RECENT READING
FAMILY TIES, SISTERS, & CHINA
Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh
American writer Jennifer Haigh’s novels often have a social issue at their heart. They run the gamut from a rare disease in The Condition, to fracking in Heat and Light, to an abortion clinic in Mercy Street, to name just a few of them. Her latest novel, Rabbit Moon, might be said to deal with a disjointed family, the ties that still bind them, and competing cultural issues.
Claire and Aaron have been divorced for several years, but when their older daughter Lindsey is in a coma from a car accident in Shanghai, they separately rush to her bedside. Lindsey has ostensibly been teaching in Beijing so why she is in Shanghai is a mystery. To her surprise, Lindsey in some ways feels more at home in China than she ever did in the U.S. Lindsey and Grace, her adopted Chinese sister, are very close and text daily, but Grace, away at summer camp, is kept unaware of the seriousness of Lindsey’s condition.
Lindsey saw Grace as the favored child and felt unseen by her parents. Abroad, she has made a friend or two but gotten tangled up in a questionable business which only slowly is revealed to her folks.
I have mixed feelings about this novel. Like all of Haigh’s works, it’s stylistically excellent, and you see and hear the sights and sounds of Shanghai. On the other hand, I thought there was a diffuseness to it that seemed as if Haigh didn’t have firm control over what kind or which novel she was writing, one about Lindsey’s secret life, one about sibling love, or one about a family in pieces. I finished the book but felt somewhat unsatisfied. (~JWFarrington)
NOTEWORTHY MEMOIR
Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man’s Search for Home by Jonathan Capehart
I often tune into to the PBS News Hour on Friday night for Jonathan Capehart’s articulate and thoughtful comments on the latest political news. His recently published memoir, Yet Here I Am, offers up context and candor about his life journey and his career opportunities and challenges along the way.
Growing up partly in the poor South (Durham, North Carolina) and later in New Jersey, he never met his father. He experienced being the only Black in a white environment and being perceived as “too white” in a Black setting. He survived living with an abusive stepfather, graduated from Carleton College, and worked for the New York Daily News before joining the Washington Post and eventually hosting his own show on MSNBC.
He describes racism, recognizing one’s own worth, learning to ask for what you really want to do, and finding acceptance and eventually love. Capehart writes at one point that he admired Katharine Graham’s memoir, Personal History, for its transparency and wanted to achieve the same openness her book had. From my perspective, he has succeeded masterfully.
We may think we have made lots of progress in society in how we treat minorities and gays, but more is needed. Kudos to Capehart for his bracing and engaging account of life and career! (~JWFarrington)
LOS ANGELES IN THE 60’S AND 70’S
L. A. Women by Ella Berman (forthcoming in August)
Set in the late 1960’s and up to the mid 1970’s, L. A. Women is a story of the intense, fractured friendship between two young women: Lane, a novelist, ultimately a wife and mother, and Gala, a party girl and sometime writer with an out-size personality. The men in their lives are Charlie, party master and closeted gay, and straightforward upright Scotty, who marries Lane. Lane’s childhood was particularly dysfunctional while Gala’s wasn’t wonderful either. As so-called friends, these two women use and abuse and sometimes depend on each other. Competition and compassion are at war in this back-and-forth relationship.
The opening chapters are full of sex and drug-laden parties, and I didn’t find any of the characters very appealing or ones I could identify with. When Gala disappears and no one seems to know where she has gone, Lane feels compelled, even driven, to try to locate her.
This search fuels the novel as the chapters alternate in time between past events and present day 1975. Recommended for fans of Ella Berman and those looking for a graphic portrait of an earlier Hollywood/Los Angeles era. (A version of this review first appeared in Book Browse online.)
TV VIEWING
COMPLEX CRIME SERIES: EVERYONE HAS MOTIVE
I, Jack Wright (Britbox)
When billionaire Jack Wright dies, it’s initially assumed to be an unexpected suicide. But it isn’t. He left behind a large complex family, and the reading of his will leaves many of them angered and unhappy. Principals include his third wife, Sally and their two children; his two sons John and Gray, one in the family publishing business one not; Rose, his second wife and the mother of those sons; plus his granddaughter Emily. His remaining two wives are close, while his son Gray, a ne’er-do-well, has been estranged from his father for years. Add in a housekeeper, the new lawyer Jack hired prior to his death unbeknownst to Sally, and on it goes. Who stood to gain the most from his death as almost everyone had motive? How will detective Hector Morgan suss it all out?
The series contains six episodes. I expected to find out who the murderer was but, no, I was left with a cliffhanger. Another season must be in the works. I, Jack Wright is more of a psychological drama than an action series, but the Chief Penguin and I were hooked.
Next blog: Summer reading list
Note: Header photo is of Mirror Labyrinth NY by Jeppe Hein at the North Carolina Museum of Art ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
