THE RESURRECTIONIST – A. Rae Dunlap

“… he was my North Star whenever the darkness of doubt threatened to envelop me. When I could not tell my dreams from wakefulness, he remained my touchstone and my Truth; a glimmer in his eye and a quirk of his lips were are that it took to make me feel manifest, whole, and worthy.”

Aardvark rang out 2024 with a bang – including an early release in their December selections that is dark academia meets historical fiction meets true crime meets the gothic and grotesque.  Oh, and it’s also a love story. A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist (Kensington Books) was an unexpected thrill of a ride.  And that cover. Isn’t she just lovely?

Set in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1828, The Resurrectionist is the story of James Willoughby, a son of high society who has left his studies at Oxford to pursue his dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. Scotland is a bit removed from life in England, and he has some initial difficulties adjusting.  But James is smart, driven, and excited. He finds like-minded friends and excels in his studies. But the real studies aren’t at the University – but rather at the “private” schools, where James will have his own cadaver.

Here is where fact and fiction dance in a delicious way. These “private” schools would “steal” recently buried bodies – or rather, they would pay for the bodies. When James’s family writes him to advise that the financial situation is a bit dire and they can no longer pay for his studies, James is forced to take things into his own hands; he joins a crew as a digger. It’s dirty, dangerous, and exciting – and James thrives in it, partly because he’s with Nye, the gorgeous dissectionist that stirs many emotions. Things become even more dangerous when Burke and Hare enter the scene.

This is a phenomenal debut. The ending is such that a second novel of Nye and James continuing their romance and their studies in London despite the risk of being revealed is set up quite nicely, though I’m not sure there will be a backdrop as thrilling as the snatchers and Burke and Hare.

Read this book.

TEHRANGELES – Porochista Khakpour

When the publisher sent me a copy of Porochista Khakpour’s Tehrangeles (Pantheon 2024) and I saw that cover, I knew this would be a devilishly decadent over-the-top candy book.  Not one but two Kevin Kwan blurbs on the cover further confirmed my suspicion. Khakpour’s writing is playful and witty, and devastatingly disarming, but this one fell just a bit short for me.  Not because of the writing, but because of the subject matter – spoiled teens during the pandemic.  The idea of a Little Women retelling using spoiled Iranian-American kids is brilliant, and Covid is LW’s scarlet fever, but the conspiracy theorist plotline with the youngest Milani sister, Haylee, built a barrier to enjoying this book the way I should have.

The long and short of the plot is that the Milani family is about to get their own reality TV show.  Producers are interested in part because of the tensions with Iran and in part because of the larger-than-life figures Ali Milani (the father) and his daughter, Roxanna.  Ali is a self-made millionaire, having fled Iran during the revolution and finding his American dream. He has fully embraced being an American and seldom thinks of Iran. Roxanna is the second oldest and cut from her father’s cloth.  She lives for the applause and is a social media influencer.  She’s pushing for the show, but getting a bit concerned because she’s told everyone she’s Italian not Iranian.  The youngest daughter, Haylee, a fitness buff and soon to become overwhelmed with MAGA and conspiracy theories, is also pushing for the show. Homa, the mom, floats through life in a bit of depression and longing for home.  She’ll do what they want.  Violet, the eldest sister, is a model with a sweet tooth who dabbles with an eating disorder. She is seeking to connect to her Persian heritage. She doesn’t really want the show but will do it. Mina, the second youngest, is a sickly political activist (or wants to be) who is out as queer only online under her anon accounts.  She is planning on using the show to “out” herself.

The novel is what happens when the pandemic puts the show on pause and the Milanis are on lockdown.  And of course there’s a superspreader, extravagant party and drugs and a cat medium.  And of course, someone(s) get sick.  Because Covid.  Because Little Women.

I’d read Khakpour again, but I’m not interested in Covid books. If that won’t turn you off and you like Kwan, you’ll love it.  There’s a bit of a difference because this deals with younger characters, but it’s certainly got the decadence and biting commentary.

THE GOD OF THE WOODS – Liz Moore

“It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds.”

“Something about her looks immortal…a spirit, an apparition, more god than child.”

Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods (Riverhead Books 2024) is in my top three reads for the year, possibly taking the top spot.  We shall see.  A literary thriller, the novel is a slow burn of a who dun it, full of questionable characters, questionable motives, and upended lives, all centered around the wealthy Van Laars, their booze-soaked parties and their wilderness summer camp and off-season endeavors that employ all the blue collars workers in the area.

In 1961, 8-year-old Bear Van Laar, heir to the family fortune, disappears without a trace.  Fourteen years later, his 13-year-old sister, Barbara, vanishes from the family’s summer camp, into the same woods that had taken her brother.  And so, a multilayered mystery unravels.  What happened to Barbara?  What happened to Bear?

It’s a novel of unfortunate wealth, misplaced loyalties, and attachment to the land.  A novel of a much loved and adored child gone missing and his “replacement,” easily forgotten and discarded. A novel of secrets and lies, and the ties that bind. A novel of panic.

I’m not going to spoil the plot, because watching it slowly unfold is part of the magic.  Some readers have complained it’s too slow, but each character is so distinctly developed, each time period so crucial to the final pages.  I found it perfect.

And that cover.  It may be the most perfect of covers of books I’ve read this year.  That pink drip of paint holds the entirety of the novel, and it’s a brilliant choice.

Read this book.

SO THIRSTY – Rachel Harrison

“Besides, anticipating  the worst-case scenario doesn’t prepare you for the worst-case scenario. Just gives you the opportunity to be smug in the face of disaster.”

Rachel Harrison’s So Thirsty (Berkley 2024) was supposed to be my dedicated “spooky season” read, but I was too entrenched in Booker season to get to it.  Oops. In all fairness, I only selected it as my Aardvark selection because it was signed and I needed a “spooky” book for the season.  If you’ve been here even two seconds, you’ll know cozy horror isn’t something I often cuddle up to.  (That said – Charlaine Harris is one of my favorite types of book candy so…)  The book was perfectly fine for what it is. Highly palatable, well-written, at times pretty funny, but equally forgettable.   Its biggest downfall?  A main character who is positively insufferable and her equally awful though for distinct reasons best friend.  If I had actually liked Sloane and Naomi, I’d have enjoyed this a hell of a lot more.

Long story short – Sloane’s husband surprised her with a weekend get-away for her and her best friend, Naomi, who has been on tour with her rockstar boyfriend in Europe. His motives are almost as questionable (he can’t keep it in his pants) as why these two mid-30s women are even friends. Naomi is a spitfire, careless and wild, while Sloane is seeing disaster in everything.  They end up at a house full of hot people having wild sex.  Their new friends are vampires.  In order to save Naomi, Sloane has them turn them both.  The new vampires are “so thirsty” and what follows is a lot of Sloane judging Naomi for being thirsty and Sloane being thirsty.  Folks die, blood is consumed, Sloane and Naomi are disconnected for the first time since they became friends as teens, and Sloane gets involved with a centuries old vampire.  (One of my favorite parts is when she says he’s too old for her but then finds out he was turned in his 20s and decides he’s too young.)

It’s a novel of friendship and making the most of the cards you’ve been dealt, I guess, but I didn’t really care about their friendship or them.  *shrugs* 

It’s a perfectly fine quick read that would have been a delicious candy book had anyone other than Henry and Ilie been remotely likable.

THE MIGHTY RED – Louise Erdrich

“Like the mighty red, history was a flood.”

“So it was, every teaspoon of sugar that was stirred into a cup or baked into a pudding was haunted by the slave trade and the slaughter of buffalo.  Just as now, into every teaspoon, is mixed the pragmatic nihilism of industrial sugar farming and the death of our place on earth. This is the sweetness that pricks people’s senses and sparkles in a birthday cake and glitters on the tongue. Price guaranteed, delicious, a craving as strong as love.”

For me, Louise Erdrich never fails. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, reading her work is like meeting up with an old friend and marveling at how they’ve changed and at all the ways they’ve stayed the same.  The Mighty Red (Harper 2024) is no exception. Dedicated to “those who love birds and defend their place on earth,” this novel comes out swinging with characters you won’t soon forget.

From the dying earth to the bleached bones of the forgotten ancestors to the chemicals and vanishing birds, this is an econovel that takes a stark look at human accountability or lack of accountability for what we’ve done in the name of profits, in this case the main focus is chemicals used in sugar beet farming that destroy everything but the sugar beets.  (The historical segway into how buffalo bones were used to refine sugar in the 19th century is something I won’t soon forget.)

Set in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, the novel follows Crystal, a hardworking woman who hauls sugar beets; Crystal’s husband (despite never marrying), Martin, a down on his luck actor who is really bad at finances but somehow was put in charge of managing the church’s renovation fund; Crystal’s daughter, Kismet, a really smart Goth high schooler; Hugo, the homeschooled son of the bookstore owner who is madly in love with her; Gary, the star football player and son of a beet farmer who is believed to have a guardian angel and is convinced he has to have Kismet to keep his ghost at bay; and Winnie, Gary’s mother, who is teetering on insanity, living on her parents farmland that they’d lost to the man who later became her father-in-law – a man who’d razed her family home and destroyed the soil for profit.

The quick and dirty – the church renovation fund is at zero, Martin has disappeared, a mortgage has been placed on Crystal’s house without her knowledge, Kismet marries Gary, despite still being involved with Hugo, Hugo heads west to make money in the oil fields so he can steal her away, there’s been a string of bank robberies, and the truth about what really happened in the accident that took the lives of two football players emerges.  All the while, some farmers are trying to breathe new life into the dead soil and bring the birds back.

We need this novel.  More than ever.  Remember, there is no planet B, and that books and reading are both political.

Read this book.

SYLVIA DOE AND THE 100-YEAR FLOOD – Robert Beatty

“She was thirteen now, and the one thing she knew how to do was run away.”

I met Robert Beatty several years ago just after the release of Serafina and the Seven Stars. My oldest niece loved the Serafina books, and I wanted to surprise her with a personalized autographed copy of the newest release.  Pretty much the entire second floor of the two-story B&N was standing room only.  (Since I could see over the heads of most in attendance, it didn’t both me.) Special drinks in tiny Starbucks cups were distributed for the occasion.   Children, both boys and girls, vibrated with excitement and energy.  It was like being inside of a beehive, the place was alive.  And it was alive with children whose joy at meeting the man who gave them Serafina could not be contained.  It was contagious. Watching children reading and excited about books and authors, and asking engaging, thoughtful questions, still gives me hope.  Let them read.  And let them be bold.

You guys know I support NC authors, and Asheville is Beatty’s home and muse. You guys also know that western NC, including Asheville, was battered, bruised, and broken by the floods caused by Hurricane Helene.  Beatty’s newest book, with a new heroine, was released just after the flooding. In an unfortunate twist of fate, his new release is about a great flood in western NC, spawned by Hurricane Jessamine.  Beatty is donating 100% of earned royalties from Syvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood (Disney Hyperion 2024) to families impacted by the flooding.

Now on to the book.

Sylvia Doe is an orphan, and when the novel opens, she is running away from her latest foster home.  She’s running to Highground Home for Children, which is the closet thing to a home and a family she has. Hurricane Jessamine has battered the coast and it’s flooding in the mountains.  Sylvia is worried about the horses at Highground, particularly her horse, Kitty Hawk.

What follows is an action-packed adventure of magical realism, bravery, and found families.  Sylvia is very smart, and she carries field guides with her. The novel is interspersed with her scientific discoveries, including her drawings. These entries are likely my favorite parts of the novel.  I also enjoyed her relationship with Mason, though the novel dances around issues with race without really connecting to the beat.

I’m not sure if this is a planned series, but it should be. There is too much material with Highground and the Chutes for it not to be. If it’s not a series, the ending is a bit messy and untidy.

The novel hiccups, but I think it will hit soundly with its intended audience.

Consider this the first of my “Middle Grade Mondays” – and read this book.

My 2024 Booker Prize Longlist Rankings

The 2024 Booker Prize winner will be announced Tuesday, and this is the first year I have read the entire longlist prior to the announcement. (I will not meet my Goodreads goal, so this is my reading accomplishment of the year!)

If you’ve followed me, you know I had some predictions prior to the announcement as well as some predictions regarding the shortlist (I nailed four of six!).  You would also know that I think two books were shortchanged on that shortlist.  (Justice for My Friends and Headshot!)

My winner is Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional with Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep close on its heels.  But how would I rank all 13? Depending on the day you ask, my rankings might shift, but there are some books consistently in my top and some consistently in the bottom.  I picked my shortlist selections due to what I preferred and also what I thought would be chosen, so there are some that I predicted that don’t appear in my personal top six.  (Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn’t have shortlisted James – The Trees, absolutely, but not James.)

Without further ado, here’s my ranking of the 2024 Booker Prize longlist.

  1. Stone Yard Devotional (Shortlisted)
  2. Headshot
  3. Enlightenment
  4. My Friends
  5. The Safekeep (Shortlisted)
  6. Playground
  7. Creation Lake (Shortlisted)
  8. James (Shortlisted)
  9. Wandering Stars
  10. Orbital (Shortlisted)
  11. Wild Houses
  12. Held (Shortlisted)
  13. This Strange Eventful History

All reviews are posted on my website.  What do you think?  Any surprises?

Should my goal be the entire longlist before the shortlist announcement next year? As for now, I’ll resume chipping away at “Tommi Reads the World” (eventually) and getting as close to my 90 book goal as I can.  I’m currently loving The Mighty Red, but I’m not surprised – reading an Erdrich novel is like lunch with an old friend.

May the remainder of 2024 be full of excellent reads.  And remember, books and reading are political.

PLAYGROUND – Richard Powers

“You know me now. You know him as well as I did. Maybe better. You have raised the dead and given us one more turn. Now tell me how this long match ought to end.”

“Our first god mad the world from eggshells and tears and bone. Then our artists made the other gods out of shells and coral and sand and the fiber from palm fronds. All those gods are dead now, now. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to make?”

“For centuries, the island has always hung flowers around the necks of its destroyers.”

“It a thing still garbage once life starts using it?”

The last of the 2024 Booker Prize Longlist needs to be on syllabi regarding the art of storytelling; it’s certainly a book that begs to be studied for craft purposes. But I’m not surprised – it’s Richard Powers, after all.  Playground (W.W. Norton & Company 2024) is an expansive, fragmented man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. machine with an ending that seems both a cheap trick and the only possibly and brilliant conclusion.

The novel ripples, like a tidal pool of life, focusing on Evie Beaulieu, a female diver, Ina Aroita, a Pacific Islander who grew on bases across the Pacific with no true home, Rafi Young, a black man from Chicago with the weight of the world, his race, and his family on his shoulders who gets lost in literature, and Todd Keane, a once rich white kid who loses himself to the technology that will change the world.  Long story short? As a child, Todd read Evie’s book and fell in love with her and the ocean.  That love was replaced with one for Rafi and board games. When the friends went to college, they roomed together, their lives so intertwined. Enter Ina.  A girl they both loved.  Choices were made and children grew up.

Stop reading now if you don’t want this novel spoiled.

When the novel opens, Todd, age 57, has recently been diagnosed with Dementia with Lewy bodies. Extremely successful and extremely rich, he finds himself getting his affairs in order, parsing out hallucinations from reality, and getting lost in memories (and in the grocery store).  Meanwhile, on the island of  Makatea, Rafi and Ina and the two children they’ve adopted, are preparing for their island to be sold to the highest bidder. A California corporation wants to use the island as a base for seastanding, a series of floating cities that move and interlock much like the pieces on a gameboard. Building it will destroy so much of the life on and around the island.  But it will also provide funds that will greatly improve the lives of the inhabitants of the island, which include Rafi, Ina, and Evie, now in her 90s. It’s not a surprise that Todd is behind the corporation spearheading seastanding; the reader can gather that pretty much immediately.  The surprise comes later.

Stop reading.  Seriously.

Playground is the story of a man who has built a machine that allows him to resurrect the dead, a path Rafi had set him on back in high school, and that machine is feeding him stories of how he wants life to shake out, how the game should end. Rafi and Ina were never married, they never adopted children, or had an island life together. Rafi never really found peace. He died surrounded by his books and frenzied writings and his desire for perfection. Todd and Rafi never reconciled. Evie, the great female diver and Todd’s first love, is also dead.  Ina is living on an island with adopted children, and that truth forms a foundation for the stories Todd’s great creation spits out.  And that’s the surprise – the computer has cobbled the story from Todd’s memories, Rafi’s writings, Evie’s book.  And that is why Rafi, Ina, and Evie all shimmer, a little glitch here and there that one could argue is lack of character development (like Evie’s announcement she likes women that never goes anywhere), but it’s because the computer is regurgitating what Todd has feed it in palatable way to please Todd – they’re not real.

The question we’re left with is which story is better – the truth or the world that was created? This question is one that isn’t uncommon in works of fiction – as mentioned previously, the reveal seems a bit of a trick. A very popular example that asks on the page which story is better is Life of Pi. In Life of Pi the driving force behind the story with the animals in one of literal survival.  In Playground, the driving force behind this beautiful island world is fear and love and the desire to win.  I don’t think there is any other way the story could have ended.

While not my favorite selection from the longlist, I’d argue it belongs on the shortlist. Hopefully, I’ll get a complete Booker wrap up soon that will detail my rankings. I am very excited to have finished the entire longlist before the winner is announced next week.

Playground is a spotlight on how technology, AI and social media are eroding human interactions and nature while also breathing new life into the dead, lost, and forgotten.  Go read this book.  Then maybe play a board game with a friend on some grass.

Booker Count: 13 of 13

ENLIGHTENMENT – Sarah Perry

“She was the most alive person he’d ever met.”

“Her mouth was blotted red, as if she’d painted her lips, regretted her sin, and rubbed her shame on the back of her hand.”

“Grace Macaulay – in whose veins ran Essex rivers and Bible ink…”

“For God’s sake, Thomas Hart, for God’s sake: isn’t it all a question of orbits? Things go, things come. Something’s bound to happen soon.”

“though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

I’m not going to lie; I thought Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment (Mariner Books 2024) was going to be my Booker dud. I struggled to get into this novel – reading and rereading the first 15 pages and avoiding reading all together. Then something clicked, and it ended up being one of my favorites from the longlist. The writing gets in its own way sometimes as it attempts a Victorian feel. Sometimes it hits the mark and flows beautifully and antiquated and gorgeous. Sometimes it doesn’t, and it muddies things and appears to try too hard. But by the last page, I was invested. They wanted heart?  This novel has it in spades, you might just need a telescope to see it.

The novel starts in 1997 with Thomas Hart writing his column about Hale-Bopp, a comet, and receiving a letter from James Bower about the Lowlands ghost and how he may have found her. It’s also when Nathan breaks the window of Bethesda and the glass cuts 17-year-old Grace’s neck. Those two moments are the start of everything that will define Thomas and Grace for the next twenty years.

Thomas is an author and scholar who grew up in Bethesda, a small Baptist church that clings to the past. Women cover their heads. No jeans. No current music, tv, movies, etc.  The church and the community are very much a part of him even though he has had a crisis of faith. Thomas is gay, and he lives two lives.  One in London where he loves men, and one in Aldleigh where he attends Bethesda on Sundays. Grace is the reason he still attends church.  When he was about to turn his back on the church forever, her father brought baby Grace to the service.  Her mother had died during childbirth and her father was bewildered. Thomas decided to stay with one foot in Bethesda to ensure that Grace had some taste of the outside as she grew up.

Thomas, alongside James Bower, begins to chase Maria Vaduva, the Romanian woman they believe to be the Lowlands ghost. Through her uncovered diaries and writings, they reveal more of this phenomenal astronomer who was heartbroken with an unrequited love.  As Thomas chases Maria, his love story with James mirrors her’s, as does Grace and Nathan’s. And when all seems lost and her writings and home destroyed, Maria always finds a way to come back, and it is Maria who will reunite Thomas and Grace after they horrifically hurt each other.

There is so much in this novel that begs a second read. One of the things that stood out to me is the repeated use of “red” and “scarlet,” the stain of sin, in particular with Dimi and Nathan.

It’s a novel of faith and stargazing, of finding ones way, of things in orbit that will always come back like a comet or a love or a memory or a ghost.

Read this book.

Booker Count: 12 of 13

CREATION LAKE – Rachel Kushner

“The French might have better novels (Balzac, Zola, and Flaubert) and they have better cheese (Comte, Roquefort, Cabecou). But in the grand scheme that’s basically nothing.”

“Bad people are honored, and good ones are punished. The reverse is also true. Good people are honored, and bad people are punished, and some will call this grace, or the hand of God, instead of luck. But deep down, even if they lack the courage to admit it, inside each person, they know that the world is lawless and chaotic and random.”

The Booker train continues.  The shortlist was announced this week, and I was pleasantly surprised that four of the six are actually on my personal shortlist. (Pats self on back.) I was not surprised that Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake (Scribner 2024) made the cut.  It also made the National Book Award longlist.   (So did James and My Friends (the fact My Friends  didn’t make the Booker shortlist still leaves me gob smacked.) I admit to being a bit surprised that both Creation Lake and The Safekeep made the short because they are both “thriller” novels of obsession and unreliable narrators, but I also selected both so I can’t be too surprised.

It took me a minute to get into Creation Lake because I think the blurb does it a huge disservice; if you’re looking for a spy novel, this isn’t it. Half the novel (not all in one chunk but spread out) is philosophical musings and anthropological studies about Neanderthals and the evolution of man as emailed by a reclusive to his commune of followers.  The recluse, Bruno, is our narrator’s “target” and she has hacked his emails.

Sadie Smith, as she’s given as has her name for this job in rural France, is an unreliable and untrustworthy narrator. She’s lost grasp on reality and her own identity, and her obsession with Bruno and her desire to be rooted becomes more pronounced as the novel progresses. She is indeed a spy, formally with the US government but now in the private sector after some questionable tactics resulted in a successful entrapment defense from one of her “jobs,” but she’s not as sharp and skilled as she thinks she is.  Her “job” in rural, concerns the Prime Minister and infiltrating an eco-terrorist group, allegedly led by Bruno. Sadie becomes very attached to Bruno, and she is cognizant that she treats this mythical figure with more familiarity than those who actually know him.

The use of sex in novel is expected considering the focus on creation and evolution, but I didn’t expect the repeated imagery of children engaged in sexual activity. There is the song, which I did google to find out it is indeed real and was popular in the 80s, “Lemon Incest,” which is performed by a father and his then twelve-year-old daughter with lyrics that hint at both pedophilia and incest. There is the 13-year-old boy who’d been kicked out of the commune after impregnating his teacher at age 11.  And there’s a documentary about a very young boy’s very active sex life that Sadie references frequently.

As an aside, there’s an undercurrent of regret concerning missed motherhood, and the reoccurring imagery of Sadie finding a crying baby in a dumpster is reminiscent of Pearl, from last year’s longlist.

In a longlist of rather short novels, Creation Lake might be the longest. It’s not my favorite, but there’s a reason I predicted it to fall on the shortlist.

Read this book.

Booker count: 11 of 13