What I'm Reading This Week (May 6, 2024)

 

When it comes to turning pages, last week was a pretty good week, even if maybe not so good when it comes actually to finishing books. The only book I completed was Faceless Killers, the first novel in Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series. I do have three others near completion, with fewer than a 100 pages to go in each of them, but that means I was only able to begin one new book during the past week - and even that one was not among those I thought I'd be selecting from. I suppose I should just go ahead and admit to myself that I've temporarily (at the least) abandoned Camus's The Plague since I haven't touched it in almost a month, so that leaves me beginning the week deeply immersed in Alice McDermott's Absolution, Joan Leegant's Displaced Persons, and Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

Absolution has taken me in directions I didn't expect it to go, and is turning out to be even better and more affecting than I hoped it would be. I mentioned last week that the first part of the book, by far the longest of its three sections, is narrated by an 80-year-old looking back at her days in Vietnam in the early 1960s - and that it is directed specifically at a woman the narrator remembers from those days as a child. It turns out that the second part of the novel is the second woman's narrative response to what she has been told by the older woman. It's a little like some amazing jigsaw puzzle that can only be put together by the combined memories of Tricia and Rainey. There's so much packed into the story that the book feels much longer than it really is when measured by page-count.

I've now read all seven of the short stories in Displaced Persons that are set in Israel along with three of the seven set in the U.S. The common theme of each is reflected in the book's title as Leegant weaves her way in and out of stories about people who never really feel completely at home where they are. There is always something about the past or their dreams for the future that have them yearning for something they've either once had and lost, or never had in the first place. Even though the stories average only about twenty pages each, Leegant has a special talent for creating complete worlds and deep characters within the space she allows herself. Displaced Persons reminds me exactly why I am such a fan of short stories.

On Animals is a series of essays in which Susan Orlean explains her "animalishness" to the rest of us. Like most children, Orlean was animalish when she was a little girl; she just never outgrew the attraction and has structured her life in a manner that allows her almost always to have animals around her. In her introduction Orlean says, "I think I have the same response to animals that I would if Martians landed on Earth: I would like to get to know them and befriend them, all the while knowing we were not quite of the same ilk. They seem to have something in common with us, and yet they're alien, unknowable, familiar but mysterious." I can't say that I'm overwhelmed by the first two or three essays in the book, but I'm still reading.

Their fast approaching publication dates mean that I'll likely be starting these in the next few days, but I'm hoping this still turns out to be the week that I get to start re-reading either Deliverance or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, also:

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

I hope you all have good weeks, and that you find some terrific new books to tell us about along the way. I'll look forward to hearing all about them.