Friday, August 31, 2018

えぇー!


Wired after watching The Commitments one evening, we flipped through the Netflix suggestions and happened across this Japanese television show. Like most Japanese television, it’s somewhat bizarre.  Most likely, you’ll turn to your viewing partner a couple of times and say “whaaaa?!” Admittedly, it’s also strangely addictive.

Kanae Minato’s Confessions another product of Japan, has the same mesmerizing but perplexing quality. Even as you read about the book’s central tragedy from varying viewpoints, you might also find yourself thinking one or more of these expressions.

Confessions opens on the last day of school. After giving a brief lecture on being a “model middle school for the Health Ministry’s campaign to promote dairy products,” a teacher who is retiring slips into a long, painfully personal, soliloquy. She ends by explaining what revenge she’s exacted on the two students she blames for the accident involving her young daughter Manami.  One by one, these students, as well as their family members and classmates, recount the tragedy from his or her perspective as well as lay bare the horrifying consequences of her accusations.

Who knew reading a “book of genre fiction intranslation” could simultaneously evoke multiple senses of the word sensational?

Friday, August 24, 2018

True Crime


Challenge number 2 is to read a book of true crime. 

Again with the false startsOne was too chilling. Another involved graphic depictions of countless decomposing bodies. What I needed was a true crime that didn’t involve bloodshed. 

So I turned to American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse, based on a story she wrote for the Washington Post.

The book opens with volunteer firefighters being called to an abandoned building that is burning. In the first few pages, we learn about the cast of characters, including the identity of the arsonist. Despite this initial reveal, the action remains compelling, focusing on the investigators, firefighters, and arson experts as they are faced with fire after fire after…well,  over 70 fires.

Rather than describing the actual setting of the fires, Hesse follows the arsonist couple through their daily routines – he at the mechanic shop – she at her clothing boutique, as well as trips to Wal-Mart and nights out at their favorite bar. Part Bonnie and Clyde, part Backdraft, Hesse turns a crime spree into a riveting account of romance and remorse.

And the coroner isn’t called once.

Friday, August 17, 2018

“You ready, child? Let’s go.”

Narrated by “the Groove,” Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip through the Motown Sound by Andrea Davis Pinkney takes teen readers through the history, people, and songs of Motown.

Berry Gordy, Jr., rooted in Motor City, starts the label in part as a reaction to “white washing” - the practice of putting photos of white singers on albums of black singers. He also innovates the label sponsored tour, helping his acts to break out of the “chitlin circuit” and onto the stages of prominent halls and theaters.

Starting with singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson, Gordy slowly accrues a talented cast of writers, musicians, and singers. Recognizing the need for showmanship, he also brings on board Maxine Powell, the instructor who teaches the singers poise, and Cholly Atkins, the dance instructor who brings the smooth moves.

With hits by The Supremes, The Temptations, and the Jackson 5, the sound expands, and Gordy heads to Hollywood.  However, in the tumultuous years following the Vietnam War, Motown loses the Jacksons and Diana Ross to other labels.

The book ends with a selected discography. “Now it’s your turn to drive,” the Groove says. “You don’t need a license to listen, kid. Just sit back and let the music take you.”

Friday, August 10, 2018

"May. Entering Florida."

So we read in “Before: An Inventory,” a lyrical composite of images and experiences that closes out the collection of essays I read for this week’s challenge. Picking up various options in fits and starts, I finally settled on Sunshine State by memoirist Sarah Gerard.

 In the preceding essays, however, Gerard, interlaces her personal history with that of historical and contemporary figures who shaped, in some small part, her story.

 “In 1862, Mary Baker Eddy traveled…to see a famous healer named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.”

“If it’s not your family who brings you in, it’s probably a friend.”

“I first saw G.W. in a 2006 documentary called Easy Street.”

“My father and I were pallbearers.”

In “Sunshine State,” the most mesmerizing essay of the collection, Gerard volunteers at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary hoping to write an essay on birds.  In it, she writes:

“The cover of the August 1974 issue of Smithsonian shows a blue heron standing on a grassy bank in front of a calm lake. A hunter’s arrow dangles from its throat."

But coming across the sanctuary’s director, who wanders around shirtless and acts, well, a bit odd, she begins investigating the people who have been running the place since the early 1970s. She ends the essay with a few pages on Magnolia, a conure she and her husband foster for a few days before deciding they don’t have the energy to cater to her whims nor the tolerance for her mess.  

Friday, August 3, 2018

"This is like poetry"


Challenge #10. Read a romance novel by or about a person of color.

As the novel opens, Ifemelu is searching for a decent place to have her hair braided.  She has recently decided to return to Nigeria, shutting down her successful blog on race in America.  Even though she is confident she can easily find work back home, she is more nervous about running into her ex-boyrfriend Obinze, now married with a young daughter.

The novel traces their early relationship, Ifemelu’s departure to America, and the challenges she faces in finance, culture, and romance.  It also delves into Obinze’s story as he tries to make a go of it in England. When a marriage scheme goes awry, he is forced to return to Nigeria. Settling into family life and cultivating the relationships required to be a successful investor, he occasionally hears from Ifemelu but pines for more contact.

Although Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie may not be a bodice ripper, it includes plenty of steamy scenes. More than a novel of unrequited love between two lovers, however, its an examination of the complicated attraction of a woman to her homeland.

Looking for more romance fiction by women of color? Click here