Shades of Difference
In 1848, Alphonse Decuir, a freed slave, inherited sugarcane fields from his white father. On those acres, Decuir wanted to build [a] town for men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like...
Fiction
Cosy Québécois mystery
I first came across Louise Penny in the pages of the Washington Post; her ‘cosy’ mysteries have a large following. Personally, I found her Kingdom of the Blind rather disappointing. That was the 14th book in her series, though, so...
A chronicle of UK diversity
452 pages after completing this read, I am still waiting for the story to start. This is a curious book, with at least a dozen protagonists – and many more secondary characters. Each segment of the novel is devoted...
An incomplete and confusing dystopia
A misogynistic society with an intense focus on human reproduction? Surely the definitive such dystopian-future novel is The Handmaid’s Tale; it almost seems pointless for anyone else to try. What can another author say that Margaret Atwood has not already...
Another exceptional main character with a likeable sidekick; another solid novel
It is amazing what a good writer can pull off! This fairly short novel – just over 200 pages – would have us believe that our protagonist, child prodigy Colin Singleton, by the time he has graduated from high school,...
Byways of upper-crust Pakistan
What can one fairly expect from a debut novel? On the one hand, many writers take a book or two to get their first (often semi-autobiographical) thoughts out of their system and improve their craft. So it seems only fair...
It’s all about the journey
This is a quintessentially British novel, full of the most British of characters, with their eccentricities and oddities and charm. The landscape is recognisably and superbly British, the pace and charm understatedly British, the dialogue and characters even more so....
Idiots, perhaps, but decent and kind
Having so enjoyed Beartown and its sequel Us Against Them, I was hoping for more of the same, but Anxious People appeared to be more in the style of The Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell...
Women at War
Women are typically at the margins of war history: they send their men off with pride and sorrow, they serve as camp followers, they nurse the injured, they hold up the fort back home, and they mourn the fallen, while...
Pedestrian Fare
You know how some novels are so good that as you are reading them, you are making a mental note to find more writing by the same author? Well, this is the opposite – I am making a mental note...
Hens and Weans
Shuggie Bain, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, deserves all its accolades. To successfully distill real life into fiction is something only highly gifted novelists can achieve, and that this was written by a debutant, is eye opening. It is...
Wintry Mix
Recently the Washington Post held a poll on the best fictional detectives, and the winner was Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache. Mortified by my ignorance about this author and detective, I put the first available Penny novel, Kingdom of the Blind,...
Come for a love-up
Neither romantic love, nor love within traditional nuclear families is at the center of this novel. Set among the Indian community of Trinidad and Tobago, Ingrid Persaud’s Love after Love follows the love between and around three characters whose love...
A Flourishing Correspondence
As soon as I began this novel, I began to despair at how slim the volume felt in my hands, because this is the kind of read one hopes will last for many hours. Right from the outset, the plot...
Remaking History
Many historians, opinion writers and regular people have speculated whether being married to Bill has helped or hurt Hillary Clinton. The opinions are mixed: some think that her years as First Lady brought her public prominence and jumpstarted her senatorial...
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