Everything for Everyone

 

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi (2022) 256 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla narrated by Charli Burrow and Soneela Nankani. The authors have written this as if they are the oral history interviewers. This is speculative fiction about the near future, but it is in the style of nonfiction. It feels a bit dry, but very real. With the current developments of late-stage capitalism the future presented here is very probable. Many of the people interviewed about their part in the growth of communes in New York city are people of color or queer. We hear from many people who understand activism, abolition, collectivism, and mutual aid as tools to survive the collapse of the old systems. If you are interested in dystopian fiction that is closely tied to reality like Octavia Butler's Parable books or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, you'll probably enjoy this. It has a hopeful message.

The Parking Lot Attendant

The Parking Lot Attendant by Nafkote Tamirat, 225 pages.

Told from the viewpoint of a 16 year-old, unnamed Ethiopian-American girl, living in Boston with her father (well, for most of the story, anyway), This story is strange, compelling and beautifully odd. The narrator has lived with her mother and with her father, but never with both at the same time. As the story opens, she hasn't seen or heard from her mother in the last several years, and her relationship with her father is very strained. One day after school, upon hearing Amharic spoken at a local restaurant, she becomes acquainted with Ayale, the man described in the book's title. Besides the parking lot, Ayale tends to many other hidden enterprises, dispenses favors, delivers odd packages and argues with the narrator's father.
Tamirat writes beautifully and keeps the plot twisting enough so that everyone, reader and character alike of off-balance and a little confused.

Arcadia

Arcadia by Lauren Groff 291 pgs.

This novel has four main parts corresponding to various life stages of Bit, the son of Abe and Hannah.  Bit is raised in a classic 60's commune for his first 14 years or so until the whole community collapses and his family relocates to the "outside".  Later, he has only fond memories of his childhood even though many of his contemporaries have a slightly more jaded view and remember the hunger and the somewhat inappropriate behavior of many of the adults.  Like many groups who form around a charismatic leader and eschew "normal" society, things are great until they are not.  We see Bit again as an adult with his own child.  Still struggling to fit in.  Then onto later in life when his parents die, then late in life.  I started out not liking the book very much but in the end I'm glad I read it.  

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