Tin Cups and Peppermints

 

One of my favorite posts for Christmas, from 2011.

We arrived at this chapter of Little House on the Prairie the other night. As the chapter opens, Laura and Mary have been peering anxiously out the window for days. It's December and there has been no snow in Indian Territory. No snow of course, means no Santa. On top of that, all the rain has caused the creek to rise, and so their one Christmas guest, Mr. Edwards, won't be able to make it either. Pa brings in the Christmas turkey, but even the thought of such a fat turkey for Christmas dinner isn't enough to cheer up the little girls. Ma does let them hang up stockings, and Laura thinks her mother mentions something about white sugar as she drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, Laura is startled awake as Mr. Edwards comes in with a big bundle. He tells the girls he met Santa Claus in Independence, and Santa has asked him to fetch the gifts for the girls. After he tells the tale, the girls are allowed to look in their stockings. They both receive a tin cup, peppermint candy, cakes made with white sugar (and white flour), and a new penny.

"There never had been such a Christmas," Wilder writes.

After the girls thank Mr. Edwards ("and they meant it with all their hearts"), Pa silently shakes Mr. Edwards' hand. And shakes it again. And Laura observes how all of the adults seem to be on the verge of tears.

Yes, they are.

"we read fiction because it suggests that life has a shape"

Christmas came early this year. In early December, Libby informed me that I was head of the queue, for not one, but two new releases.

Nick Hornby’s Just Like You tells the story of an unlikely love affair between Lucy, a middle-aged single mum, and Joseph, a twentysomething aspiring DJ. It’s 2016, and the chatter is all Brexit. Everyone in her circle wants to stay with the EU. Everyone in his is looking for a way out: “Life hadn’t been fizzy for a while. It had been hard.” As the story unfolds, their resistance to the inevitable makes the ending even more rewarding. And even though life doesn’t feel bubbly these days, Hornby’s witty banter may leave you feeling a little lighter.

 A fan of Sue Miller since The Good Mother, I eagerly picked up (well, actually clicked on) her 2020 release, Monogamy. At first, Annie and Graham seem like an annoyingly cute couple straight out of a Nancy Meyers film. She's a locally known photographer. He owns a bookstore. However, they don’t remain picture-perfect for long. After Graham dies, Annie learns that he was having an affair. As we are all learning something about letting go this year, Miller gives us a multilayered approach to grief and all its manifestations. There's not one "right way" to be sad. 

Best of

I admit this year I was a bit overwhelmed scrolling through NPR’s Book Concierge. I was somewhat relieved to discover some of my favorite reads from 2020 when I paired “Book Club Ideas” with “Realistic Fiction.”

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

Writers and Lovers by Lily King

 

And perhaps I’ve already found my next favorite reads for 2021 after adding “Seriously Great Writing.”

Wintering by Katherine May

The Voyage of the Morning Light by Marina Endicott

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

Try these two additional lists for even more recommendations. 

The New Yorker: The Best Books We Read in 2020

The New York Times: Best Gifts for Book Lovers

“Never too late for an accounting"

When I was around 8, we went to see Mickey’s Christmas Carol at the movie theater. I'll never forget the chills I got watching the graveyard scene. Soon after, I would see the George C. Scott version on TV and marvel at the largesse of Christmas Present. With my kids, I would delight at the Muppet’s take. To this day, they still giggle at the memory of the scene when Rizzo kisses Gonzo.  

Of course, the classic story started as a book, which I first read in middle school and soon became an annual read. After discovering Samantha Silva’s novel Mr. Dickens and His Carol in 2018, I was in the mood for another modern adaptation of the familiar tale. It’s frightening how well Marley by Jon Clinch suits Christmas 2020.

As the title reveals, the action centers, not on Ebenezer Scrooge, but on his business partner Jacob Marley. Rather than appear as a ghost, Marley is all flesh and blood, motivated by greed and desire. Master of disguise and charm, he dupes everyone around him for the sake of building up his fortunes. The most nefarious part of the story is that Marley and Scrooge have built up their business by engaging in the transport of enslaved Africans to the Americas. Without giving too much away, Marley’s  penchant for the “knocking-shop” ends up being his demise, but not until after he literally gets away with murder.

If you need lighthearted fare this season, leave this one on the shelf. But if you want to dive into a world that may be even darker than our own, Marley deserves a chance.  Certainly, you’ll never see Marley’s chains the same way again.

Some Peril

 Recently, I came across my kids’ Christmas lists from 2011. My son was three at the time and my daughter was six. He was into books featuring Spiderman or Super Friends and loved Duplo Blocks. She couldn’t get enough of Disney fairy books and doll accessories for her knockoff American Girl doll. 

As they’ve grown up, holidays have become simpler and yet, more complicated. This year, my son wants to build his own computer. My daughter pines for some roller skates she saw on Instagram. They are sold out. Some peril is involved in deciding what to get her instead. 

One constant is that Santa will always bring them a book or two for their stocking. Even if they get cast aside on Christmas morning for shinier objects, they will eventually end up on their nightstands.

For the middle schooler:

Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

 

For the high schooler:

Watch Us Rise by Ellen Hagan and Renee Watson

American Street by Ibi Zoboi

“How often do you get to learn that lesson? That sometimes you just lose?”

 Looking for escapist fiction, while steering away from anything truly apocalyptic, can be a challenge these days. I haven’t connected with a lot of science fiction I’ve tried. And the same goes for romance (with the recent exception of books by her and her).  And finding fiction that checks both thought provoker and page turner is even harder. Enter Memorial by Bryan Washington.

Benson and Mike are a young couple living in Houston. The week Mike’s mother is expected for an extended visit from Japan, Mike tells Benson he’ll be flying to Japan to spend time with his dying father.

Told from both men’s perspective, Washington examines the work, sweat, and yes, tears, involved in keeping a relationship from floundering. Mike’s mother sums it up best when she says:

“I’m fluent in fine, Mitsuko says. Fine means f*cked.”

Read an excerpt published in the New Yorker here.

Gaslighting

Allie Lang, a single mother, lives contract to contract in her work as a celebrity ghostwriter. After her last project was scrapped due to the #metoo proclivities of its subject, she’s excited for her next assignment: a book on motherhood by emerging feminist icon Lana Breban. So begins Impersonation by Heidi Pitlor.

As the weeks pass, Lana refuses to share any personal memories of raising her son Norton.  So Allie begins drawing from her own experiences with breastfeeding, toddler tantrums, and thwarting gender stereotypes to pad the narrative. Lana is thrilled with these stories even as she continues to brush off Allie’s inquiries into her own mothering style.

While Lana has the luxury of stretching out the project, Allie struggles to make her rent, pay for a broken filling without insurance, and find a reliable babysitter she can afford.  Even though she signed a confidentiality agreement, Allie tells her mother about her latest project. Her mother, in turn, brags to a friend who ends up tweeting out her identity after the book is published.

Although she feels betrayed by Lana’s response to the brouhaha that ensues, Allie learns she must fight for the right to tell her own story. Not anyone else’s.

Fans of Pitlor’s The Daylight Marriage will relish the way similar themes of parenthood and codependency play out in a much happier ending.