The Vulnerables

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez (2023) 242 pages

The Vulnerables is a novel that reads like a memoir, set during the pandemic: people fleeing New York City for their second homes, others living in a suddenly quiet New York City, and yet others who are trapped far from home. Nunez's unnamed protagonist‒a writer who is also a creative writing professor‒ends up living through much of the pandemic in the very upscale Manhattan apartment of a married couple trapped in California at the time of the lock-downs. A college student who was house-sitting for them, caring for their beloved parrot, has left abruptly for his parents' home. Later, after a fight with his parents, the young man comes back to the apartment, which makes the narrator less happy; but she continues to stay there too because she has lent out her own apartment to a pulmonary doctor who came from out of town to work at a local hospital.

Nunez's writing style reminds me somewhat of Elizabeth Strout's Lucy By the Sea, which is also set during the pandemic. Not a lot of activity occurs, but the story keeps one engrossed anyway. The writer's narration is understated, seeming dream-like at times. She ruminates on the present and reflects on the past, including bits of her own history, especially with regard to a friend who died just before the pandemic hit. She has a lot to say about a number of famous writers, which I found interesting, too. The college student's role becomes more important. A book definitely worth a second read.

The Fun Widow's Book Tour

The Fun Widow's Book Tour by Zoe Fishman (2023) 252 pages

Mia is a fiction writer with two young sons who was widowed about 3 years ago. In a tribute to her husband's memory, her latest book is a memoir. Reviews haven't been too positive - some reviewers are lamenting that she hasn't put enough of herself into the book. Others readers miss the humor that was in her fiction but not in this memoir.

Her three best friends, who all live out of town, got her through the first years after her husband's sudden death, and they are now working to help Mia get her book at least a bit more publicity by setting up small events in each of their cities. More important to Mia, though, is the state of her friends' relationships to their own significant others. She's trying to be a fixer. She's also navigating her relationship to her father who's been married to his second wife for a few years, after himself being widowed.

This was a very fast read, and as I discovered in the acknowledgements, the book is somewhat autobiographical for this author.

Amy Falls Down

Amy Falls Down by Jincy Willet (2013) 324 pages

Amy hasn't written anything to sell for 30 years, although she frequently makes time to jot story ideas in a notebook. She makes her living as a writing teacher now, interacting with most of her students online. A journalist is scheduled to come to her house one day, as part of a series of women writers in the San Diego area. Before the journalist arrives, Amy takes a fall in her yard and hits her head hard on a birdbath. She notices a lot of blood and wonders if she's dying at first, but gets herself up and into her house, not quite herself, fading into and out of awareness. This incident sets off a series of events that change her life. She had not been looking forward to the interview, but when the time came, she gave it, although she couldn't recall anything about it. However, when the story appeared in the local newspaper, interest in Amy began to build and to snowball, drawing her old literary agent Maxine back into her life, along with various interviews and panel discussions and more.

What I like about the story is Amy's quiet reluctance to put herself out there in the world again, but how she finds ways to do it anyway, along with her strategies for dealing with activities and people which she would prefer to avoid.

After reading this book, I learned that some of the backstory referred to in the novel is part of a previous book about Amy, The Writing Class (2008). Another book about her is more recent, Amy Among the Serial Killers (2022). One or both of these books will make their way onto my reading list soon.

Oh William!

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (2021) 240 pages

I've enjoyed reading books with the character Lucy Barton, in spite of reading them out of order. In this novel, Lucy is in her late sixties and widowed. We learn much about her life, but not so much that I don't thirst for more. She speaks in a conversational style, offering slivers about many parts of her life: her early years, living in poverty with non-nurturing parents; her college scholarship, which was her passport out of poverty; her first and second marriages; her daughters.

William, the man of the book's title, was her first husband, a driven man, a parasitologist who had taught microbiology for many years. She and he had remained on cordial terms since their divorce, occasionally even using old pet names for each other. Sometime after Lucy's beloved second husband died, William asked Lucy to go a trip with him to Maine to learn more about his mother, and in particular, about a half sister he learned that he had. William first seemed to disbelieve that he'd really had a sister, a girl that his mother purportedly had abandoned when she left her first husband, but now he wants to know all about the woman, even though he's not sure he wants to meet her. Lucy goes along to support him.

Strout's characters are strong, yet vulnerable. And very believable. I first read Anything Is Possible and now Oh William. Next up: the first, My Name Is Lucy Barton. 

Gentrifier: a memoir

 

Gentrifier: a memoir / Anne Elizabeth Moore 254 pgs.

Virginia Woolf knew that to write, you need a space.  Anne Elizabeth Moore accepts a space in the form of a house in Detroit that is given to her.  The organization has good intentions of giving houses to writers. Moore befriends her mostly Bengali neighbors and starts a garden.  She does research on the problems in Detroit with housing and neglect.  She ends up spending quite a bit of money on her free house teaching us to be wary of accepting "free" things.  Very interesting stuff. 

A Separation

A Separation by Katie Kitamura (2017), 229 pages

At the beginning of this novel, a wife who has been separated from her husband is called by his mother, Isabel, who does not know of the separation, but who does know that her son Christopher went to Greece. Isabel is insistent that Christopher's wife travel there and make sure he's ok since she has not been able to contact him. The wife (whose name isn't revealed), decides to go ahead and travel to Christopher's hotel in an isolated area of Greece in order to ask him for a divorce.

Upon her arrival, she learns that Christopher hasn't been seen by the hotel staff for several days. Based on the behavior of one of the hotel's employees, a desk clerk named Maria, she suspects that Christopher has had an affair with the young woman, not surprising since Christopher had a habit of infidelity. The wife decides to hang around for a few days to see if he returns, taking a couple of day trips to look at a church and meet an old woman who was a professional weeper at funerals.

The time spent waiting to see if Christopher would return was also spent in mulling over relationships, not only her own with Christopher, but also that of Maria, the desk clerk, with Stefano, a man who is clearly in love with her, and also the relationship between Christopher's parents, Isabel and Mark. The outward lustiness of the only other guests at the hotel is also something to consider. This novel isn't uplifting, but it does provide something to think about...