Review of Wanderers: A Novel by Chuck Wendig

Wanderers: A Novel

by Chuck Wendig

It’s been a few months since I read this book so the question is – what stuck with me? It was an interesting read, clearly inspired by the concerns of our current day.

In Wanderers, the environment is going downhill fast and there is a fair certainty that eventually it’s going to hit a wall and people are going to die. It’s a fair bet that the next big epidemic is going to take out a fair number of people. But where will it start and how will it proceed?

It begins with the sleepwalkers. One day someone just starts walking. One by one, others join them. If someone tries to detain them, they explode. They seem to be bullet proof, or very nearly so. They are accompanied by family members and friends who try to care for them without impeding their progress. I liked how Wendig took this down to the personal level, letting us meet these people and their caregivers instead of just talking about the phenomenon. We start with one sleepwalker, her sister, and their journey.

There is a philosophical argument at work here about who deserves to be protected by the law, the people who are walking or the people who live in the areas the walkers pass through? People are reasonably worried that this is being caused by a disease that could spread. Are they suffering this or causing it? Who do we protect?

It’s definitely a dark story. Men do evil things out of fear and hate. Wendig doesn’t really flinch away from describing all the gory details.

Even our hero, Benjamin Ray, is in a state of disgrace as the story begins. He is a former scientist with the CDC. In a moment of clarity or fear, he saw the horrible practices on a factory farm and was sure that it would cause a “zoonotic leap” where the disease leaps from animal to human. He manufactures evidence to shut them down. Like the boy who cried wolf, it backfires and he ends up losing his job.

“Some moments he felt like, I did the right thing, and they punished me for it. In the next moment, the opposite came to him with grave certainty: You lied to suit your agenda, and you deserved worse than you got.”

At the same time, another plague has reared its ugly head. It is fast moving but it spreads before people know they have it. It roots into the brain like a fungus, giving the bearer a hideous white crust around the mouth and upper respiratory distress. The death rate is high and it causes people to act homicidal before they die. Where did it start and how do they stop it?

But the CDC now has an AI computer that anticipates plagues. It anticipated the sleepwalkers, the white mask plague, and it wants Benji on the case. Why? Will the CDC let him?

It’s an ugly story, beautifully told, brutal and pain filled. I couldn’t put it down, all 800 pages of it.

Memoir ruminations - A New Kind of Country by Dorothy Gilman

A New Kind of Country by Dorothy Gilman

I’ve always enjoyed memoirs by authors, they’re so vivid. Gilman was a particular favorite author of mine growing up. (Her mysteries feature an irrepressible widow and grandmother in her sixties who is recruited by the CIA.)

This is one of those small memoirs of fascinating thoughts and observations. The book begins well after Gilman’s divorce as her second son goes off to college. She decides to move from Suburban New York to the coast of Nova Scotia.

For someone who went from her parent’s home to living with a husband then having two children, the solitude is quite different. At the same time, there is more of a sense of community in the little village than she is used to.

One night she goes to bed at 10 instead of her customary 11, turning out the lights, and her neighbor calls, concerned she might be ill. “Was she alright? Did she need anything?”

 “…there are some pleasing aspects to this after years spent in cities where one could die in June and nobody notice until Christmas.”

It was fascinating to me to read of her experiencing being alone and the things she did living in the country for the first time in her forties, much as I had experienced them on my own in my twenties, before I was married and had a child.

The life of a lobstering village is fascinating, and sad as well. It’s a fruitful and rewarding but dangerous life, as has always been for men making their living on the sea.

She describes the boats going out en masse on the first day of lobster season, and the comings and goings thereafter, along with her first humorous foray to the docks to buy some lobster for herself.

“One felt that if the economy of the entire world collapsed it would make no palpable change in their lives; the affluent years were only a mild surprise in a long succession of government miscalculations. They would continue to chop their own wood, plant their vegetables, bake their own bread.”

The book is split between exploring this new world she is living in, and the inner world she now has the solitude to explore. She ruminates on one of my favorite topics, time. 

“Yet the mystery is this: that whether we experience time quantitatively or qualitatively, time hasn’t changed at all, it’s we who have changed.” 

I highly recommend this book.

Storymusing.blogspot.com Review ~ by Michelle Wells

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brene Brown

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

by Brené Brown

How could I not love a book that starts with the author invoking a couple of my favorite influences –Maya Angelou and Shonda Rhimes? I identified with so much of what Brown had to say in both her thinking and her experiences.

I could identify as a daughter who grew up in a hunting family that put meat on the table; I learned gun safety and how to shoot. I understood, very much, when she described feeling like an outsider her whole life. (Her husband says, “You’re kind of weird. An outlier in a lot of ways.”)

She is delightfully funny, like when she describes doing Soul Sunday with Oprah and Oprah asks whether she wants to meet Maya Angelou. “Tunnel vision. Time slowed down. It’s all too much. Maybe I’m dead.” Or the way she describes the content of our most difficult stories, “I can confidently say that stories of pain and courage almost always include two things: praying and cussing. Sometimes at the exact same time.”

 “…true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I think most of us struggle with self-acceptance but if we keep pulling out the bits and pieces we like and hold them up to the light, we’ll get there. Personally, I find them and turn them into a poem or story to share.

“Connection to a larger humanity gives people more freedom to express their individuality without fear of jeopardizing belonging.”

I believe in that connection. There is only one race on Earth, the human race. We are all inextricably bound. We all have the same basic needs. If we accept that we belong, no question, than we don’t have to worry about fitting in, and we can just show up as we are.

 “I can only conclude our world is in a collective spiritual crisis.” I believe that a lack of connection is epidemic and may be responsible for a hefty percentage of addiction.

“Mercifully, it will take only a critical mass of people who believe in finding love and connection across difference to change everything.”

This is an overwhelmingly useful and uplifting book about how to bridge that connection gap that we have been experiencing. It shares a wealth of anecdotes, thoughts, and tools that I couldn’t possibly scratch the surface of here. I hope people read it and consider her suggestions thoughtfully.

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

La’s Orchestra Saves the World

by Alexander McCall Smith

Though the plot in the first part of the book seemed a bit trite to me, Alexander McCall Smith’s writing and the plot in the rest of the book struck me as slice-of-life writing at it’s most beautifully realistic.

La is pursued by a young man in college, prior to World War II, and agrees to marry him. She isn’t sure she loves him at first but thinks they will make a compatible marriage. She does come to love him very much and is devastated when he runs off to be with a lover in France. His father is ashamed as well. He gives La the husband’s portion of the family business and a house in Suffolk.

La moves into the house just before World War II and the story is moved forward by some minor intrigue as La gets comfortable in her new home. But then the war arrives and La goes to apply for “war work.” They don’t have much for her. The major encourages her toward the Women’s Land Army and La ends up helping with a farmer’s chickens.

The story explores simple village life in Great Britain during World War II, what people thought and felt. How it could be affected by outsiders coming in, rationing, simple pleasures, and how distanced it was from the conflict at the same time. They grew their own vegetables. They listened to the radio for news. It’s the minutiae of daily life and the reflection that make a slice of life novel. World War II is the backdrop but life goes on in spite of those events.

La meets a friend’s brother, Tim, who works at the RAF base and together they start a village orchestra. Of course, the orchestra doesn’t really save the world but it can be argued that it saves a number of people from abject despair, La included. The orchestra creates connections between people — village people, country folk, and people from the Royal Air Force base that all need something to sustain them.

Tim gets a worker from the base, a Polish airman with a damaged eye, assigned to help at the same farm where La works. She is quite smitten but Feliks is distant.

It is a slow book but the ending may have been my favorite part as you see how things come full circle and how such simple things as a village orchestra and one person can change the world for some people. It’s about how a single life does matter and what we do, the kindness we offer, the connections we make, matter. They may be the only things that do give meaning to life on this scale.

Is it unrealistic to hope that Feliks and La meet again and share some part of their life together? There are elements of chance and there are things the characters do to make things happen. Isn’t that true to life? 

In the end, the writing skill of the author and the way he ties things together, make this an enjoyable story. The pace of life in the country, the drudgery and the simple pleasures, make it enjoyable. If you’ve experienced that, you’ll recognize it. If you haven’t, you may find it enjoyable to see it from a distance.

Arcadia by Iain Pears

Arcadia 

by Iain Pears

Three distinct worlds, one separated by time and one by imagination.

It begins in Oxford, England, during the 1960s, with the telling of a tale. Professor Henry Lytten has been constructing his own world, much like his old friends C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, but with a distinct difference.

“I want to construct a society that works. With beliefs, laws, superstitions, customs. With an economy and politics. An entire sociology of the fantastic.”

He calls it Anterwold.

A little problem, Angela Meerson, on the run from her company with a machine she devised but they hold the rights to, hides it in Lytten's.  It is, in part, a portal, though more than that.

Of course, the girl who feeds his cat, Rosie, finds it, and steps through. Anterwold has been so thoroughly grounded that it runs on its own and Rosie becomes part of the world.

Events take place in the current, 1960, in a different time period, and in Anterwold. It is the type of book that you read then go back, enjoy thoroughly, and read again to pick up all the threads that you missed the first time. Most of all, it’s great fun.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain

Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning complex look at economies and inequalities through a science fiction lens.

Leisha’s father, Roger Camden, bullies the scientists who are pioneering bioengineering, through infiltration of their databases and money, to make his daughter one of the “Sleepless.” His wife is not so enthusiastic but he bullies her into compliance as well.

At roughly the same time the egg is being implanted for Leisha, Mrs. Camden becomes pregnant naturally with Alice. Alice and Leisha are twins, but not remotely alike. Leisha has also been bioengineered to be tall, blond and beautiful. Because she does not sleep, she is able to take advantage of her ability to learn. 

Mrs. Camden loves Alice and abhors Leisha. Roger Camden is cold and manipulative to anyone but Leisha. Eventually he sends Mrs. Camden away and marries the scientist who did the genetic changes for Leisha.

Most people do not like the changes that make babies “Sleepless.” They feel it gives them an unnatural edge in competition. The Sleepless are barred them from many things, like competition in sports or investing. More than that, the “Sleepers” grow to hate the sleepless for being different. Both groups perceive the Sleepless as better.

Some parents don’t think far enough ahead to prepare for having a Sleepless child and when a child doesn’t sleep at night and doesn’t have round the clock nurses, you can guess what happens. Leisha and her friends are party to a couple kidnappings of Sleepless toddlers who are being abused. Unfortunately, one of them is caught and put in jail, where he is murdered by the other inmates, simply because he is a Sleepless.

As things develop, people become more wary, more scared, and angrier at the Sleepless. There’s a whole We-sleep movement trying to grind the Sleepless into the ground or kill them. The few people who are sleepless of Leisha’s generation, recognize the pernicious hatred being sent their way and some of them band together to buy land and create a place called Sanctuary.

Much of the novel deals with economic principles and inequality. Roger Camden is a Yagaist, a follower of Kenzo Yagai. His philosophy, in part, states that “. . . the only dignity, the only spirituality, rests on what a man can achieve with his own efforts. To rob a man of the chance to achieve, and to trade what he achieves with others, is to rob him of his spiritual dignity as a man.”

Leisha finds holes in Yagai’s theories. She finds that trade can be non-linear. “If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something, and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown – it’s an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they’re not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.”

One of the Sleepless tells Leisha of an analogy called the Beggars in Spain, that they will turn on you, rip you apart for what they want if you don’t give it, so you have to cut them off.

But Leisha finds that the whole beggars in Spain analogy falls apart. “Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are more than beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help . . . Beggars need to help as well as be helped.”

A fascinating book, and not too heavy handed for the all the heavy topics it deals with. I highly recommend it.

The Knowledge by Martha Grimes

The Knowledge

by Martha Grimes

I’ve long been a fan of Martha Grimes and though this is #24 in the Richard Jury mysteries, she has not lost my interest.

The author brings us into the story with the fascinating culture of London cabbies. The Knowledge is a bar that only cabbies can find, and no amount of bribery or threatening will ever induce them to bring one who is not their own to the location, not even the royal family.

The story begins with cabby Robbie Parsons being forced to drive someone through London, at gunpoint, after he has just been witness to a double murder.

Richard Jury has spent a lovely evening talking philosophy with the murdered astrophysics professor and his wife very recently. Have you ever met someone that you just connected with almost immediately? Maybe you have a fantastic conversation and can’t wait to chat again? That’s Jury with the professor. Sadly, that can’t happen, and Jury wants to find out why.

As with many fun stories, we find a precocious young girl, living by her wits, who follows the murderer through the airport and onto a plane, all the way to East Africa. Strangely, the murderer is particularly kind to the young girl, quite fatherly, assuming her to be traveling alone.

Wonderfully quirky characters, Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood fill out the cast as they run leg work and experiments for Jury.

Fun, relaxing, and charming. Too many coincidences and too easy for the girl to get through airport security? Perhaps. But it didn’t dim my enjoyment. Definitely lighter fare than some of her other stories, it was a welcome bit of relaxation.

The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack

The Memory Painter

by Gwendolyn Womack

I really liked the premise of this novel –  Bryan paints scenes from his dreams, but they aren’t like normal dreams. It is as if he is remembering his own life.

These dreams, and the aftermath, are very hard on him both physically and mentally. They tire him, make him sick and confused. After the dreams, he is often able to speak the language of the person he was in the dream, fluently. The people in his dreams can also be verified to have existed, historically. He becomes quite certain that these are past lives but integrating and yet separating them from the present takes time.

Then Bryan meets Linz. He has an instant affinity for her and, by concentrating, he can see who she was in his past life. She was in all of them.

Finally, a past life comes to light which shows how this all started.

In the 1980s, Bryan and a small group of researchers were working on a medication to unlock memories for Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers take the medication and because they are healthy, it unlocks past lives. Another little catch - though this happened in a previous life, it seems to carry over into the present one.

Also, Bryan and his wife in that life are killed in a lab explosion.

Some people are still living from this previous life while some people have died and been reincarnated. Sorting out who is a danger and who is an ally can be a bit precarious.

I enjoyed this book, but had a little of an ambivalent reaction to it. I felt that it both went on a little too long and also was not in depth enough. It was very action oriented and I felt that perhaps the author could have focused on a few less scenes and given them more depth.

In trying to capture the breadth of the history the two characters had, I think she tried to pack too many lives in. They were interesting, but too much is too much.

I still enjoyed it a good deal and would give it 3 stars. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations but I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it.

The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen by Katherine Howe

The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen

by Katherine Howe

I have not read a single book by Katherine Howe that I have not thoroughly enjoyed, and this YA novel was no departure. It was the perfect antidote to the cabin fever days of cold weather and muddy ground in March.

Wes is a film student at a summer workshop in New York City. He is helping a friend with sound as they film a séance when he catches sight of a girl like no one else he has ever met.

Now that I’ve seen her, I feel like she can never be unseen. She looks . . . I suck at describing people, and beautiful feels especially pathetic.

She’s in the camera shot and his friend, Tyler, tasks Wes with getting her to sign a release. She disappears before he can do so.

At the same time, Wes catches the eye of another girl at the séance, Maddie. She’s a little more worldly than Wes.

She smiles mysteriously at me and whispers, “I see you, Wes.”

A strange shiver travels around behind my ears when she says this.

Wes is unique because, as a film student, he really looks and sees things that other people may gloss over. He’s hoping that if he produces a good enough documentary for the workshop, on the theme of what people want most, he can transfer to NYU.

But first he has to find the other girl and get the release signed for Tyler.

It’s like she captures the light. Like it moves through her, and gathers within her, and makes her exude a fragile glow. I swallow and realize that I’m staring, and I haven’t said anything, and that’s totally weird, and I’m probably freaking her out. When I open my mouth to speak I discover I’ve been holding my breath.

When Wes finds the girl, he learns her name is Annie, but he still doesn’t get her signature before she takes off again. Then she shows up in his dorm room. Wes learns that Annie has problems of her own, and he finds himself wanting to help.

I love the difference between Wes’s perception of events and Annie’s. The way the author handles Annie’s perception of her experiences is unique and riveting. Historical detail weaves throughout the story, along with detailed scene setting.

I can’t wait to read the next book by this author.

The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro

The Muralist

By B.A. Shapiro

The theme for book club this month was visual arts and I found myself completing an unheard of (for me) third book! It helps that I had them all sitting on my Goodreads list. The third one, The Muralist, by B.A. Shapiro kept me up last night until after midnight because I simply could NOT put it down. I had to finish it.

I feel like I've actually learned a little bit about abstract art appreciation from this novel. The main character is a young abstract painter named Alizee Benoit. Though she is a fictional character, she works with many people in the book who are historical figures including the abstract artists Mark Rothko and Lee Krasner, in the Works Project Administration, the WPA. They paint murals.

Eleanor Roosevelt actually plays a part in the story as Alizee gets to meet her and convinces her to get the administration to fund a couple of abstract murals. Then Alizee contacts her for more personal help.

The book is set in late 1930s and early 40s. Alizee is Jewish and her family is stuck in Europe, her parents having died when she was young in a laboratory explosion. She has not been political but starts working with a group trying to get more visas for immigrants.

It's a very good book but emotionally difficult. Her uncle is detained, leaving the rest of the family on their own, in France and her cousin almost killed. There is little she can do, but she tries. 

Breckinridge Long, the assistant secretary of state in control of all American visas, lies about how many visas were given out, being anti-Semitic and an isolationist. Alizee sets to work with a group determined to discredit him, even as she begins to create murals that speak to her fear for her family in France.

However, the story begins in modern times with a niece of Alizee, Danielle, as she tries to piece together what happened to her aunt, who disappeared in the early 1940s. Danielle’s story is quickly dwarfed by that of Alizee as we are pulled into the years before the involvement of the U.S. in World War II.

This was a deeply engaging and moving book. Characters are well developed and the story is fast paced while giving deep and interesting details. I will be looking for more of this author’s work in the future. I would give it 5 stars.