Quick Lit August 2022 Archives

Diary of a Void

by Emi Yagi

The premise of this Japanese debut (translated by David Boyd and Lucy North) hooked me immediately: when 34-year-old Ms. Shibata begins working at the cardboard tube manufacturer, she initially finds it a welcome change from her old job, where sexual harassment was a constant threat. But she quickly realizes her new position has problems of its own: as the only woman in her department, her colleagues expect her to serve the tea, do the dishes, and sundry other menial tasks unrelated to her actual work. Then one day, fed up with waiting on the men, she impulsively tells them she can't clear the tea: she's pregnant and the smell makes her nauseous. The thing is, she's <em>not</em> pregnant—but because her work life instantly gets a whole lot better, she determines to find a way to keep the ruse going for the whole nine months. A satisfying blend of clever, playful, and subversive.

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something—Anything—Like Your Life Depends On It

by Tabitha Carvan

This was a quirky and surprisingly contemplative delight, which combines memoir, feminist treatise, and pop culture examination to great effect. If A Ghost in the Throat is about female creativity, then Cumberbatch is about female joy, play, and leisure. As the title promises, the actor isn't the subject of this book (though I learned a lot about him along the way) but a springboard to discuss the necessity of embracing the things that give us pleasure, weird as they may be. I read this slowly over the course of weeks, a chapter every few nights, and found that worked well.

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs

by Sidik Fofana

From the publisher: "Like Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place and Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, Sidik Fofana’s electrifying collection of eight interconnected stories showcases the strengths, struggles, and hopes of one residential community in a powerful storytelling experience. Each short story follows a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend’s release from prison jeopardizes the life he’s been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe’s and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can’t seem to escape the building’s gravitational pull. We root for these characters and more as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and blaze new paths forward for themselves and the people they love."

The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

From the publisher: "Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers. Driving without a chosen destination, she stops to rest in Ithaca. Her only plan is to survive, but as she looks for work, she finds a kindred sense of belonging at Cafe Decadence, the local coffee shop. Still, somehow, it doesn’t make sense to her that life could be this easy. The more she falls in love with her friends in Ithaca, the more she can’t shake the feeling that she’ll hurt them the way she’s been hurt. As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be."

Chirp

No Land to Light On

by Yara Zgheib

This contemporary novel follows one fictional couple, refugees from Syria, who meet and fall in love at school in Boston, and who then get separated under the worst possible circumstances. This is about their struggle to be reunited, which is all but impossible due to the implementation of the very real executive order issues on January 27, 2017. The story unfolds in alternating narratives from each partner's perspective, as well as texts, newspaper clippings, voice mails, and office memos. It's an emotional journey that unfolds over a short span of time yet manages to feel sweeping. I enjoyed this on audio, as narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ali Andre Ali, and Suehyla El-Attar.

Funny You Should Ask

by Elissa Sussman

I flew through this: strong writing, interesting format, great narrative drive, tons of fun. The story unfolds in two timelines: back then, Chani Horowitz wanted to be a serious writer but she's stuck writing puff pieces for popular outlets, something her more literary colleagues (and novelist boyfriend) sneer at. But then, she lands a gig interviewing A-list movie star Gabe Parker, her biggest celebrity crush and the next James Bond. Fast forward ten years: The Profile (as it came to be known) launches her career, but Chani still feels conflicted about it, wondering if she would even have a career without Gabe. So when his publicist asks her to revisit Gabe for a second interview, she wants to say no ... but she's also desperate for him to answer the questions that still linger for her ten years later, the ones she never wrote about or disclosed to anyone.

Vacationland

by Meg Mitchell Moore

I've been on a roll with the Maine reads! When comments on this post featuring 12 recommended reads for those traveling to Maine (or who want to) mentioned that this Meg Mitchell Moore release was set in the tiny (and real) town of Owls Head, I dropped it into my beach bag. This family novel unfolds over the course of one summer and focuses on three generations of the McLean family. Every generation has its troubles at the moment—the progressing Alzheimer's of the family patriarch, the midlife crisis and struggling marriage of the adult daughter, the adolescent woes of the kids—but the Maine house has always been a respite. The family's precariously maintained balance is tipped when a surprise visitor shows up to the island—a love child of the family's respected patriarch, whose existence has been kept secret for twenty-three years. All is well by summer's end in this easy-reading tale of family secrets, forgiveness, privilege, reconciliation, and happiness.

Our Man in Havana

by Graham Greene

I finally read this 1958 satirical espionage thriller so I could discuss it with Craig and Andrew on this episode of the Overdue podcast. I was stunned at some of the things I learned along the way, like Greene was dear friends with notorious double agent Kim Philby. In this Cold War tale, James Wormold is a bumbling vacuum cleaner salesman with a daughter who spends money faster than he can make it. So when a British Intelligence officer offers him a job as a British spy with an attractive paycheck, he feels he can't say no. But he doesn't know the first thing about espionage, so he simply pretends to be useful—and that's when things get strange.

Quick Lit August 2022

a gateway

to reliable joy this summer

Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th