After Annie

After Annie by Anna Quindlen (2024), 285 pgs.

It was a completely normal evening for the Brown family--dinner on the stove, all four kids bumbling around the house, Bill just getting back from a job--when suddenly, it became the night that everything changed. Annie Fonzheimer Brown, the matriarch of this tight-knit family, died and left those who loved her the most with a whole lot of memories and a whole lot more hurt. Bill, Annie's husband, and their children, Ali, Ant, Benjy, and Jaime, have to figure out how to keep their family on the right track without Annie there to steer them. Annemarie, Annie's best friend since childhood, has to find a new reason to stay clean now that the one who helped her get there is gone. Together, and separately, these characters learn what it means to keep going after a great loss, and readers get to experience the joy and sadness of getting to know who Annie was through the memories of others.

I was not expecting to love Annie as much as I did by the end of this book (perhaps a surprise, since my name is also Annie), but I truly do feel as though I got to know her. My image of her is messy, formed from a mod-podge of memories and feelings--some jagged at the edges, some smooth and shiny--and I finished the book with a sense of gratitude toward the light that Annie left behind. It is so sad that when a person dies, they become a mod-podge, a light, a memory, a feeling, rather than an actual person, but it is beautiful that Anna Quindlen is able to capture that painful idea so well. The characters are pretty interesting (although Bill needed a snap to reality at times), and I love the focus on therapy for different people. Overall, kind of sad (who would have thunk!) and frustrating and urgent and slow but mostly full of love and family and strength.

The Second First Chance

The Second First Chance by Mona Shroff (2022) 347 pages

Riya and Dhillon lived next door to each other and were best friends while growing up. Their parents came from India, making close connections between the two families. When Riya and Dhillon were fifteen and starting to date, tragedy struck: A fire broke out in their townhomes, killing Riya's brother and Dhillon's father. The book begins 15 years in the future, as Riya, a paramedic, is undergoing training to become a firefighter, hiding this information from most of the people she knows, thinking that they won't understand her need to keep others from suffering the fate of her brother. Dhillon is a veterinarian, trying to get by in an old facility he bought, hoping to upgrade it someday. It's clear that he and Riya have been estranged for all of the years since their shared losses in the fire, but in spite of their estrangement, they both seem to be in love with each other, but afraid to approach each other.

One has to accept the idea that these longtime friends fell apart after the fire, while still pining for each other, which was a hard sell for me. Other than that, it was a nice story, with a fair share of Indian culture, as well as firehouse culture, permeating the story.

The Friend

 The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018) 212 pages

Longtime friend of a man who has committed suicide is asked by the man's wife if she'll take the man's dog. The dog is a Great Dane that the man had found alone and tagless in a park. The narrator (never named) reluctantly agrees, although the terms of her apartment lease specify that no dogs are allowed. 

What follows is an adjustment period for both the dog and the woman, who are both in mourning. It's hard to hide a Great Dane, even when he's a quiet dog, and the apartment manager sees her with the dog and eventually reports the infraction to the owners. This prompts a series of notices from the owners for the woman to remove the dog or to vacate the building.

Meanwhile, the woman continues to consider the life of her friend and conversations they'd had; it's apparent that she had strong feelings for him. Once upon a time, the man had been her professor. He became a well-known writer, a Romeo type who married three times and had a large number of girlfriends and lovers over the years. As the woman battles depression and the apartment owners, her relationship with the dog deepens. It's a good story, although it's not at all clear to me if the title refers to the woman, the man, or the dog. Perhaps all three.

Solutions and Other Problems

 Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh (2020) 518 pages

The first time I saw this book, I knew I had to read it. (I did not know yet that the author is a popular blogger who had disappeared from the electronic world for some years as her health and personal life suffered.) One thing I learned by delving in, is that graphic lit, as used by Allie Brosh, is a medium that causes me dueling feelings: On the one hand, her drawings are whimsical and adorable. However, these whimsical drawings are sometimes used to depict intense subject matters, such as looking back at relationships that have ended, loneliness, even death. In such chapters, Brosh shows her vulnerable side and I ache for her. But then those chapters are juxtaposed with bonkers, off-the-wall humor in other chapters, humor that just gets weirder and weirder as it plays out.

The animals she draws, along with her descriptions of them, are especially realistic and sweet, rather different from the strange portrayals she makes of herself. Very effective use of drawings and words—you can't help but feel like you know her after reading this book.

The wave

Wave / Sonali Deraniyagala, 274 pgs.

The author is the sole survivor of her family and friends who were caught in a tidal wave in Sri Lanka. Swept away were her husband, two children, her parents and her best friend.  How do you recover from something like that?  How do you "move on" when every important person is gone?  At first you plan to die yourself but as time passes you live.  Do you remember your kids and compare them to their friends or do you try to forget them?  Can you enjoy things they once enjoyed or do you feel guilt because they are no longer here to enjoy them.  Complicated feelings never go away.  I was more focused on how the author managed to survive?  It is the biggest mystery of all.

The dry heart

The dry heart / Natalia Ginzburg, 88 pgs.

The first page reveals a murder and the remaining pages talk about why...while not really talking about why.  Suffice it to say it isn't the happiest of marriages.  But the writing is subtle as it reveals disappointment, rage, and sadness so deep it can only lead to the shot.  The plot is simple and the story is short but the writing is sweet.

Setting Free the Kites

Setting free the kites / Alex George, read by Ari Fliakos, 324 pgs.

The book opens with Robert Carter being bullied.  Robert is not having the best time, his older brother is weak with muscular dystrophy and won't live much longer, his parents are struggling with the impending loss of a child.  Robert is sort of ignored.  A new kid, Nathan, starts school and rescues Robert from the bully.  Now they are fast friends.  The book follows Robert and Nathan's adventures over a couple of years.  There seems to be a lot of tragedy involved.  I found it all pretty depressing.

Option B

Option B: facing adversity, building resilience, and finding joy / Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant, 226 pgs.

Part memoir and part psychology self help, this book tells Sheryl Sandberg's story of her husband dying in 2015 and how difficult it was to cope. Sure, it seems like this would be difficult for anyone and it is part of the point of the book to help people deal with grief, loss, bad situations of all types but death is the focus.  Overcome with grief, Sandberg could not see a way out.  She was worried about her kids, her ability to do her job and her personal future in pretty much every way.  What she discovered is that she was more resilient than she thought. Yes, she had help, yes, she had support of family and friends and colleagues, but she was surprised by the things that she could manage.  This book is full of research and suggestions for all of us.  First, give yourself a chance, you are stronger than you think.  No, you probably don't have the financial resources that Sandberg has, but you probably have to ability to get through whatever you are dealing with.

Beloved

Beloved by Toni Morrison, 324 pages.
Morrison's 1987 classic won the Pulitzer Prize, and while Morrison didn't win the Nobel prize until 1993, you know that this was the books that closed the deal for her.
The book begins in 1873 in the house outside Cincinnati where Sethe and her daughter Denver live.. The book then travels back to the time that Sethe, Baby Suggs and Paul D were all still enslaved on a plantation called Sweet Home, and then forward again to recount what happened to Sethe and her children in the time since she ran from Sweet Home. The house at 124 Bluestone Road is haunted by the ghost of Sethe's two-year old, the one who did not survive the escape from slavery. Sethe slowly tells the story of her tragic fate. Truly a classic and one worth rereading regularly. I was surprised to see that this was a National Book award finalist, but didnt win the award. So now I'm looking forward to reading Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann (and after that The Hair of Harold Roux, the book that beat out Sula for the National Book Award in 1975).

There is no good card for this

There is no good card for this... / Kelsey Crowe & Emily McDowell, 260 pgs.

For those of us who suffer from "foot in mouth" disease, this book lays out how to avoid saying the wrong thing or saying nothing.  Most of us are born with empathy but we sometimes struggle to reveal it to people who are suffering.  A lot of good guidelines and tips.

Another Brooklyn

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, 175 pages.

Woodson's Another Brooklyn is a beautiful and heartbreaking story about growing up someplace else with someone else, leaving behind people and places that were the most important to you. It is August's story, when it is just her and her brother, and her father. Each night she tells her brother that their mother will join them in Brooklyn tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It becomes a story August shares with Sylvia, Gigi, and Angela as they grow up together, inseparable, and then apart. Woodson limns life's loss, loneliness, and betrayal in this spare, beautiful book, If you were lucky enough to see the author at Lit in the Lou on Saturday, she even told you how to read this book, "the white spaces mean your supposed to stop, take a breath, think about what you read. The italics mean pay attention.' This turns out to be very good advice for reading this book (though not for competitive readers, overall, especially in slow month where you started out behind. Damn, I am never going to catch Christa).

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami, 386 pages

As a teenager, Tsukuru Tazaki had four close friends. The five of them were an exclusive group, an insular community that relied on each other for everything. But when he was 20, Tsukuru was unceremoniously kicked out of the group, with no explanation and no further contact from any of his four friends. Sixteen years later, Tsukuru is still dealing with that sudden loss and isolation when his girlfriend suggests he track down his former friends to bring some closure to that part of his life.

Based on the description of this book, it would be understandable to think that this would be a dense, slow-moving tome. But it's not. Instead, Murakami has created an easy-reading exploration of self, of loss, of confusion. His simple, concise writing style is excellent, and made this a swift read. I read it as an eBook and I was honestly surprised to see that the physical book has almost 400 pages; I would have guessed somewhere closer to 200. It's a wonderful book, and I can't wait to try out more Murakami.

Blue Nights

Blue Nights by Joan Didion 188 pages

Losing a child is never easy but not long after her husbands unexpected death, Joan Didion's daughter suffered a health calamity that put her in a coma and ultimately led to her death 18 months later.  I read her early book The Year of Magical Thinking which focused on the year after her husband John Dunne's death and now this volume that deals with the memory of her daughter.  Neither is uplifting but both are beautiful tributes to their subjects.

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Salvage the Bones by Jessmyn Ward

Salvage the Bones by Jessmyn Ward, Fiction-261 pages

This year's National Book Award winner starts out quiet and slow, but builds to a big, strong finish. 15 year-old Esch, motherless, lives in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The story revolves around her, her family, their place, her brother Skeeter's dogs, and the impending storm. It is a thoughtful, violent, and beautiful piece of work.