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Homecoming by Kate Morton | Book Review

August 8, 2024 / Monique

Homecoming by Kate Morton is a chilling novel about the mysterious death of a young Australian family on Christmas Eve, 1959. It’s literary fiction written in a true-crime style.

2018: Jess Turner is a struggling journalist who’s making ends meet in London when she is called back to Australia, where her beloved grandmother Nora has been hospitalized after a fall. Nora practically raised Jess after her mother Polly moved from Sydney to Brisbane without her. As Jess struggles to figure out what happened to Nora, to get Nora’s affairs in order, to deal with her estranged mother, she discovers her family’s connection to the brutal Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. As an investigative journalist, Jess is intrigued. As the connection to Nora and Polly becomes clearer, she is alarmed.

Christmas Eve 1959: Percy Summers stumbles across the sleeping bodies of Isabel Turner (English wife of a respected Australian businessman) and her three children (Matilda, John, and Evie). He does not realize that baby Thea is not present. The family is spread out on a picnic blanket under a walnut tree near a water hole, as if they were sleeping. It’s been a hot Australian day and storms and bushfires are on everyone’s mind. But all of their attention quickly focuses on finding baby Thea and figuring out if there is a murderer among them. What unfolds is an unusual story of small village dramas, love lost, and alliances formed.

Homecoming spans three generations and offers glimpses at the spellbinding nature of a family tragedy. It’s also a look at loneliness and how home is more than a place.

Home, she’d realized, wasn’t a place or a time or a person, though it could be any and all of those things: home was a feeling, a sense of being complete. The opposite of “home” wasn’t “away,” it was “lonely.” When someone said, “I want to go home,” what they really meant was that they didn’t want to feel lonely anymore.

In the acknowledgments, Kate Morton relays that the first ideas for Homecoming came to her in the Adelaide Hills, her family’s refuge during the “great unsettlement at the start of the Covid pandemic.” Instead of the hustle and bustle of London, they found themselves removed to a remote farm in South Australia. The uncertainty and loneliness of those early pandemic days must have informed the sentiments of Isabel Turner, displaced from London to a small Australian village, of Polly who never knew who her father was, of Jess, drawn to London and a busy career but never really belonging to either London or Sydney.

Homecoming is lovely and unsettling, beautiful and tragic. I really enjoyed this read.

Dune by Frank Herbert | Book Review

July 15, 2024 / Monique

Prior to embarking on my Dune audiobook journey, I had little knowledge of this epic tale or its film adaptations. I have to say Frank Herbert’s masterpiece is worth the read. Dune is an intricate saga of struggle, legacy, resource management, and greed. At its core are Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, who are deeply trained in the Bene Gesserit ways of reading people’s intentions and, for Paul, seeing possible visions of the future.

The story unfolds with the assassination of Paul’s father, Duke Leto, who knowingly walks into a deadly trap laid out by the treacherous Baron Harkonnen and the Emperor. The trap draws the Atreides family from their lush home world of Caladan to the arid desert planet of Arrakis, a land rife with giant sandworms and deadly storms. This harsh new environment is the sole source of the universe’s most valuable substance: the spice drug melange. Leto knows he’s being played but believes that the natives of Arrakis, the Fremen, are a worthwhile ally and that they can work together to solve the planet’s problems and form a better relationship with the Emperor. But, plots within plots and deep mistrust define the relationships between the various factions vying for control over the spice trade.

After the assassination of Leto, Baron Harkonnen puts his nephew in charge of Arrakis and is grooming another nephew to take over his place. Paul, the rightful ruler, narrowly escapes death and hides out in the desert with his mother Jessica. Paul and Jessica’s story aligns with a Bene Gesserit legend and the Fremen hiding them believe they are the ones spoken of in the legend. Paul may be destined to be the planet’s saviour, but as the narrative progresses, the line between hero and potential tyrant blurs.

The story is mostly told from Paul’s perspective but there are several passages recited by Princess Irulan, the eldest daughter of the Emperor. The excerpts from her journals and published works offer insight into the world of Dune, the Bene Gesserti way, and the legend of Paul, or Muad’Dib — the name adopted by Paul after he was accepted by the Fremen as one of their own.

In many ways the Bene Gesserti teachings act as a religion or yogic practice.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

This mantra, recited by Paul, encapsulates the essence of his training and the mental fortitude required for him to survive and thrive on Arrakis.

Yet Paul and Jessica’s abilities to perceive and influence the future also raise fascinating philosophical questions about destiny and free will. I find myself thinking about elements of this book more than I thought I would.

I love reading, but listening to Dune was excellent. The narration and sound effects expertly draw you into the world and add depth and dimension to the story. It’s also not surprising that the themes of Dune are as relevant today as they were when the book was first published in 1965. The struggle for resources, the dynamics of power, and the complexities of leadership and legacy resonate with the political struggles we see today. This is a story about colonialism, Imperialism, violence, and ecology.

The political intrigue and the multilayered conspiracies make for complex world-building equal to that of StarWars and Lord of the Rings. Herbert’s detailed descriptions paint a vivid picture of a desert planet and its original inhabitants and the tensions with its colonizers. The presence of the formidable sandworms and the harsh, stormy environment of Arrakis add to the sense of awe and danger that permeates the story.

I left the book wondering about Paul. He begins as a sympathetic character, yet his journey raises questions about the corrupting influence of power. Herbert leaves it unclear if Paul remains a hero or if he has succumbed to the very forces he sought to overcome. This ambiguity appeals to me, and it gives the novel a depth that’s missing from the binary good-evil of the StarWars series. I think there’s more to reflect on here about the nature of leadership and morality.

If you enjoyed the intricate political maneuvering and epic scale of Star Wars or the fantastical world-building and complex characters in the Wings of Fire series, then Dune is a must-read. Its blend of science fiction, adventure, and profound thematic exploration makes it a timeless classic.

Dune is available on Audible and through Libby, or from any one of Canada’s lovely independent bookstores (oh, yes and Amazon).

And if you’re interested in a deeper look into politics, ecology and what was happening in the 60s when this book was published, give this essay a read.

The Porcelain Moon by Janie Chang

June 24, 2024 / Monique

The Porcelain Moon follows the intertwined lives of two families during the final days of the First World War.

Pauline Deng is an illegitimate daughter, living with her Chinese uncle and cousin Theo in Paris. They run an antiques shop. Pauline is good with numbers and attractive, but her prospects are limited, and her uncle’s “first wife” is arranging Pauline’s marriage and return to China. Pauline secretly leaves for the town of Noyelle-sur-Mer, where she hopes to find Theo and convince him to negotiate her release from her uncle.

In Noyelle-sur-Mer, Pauline takes a room at Camille Rousell’s. Unbeknownst to her, the married Camille is Theo’s lover. Camille has married out of obligation and is secretly saving money to escape her abusive husband. She loves Theo but her situation is dangerous and she is determined to leave under her own steam.

These two women, trapped by marriage and the social obligations of the time, are bold and brave in their pursuit of happiness and independence. They are living during a well-documented time, but readers will be less familiar with the history of the 140,000 Chinese workers who were brought to Europe as non-combatant labour during the war. They were serving as civilians for the British and French, and faced discrimination and were subsequently written out of the history books.

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

June 13, 2024 / Monique

The Phoenix Crown is a spectacular confluence of two excellent historical fiction authors. I’m a big fan of Kate Quinn and had not heard of Janie Chang—even though she is a bestselling Canadian author. Oh goodness, I have a more to explore! (Thanks for the tip Rachael.)

The novel is set in San Francisco, 1906, just a before and after the earthquake, and subsequent fires, that devastated the city. Four women’s lives are intertwined based on their loose connections to a charming railroad magnate named Henry Thornton. Thornton claims to not be a very nice man, and that turns out to be the truth. He’s a collector and his objects are his heart. Too bad he collects women the same way he collects stolen Chinese treasures.

Thornton offers his patronage to Gemma (under-appreciated opera singer), Suling (Chinese embroidery legend and otherwise non-descript manager of the laundry), and Reggie (unknown yet phenomenal artist). His patronage represents career opportunities of a lifetime, but these women hardly escape with their lives. The forth woman? Botanist Alice Eastwood, who is a globetrotting, self-taught scientist, who is interested in Thornton’s prized plant, the Queen of the Night.

If you like historical fiction, then definitely give this book a read: The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang.

Wavewalker: A Memoir of Breaking Free by Suzanne Heywood

June 7, 2024 / Monique

Months ago I heard Suzanne Heywood interviewed on CBC Radio and her story captured my imagination. At seven, her father pulled her and her brother out of school in England and they set sail following Cook’s third voyage. Suzanne’s mother is seasick off the bat, they get hit by another boat before leaving the country, and their intermittent luck comes and goes from there.

What was promised as a year adventure, maybe 3 years, becomes 10. Suzanne does not have a romantic view of this adventure. Her younger brother John adapts more easily to no school. He learns the ropes (literally) and makes friends as needed. John is less than a year younger, but it’s the 70s and he’s a boy. Suzanne gets stuck in the galley making meals with her mother and running domestic errands (i.e., get mommy a G&T).

Imagine being away for 10 years of schooling. The lack of friends, the wayward lifestyle, the survival instincts needed to deal with storms, rollicking waves, life on a boat, customs and immigration—it’s crippling for Suzanne and also the catalyst for her plan to escape. It not all horrendous. There are some amazing moments, and she does live an incredible life at sea. But I’m amazed that young Suzanne was driven enough to figure out correspondence courses, when her family mostly couldn’t be bothered by whether the kids could do more than read, write and do a bit of math. Suzanne not only graduated, she graduated with top marks and got into Oxford University.

Wavewalker is a stunning autobiography about living someone else’s dream.

The Wreckage by Michael Crummey

May 28, 2024 / Monique

I had not read anything by Michael Crummey before, which is a shame, and now I’m hooked. The Wreckage starts with the trials and tribulations of a small village on Fogo Island. Sadie Parsons, the eldest daughter of a local Protestant family, finds herself falling in love with a Catholic boy named Wish, who has come across from St. John’s to run the movie projector. Local prejudice stands in the way, along with the fist of Sadie’s older brother.

Wish flees the Cove and follows the line of young men enlisting in the war. The Second World War is still in its early days, and Newfoundlanders (remember they were not yet part of Canada) were enlisting with the British army.

The story follows Wish from St. John’s to Nagasaki, where he suffers the brutality of a Japanese POW camp’s leader and barely survives the dropping of the atomic bomb. In the meantime, Sadie follows Wish from Fogo to St. John’s, but that’s where she stays, waiting for Wish’s war to end and finding her own sense of community among her new neighbours.

Sadie’s commitment to Wish is part blind faith and part blind stubbornness. I won’t spoil the story for you but the intertwining of these two stories is lovely and complicated. She drives the show!

Check out more about Michael Crummey on the Penguin Random House site.

On Browsing by Jason Guriel | Book Review

May 3, 2024 / Monique

On Browsing by Jason Guriel is part of the Field Notes collection published by Biblioasis. Field Notes are long-form essays packaged into beautiful, slim volumes.

On Browsing is a nostalgic look at how teens and adults used to spend their lazy weekend afternoons: browsing the bookstore, video store, record store, or just wandering the mall. The dying art of “just browsing” may be scoffed at by teens, and even most adults, today. But Guriel makes a good case for the serendipity we have lost in the slow, meandering pursuit of our next book, film, record or neat purchase. Digitization of culture and the relentless scrolling through algorithmic selections means we miss the hidden gems.

There are obvious advantages to online ordering and expediting your Starbucks order via the app. But I do miss window shopping, having my eye on something, just looking, seeing what’s out there … and having a person vs. a bot curate my selection and ask questions before making a recommendation. When everything is personalized to me, I miss what hearing and seeing what someone else loves.

I’m glad that events like the East Van Culture Crawl exist. I love going to Upstart & Crow to see what books they are fawning over. And I miss the lazy Saturdays wandering along Commercial Dr. to get coffee, check out the record store, wander through the magazine shops and then settle into whatever find was uncovered. Those purchases have memories attached to them, making the experience much richer than downloading a song or ebook or pre-ordering my chai latte. So yes, Jason Guriel, I’m with you on the walk down memory lane. Those were the days.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane | Book Review

April 30, 2024 / Monique

Hard to beat Stephen King’s blurb, “Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.”

Set in the summer of 1974, during Boston’s heatwaves and on the eve of the desegregation of schools, there is a murder of a young Black man on a subway station in “Southie”, a neighbourhood known for poverty, drugs, and housing projects. The Irish immigrants and descendants of Southie are in an uproar about sharing their school and having half of their kids bussed to a nearby Black school. So on the surface the novel is a police drama and the crime seems to be that four Irish-American teens have attacked an up-and-coming Black man, whose only crime was having his car breakdown in the wrong neighbourhood while he was en route home from his retail management training program.

That indeed is the crime, but the novel unveils the systemic racism and rule of law that undermines the welfare of those four teens who are fed lies from early on and jacked up on drugs fed to them by the neighbourhood watchmen who are running girls, guns, and drugs.

The Irish mob has a stronghold on the community of Southie until Mary Pat’s daughter is one of the teens on that subway platform. Mary Pat is one tough Broad and she has now lost both husbands and both children to Marty Butler’s gang of thugs and way of life. She disrupts his shit in a way that not even the police can, and it’s her story of hate, poverty and crime that is the real power of the novel.

This is America’s version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where human folly and racism lead to greed and cruelty at a scale that is nauseating.

If you enjoyed The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters or Hell of a Book by Jason Mott then Small Mercies explores the same depraved indifference to human life, and the corruption the erodes democracy and exacerbates inequality, poverty, and division among communities.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane is published by HarperCollins Canada. And NPR has a a great, indepth review.

True Biz by Sara Nović | Book Review

April 30, 2024 / Monique

Fantastic story about a group of teens making their way through high school. In their case, it’s River Valley School for the Deaf, and unbeknownst to them changes are afoot.

Charlie is new to the school and has only a beginner’s grasp of sign language because her parents operated on the hope that her cochlear implant would bring the promised hearing that the doctors preached.

For hearing readers, the novel is more than revelatory. In fact the author’s note has quite a list of schools for the deaf that have closed over the last decade and throughout the book are references to how the Deaf community is forced to struggle.

Charlie is assigned to Austin, the school’s undisputed king of the school. Austin comes from a long line of deaf family members. He’s the opposite of Charlie when it comes to signing and he lives almost exclusively in the Deaf community. Austin’s world goes wonky when his parents have an unexpected pregnancy and the baby is born hearing.

February is the school principal and she assigned Charlie and Austin as buddies in the hopes that they’d teach each other new things. Feb’s parents were deaf and she is a champion for the kids and the school, but so many things are out of her control.

If you liked the film CODA and the tv series Wednesday, then this novel set at a boarding school for deaf students is up your alley. It’s charming and has all sorts of deviant behaviour. I learned a lot about sign language, disability and civil rights, and the continued injustice that the Deaf community faces.

True Biz by Sarah Nović, perhaps ironically, is an enjoyable listen.

Maame by Jessica George | Book Review

April 3, 2024 / Monique

This book is as beautiful and colourful as its cover.

Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi, but for Maddie, it means woman. That is her family nickname. She is not the head of the household, but she is the most responsible. Her mum regularly spends a year in Ghana running a family business, then returning to London for a short time. Maddie’s older brother James is away working and travelling in the music industry, and he never picks up on the first ring. Maddie is busy working as PA in a hectic theatre company but is otherwise at home caring for her retired dad who has Parkinson’s.

This is a smart, funny, sad, beautiful book about a young woman growing up, and fighting microaggressions at work and family friction at home. In some ways Maddie is comforted by the sheltered upbringing orchestrated by her religious mother and her Ghana traditions, but in other ways Maddie is ready to break out on her own.

When her mum returns this year from Ghana, she encourages Maddie to move out of the house. The rollercoaster that ensues has a hint of Bridget Jones’s Diary as Maddie aims to reinvent and improve her social life (and love life). It’s joyous, funny, awkward and heartbreaking. But it’s also a story of depression, social anxiety, and grief. It’s about growing up Black and dealing with stereotypes.

Maddie’s parents moved to London as an opportunity for their children. But with an ill father and an absent mother and brother, Maddie has to navigate her identity solo. Her ability to speak Twi is mocked by various aunties, she has to deal with the “I’ve never dated a Black girl before” comments, a roommate questions her full-day of hair washing. The beauty of Maame is that Maddie loves to write and she has stories to share; the novel is presented as her telling her story through a mix of interior monologue, emails and texts, and background stories.

I think ultimately this is a story about belonging and the relationship you have with yourself. Maddie is worthy of so many things—especially positive attention from family, coworkers, and friends. I’m so glad she comes into her own.

The audiobook is great: https://www.audible.ca/pd/Maame-Audiobook/B0B1KJ4M3X?eac_link=mJg7UvxCdz4Q&ref=web_search_eac_asin_1&eac_selected_type=asin&eac_selected=B0B1KJ4M3X&qid=3FCSwMGe0W&eac_id=145-2640021-0791633_3FCSwMGe0W&sr=1-1

So Misguided