Station Eleven

Station Eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel

★★★★★

 

I heard a lot of mentions of this book before I read it, (though I was able to completely avoid spoilers), but no one told me that it was “A Visit from the Goon Squad” plus the end of the world. Oh my gosh, this book! I literally started the audiobook on a Saturday morning and then couldn't stop cleaning the house because I wanted to have a reason to keep listening to it. 

 

Let me repeat that… this book made me clean so I could keep listening, that has never happened before. There've been times when stayed in my car for an extra minute to keep listening, but I have NEVER spent an entire day cleaning my house because I wanted to keep listening to the book. That's how good this was!

 

Technically this book is about a post-apocalyptic world. But please do not let that deter you from reading this if that's not your thing. This book really is one of the most well written connected character sketches that I've ever found. It reminded me so much of Egan's book in so many ways. It jumps back-and-forth in time and different chapters are from different characters’ point-of-view. The stories are all connected, woven together to create a big picture view of their world.

 

The book "The Passage", which was such a big hit a couple years ago, is similar in some ways, but it frustrated to me for a couple reasons. My biggest problem with it was that you became invested in a couple characters that pretty much disappeared after a certain point in the story. For a second in this book I thought the author was going to do the same thing. I didn't realize at first that the storytelling was going to be nonlinear. We jumped around in time, getting to know what our characters are like both before and after the "end of the world".

 

I was swept away in the stories at every point in the novel, which is difficult for an author to do when you’re juggling so many characters. Normally you get bored with one story and want to return to a different one. But in Station Eleven, each characters’ tale adds so much depth to the others that you don’t care who you are reading about in a given moment.

 

BOTTOM LINE: Just fantastic, my favorite read of the year so far! If the genre or plot doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I’d encourage you to check it out anyway. It's one of those books that rises above the basic plot points it contains and becomes something that almost anyone can connect with. It's more about human nature, grief, loneliness, and how we are able to connect with others. It's beautiful and I know I'll be reading it again.

Mini Reviews: More Tales of the Unexpected, The Keep and Uglies

More Tales of the Unexpected

by Roald Dahl

★★★★★

Most people know Roald Dahl because of his wonderful stories for children. From Matilda to James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the BFG, Dahl has enthralled generations of kids. But somehow most people have missed out on his short stories for adults. He published multiple collections in this vein and this one is a perfect example of his work.

The book reminds me of short stories from both Ray Bradbury and Flannery O’Connor (LINK TO BOTH). He tends towards a darker view of the world and people in general. Some of the stories are creepy, like The Sound Machine and the chilling Genesis and Catastrophe. Others like The Umbrella Man and Vengeance is Mine Inc. are quirky and fun.  

The slim book contains the following stories:

Poison

The Sound Machine

Georgy Porgy

Genesis and Catastrophe

The Hitch-hiker

The Umbrella Man

Mr. Botibol  

Vengeance is Mine Inc.

The Butler

BOTTOM LINE: If you’ve never read any of Roald Dahl’s adult stories this is a great place to start. The man had a wicked sense of humor and a style of writing that people have adored for decades. I’d also recommend his nonfiction memoirs Boy and Going Solo.

The Keep

by Jennifer Egan

★★★

Danny is a lost soul who never manages to grow up. After living in New York for years bouncing from one job to the next he finds his life to be empty. He travels to Eastern Europe to meet his cousin Howard who is trying to open a hotel in a rundown castle. Their complicated history makes their relationship tenuous at best.

The atmosphere is perfectly set, a creepy castle in Eastern Europe, a dark trauma from the past returns to haunt the characters, sounds perfect. Unfortunately the plot quickly becomes weighed down with unnecessary side plots. There’s Danny’s obsession with technology, Howard’s complicated marital life, a crazy baroness living in one tower of the castle, etc. Each of these elements could be interesting, but together they create a bit of a mess.

Just when the plot does hook you it changes gears completely and we find a new set of characters in a writing class in prison. This drastic switch never quite meshes with the feel of the other plot line. Egan works to bring the stories together, but it just doesn’t feel right. Then at the end she tries to wow us with a “twist” that’s not as shocking as it should be. We switch narrators one more time in the final chapters and it once again feels like an entirely new book.

BOTTOM LINE: I admire the writing style, but the story itself never comes together. The author couldn’t seem to decide on a narrator and so the book feels like three separate short stories smashed together. Try her much more successful book A Visit from the Goon Squad instead.

Uglies

by Scott Westerfeld

★★

Tally lives in Uglyville. She is an “Ugly,” someone who hasn’t yet received the surgery that all individuals get at age 16 to make them into a “Pretty.” As she watches her best friend enjoy his extravagant new lifestyle as a Pretty she can’t wait until it’s her turn. All of that changes when she makes a new friend and learns there might be a world outside the city life she knows and there might be some hidden secrets to the life of a Pretty.

This one felt like a completely cookie-cutter dystopian novel. Take one misunderstood girl. Add an unnecessary love triangle. Pick a random dystopian elements where the whole society is being deceived about something. And voilà you have a young adult dystopian novel. While I've enjoyed many of these in the past this one just fell completely flat. The characters feel like cardboard cutouts. I couldn't even make myself care what happens.

I do like the idea of a society where everyone receives the same plastic surgeries so there is a visual equality. It's an interesting idea for a dystopia but in execution it felt very forced. I will say I think this book would have been a great precursor to the Hunger Games series. It’s almost telling the story of how the Capital society became what it is.

BOTTOM LINE: I won’t be reading the rest of the series and this isn’t one I’d recommend.

Jennifer Egan Reading

When I first read A Visit from the Goon Squad two years ago I loved it. So when I had the opportunity to hear Jennifer Egan speak last month I was thrilled! During the evening she read the whole first chapter of that book and then answered audience member’s questions.


One of my favorite aspects of her talk was hearing about the process of creating Goon Squad. It started as a single short story about a woman finding a wallet. This story was inspired by Egan herself being robbed on the day she had to fly from New York City to California. Shortly after that experience she saw a wallet sitting out in a public restroom and the story was born.

After writing it she was curious about the other characters mentioned in the chapter and she quickly realized that she had something more than a single short story. As it grew into a book she set three rules for herself:

1) Each chapter had to be about a new character.

2) Each chapter had to feel different and unique (1st person, interview, PowerPoint, etc.)

3) Each chapter had to stand alone; readers deserved closure with each chapter because they’re being tossed into a completely new situation each time.

She said the book is a bit like a concept album. In the same way that musical artists will occasionally create albums (especially in the 1970s) where each track had a different style, this book is set up in a similar way.

Egan was incredibly kind and engaging. She was also bright and very honest about her work and inspiration. I loved her comments on trying something new. She recently published an entire short story “Black Box” on Twitter via The New Yorker. She talked about trying the new form of media as a sort of modern day serialization like the way Charles Dickens used to publish his books. She was so open to finding new ways to experiment with creative flow.

As soon as I got home I started re-reading the book and I enjoyed it even more the second time around. I remembered bits and pieces from each characters’ life and so seeing the complete picture once more was wonderful! I will definitely be reading more of her work as soon as I can.

Photos by moi.

Reading the States: New York

State: NEW YORK

Fiction: 

- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close* by Jonathan Safran Foer
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn* by Betty Smith
- The Great Gatsby* by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Wonderstruck* by Brian Selznick
- Falling Man* by Don Delillo
- Martin Dressler* by Steven Millhauser
- Forever* by Peter Hamill
- Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist* by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
- Dash and Lily's Book of Dares* by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
- Ironweed by William Kennedy
- Nobody’s Foo*l by Richard Russo
- The House of Mirth* by Edith Wharton
- The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian
- Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
- Clara and Mr. Tiffany* by Susan Vreeland
- Eloise* by Kay Thompson
- The Brooklyn Follies* by Paul Auster
- The History of Love* by Nicole Krauss
- The Age of Innocence* by Edith Wharton
- The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer
- Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether
- The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
- The Bell Jar* by Sylvia Plath
- Let the Great World Spin* by Colum McCann
- Washington Square* by Henry James
- The Submission* by Amy Waldman  
- The Catcher in the Rye* by J.D. Salinger

- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay* by Michael Chabon
- The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s* by Truman Capote
- The Alienist* by Caleb Carr
- The Nanny Diaries* by Emma Mclaughlin, Nicola Kraus

- Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang by Joyce Carol Oates

- Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
- Drown by Junot Diaz
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Devil Wears Prada* by Lauren Weisberger
- The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
- Motherless Brooklyn* by Jonathan Lethem
- Brooklyn* by Colm Tóibín
- New York by Edward Rutherfurd
- The Cricket in Times Square* by George Selden
- Invisible Man* by Ralph Ellison
- The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow* by Washington Irving
- Time and Again* by Jack Finney
- An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee

Nonfiction:
- Tis* by Frank McCourt  
- Here is New York* by E.B. White
- The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury
- The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer
- 84, Charing Cross Road* by Helene Hanff
- The Great Bridge* by David McCullough

- Kitchen Confidential* by Anthony Bourdain
- Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
- Just Kids* by Patti Smith

Authors Known for Writing in or about the State:
- J.D. Salinger
- Richard Russo
- Julia Spencer

Authors Who Lived Here:
BRONX
- Edgar Allan Poe
- James Baldwin

BROOKLYN
- Jhumpa Lahiri
- Jennifer Egan
- Jonathan Safran Foer
- Nicole Krauss
- Edwidge Danticat
- Maurice Sendak
- Walt Whitman
- Ezra Jack Keats
- Henry Miller
- Paul Auster

MANHATTAN- Norman Mailer
- E.E. Cummings
- Dorothy Parker
- William S. Burroughs
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
- Truman Capote
- Edith Wharton
- Langston Hughes
- Madeleine L’Engle
- John Updike
- Saul Bellow
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Salman Rushdie
- W.H. Auden
- O. Henry

QUEENS
- Jack Kerouac

STATEN ISLAND
- Frank McCourt
- Henry David Thoreau

Great Bookstores:
The Strand
Argosy Book Store
Community Bookstore
Shakespeare and Co. Booksellers
Posman Books 

BookBook 

BONUS: The Best New York City Novels by Neighborhood 

*Books I've Read 

Photo by moi.

A Visit From the Goon Squad

A Visit From the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
★★★★★

This Pulitzer-Prize winner has gotten a lot of press for its unconventional format. I was a bit wary of the hype, but decided to give it a shot. The book opens with Sasha, a young woman in New York and I was immediately hooked. In the next chapter we meet her boss Bennie, then Rhea, who knew Bennie when he was young, then Lou, Bennie’s mentor, then Lou’s kids, etc. Each new section gives the story from a different person’s point of view, often flitting years into the past or future.

For me, chapter 4 “Safari,” in which we meet siblings Rolph and Charlie, was the turning point in the book. It showed me the stories were not just fun glimpses into random people’s lives. All of a sudden the book had an unexpected depth and every new chapter deepened the characters’ overall world.

The beautifully drawn maze reveals dozens of interconnected lives. It weaves them together, creating a tapestry that spans decades and continents. The format never seems forced, but instead it enhances each individual story by tying it to someone else’s complicated world.

My brain felt like it actually had to work as I started each new chapter. I wondered who this new person was and how they were connected to the bigger picture. I had to pay close attention to all the peripheral people in each section, because I never knew who I would be getting to know next. Yet with all those layers, the book never loses its feeling of lightness as readers play connect the dots with the characters.

Egan created such a wide web of lives that there is no chance for boredom or a lag in the book. The much lauded PowerPoint chapter lives up to the hype as well. It doesn’t feel gimmicky and works perfectly in the context of that person’s life. She also occasionally reveals flashes of what happens to people 20 or 30 years down the road, which sounds cheesy, but it worked perfectly.

I debated my rating on this, because it's by no means a perfect book, but in the end I really loved reading it and I know it's one I'll want to read again*. The thing that really tipped it over the edge is that I want to talk about it. I finished it and couldn't stop thinking about the characters and how they were connected and where each story lay in the overall chronology and I just wanted to discuss it with someone. And to me, that makes it a great book.

*I read a library book, but bought a paperback copy I found at Half Priced Books the day after finishing it.