The Book of V by Anna Solomon is a book that I may not have read at another time in my life, and I did find it to be a book that I could not stop reading.

Goodreads summarizes its plot.

Anna Solomon’s kaleidoscopic novel intertwines the lives of a Brooklyn mother in 2016, a senator’s wife in 1970s Washington, D.C., and the Bible’s Queen Esther, whose stories of sex, power and desire overlap and ultimately converge—showing how women’s roles have and have not changed over thousands of years.

Being Jewish, I knew the story of Queen Esther, although this version added new layers of the story that I did not know. The book’s illumination that women’s roles have not changed over thousands of years was something I knew but did not fully understand.

The three characters are very vivid and weave a story that is worth reading.

Lily is a mother and a daughter. And a second wife. And a writer, maybe? Or she was going to be, before she had children. Now, in her rented Brooklyn apartment, she’s grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires while also trying to manage her roles as a mother and a wife.

Vivian Barr seems to be the perfect political wife, dedicated to helping her charismatic and ambitious husband find success in Watergate-era Washington D.C. But one night he demands a humiliating favor, and her refusal to obey changes the course of her life—along with the lives of others.

Esther is a fiercely independent young woman in ancient Persia, where she and her uncle’s tribe live a tenuous existence outside the palace walls. When an innocent mistake results in devastating consequences for her people, she is offered up as a sacrifice to please the king, in the hopes that she will save them all.

I recommend this book.

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Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan is a book about grief as the two protagonists take a road trip that is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their suffering and others, and then beyond it, to a place of peace and laughter. I had just finished reading When She Woke by Ms. Jordan and having enjoyed that book, reading a second one by the same author seemed reasonable.

When I selected this short novel to read, I questioned if it was a good choice for me.

I found it easier to read and, in some ways, helpful. It was like meeting fellow widows from my Zoom grief groups in person at Camp Widow. The ability to laugh about our loss and cry openly is essential to meeting fellow benefits.

Michael Larssen, the narrator, raised a question I have not and still do not want to consider. What if I am still alive, Jan was a great love but is not the love of my life?

“You can’t know that he was the love of your life, and do you know why? Because guess what, you aren’t dead yet. You may feel dead right now, and believe me I’ve been there, but the fact is, until you’re lying under a tombstone of your own you can’t be sure about anything. You could prick your finger on one of your roses tomorrow, and as you’re climbing the stairs to get a Band-Aid you trip over one of the pugs and tumble to your death. Or you could meet a man in the checkout line at the grocery store–hell, you could meet a woman even, and fall madly in love with her and end up with six kids and twenty grandkids. Michael looks over at Elena, then back at George. You just don’t know, George. That’s the thing. None of us does.”— Aftermirth (Kindle Single) by Hillary Jordan

Despite my anxiety about considering this disturbing question, I highly recommend Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

“I stopped being funny the day my wife was electrocuted by her underwire bra.” So begins “Aftermirth,” a dark comedy that explores the absurdity of death through the eyes of thirty-one-year-old comedian, writer, and actor Michael Larssen. What is funny to the rest of the world is devastating to Michael, who loves his wife deeply, exceptionally her bright, rippling, abandoned laughter, which captivated him from the first time he heard it. In the aftermath of her death, he loses his sense of humor and his career.

Then, after two years of mourning her, he sees an article in the paper about a factory worker named Julio Santiago who fell into a giant vat of dough and was kneaded to death. For reasons Michael doesn’t understand, he decides to go to the man’s wake. There he meets and bonds with Julio’s twenty-nine-year-old daughter Elena, a law student who is reeling from her father’s unexpected and preposterous death.

Three months later, she calls him out of the blue and suggests that the two of them drive to North Carolina to speak with another survivor like themselves Elena has found on the Internet. Their road trip is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their grief and others and then beyond it to a place of peace and laughter.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Today, I read The Lion’s Den by Anthony Marra. After a four and one-half Zoom meeting, I was looking for a book I could finish tonight, and the third book in the Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones, seemed like the book to read. The Lion’s Den is the story of Michael, a son, his father’s transgressions in a tell-all were the ethical, righteous—and profitable—thing to do. What’s left but to slink back home for a humbling face-to-face with the man whose secrets he sold?

It was the perfect novel to read this evening. In the opening paragraph, when Michael’s father describes the automated customer service computer voice.” Siri’s dimwitted stepsister,” I knew I could enjoy this book.

Michael’s last-minute invitation to be the Ethics Symposium speaker at his parochial school was written in a way that was both bluntly honest and humorous.

Michael’s visits with his father to the lion’s den at the National Zoo were profoundly moving, and when the wheelchair was left there after his father’s death brought tears to my eyes.

I highly recommend The Lion’s Den, part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. This is the third one in the series I have read. The previous two were Everything My Mother Taught Me and Can You Feel This?

I have enjoyed all three and look forward to reading the final two.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Exposing his father’s transgressions in a tell-all was the ethical, righteous—and profitable—thing to do. What’s left but to slink back home for a humbling face-to-face with the man whose secrets he sold?

He was a notorious government whistle-blower. Depending on whom you ask, he’s a treasonous felon, a folk hero, a validated patriot, or a national disgrace. To his son, Michael, he’s the father who threw his family into upheaval. Now, having moved back home at thirty-four, Michael is getting to know him as a man and getting nearer to understanding his motivations that have remained a mystery in this darkly humorous short story of sacrifice and betrayal by New York Times bestselling author Anthony Marra.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. The New Wilderness is a timely book and one that resonated with me. When Jan and I met in 1973, it was a revolutionary time with movements encouraging communes and returning to the farm. Neither Jan nor I were interested in living in a commune. Reading this book helped reassure me that we made the correct choice.

The summary of the book is:

Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change; A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they slowly and painfully learn to survive in an unpredictable, dangerous land, bickering and battling for power and control as they betray and save one another. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of this new existence, Bea realizes that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way. The farther they get from civilization, the more their bond is tested in astonishing and heartbreaking ways.

At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary novel from a one-of-a-kind literary force.

When I finished this book, I read Pompeii Still Has Buried Secrets by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker. It reminded me of all of the threats to civilization that we face, who will be Pliny the Younger to be “the only surviving eyewitness account of the disaster.” Fleeing our cities for the wilderness is no longer an option!

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Conjure Women by Afia Atakora is about a mother and her daughter with a shared talent for healing—and for the conjuring of curses — at the heart of this dazzling first novel. Conjure Women takes place before, during, and after the Civil War. The book is structured around three-time frames; Slaverytime, Freddomtime, and Wartime.

Having grown up in the South and heard far too many stories about the Lost Cause, it was a joy to read a book narrated by two African-American women. The third leading character is the daughter o the owner of the plantation. At the end of the war, she was hidden away for six years and was unaware the South had surrendered.

Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.

Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love.

Since Jan died, I have read many books that I know she enjoyed. We both enjoyed Call the Midwife, and this book focused on birthing and mothering. Although conjuring was their medical care and not the type practiced in poplar by the Midwives, we would both have enjoyed the book.

Conjure Women also raises questions about the meaning of freedom. For example, Rue chooses not to leave the former plantation after the Klan attacks despite being free.

I recommend this book and look forward to reading more from Afia Atakora.

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The Peacekeeper: A Novel by B.L. Blanchard is about North America, where The United States and Canada do not exist. After reading about Ethiopia during the ill-fated Italian invasion, I looked for an alternative history of my continent. An independent Ojibwe nation surrounding the Great Lakes is the change in venue that I was seeking.

Although crime mysteries are not my preferred genre, I found The Peacekeeper: A Novel by B.L. Blanchard a pageturner and a highly recommended book. Chibenashi’s works resolve a second murder twenty years after his mothers. The victim is his mother’s best friend. The search for truth will change his life and those close to him.

The Goodreads summary:

Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself.

In the village of Baawitigong, a Peacekeeper confronts his devastating past.

Twenty years ago, Chibenashi’s mother was murdered, and his father confessed. Ever since caring for his still-traumatized younger sister has been Chibenashi’s privilege and penance. Now, another woman is slain on the same night of the Manoomin harvest—his mother’s best friend. The murder leads to a seemingly impossible connection that takes Chibenashi far from the only world he’s ever known.

The central city of Shikaakwa is home to the victim’s cruelly estranged family—and to two people Chibenashi never wanted to see again: his imprisoned father and the lover who broke his heart. As the questions mount, the answers will change his and his sister’s lives forever because Chibenashi is about to discover that everything about those lives has been a lie.

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