Becoming by Michelle Obama. I was looking forward to reading this and enjoyed it even more than I thought I would: Michelle Obama is a very good story-teller. She starts from the beginning, writing a lot about her childhood growing up on Chicago’s South Side, in a family that gave her and her brother a lot of support. I wasn’t surprised that she is who she is, after seeing how she grew up. She writes poignantly about the death of her father, and hilariously about the meeting of young Barack. It was really interesting to see things from an insider’s point of view, even if occasionally some of her descriptions of her FLOTUS initiatives could be a little longwinded toward the end. It was an inspiring read and I highly recommend it.
Sabrina by Nick Drnaso. This is a graphic novel that (I think) was on the short list for the Booker prize — or nearly so. It was hard to get ahold of, and I read tons of high praise for it before beginning it myself. So perhaps that is why I remained a bit indifferent to it. It’s a good story and an interesting read, and I did see the advantages that a graphic novel can have over a “regular” novel, in the scenes that it can show without committing to words. I guess what left me slightly underwhelmed was how things were wrapped up at the end. I wanted a bit more umph, somehow. The novel begins with a woman, Sabrina, petsitting for her parents. In the next chapter, we learn that Sabrina has disappeared in what seems like a kidnapping type crime. Her boyfriend has had a nervous breakdown and shows up at an old childhood friend’s house. The friend, Calvin Wrobel, is really the main character of the book. He is in the military, and is dealing with having been left by his wife and child, who now live many states away in Florida. Anyway, Calvin is nice to the boyfriend, who lies in bed and listens to conspiracy theories on right-wing radio, getting more and more radicalized. The theories start co-opting the disappearance of Sabrina, and Calvin has to try to talk his friend off a ledge. It was good and I would read more from Drnaso; I just had built it up too much before reading.
Cockfosters by Helen Simpson. Short stories are not my favorite genre, but Helen Simpson is my favorite short story writer by far (I guess second would be Lorrie Moore and Alice Munro). I really like her style of writing, and more so, I like her topics. She is my age, so her characters are now similarly aged women dealing with the trials and tribulations and realizations that come with one’s late forties and early fifties. Many of these stories are two women talking — on a train, or in a restaurant — and they are witty and insightful and moving. Her story collections are always on my must-read list.
Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter. This is an odd little book, and I wasn’t sure while I was reading whether or not it was fiction or nonfiction. I still am not. It is about a man with two young sons whose wife dies unexpectedly. The characters are four — the man, his two sons, and Ted Hughes’s crow, who is there to torment and help the family. The prose is often poetic, and Porter marks each section with who is speaking, Father, Sons, Crow. Crow puts up with the grief for awhile, but then he is having none of it. There is even an appearance or two by Ted Hughes. It’s interesting, and a very quick read, although I’m not 100 percent convinced of its success.
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