Mini Reviews of Recent Reads: November 2019

The Dearly Beloved follows two couples in 1960s Greenwich Village who are chosen to jointly steward a Presbyterian church. Hailing from different backgrounds and harboring differing beliefs and motivations, the book follows the four over decades of friendship and changing times.

I expected this book to be like Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, and there were similarities--it's a great choice if you like that book. This one was focused more on the individual faiths--or lack thereof--of each character. The intersections and divergences were fascinating, and unavoidable for the characters (even those who strongly resisted any notion of faith) as they lived life orbiting the church.

Despite the focus on faith, this was not a religious book. The writing was excellent, and I think it's one that could be read multiple times for a greater appreciation of the depths of the characters.

This 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner absolutely blew me away. Powers constructs a novel that begins with a series of seemingly disconnected stories, each grounded by a tree, and some of them stretching back more than a century.

The "understory" finally lands us on a number of central characters: the researcher shunned for her notion of trees communicating; the artist whose family documented a changing tree for decades; the college slacker who turns activist following a near-death experience; the veteran who finds solace only in the solitude of outdoors; the engineer mourning the loss of the only tree visible from her office; the psychologist curious about what drives extreme activists; and the creator of virtual worlds, felled by a tree as a child and compelled to make a more perfect place to exist.

These disparate characters come together in a larger-than-life narrative that becomes a call to activism, a meditation on our place in the world, and an awe-stricken view into the complex and impressive lives and resilience of trees.

This book will not be for everyone; it's a slow read that requires patience. But for those who find Powers' style resonates, it is truly an impressive feat of literature. I follow the Now Read This Book Club on Facebook, which has also been reading The Overstory this month, and the feed has been filled with beautiful photos and stories of meaningful and amazing trees. This book seems to inspire such reflection; you can read my own "tree story" in my post on Fiction and Nonfiction Books About Trees.

Harry's Trees is an entirely different type of book about trees, but it's no less magical. When 34-year-old Harry's wife is unexpectedly killed, the Forest Service employee retreats to the trees to grieve and atone for his role in her death. There, he meets a young girl and a mother who are also grieving the loss of their father and husband. The girl, Oriana, is guided by her belief in magic and fairy tales, and is convinced that she and Harry have a mission. Only by completing it will they be pulled up from the depths of their grief.

My reading tastes don't generally veer toward magic or fairy tales, but Cohen's lilting writing style drew me in. The fairy tale structure of the book was somewhat heavy handed, but it was also grounded in a healthy amount of skepticism and reality that made it work. This was a much lighter, faster read following The Overstory and I found it to be an uplifting delight.

Related: 11 Poignant Books About Grief and Loss

Say Say Say follows a 20-something artist-turned-caregiver who takes a job in the home of a couple, caring for Jill, who suffered a brain injury in an accident. Jill's husband, Bryn, is attentive and loving, but burned out by the duties and realities of this new life with Jill. In her caregiving position, Ella is brought closely, intensely, almost claustrophobically into the lives of Jill and Bryn, causing her to examine her own role and feelings.

This meditation on the strange intimacy and separateness of the caregiver role was interesting, but it was internally focused and offered almost no plot, which made for challenging listening. It probably would have worked better for me in print instead of audio.

Miracle Creek takes us into a courtroom following a devastating accident: a hyperbaric chamber holding a number of patients--including children-- being treated for various conditions, exploded. Two people were killed. The mother of a dead boy is accused of causing the explosion. Miracle Creek takes the reader through each of the people tied to the accident and the events leading up to it, untangling secrets, lies, and the complexities of families.

This is truly a page-turner of a book, and while long, it held up in audio format. It was initially a little difficult to keep track of all of the characters, but they eventually sorted out and I couldn't stop listening. The author interview at the end, in which Kim recounts her own experience with hyperbaric chambers and as an immigrant, is also excellent.

Firefighter Cassie Hanwell is a rising star in her Austin firehouse, but an incident that puts her career in jeopardy, as well as her mother's request to move to Boston to help care for her, have her starting over at an unfamiliar boys club. Determined to prove herself, she finds only one ally in another new firefighter, a rookie that she finds herself thinking about more and more.

Any book by Katherine Center is now going on my auto-LISTEN pile. Her books (How to Walk Away is the other one I've listened to) strike exactly the right smart-but-light note that I love in my audiobook listening. Therese Plummer's excellent narration take Center's books up a notch--I'm not sure if I would have rated either one as highly if I'd read them in print.