Pachinko

Title:  Pachinko

Author:  Min Jin Lee

Publication Information:  Grand Central Publishing. 2017. 496 pages.

ISBN:  1455563935 / 978-1455563937

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "History has failed us, but no matter."

Favorite Quote:  "You are brave ... Much, much braver than me. Living every days in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage."

Some may think Pachinko is a game of chance as a slot machine may be. To the player, it appears to be luck driven.  Think of something resembling a pinball machine. The objective is to release balls into the pachinko pins and have it land in the spots that mean a payout. A pachinko parlor resembles a casino. Yet, what most gamblers choose to look past is that someone runs the pachinko machines. They "tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes - there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers." Yet, players continue to look past that. "And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones ... to hope to believe in the perhaps absurd possibility that they might win."

So it goes with pachinko, and so it goes with life, it seems. This book is epic saga of four generations of one Korean family as they are buffeted by circumstances and, yet, they preserve, continually seeking a better life for themselves and their children. The history underlying the story of this family is that of Korean immigrants in Japan starting from about the early 1930s to 1989. It is the story of first generation immigrants who are torn between the homeland they leave and the place they now choose to call home. It is the story of the ensuing generations who have no ties to Korea but nevertheless are made to feel as if they don't belong in Japan, the land of their birth. Because of their Korean heritage, they are looked down up, unable to get citizenship, unable to get certain jobs, and unable to have the same rights as those who are ethnically Japanese.

The books anchors its story on Sunja. She is the only surviving child of a Korean couple living in Busan, Korea. Her father dies when she is thirteen. Sunja becomes involved with a man and ends up pregnant, only to find out that he is already married. A young pastor staying at her mother's boardinghouse on his way to Osaka offers to marry Sunja and give the baby his name. So begins the story of Sunja. Mother, sister, wife, entrepreneur. Strong-minded and independent. Both joy and sorrow come her way, and throughout, she manages and she perseveres.

For her character, I love the first half of the book. The pace of the book is slow, then again, it is about the characters and their quiet strength, each in their own way. Sunja's perseverance. Isak's goodness. Yoseb's sense of responsibility. Kyunghee's loyalty. Hansu's persistence. The characters work, and the book works.

Then, about half way through, the book shifts in tone and focus. Sunja's children are now grown with lives and struggles of their own. While still interesting, the second half seems like it tries to incorporate every situation and everything that could possibly go wrong. The number of story lines, settings, and characters also seems to dramatically increase such that the book appears to bounce between them. Fewer plot lines and more depth would like continue the intensity of the first half of the book. I keep reading, primarily because I feel Sunja's cares for her children and grandchildren rather than an interest in those characters themselves.

At the end though, this is Sunja's story and the story of an immigrant population and well worth reading.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Mothers

Title:  The Mothers

Author:  Brit Bennett

Publication Information:  Riverhead Books. 2016. 288 pages.

ISBN:  0399184511 / 978-0399184512

Book Source:  I received this book through a publisher's giveaway free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "We didn't believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip."

Favorite Quote:  "You didn't know how desperate you could be until you were."

The Mothers, as the title might suggest, is a book all about motherhood. It's about the mothers who give birth, mothers who love, mothers who don't, mothers who abandon, and those who would do almost anything to be a mother. The concept is explored both in the lives of characters and in the abstract ides of motherhood:

• Nadia is a young woman whose mother commits suicide. (Note:  This fact is not a spoiler.) Nadia is an only child left behind to cope with her grief.
• Nadia herself becomes a mother but makes a choices that haunts her life. (Note: Also not a spoiler.)
• Aubrey is a young woman betrayed by her own mother and left to suffer.
• Aubrey's sister and her significant other have never given birth to a child but nevertheless are mothers to Aubrey.
• Mrs. Sheppard is a mother who thinks she is protecting her son the best way she knows how.
• The "mothers" are the Greek chorus of this book. They are the women of the church, the elders who provide commentary on this story.

Interestingly, this book titled The Mothers is as much about fathers:

• Luke Sheppard physically fathers a child but fails to become a father.
• Nadia Turner's father is a man consumed by the grief and guilt of his wife's suicide. He loves his daughter in his own way but is unsure how to guide her and help her.
• Luke Sheppard's father is the pastor and, as such, conscious of his position and his faith and of the reflection of his family's actions on both.

The place is the Upper Room Chapel, a church in Oceanside, California. The book is not about a religious statement on the decisions of the characters. However, religion does play a role in the motivations of some of the characters.

The book begins with the memory of a suicide and an unwanted pregnancy. Nadia is a teenager at the time, looking back at the loss of her mother and forward to leaving her small community for a bigger world of college. A world where she is not the girl whose mother killed herself. The pregnancy and the ensuing decisions alter the lives of this small community.

The book continues until these young people are in their thirties. The impact of the suicide or the pregnancy never alters or lessens. I can't imagine that scars such as those ever fade away. However, people do grow and change. Perspectives changes. Life happens. The scars don't go away, but perhaps we learn to live with them and to live beyond them.

Unfortunately, in this book, that does not happen. The characters do not evolve or change - not any of them. As such, it seems as if nothing much happens although more than a decade passes by. I keep waiting for growth, an understanding, an acceptance, or something. It does not come. The entire book remains at the fact that tragic decisions were made, and they altered many lives. This is something that is clear on page one of the book. The book even seems to end rather abruptly because a resolution or conclusion does not come, not even through the Greek chorus-like commentary. Commentary, yes. Rationale and conclusion, sadly no.

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The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Title:  The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Author:  Jennifer Ryan

Publication Information:  Crown. 2017. 384 pages.

ISBN:  1101906758 / 978-1101906750

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "As all our male voices have gone to war, the village choir is to close following Cmdr. Edmund Winthrop's funeral next Tuesday."

Favorite Quote:  "Music is about passion. It's about humanity we need to bring our passions to our voices ... We have to imbue every note, every word, with our own stories."

World War II provides the context for this story set in the spring of 1940, but the war is not the story itself. The heart of this story are the women of the small village of Chilbury in Kent, England.

• Mrs. Margaret Tilling is a widow, a mother of a soldier, and a nurse.
• Ms. Edwina Paltry is a midwife looking to escape the drudgery of her life.
• Venetia and Kitty Winthrop are the daughters of Chilbury Manor, the "big house" of the village.
• Sylvie is a young Czech girl, who comes to the village as a Jewish refugee escaping Hitler's atrocities.

The story of Chilbury is told for the most part through their journals and letters. The war is part of the story as local men become soldiers, and as soldiers and spies come to the village. Amongst these men are colleagues, brothers, husbands, friends, and lovers. Love stories and heartbreak abound.

Small town living is also part of the story as the comings and goings of everyone are noted and very little escapes the notice of those paying attention. Rumors and gossip feed and alter the direction of many. Learning who and what to trust and who and what not to trust is a key element in the story.

Central to the book is the need of the aristocracy for a male heir. There must be a son. This facts leads to deals and machinations that reverberate throughout the village. This storyline touches most of the characters in the book. Beyond that though, each one of the women has her own story - loneliness, a crush, a hidden past, a crime, an unrequited love, a family and a home lost, and an incomplete love story.

Some of the story lines are a bit like a upstairs/downstairs soap opera - fun reading but with the possibility of being over the top. The context of the war, however, grounds the book and brings a seriousness to the melodrama. Somber scenes such as the funeral of a friend and the unenviable task of delivering bad wartime news adds a depth to the tale.

The beginning of the book is a little confusing because of the changing perspectives. The chapters rotate between the different women, and each chapter is written as a first person narrative - either a letter or journal entry. Each chapter title identifies the character whose perspective is reflected. At the beginning, I find myself referring back to ensure that I follow the correct line of sight. However, slowly, each character's voice and her portion of the story begins to stand apart and read uniquely. At that point, I settle into the story itself and these likable characters without need of that reference.

At that point, this story becomes about each woman finding her own individual voice and about learning that the voice can stand alone and can be heard. Each finds a strength that is slowly revealed through the ups and downs of her life. The end result is a charming story of women, love, and survival tempered by the somber circumstances.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Young Widower's Handbook

Title:  The Young Widower's Handbook

Author:  Tom McAllister

Publication Information:  Algonquin Books. 2017. 288 pages.

ISBN:  1616204745 / 978-1616204747

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "You don't fall in love at first sight, or first kiss even, but many months later, at that indelible moment when you awake in her bed before sunrise, her breath hot on your back, arm draped across your ribs, the contours of her hips flowing into you, and you feel like you're two interlocking puzzle pieces, built specifically to fit together with each other and no one else."

Favorite Quote:  "You like to think your grief is individual and unique and objectively worse than the rest of the world's, but the brutal truth is, it is not, and this fact is not as comforting as some people seem to believe."

The first sentence of this book is quite a mouthful. Given the physical nature of the description, I am not sure I want to proceed. However, I give the book a chance based on its description. Hunter Cady, a young man, tragically loses his wife and the love of his life, Kaitlyn. Kait dies suddenly due to the complications from an ectopic pregnancy. This book is Hunter's journey of grief and guilt. In that grief, it is understandable that you look to remember every little detail of your love. So, I give the book a chance to see where it goes.

Where it goes is on a road trip. Hunter and Kait always meant to travel but, in their years together, never did. So, Hunter in his grief decides to go on a road trip. Even more specifically, he decides to take Kait - her ashes in a cube - on a road trip. Again, a journey or any point of single focus to deal with grief can be a powerful thing. Nonfiction books such as Wild by Cheryl Strayed and H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald present a compelling image of that single-mindedness as a way of coping with grief.

Unfortunately, this fictional story does not capture that same emotion at all. For me, the primary reason is that I did not connect with the main character Hunter. I cannot imagine the magnitude of the loss and want to sympathize. Unfortunately, I find myself not really caring at all. I find myself skimming through to see something more comes in the book. It does not.

The book becomes a cycle of destination after destination, the self-destructive choices of grief, and the fending off of family members who are dealing with their own grief. Each destination brings its own set of quirky characters, none of whom are really memorable. The cycle is tempered with reflections on their past - from the beginning of the relationship until Kait's death. In that, the book is a sweet love story. A journey such as this is often one of healing and self-discovery, but that self-actualization does not seem to happen for Hunter Cady. His journey seems rather to drift from thing to thing.

Part of the reason for this detachment may be the second-person narrative approach of the book.  The focus on the ubiquitous "you" makes this entire story somewhat impersonal. This is not my story. This is not the story of some nameless "you." This is supposed to be Hunter Cady's story. In real life, sometimes we distance ourselves from grief as a mode of survival. However, reality usually finds its way in. Ultimately, grief has to be dealt with, not escaped from. This story sadly stays with the "you" throughout, never coming any closer to Hunter.

Given the topic and enormity of the loss depicted, I so wanted to like this book and the main character. I wanted to marvel at the strength of hope and to cheer for his survival. Sadly, I did not.

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Juliet's Answer

Title:  Juliet's Answer: One Man's Search for Love and the Elusive Cure for Heartbreak

Author:  Glenn Dixon

Publication Information:  Gallery Books. 2017. 288 pages.

ISBN:  1501141856 / 1501141856

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Dear Juliet, I am no longer young, but there was a time, yes, there was a time when I believed in love."

Favorite Quote:  "I think you need to know yourself first before you can fall in real love - and before someone can fall in love with you. It's like once you are in love with yourself, then others can follow your example."

I look at this as two separate books. One is a personal journey. The other is a history of a place. The personal journey is a self-indulgent and self-serving one. The history and the myth surrounding Juliet is what makes and saves this book.

Glenn Dixon was a high school English teacher whose curriculum included Romeo and Juliet. He was also a man in love. He loved a woman for years and years, and the love was unrequited. In the language of today, for the longest time, he was "friend zoned." Yet, his love persevered on the hope that one day it would be reciprocated. In the course of his teaching, he discovered that in Verona, Italy lies Casa di Giuletta, Juliet's house. He also learned that tens of thousands of letters come to Juliet, and a group of "secretaries of Juliet" answer the letters.

In his own search, he sets off one summer to be a secretary of Juliet. In answering the letters, he searches for his own answers. He returns home to resume teaching and to his own love story. Circumstances and the resolution of his own story send him right back to Verona.

The issue with his story is that the focus of the story is entirely him. He meets some fascinating people in Verona, in particular the other secretaries of Juliet. These individuals sound as if they have stories to tell, but those are not explored. If the objective in traveling to Juliet's house is to seek answers, might those answers not be found in the people you meet? That too is left unexplored.

The memoir also appears to depict one of his high school classes, but, again, the focus is on his caring and his ability to motivate high schoolers into an interest in Shakespeare. The stories of the students read like stereotypes - the studious quiet girl, the athlete too cool for English, the perhaps-not-as-academic football players, and the young woman with family issues. As the author's note states, "The students in these pages are composites drawn from the thousands of students I taught over the decades." Unfortunately, the composites render uncomplimentary stereotypes and discredit the attempt to make that connection between student and teacher personal.

My reaction to the personal story is summed up in the book itself. "Sometimes you really want to tell these people to get it together, to smarten up - but of course you can't say that."

What saves this book for me is the history of Casa di Giuletta. Romeo and Juliet was a fictional play. Right? Or was it? A legend in Verona says that the story may have been real. It really does not matter, because it is an idea that appeals to many and has turned into somewhat of a major Verona tourist draw. The house itself dates back to the thirteenth century, and a coat of arm carved into the walls indicates that it belonged to the Cappelletti family. A statue of Juliet stands in the courtyard; it is worn away by people rubbing it for good luck and good love. A balcony, Juliet's balcony, has been added to the house. A mailbox stands ready to receive the letters to Juliet as it has since the 1930s. The Juliet Club is an actual group of volunteers who answers each and every one of the letters to Juliet. What a sweet way of spreading positive vibes and love through the world.

So, while the personal story of this book was not for me, it does make me want to visit Verona and the Casa di Giuletta and perhaps write my very own letter to Juliet or maybe one day share the experience of being a secretary of Juliet.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Refugees

Title:  The Refugees

Author:  Viet Thanh Nguyen

Publication Information:  Grove Press. 2017. 224 pages.

ISBN:  0802126391 / 978-0802126399

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Fame would strike someone, usually the kind that healthy-minded people would not wish upon themselves, such as being kidnapped and kept prisoner for years, humiliated in a sex scandal, or surviving something typically fatal."

Favorite Quote:  "Almost everything looked more beautiful from a distance, the earth becoming more perfect as one ascended and came closer to seeing the world from God's eyes, man's hovels and palaces disappearing, the peaks and valleys of geography fading to become strokes of a paintbrush on a divine sphere."

Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other literary prizes for his debut novel, The Sympathizer. So, how do you follow that? This book is a completely different literary approach; it presents a collection of eight previously published short stories.

The book is dedicated as follows:  "For all refugees, everywhere." It begins with two powerful quotes that set the tone for the entire book. The first is an author's note. "I wrote this book for the ghosts, who, because they're outside of time, are the only ones with time."  The second is from English poet James Fenton's A German Requiem. "It is not your memories which haunt you. It is not what you have written down. It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget, What you must go on forgetting all your life."

The author himself is a refugee and a child of refugees. When he was four years old, his parents left Vietnam and came as refugees to the United States. They settled in San Jose, California. Thus, in many ways, these stories are a reflection of his own experiences. In an interview, Mr. Nguyen has said that story "War Years" is indeed based on his parent's experiences and his own upbringing. It is about shopkeepers in New Saigon, who are trying to make ends meet, leave the past behind, define their identity in this mix of cultures, and raise a child who wants to fit in. This challenge of integrating where you come from with the place you now call home is one faced by all immigrant communities.

The distinction between immigrant and refugee, however, is an important one to understanding this book. Immigration is a movement towards something - opportunity and a better life perhaps. Immigration is usually by choice. Refugees, however, are looking to escape from a place or a regime in which life has become untenable. Refuge is sought for survival. At the end of the Vietnam War, many Vietnamese people sought relief from the onslaught of Communism and a lifetime of poverty. They became the "boat people." Many died; the stories told here are those who survived and made it to the United States. In the United States, they found a new home and a chance to start over. The found refuge, which the dictionary defines as "shelter or protection from danger or distress."

The first story, in fact, deals with the journey of the boat people. It deals with those who survived and the ghosts of those who did not. Another story deals with different perspectives on the history of the war - a father who was a soldier and a daughter who finds her home amidst the same country her father fought.

The story that touches my heart the most perhaps is titled "I'd Love You to Want Me." This is the story of a wife caring for her husband who suffers from either Alzheimer's or dementia or both. The diagnosis is never mentioned, but the implications are clear. The story deals with the heartache of that and compounds it with the memories of a land and a past long gone. The husband's memories reach back to a distant past in Vietnam. He calls for his love, a woman who is not his wife. He yearns for this lost love and this lost life. The reader or the wife in the story never learns what the story behind the name is except that it is a love lost. What is the wife to do? Her answer is agonizing and heartbreaking.

The one word that comes to mind through all these stories is haunting, which brings it all back to the two statements at the beginning of the book. Based on that, I will be adding The Sympathizer to my reading list.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

We Were the Lucky Ones

Title:  We Were the Lucky Ones

Author:  Georgia Hunter

Publication Information:  Viking. 2017. 416 pages.

ISBN:  0399563083 / 978-0399563089

Book Source:  I received this book through the Penguin First to Read program free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "It wasn't his plan to stay up all night."

Favorite Quote:  "She'd watched from then on as every basic truth of the life she once knew - her home, her family, her safety - was thrown to the wind. Now, those fragments of her past have begun to drift back down to earth, and for the first time in over half a decade she has allowed herself to believe that, with time and patience, she might just be able to stitch together a semblance of what was. It will never be the same - she's wise enough to understand that. But they are here, and for the most part, together, which has begun to feel like something of a miracle."

They were the lucky ones. Not because something wonderful happened. Rather because something unimaginable happened, and they persevered. Though published as a novel, this book is the story of one family and their experiences through World War II and the Holocaust. According to the author's acknowledgements, the book is based on oral histories. "The book began as a simple promise to record my family's story, something I need to do for myself, for the Kurcs, for my son, and for his children and their great-grandchildren and so on."

This is the story of the Kurc family. Polish and Jewish, they lived a simple life in the town of Radom. The story begins in 1939. Sol and Nechuma Kurc run their shop and are surrounded by the love of their adult children - Genek, Mila, Addy, Jakob and Halina. Halina is the youngest, twenty-two at the start of the war. Each of the five is pursuing jobs, careers, relationships, and all that life has to offer. Addy, the author's grandfather, is in Paris. The rest still live in and around Radom, Poland.

The war and its atrocities arrives. The family scatters, and over the course of the war, their lives take different directions. The story goes back and forth between each of their perspectives. The eyes of this one family capture so many different facets of what people endured - ghettos, constraints, near starvation, work camps, army life, pogroms, arrests, killings .... The list goes on an on. A family trying to live its life is thrust into war with no chance of escape.  No one family member knows the fate of the other. Hope and courage is all that holds them together. They endure.

 At first, as a reader, it is challenging to remember who is who and who is experiencing what. With seven immediate family members, spouses, children, and friends, the book has a lot of characters. A family tree or a list of characters and relationship would be helpful for the beginning of the book. However, then, the experience of each is unique and so very sad in its own way, that soon the movement between the different perspectives ceases to present a challenge. Individually, I begin to follow each story, and together, they form not only a horrific image of the war but also a beautiful picture of family, love, and tenacity.

What sets this book apart from other books I have read about the Holocaust is its simultaneously narrow and expansive scope. Amazingly, this is the story of one family. Yet, it reaches across Poland, Siberia, France, Northern Africa, Italy, South America, and even the United States of America. This is a story of survival in war. It is also a refugee story. "The idea of leaving behind all that was once theirs - their home, their street, the shop, their friends - is nearly impossible to conceive. But ... those things are the things of the past. Of a life that no longer exists." Their destinations:  Italy and the United States of America for these places offer hope beyond the devastation. This is a remarkable story of survival.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.