Audiobook – Finding My Wings

Following ‘The Underground Railroad’

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) 2016, (Random House Audio, Bahni Turpin – Narrator)
In 40 words or less: Cora’s self-sufficiency makes her an outcast among the slaves on the Georgia plantation. When Caesar, another slave, prevails on her to escape with him, Cora’s journey to find a free future and reclaim her past begins.
Genre: Literary fiction
Locale: Georgia and north
Time: Approximately 1840’s
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Colson Whitehead uses magical realism and time-shifting to supplement the realistic and inhumane treatment of so many. Juxtaposing the attitudes of the slaveholders and those that maintained the railroad is fascinating. The villainy of the slave-catchers and the complacency of those standing by paints a portrait of the pre-Civil War US.

It took me far too long to make Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad my own. Two years ago, Whitehead spoke at the BookExpo America Book & Author Breakfast, attended by the book trade, librarians, and bloggers or book group leaders like me. He is a charismatic speaker and it was clear that this book would make waves.

Several times a year, Dan and I head out on an extended road trip. This July’s was the most ambitious. We headed from the Washington, DC area to Hilton Head, SC, via Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. It seemed fitting to choose The Underground Railroad as our audiobook since the characters Whitehead created traversed much of the same terrain.

Cora, the central character of the novel, is young and alone after her mother escapes the Georgia plantation and is never heard from again. All she is left by her mother is a tiny patch of land in front of their shack where Cora plants yams, supplementing her food supply and marking her independence. Cora is deeply hurt and angry that her mother has neither sent for her nor been in touch, though she clearly wasn’t captured and returned as a runaway. Very smart, Cora knows how to read and hides this knowledge since it could endanger her. She has only one friend and rebuffs efforts advances by any man, understanding that she is safer on her own.

Caesar, another slave on the plantation, has observed Cora and recognizes that her self-sufficiency and intellect would make his chance of escaping the plantation more likely. After several efforts, the two of them take off, heading to the underground railroad. Whitehead’s railroad is the literal conveyance that often comes to mind among those that are just learning about the period. There is a network of conductors, secretly assisting runaways on their journeys.

As Cora and Caesar travel from state to state, Whitehead creates different milieus that challenge their move to freedom. In each locale, the response of the residents to those seeking freedom is completely different as well. Whitehead’s descriptions draw the reader in and convey the terrifying situations that interactions with the residents and the terrain demand.

As I mentioned at the top, this was the audiobook we listened to as we made a big loop through many states that were on the real Underground Railroad. Looking out the window as the story unfolded, I gave more thought to the difficulty in traversing rivers, often with slave-catchers in pursuit and few swimming skills. I imagined the darkness and the dangers from run-ins with animals, trying to forage for food, and wondering if the one farm nearby was shelter or danger. The narrator, Bahni Turpin, gave distinctive voices to all the characters and created a picture that made the hours seem like minutes. While I should have moved this great novel to the top of the pile much sooner, I am grateful I waited. The combination of the book and the journey made this an experience I won’t soon forget.

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Nature, nurture or fate? ‘The Immortalists’

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) January 2018; Penguin Audio, Maggie Hoffman – Narrator
In 40 words or less: Four young siblings, ages 9 – 13, seek out a fortune teller who predicts the date of each one’s death, unknown to the others. One by one, Benjamin reveals their lives, times, and choices, always with death at hand.
Genre: Literary fiction
Locale: Various, USA
Time: 1969 – 2010
Chloe Benjamin adeptly mixes iconic American locales with carefully selected elements of history and popular culture to tell a family story and ask the recurring question, “How would you live your life if you knew the number of your days?”

The Immortalists has haunted me for months. So appropriate for a novel created on the premise that knowledge, kept secret, may dictate the choices of one’s entire life.

Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon Gold are the children of Saul, a tailor, and Gertie, living on the Lower East Side in 1969. The children are second generation Jewish Americans, living in a community and world markedly different from their elders. Having heard rumors of a psychic, the four seek her out, and each is told the date of his/her death and that they must not share that information with anyone, ever.

One by one, Chloe Benjamin reveals each child’s path to adulthood. Though never discussed, this one afternoon is a burden that the four carry throughout their lives. In many ways, it is the secrets more than the information itself that color the relationships within the family and with those they touch.

It takes particular skill to craft a novel that balances the isolation and connection of a family from childhood. Chloe Benjamin uses carefully chose locales and time periods to reveal each personality and reflect the defining and oppressive nature of each person’s countdown clock.

In the news and in individual conversations, the devasting cost of keeping secrets is a common topic. As I turn over my continuing reaction to The Immortalists, I wonder how many choices in life are responses to secrets, overriding nature and nurture with fear.

This book is worthy of all the accolades it has received. I listened to the audiobook, and while I had small issues with the narrator’s voice choice for the mother, I was completely caught up from the first moment. It is the mark of a beautifully crafted novel when the reader wants to intervene in the lives of the characters. When the characters stay long after the final page, that’s a book that must be shared.

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So many choices for a summer read

Stone fruit, long days, baseball and endless reading choices are some of my summer favorites. Come summer I have less pressure to read books for upcoming discussions and tend to range farther afield in my choices.

Since we do spend time on the road each summer, e-books and audiobooks have a greater presence than when I stick closer to home. The public library is my go-to source for audiobooks that Dan and listen to long trips. Once you get the hang of it, it’s not hard to download titles that are available for up to 3 weeks. An inexpensive Bluetooth speaker makes it much easier to hear if your car is not so equipped.

We’re hoping to listen to The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, a fact-based novel of Westinghouse, Edison, and Tesla in 1888. Joshua Hammer’s telling of the rescue of Mali’s treasured Islamic and secular manuscripts from impending destruction by Al Qaeda is the narrative of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Mysteries or thrillers can also be a good traveling pick. I’m looking at The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King, the first in a series of Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories. We have also enjoyed John Grisham’s Sycamore Row, David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers, and Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America, 1927. Any of their books would be fine picks – good readers with easy on the ear accents, engaging narratives that sustain your attention without distracting from the road ahead. Try out a new genre, if you dare. We loved Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. A mix of dystopic and classical storytelling, it was a great listen.

Above is a photo of some of the books I hope to read as the summer progresses. A bit of everything, fiction based on fact, memoir, literary fiction and mystery. I’ve listed them all at the end of the post. The plan is to review as many as possible. Some are certain to appear on my book groups lists. If the library waitlist treats me kindly, I’ll also read Daniel Silva’s latest, House of Spies, and Louise Penny’s Glass Houses.

Right now I’m finishing up Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows. Toews is an award-winning Canadian novelist. This is a family story of two sisters, Elfrieda, a concert pianist, and her sister, who has a more well-rounded life despite some poor decisions. I’ve been listening to Behold the Dreamers since before it became one of Oprah’s Book Club picks. It is Imbolo Mbue’s story of two families, one in the 1% but with many problems money cannot solve, the other an immigrant family desperate to stay in the U.S. with the father working as the driver for the wealthy family. Set in New York where spectacular wealth and barely-scraping-by live barely a few miles apart.

Before I forget, plan to stop at local bookstores while you are visiting new places. Yesterday I picked up Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in narrative form while at Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown, WV. There are knowledgeable booksellers in independent bookstores just about everywhere. Invest in the future of the book. Patronize these shops wherever you find them. IndieBound is one good source to scout them out.

Finally, what have I finished already? Anita Shreve’s The Stars Are Fire, Joanna Trollope’s City of Friends, Charles Todd’s A Casualty of War, Bianca Marais’s Hum If You Don’t Know the Words, The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow and Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend. All would be fine choices to pack in your carry-on and those I have reviewed are linked.

Titles Pictured Above

Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif
Celine by Peter Heller
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
The Golden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang
The World Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews
The Lost History of Stars by Dave Boling

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My visit to ‘Station Eleven’

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014) Audiobook – Kirsten Potter, narrator (Random House Audio)
In 40 words or less: A famed actor collapses on stage as a worldwide flu pandemic that destroys civilization begins. Twenty years later, the survivors struggle. Despite desperate conditions, they cherish fragments of life before and seek family and community connections in their new world.
Genre: Post-apocalyptic Science Fiction
Locale: Toronto, Great Lakes region
Time: Near future
Read this if you think post-apocalyptic fiction is not your thing. A beautifully crafted story with compelling characters that will likely surprise you.

I admit it. I steer way clear of classic science fiction and dystopic literature. There are so many books I’ll never have the chance to read in my preferred genres so why bother. Last month we took a road trip to visit family in South Carolina. As usual, we explored out of the way places (good material for another post) and avoided radio roulette by downloading audiobooks. I’d been hearing about Station Eleven for two years and thought it might bridge the differences in our reading tastes. It turned out to be a great decision.

Emily St. John Mandel uses the stage to open Station Eleven. Arthur Leander, a noted actor, is starring in an unusual production of King Lear which includes a few child actors. During the performance, he collapses in full view of the audience and one of the young girls. Despite the best efforts of an EMT in attendance, he dies. The lives of these three characters – Arthur, Kirsten, and Jeevan- are inexorably linked across more than three decades, from the earliest days of Arthur’s film career to twenty years after the earth’s population was virtually destroyed in a flu pandemic.

Jeevan, the EMT, leaves the theater into a Toronto snowstorm and learns of the virulent flu from a doctor watching patients sicken and die in the emergency room. With great descriptive detail, Mandel follows Jeevan as he stockpiles cart after cart of supplies from a closing store and then drags them to his brother’s high-rise apartment where they seal themselves in, hoping to escape unscathed.

Almost twenty years later, Kirsten is traveling the Great Lakes Region with a group of musicians and actors that perform concerts and Shakespeare when they encounter other small groups of survivors. Without electricity or other measures of modernity, daily life requires foraging and scavenging through buildings and cars abandoned as the owners died. Kirsten has blocked out the early years after the pandemic but continues to seek out information about Arthur, who showed her great kindness and gave her a book that’s her constant companion.

Also traveling the region is a young cult leader known as the Prophet, controlling his followers by force and intimidation. The encounters between the groups are classic good vs evil, with some twists. And it all began with Arthur.

Station Eleven is filled with comfortable individuals. Fully-drawn, they are far from perfect beings. Heroic actions come from innate humanity and personal growth, not superpowers. This combination of story and character makes this a genre-busting winner. The audiobook version, narrated by Kirsten Potter, seamlessly shifted from character to character allowing the story to shine brightly.

Once a Spy, Always a Spy – The English Teacher

The English Teacher by Yiftach Reicher Atir, Philip Simpson (Translator) (Penguin Books, August 2016) Charlotte Albanna (narrator, Penguin Audio)
In 40 words or less: A retired Mossad officer, Atir uses his experience to bare the personal conflicts of an intelligence operative and her handler through a retrospective of their mutual history. An unconventional thriller, the day-to-day costs of spy craft are as compelling as the missions.
Genre: Thriller
Locale: London, Israel, unidentified Arab nation
Time: Contemporary
Read this for an insider’s perspective on the personal price of intelligence work, wrapped in a well-crafted story.

Rachel leads three lives: 1) Rachel Goldshmitt, London-raised and educated daughter who has moved to Israel; 2) Rachel Ravid, Mossad operative; and 3) Rachel Brooks, Canadian Christian English teacher, nature enthusiast and tourist. Upon the death of her father, Rachel decides to take back her life. Using the skills taught in training, she disappears raising alerts in the agency. Operatives are not permitted to leave the life – it’s too dangerous for all concerned.

From her initial training, Rachel has worked with Ehud, one of the agency’s most senior and skilled handlers. Rachel was his prized student, and his concern and infatuation for her created schisms within in his own family, though Rachel carefully kept dealings only professional. Now, having left the agency, Ehud is called back to recall every detail of their twenty-plus year association in the hope of finding clues to her location. Atir goes back and forth, having Rachel and Ehud voice the details of their operations and communications over the years.

Articles about Atir and his writing indicate that the Mossad demanded changes to plot and techniques to protect its operations. Presumably, there is also some measure of literary license to bring the story together. What Atir accomplishes is bringing the reader face-to-face with the extraordinary stresses and sacrifices demanded of embedded operatives, often for extended periods of time. Operatives may be required to develop relationships, only to leave in the dark of night with no future contact. The English Teacher achingly describes the loneliness of a woman living a dual-life, but really having no life at all.

Note: I listened to the audiobook, thanks to an early copy from Penguin Audio. This is a great book, regardless of format.

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