The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham (2014)

How James Joyce's Ulysses came to be read in America, despite the government's determination that the book not enter the country. 

Book Review: The Most Dangerous Book tells a story from a time when books could be dangerous, the story of literary soldiers battling for liberty. Today many authors try so hard to be dangerously daring and cutting edge, and end up just being shallow and precious. This is the real deal, when Joyce was writing Ulysses, it was the book he had to write, and it was an all-time, tho difficult, classic.  Interestingly, Joyce doesn't come off as well as many of the other actors in the tale, all of whom were needed to make his book a reality. Many put their livelihood, money, and reputation on the line to protect, advance, and disseminate Joyce's classic. Heroes. When compared to the porn that's so easily found today, it's hard to believe that this masterpiece was ever a book that had to be fought for because of alleged obscenity. Nothing relating to Ulysses is too small for the author, from Joyce's eye problems and surgeries, problems with printers, the arduous writing process, rich patrons, smuggling, confiscations, the legal battles. The Most Dangerous Book is the kind of necessary nonfiction that amplifies our enjoyment and understanding of fiction. And I kinda like the idea of a book written about a book. If you like Joyce or Ulysses, are interested in censorship, prudishness, and the legal system, or simply want to read about a turning point in literary history, The Most Dangerous Book is the book for you. Now I've just got to read the darn book itself. [5★]

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)

A series of short stories of humankind's landing on Mars and interactions with its indigenous peoples.

Book Review: The Martian Chronicles wasn't exactly what I expected. Bradbury's stories are usually classified as SF, but these aren't based on science: his Mars is warm with an atmosphere breathable by humans. The settlers plant oaks, elms, aspens. Realism wasn't his main point, and the book is more thoughtful and evocative than about hard science (though he does consider terraforming). His interest was more in what was happening on Earth (primarily the U.S.) at the time, and how that would translate to a new planet. Even before 1950, Bradbury was deeply concerned about pollution, religion, racism, nuclear war, and destruction of the environment. He saw that all these crimes would follow humans to a new planet: there is no easy fresh start. So much SF from the first half of the 20th Century had a "can do" attitude that while settling the universe might not be easy, it would be settled. Needless to say, this is not Bradbury's view and his vision in The Martian Chronicles is darker and he sees humanity's (America's) flaws writ large, put in sharp relief on the blank canvas of Mars; at times the stories seem like fables or allegories. One settler from Earth says, "Yes, their cities are good. They knew how to blend art into their living. It's always been a thing apart for Americans." Bradbury's Martians are a more evolved, less damaging race.

Bradbury must be one of the earliest SF writers to address the perils of colonization for native peoples. He wrote about women coming to the Mars, and about missionaries, as well: "Shouldn't we solve our own sins on Earth? Aren't we running from our lives here?" There is also humor, the first humans on Mars do not get the welcome they were expecting. Some of the stories do deal with the Martians themselves, and for me these were the most enjoyable and interesting stories. But many of the stories are bit depressing as they showed what issues Earth was addressing (and still is) and how those same problems would then affect settlement of new planets. The stories were especially interesting considering how much talk there is today of expeditions to Mars, even if perhaps only one way. But The Martian Chronicles do offer a ray of hope, as the Martians show what we could become and the possibility of learning a lesson from our mistakes with Earth. [4★]

FilmLit: Sylvia (2003)

A film covering the last seven years of the life of American poet, Sylvia Plath (1932-63).

Film Review: Sylvia gives a good solid try, but ends up being too much bio and not enough pic. The film begins with Sylvia Plath meeting her future husband and the future poet laureate, Ted Hughes, and carefully checks off key points in Plath's life: driven, Fulbright Scholar, past suicide attempts, Cambridge, his book, America, a child, jealousy, moving to the country, her book, his cheating, another child, The Bell Jar, and we know how it ends. Which is one of the two problems here: although there is an underlying tension, the audience knows how the story will end, so how does the film get past that and become immediate, rather than simply a set up for what we know is coming? Gwyneth Paltrow works hard, and gives a visually convincing portrayal of Plath. But despite a game effort, the film finally doesn't really connect us to the poetry (the second problem with the film; perhaps insurmountable) or give us a sense of what made Plath a great poet. Much of the time Paltrow is left to silently sit, stand, or stare, lost in emotion. Meshing film and poetry is no easy task, and I just don't see many viewers wanting to run out and read Plath's amazing poetry after seeing Sylvia. Daniel Craig is also visually solid, but isn't given a lot to do except to be harsh, cold, and abusive while continually cheating, despite his knowledge of Plath's insecurity and fragility. We know from his biographers that he was a serial cheater and was carrying on at least two affairs at the time of Plath's death. A key moment is when Plath says, "Now he's gone. I'm free. I can finally write," but the beginning of the Ariel poems, the sudden unfiltered release of emotion, is also too much for her. Although Plath is presented as proto-feminist, both domestic goddess, saddled alone with two children, and ambitious writer, that is not what made her one of the most underrated poets of our time (known more for her life than her shattering poetry). Plath reached the stage most poets never do: perfectly combining emotion, words, and herself. Although I've focused here on the difficulties the filmmakers faced, the end result is still worth watching for the strong performances despite any frustrations with the finished product.

American Primitive by Mary Oliver (1983)

The Pulitzer Prize winning fourth book by American poet Mary Oliver, published when she was 48.

Poetry Review: American Primitive is a book of nature poetry. If you like ponds, wind, trees, herons, wild grapes, bees, you will find them here in abundance. Mary Oliver is a nature poet. If you like passion, joy, exuberance, feeling, all of it honest, unironic, clear, credible, open, vulnerable, all that too is here. Mary Oliver is not hip or cool; she may be the best selling poet in America (I think Milk and Honey is giving that claim some pressure at the moment), and that hurts her street cred. But although Mary Oliver is not my favorite poet, I believe these poems will last longer than 80% of what's being written now. These poems will still be readable, accessible, 20, 30, 50 years from now when the fads and trends of the fashionably stylish hipster poets of today have faded and are forgotten. Future readers will still understand and feel and touch these poems, unless we've destroyed all nature and other creatures and are living in some Philip K. Dick horror of a world, and even then people will read Mary Oliver to learn and know what nature was like.

The poems in this book investigate the rich black of earth and berries, and a mystical whiteness of nature:

   ... three egrets --
         a shower
           of white fire!

or

   brushing over the dark pond,
   for all of us, the white flower
   of dreams.

The imagery is of water: ponds, creeks, pools, the harbor, the sea, a "field of dark water," and yet even more so of fire. The magic of nature is found burning, blazing, flaming -- ice burns in Oliver's world.

   igniting the fields,
   turning the ponds
   to plates of fire.

American Primitive seems about evenly divided between poems about the wild and poems about people interacting with the wild. The themes are the joy to be found in nature, the harshness of the cycle of life, the power, the wonder, beauty, strength, solace, enlightenment, realization, transcendence of nature. Each poem contains its own individual and unique moment and statement that it takes from the natural world. There's a spirituality here. She addresses death, ghosts, vultures, the wrongs of history. Some of the most powerful poems touch on the American Indians, the Sioux and the Shawnee. She says:

   ... there's a sickness
   worse than the risk of death and that's
   forgetting what we should never forget.

The book is dedicated to the great Ohio poet James Wright (Oliver, too, was an Ohioan), who died three years before American Primitive was published. There are lines here which would have fit well in his best book, The Branch Will Not Break, and Oliver's poem "Clapp's Pond" in particular reminded me of Wright. Mary Oliver was not young when she wrote this, and she shares some of her thoughts:

   To live in this world

   you must be able
   to do three things:
   to love what is mortal;
   to hold it

   against your bones knowing
   your own life depends on it;
   and, when the time comes to let it go,
   to let it go.

These poems, while not difficult, are more complex than the open clarity of much of Oliver's later work. Accessibility is not a bad thing. I read each poem twice, and a few three times, to get the meaning. And then I might've read each one more time just for the pleasure of it. American Primitive will make you feel new. [4★]

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin (2016)

A biography of the too often overlooked American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-65), author of "The Lottery," The Haunting of Hill House, and other tales of a damaged psyche.

Book Review: Despite the recent renewal of her reputation (all her major work seems to be in print) Shirley Jackson is one of the most underrated authors of the 20th Century, so I much anticipated this new biography by Ruth Franklin. Unfortunately, I was disappointed and this is not the definitive volume I hoped for. To paraphrase Franklin herself: I am impressed by "the amount of work that has gone into the book, but am underwhelmed by its argument."

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life reads as if Ruth Franklin wanted to write a biography of Jackson's husband, critic Stanley Hyman, found no takers, so decided to turn it into a biography of Jackson. There are still, however, long stretches devoted solely to Hyman, and Franklin is his strong defender despite his obvious cruelties to his wife. There are large chunks of the book in which Jackson is only an afterthought, as Hyman and other of Franklin's preoccupations are discussed. This could have been a better and more effective biography of Jackson at 300 to 350 pages, cutting the irrelevant bits (ironic, as she notes Jackson's advice to "avoid anything extraneous to the narrative"). Although Franklin fails to acknowledge the prior major biography of Jackson, Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer (1988), in the text (it's mentioned in the notes), that book is warmer, more alive, more affectionate, and more satisfying; Franklin also fails to include some of the invaluable revelations about Jackson contained in that volume. As this book was written with significant help from Jackson's children, it's unclear how much she chose not to publish because of that assistance (she states they read the manuscript before publication, but "ceded approval of its final version"). Despite Franklin's own interviews and access to new documents, the book ends suddenly, leaving questions unanswered, and it's unclear whether Franklin tried to answer them. There are curious silences in this book (there is no bibliography or list of supplemental commentaries or references).

At times it seems this was too big a project and the writing suffers for it, perhaps more editing was needed. Some stories are repeated two or three times, and the many detours away from Jackson's story are distracting and unhelpful. Plot summaries of Jackson's works can be inaccurate, or plots given only a single interpretation, when other views are equally likely. The author often makes value judgments and conjectures wildly about rape, bigotry, and the like, providing little or no evidence to support her opinions and theories. Better to let the reader decide, rather than merely speculate. At one point Franklin asks, "What is witchcraft, after all, but the desire to generate fear in others and instill their obedience?" Well, that is not my understanding of witchcraft. Later Franklin writes, "Witchcraft ... was important to Jackson for what it symbolized: female strength and potency." Female strength is generating fear and instilling obedience?

Franklin's take on situations is frequently questionable. In one novel, when a mentally disabled girl seeking art to decorate their shabby house accidentally orders pornographic pictures, Franklin finds this to be one of the books "wonderful moments of humor." Mocking the disabled is not what Jackson, always sensitive to outcasts, would find humorous. But admittedly Franklin finds much more levity (as opposed to incisive satire) in Jackson's writing than I do. She finds Jackson's novel about multiple personality disorder her "most overtly comic novel," but another novel is her "funniest." In yet another, a character I only found annoying and offensive, is described as "comic relief." I know I don't have a great sense of humor, but this is puzzling if you've read all Jackson's novels. At one point after a large meal together, a friend of Jackson and Hyman wrote that "They got up hungry." Franklin, doubting, asks, "How could he know" this? What? Gosh, maybe they said, "I'm still hungry" when they rose from the table. Later, a Catholic girl "probably did not consider abortion." Why speculate if you don't know? At some points Franklin takes Jackson's statements at face value, and other times notes that Jackson took "liberties with the factual record." There's also a constant reliance on Betty Friedan as the only feminist writer worth quoting (nine times in the index), though she later criticizes Friedan as myopic. Her take on Ralph Ellison is also arguable.

There are spots where the writing seems immature. Serious biographers rarely rely on exclamation points to make a point. After one of Hyman's repeated infidelities, Jackson refrains from sending him an angry letter and then suffers a throat infection. Franklin writes, "the metaphorical connection is too rich to ignore ... after choking back the words ... she fell ill with a swollen throat!" But it was a letter she failed to send, there's no mention of a conversation. At another point Franklin notes that Jackson "no longer had to fight for her turn at the typewriter. Of course, she also had a baby to take care of!" Was that a surprise? But then Franklin undercuts her own excitement by saying, "she also seemed to have derived imaginative energy from the constraints" of being a housewife. Franklin will also provide a quote, and then tell us what we should think about that quote, that it was "not especially kindly," "wrote sourly," "wrote sadly," "commented, unhelpfully," "wrote insultingly," "wrote cheerfully," "wrote snidely," a "snide line," "condescending caption," "responded huffily," "unkindly described," etc.etc. But when reading the quote, these statements were not necessarily sad, snide, sour. Again, better to let readers think for themselves, because sometimes her adverbs seem askew.

A careful, thoughtful reader of this book will find much to question. All of these points may seem minor individually, but so many flawed opinions and dubious value judgments can make the reader doubt the lens through which the narrative was filtered, challenge the reporting and interpretation. A close reading shows that the author's preferences are never far from the surface and considered equally important as Jackson herself, or why so many tangents away from the subject.

Franklin also tries to pigeonhole Jackson's writing, with which Jackson would have disagreed, as her concerns were broader and more universal, investigating "the demon in the mind," the damaged psyche. Jackson wrote that her work was "one long documentation of anxiety." But despite major reservations, although I didn't enjoy it, I'm still glad I read A Rather Haunted Life. Together with Judy Oppenheimer's biography, it's a contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the too much underappreciated Shirley Jackson; it just isn't the definitive summation that Jackson deserves. What is still needed, what I'd hoped to read, is something like the controversial but wonderful biography of poet Anne Sexton by Diane Wood Middlebrook (1991). [3 Stars]

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift (2016)

A maid in a wealthy English family meditates on her affair with a young heir, on story telling, and on the rich store of the world around her, "once upon a time." 

Book Review: Mothering Sunday is the first I've read by Graham Swift (where has he been? where have I been?), but I don't think it'll be the last. This book, a novella, reminds me a little of Virginia Woolf and Muriel Spark, both masters of short novels. Within these few pages set in 1924, Swift encompasses the damage wrought by the First World War, the extent and decline of the British class system, women's place in society, the importance of reading, despair, ambition, writing, story telling, how lives become fiction; it begins, "Once upon a time." Written in a dreamy, poetic language but with an undercurrent of tension and anticipation, we float through thoughts barely touched by what is. And since Mothering Sunday is subtitled "A Romance," there are a few thoughts, too, about love. In a swirling narrative that plays with time, lying in bed after a tryst with the engaged and only remaining son of an upper class family, our lowly servant and story teller looks at her life before and ahead, wonders what might have been, what could be, what was. The writer she'll become is still distant, but already part of her, her thoughts clearly show the writer to be. In her lover's silence, she imagines what "another man, in another story, might be saying." She ponders that if his fiancee had interrupted them "then there might have been a scene, a wild and frantic scene. And the day would have turned out very differently." In her thoughts we see the fruits of her almost taboo reading of boys' adventure stories, her almost secret self-education, and her nascent writer's mind despite the limits of her social standing. Her thoughts slowly whirl through possibilities. She thinks of "All the scenes. To imagine them was only to imagine the possible, even to predict the actual. But it was also to conjure the non-existent." On this morning, after making love, was "when she really became a writer," when her lover leaves to meet his fiancee, leaving her alone in his family's mansion to wander naked through the rooms, breaking social mores, the social mores her ambition would break to become a writer: "It was what she would have to do to become a writer: cross an impossible barrier." Being free to cross barriers, to ignore social norms, would enable her to become a different person, no longer in service, a person that wouldn't just read books, but could write them. Mothering Sunday also shows the decimation and fundamental loss caused by the Great War, which helps lead to the decline of the young heir and his upper class family. And the subsequent ambition and rise of those below, in particular our young servant, soon to be no longer as limited by sex and education. This is modernist writing in service to historical fiction. I was surprised at how stimulating this book was, as in exploring the maid's mind Graham Swift raised even more thoughts in mine. Mothering Sunday is a quick and excellent read, philosophical and enjoyable. [4 Stars]

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

A woman in 1930s America attempts to live life on her own terms against both natural and societal obstacles, charting her path through the three men she married.

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God is like sitting on the front stoop, listening to the wisest person in the neighborhood who's heard, remembered, and can tell all the best stories. Zora Neale Hurston wrote a book, more complex than it first seems, that can be approached from several angles all of which are rewarding, beyond simply being wonderful to read and enjoy. Historically, the book was written at a time in which former slaves were still alive. Hurston, an anthropologist and folklorist, was familiar with their stories, heard first hand, which inform every page. From a feminist perspective, this early effort is irreducibly a product of its time, and includes aspects that current writers might not address in the same way, but which reveal the unvarnished reality and necessity of life for women back then. It's not pretty. Our heroine's personal growth is revealed through her three marriages, reflecting the limited world available to women in that time and place, although she persevered. As the statement of an African American writer, the book describes the life of an all-black community, the world of interaction between black people and white people, and a woman who refuses to be a victim of anything that is arrayed against her. And simply as a story, the book doesn't at all need the layers of meaning I'm trying to throw at it. This was an irresistible read, and I devoured it in great long chunks as I wanted to know Janie Crawford and find how her life turns out -- what was next for this resilient, hungry, and determined woman. She had a vision for her life from childhood, and she patiently worked her way toward it. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a near perfect story, and that it was published in 1937 is all the more amazing. Two more points. First, the dialog is written in black vernacular ("Ebonics," to use Valerie Boyd's term), which took a little getting used to, but for me was more bothersome because so often such transcription is used to stereotype and demean. But Hurston, a folklorist, was using the vernacular to reflect the time and place, social realism. Second, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. notes, the book has elements of Hurston's racial views, similar to those of the "militant integrationist" Albert Murray, that black lives are not simply a reaction to white actions, and as such she managed to offend black and white alike so that her career eventually went into decline. But put all of that aside: Their Eyes Were Watching God is a wonderful book and one which I was way overdue in reading. Hurston wrote four novels; I think I need to read them all. [4.5 Stars]

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)

Two sisters, different as night and day, seek love and matrimony in Jane Austen's first published novel.

Book Review: Sense and Sensibility is so ubiquitous, the classic novel, the screen adaptations, that it's become part of our common knowledge. There is no need to repeat the story, but only make a few observations. Jane Austen's writing style takes a bit of getting used to, averaging about four commas per sentence with not infrequent semi-colons just for fun. But once accustomed, there's a certain comforting formality about her language, like a cozy blanket on a winter day, mirroring the cozy formality of the story and customs of the time. But within that comfort, Austen writes with a wry, arch, dry humor, and sarcasm, irony, and the occasional satirical bite, all of which serve to throw some daring decolletage among the prim and proper. Austen is not as socially conscious a writer as Dickens, instead writing of a class in which having only three servants puts one near poverty and those servants are as near invisible as it's possible to be. But beneath the class consciousness in Sense and Sensibility is the awareness that a woman who makes a bad match, or fails to make a match, could fall into genuine, desperate poverty unless a kind relation serves as safety net. Hence the constant concern and mention of money and income, making Austen appear part accountant. Marrying for money, for both women and men, is understandable and forgivable as a means to maintain class, which is why marrying for love is almost a surprise ending. And although perhaps not a feminist tract, because of their potentially desperate position Austen throws some sharp elbows in the fight for women's place in society. Of one character she notes that through his "unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman." When a mother considers a woman for the wife of one of her two sons, the comment is made, "The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair," the assumption being she will willingly marry either son for money. When a young man is thrown over for money, he is "convinced that nothing could have been more natural ... nor more self-evident." At the same time, the main actors, both heroes and villains, in Sense and Sensibility are primarily women, having all the best lines and doing most of the heavy lifting in moving the plot. The fate of the three pairs of lovers rests on women: one rational, protecting her family; one passionate, and almost dying for it; one scheming, getting what she wished for if not what she wanted. Our protagonist is logical, educated, uninterested in the stereotypical feminine concerns of the time, and makes the best match of the three. A classic, in all senses of the word. [4 Stars]

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (1979)

A collection of 10 re-imaginings of fairy tales, simultaneously both old and modern, bawdy and pure.

Book Review: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories was written by Angela Carter, and Angela Carter is a force of nature. Nature inhabits, possesses, overwhelms these stories, trees and bushes and shrubs, dark forests and animals, wild beasts, wolves, lions, tigers, horses, cats, more wolves, werewolves, and even vampires. Carter sees and writes her own versions of Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, and more. At times the tales are hardly recognizable, so much she's made them her own. In making them her own she's put her own unique stamp on them, her rich, too rich, voluptuous, Rubenesque language. Angela Carter is no careful carpenter, carving out every extra sentence, cutting away every unnecessary word, agonizing over too much. No, she glories in words, loves them, cannot get enough, more words, more sentences, more, she wants "too much." She's drunk on words. The Bloody Chamber is not a poor half drowned cat, deflated and sad. Her stories are rich with all the words that fit, and what words they are: sere, glistering, lustratory, lubbery, tenebrous catafalques, and when she combines them she produces phrases that no one has ever written: "a sombre delirium," "atrocious loneliness," "a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy," "overseer of somnambulists," "rusted with a wash of pain," "lupine fiestas," "feral disorder," "her furred thoughts and primal sentience." Even though the stories are updated to include automobiles, telephones, New York, bicycles, and women doing it for themselves, they still retain fairy tales' ancient chill of dungeons and shadowy darkness of forests. A little sex never hurt anyone, either. The stories, as do the sentences, intertwine, repeat, enfold, as Carter writes variations of her own variations of the old stories from olden times. This is not a quick read, but a worthwhile one. Any potential authors will find so much here that they will want to steal and keep as their own. Either as a reader or a writer, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is a learning experience, rich, warm, and lush as an ermine blanket. [4 Stars]

My Bookstore, ed. by Ronald Rice (2012)

Eighty-two writers briefly tell why they love their favorite bookstores.

Book Review: My Bookstore consists of short appreciations of bookstores by many authors, including such names as Isabel Allende, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., John Grisham, Chuck Palahniuk, and Lisa See, with an Introduction by Richard Russo and an Afterword by Emily St. John Mandel. Of course, the big name independent bookstores such as Powell's, the Strand, and the Tattered Cover are included. All in all, this is a paean to independent bookshops in the United States, and a lovely one at that, with some of the stories sure to make you feel a bit misty as the authors describe how valuable, how necessary, how part of the family, bookshops have been in their lives. Most readers adore bookshops, and this is almost like bookstore-porn (or a love letter to bookstores, if you prefer), making a cross-country road trip to visit them all seem like a necessity. Personally, I love wandering through shelves wondering what I'll find that I didn't know I needed, but as I read My Bookstore I also wondered how many of these bookshops have closed since 2012 when the book was published. Many of the stories contain histories of the various shops that have opened and closed in their towns over the years. I'm lucky to live near what seems like a fairly sturdy bookstore (yes, it's in the book), but not everyone is so fortunate. The other thing I should mention is that it took me over three years to read My Bookstore, as I kept it by my reading chair and when in the mood, I'd read a few pages. This would be a hard book to read straight through and I didn't try. Reading was much more fun with just a few luscious tidbits at a time. Enjoyable, touching, personal, funny, this is a collection of many tiny memoirs about the importance of books, reading, and bookshops. I'd love to see an international edition. [5 Stars]

The Best American Short Stories, ed. by Junot Diaz (2016)

The title best describes the intent of this series, presented in its current format with a "name" guest editor, since 1978. 

Book review: The Best American Short Stories 2016, that ambitious claim assumes a significant responsibility. When Junot Diaz, author of the beyond brilliant The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was announced as the editor for 2016 my hopes were raised, but this installment was disappointing. There are some notable names: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Louise Erdrich, Lauren Groff, John Edgar Wideman. There are some good stories: "Wonders of the Shore" by Andrea Barrett (so aware), "The Prospectors" by Karen Russell (my favorite), "On This Side" by Yuko Sakata (so good), or "Williamsburg Bridge" by John Edgar Wideman (or is this my favorite?). But it's hard to accept that this book contains the best short stories of the year from U.S. and Canadian magazines (no Canadian magazines included -- sorry), because then it must've been a bad year for the form. About a third of the stories seemed successful, but too many seemed incomplete or the product of an undergraduate writing workshop, when young writers believe they're the first people to have ever experienced life and write about it. Some seemed like medicine: read this because it's good for you. Diaz is to be acknowledged for giving young writers publicity, but the intent here is to identify the best stories in the country, not up and coming authors; there are other outlets for that. This series should be, like the New York Times, the publication of record. Thirty years from now researchers should be able to look back and use The Best American Short Stories as the barometer of what was considered good writing in 2016, and I don't want to believe that the short story has fallen on such hard times. Sure there are interesting ideas, good sections, nice lines, insightful sketches, but are these really the best stories written? My other regret is that I don't have the time or money to read all 3,000+ stories that Ms. Pitlor does annually, so I rely on this book to give me what I should've read during the year. I scour used-book shops looking for back copies of The Best American Short Stories, because of the usual high quality of this series, which may be the reason for some of my personal disappointment here. Every year this should be a 5-Star book. I'm not saying you won't find stories to enjoy, just that it may be about a third, even though we all enjoy different flavors. There was an interesting series of doubles here: two stories each about a parent reacting badly to a child's problem, suicides from heights, thieving couples, bored affairs. Thirteen stories here are by women, seven by male authors, about the same ratio as last year. Undoubtedly there's something here for you, as long as you're willing to read through the rest. [3 Stars]

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (2016)

An English nurse is hired to travel to Ireland and watch Anna, a young Irish girl who is said to have, miraculously, eaten nothing for four months.

Book review: The Wonder has many parallels with Irish author Emma Donoghue's successful previous novel, Room, some for the better, some worse. Donoghue has certainly established her ability to tell a story with a single overriding plot line that compels the reader to keep on, a question that drives the novel, that overwhelms all other elements in the book. But there are other elements here, as the 19th century edges into the 20th, valuable tho tangential to the plot. The overwhelming contempt that the English have for the Irish is hammered home with a sledge, as Nurse Wright painfully interprets everything the Irish villagers do in the worst possible light, completely ignorant of their customs, and invariably wrong. Just as you'd think Scully would've started believing in aliens, you'd think Wright would have begun hesitating to leap to her bigoted and ignorant conclusions. She's slow to learn and slow to understand. She also seems to have entirely missed any hint of the recent Famine, in which Ireland lost a quarter of its population, although she is bright, educated, and trained in science. A reporter fills her in on the history of the blight and England's role in the mass starvation (a parallel to the young girl going without food). The nurse also served during the Crimean War, where the massive horrors and loss of life contrast to the concern for a single life here. One strength of The Wonder is that the nurse acts realistically, as a woman of the time would, understandably constrained and conspicuously frustrated by the restrictions of the time. She is not a 21st Century woman miraculously having traveled back in time, as is so commonly done by less talented novelists. There's significant discussion and demonstration in The Wonder of the power and harm of religion in rural Ireland, the blind faith and superstition of the populace, which leads to the question whether the devout Anna is being driven by religious mania, hers or others'. Donoghue's descriptions of priest-ridden Ireland at the time seem spot on (put in high relief by the changes in recent years). The characters of Anna and the nurse (other than as noted) are well drawn, the suspense and mystery carry the reader along, and the background on Florence Nightingale (who trained Nurse Wright) is welcome. On the other hand, the romantic element, although limited, seemed odd, insensitive, and inappropriate to me, tho it may work for some. Donoghue also inserts the requisite over-sensationalized plot twists, which have become expected in successful novels (thank you Gone Girl) these days. Additionally, the success of the ending will be a matter of personal taste; to me it seemed a wee bit too easy and tacked on, especially after the strength of the story that preceded it. The nurse is awfully slow at figuring things out; the audience will be way ahead of the character. The Wonder is a good, not great, novel, well worth the read, with a touch of grace (much of it from the young girl, Anna) that may linger, and containing strengths that outweigh awkward weaknesses. [3.5 Stars]