Son of a ...

 I read Wicked by Gregory Maguire back in 2007. I know I liked it but don't remember more than the basic plot (ignoring the musical - although it's awesome, it's not the book). Somewhere along the way I picked up the second book in the Wicked Years series called Son of a Witch and it lingered in my stacks.

I finally picked it up after reading so many heavy books, expecting a light hearted take on Elphaba's son. That is not what I got.

Liir is just a kid when Dorothy did in Elphaba. He hid with Nanny and the Lion while the deed was done. Afterwards, Dorothy was matter of factly ready to get back to Oz to prove she killed the Wicked Witch, but Liir now had no one. So he went with the crew, back to the Emerald City. Again, as in Wicked, Dorothy is not painted in a good light here and honestly, she shouldn't be. Liir doesn't know if Elphaba was his mom or who his dad is, but he's hoping to find something in Oz. He has no choice. He no longer has a family.

We get this back story on Liir only because his body was found by travelers, nearly every bone broken and on the verge of death, who take him to some sisters (Maunts) who would take him in and try to repair him. His bones are set but he remains in a coma. That is, until Candle, an orphan dropped at the Mauntery by her uncle, sits with Liir and plays her Domingon, music that is causing all of Liir's memories to surface.

While this is happening, we have maunts and travelers who are turning up dead with their faces scraped off (see? not a light hearted read). We have the Wizard gone from Emerald City and Glinda in his place, until she is replace by a straw man government. We also have an Elephant Princess who made Liir promise to help her return to her Animal form with Elphaba's magic that surely he must also possess. 

Everything is a mystery... until it's not. There are so many plot threads to keep up with, but in the end, most makes sense. I enjoyed this book but I had trouble with Liir's moping until about page 200, when he finally became himself. I didn't like most of his decisions but seeing how he was raised and how he had to try and grow up along (Thanks, DOROTHY), he really did the best he could.

Interestingly, the book ends with another green child. The granddaughter of Elphaba.

Fun comparison of the Wizard of Oz movie and Wicked

The truth had a strange way of ending an argument

 Don't you love when a book comes out of nowhere and it turns into one you just can't put down? I hadn't heard of Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby before I got it through a book club. It was a wild ride!

I knew I liked (some) heist movies, but I don't think I've read many heist books. Blacktop Wasteland is a heist book, full of cars and action, twists and turns. Beauregard "Bug" Montage used to live a life that was bound to kill him. He was one of the best getaway drivers on the East Coast, but once he married Kia and had 2 kids (with one from a previous relationship), he turned straight: an honest mechanic, doing well with his own garage.

But times hit hard. A new, cheaper auto garage came in nearby, wiping out his clientele and causing him to fall behind on payments. Not to mention kids needing braces and glasses. His cousin Kelvin finds him a street race, in hopes of making some money. Bug's Duster is a thing of beauty - not much to look at, but beautiful where it counts. He wins but it's still not enough money to help his troubles.

We get background on Bug's childhood. Absent father, mom who takes her anger out on her son. The background on Ant, Bug's dad, helps us see how Bug's new decisions are pushing him right down the same path. Bug needs a "job" and ol' white trash Ronnie is there with a doozy. Against everything Bug SHOULD be doing, he takes it and plans out the robbery. All would have been well, Bug is smart and knows his shit. Except....

Everything starts hitting the fan in crazy ways that take the book from just a robbery to a full on heist and possibly redemption. It's another book that is worth your time on the ride, even if it means a book hangover in the morning. You really have it all: fully fleshed out characters that you are invested in, a plot that doesn't stay in a straight line, and a world that you can be immersed in, taking the hits with the characters.

I don't say this often, but I really hope this becomes a movie.

S.A. Cosby, a Writer of Violent Noirs, Claims the Rural South as His Own

Interview with S.A. Cosby

Don't fight when you're angry. Think when you're angry.

I really wish I remembered where I saw this book being recommended, but I don't. Heavy by Kiese Laymon was on my hold list at the library for a bit, and when the audiobook came available, I dove in. I didn't know what to expect and I know I'm not the intended audience, but I loved this book. Loved it in a painful way.

It was heavy. Heavy enough I had to take pauses to regroup. 

If you listen to Laymon in the interview (below), you'll find out this book wasn't meant to be what it turned out to be. Instead of a weight loss book with insights on how people deal with food, it turned into a memoir of Laymon's life and how his body bore the brunt of the abuses. 

Laymon's father left early on, leaving his mom to raise him alone. You can tell that Laymon knows she tried her best but it was lacking. He was used to being beaten and, later on, being used by his mom. In his younger life, he ate. And ate. And ate. Until he was over 200lbs at age 11. He was big and black and, in America, that isn't a good thing for him. His family knew that simply by being him, he was a target. 

As he grew up and started branching out from Jackson, Mississippi to go to college, his eating disorder went in the complete opposite direction. Everything he had to deal with, everything on his shoulders, everything in his past, was written on his body. 

Even becoming a professor at Vassar didn't stop the trauma. If anything, it seemed to add more. 

Throughout his life, he wrote. He wrote about racial injustice for a college newspaper and was threatened to be kicked out of the school. He constantly wrote (google his name, you'll find a treasure trove of writing) and tried to fight back through words. One of the reasons for my pauses while listening to Laymon read his book? Just absorbing his prose. He's magnificent with the written word. 

I also paused because it was hard being in his shoes. I didn't have to live his life, I can only step in to briefly with him and that was difficult. But that's why I read. I can't live all the possible lives out there, so I join in to the ones who let me in through books. And I come out with more insight and perspective than what I had before.

“My body knew things my mouth and my mind couldn't, or maybe wouldn't, express. It knew that all over my neighborhood, boys were trained to harm girls in ways girls could never harm boys, straight kids were trained to harm queer kids in ways queer kids could never harm straight kids, men were trained to harm women in ways women could never harm men, parents were trained to harm children in ways children would never harm parents, babysitters were trained to harm kids in ways kids could never harm babysitters. My body knew white folk were trained to harm us in ways we could never harm them.”

Interview with the author

Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once

 I've had a rough 2022, so far. I imagine I'm not the only one. On January 21st, I went to bed, hoping to sleep. Sleep has been really hard to come by lately, so I wasn't surprised when I woke right up around 2am. What did surprise me was a clear voice in my head telling me that I need to re-read The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King). The Long Walk is one of my favorite King stories and I've read it a handful of times already. Why read it again?

You know how they say that it's not the book that has changed, it's the reader? That's why reading a favorite (or even not so favorite) book more than once across the span of your life is good. Is Stephen King great literature? Well...no. But what he can do amazingly well is show us the horror and terror of people. I feel his best works all include mere humans. Nothing supernatural, no monsters, clowns, or giant spiders. Just people. Because honestly, aren't we horrible enough to each other?

The Long Walk was first published in 1979 so technically, these shouldn't be spoilers. But, if you haven't read it yet, stop now, go read it, and then come back. Because I will be telling secrets here.

Still here?

Ok.

Every time I pick up this story, I'm shocked at it. I'm still trying to figure out why. Ray Garraty is a 16 year old who has signed up for The Long Walk. It's a walk with 100 teenage boys, where they walk across Maine, and possibly, into the neighboring state. It happens once a year and boys are picked for the walk based on physical and mental tests. At the end, the winner gets whatever he wants and his family is financially set. This reason is why a lot of family members don't try to convince their boys to not participate. We don't know when in time we are, but if you catch the little bits here and there, you know the future is dystopian. America is ruled by dictator and the military is in charge. People can disappear easily if they don't conform to the rules.

Ray ends up next to Pete McVries and they end up walking together and helping each other throughout the walk. The rules to the walk are simple: stay above 4mph, never stop, but if you do stop or slow down, you can get 3 warnings. You can walk off 1 warning every hour. After 3 warnings, you get a ticket, which is a bullet to the brain (if you're lucky). The first kid to get his ticket is just jarring, to the walkers and to the reader. It's real now. You are in the walk and you are never stopping until you die or are the last walker. 

Ray is our central character but he keeps himself surrounded with a group of boys who are a motley crew of stories and reasons why they are walking. Some have worked out to be fit enough to survive the walk, others are just walking with no prep. One boy brought 100 coins. Every time he hears a shot, he transfers one coin to the other pocket to keep track of the deaths. At some point, walkers just step over the corpses, walking in their blood and trailing it behind them. At some point, the horror of it all is just mundane. 

Wrapping my mind around why kids would volunteer to do this, knowing their chances are so slim, and why families are ok with them going off to their deaths, I just haven't been able to yet. Is it much different than sending your kid off to the military, to war? But there's no honor in the walk, is there? To some, there is. You get the back stories of Ray's group and some are just damn heartbreaking. You want them all to win but the walk only stops when one person is left. 

Each kid handles the walk in their own way. Towards the end, many choose to just sit down and wait to be killed. Suicide by military. Sometimes they try to take down the soldiers guarding them. That's when a bullet to the brain is a better way to go, when the soldiers decide to "play" and just shoot the kids in ways to make them die a slow, painful death. 

So why did my brain tell me to re-read this? I might have found some correlation to my work life (will I get the reward at the end or just die in front of my computer?). I might have found it as a metaphor for life. Why do we keep finding ways to destroy one another?

The Long Walk is just a fantastic story. Apparently there are talks about it being a movie but I don't think I would want that. There just isn't any filler here, it's all worth the ride. Or the walk.

"Then why are you doing it? Garraty asked him. "If you know that much, and if you're that sure, why are you doing it?"

"The same reason we're all doing it," Stebbins said. He smiled gently, almost lovingly. His lips were a little sun-parched; otherwise, his face was still unlined and seemingly invincible. "We want to die, that's why we're doing it. Why else, Garraty? Why else?”

Tea time!

 I thought joining a new book club online would be fun. Anything to expand my reading and get me social, right? Plum Deluxe tea has a Facebook group for it's book club and the list for the year sounded pretty good. Each month is a live Zoom to talk about the book.

If I had paid attention I would have seen that the live talk was on my virtual Knit and Bitch night. D'oh! I'm pretty sure the folks in my KnB group will be ok moving it one night a month :) 

This month's book was Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim. I found it on Amazon Kindle for $3.99 and got it read in time. All of those are magical things. The book? Well, it was a bit more fluffy than I would normally ever read. A bit more chick lit (I actually don't know if it is chick lit, but it feels like it).

Vanessa is a Chinese-American living on the West Coast and she has always had the ability to tell fortunes for people when looking at tea leaves. Apparently, this gift runs in the family and her Aunt Evelyn tries to teach her the rules and ways of fortune telling but Vanessa is stubborn and won't listen. So she endures horrible headaches with her fortune telling, while desperately wishing for love and to be free of this gift.

Her family, mom and aunties in particular, spend money to bring in a renowned matchmaker from China for poor Vanessa. I guess not being wed is a terrible sin? The matchmaker doesn't see a soulmate for Vanessa. After a last, particularly painful and devastating fortune, is blurted out, Vanessa decides she wants Evelyn to teach her the ways of fortune tellers.

That involves going to Paris for months and working in her aunt's tea shop. Oh, the humanity.

The descriptions of Paris and the food were actually really well done and made me jealous. We're relentlessly hit over the head that Vanessa is a "foodie" and she's desperate for love. It just soaks into every part of the story. Vanessa is a bit childish but, per chick lit rules, she has an encounter that forces her to grow up and take charge of herself. There were some odd twists at the end that seem to resolve the mystical gift issue, but honestly, it left me with questions.

Is this a normal thing in this book's world? If I went to a tea shop and some woman told me my dad was going to die and described how, I wouldn't be ok with that. It would be hard to just "shrug off" and I would wonder what the hell was going on. But in this world, it seems like a normal thing. You want to try a new tea sample? Here's how your dad is going to die. Okey dokey. (I know this is magical realism, but... ok, my head couldn't wrap around this :) )

If chick lit and romance-y type books are your jam, I imagine you'll like this. I enjoyed the tea, food, and Paris backdrop and was just happy with that!

Interview with the author

There are years that ask questions and years that answer

When I got Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston for a book club, I was fairly sure that I had read it before. Goodreads showed that I read it in 2005. I couldn't for the life of me remember it so I went ahead and downloaded the audiobook from Audible to listen to while I finished knitting gifts. 

Almost immediately into the book, I started remembering it. When Tea Cake was mentioned, nearly all of it came back to me (I'm not sure why Tea Cake triggered my memories). There were so many moments in this novel where I just sat down whatever I was doing to listen. The narrator, Ruby Dee, is phenomenal.  The writing by Zora Neale Hurston was phenomenal. The story is so well done, I was invested at every step with Janie. 

I'm delighted that Ruby Dee's version of the audio book is out on YouTube where you can listen for free. It's less than 7 hours and a billion percent worth taking your time to listen. 

There is also a movie with Halle Berry but I can't find a good trailer or the movie to share. 

The novel starts off with Janie Crawford walking back, barefoot and in overalls, to her home in Eatonville, Florida. Her neighbors are sitting on a porch chatting when they spy her walking up the road. We know nothing about Janie yet, but we know she is a source of gossip among the towns people. Janie gets back to her big house and opens it up to air out. Her best friend, Pheoby, comes by with food for her. That's when we realize that Janie has been gone a while. Her leaving with a "younger man" and being away for years has made her more of a source of gossip than her previous life in Eatonville.

Thankfully, Janie sits and tells Pheoby her story. We learn she was raised by her grandma, who was once a slave, and her grandma married her off so she would have stability. But Janie wanted love, which she was not getting in her marriage. She happened to meet Joe Starks, who was heading to Eatonville, Florida to an all-black community to help build it up. She was taken with Joe, so she left with him.

Eatonville wasn't all they imagined. Joe had the money to help buy more land and start building it up, putting in a general store and eventually becoming Mayor. Which made Janie a prominent person in town as well, much to her dismay. Janie was a trophy wife to Joe, nothing more. She endured a lot as his wife, quite a lot of verbal and some physical abuse. My heart broke for her during this time of her life. She had been told what to do by her grandma, her first husband, and now Joe. You can feel her longing to be herself and to be the type of person who has a relationship where love is key, not money, stability or whatever other excuse people made. 

Eventually, Joe does die and Janie is left with all of the inheritance, including the big, fancy house Joe built. She still works the general store but keeps to herself, until Tea Cake walks in. He has no money to his name, really, but he falls hard for Janie and she does the same. This seems to be the relationship she's always wanted. 

Their time together is beautiful and painful and ends sooner than it should. Hurston takes us through all of it, edge of our seat, crying, and worried. It's a rollercoaster.

From my 2022 perspective, the domestic violence inflicted on the women in this novel is incredibly disturbing. Especially in regards to how Janie was treated by people who supposedly loved her. I'm guessing that is how things were back then but that is still hard to swallow. 

Also from my 2022 perspective, how men overall treated the women was horrific, comparing them to chickens and cows. “Somebody’s got to think for the women and chillen and chickens and cows. God, they sho don't think none fo themselves.” Seriously enough to make you want to jump through the book and smack a man.

I can't recommend this classic enough. I would recommend the audio by Ruby Dee because she brought every line life and emotion. 

Part of this novel was a bit autobiographical. Hurston's dad was the mayor of Eatonville for a time. Here's a short crash course on Hurston:

I plan on digging more into the Harlem Renaissance as well:

Cloud Cuckoo Land

 I'm going to be honest. This was my 3rd attempt to get through Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

And, much like watching Midnight Mass on Netflix, I am really glad I kept going! If you started Cloud Cuckoo Land and gave up (I can't be the only one, right??), then go back to it and keep going. When it all starts pulling together *chef's kiss*

My main sticking point was the really disparate stories: We had Anna in 1450's Constantinople, Omeir who was in the same era as Anna but outside the walls, Zeno - both the old version in 2020 in Idaho and the young version in the Korean War, Seymour in the same era as old Zeno, and Konstance who is hurtling through space in Mission Year 60+. 

What ends of tying these folks together? A story.

Anna, a young orphan, is curious and learns to read, but there is very little to read where she is at. An old teacher helps her learn Greek before he passes. Anna is also resourceful and can scurry in and out of places, stealing what she needs to survive. When her sister gets very sick, Anna takes to stealing books from an old rectory to sell to some Italians who are trying to conserve the written word.

"One bad-tempered abbot, the tall scribe said, one clumsy friar, one invading barbarian, an overturned candle, a hungry worm - and all those centuries are undone. You can cling to this world for a thousand years and still be plucked out of it in a breath."

Anna uses the money to take her sister to convent for a miracle (FYI: Mercury is not a miracle), but her sister gets sicker. When Anna discovers a small book, she takes it back to her sister and reads to her to calm her.  The story is Aethon and Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Zeno in present day is an old man, 86 years old. He's survived a lot, including being a POW in the Korean War. His second story of his time in Korea as a POW shows us his start in learning Greek but it also shows us that Zeno is not a risk taker, something he laments at the end. But it's also something he rectifies when a risk is exactly what is needed. 

Zeno is encouraged by a fellow POW to do Greek translations. He is ok at it, until a small book from the 1400s is found, badly damaged and in need of translation. The story is Aethon and Cloud Cuckoo Land. Zeno works with children at the local library on a play of the translation and they are mid-rehearsal when Seymour comes in with a bomb.

Seymour is an atypical kid who struggles with sensory overload. He struggles with school, with people, with change. One thing he found to cling to is the destruction of the environment. A new housing addition springs up next to his trailer and his mom struggles to pay the bills, even while working 2 jobs. Seymour gets more obsessed with making people who destroy the environment pay, so he builds a bomb. Later on in his life, he dives into a translated story. Aethon and Cloud Cuckoo Land. He sets out to make his wrongs right.

Konstance is a 10 year old on the space ship Argos that is hurtling through space with a destination of Beta Oph2. She has never stepped on to Earth and will never leave the ship. She's 2nd generation on the ship and spends her time in the virtual library, wandering through old copies of Earth. When things get dire on the Argos, Konstance finds solace in the library in a story. The story is Aethon and Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Omeir is a village boy with a cleft palate (declared a demon by the uninformed) who is something of an animal whisperer. He's recruited by the Sultan to bring his ox to help take over Constantinople. His path is painful and arduous but it eventually crosses with Anna, who had to flee Constantinople, and she tells him the story of Aethon and Cloud Cuckoo Land.

So many separate, yet wonderful, stories. As we get towards the end of the book, it felt like it all sped up. You can see the threads that bound all of these characters together and, even when you booed a character, you cheered them on in the end. So much suffering is endured. Those left behind must endure the bulk of it. In the end, the story of Aethon, the fool who wanted to be an owl and fly to Cloud Cuckoo Land, bound them all together.

I'm honestly astounded that Doerr brought this all together the way he did and that he did it so well. All The Light We Cannot See was fantastic. Cloud Cuckoo Land is just as fantastic.

Interview with the author