As an active member of three book clubs, I read a lot of books. Since I assume you are all caught up on political news, I thought I would share my top five favorite books I’ve read so far this year.
No. 5. Absolution. The setting for Alice McDermott’s book is Saigon, 1963. The focus is on the “wives” whose husbands have important jobs in Vietnam—foreign service, military, big corporations. The wives are portrayed as “helpmates.” The story is told in retrospect from decades later by letters from one “helpmate” to and from the daughter of another “helpmate” whose mother had died. McDermott was motivated to draft this novel after reading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. It made her think about Greene’s so called “unimportant characters” perhaps not being so “unimportant.” When considering a title, McDermott met with a good friend of hers, a monsignor in New York. She told him she was thinking of calling her novel Absolution. The monsignor explained that most people do not understand the true meaning of that word. They think it means a get-out-of-jail-free card. But he explained that if you look at the Latin root of the word absolution, it means one who is set free and one who sets free. McDermott then said, “That’s perfect. That’s what I will name my book.”
As an aside, when I was researching information about this book for my Eastern Shore book club, I discovered that McDermott lives in Bethesda. I emailed her and asked if she would have any interest in coming to our book club meeting. She wrote me back that she would love to but was in New York that week. She asked that I let her know how the book club discussion went. I sent her a return email, summing up our discussion which was very favorable. She then replied with a substantive email reviewing some major themes and quoting Flannery O’Connor and more. I thought that was amazing! So is this book.
No. 4. The Situation Room. In this book, George Stephanopoulos details how 12 different presidents dealt with crises during their administrations in the situation room. He tracks events ranging from the defeat of Vietnam, to the defeat of the Soviet Union, to 9/11, to capturing Osama bin Laden, to January 6 and more. The book gives fascinating information about the origins of the room, the improvements that were made to the room over the years and details the numerous ways different presidents used the room. For Jimmy Carter, it was a place he went each day. For Donald Trump, not so much. The book is insightful, entertaining, well-researched and a must-read for those who want to learn more about exactly what transpires when momentous events occur.
No. 3. Tom Lake. Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake takes place in a cherry orchard in Northern Michigan. The story revolves around a mother and father and their three adult daughters who are thrown together at the family’s cherry orchard during Covid. While they pick cherries, the mother tells them about her short-lived career as an actress while playing Emily in Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town. Her co-star in the play goes on to become a famous actor. Much of the story revolves around their relationship and the decisions that they make that form the trajectories of their lives. Patchett expertly weaves in themes from Chekov’s Cherry Orchard, and Wilder’s Our Town. You will learn a lot about cherries and the fact that, “Sweet cherries must be picked today and every day until they are gone.” In other words, it is important to take time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. I loved this book. Meryl Streep reads the audio version, and she is, of course, spectacular.
No. 2. Demon Copperhead. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead reimagines Dicken’s David Copperfield. She places her story in poor and opioid-addicted rural Appalachia. This novel deals with the shortcomings of American education, the plight of true poverty, and the fact that big pharma contributed mightily to the opioid crisis through its aggressive marketing of Oxycontin.
The first line of David Copperfield is, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages will show.” The first line of Copperhead is, “Save or be saved, these are questions.”
A brilliant masterpiece, Demon Copperhead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023.
No. 1 James. James by Percival Everett is my favorite book this year. Everett is a Renaissance man in the true sense of the word. He teaches writing at USC, as well as a course in the American Western film genre. He is an abstract painter. He is an avid fly fisherman who makes his own lures. He is married to Danzy Senna who is also a professor and author who recently published the acclaimed novel Colored Television (It was reviewed in Sunday’s NY Times Book Review.) And he is a prolific writer who has written more than 30 books. (His novel Erasure was turned into the Oscar-nominated film American Fiction—one of my favorite movies last year.) This year, James has been nominated for the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National book Award. Similar to Kingsolver basing her story on David Copperfield, Everett based his story on the slave Jim, in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
In Everett’s novel, James expertly gives white folks what they want. That means that White folks have no idea that James can read and write and often has conversations in his head and in his dreams with Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire. What I loved most about James is Everett’s depiction of a deep-thinking James who grapples with complex concepts about race, the bible, philosophy, justice, hypocrisy and, of course, freedom. It is a stunning expose about how the White man has consistently underestimated the Black man throughout history.
For those of you who attended last week’s book talk at the Avalon Theater hosted by Shore Lit founder Kerry Folan and featuring Christopher Tilghman and his new book On the Tobacco Coast, prolific writer and professor Carole Boston Weatherford and her son, as well as Jason Patterson, an African American history-based artist, you will recall that these same concepts were discussed. The four speakers talked about how much history just “got wrong” and how few historians and authors have delved deep into the cerebral depths of many slaves.
In James, a pencil and a notebook are symbols for freedom—freedom of thought. They represent the concept that thoughts and ideas are something no White man can take from him. It made me think about the book banning going on in today’s world–an effort to squelch the freedom to think about things in a different light—to let the darkness prevail.
By the way, we held our book club meeting at Book Hounds, a delightful and cozy new bookstore in St. Michaels. Be sure to check it out.
Here is a quote from the author Roald Dahl. “Oh please, oh please we beg, we pray. Go throw your TV set away, and in its place, you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” Yes indeed.
Maria Grant was principal-in-charge of the federal human capital practice of an international consulting firm. While on the Eastern Shore, she focuses on writing, reading, piano, kayaking, and nature.
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