Description: I discovered this novel at Hagar Books, which always has a lovely display in the window. I loved the fun colours on the cover, I haven’t read many Iranian authors, and the book was published by Europa Editions–a publisher I recently discovered.

Azar’s writing reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree has that 100-Years-of-Solitude. It also reminds me of Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Azar’s writing is beautiful, the story is spellbinding yet sad, there’s a mystical element to the storytelling, and Azar has an interesting and playful voice.

I say it’s like Thien in that we are deep into the worst of Iran’s Islamic Republic Revolution. It’s hard to read about the grief of a family, young men hanged without trial, children killed in fire bombs. From Thien, I came to better understand China’s Cultural Revolution. From Azar, I got a good introduction to Persian storytelling and traditions. Plus the book is littered with literary quotes and references!

Favourite quote: I love the fairytale elements, the tricksy jinns, the sister who turns into a mermaid. The opening paragraph is reflective of the overall tone of the novel:

Beeta says that Mom attained enlightenment at exactly 2:35 P.M. on August 18, 1988, atop the grove’s tallest greengage plum tree on a hill overlooking all fifty-three village houses, to the sound of the scrubbing of pots and pans, a ruckus that pulled the grove out of its lethargy every afternoon. At that very moment, blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, Sohrab was hanged.

chapter 1

Perfect read for fans of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

Mark Haddon is probably best known for his bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which won 17 literary prizes and was made into an acclaimed stage play. I’m a Haddon fan. But I didn’t love this novel. Haddon’s recent works re-imagine myths and legends and turn them into contemporary stories. In this novel Darius and the yacht, the Porpoise, become Pericles, the prince of Tyre.

Description: The novel opens with a terrifying plane crash. I started reading this novel the week that Kobe Bryant’s plane went down and it was eerie. Then there is one violent moment after another as we weave between different versions of the Darius character across time. This is not a linear novel, many of the male characters are unlikeable, if not despicable.

The baby who survives the plane crash is raised by her wealthy, overprotective AND incestuous father. Yuck. She eventually starves herself to death. The Darius in this story is a potential suitor and saviour but he’s beaten almost to death by the father and escapes. Or maybe dies and in another universe because Pericles.

Pericles also loses his wife and daughter in a crash — this time it’s a ship. But actually they both survive, unbeknownst to him. There are a few lovely moments in the lives of these women when mythical beings save them, or they save themselves.

Basically this is a novel about shattered families. Asshole men. And women who are beaten down yet survive.

Favourite quote: Marina (daughter of Pericles) escapes her foster family (who were plotting to kill her) and she’s being hunted by soldiers. She’s already escaped her kidnapper / assassin.

She slides swiftly into a profound sleep in which she runs with a band of women across rolling grasslands, over hard, packed sand, through fine columns of leaf-light between trees. They turn into deer and she becomes a deer running with them. Their speed is thrilling, the earth spun to a blur by their hooves. Then they become a thousand arrows falling from the clear sky, into bark, into grass, into fur, into flesh. They are women and deer and arrows and this is no contradiction. They they are the wolves tearing into the flesh of the dying horse and tearing out the slippery liver and kidneys of the man who kidnapped her, and this is both terrifying and absolutely right, the way lightning is terrifying and absolutely right. They snap away the white ribs with their powerful jaws and yank out the lungs and she knows without question that this is precisely how he died.

The Porpoise by Mark haddon

Perfect read for those who like Greek Myths with a contemporary twist. I’d choose The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood over this one though.

Description: This is magic realism Canadian style. Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Raymond Chandler, in Toronto. What do I mean? The Ticking Heart is a story about the inevitable and the inescapable. For the protagonist Charlie, the inevitable and inescapable truth is that his marriage is over and he needs to get on with it. To force his hand (or rather his heart), the universe intervenes by “poof” and Charlie finds himself in Metamorphia, a place where nothing is as it seems. Charlie is a private detective, summoned by an ex-girlfriend, to resolve the unpleasant matter of where her beloved has hidden his heart. There’s a cyclops, a man with twigs for arms, and a jail that you put yourself into voluntarily. I can’t explain the crazy, but this is a fun read.

Poof is how people get in and out of Metamorphia. For Charlie, the clock is ticking. His kids have karate, and the ex-girlfriend has replace his heart with a ticking bomb. Falling in and out of love is tricky business!

Who is it for? Fans of film noir, scifi, and magic realism. If you’re a fan of Kaufman and his previous works then no doubt you have already read this one. It’s quirky, cute and at its heart a fable about what it means to love.

Favourite moment: Chapter 16: Return of the Cyclops

“It was raining sheet music when Charlie came out of the Library of Blank Pages. Crisp white scores, lined with staffs and dotted with notes, fell through the air. Each page struck a note as it hit the ground, producing random plunks, a Cage-like cat pacing the length of a piano. Charlie didn’t try to figure out what it mean. He allowed himself to become engrossed in the beauty of it. That is why he didn’t notice how quickly the Cyclops was approaching him.”

Description: This novel reads like a series of short stories linked together. Each are fairy-tale romances with strange heroines and a bit of magic. The general premise is that celebrated Mr. Fox can’t stop thinking about his muse, so much so that she actually comes to life, much to the chagrin of his wife Daphne. The characters in the stories often are named Mr. Fox, Mary Foxe, and Daphne, but they are never the same people in the same story.

Who is it for? If you liked The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, this has some of the mystery and magic, and the nonlinear narrative. I found it odd in a lovely way.

Favourite moment: When Daphne thinks Mr. Fox is cheating on her but then comes face to face with Mary. Daphne knows Mary is not real but still takes her out to dinner.

Description: The book blurbs reference Philip Roth and John Updike but to me this is Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Great Gatsby. Regardless, it’s a remarkable debut novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and has the feel of an amazing personal account with embellishment.

Toby Fleishman is a well-respected New York doctor earning $285K. But his wife Rachel is the true breadwinner and the more ambitious partner. She wants (and has) the house in the Hampton’s, she runs a successful talent agency, she works out at the right yoga gyms with the right people, but it’s never enough. She’s driven to achieve more and more. She puts her career above her family and Toby is the working dad who leaves on time to pick up the kids, who makes the dinners, and is on hand for homework and parental duties like fundraisers and parent conferences.

The Fleishman’s are a modern-day family and Rachel battles sexism in her job, friend circle, and family. She’s the absentee parent who loves her children but feels wrecked by them. The Fleishman’s whole world really goes topsy turvy though when Rachel disappears. She drops the kids off unexpectedly with Toby then vanishes. She’s 3 weeks late picking up the kids, and by her standards that’s late.

Brodesser-Akner structures this novel in a fascinating way where we have Toby’s point of view for 3/4 of the novel and Rachel’s at the end. The tale is narrated by Elizabeth, a mutual friend (well mostly Toby’s friend from university), and through her perspective we see a big unraveling of the structure of marriage, the competitive nature of New Yorkers, and feminism and in the workplace.

Perfect read for fans of Tom Wolfe, JD Salinger, or Edith Wharton. I love the writing. This is a classic like Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe) or The Great Gatsby in its shrewd observations of this moment in time. From afar, it looks like a perfect portrait of New York society and a careful re-construction of the pain and endless questions prompted by divorce. Brodesser-Akner dutifully probes the behaviour and psychology of upper-class New Yorkers in the style of long-form magazine prose.