Monday, January 15, 2024

Short stories by Cleo Qian, and novels by Alina Bronsky, Amy Tan, John Irving, and Anne Tyler

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Most evenings, I ordered fried chicken from the same student hot spot near campus and took the food back to my studio, where I streamed Korean TV dramas and celebrity interviews with my VPN or played Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom until two in the morning. These were things I had done as a high schooler, and I was filled with the sickening and yet satisfying feeling of regression into immaturity. 
—From Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go, a collection of short stories by Cleo Qian (Tin House, 2023). This particular segment is from "Zeros:Ones," which appears on pages 41-54 of the book and which was originally published, possibly in a slightly different form, in The Adroit Journal (Issue 45). This specific passage appeared on page 45 of the paperback. 

When Herr Schmidt woke up early Friday and didn't smell coffee, at first he thought Barbara might have died in her sleep. It was an absurd idea—Barbara was as healthy as a horse—though even more absurd was the possibility that she could have overslept. She never overslept. But when he turned over in bed and saw that the other half of the bed was empty, it seemed to him that the most likely explanation was that Barbara had keeled over dead on her way to the kitchen.
—From Barbara Isn't Dying, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2023). This book was originally published in German as Barbara stirbt nicht (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Germany, 2021). 


My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.
—From The Hundred Secret Senses, a novel by Amy Tan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995). One of my favorite sections of this book had to do with Kwan and the owl (the cat-eagle); it starts on page 191 of the Vintage trade paperback version that I have. 


One night he saw one of the mothers standing in the baby room. She did not appear to be looking for her baby in particular; she was just standing in her hospital gown in the middle of the baby room, her eyes closed, absorbing the smells and sounds of the baby room through her other senses. Homer was afraid the woman would wake up Nurse Angela, who was dozing on the duty bed; Nurse Angela would have been cross with her. Slowly, as Homer imagined you might assist a sleepwalker, he led the woman back to the mothers' room.  
—From The Cider House Rules, a novel by John Irving (William Morrow and Company, 1985). This passage appears on page 86 of the hardcover published in 1985.   



Bonus book to read again: 

At the puppet show, in a green and white tent lit by a chilly greenish glow, Cinderella wore a strapless evening gown that made her audience shiver. She was a glove puppet with a large, round head and braids of yellow yarn. At the moment she was dancing with the Prince, who had a Dutch Boy haircut. They held each other so fondly, it was hard to remember they were really just two hands clasping each other. "You have a beautiful palace," she told him. "The floors are like mirrors! I wonder who scrubs them."  
—From Morgan's Passing, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). 

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Poetry by Louise Glück, memoirs by Abigail Thomas and Busy Philipps, stories by Amparo Dávila, and a novel by Anne Tyler

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It's not easy to pluck individual poems from her books, since Glück was particularly adept at conceiving of book-length sequences—each of her collections is best encountered as a whole, like a Pink Floyd album that doesn't readily yield a hit single.
—From "Five Louise Glück Poems to Get You Started," an article by Gregory Cowles, The New York Times (October 13, 2023). Louise Glück died earlier in October at the age of eighty. My favorite of the poems Cowles singled out was "Matins," which begins with these lines: 

I see it is with you as with the birches:
I am not to speak to you
in the personal way. 

The full poem, "Matins" (meaning "Mornings" in French), is available online from the archive of the Los Angeles Times (September 20, 1992). It, along with others of the same title, is included in her collection The Wild Iris (Ecco, 1993). 


We met in 1979. I was thirty-seven; he was twenty-seven. I had been twice divorced and had four children, Chuck was happily married and had none. I was working at a publishing company as a slush reader, which meant I handled everything that came without an agent. He took over my job because I had been promoted to editorial assistant. . . . It was my job to train him, but all I wanted to do was make him laugh. He was good-looking and nervous, an interesting combination. 
—From What Comes Next and How to Like It, a memoir by Abigail Thomas (Scribner, 2015). This segment is from "When It Started" (pp. 6-7). There is also an excellent unabridged audiobook version, which is narrated by the author (Simon & Schuster Audio Editions, 2015). 


"Just as the police van pulls up we could see you coming around the corner in your diaper. And there was a woman on a bike behind you." 
—From This Will Only Hurt a Little, a memoir by Busy Philipps (hardcover, Touchstone, 2018; paperback, Gallery Books, 2019). Sometimes a good audiobook is a nice accompaniment to the print book, but in this case, if you have the option, just jump straight to the audiobook. It is narrated by Busy Philipps and is entertaining and sometimes poignant (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2018). My favorite story is in the chapter called "Your Ex Lover Is Dead - Stars." It would probably also be funny on the page, but her delivery is everything here. A sample of the audiobook is available on the website for Simon & Schuster.

He awoke in a hospital, in a small room where everything was white and spotlessly clean, among oxygen tanks and bags of intravenous fluid, unable to move or speak, no visitors allowed.
—From The Houseguest, a collection of ominous little stories by Amparo Dávila, translated from the Spanish by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson (New Directions, 2018). This excerpt is from the final story of Dávila's collection, "The Funeral."  



Bonus book to read again: 

My brother Jeremy is a thirty-eight-year-old bachelor who never did leave home. Long ago we gave up expecting very much of him, but still he is the last man in our family and you would think that in time of tragedy he might pull himself together and take over a few of the responsibilities. Well, he didn't. 
—From Celestial Navigation, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).

Friday, October 20, 2023

A novel by Paul Murray, a poem by Diane Seuss, short stories by Jess Walter, and memoirs by Stephanie Foo and Frank McCourt

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She didn't want to devalue her mother in Elaine's eyes. At the same time, she didn't know how Elaine could think Imelda had mystique. To spend time with her mother was to get a running commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for electrolysis for that little moustache you're getting, she'd say; and then while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There's Marie Devlin, do you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that man an Arab? This place is filling up with Arabs. Where's this I saw they had that nice chutney? Kay Connor told me Anne Smith's lost weight but the doctor said it was the wrong kind. I thought it was supposed to be sunny today, that's not one bit sunny. Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.
—From The Bee Sting, a novel by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). This segment is from page 7 of the hardcover. 

I’d just brushed the dog, there on the dog's couch.
I was wearing a black—well, to call it a gown is a criminal
overstatement—a black rag. 

—From "Gertrude Stein," a poem by Diane Seuss, The New Yorker (August 16, 2021), p. 52.


Another time, when I went into a bar near my apartment to pick him up, he raised his glass as I approached. "Another one of these," he said. I could see he had no idea who I was. 
          "Dad? I'm not the bartender. It's Jay. Your son." 
          He stared at me. He was quiet a moment. Then: "Why don't you ever bring girlfriends home?"
          So. This was to be our Sisyphean hell—me coming out to my fading father every day for the rest of his life.

—From The Angel of Rome, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2022). My favorites were probably "Mr. Voice" (first published in Tin House and then in Best American Short Stories 2015) and the story excerpted above, "Town & Country," which appeared on pages 149-174 in the hardcover (from Scribd Originals, 2020).

My troop leader pulled out her guitar . . . As we sang, all the mothers became misty-eyed, stroking their daughters' hair, kissing the tops of their heads. The other girls leaned into their embraces. My mother did not touch me but stood alone and wept loudly. She cried all the time in the privacy of our home—ugly, bent-in-half sobs—but she never fell apart in public, and the sight alarmed me.
—From What My Bones Know, a memoir by Stephanie Foo (Ballantine Books, 2022). There is also an unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author (Random House Audio). A short excerpt from the book and a sample of the audiobook are available at the link above.



Bonus book to read again: 

My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. 

—From Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner, 1996). If you have the option, I highly recommend listening to the unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author. He was an excellent speaker, and the audiobook really captures that. 

Thursday, October 12, 2023

The Fall 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review features flash fiction by Jackie Sabbagh and Scott F. Gandert; a short story by J. Malcolm Garcia; a novel excerpt by Philippe Forest (translated from the French by Armine Kotin Mortimer); a memoir excerpt by Dato Turashvili (translated from the Georgian by Mary Childs with Lia Shartava and Elizabeth Scott Tervo); poetry by Mickie Kennedy, Eric Roy, Nadja Küchenmeister (translated from the German by Aimee Chor), Vernon Mukumbi, Marty Krasney, Megan Willburn, Theodora Ziolkowski, and Lynne Knight; and cover artwork by German painter Karl Friedrich Lessing.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Novels by Jhumpa Lahiri and Francesca Ekwuyasi, short stories by Polly Rosenwaike, and memoir by Abigail Thomas

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East of the Tolly Club, after Deshapran Sashmal Road splits in two, there is a small mosque. A turn leads to a quiet enclave. A warren of narrow lanes and modest middle-class homes.  
—From The Lowland, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013; paperback Vintage, 2014). 


She came back down a few hours later to buy gum from the 7-Eleven down the street. As she was heading out the door, Jasmine waved her notebook. "I guess I could share the field notes I wrote about you today."
          Leah was suddenly nervous about what this undersized investigator might have to say about her disheveled appearance. But she believed in empirical evidence. "Sure, if you want." 
          Jasmine read from the notebook. "She is wearing a blue-and-green-striped shirt. I want a shirt like that. She is wearing jeans with a hole in one knee. She is wearing muddy shoes. It's raining so why didn't she wear boots? Maybe she is sick today because she looks white. I mean whiter than normal. I hope she feels better." Jasmine closed the notebook. "I might do a sketch later."  
—From Look How Happy I'm Making You, a collection of short stories about pregnancy and new motherhood by Polly Rosenwaike (Doubleday, 2019). This section is from "Field Notes," which appears on pages 16-30 in the hardcover and which was first published as "Laboratory on the Moon" in WomenArts Quarterly Journal (Summer 2013). 

Later he built her a special platform so she could knead her bread more comfortably, with no strain on her back. She loved to bake, and he loved her anadama bread. His eyes would close when he put a piece in his mouth and stay closed while he ate. They had a big window installed in the kitchen that looked into the woods. In the fall afternoons she used to watch them empty of their light like a glass of bourbon slowly being filled to the brim. 
—From Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, a book by Abigail Thomas (hardcover Alfred A. Knopf, 2000; paperback Anchor Books, 2001). This segment is from "Chaos," pages 62-63 in the paperback. (Anne Lamott's blurb referred to this book as "Not so much memoir as a stained-glass window of scenes garnered from a life," which I think is an excellent description of it.) 


I live in a cozy house with pretty furniture. Time passes here. There is a fireplace and two acres and the dogs run around and dig big holes and I don't care. . . . Rich is lodged in a single moment and it never tips into the next. Last week I lay on his bed in the nursing home and watched him. I was out of his field of vision and I think he forgot I was there.
—From A Three Dog Life, a memoir by Abigail Thomas (Harcourt, 2006). This is from the beginning of the opening essay, "What Stays the Same."


By the time Taiye had rubbed oil into her skin and pulled on a longsleeved linen kaftan, the cakes were done, and her mother was awake. Taiye found Kambirinachi sitting on the kitchen counter, with a vacant smile on her face as she stirred milk into a white mug filled with hot cocoa. Coca-Cola was on the floor, batting at her swinging legs.
          “Mami, good morning.” Taiye smiled and kissed her mother’s warm forehead.

—From Butter Honey Pig Bread, a debut novel by Francesca Ekwuyasi (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). I did not read this book; I listened to an audiobook version narrated by Amaka Umeh (Bespeak Audio Editions, 2021). 

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Short fiction by Tove Ditlevsen and Hiroko Oyamada, and novels by María José Ferrada, Alina Bronsky, and Elisa Shua Dusapin

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She closed her eyes and heard Hanne's voice from the kitchen. She was sitting drinking coffee with the children, fresh and in good moods, while the record player from her son's bedroom babbled some vacuous pop melody. All day long there was a cacophony around this difficult young woman, whom Helene was constantly on the brink of firing, though it hadn't amounted to anything yet. 
—From The Trouble with Happiness, a collection of short stories by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman. This book was originally published in Danish as Paraplyen (The Umbrella) and Den onde lykke (The Trouble with Happiness) (Hasselbalch: Copenhagen, Denmark, 1952 and 1963). The English translation was first published in Great Britain by Penguin Random House (2022) and in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022). The collection is also available as an audiobook, narrated by Stine Wintlev, from Macmillan Audio.

This segment is from my favorite story in the collection, "The Little Shoes" (pp. 142-152 in the hardcover). It was first published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review

My other favorite, "The Knife," was first published in English in the Fall 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review. This was the last issue of the journal published in our original format. "The Knife" appears on pages 95-103 of the hardcover version of The Trouble with Happiness


Ramón climbed up the Coca-Cola billboard near the highway one Monday. That evening, as the sun was disappearing behind the hills that surround the housing complex, he decided he would stay. Even though it was late, the air was still warm. It was a heat that seemed even drier in this patch of the city, which had missed out on its share of pavement and trees because there had not been enough to spare.
—From How to Turn into a Bird, a novel by María José Ferrada, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer (Tin House, 2022). This book was previously published as El hombre del cartel (2021).

In Germany, Grandmother took me to the pediatrician. Actually, she explained to me on the way, this was the real reason for our emigration: to finally be able to take me to an upstanding doctor for treatment, one who could give hope to me—and more importantly, to her—that I might survive into adulthood, even if it meant Grandmother would have a millstone around her neck for decades.
—From My Grandmother's Braid, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2021). This book was originally published in German as Der Zopf meiner Großmutter (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln, Germany, 2019). 

I arrive at my grandparents' place to find my grandmother seated on the floor in the living room surrounded by her Playmobil figures. She's removed all their hair. They smile vacantly.
—From The Pachinko Parlor, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2022). This book was originally published in French as Les Billes du Pachinko (Éditions Zoé, 2018). First published in the UK by Daunt Books Publishing (2022). 


When we got to Urabe's place, the old shop sign was still up over the door: WORLD OF WATER—RARE AND EXOTIC FISH. It was too dark to see anything through the window. There was some kind of plastic sheet hanging up on the other side of the glass. Saiki pushed the button on the intercom, then we went around the side and up the stairs to Urabe's apartment. 
—From Weasels in the Attic, a short book containing three linked stories by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd (New Directions, 2022). This segment is from the first story, "Death in the Family," on p. 5 of the paperback. The stories in Weasels in the Attic were originally published by Shinchosa Publishing Co., Tokyo, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. 

Saturday, August 12, 2023

An essay by Devon Geyelin, novels by Yūko Tsushima and Amy Tan, a memoir by Amy Bloom, and a poem by Jane Hirshfield

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I first wrote this while I sat in bed in the months after, once he wasn't there anymore and I was upset. Initially it was very long, maybe a hundred pages, or more than that. It had a part where we were friends, and a part where we dated, and a part where we stopped, and then the attack. 
—From "Friendship," an essay by Devon Geyelin, The Paris Review (online July 25, 2023). 


The apartment had windows on all sides.
          I spent a year there, with my little daughter, on the top floor of an old four-storey office building. We had the whole fourth floor to ourselves, plus the rooftop terrace. At street level there was a camera shop; the second and third floors were both divided into two rented offices.

—From Territory of Light, a short, atmospheric novel by Yuko Tsushima, translated from the Japanese by Geraldine Harcourt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). (Note: If you are looking for this book or others by the same author, her name in English is alternately stylized as Yuko Tsushima and Yūko Tsushima.) The English translation was previously published in Great Britain (Penguin Books Ltd., 2018), and this quote is from a paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2019. An unabridged audiobook version of the English translation, narrated by Rina Takasaki, is also available (Macmillan Audio, 2019). 

Territory of Light was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzō (July 1978-June 1979). The story takes place over the course of a year, and the release of the twelve chapters marked the months in real time. It was then published in book form in Japan as Hikari no Ryōbun (Kodansha Ltd., 1979). 


Helen thinks all her decisions are always right, but really, she is only lucky. For over fifty years I have seen this happen, how her foolish thinking turns into good fortune. It was like that at lunch yesterday. "Winnie-ah," she said. "Have more chicken." I told Helen I did not want to eat any more funeral leftovers—five days was enough. So we went shopping at Happy Super, deciding what new things to eat for last night's dinner.
          Helen picked out a flat fish, pom-pom fish, she called it, only a dollar sixty-nine a pound, bargain bin. 
          And I said, "This kind of bargain you don't want. Look at his eye, shrunken in and cloudy-looking. That fish is already three days old."
          But Helen stared at that fish eye and said she saw nothing wrong. So I picked up that fish and felt its body slide between my fingers, a fish that had slipped away from life long time ago. Helen said it was a good sign—a juicy, tender fish!
          . . .
          She bought that three-day-old fish, the dinner I ate at her house last night. . . . 
          I tell you, that fish made me so mad. It was sweet. It was tender. Only one dollar sixty-nine a pound. I started to think, Maybe Helen went back to Happy Super and exchanged that fish. But then I thought, Helen is not that clever. And that's when I remembered something. Even though Helen is not smart, even though she was born poor, even though she has never been pretty, she has always had luck pour onto her plate, even spill from the mouth of a three-day-old fish. 

—From The Kitchen God's Wife, a novel by Amy Tan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1991). The section above is from the beginning of chapter 3, pages 67-68 of the mass market paperback (Ivy Books/Ballantine Books/Random House, 1992). The novel was reissued by Penguin in 2006.


When we moved to a small Connecticut village in 2014, Brian was invited to join a men's book club. He was dubious because they seemed to prefer nonfiction and he did not, but he was pleased to be asked and he went regularly. He suggested a novel whenever it was his turn to suggest. They asked him why he wanted to be in their book club and he said, I love a good read and I love intimacy. He was pleased that they looked shocked, and he felt that he'd announced himself properly. 
—From In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom (Random House, 2022). This segment appears on page 15 of the hardcover. The audiobook version, available from Random House Audio, features Amy Bloom reading the book herself. 

In Amy Bloom's memoir, she quotes the last line from "Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World," a poem by Jane Hirshfield, which begins with this: 

If the gods bring to you 
a strange and frightening creature, 
accept the gift 
as if it were one you had chosen.