Book Discussions – Finding My Wings

RELEASE DAY REVIEW: If You Want to Make God Laugh

If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais (Putnam) July 16, 2019
In 40 words or less: At the start of Mandela’s presidency, South Africa’s changes are seen through the lives of estranged white sisters and a black teenager. Living in a community wrestling with conflicts of old and new, the women confront secrets that define them.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: South Africa
Time: 1994
In her second novel, Bianca Marais once again uses a defining moment in South Africa’s history as the backdrop for her story.

If You Want to Make God Laugh is told in three voices – Ruth, a fading socialite; Delilah, Ruth’s sister who returns from decades as a nurse in the wild; and Zodwa, a teenage girl with dreams of educating herself to be a part of the New South Africa.

After the breakup of her marriage, Ruth returns to the family home to lick her wounds and figure her next move. Out of the blue her sister, Delilah, appears, having received a letter that a gunshot has left someone dear to her in very critical condition. Zodwa fails in ending an unexpected pregnancy, endangering her prospects for an education, and dashing the hopes of her mother who is herself facing serious health challenges.

Laugh is a novel of three women each taking charge of her own life within the realities of the “new” South Africa. In this novel, politics are less a player than the periodic conflicts the women face in dealing with those seeking to wrest back the power and prestige of the Apartheid days. This is also the period when AIDS became rampant in South Africa, with misinformation, superstition, and prejudices. Bigotry, denial, and a profound lack of medical resources and support for patients and families created a far larger crisis for a country undergoing political and social upheaval.

Bianca Marais is a wonderful storyteller, clearly distinguishing her characters and their voices. To help frame her stories, she paints a full picture of the setting so the reader can visualize the space or location without any sense of being bogged down with details.

As an early reader of both of Bianca Marais’s novels, I’ve had the opportunity to take them in, unencumbered by the opinions of others. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words (review here) sent me searching for more on the Soweto uprising. Even those generally well-informed, had little access at the time to on the ground reporting. “Seeing” the events through the eyes of the characters gives a different perspective on history.

For me, Laugh is a more universal story, colored by the historic changes in South Africa. It is a novel of finding oneself, creating family, and forgiveness. The issues Ruth, Delilah, and Zodwz face are also very contemporary – sexual abuse, militant white nationalism, the AIDS crisis, and women needing to reclaim their lives from trauma. In both books, Bianca’s love of the country of her birth shines through.

While each stands on its own, Hum definitely begat Laugh, with connections from one to the other. It is reassuring to see beloved characters return, if briefly, and know in fiction, as in life, there is influence from one generation to the next.

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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Be transported with ‘Gateway to the Moon’

Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday) April 2018
In 40 words or less: Brilliant storytelling and character development propel the reader from the Spanish Inquisition/Expulsion and Columbus’s exploration to the desert of New Mexico five centuries later. Morris weaves together history, astronomy, human frailty, and the strength of family bonds across generations.
Genre: Literary fiction/Historical fiction
Locale: Spain, Portugal, New World, and New Mexico
Time: 1492-1500 and 1992
A rare novel combining two periods of discovery. Historical figures are carefully researched and noted as such in the listing of characters and families. Gateway to the Moon is also a coming of age story for a teen whose connection to the stars is his solace and path to the future.

As long as I’ve been in book groups I’ve searched for an engrossing novel that brings to life the conflicted period of Spain’s ascendancy as a world power and the injustices and horrors of the Inquisition and the Jews expulsion from Spain. Even less common are writings about those along on Columbus’s first expedition and what may have transpired with those left behind as the ships returned to Spain. Finally, there is a book that fills this void.

Mary Morris has the special hand required to mix history and historical figures with fictional characters with due respect to both. Even before Chapter 1 begins, Morris provides a framework for navigating the pathway from fact to fiction and back.

Miguel Torres has his feet in the dust of Entrada de la Luna and his eyes in the stars. A loner, he is fascinated by space and his thirst is recognized by his science teacher who works to keep him on the straight and narrow. Poverty and boredom are often the ticket to “juvie”, a brief trip Miguel has already taken. A chance sighting of an ad for someone to help with two small boys after school may be the way for Miguel to afford a better telescope and car money. Respectful of his elders, but in large measure raising himself, he’s dutiful about heading home Friday nights where his mother prepares the trailer for candle lighting.

The story shifts 500 years to 1492. Among those on Columbus’s ships as they left Spain in 1492 were linguists, navigators, and cartographers from the crypto-Jewish community who lives would have been at risk as the Inquisition and Expulsion pressures increased. Separated from their families, these men and boys held out hope they’d find a new home for themselves and their families at the end of their voyage. Through Luis de Torres, Columbus’s scribe, others on the ships and those left behind, Morris richly describes the fragmenting of families even as Columbus anticipates riches and glory.

This is a book filled with beautiful language. Descriptions provide just enough detail to conjure up pictures without detracting from the characters or plot. While Columbus and Miguel look to the stars for orientation, each of the other characters must adapt to the unexpected and does so in a fitting and natural way which isn’t easy to pull off. Chapter titles provide orientation in time and place, and the character lists and genealogy at the front of the book are there in the event the reader is momentarily distracted from the story’s flow.

The Jazz Palace, Mary Morris’s previous book set in Chicago during the early years of the 20th century, took on history, the development of jazz, discrimination, and families. While that was a big undertaking, Gateway to the Moon takes on a bigger challenge and brings it home. Whether your taste runs to coming of age stories, hidden communities or history brought to life, you will find it in Gateway to the Moon. This is an ideal book for book groups and will quickly push its way to the top of your to-be-read pile.

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‘Daring to Drive’: One Woman Changes a Kingdom

Daring to Drive by Manal Al-Sharif (Simon & Schuster); June 2017; in collaboration with Lyric Winik
In 40 words or less: From childhood, Manal Al-Sharif was unwilling to settle for the roles assigned by teachers and religious authorities. Necessity pushed her to defy convention and drive. Her story provides insight into the harshness of life for less-privileged Saudis.
Genre: Memoir
Locale: Saudi Arabia
Time: 1980’s – 2012
As a part of telling her personal story, Manal schools the reader on the history and customs of Saudi life, particularly since 9/11. The critical role Aramco (the state-operated oil company established by John D. Rockefeller) plays in offering women wider opportunities, somewhat outside of the constraints of the broader society, is a catalyst for Manal’s activism.

If you doubt for a moment that one person can bring about major change, Daring to Drive and this week’s dramatic announcement that women will be permitted to drive on the streets of Saudi Arabia prove it. Manal Al-Sharif was not born into an activist family. Her upbringing was in a harsh home, governed by strict Islamic rules and the unbending strictures of an education system determined to minimize girls’ opportunities and ambitions.

Manal always went her own way. She simultaneously questioned the authority of her teachers while exploring very fundamentalist religious teachings, putting her at odds with many including her siblings. 9/11 was a turning point for her, causing her to reassess her belief in the strictest religious teachings and the true nature of the factions calling for the demise of the West.

It is information technology that finally brought Manal to national and world attention. While she wanted to be an engineer, this was not a profession open in any way to women. The limited higher education options included a single path to information technology. Her tenacity and good fortune brought her to Aramco, giving her a taste of some of the freedoms and opportunities open to women elsewhere in the world. As she learned of the Arab Spring through her laptop, another rarity, she realized that Twitter could provide the platform to bring together Saudi women across the country willing to drive!

This is far more than one woman’s quest. To tell Manal Al-Sharif’s story demanded looks into working-class family life, the juxtaposition of civil law and religious authority, the differential information available to the privileged and ordinary citizens. Decades of Saudi history and custom are woven into the telling. Not surprisingly, Daring to Drive has been received with acclaim in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom, with its large expat Saudi community and many wealthy Saudi visitors. The book has not been available within Saudi Arabia.

Manal was interviewed exhaustively in the development of this book. To bring her story to the page required the failed collaborative efforts of four skilled writers. It took hours of additional Skype conversations and extensive research for Lyric Winik, the final collaborator, to successfully convey the extraordinary personal journey Manal has taken from frightened small child to international activist.

It pays to have friends. My good fortune is to know Jenna and Gadi Ben-Yehuda. Knowing my love of books and authors, they introduced me to Lyric Winik as the book was being released in June. Lyric and I made plans to have her meet with a book group I facilitate on September 26. At 4:00 that afternoon the news bulletins and emails started pouring in – the Saudi Arabian government announced that beginning in June 2018 women would be allowed to drive in public in the kingdom.

Book club meeting, Tuesday, September 26, 2017, discussing ‘Daring to Drive’.

Meeting with a writer is a wonderful experience for a book group. It provides insights beyond the written page – how the narrative was constructed, what research was required, and the challenges of bringing the story to the public. We had many questions for Lyric, and we asked them all. And then we rejoiced for Manal and all the women of Saudi Arabia who have endured so much for so long in silence.

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Hum If You Don’t Know the Words

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais (Putnam), July 11, 2017
In 40 words or less: Beginning with the Soweto uprising, a young white girl and a Xhosa woman are thrown together as a family. Their complementary narratives enrich insights into life under apartheid. Great book!
Genre: Literary Fiction
Locale: Johannesburg, South Africa
Time: 1970s
Forty years after the uprising that began the end of Apartheid, this novel opens a door to the challenges of life for the Blacks and others in South Africa fighting for change. A wonderful novel of people in very difficult times.

Robin is a young Anglophone girl growing up in South Africa. Bullied by her Afrikaans schoolmates, she is very concerned about living up to her parents’ expectations. Her father is a manager in a mining operation, overseeing Black workers. When her parents receive a last minute invitation to a business function Robin’s life is changed forever. En route to the event, Robin’s parents are ambushed and murdered. So starts Hum If You Don’t Know the Words. Robin and her housekeeper are dragged to a notorious police station where the housekeeper is brutalized. Robin is turned over to her only relative, her Aunt Enid who lives in Johannesburg. After gathering up a small suitcase, Robin’s past life is left behind.

Beauty Mbali is a well-educated teacher living with her sons in the Transkei. Looking to improve her daughter’s life, she sends her to Johannesburg to live with relatives and attend a superior school. After receiving a message that her daughter may be in trouble, she travels for more than a day to Soweto to see her. Beauty arrives in the midst of the first day of the student marches, discovering that her daughter is in the leadership and is now missing. Beauty will do whatever it takes to find her daughter.

Robin isn’t the only one adjusting to her family’s trauma. Enid is a stewardess and modern single woman with no one to account to but herself. Though she tries, upending her life to provide the care Robin requires herself is neither practical nor within her skill set. She reaches out to her network of friends, many of whom are anti-Apartheid supporters, for help. Through these channels, Beauty becomes Robin’s caregiver, confidant, and lifeline. This allows Beauty to remain in Johannesburg, though illegally, so she can continue to search for her daughter.

Bianca Marais has created two rich communities to tell her story. Bit by bit, Robin’s world expands. Her one friend is a Jewish boy, homeschooled because of the anti-Semitic bullying he receives at school. His apartment becomes a safe space and his family’s customs a source of curiosity. Enid has several gay male friends who are at times endangered by the authorities. At times it is difficult for Robin to distinguish friend from foe.

During the continuing search for her daughter, Beauty reveals elements of her family and its past. Protecting all her children leaves her torn – caring for a white child while her sons are back home and her daughter missing. Her search takes her through Soweto, balancing secrecy with her goal. Vivid descriptions of afterhours gathering places and the leaders and hoodlums that are all part of the growing uprising enrich both the story and the reader’s understanding of the times.

Both Beauty and Robin are leading their lives as survivors rather than as victims. Not always optimistic, each demonstrates inner strength consistent with her position in life. Neither is perfect and these flaws are key to the story.

As a blogger and book group leader, I have the chance to read some books before they are published or reviewed. It can be a crapshoot – some good, some meh and some not worth finishing. And then there are the special books. I love Hum If You Don’t Know the Words. There are twists, even in the beginning. As I read I could see the story unfold, almost as if a movie was taking place in my mind. This is Bianca Marais’s debut novel. It has been selected as an Indie Next selection for this month and has gotten well-deserved advance accolades. It is a great pick for book groups and to share.

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