Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov

Published in Russia in 1910; published in translation by Columbia University Press on December 19, 2017

Sisters of the Cross is a novel of dark themes. Life is brutal and unfair. Love robs men of their senses. People who hold power wield it arbitrarily. “Man is born into the world and is already condemned”; sentenced to death on an unknown date with no hope of reprieve. But Alexei Remizov does offer a mild prescription of relief from the darkness: “If people studied each other carefully and took note of one another, if they were all granted eyes with which to see, then only a heart of stone would be able to bear all the horror and mystery of life. Or perhaps none of us would need a heart of stone if only individuals took note of one another.” But what are the odds of that happening?

Remizov takes note of the characters in Sisters of the Cross, seeing them through the eyes of Marakulin Piotr Alekseevich. Marakulin is unexpectedly fired from his job in Petersburg because of a bookkeeping error, perhaps caused by his kind-hearted willingness to issue paychecks to people who had not earned them. He spends his savings and sells his property, moves to a smaller room in his rooming house (the Burkov), and falls ill before he comes to see himself as liberated. His life needs no purpose, he decides; it is enough “just to see, just to hear, just to feel.” But is it?

Much of Marakulin’s attention is on the other characters who live in the Burkov. They include a woman who loves religion and the sea, a clown and his artistic brother, a woman who reads cards and is living under an unfair curse, a teacher at the girls’ high school, and two students, Vera and Verochka. Vera is a student who aspires to be a doctor while Verochka is a theater student who claims to be a brilliant actress but who is “somehow always saying different things, and you couldn’t fathom where the real truth was and what was just her imagination.” Vera and Verochka are later joined by Verushka, a 15-year-old orphan who has experienced enough abuse to last a lifetime. All of the residents have sad tales and, to some degree, are living unfortunate lives. They come and go from the rooming house as the novel moves forward, but Verochka eventually leaves for good, much to Marakulin’s regret, given the obsession that he develops for her.

Marakulin is obsessed in a different way with a general’s widow who lives in one of the better rooms in the Burkov. Obsessed as in, he wants to kill her. Marakulin nearly drives himself mad with the thought that she, “in rude good health, carefree, sin-free, and immortal, a vessel of God’s choosing, the louse, was sleeping the sweetest of sleeps.” He rejects that kind of life, “life as an absolute entitlement,” a life “with no aim, simply seeing, hearing, and feeling: the life of a louse.” He wants to feel supreme joy, and comes to believe that he can only achieve joy with the absent Verochka, “the source of his life.”

The novel’s most tormented character is Marakulin’s mother Zhenia. We learn in Marakulin’s backstory that Zhenia was used repeatedly by men who were blinded by lust. Zhenia responded by slashing crosses into her flesh with a razor.

While the arbitrary unfairness of life is a dominant theme, it is linked to “wandering Holy Russia, so meek in her wandering beggary, Holy Russia, engirdled by poverty in its pilgrim’s belt from the Bogoliubsky monastery, Holy Russia, so humble, long-suffering, and patient, who will not make her own coffin, but can only build a funeral pyre and burn herself upon it.” To Marakulin, suffering is a way of life in Russia. It is inevitable and, at least for those of unfortunate birth, unavoidable.

Readers looking for an affirmation of faith in the justice of the universe won’t find it in Sisters of the Cross. The novel’s value lies in its intricate characterizations, both of Marakulin and of the other Burkov residents. The story is bleak, and the bleakness is emphasized by Remizov’s repetition of dark phrases and sentences (and occasional paragraphs), but life for most people in Remizov’s Russia was bleak, and Sisters of the Cross is true to that sad reality.

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Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

Published by Del Rey on August 22, 2017

Reincarnation Blues begins with the protagonist, Milo, being eaten by a shark. Milo has died almost ten thousand times since 2600 B.C. but still, being eaten by a shark isn’t a pleasant death. His most recent life revolved around fishing and drinking, which didn’t earn him many points on Judgment Day. The fact that he’s having sex with Death (when he's not alive) doesn’t improve his standing with those who give judgment, but falling in love with Death is never a good idea.

Sadly, Milo’s first life was his best, and the rewards bestowed after each subsequent death have dwindled. His hopes of reaching Perfection quickly ended centuries before his current death. But Milo enjoys living imperfect lives; he’s decided that Perfection is overrated, much to the consternation of the spiritual guides who encourage or chastise him after every death. But Milo is running out of lives. He needs to get it right soon to avoid Nothingness.

The novel skips around among Milo’s thousands of lives, not giving much attention to his stint as a catfish (that one was a punishment). Milo’s most interesting lives include the one he was living when most life on Earth ended (not long from now), the one he lived inside a prison made from a hollow asteroid after humanity spread to the stars, and the one in which he discovers that Buddha has Alzheimer’s. But there are many other lives, and they all teach him something, even if the lesson is that it’s not smart to reach for deadly spiders.

As you might expect, a novel about the difficulty of reaching perfection comes with messages. One message is that people can’t be productive if they are angry or afraid. Another is that people are shaped by when and where they are born (Milo appreciated the lives in which he knew Muslims were evil because he was born a Christian, and those in which he knew Christians were evil because he was born a Muslim, since God was making it easy for him to identify evil). Another is that (perhaps because of how we are shaped by the place and time of our birth), overcoming limits and achieving Perfection (or even decency) isn’t easy.

But the real message is that living is itself a form of Perfection. The better your life, measured in terms of how you help others, or at least avoid harming them, the more rewarding your life will be. That’s a good message, and Reincarnation Blues teaches it with a great deal of humor and very little preaching. It’s easy to root for Milo and his girlfriend Death, because they’re just ordinary people (well, except for Death), doing the best they can with the lives they have. Or maybe not the best they can, because Milo has a tendency to veer us away from Perfection, but the story offers hope that living a meaningful life is an attainable goal, and that placing an emphasis on love and compassion and helpfulness is the best route to make a life worthy — even if we might have to do it a few thousand times more before we get it right.

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City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Published by Grand Central Publishing on January 16, 2018

Two decapitations, although only a day apart, seem unrelated. One victim was a mob lawyer, killed in his home with a bow and arrow. The other, a billionaire’s daughter, was shot through the heart and left in a pile of leaves inside a garage. By the time a third decapitation occurs, it seems a serial killer may be at work.

Pendergast is out of favor with the FBI, and is punished by being assigned to help the NYPD investigate. Normally, Pendergast chooses his own cases, but his breach of protocol in the last novel has not been forgiven. In addition, Pendergast is still suffering the rigors of his last adventure and isn’t his former self. He’s still arrogant and snobbish, but he has little interest in his former passions, including the investigation of murder. He’s also lost a good bit of his bulk and doesn’t seem inclined to regain his strength. But the real problem, the reader presumes, is that Pendergast is feeling the pangs of lost love. Fortunately, it takes only a tea ceremony to restore our intrepid detective.

Are the deaths related? A reporter is certain the victims, all fabulously wealthy and of disreputable character, were killed by a psychopathic vigilante, a theory that has New Yorkers cheering (at least, the ones who aren’t wealthy). But Pendergast is being his usual tight-lipped self. The billionaire whose daughter was killed, however, doesn’t like the way the reporter portrayed his daughter, and intends to do something about it. Something wicked.

The plot touches upon a number of hot-button issues without becoming overtly political, including reporters who may or may not publish fake news, publications that sensationalize news, protests against one-percenters, and the use of social media to manipulate opinion. The story begins as a straightforward serial killer investigation and ends with a prolonged action scene of the “Most Dangerous Game” variety. Some of the plot pushes the boundaries of credibility (particularly a nutcase who wants to build a big bonfire of the vanities in Central Park, a bonfire that the police handle in a strange way), but most of the story is plausible, and that’s more than one can say for a good many modern thrillers.

The plot does include a potentially life-changing event for Pendergast, but it comes in the epilog. City of Endless Night is more an action novel, and less a character-development novel, than some others in the series. Its pace and intrigue, however, are comparable to other Pendergast novels, which makes it a fun read.

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Peach by Emma Glass

First published in Great Britain in 2018; published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC on January 11, 2018

Peach is a surrealistic novel about the aftermath of a sexual assault. The story has elements of a disturbing fantasy. Sexual assault is disturbing but it isn’t a fantasy, and I must admit that I’m not sure I understood Emma Glass’ purpose in telling a story about such a serious event from a perspective that is so obviously removed from reality. The reader is clearly not expected to view most of the novel’s events as plausible, but if that’s so, should we view the sexual assault as real? And if nothing in this story is meant to be accepted as real, what is its purpose? Perhaps the point is that the protagonist has unraveled as a result of the assault, but I can’t quite fit that in with the surrounding environment, including bizarre parenting and cannibalism. I have to confess that Glass’ meaning entirely eluded me. But I enjoyed the story, and perhaps more astute readers will unpack its mysteries.

Peach comes home bleeding but her parents don’t notice. If anything, they are pleased that she is “putting out” before she’s married. Peach wants to tell Green, her boyfriend, what happened to her but she can’t find the words. The details are not explicitly shared with the reader, but it is clear that she was sexually assaulted. She later receives a letter, words cut from newspapers, signed with the name Lincoln, that smells like greasy sausage, as did the man who assaulted her, and so puts the name Lincoln to her assailant.

Later Lincoln (or so she assumes) attacks Green, a vicious beating that is witnessed by Green’s friend Spud. Peach knows when Lincoln has been watching her because he leaves behind a slimy residue that carries an odor of grease and meat. Describing Peach’s ultimate confrontation with Lincoln would spoil the story, so I will say only that it is the stuff of fantasy or horror fiction. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my primary thought as I was reading that scene was WTF?

Mysteries for the reader to ponder include Peach’s sudden weight gain (which may or may not result from the obvious explanation), the meaning of Lincoln’s cryptic notes, the sex-obsessed behavior of Peach’s parents, the symbolic nature of Lincoln’s meat smell, the reason that Peach’s parents are so obsessed with eating meat (Peach is a vegetarian), and the parents’ reaction to the aftermath of Peach’s confrontation with Lincoln. My hat is tipped to readers who can answer those questions.

Peach tells a dark story in an incongruously light style. Some aspects of the story are bizarre, and I am not quite sure what message Emma Glass meant to send. Is the book intended to say something about female empowerment? Is it a meditation on the pain of rape? Is it a fantasy or the product of a disturbed mind? The reader will need to decide; I haven’t been able to settle on an interpretation, or even to begin shaping one that I regard as credible.

Emma Glass uses a number of literary techniques associated with poetry, including alliteration, assonance, repetition, imagery, and even the occasional rhyme, to give her prose a lyrical feel. She also indulges in a bit of wordplay. “Thick slick. Blood bleeds into the water, colour changes copper. … I tread, I tread. I reach between my legs until I find the final thread. I tread. The fine fibre I fumble to find with thick fingers, feel through viscuous liquid leaking out, leaking in. Treading still, I dread, I tug the thread.” A little of that can go a long way, but the novel is short, which makes it read like an epic poem.

And it’s good that the novel is short because the imagery is often quite disturbing, which might explain why Glass lightens the story, albeit with dark humor. Peach is a challenging novel but the prose alone is rewarding, and the story’s strangeness offers ample nourishment for thought. For that reason, and because I enjoyed the prose, I am recommending Peach despite my inability to make much sense of it.

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Green by Sam Graham-Felsen

Published by Random House on January 2, 2018

David Greenfeld, blond and blue-eyed, is starting middle school in Boston, one of only two white kids in his class. His teacher wants her advanced class to move on to Boston Latin for seventh grade, but David sucks at standardized testing and isn’t holding out hope of escaping MLK. To their credit, David’s hippy parents believe in public schools and refuse to send him to a private school. As a consequence, David needs to find a way to deal with his lack of acceptance.

David tries to be cool, in the way that white kids emulate black kids because black kids have style and white kids are nerdish. He speaks the vernacular (you feel me?), but he doesn’t have the right gear (his sneakers are old because his parents won’t buy shoes that are made in sweatshops), he isn’t athletic, and he doesn’t rock the kind of attitude that earns the respect of his peers. His white friend Kev is a baller and fits in easily, but Kev isn’t much of a friend. Eventually David is befriended by a nerdish black kid named Mar, nerdish in ways that are similar to David’s, although their different religious backgrounds are another reason for David to feel that he doesn’t fit in.

One of the novel’s themes involves the various aspects of racism. David and Kev and Mar are all studying to take a test that might get them admitted to Latin School, which might get them admitted to Harvard. But a city council member clues them into the reality that most of them won’t get into Harvard, and even if they do, society’s white power structure will impose obstacles to advancement that white students won’t need to overcome. Mar and David are both subjected to neighborhood bullying and both are subjected to racial slurs. This is a fair and nuanced view of society in which racism goes both ways, and race is often secondary to common interests, like a fan’s love of a particular team. And while the themes of race and class are serious, the broader theme is that kids are kids. Their confusion and anxiety as they try to get a handle on life transcends race and lends itself to easy laughter.

Green would be a coming-of-age novel except that David is too young to come of age. Still, he endures the pain of growing up and earns the kind of wisdom and maturity that characterize coming-of-age novels. The plot isn’t particularly eventful but the story has an authentic feel and it’s easy to relate to David’s unrelenting angst.

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