Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

What a wild ride! It's so tricky trying to sum up Kupersmith's “Build Your House Around My Body” which is part crime novel/part supernatural ghost story but it largely centres around Winnie, a young American woman with Vietnamese heritage who is living as an expat in Saigon. It's a tantalizing puzzle whose narrative moves backwards and forwards in time tracing the disappearances of two young women in two different time periods. However, even with all this switching between stories which gradually connect I always understood where I was and felt extremely engaged with whatever turns the tale took. It's a riveting story in terms of its atmospheric detail with scenes ranging from a team of ghost busters who visit a rubber tree plantation overrun with snakes to graphic instances of bodily transformation. Yet, there's also a side to the book rooted in concrete reality concerning the ways in which women's bodies are handled and controlled, the dilemma of people who don't fit neatly into a single national/racial identity and the reverberating effects of French colonialism in Vietnam. There's a sly sense of humour which is often present in both shocking plot twists and quiet observations about Winnie's experiences. All these aspects of the book are artfully intertwined to creatively build an utterly compelling and gloriously mischievous monster of a novel. 

One of my favourite scenes is when Winnie is taken around Saigon by her brother's medical school classmate Dr Sang. He feels obligated to do this and she feels obligated to join him so there's a delicious awkwardness as he takes her to tourist destinations he confidently assures her Americans want to see though he doesn't bother to enquire what she's interested in. This is also an extension of how out of place Winnie feels and she finds it difficult to find somewhere to live peacefully bouncing from co-habiting with intrusive relatives to despised colleagues. She's utterly uninterested in her teaching job and her students are equally apathetic. This builds such a compelling portrait of someone who is searching for a sense of belonging and a place to call home. Therefore, the wondrously weird and unconventional way in which her story plays out has a kind of logic to it. So I finished the book feeling fully satisfied. But I was also eager to go back to see more clearly how all the many pieces of the story fit together now that I could see the full picture. My only criticism of the novel is how it sometimes excessively lingered on characters' digestive issues, but maybe that's my own squeamishness. I know the many descriptions of bodies serve a purpose in showing how we inhabit them and are contained by their mechanisms. Overall, I appreciated how the story invokes folklore to show the ways in which people can be pushed out of their physical circumstances to inhabit more sinister forms of existence. 

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide

I admire novels that can so seamlessly blend supernatural elements with the real world to give a new view. In “Creatures of Passage” factors such as hauntings, shapeshifting, the afterlife and psychic powers are presented as entirely natural states of being which are part of these characters' everyday reality. They are represented with as much weight as difficult concrete issues such as alcoholism, poverty, drug abuse, child abuse and racial inequality. By doing so Morowa Yejide conveys the powerful sense and viewpoint of a disenfranchised community while also relating an extremely compelling and creative story. The novel is set in the late 1970s and at its centre is Nephthys Kinwell who provides a form of taxi service in Washington DC. However, her passengers don't summon her with an app or hail her by the roadside. Instead she senses how they are at a volatile place and in need so she drives them from one place to the next. At the same time, she's burdened with the loss of her twin brother who was killed in a racist attack and she continuously drinks from a hip flask. When she gets an unexpected visit from her great-nephew Dash, she discovers there might be a way to save this boy from a dire fate that's been foretold and reconnect with her lost sibling Osiris. Along the way we meet a number of her distressed passengers and learn about a twisted individual who has been persistently preying on vulnerable children in the community. It's an extremely solemn and disquieting tale whose wondrous elements build their own logic to give an utterly unique perspective.

Small details such as how the names of places are described convey how these characters are part of America but feel separate from it. For instance, states are never simply named but are presented as the “Kingdom of Maryland” or the “Kingdom of Alaska”. This emphasises the sense that these are lands that have been colonized and it's described early in the novel how Nephthys' familial territories of the Gullah people has been permanently lost. Throughout the novel there's a persistent sense of how communities from the past have dwindled and that in the future there will be more marginalization: “there would be latter-day nationalists and citizen circles and patriots, who from the forgotten fiefdoms of the territories heard the claxon bells of an orange-skinned king. And they would clamor ever louder to end the bloodlines of others to stem the end of their own.” So the characters of this story exist in a present which straddles this line between a past and future where they aren't a part of the country's dominant narrative. Therefore it's meaningful how Yejide presents the way they dwell in a liminal space with their own beliefs and conception of reality which is separate from that of the larger nation. 

While I appreciated these powerful elements and felt completely drawn into this tale, I had some issues with certain aspects of the novel. Often as soon as mysteries such as Osiris' death or the unspeakable thing which Dash witnessed were presented the narrative explicitly details what happened. So at times the author over-explains parts which could have been simply referenced and more subtly referred to. I feel like it could have been more powerful if an understanding of these traumatic events were conveyed gradually. For instance, the way in which the ghost of a white girl exists in the trunk of Nephthys' car making subtle noises throughout the other characters' journeys had a more potent cumulative effect. Also I was less convinced by a character named Red's story which felt somewhat rushed and seemed more for the benefit of the overall plot than giving integrity to the sense of guilt he possesses. But these are relatively small quibbles I had with the book as in general I was very moved by the atmospheric and uncanny elements of the story. I especially admired the vengeful celestial journey of Osiris and the way in which Nephthys' niece Amber lives a kind of fairy tale existence tending large vegetables in the moonlight. Overall, reading this novel is a striking and memorable experience.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

It's difficult not to fall in love with a novel so firmly rooted in a love of books. Tookie, the protagonist of “The Sentence”, works in a Minneapolis bookshop. She's established a relatively stable life after extending her teenage habits into her 30s and serving time in prison for a bizarre crime. But her peaceful days are disturbed when a deceased customer named Flora starts haunting the bookshop. The specific sounds and messy habits of this woman were well known to Tookie so she's immediately able to identify whose invisible presence is browsing the bookshelves. Flora was a well-meaning and open-hearted individual who frequently spent time in the shop, but she possessed the “wannabe” characteristic of a white woman who likes to imagine she possesses Native American heritage. While raising a problematic attitude connected with liberal white society, this is also a playful and ingenious narrative twist on a familiar outdated trope of American storytelling which frequently invoked Indigenous stereotypes for the sake of comedy or horror – i.e. the common reference of “Indian burial grounds” in ghost stories. Tookie also frequently pokes fun at the pointed reasons which bring customers into the shop. Not only does this novel reference a lot of recent literature from Ferrante's “The Days of Abandonment” to “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” but it also includes idiosyncratic lists of books from 'Short Perfect Novels' to 'Tookie's Pandemic Reading'. In a way, this makes the experience of reading Erdrich's novel feel simply like a conversation with a fellow book lover. 

There's an easygoing familiarity to the characters whose daily trials we follow alongside Tookie's supernatural storyline. She comes into possession of the book Flora died reading and it might be cursed. The process of dispelling Flora's spectral presence is connected to this artefact which provides a new view of Indigenous history. However, this central part of the narrative becomes more of a side note when world events take over. Erdrich has stated in interviews how she wrote this novel “in real time” so when the pandemic hits it dominates the story as does the shocking occurrence of George Floyd's murder and the protests which ensue. This makes the narrative feel somewhat like a jostling ride or a lockdown diary. Other novels from Ali Smith's “Summer” to Sarah Moss' “The Fell” have been based around the pandemic, but incorporated the fact of it more intrinsically into the story. In Erdrich's novel it jumps in abruptly. Though part of me wished for more cohesion and a neater arc I appreciated how this made a suitably open-ended tale which captures the ongoing uncertain nature of our times. It also carries on political themes which can be seen throughout the novel and shows how history is an ongoing story. I guess that's another reason why this book feels more like it's opening a dialogue rather than creating a self enclosed narrative. It makes me highly conscious of the fact that any novel that begins in late 2019 will have to wrestle with the fact of the coming pandemic or comment upon it in some way. 

Salt Lick by Lulu Allison

I sometimes feel skeptical about fiction set in the near future which presents how our society might devolve and disintegrate in dystopian ways. Is this really what will happen? Ishiguro cannily avoided going into much detail about his projected future in “Klara and the Sun” by showing it through a limited perspective. Alternatively, one of the reasons Diane Cook's “The New Wilderness” didn't work for me was because the way her society had reorganized itself due to dwindling resources felt unrealistic. Lulu Allison takes an inventive method with her narrative which describes a near future England with coastal erosion, populations concentrated in cities, racist/homophobic clans, increasingly devastating pandemics and a United Kingdom that's disbanded. One could easily argue that this is only a lightly exaggerated version of the country as it currently exists. Given the way things so rapidly changed because of the recent pandemic it sometimes feels like the author is commenting on what's happening now: “all of them, young and old, know that the process of getting back to normal is still a long way off. It is called up like a spell, or a prayer, the earnest expression of a shared desire that is experienced now mostly as a matter of faith rather than expectation.” The story shows a gradual acknowledgement that whether we like it or not our society has been substantially altered because of viruses and climate change. Therefore, a collective desire for a return to a simpler recent past is a wish that probably won't ever be fulfilled. 

Alongside the primary story about a rural boy named Jesse and a young woman from London named Isolde, there are poetic descriptions of the transforming landscape and a chorus of feral cows who collectively comment upon the action. In this way the author creatively and energetically presents individuals searching for a sense of home and communities struggling to decide how to organize themselves within an increasingly strained environment. A pleasantly surprising aspect of this novel is the way that Jesse and Isolde's stories intersect with each other. Because the narrative switches back and forth between their journeys, the author manipulates their relative time periods and plots out when details are divulged to produce a wonderfully dramatic effect. It gripped me and allowed me to feel an emotional attachment to a story which sometimes meandered into the pastoral. However, it never grew too ponderous as idyllic descriptions of country life were balanced by inevitable conflict - even within an intentional community that strives towards harmony and self-sufficiency within the larger society. Initially I felt more engaged with Jesse's story but, as the novel progresses, Isolde came to feel like the most developed character. Other characters such as Jada and Lee don't feel like they get quite enough space in the narrative to become wholly rounded. However, this didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the suspenseful aspect of this tale. 

I especially appreciated how the author occasionally interjected short sections which describe the human history behind a decayed part of the physical landscape whether it be a crumbling house or an abandoned object. This gave small glimpses into other stories which briefly touch the main characters' narrative and the way different people are impacted by larger changes in the world. It's also effective the way the author presents the trauma and ongoing grief people feel: “Everyone carries these snap shots, these mosaic memories of the dead and dying.” There's a building sense of the strain and fear people feel which leads to groups of people growing increasingly distanced from each other and breakdowns in communication: “These rare settlements and the cities survive, by mutual consent, in avoidance of each other.” Inevitably, this leads to serious conflict which culminates in rustic warfare within the story. It shows how the author is in some ways more concerned with demonstrating the psychological and social effects of the challenges we face today rather than speculating on what society might look like in the coming decades. In this way, the novel is both absorbing and provokes a lot of quiet reflection. 

The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini

It can sometimes be difficult for people on the outside of an abusive relationship to understand why someone would remain in such a dangerous situation. Books such as “When I Hit You” and “In the Dream House” have provided dynamic points of view exploring this question which encompasses much more than toxic romance. Factors such as money, gender, culture, religion, sexuality and psychology all play into why someone doesn't simply leave their home after being degraded, hit and/or raped. Alethea, the protagonist of Lisa Allen-Agostini's novel “The Bread the Devil Knead”, gives another important viewpoint. She's a Trinidadian woman who manages a clothing boutique in Port of Spain. She's about to turn forty and she has lived with Leo for over five years. He's a former locally-famous musician who has come to regularly beat Alethea and controls her to the point where she has little social contact outside of work. Though she's a deeply private person, Alethea decides to share the nature of her abuse with a colleague one day. This confession combined with the return of two key figures from her past and a deadly attack outside her shop create subbstantial changes in her life. 

I immediately warmed to Alethea's independent nature and reserved sensibility. She frequently loses herself in books and it's enjoyable reading her commentary on several different authors she's read. Though I grew as concerned as the people around her who see her bruises as signs of an abusive relationship, I gradually become more aware why the question of leaving Leo wasn't so simple for her. On the surface she's cognizant of the social stigma around single women: “people does get on like if you, as a woman, who have no man, you not good enough, like you's not a real woman. So if is either stay with a asshole or have no man at all, I rather stay with a asshole.” However, there are deeper factors to do with her past being abused by her mother and an uncle which factor into why she reacts to being beaten and controlled in the way that she does. Scenes from Alethea's childhood are interspersed with the present story to show how they continue to impact her. Readers should be aware that there are some disturbing scenes of abuse in the book. They aren't there to shock but to show how it affects Alethea's relationship with her own body, men and sex. I appreciated the way in which the author artfully arranged these scenes within the novel to make this larger statement. 

There are also some surprising revelations and occurrences in the story which make it a thoroughly dramatic and engrossing read. At one point, Alethea wryly comments that her life has more twists than a soap opera. Yet, I fully bought her character because her distinct personality and the tone of her Trinidadian voice felt so real. At times this meant the narrative became a little too overloaded with her recounting small unnecessary details. However, it also allows her space to reflect and point to larger issues such as colourism on the island: “Is still a kind of racial, colour-conscious place where people who look like me does get through when people who look like he doesn't get one shit.” The way in which people who have different skin tones are treated in subtly different ways was also skilfully incorporated into the story. It presents a complex portrait of a community. But the focus of this novel is always centred on Alethea herself. By the end of the book I became aware of how something as simple as her choice of surname could become so loaded with deeper implications and meaning. It's a moving depiction of one woman's difficult journey to independence. 

Companion Piece by Ali Smith

Amidst the tumult of the past four years it's been a balm when a new Ali Smith novel has annually appeared to herald in a new season, a new story and a new encounter with this author's inspiring imagination. “Autumn”, “Winter”, “Spring” and “Summer” have provided an invaluable frame for our recent times. So I felt worried when I read the beginning of her new novel “Companion Piece” which is described as being adjacent to the quartet or in the same family as this recent group of books. A character named Sandy states how “I didn't care what season it was... Everything was mulch of a mulchness to me right then. I even despised myself for that bit of wordplay, though this was uncharacteristic, since all my life I'd loved language, it was my main character, me its eternal loyal sidekick. But right then even words and everything they could and couldn't do could fuck off and that was that.” Oh no! Is Ali feeling so discouraged by the ongoing chaos in the world that she's feeling depleted? Well, frankly, who isn't? But, of course, the wondrous and surprising tale which continues on from this point shows that this author's creativity is still very much engaged and vibrantly active. 

Sandy Gray is an artist whose elderly father is unwell and in hospital but it's “not the virus.” Visiting him is difficult as this takes place in 2021 while the pandemic is still causing restrictions when entering hospitals and what contact is allowed. She's also desperate not to get sick herself and inadvertently pass it onto her father so Sandy is limiting her interactions with other people. However, an unexpected call from an old classmate that she never even liked provokes a series of events leading to Sandy's house being colonized by a family that disrupts what's become her cautiously reserved existence. Those familiar with Smith's work will know that unexpected guests frequently appear and this novel is partly about what it means to let other people enter your life even when you don't want to interact with them. Given how isolated and distanced we've been from each other over recent years, this notion of letting others in is a challenge we all need to think about. 

The invaders are not only individuals, but ghosts from the past. At one point a medieval girl and her bird come to steal Sandy's boots. Does this actually occur or is it a dream? That's not the question which this narrative is concerned with because “If any of this ever happened, if either of them ever existed. One way or another, here they both are.” Many more fascinatingly strange things occur over the course of the story as we're led to question not only the boundaries between people, communities and nations but between one period of time and another. A clock smashes and forms back into a whole. People are being categorized, shepherded into confined spaces and branded in different ways today just as they were hundreds of years ago. The shape and form may change but it's the same old story. This book is partly about that constancy, but also the light and dark which can be found in all these experiences. We may call the leaves of a tree green but they encompass a range of shades and an infinite variety of colours. This is what Smith's fiction celebrates. 

We follow Sandy's development as disruptions in her life cause her to open up, consider new possibilities and have new encounters. Meeting someone can entirely change someone's point of view. Companionship can be found in a simple “hello.” Sprightly dialogue is interspersed with poetry analysis in a way which sparks unanticipated connections and new meaning. If we're attentive enough to the world around us we can see the mechanisms at play in language, in the ways we are governed and in nature. As in the Seasonal quartet, there are also references to specific political and social events to not only testify to what occurred in 2021, but remind us of what really happened because so many news stories are headlines one day and forgotten the next. Sandy's journey doesn't only bring her to one destination but allows her to see all the doors which are open to her. The novel beautifully shows that it's okay to take time to be alone just as it's okay to reach out to form a new connection, but we mustn't allow ourselves to become numb to what's occurring around us or the possibilities available to us every day. 

The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman (translated by Leslie Camhi)

It's a solemn fact of every child's life that they are incapable of truly knowing what their parents' lives were like before they were born. To the child, parents are initially only known for their roles as parents rather than individuals (whatever the quality of their parenting.) In the first part of Violaine Huisman's debut novel the narrator describes her mother's manic behaviour caused by mental illness and societal constraints. Maman could be loving to the point of clinginess towards her and her sister. But she could also be abusive, self-destructive and maddeningly unhinged. She's also beautiful, witty and charismatic. Given her volatile personality it's no wonder she became alienated from many people around her and her daughters grew to have such ambiguous feelings towards her. In an effort to build a deeper understanding of her mother Catherine and “give her back her humanity”, the narrator builds a work of fiction about her Maman's early life based on what she's been told and the (oftentimes contradictory) information about her. It's a loving project which is full of drama and compassionate insight as we come to understand a more dynamic picture of this vibrant woman's life. 

It's striking how the narrator concedes this account of her mother's life is a work of imagination but that she also endeavours to be an impartial vessel to deliver this story. If it was framed differently it might not have as much of an emotional resonance as it's an account of invention and speculation. However, I found this to be a very moving novel and I think it's a balancing act which works so powerfully as a conscious act of empathy. Because it's established early on how challenging it was to grow up with Catherine as a mother, this story she creates becomes both a love letter and a gesture of forgiveness. Any child who has been a victim of parental abuse knows how difficult it is to move beyond the anger and pain felt towards parents that didn't nurture their child in the way they should have done. In this way, this novel is perhaps the antithesis of Avni Doshi's novel “Burnt Sugar” which so powerfully describes an adult child's implacable fury towards a neglectful parent. By contrast, Huisman grants the mother figure a kind of freedom by vividly describing the qualities and faults which made Catherine a fully rounded individual. It's a beautiful and worthy project which builds to a uniquely poignant conclusion. 

The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

Be careful not to mistreat your books because they might talk back! Ozeki's novel follows the story of adolescent Benny who begins to hear voices after his father's death. He senses that these are coming from the inanimate objects around him. So he frequently takes refuge in a library because books are better behaved than other things. His widowed mother is naturally very worried about her son. She also grapples with her own sense of loneliness, being made redundant from her job and a hoarding problem. There's also a looming threat from Benny's school, counsellors and social workers to take him away and medicate him. Both mother and son meet some figures and encounter literature which inspires them to question their relationship with society, material possessions and reality itself. As with her novel “A Tale for the Time Being”, Ozeki draws in concepts of Zen Buddhism to encourage her characters and readers to ponder meaningful philosophical questions. 

Though the concept of this novel about talking objects sounds quite whimsical it takes seriously the emotional strife of a struggling single mother and her troubled teenage son. There are some truly heartbreaking scenes where she desperately tries to connect with her boy and sooth him only to be rebuffed as he's embarrassed and feels misunderstood. While I did find this involving I often questioned the necessity of Ozeki's narrative device where the book becomes a character itself. Benny grows increasingly frustrated with the way it tells the story – especially when it gets into embarrassing detail about his mother's personal life. Certainly this is a creative approach for trying to convey Benny's experience of the world, but I sometimes found it detracted from my engagement with the story. 

Similarly, there are parts of the book which felt like overt diatribes about materialism and consumer culture. It's not that I disagreed with Ozeki's points but they felt didactic because her lessons took prominence over her characters in some sections. This was especially true for an artistic character who calls herself The Aleph. Though I found it fun how she devised a game of planting clues in various library books to form a trail for readers to follow, she frequently preaches about her beliefs in a way which felt too pointed. The mother also sometimes came across as overly naïve as if she was simply created as a receptacle for the wisdom that the author wanted to impart. Perhaps I wouldn't have taken such umbrage with these issues if the novel weren't so long as it didn't feel like it needed to be over five hundred pages. I did enjoy many parts of the book. I just wish it had stuck more to the emotional core of the story rather than creating so many flourishes. 

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor (translated by Sophie Hughes)

The luxury housing complex at the centre of this novel is called Paradise, but groundskeeper Polo has trouble pronouncing this English word so his employer orders him to say it phonetically as “Paradais”. Polo is trapped in this dead end job where he's ordered to perform menial tasks for rich people. He's paid little and what money he does make goes directly to his overbearing mother who makes him sleep on a palate on the floor. Polo's cousin lives with them and she may be pregnant with his baby. Outside of work he spends time getting drunk with one of the older boys who lives in the complex named Franco, but Polo refers to him disparagingly as “fatboy”. He's disgusted by Franco but the boy steals quality alcohol or small sums of money for Polo to buy them booze. The sour dynamic of this friendship of convenience is so vividly conveyed as the boys waste their time together and hatch an evil plan. Franco has failed socially and academically so will probably be sent to a military school. He becomes obsessed with his masturbatory fantasies about his female neighbour who is a mother. So they decide to break into the neighbour's home so Franco can force her to have sex with him and they can rob the property. These are young men who feel they have nothing to lose which makes them incredibly dangerous.

As with Melchor's novel “Hurricane Season” there is a hypnotic intensity to her prose which spills out in an almost stream of consciousness style. We're bombarded by Polo's sensory experience of the world and his emotional interpretation of it. All the while we deeply feel his growing resentment for the callous wealthy residents of this complex and anger about his limited options in life. This takes the form of long blocks of text and extended sentences. It's a narrative structure which is entirely suited to conveying Polo's point of view and made me feel trapped in it just as he feels ensnared by his circumstances. In this way it feels somewhat similar to Damon Galgut's technique in “The Promise” because while being locked into the perspective of this character the reader is also implicated in his misogyny, bitterness and fury. While this can't exactly be called a pleasant experience it is so effective in conveying his worldview, his warped reasoning and his motivations. It made me feel empathy for him as he essentially doesn't seem like a bad person. He's just overwhelmingly frustrated by his economic and social position in life. He's also been raised to embody a pernicious form of masculinity. At the same time, I'm repulsed by his attitude and decisions. It's an effective way of completely drawing me into this menacing character's life.

I also don't entirely trust Polo's perspective as he frequently refers to most of the women around him as horny sluts so I question whether his interpretation of events and people are entirely accurate. Polo can clearly see that Franco's neighbour would never be sexually interested in Franco, but Franco is convinced that she really does want him. Similarly, Polo is certain his cousin is constantly flirting with him and tricking him into having sex with her so I'm cautious about accepting whether this is actually the case. It brings an interesting level of ambivalence to this narrative which is saturated with a misogynistic attitude. Interestingly, there is also an intimidating female figure in the story whose power resides in her absence. This is a notorious long-dead tyrannical Countess rumoured to haunt her dilapidated mansion which Polo must fearfully pass by on his way to the luxury housing complex. Just as in “Hurricane Season” the only way women can escape this masculine-driven community is to become a menacing almost mythological figure. I appreciated how Melchor incorporates the imagined spectre of the Countess' presence into the narrative as a counterpoint to these hyper-masculine points of view.

For such a short novel, “Paradais” makes a big impact and leaves a lasting impression.