May Book Roundup
This month was a fiction extravaganza! Which was lovely, to immerse myself in so many different worlds. This month’s list reminds us why it’s good to get out of any ruts we might be in, reading-wise, and be open to all kinds of stories. If you only read literary fiction, or subsist on a steady diet of cozy mysteries, or only read nonfiction, I invite you to pick a genre or an author you haven’t read before, and try it. You might even go to your library and ask them for suggestions (my local library is still not fully open for browsing, and they’ve been putting together “to-go” bags of books they pick off the shelves for you based on the criteria you give, which is a fun way to find new books and authors you might not have gone for otherwise).
As astute readers know, I don’t just give my opinion on the books I read, but also try to give a sense of what writers can learn (or avoid) from it. From now on I’m going to try to be a little more explicit about this, so if you are struggling with an aspect of writing craft, you can pick up that book and know that it will teach you something if you read it carefully, as a writer. There are times when all we want is to be entertained, but after a while a writer almost can’t help pick up on certain things as they read. The next step is to be deliberate about it, and actually read with the idea of learning something you can use in your own writing.
Fiction:
The Signature of All Things – Elizabeth Gilbert. I enjoyed this book even more than I thought. The story of a woman botanist growing up in 19th-century Philadelphia, this one is a bit hard to describe. Natural history, a meditation on life, death, desire, the thirst for knowledge as the era of science unfolded, the ineffable and the rational… and an adventure and love story as well. With all that, it doesn’t seem ponderous or too weighty at all. It moves quickly, and engages the reader as it tells the full life of a remarkable woman who is in some ways very much of her time and in other ways very unique. Beautiful, lyrical prose that never calls attention to itself. We’re also constantly deep in the mind of Alma, the main character, but never distracted (the difference between this kind of interiority and that found in last month’s rambling Sunshine). Lessons for writers: Keeping up the pace even when you have a lot of history, science, or other research to include; deep interiority in 3rd person.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking – T. Kingfisher. This was a fun MG story about a girl who works in a bakery, and is a “magicker” – someone who can use magic, but only for specific purposes and in a specific medium, in her case, dough. Humorous and fast-paced and also a little dark (murderous assassins and ghostly dead horses among other things). I did think the main character sounded a little young for fourteen, but as it’s older MG the story gets away with it. What surprised me was the ending, in which a sort of deus ex machina occurs. The protagonist does fight, but never overcomes her enemies on her own. I could see why she wanted the character who does save the day to come back into the story, but it still felt like a letdown, and something I would not advise for anyone I’m coaching. The interesting part for writers comes in the acknowledgements, when she talks about the book’s long and convoluted path to publication. She finally self-published, and although the book has its flaws, I think it was a good decision. It also reinforces how strange, subjective, and maddening the publication process can be. Lessons for writers: the dangers of not letting the protagonist solve her own problems; ending the story effectively (or not).
A Deadly Education – Naomi Novik. High school can be hell. In this case, pretty much literally, as everything in it is trying to kill the students. Galadriel (El) is a student at the Scholomance, a boarding school for those who can do magic – but this is no Hogwarts. Mals, or monsters of every description, are everywhere, popping out at the unwary from opened drawers, dropping from the ceiling, ready to take the arm of an unwary student reaching for scrambled eggs in the cafeteria. Alliances are crucial, but thanks to a dark prophecy, El is the least-popular girl in school – until she attracts the attention of would-be hero Orion Lake. I love Naomi Novik’s work. Her world-building and character development are always top-notch, drawing you into the story and keeping you rooting for the protagonist. I highly recommend her Temeraire series, or this book (first of a duology – and it ends with a fantastic twist) for writers who are writing SFF. This book could easily get bogged down with details of the workings of the magic and mals – and it comes close – but it’s not as confusing as Sunshine. The challenge with any SFF is to let the reader know the crucial aspects of the story world without getting bogged down in boring descriptions, but El’s voice is vivid enough to carry us along without digressing so much we get lost. This novel is also a masterclass is creating an “unlikeable” protagonist – we end up sympathizing with El because she doesn’t want to be a dark sorceress with unlimited power, and does everything she can to avoid it. Lessons for writers: Creating sympathetic antihero protagonists; complex world building that remains understandable to the reader; vivid voice and character interiority in 1st person.
Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu. This book won the National Book Award for fiction last year, deservedly so. Part satire, part psychological and social exploration of what it means to be an Asian man in America, it’s the story of Willis Wu, Generic Asian Man, who dreams only of being Kung Fu Guy. Much of the story is told as a script, revolving around the stereotypical roles he, his parents, and his friends play on a fictional cop show, Black and White. To say more would spoil it, but behind the satire is a deeper examination of race, immigration, assimilation, and identity. Its unconventional structure in no way inhibits understanding – in fact, the pop-cultural lens allows Willis (and the reader) to get at truths that might have seemed heavy-handed or bombastic done in a traditional way. It’s also an example of interiority done brilliantly. We always not only know what Willis feels and thinks, but we can see his perspective – and how it might be skewed. Just when his self-pity becomes repetitive, he starts to grow. The story is incredibly timely in light of the increased violence toward the AAPI community. I have a feeling many people love it or hate it, rather than feeling in between, but I am definitely among the former. Lessons for writers: Using a unique and inventive structure to tell the story; dealing with wider cultural issues through the lens of one particular protagonist (the personal in the universal); character interiority.
The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga. I saw the movie first, and I’m glad I did; it takes a different approach than the novel. In the movie, we don’t know the crime and the outcome until the end. In the book, the crime is revealed right away, and the story is about what led up to it and how it plays out. That’s all I’ll say for fear of spoiling the story for anyone who hasn’t read or seen it yet. I enjoyed this for its immersion into a side of India that would be closed to outsiders. Talk about character interiority! We see the protagonist’s rise from the humblest of beginnings to a modern entrepreneur. The story is 100% from his perspective, and allows us to see the crime and judge the character of the man who did it. We may not agree with him or like him, but we certainly understand why he does it – why he takes such a desperate chance despite the consequences to himself and his family. In that sense, the reader is drawn into their own moral conundrum: would we do the same in those circumstances? He is a morally ambiguous character, and fully aware of that fact, which makes him fascinating because he is unpredictable. Lessons for writers: A great novel for evoking setting and character to perfection; also an unusual structure (it's in the form of letters to the President of China who is coming to visit India); showing the development of character motivation and desire; creating a morally ambiguous character.
Nonfiction:
Mystery: How to Write Traditional and Cozy Whodunits – Paul Tomlinson. Another read, this one more technical, on how to write mysteries. This one has a huge helping of the history of the mystery genre, which I was not as interested in. But mystery is a very plot-driven genre, and it helps to have an idea of how it’s put together if I’m helping writers with their mysteries – or if you’re writing one – and this book lays out different types of plots and explains them so you understand the nuts-and-bolts of how to write them. Lessons for writers: How to plot traditional mysteries, whether the murder happens in the beginning or in the middle; different types of characters to include that you can put your own unique twist on; the history of mysteries.
