MILKMAN

Milkman, Anna Burns, Graywolf Press, 2018, 352 pp

 

I am so glad this wonderful novel won the Booker Prize and that my new reading group picked it; otherwise I might not have read it.

 

I fell under the thrall of the narrative voice. I have read so many Irish novels, so much about "The Troubles," but at last I get what it was like to live through them. Anna Burns so captured the inexplicable confusion, the constant worry, the unending violence, the elements of the conflict, by weaving it all into the coming of age of her main character, "middle sister." 

I am still recovering from the worst sickness I have had in years so it is hard to write anything coherent. I will probably read this next week and cringe. I wanted to put the word out about the book though.

I will instead send you to two of the best reviews I have read from blogger friends:

 

My Welsh blogger friend Karen: https://bookertalk.com/2019/03/31/milkman-by-anna-burns-bookerprize/

 

My Texas blogger friend Dorothy: http://birdwoman-thenatureofthings.blogspot.com/2018/12/i-had-seen-and-heard-quite-bit-of.html

 

Have you read this one yet? If not, are you going to now? You will not be sorry!

THE SELLOUT

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The Sellout, Paul Beatty, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2015, 289 pp

 

 

Summary from Goodreads: Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, it challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant.

 

 

My Review:

As my readers and followers of this blog know, I am a tough customer when it comes to satire. So score one for Paul Beatty because his book is excellent satire concerning race, class, Los Angeles, and American life, from the viewpoint of a Black male.

 

I am also maybe weird or challenged when it come to humor, whether it be in the form of literature, movies, TV shows or stand up comedy. I don't always seem to find the same things funny as other people do. Back in my indie singer/songwriter days I played more than my share of open mics. An amateur bad song is always cringe worthy but nothing is more painful than a stand up comedian who isn't funny.

Score another one for Paul Beatty. He is consistently funny, almost as abrasive as Richard Pryor, whom he seems to be channeling, and he keeps it up for page after page. In fact, by the time I finished reading the prologue, I worried that he was going to riff like that for the whole book.

He returns to many more comedic routines throughout the novel but he also tells a story of a guy who was raised in a Los Angeles ghetto by highly questionable parenting, makes somewhat inept attempts to put things right in his neighborhood, and most importantly, gets away with it.

I liked that he calls out anyone who thinks we are living in a post-racial era in America. I liked that one of his characters was famous in the hood for having been on the Little Rascals, a show I watched religiously as a kid. I liked and admired the whole book except for some lag in the middle which made me clean the house for a whole day instead of read.

I am a white, middle-class, female American. Probably this book wasn't written for me. I feel a little weird trying to review it. I have a sneaking suspicion that Paul Beatty wrote the book for himself (not a bad thing) and is happy and surprised that so many people are reading and praising it. The Sellout won the Rooster in The 2016 Tournament of Books as well as the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction. Most of the reviews I have seen are written by white males. Perhaps African-Americans don't need to read this book because they are living it!

In closing, I want to recommend my favorite satirical novel written by a female African-American: The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall. It is her retelling of Gone With the Wind.

 

 

(The Sellout is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

 

 

THE SYMPATHIZER

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The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Grove Press, 2015, 367 pp

 

 

Summary from Goodreads: It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.

 

My review:

This is the best novel I have read so far in 2016. It is super smart, employs excellent satire, contains huge amounts of empathic emotion, has sections that read like a John le Carre spy thriller...I could go on and on.

 

The author was born in Vietnam and fled with his family in 1975 during the fall of Saigon at the age of four. He spun that trauma into an intricate story about a Vietnamese double agent, spying for the North Vietnamese while working as a CIA-trained spy inside the South Vietnamese Army.

 

Most literature about the Vietnam War has been written by American, British, or French authors. While Viet Nguyen grew up as a deeply Americanized immigrant, he was also immersed in his extended Vietnamese family and community. He seems to have internalized the conflict, the sense of loss of country, and the feeling that for these immigrants, the war never ended.

 

If you grew up or were an American young person during that war, especially if you were against the war, but maybe even if you weren't, I think you need to read this novel. It is the other side of the story, the one we never got in the news, but a big part of the reason we protested.

 

The author also examines conscience, friendship, effects of being a mixed race child in Vietnam, love of family, and coming of age as an immigrant in America. Highly, highly recommended.

 

The book made it through two rounds of The Tournament of Books and while I felt fine about The Sellout (review coming soon) winning, I would have loved it had The Sympathizer won. It is out in paperback next week.  

 

 

(The Sympathizer is available in hardcover and paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

BOOKS READ IN MARCH

March sure was Reading Month for me. I read the highest number of books in one month for this year so far. I even cleaned the house once and worked out at least 3 days a week. I hope I can keep up this energy level for the rest of the year!

Stats: 13 books read, 10 fiction, 1 nonfiction, 1 drama, 1 poetry collection, 5 by women, 2 from My Big Fat Reading Project list, and 3 translated.

Favorites: The Sympathizer, Voices From Chernobyl, and Contenders.

Least favorite: Near to the Wild Heart.

Most of my reviews of these books have not made it to the blog yet, but stay tuned. I may have to post more often to get caught up!

The books are:

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What did you read in March? Which ones did you like, which ones not so much?