I am even starting to see some green beans on the vine…almost ready.
This month, I read:
An enrapturing mystery that also taught me a lot about maps.
A collection of Indigenous short stories that could have made for a compelling novella.
A high-action heist read with some pensive reflection on second-generation Americans.
An incredible listen of a read from one of my new favorite authors for moments of diversion.
A tragic tale of a family of Chinese-American women through generations that caused me to lean into some personal reflection.
A story with the most compelling, quirky, and deeply-flawed heroine.
Let’s get to them!
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
This book has so much going for it: history, intrigue, and a little magical realism sprinkled in! I thoroughly enjoyed this read.
Nell has lost everything. Her prestigious career at the New York Public Library’s Maps Division. Her longtime boyfriend. And her relationship with her father, a prestigious researcher and cartographer at the NYPL. She was cast out in disgrace due to an incident with a cheap gas station map, and no one of repute would hire her. So she has been working for the last few years at the only place that would give her a job in the world of cartography: a shop whose mass-produced maps are cheap imitations of the real thing.
But when her estranged father is found dead at his desk and Nell discovers that same mysterious map that cost her everything hidden within its drawers, Nell finds herself tracking a trail that unwinds in the most mysterious ways. The map she thought was worthless has been the sole focus of a curious collector. This mystery connoisseur is hunting down copies, offering large sums to anyone who can find one, and destroying these gas station oddities.
What she will uncover asks the question: what are maps truly for?
This was a delightful read that was both a love letter to the field of mapmaking and a cleverly plotted mystery all rolled into one. Enjoyed this one!
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
I love a book of short stories, but I felt like this almost should have been a novella. With the same characters recurring throughout the stories, I feel like they would have been better served as one coherent thread.
However, Talty was masterful in weaving together Penobscot Indian Nation legend and tradition with compelling characters. The Indigenous people of Maine are an entirely new community for me as a reader and I was fascinated by the themes of survival and inheritance amidst so much pain. It felt akin to Louise Erdrich (one of my favorite authors) who writes of the Ojibwe, and yet Talty’s stories were singularly unique, with a mystic quality all their own.
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
Like an Ocean’s Eleven for the art world, this book did not stop. Five twenty-something with their lives ahead of them are recruited by a mysterious Chinese company to steal a series of sculptures looted from Bejing years ago that now reside in Western museums. As Chinese-Americans, this crew of five are living out their parents’ American dreams, from a Silicon Valley programmer to a med school student, from a public policy major to a future business tycoon. But each struggle with their identity, how Chinese should they be, and how American? This team is inspired by the ability to do something for the country of their heritage, to return what was stolen during colonization. They will also get $50 million if they are successful. Lots of motivation to go around.
Each member of the crew has a role to play.
Will: the leader
Irene: the con artist
Daniel: the thief
Lily: the getaway driver
Alex: the hacker
This unlikely team bands together and begins to plan their series of heists. What follows is non-stop action (a la: Oceans) across the globe, along with a fascinating character study on Chinese-American identity and the burdens and boldness of second-generation Americans. Enjoyed the fast pace with a bit of character reflection.
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
A purely for-fun read! Continuing my journey through the audio versions of all of Moriarty’s work because Caroline Lee’s voices are so good (she’s an Aussie!).
I really enjoy Liane Moriarty. Her character studies are so good, and the way she can simmer conflict is just addictive to read! I enjoyed the show, but this listen was also just a good read in its own right!
Now we come to the part of the scheduled programming where I review books I didn’t love. But I also learned from the experience of reading both of them.
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
This was our book club pick for the month and I have to say: I regret picking it. I tried to pick up this book last year and couldn’t get through it, but trying again did not help. This book is what I think could be classified as “tragedy porn,” which is defined as a deeply sad/despondent story where the teller offers little in the way of resources, debate, or dialogue around the primary issue (in this book, generational trauma). It is tragedy for the sake of entertainment. And at many points in this story, I felt exactly that.
Why is this hopeless story being told about characters who have zero agency, these Chinese and Chinese-American women whose tragedy and trauma are simply thrust upon them? There was a shallowness to all of these women, who could have been richly known and investigated by Ford, but instead, they were simply the sum of what happened to them.
That to me was the great tragedy of this novel. I wanted to know
Dorothy,
Afong,
Faye,
Zoe,
Lai King,
and
Greta.
And instead, I got to know the terrible events and collective trauma of their lives.
These are not the same thing. Because…
We are the mountain, not the weather.
I think we as readers must interrogate these works, because I have found this all too often to be true. Tragedy is not entertainment. What happened to you is not who you are. These events mold and shape us, yes, but they do not define us. My pastor quoted theologian Martin Laird in his sermon Sunday and I resonated deeply with this portrait of our lives in God’s care.
“The marvelous world of thoughts, sensations, emotions, and inspiration, the spectacular world of creation around us, are all patterns of stunning weather on the holy mountain of God. But we are not the weather. We are the mountain. Weather is happening—delightful sunshine, dull sky, or destructive storm—this is undeniable. When the mind is brought to stillness we see that we are the mountain and not the changing patterns of weather appearing on the mountain.”
-theologian Martin Laird
Terrible things happen every day, to people whose actions are both wonderfully kind and unspeakably evil. Terrible things have happened in my own life. But I am not the weather. I am not those terrible things. And neither are you, dear reader. In sum, this book was another in a line of books that I would not recommend. It had so much promise: the premise of generational trauma was such a fascinating one, and the magical realism Ford employed was brilliant. But he fell short in actually developing characters, and that to me was the great failing. All weather, no mountain. So, this Book Club Pick will be returning to McKay’s with the next book purge.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Trigger warnings: graphic suicidal attempt and intense familial abuse. There were a few moments I wish I could un-listen to. Take care, friends.
I wanted to love this novel in its fullness. There was a lot about it I did love. Eleanor reminds me of A Man Called Ove, but from Glasgow: hard to like on the first pages and impossible not to love by the end. She was so completely unique and utterly herself that I just knew she would win me over quickly. Eleanor has grown up alone and on her own, in and out of foster care from a young age, she lives a quiet and isolated existence. Scars that cover her face keep the world at a distance as Eleanor attempts to do the same with her traumatic past. She has no social life, outside of weekly calls from her emotionally manipulative and abusive mother. When she and coworker Raymond save an elderly man’s life, an unlikely friendship blooms as they are both welcomed into the family of the man whose life they saved.
Amidst this newfound kinship, Eleanor develops an infatuation with a local musician, Johnnie Lomand. Committed to curating the perfect meet-cute, she engages in a bit too much cyberstalking, and things don’t go as planned. She is as endearing as she is awkward, wrong as she is wronged, Eleanor made for a complex and tragic, but ultimately hopeful, heroine. An introspective on loneliness and isolation, and the power of human connection, this book made me laugh out loud and brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion.
However, I did struggle with the intensity of a couple of scenes towards the end of the novel. The detailed suicide attempt mixed with the detailed flashbacks of the disturbing abuse Eleanor suffered at the hands of her mother was a lot to take in. This story bordered on the same issues as The Many Daughters of Afong Moy toward the end: trauma as entertainment. And I do think the author crossed into that territory in the detailed nature of these events.
However, the characterization of Eleanor was so complete by these plot points that I didn’t feel that was all the book had to offer ultimately. Eleanor’s story shows that she is the mountain, not the weather. Her resiliency is exactly the kind of good story I want to be told more often. The weather is terrible, and the storms seem overpowering—but Eleanor proves to be made of tougher stuff.
I am torn on this one: I am glad I finished it in the end, but the road to get there was rocky indeed (especially the novel's final quarter). Tread with care.
Though I cannot thoroughly recommend these last two picks, I will say that I still learned a great deal from both. Learning about what we read and why is never wasted. And if you need another reminder in this crazy climate we are living in:
We are the Mountain, Not the Weather.
So let’s weather those storms and remember who we are. And the strength that lives within us.