This week: new books from Haruki Murakami, Alice Hoffman, and China Mieville.
The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self by Anil Ananthaswamy (Dutton) - Science journalist Ananthaswamy (The Edge of Physics) skillfully inspects the bewildering connections among brain, body, mind, self, and society. To get into the details, he profiles sufferers of a range of neurological ailments, including Allen, whose Alzheimer disease has "scrambled his narrative," and the pseudonymous David, who has body integrity identity disorder and believes that he must have his leg amputated. Laurie, a schizophrenic, struggles with inner voices that taunt her and lead her to attempt suicide; she begs doctors to recognize the "unwanted new reality" that schizophrenia creates for people. Readers also meet James, who, because of his Asperger's syndrome, can't accommodate "people's notions of how he should live his life," and Graham, a Cotard's syndrome sufferer whose delusion convinced him that he was brain dead. These patients' stories help shed light on "some sliver of the self, one that has been disturbed by the disorder," and complicate current notions of what the self really is.
Walking with Abel: Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah by Anna Badkhen (Riverhead) - After years as a war correspondent, Badkhen (The World Is a Carpet) came to Mali in 2013 to live with the nomadic Fulani as they walk across Mali’s savannah. This lyrical account of that journey eloquently describes the culture of the Fulani and is laced with ethereal sketches that reflect transitions in the author’s life at the time. Badkhen combines journalistic observation with deep feeling as she grows to respect and then love the clan led by patriarch Oumarou. At first, her observations are refracted by her own emotional experience. “Every footfall begets a separation.... To spend a lifetime walking away. To bid farewell over and over...” However, as the year of herding the cattle across Africa progresses, Badkhen learns that the Fulani see their journey as a circle. The outside world intrudes in the form of unconnected cell phones that the boys use for music and videos. Overhead, French military planes go to bomb the rebels. But Oumarou leads his family through the timeworn route. The Fulani are individuals, not archetypes. Their journey is both beautiful and difficult.
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman (FSG) - Berman (Herding Donkeys) does a superb job of making the history of the right to vote in America not only easily understandable, but riveting. After recounting the story of the civil rights movement’s success in getting President Johnson to push the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Berman traces the erosion of that legislation over the subsequent half-century. Early appearances in the narrative by John Roberts and Samuel Alito foreshadow their eventual posture when they were named to the Supreme Court. Lay readers are likely to be surprised at how much successful pushback has occurred against what should be the basic right of democracy. Berman also makes clear that the illegal purging of supposed felons from Florida’s voting lists for the 2000 presidential election is more likely than the “butterfly ballot” to have been responsible for George W. Bush’s victory. This is the best kind of popular history—literate, passionate, and persuasive, balancing detail with accessibility.
Killing Auntie by Andrzej Bursa, trans. from the Polish by Wiesiek Powaga (New Vessel) - Disaffected university student Jurek struggles to dispose of the corpse of his aunt—a "very, very good woman" whom he murdered, for no apparent logical reason, with two hammer blows to the head—in this deliciously wicked novel by the late Polish author Bursa, who died at age 25. In an introduction to the book from the publisher, readers are guided to read the story, which was first published in 1969, as "a commentary on the political situation of 1950s Poland." While an allegorical framework would certainly help to explain some of the book's surrealistic elements—and particularly its turn toward dream logic in the final chapters—contemporary readers will also find plenty to enjoy (one sequence of unwitting cannibalism is particularly memorable) in the story itself. It amounts to a sustained tirade against what Jurek calls the "[t]housands of days, thousands of hours, during which nothing ever happens." Jurek's cruelty and misanthropy are matched only by his lust for excitement. A strange, fascinating book.
Into the Valley by Ruth Galm (Soho) - It’s 1967, and 30-year-old B. has moved to San Francisco from Boston. To ease intense bouts of dizziness, she uses skills picked up from an on-again, off-again lover: she begins cashing counterfeit checks and buys a Mustang, then heads for California’s flat, desolate Central Valley, hoping the new, simpler surroundings will help curb her spells. B. wanders from town to town, meets locals, and contemplates a permanent move to these meeker environs. Yet as time passes, she finds that her “carsickness” (as she calls it) vanishes only when she is inside a bank, casually conning a teller out of hundreds of dollars. B.’s episodic encounters gel as the novel progresses—certain moments, particularly B.’s interaction with a lonesome college professor, provide memorable anchors—and she eventually takes on a teenage hippie as a companion, who questions the source of B.’s riches. This is a standout debut.
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman (S&S) - Hoffman finds inspiration for her particular brand of magical realism in the Caribbean island of St. Thomas and the personal history of a nonfictional woman named Rachel Pomié, who lived on the colony in the 19th century. Rachel begins the story as the headstrong daughter of a French merchant, whose Jewish ancestors came to the New World in pursuit of religious freedom and found refuge under the protection of the King of Denmark, a champion of civil rights who also outlawed slavery on the island. Rachel grows up with her best friend Jestine, the beautiful daughter of her family’s servant, Adelle, but upon adulthood, their paths separate. Rachel, caught up in the expectations set for her as a member of the small community, marries Isaac Petit, a widower nearly 30 years her senior with three small children, in order to help her father’s business interests. She puts away her dreams of moving to Paris and accepts the role of dutiful wife, producing more children and becoming distant from Jestine, who faces her own challenges finding her place in society. When Rachel’s husband dies and his nephew arrives to oversee the family business, Rachel is swept into an encompassing love that violates the community’s moral code and isolates her family.
Barbara the Slut by Lauren Holmes (Riverhead) - Holmes presents 10 first-person narratives in this collection, an eminently readable debut from a fresh voice. Use of the m word—Millennial—is inevitable when describing these stories, as they're filled with young people taking stock of their surroundings with shrugs and resigned sighs at their own diminished expectations. A lab tech at an STD clinic, who is stalling in applying to grad school ("I was thinking I might want to study public health, but I was also thinking I might want to move to the forest and eat berries and mushrooms and hibernate with the bears in the winter"), must act as an unlikely emissary for an unusual patient. A recent law school grad who can't bring herself to practice law, a career path bankrolled by her father, and can't "think of anything that I actually wanted to do" begins working in a sex-toy store. The most ambitious character is the titular Barbara, who is biding her time until she can get to Princeton, trying to persevere in an environment that still punishes her for having both a sex life and a clear-eyed distrust of her high school sexual partners. A funny, perceptive debut.
Confidence by Seth Landman (Brooklyn Arts) - Landman (Sign You Were Mistaken) succeeds in taking a few big, beautiful risks in these three heavily linked long poems. The poems’ surface difficulty—no punctuation, esoteric line breaks—may scare some readers, but the work reveals Landman as a master of conversational poetics and a deep thinker about words. The first poem, “Telling You I Love You,” is a swirl of language that uses its kinetic nature to mirror the way a loved one can be both taken for granted and be the center of the universe. Flitting between happy and sad, “what are you missing/who do you love” becomes the theme, with the speaker left standing alone in the woods, unsure of what is next. “Confidence” picks up that thread and runs full force with its melancholy, as an unidentified loved one is dying in hospice. The depth of feeling can overwhelm, but Landman leaves no doubt that it’s completely sincere.
School for Sidekicks by Kelly McCullough (Feiwel and Friends) - Adult author McCullough (the Fallen Blade series) offers a rousing parody of superhero tales in his first book for children. Thirteen-year-old Evan Quick is obsessed with “Masks” (McCullough’s term for superheroes) and particularly loves the great Captain Commanding. After Evan witnesses the Captain’s defeat by the supervillain Spartanicus, he manages to turn the tables on the villain, discovering that he himself is a budding Mask. But the egocentric Captain takes credit for Spartanicus’s capture, portraying Evan as an abject wimp. When Evan enrolls in the Academy for Metahuman Operatives, aka the School for Sidekicks, he learns that Captain Commanding has had him blackballed—no adult Mask will work with him except for the disgraced Foxman, “a failure, and a drunk,” as Evan puts it. Evan’s smartass narration, dangerous run-ins with evil Hoods, tough moral quandaries, and a wild range of superpowered heroes and villains—including Blurshift, a genderfluid shapeshifer, and the Fluffinator, who commands an army of “plush collectibles” (don’t call them teddy bears)—make this an excellent choice for any reader awaiting the next Marvel film.
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville (Del Rey) - Award winner Miéville (Embassytown) moves effortlessly among realism, fantasy, and surrealism in this dark, sometimes horrific short story collection. Highlights include “Polynia,” in which icebergs begin appearing in the sky over London, floating effortlessly despite their enormous weight; “In the Slopes,” centered on the discovery of a Pompeii-like ancient city in which humans and aliens seem to have coexisted in peace; the frightening “Sacken,” about Lovecraftian goings-on at a lakeside vacation spot; “Dreaded Outcome,” in which a therapist proves herself willing to go to any length to cure her clients; and “Covehithe,” in which all of the deep-water oil drilling platforms that have ever sunk and polluted the planet return, striding out of the water like Wellsian tripods, to inflict vengeance on humanity and pursue their own mysterious agenda. Miéville’s ornate style, which befits the fantasies he’s known for, can also become terse, even minimalist, in such experimental pieces as “The Crawl” and “Listen to the Birds.” His characters, whether ordinary witnesses to extraordinary events or lunatics operating out of inexplicable compulsions, are invariably well drawn and compelling.
Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami, trans. from the Japanese by Ted Goossen (Knopf) - Given Murakami’s (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage) fervent fan base and the enduring strangeness that characterizes his work, it’s not surprising that an aura of mystery surrounds his first two novels: the only previous English translations were published in Japan and they’ve been difficult to find in the West. Now 1979’s Hear the Wind Sing and the following year’s Pinball, 1973, written while the budding author operated a Tokyo jazz club, are finally available in one volume as Wind/Pinball, and Murakami obsessives are in for a treat. All the hallmarks of Murakami are here at their genesis, including his seemingly simple style, which he describes in an indispensable foreword. Wind is a touching and almost totally uneventful sketch of a record-collecting regular at J’s Bar, his quiet romance with a nine-fingered woman, and his friendship with the dubious ne’er-do-well called the Rat. Pinball recounts the same narrator’s student days on the eve of the Vietnam War, his encounter with identical twins called 209 and 208, and how he and the Rat become swept up in “the occult world of pinball.” Both novels, of course, feature digressions on beer, historical oddballs, obscure trivia, and jazz.
Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead (Random/Lamb) - Bridget Barsamian accidentally skated into traffic at age eight, and this brush with death has made her an uncommonly introspective seventh-grader. A tight triumvirate, Bridge and her friends Tab and Em have sworn upon a Twinkie never to fight, but now Em’s curves are attracting boy interest (and a request for a risqué photo), while Tab’s attentions are turning toward feminism and social justice. Meanwhile, Bridge has a new friend, Sherm; his share of the story unspools in letters to his estranged grandfather, who left Sherm’s beloved Nonna after 50 years of marriage. Then there is an unnamed high school–age character, whose second-person chapters take place on Valentine’s Day, months in the future. Keeping readers off-balance is a Stead hallmark, but it doesn’t work quite as successfully here as it did in When You Reach Me and Liar and Spy, perhaps because the mystery narrator and the people she interacts with aren’t as fleshed out as everyone else. That said, this memorable story about female friendships, silly bets, different kinds of love, and bad decisions is authentic in detail and emotion—another Stead hallmark.
Dome of the Hidden Pavilion by James Tate (Ecco) - Tate (1943–2015), winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize and 1994 National Book Award, interrupts small-town life’s sense of normalcy and stability with the absurd and the surprising in his new collection of short, narrative verse vignettes. He also manages to maintain a strong stylistic consistency without going stale—quite the feat considering the deadpan dialogue and recurring motifs, such as war and domestic spats. But Tate’s (The Eternal Ones of the Dream) masterly storytelling keeps things fresh; even when the reader can anticipate the inevitable absurdist twist in a piece, its delivery is always interesting. Sometimes the oddity is a stranger passing through: “I was sitting on the porch when I watched my neighbors’/ kids walk by on their way to school. One of them turned and waved/ to me. I waved back. That’s when I realized they were zombies.” Other times the odd man out is the protagonist’s thoughts: “My neighbor, Ted, walked over. ‘Are you all right? I saw that/ through my bedroom window. I couldn’t believe it,’ he said. ‘Oh, that was just an imaginary moose. It wasn’t a real one,’ I said.” Tate’s style will be recognizable to readers of his recent few books, but even those unfamiliar should find this whip-smart collection a joy to read.
Dragonfish by Vu Tran (Norton) - Tran’s thriller debut revolves around an elusive woman who seems lost in her own private—and haunted—world. Robert Ruen is an Oakland, Calif., police officer whose Vietnamese ex-wife, Suzy, has remarried a shady Las Vegan gambler named Sonny Van Nguyen, a figure with whom she shares a distant past. When Suzy disappears, Ruen is strong-armed by Sonny’s son, Junior, to help track down the woman Ruen never really knew. His search transpires in a wonderfully noirish Las Vegas, including second-tier casinos and strip-mall restaurants concealing underground aquariums stocked with illegal and exotic creatures—the titular dragonfish among them. Interspersed with Ruen’s quest is Suzy’s own first-person narrative about fleeing with her daughter war-torn Vietnam by boat for a Malaysian refugee camp. This is a most enjoyable mystery, from its distinct, dazzling premise all the way to its satisfying conclusion.
All That Followed by Gabriel Urza (Holt) - Set in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Urza’s debut novel is as subtle and enveloping as the txirimiri, a Basque word for “rain so fine that an umbrella is useless against it.” The village of Muriga, a Basque stronghold dominated by a “looming fortress” that was once the site of a massacre during the Spanish Civil War, is picturesque and sinister in equal measure. It is a town proud of its antifascist past but bedeviled by a strain of separatist extremism that leads several teenagers to murder a local politician. The novel is narrated by three townspeople, each providing a first-person account that cautiously circles the political crime in increasingly tight orbits: Joni, a transplanted American teacher of English, who, despite having lived in Muriga for half a century, is still considered a stranger; Mariana, the widow of the slain politician who is convinced that the ghost of her kidney donor, a young terrorist killed by the police, is haunting her; and Iker, a student of Joni’s and one of the perpetrators of the attack. Deceptions and past tragedies come to light, but most remarkable is how Urza thematically handles the violence lurking in an insular community. Be it a Basque town with its own language and history, a transplanted organ, or a nonnative inhabitant, everything in this tense novel revolves around the notion of an ineradicable foreignness that inexorably leads to bad blood.
