Book of 2023: Short Stories and Lit Crit

In a good reading year, my favorite book of 2023 stands head and shoulders above the rest.  Only George Saunders could make Russian literature palatable to yours truly.  I found this book magical and utterly unique.  It made me feel like I was back in college in the best way.

The Book of the Year

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders, 2021

My friend Tom Persinger and I have a running joke about how I'm always trying to read down my "to read" list, and he's always trying to add books to it, thwarting my mission.  In this case, though, credit where credit is due: taking a Tom recommendation proved a wise move.  Here, George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo (which I have not read) and Syracuse writing professor, collects 7 of the forty Russian short stories he teaches in one of his courses and follows each up with commentary and interpretation on how the story is working.  With specific examples from the story, he breaks down how Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev "make characters" and decide about what should happen in the "meaningful action" - Saunders doesn't like the word "plot."  Honestly, the idea of reading Russian short stories did not entice me; the interstitial essays did.  That played out as expected; some of these stories may have felt like pointless slogs without Saunders coming along to show why there was more going on than I originally appreciated.  He reveals that he is a meticulous editor, going over his work "thousands of times" testing each turn of phrase for whether the needle in his internal rating system points to "positive" or "negative."  That is, if he finds anything wrong with a turn of phrase, he changes it before moving on to the next phrase, testing and changing if needed.

Even used copies of this pretty-recently-published book sell at text book prices, which makes sense.  Saunders essentially provides a condensed version of his course complete with reading list and "lectures."  The essay chapters kept me deeply engaged, and one could totally write one's own essays in response to occasional prompts to go back and reread and reimagine - rewrite - certain parts of the story.  Reading this on paper, I wonder if I'd have gotten through it; instead, I consumed it as an audio book because that was the easier form to borrow from my library.  That turned out fortuitous.  The audio book features famous actors - including Phylicia Rashad, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong, Nick Offerman, and Renee Elise Goldsberry - voicing the stories and Saunders himself sing songing through the essays.  Paige listened to one set - story and commentary - in the car with me on our way to our final Oberlin parents' weekend.  Over the course of the book, I surprised myself by coming to enjoy the stories, but I always looked forward to being challenged to think more deeply about a story by hearing Saunders's take on it.  If you get a copy and can read only one story-essay pair, read Gogol's "The Nose' and its essay.  A special gem of a book.

Books of 2023: Literary Fiction

After a few days of books to romp through that I either liked or disliked, I present serious literary fiction.  Organically, the three books I'll recommend here share a major attribute: female protagonists.  They depict childhood, adolescence, and old age, each deeply poignantly.

If you're only going to read one, read Foster. It's the shortest anyway.

Books of the Year: Literary Fiction

Foster, Claire Keegan, 2009 

Claire Keegan's novella, published in the US for the first time in 2022, got all the buzz of a new book, despite being published in the 2010 in the UK.  The New Yorker ran an abridged version before the UK book version.  Foster deserves every ounce of praise it gets, including a cover pull quote from David Mitchell ranking it up there with Chekhov.  In spare prose, Keegan introduces us to a young girl sent to live with relatives while her mother is pregnant with her fifth child. In being away from home, the girl finds a serenity with the childless couple that she has not known.  To say more is to give away what is a very short tale indeed.  One could definitely finish it in one long sitting, and were one to be so privileged, it might be a wonderful way to spend a winter (or summer) evening.  This touchingly simple story conveys just enough about all involved while leaving some mysteries inscrutable.  A distinctly Irish heart-warming meditation on non-demonstrative (but incontrovertible) love.

Oh William!, Elizabeth Strout, 2021

In Oh William!, Elizabeth Strout gives voice to a character who would be overlooked in real life.  Lucy Barton narrates this tale in the first person as she and her ex-husband cross over from middle age into their elder years.  That Lucy writes novels comes across as slightly ironic here because her narration contains more than a little repetitiveness and throat clearing.  One has to take on faith that her books must have all of her "and so, there was that, also" noise edited out.  She's still in touch with her ex; they have now-adult children together.  When he gets a bit of family news, he calls Lucy for support.  Strout unfolds a small story into one with a wider scope geographically and chronologically.  Through the action, characters dive deeper into the interiors of several generations of family.  Strout has shown herself capable in Olive Kitteridge and other books of the kind of keen observation of human faults and worries that she demonstrates here.  Her characters think and behave in realistic ways that induce empathy rather than cringing.  This reader was happy that Strout cut in that direction; in lesser hands, the story could easily have been cast in a gloomier, more hopeless fashion. 

We Run the Tides, Vendela Vida, 2021

Maureen Corrigan recommended this on her 2021 best books list on Fresh Air. Having not found Vida's 2015 The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty as enchanting as many reviewers did, I was still willing to give We Run the Tides a chance because MoCo doesn't often steer me wrong. I'm glad I did. Vida captures extremely well the consciousness of her eighth grade San Francisco 80s protagonist. The novel's first person perspective enhances the impression of authentically being in Eulabee's head as she navigates peer and classmate relationships as well as ties to family and interactions with her parents and other adults. She and her friends are privileged teens before San Francisco became as heightened as it is now. The story takes attention as its theme as these young adolescent girls begin to understand the rewards and perils of other people's attention. Vida recreates with perfect pitch the fuzzy awareness unique to late middle school. These characters often recognize only too late their own motives for their actions and what drives their peers and elders to do what they do. Menace lurks right behind the veneer of glamor and innocence. I didn't want to put this book down, and I was sad when it ended.

Honorable Mention

Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford, 2021

Books of 2023: Escapist Fiction

Happy new year!

 For many years, I held to strict categories in recommending books from my year's reading.  But now that tons of people wear pajamas and slippers in public (I like to picture them changing into morning suits and spats when they go home), it's clear that there are no rules.  Of if there are, I get to make them up.

In a strong year for fiction, I'm sharing my escapist books today before focusing on more literary books tomorrow and finally sharing my book of the year, which is a hybrid.  See how I'm building up the narrative tension there?  I learned it by reading spy and mystery novels when I need a break for more learned pursuits.

Books of the Year: Escapist Fiction

Kingdoms of Savanna, George Dawes Green, 2022

Shame on me for being surprised that George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth, can tell a rip-snorting fictional story as well.  More accurately, I would downgrade that "surprised" to "uncertain" going in to reading The Kingdoms of Savannah, his fourth novel.  Here, we meet a Savannah family full of characters with big personalities.  Although the matriarch of the family owns a detective agency, the mystery they need to solve still comes to them via a circuitous path.  A dark, gothic, Savannah path.  Green researched his story deeply, but it's a credit to his talent and care that I didn't know that until I read the historical notes at the back.  He writes good sentences in good paragraphs in good, long chapters that continually intrigue the reader.  Although clearly in the mystery genre, the events and attitudes come across as authentic and current. Although Kingdoms hooked me early on, I still thrilled at the moment where the plot's energy kicked up a notch, and I didn't really want to do anything but finish this book.

Spook Street, Mick Herron, 2017

Few things provide as reliable an escape for me these days than the skilled characters, turns of phrase, and plots of a Mick Herron slow horses novel. The novels are being turned one-by-one into seasons of a Slow Horses show on Apple TV+ (recommend, but read the books first).  This fourth one builds on the pattern of some event catching up the MI5 rejects at Slough House.  Herron keeps each story energized by introducing new characters - not just baddies but within the Service itself.  So Spook Street both gives us known operators and makes our acquaintance with new people.  Here, River Cartwright's grandfather is starting into his dotage, a surprising liability for a career spy and those around him.  Something from his past creeps - leaps - into the present.  Of course, that means Slough House needs to deal with it.  While reading some slower non-fiction, I took a break with this book for a long weekend trip to CA and the next weekend, which was Thanksgiving.  I finished reading it the morning of Small Business Saturday.