Fierce Kingdom

 

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I forgot I read this, although it has only been a week or so since I finished it, hence the 3 stars. However, it wasn't a bad book and it would actually be a good book for book clubs--short, propulsive, thoughtful. More than just a thriller, it poses questions of what it means to love as a parent, what that looks like in the face of danger. What sacrifices do you make for your kids? How are our "sacrifices" really selfish? How do we judge how other people show love?

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This is what you do when you have child, isn't it, open yourself up to unimaginable pain and then try to pretend away the possibilities.

How to Kill Me

 Stab me

With something long and narrow

Deep in my side

So the bleeding is internal--

Eternal--

Causing weakness and apathy

Til the blood bubbles up;

I'll close my mouth,

I'll close my eyes,

To keep it inside.

Smother me

While I rest

(But I never sleep);

I'll suck up 

The down.

But lay on my heart

While you hold a pillow to my head,

Rock me gently

As I crash.

Shoot me--

In the chest, not the head--

Bullet ricochets like a pin ball

My ribs flip and bump

To slingshot the ball

Deep in the muscle

The size of a fist

At last unclenching--

A hole to break the whole.

Just don't let me die

Being flayed alive, 

Rubbed raw by routine,

Irritated ad nauseum

By Sisyphean habits.

Skin blistered and peeled

Until every exposed nerve

Awakens with each 

New movement; each

New stimulus provoking

Agony that astonishes.

Cleansing water becomes

A cauldron of combustion;

Silk sheets, a bed of nails.

All I can do is stand

Still, until I cannot stand

It, still--

A Manual for Cleaning Women

 

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection is prefaced by two forwards that highlights Berlin's genius. I need to remind myself to read these at the end. Although they helped me understand this was a series of stories by a respected writer who wrote using mostly her own life as inspiration, and gave me some of her techniques to look out for, their praise set me up to be a little critical at first. It wasn't until I was about half-way through that I started to appreciate the genius of these little gems. Not all the stories worked for me, but I admired the way she was able to take pieces of her life and repackage them into meaningful stories. I'm not sure if the editor placed these in order of being written, but the subjects in the stories are followed chronologically, so on the whole it rather reads like a novel. Still, the protagonist is often an alcoholic and her poor decisions get redundant read all together. It is, however, a good primer on how to make art from your own life.

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The Campus laundry has a sign, like most laundries do, POSITIVELY NO DYEING.

I'm down from five washers to one, but one takes just as long.

Everything in Mexico tasted.

With no weight you lose yourself as a point of reference, lose your place in time.

The people who were content with each other spoke as little as those who bristled with resentment or boredom, it was the rhythm of their speech that differed, like a lazy tennis ball batted back and forth or the quick swattings of a fly.

It's easy to get sex and death mixed up here, since they both keep pulsating away.

This still is an American custom.  You see women everywhere in pink hair rollers.  It's some sort of philosophical or fashion statement.  Maybe there will be something better, later.

The Invisible Guardian

 

The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The murders in The Invisible Guardian are more grisly and the mystical elements are more prominent than in All This I Will Give to You, but the protagonist Amaia Salazar is a revelation.. She is strong and capable yet has trauma in her past and deals with sexism and family pressures. It takes place in the Basque country, and again the atmosphere, culture, and food take center stage. I personally love how Redondo combines a culture's mythology and history in with her mysteries. (I did watch the movie on Amazon under the same name and like most adaptations, it falls quite short of the book. The actress who plays Amaia does a more than adequate job, however). TT

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The fear factor in children has much more to do with imaginary terror than real horrors.  That's why they are victims in so many cases, because they're incapable of distinguishing between real and imaginary risks.

Cry of the Kalahari

 

Cry of the Kalahari by Mark Owens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At one time, my dream was to be a field biologist and so naturalist books are extremely interesting and captivating for me. The fact that Mark and Delia just up and went to Africa and studied wildlife in the Kalahari without a plan or financing seems remarkable to me. Their adventures are both amazing and inspiring. They focus primarily on the lions and hyenas they study, and though they try to be scientifically objective they can't help but become friends with these animals, assigning human emotions to their actions, and teasing out personalities and motivations for them. I personally don't think this is a bad thing, even scientifically. Even if we are simply finding our own reflection in animal behavior, it can help us understand ourselves better. Giving animals human characteristics also makes us more sympathetic to them, which was arguably part of the reason this book was written--to help give the lay reader information and motivation to care for the wildlife in Africa that is being threatened by human expansion and businesses. If there is one thing I wished for was more about Delia and Mark's relationship out in the wilderness--there are glimpses but a few more details would have been infinitely interesting.
Thanks to Cindy who informed me that this is the same Delia Owens that wrote Where the Crawdads Sing

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Eventually each prominent feature had a name, for orientation and for easy reference.

Their brief visit had reminded us of our isolation, and now we felt a loneliness that had not been there before.

rather the feeling that I might not be alone when I was supposed to be

Sharing food while verbally reviewing their technique reinforced the essential cooperation between hunters.

All This I Will Give To You

All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've decided that detective/ spy novels are my guilty pleasure (not psychological thrillers or unreliable narrators). And this one was definitely a pleasure, just a good old fashioned mystery with plenty of misdirection and complications. Add the bonus of it being about Galicia--describing the food, scenery, culture. Also, because it is originally a Spanish novel, of course it still has a smidge of magical realism, just enough to satisfy the part of me that loves that.

 

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Is truth true for us only when it shows us what we were expecting to see?  When revelation provides relief from the inimical advance of unknowing?  And therefore, instead of being a balm to our wounds, isn't the unvarnished truth all the more devastating?

The Leavers

 

The Leavers by Lisa Ko
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it is vitally important to understand the immigration experience, and this one definitely has some new elements, especially highlighting the practice of bringing individuals over and then demanding high repayment prices, amounting to indentured servitude. I am always enraged when I read about ICE raids that leave illegal aliens in deplorable "jails" that hold no regard for children separated from their parents and treat them as less than death row inmates. The fact that these individuals are not citizens (yet) does not give us the right to deny basic human rights to them, and it sickens and saddens me that this happens in this country. (Once again, the fact they they are contracted facilities, not government run, is no excuse). The protagonists in this book are not readily likeable, but in some ways that is ok. Just because not all immigrants are noble does not mean they are less deserving of the American dream. Still, there were definitely some decisions and actions in this book that made it hard to root for them.

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