An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good - Helene Tursten

Like Dexter, Maud’s more famous fictional serial killer peer, Maud doesn’t kill anyone that doesn’t pretty much deserve killing. Dexter probably has killed more bad people than Maud will ever manage to knock off, but then Dexter isn’t 88-years-old either. Maude, on the other hand, is very near 89 by the end of Helene Tursten’s An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good, and she’s still going strong, so who knows what her final bodycount will total?

An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good is a collection of five stories featuring Maud, the “elderly lady” in question, who has lived in the same large apartment in Gothenburg, Sweden, for her whole life. Due to a legal clause her father managed to slip into a sales contract, Maud has lived in the apartment entirely rent-free for the last several decades, something that is a constant irritant to its owner and her fellow apartment building tenants. Maud has no real friends, and she likes it that way. She is not a lady to ignore the small stuff, and those who threaten her emotional peace or threaten to harm her in any way often pay the ultimate price for their behavior. That may sound a little drastic on Maude’s part, but Tursten’s stories are so funny, and Maude’s victims so deserving of a whack or two on the head, that readers can’t help but laugh at Maude’s shenanigans while cheering her on. 

The five stories collected here were written between 2007 and 2018, but Maud’s attitude  changes very little over time (the five stories are not even presented in the order in which they were written). Sometimes Maud is out there avenging old friends, sometimes neighbors (she has a vested interest in this one), and sometimes just — as she sees it — defending herself. Interestingly, the fifth story turns out to be a prequel to the story that comes just before it so that everything can be seen again from Maud’s point of view rather than that of the first person narrator (and neighbor of Maud’s) who gives us the original version of why a dead body was found in Maud’s apartment. That fourth story (“The Antique Dealer’s Death) is the only one of the five told in the first person; the other four are all in the third person.

Bottom Line: Maud is a hoot. Readers may feel a little guilty about laughing at the way Maud eliminates her problems, but it is impossible not to cheer her on. A second collection, of six stories, titled An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed has just been published, and it promises to continue Maud’s adventures and test her skills to stay out of prison. Go, Maud, go…

(Both collections are translated into English by Marlaine DeLargy.)

Helene Tursten

Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics - Heather Lende

Heather Lende lives in one of those little towns where it seems like sooner or later just about everyone who wants to will eventually hold some kind of political office. For Lende, that would turn out to be a position on the Haines, Alaska, town assembly. Haines sits in the extreme southeast part of Alaska, and is a place pretty much only accessible by plane, boat or ferry since the only road out of town goes northward toward the Yukon and terminates in Haines. Because of that, everyone in Haines knows everyone else in Haines…and pretty much everything about them and their families. But as Heather Lende would find out, politics in such a small, insulated community can be a little tricky. And in Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics, she tells us all about it.

Haines may be small, but its citizens take politics very seriously, and as in the rest of the country these days, political disagreements are all too often allowed to end old friendships and affect family relationships. Lende, who rather easily wins election to the Haines assembly,  barely settles into her new chair before she and two other of the more liberal representatives on the assembly become the targets of a recall petition and election. Much of Of Bears and Ballots recounts the emotional rollercoaster the author rides during that long, drawn out process, a process during which she feels betrayed by some of her closest and oldest friends and their families. That none of the three officeholders are successfully recalled is small compensation for the emotional scars Lende is left with and everything she suffers along the way.

While the portion of the book dedicated to the recall election is interesting, the real fun in Of Bears and Ballots comes from Lende’s description of daily life in a place like Haines, Alaska. What she has to say about the day-to-day goings-on that make a little town like Haines click is so intriguing that now I want to take a look at two of her earlier books in which she does the same in much more detail: 2011’s Take Care of the Garden and the Dogs (which was her mother’s dying wish) and 2006’s If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name. 

All in all, and despite her rough start in local politics, Lende comes away from the experience feeling better about and more proud of her community than ever. I do have to admit, however,  that I was a little surprised that despite everything she says about being openminded, considering all sides of an argument, and simply listening during assembly meetings, Lende manages to fall into the same old trap that so many of us fall into these days when it comes to dissenting political views. On numerous occasions, she makes sweeping generalizations about her more conservative constituents and their national counterparts that are so naive that they made me smile (despite the fact that I know I often do the same to those who disagree with me).

For instance, apparently even in a town as isolated as Haines, Alaska, it is possible to exist in a bubble so tightly sealed that a reaction like this one is possible: 

“When I admitted to the Unitarians that at least two of my dear friends and many people I know and have hosted in my home voted for Trump, they gasped.”

I know I’m not supposed to find that funny, but it makes me smile…and this is one of the kindest generalizations that Lende makes about “Trump voters.” I won’t point out the more strongly worded ones, but there are something approaching a dozen of them that jumped out at me. Still, that lack of self-awareness is so especially common these days that it is easily forgiven in a book that was as much fun as Of Bears and Ballots.

Heather Lende

Heaven - Mieko Kawakami

Mieko Kawakami’s 2009 novel Heaven has now been translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd and has been published in a Europa edition. It follows the success Kawakami enjoyed last year when her novel Breasts and Eggs became the first of her books to be published in English. 

Because of its heartbreaking plot, Heaven is not an easy novel to read. It tells the story of two middle school students, one male and one female,  who are so tormented and abused by their classmates that their lives are no longer their own. Everything that happens to the two of them is recounted by the unnamed boy who is being so badly bullied. He is the target of a small group of boys led by class favorite Ninomiya, a handsome, charismatic, but extremely cruel young man. Another gang member, a boy called Momose, is always around when our narrator is being bullied, but never gets his own hands dirty, preferring simply to stare from the outskirts of the action with a blank look on his face and his arms crossed. 

“Without school, I could get by without seeing anyone or being seen by anyone. It was like being a piece of furniture in a room that nobody uses. I can’t express how safe it felt never being seen. I knew the peace could never last, but it was immensely comforting to know that, if I never left my room, no one in the world could lay a finger on me. The flip side was I had no way of engaging with the world, but that was how it had to be.” - Narrator 

Kojima, a girl who comes to school everyday unwashed and having taken no care at all to her personal appearance, suffers a similar fate from a gang of girls who delight in tormenting her both emotionally and physically. She and the boy, despite their common suffering, have never acknowledged each other in the classroom, much less spoken about what is happening to them. Then one day, Kojima leaves an unsigned note hidden in the boy’s pencil case saying, “We should be friends.” The boy is almost certain that this is just another trick and that he is being set up for a new embarrassment at the hands of his bullies, but the notes keep coming and his curiosity keeps growing. Finally, more desperate for a friend than he knows, the boy agrees to meet the note-writer in the stairwell after school. And he and Kojima become each other’s only friend.

For the rest of the school year, through the summer, and into the new school year, the boy with the lazy eye and the “dirty” girl exchange letters and notes, and even meet occasionally to share their lives. They are still mercilessly bullied by their peers, but their lives are a little better for the friendship they share. But, of course, that will not be tolerated by either set of bullies when they finally figure out that Kojima and the boy have become friends behind their backs.

Bottom Line: Heaven is a disturbing novel that shines a spotlight on bullies and their victims. Kojima and the boy justify to themselves their own passiveness to everything they suffer, but the bullies sense their unwillingness to defend themselves and continue to escalate their cruelty. That is hard to watch, and I kept wondering where the adults were while all this was happening — realizing of course, that this kind of silent suffering at the hands of peers often goes unnoticed by parents and teachers until it is too late to do anything about it. This is a coming-of-age novel from Hell, and Hell would have, perhaps, been a more suitable title for this one than Heaven (the title has a specific meaning to the boy and the girl).

Mieko Kawakami

Book Memories: What You Remember and What You Forget

I stumbled upon a 2018 article from The Atlantic this morning that reminded me of exactly why I began Book Chase back in 2007. Even before I went public with my efforts, I had been writing very short "reviews" to myself for a while of the books I was reading because I realized how little I was retaining of them despite enjoying them so much while turning their pages. 

The problem seemed to be getting worse, but I was not ready to call "aging" the culprit, especially since everyone I knew, despite their own ages, readily admitted to the same thing. I more readily blamed it all on the emergence of e-books and all the other reading all of us do on our computers (and now even on our phones). Nothing seemed to sink in the way it used to do, nor did it stick around as long.

In the article mentioned, Pamela Paul (who was the editor of The New York Times Book Review at the time) explains her own reading memories this way:

"I always remember where I was and I remember the book itself. I remember the physical object. I remember the edition; I remember the cover; I usually remember where I bought it, or who gave it to me; what I don't remember - and it's terrible - is everything else. 

The article goes on to discuss why that is for so many people, but it so precisely described my own reading memories in 2007, that it surprised me to think that someone in Pamela Paul's position would have the same problem. Luckily, I've gotten relatively better at remembering what I read, and I attribute that to two things: "reviewing" to one extent or another everything that  I read, and having learned to concentrate much, much more effectively on what I read electronically. 

As a result, I think I love reading...and books...more today than I've ever loved them in my life. That's really saying something, because I've been a confirmed book-nerd since I was about four years old, and that was a long, long time ago. All of this tells me that even after Book Chase is no more, I'll be writing reviews on scraps of paper for a (hopefully) long time to come.

(Do read the article if you're interested in more of what Julie Beck has to say about her own experience. The Atlantic allowed me to read the full piece despite me not being a subscriber to the magazine.)

What Lies Between Us - John Marrs

I want to tell you all about John Marrs’s What Lies Between Us. I really do…seriously, I do. But that is not an easy thing to do without ruining some of the surprises that Marrs sprinkles throughout the entirety of this 363-page crime novel. So I’m going to have to be very careful with what follows. First, though, you should know that the International Thrillers Writers group called this one Best Paperback Original when announcing its 2021 awards. As someone who has never been sure why some books are paperback originals and others are not (marketing department decisions, I assume), I too often tend to downgrade paperback originals in my mind when looking for new reading material. And then a novel like What Lies Between Us comes along and blows my prejudice right out of the water. Now maybe, I’ve finally learned my lesson.

The safest way for me to describe the novel’s plot is to quote directly from its back cover:

“They say every house has its secrets, and the house that Maggie and Nina have shared for so long is no different. Except that these secrets are not buried in the past.

Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can’t ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price.

But there are many things about the past that Nina doesn’t know, and Maggie is going to keep it that way — even if it kills her.”

The hook described in this cover blurb is enough to make readers curious, but, really, it does not do the complicated plot full justice. Marrs has written a story about two women in a very strange relationship that will have the reader questioning over and over which of them is really the victim in that relationship. And every time they think they finally have it all figured out, along comes another revelation or hint that begins the process all over again. The twists and turns, in fact, keep coming right up until the book’s final couple of pages when readers reach the novel’s stunning conclusion. 

Bottom Line: I wish I could tell you more, but if you read this one, you’ll understand why I can’t. Let ’s just say that I had more fun with What Lies Between Us than I’ve had with almost any other book I’ve read this year. 

John Marrs is a former UK television interviewer who is now a full-time novelist. What Lies Between Us is his seventh book. 

John Marrs

Not Tonight, Josephine: A Road Trip Through Small-Town America - George Mahood

Because I enjoy wandering the back roads (I hate interstate highways with a real passion) so much myself, I’m always on the lookout for a well written travel memoir about that kind of trip. It doesn’t matter if the travelers are walking, biking, or driving; I’m ready to make the trip with them. I’ve made lots of those trips in the US and Canada, even a bunch in the UK when I was younger, so George Mahood’s Not Tonight, Josephine: A Road Trip Through Small-Town America from my first glance at its cover seemed just about perfect. 

Two young Brits, author George Mahood and his buddy Mark, decided to spend the better part of a year exploring America, having correctly assumed that the experience would be a much better way to learn about the country and its people than exclusively following the usual tourist track instead. Their plan, however, changed even before they landed in New York because Mark was granted only a 90-day visa, leaving George on his own when it was time to turn their rather ancient Dodge Caravan (called Josephine) around and head back to New York for the flight home. (George would inadvertently have his own visa problems later on.) Thankfully, Mark was able to join George before anything happened to George as he wandered around solo through places like some of Baltimore’s most drug-infested neighborhoods on foot searching for a place to sleep. 

Not Tonight, Josephine is every bit as much fun as I hoped it would be. Because the boys, due to budget restraints, spent the bulk of their nights sleeping on Josephine’s too-small seats, parked wherever they felt relatively safe, they had more than a few encounters with local cops who spotted them parked overnight in unusual spots. And because the trip began so late in the year, they often woke up with ice on both sides of the windows and chattering teeth. Even some of America’s cheapest, dirtiest, and weirdest motels began to look good to them at that point. 

There is even a love story happening in Not Tonight, Josephine despite the fact that George and Rachel have the Atlantic Ocean firmly fixed between them. At one point, as George continues to move westward and Rachel decides to relocate to Ireland, they manage to put more and more miles between them. For both, it is a new relationship with an old friend, and George fears that he is destroying it even before it begins. After Mark returns to England, George wants nothing more than to have Rachel join him for the return leg of the trip, but she is not so sure that is what she wants to do.

Bottom Line: I ended up liking Not Tonight, Josephine even more than I expected I would. George and Mark steered Josephine through many of the small towns and more-isolated regions of the country that I’ve explored on my own, and reading about their experiences brought back some good memories. It’s the “little things” and unexpected encounters that make this kind of trip a true success, and despite all the things they barely missed seeing on their travels, George, Mark, and Rachel ended up experiencing a very successful road trip with a lot of help from Josephine. This one is fun.

George Mahood