As is the case with many book lovers, my “to read” pile is growing way faster than my ability to keep up with it. That means that I’m late to discovering some true gems. One such gem is Donna Gordon’s heartrending début novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me. With compassion, sensitivity, and insight, the novel explores the potentially life-changing power of connecting with others, even though it may first seem that we have nothing in common with them.
The Last Whaler is a deeply moving novel that meditates on the grieving of parents following the loss of their son in an accident.
The grief of the mother, Astrid, is profound. To her lost child she says, “I long for those first blissful seconds of consciousness each morning when I wake to the thought that you’re alive, that any moment you and Birgita will run through the bedroom door and leap into bed with me and Pappa and snuggle under our warm down coverlet…. Oh, how agonizing that abrupt realization each morning that you are dead.”
Following their son’s death, Astrid insists she accompany her husband, Tor, to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Circle, where he has a whaling station. From mid-April to August the sun shines unceasingly, but in winter darkness rules. There are many dangers, including polar bears, accidents, the brutal cold, ice crevasses, food insecurity, isolation, and the threat of sexual violence implicit in being a lone woman among men.
For these reasons, Tor resists having Astrid accompany him: “‘The point is,” Tor says, “Svalbard can break you.”
“Or heal me,” responds Astrid. “Heal us.”
At the start of Murder in Mennefer, our young hero is set to begin a journey south down a river with a friend. That sounds like a classic American tale, calling to mind Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the journey does not happen, and this story is not an American one. Rather, Mennefer is what we know as Memphis in ancient Egypt, circa 27th century BCE, not the modern-day city in Tennessee. This is an Egypt so ancient that the pyramids have not yet been built. (Oddly enough, Huck and Jim’s original destination was Cairo, Illinois.)
The title Murder in Mennefer may call to mind an Agatha Christie mystery, and though there is a Hercule Poirot-like figure in the book, this is not a mystery in the sense of Death on the Nile. Murder in Mennefer is more of a coming-of-age adventure. There’s even a love interest, the baker’s daughter. Sirois deftly balances these various strands. He is having some fun in this novel aimed at young adults, and he’s inviting us along. I’m on board, and you should be, too, whatever your age. It’s a terrific ride.
As we approach middle age, it’s not uncommon for us to take stock of our lives and feel disappointment–with the choices we’ve made (or haven’t been able to make) or with where we find ourselves in terms of our relationships, our careers, or our mental, physical, spiritual, or material well-being.
In this reflective, thought-provoking novel, the main character, Polly Wainwright, finds herself in just such a place. Yet in a refreshing turn, her dissatisfaction with her life becomes a sort of engine, driving her to discover new possibilities for herself. In the process, she ends up unraveling a mystery: about a man and a place she’d encountered, and been deeply affected by, years before. All of these elements make for an engaging, richly rewarding read.
This searing, emotionally resonant story collection immerses us in the struggles of characters who, in many cases, are trying to make sense of the past, or of murky or troubled relationships–often, when they are at a crossroads in their lives. Haunting virtually all of the stories are traumas from the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Linforth considers how chasms may exist between family members, or between (current or former) lovers–and how it may be possible to never fully connect with, much less understand, those with whom we share blood, or with whom we’ve shared our lives. Yet sometimes, those chasms can be bridged, and he captures such moments with powerful prose.
Spanning three generations and the interconnected lives of multiple characters, The Door-Man is an inventive and revelatory novel. At the heart of it are two possibly unbridgeable gaps: between the central character’s fragmented understanding of his family’s history and the truth, and between an ancestral cycle of tragedy and a potentially hopeful future.