The Family by Naomi Krupitsky

Published by ‎G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 2, 2021

The Family isn’t quite a feminist version of The Godfather, but it does spotlight the role of two young women in a male-dominated crime family. Much of the time, their role is to fret and worry, but the two central  characters become an argument for the empowerment of women as they change the family dynamic.

Before World War II, two girls are born into an Italian crime family in New York. Sofia is the daughter of Joey Colicchio. Joey and his friend Carlo worked for Tommy Fianzo. Carlo wanted out of the Family business. To facilitate that goal, he began to skim some of the money that he has been tasked with collecting. Tommy noticed and Carlo disappeared. To assure that Joey didn’t turn against him, Tommy gave him a piece of the Family’s operation in Brooklyn in exchange of a slice of the profits.

For years, Carlo’s widow is a broken shell of a woman. She raises their daughter Antonia with the Family’s help. Sofia is Joey’s daughter. In their childhood, Antonia and Sofia are inseparable. They understand what happened to Carlo but they never talk about it. Separating family from the Family, they both realize, is a complicated task.

The story follows Antonia and Sofia into adulthood. Their lives are similar but with key differences. The same is true of their personalities. Antonia is reserved; Sofia is bold. They both marry men who work for the Family, despite the warning Antonia receives from her mother not to speak to boys with slicked back hair, Antonia views her husband as a security blanket. Sofia bases her choice on passion. She falls in love (and gets pregnant by) with a young Jewish man. Her husband must sell his soul to avoid Joey’s wrath.

Much of the novel focuses on the differences between the two women as they drift apart and come back together. Antonia is happy to be a wife and mother but would like to escape to a place that exists far from the Family that took her father away. Sonia wants something more than a domestic life. The Family might be the answer to her dreams if she can convince her father to let her play an untraditional role in a man’s world.

To the extent that The Family is a story about families, the story of Sonia’s husband, although saved for the last quarter of the novel, is its most compelling component. He is uprooted by the war, wonders if he will ever see his mother again, is made to disavow his heritage, and gets a glimpse (courtesy of a Jewish gangster) of the life he should have had and still desperately wants. He makes a dangerous choice that gives the novel its late-blooming drama.

Tension is slow to build, in part because Naomi Krupitsky devotes redundant passages to explaining exactly what Antonia and Sofia are feeling at all times in their lives. Neither woman has a moment of insecurity or regret that Krupitsky fails to express. A bit more showing and a bit less explaining would have tightened the story. Even at the end, a dramatic, fast-moving scene is slowed by a dissection of what the characters are feeling and what they recall of their past feelings. The reader just wants to know what’s going to happen. The walk to the story’s resolution should have been a sprint, or at least a jog.

The novel's redundant recitation of feelings is offset by Krupitsky’s fluid and evocative prose. The last quarter of the story is suspenseful and the ending is surprising. Sofia’s refusal to play a role written by the Family men seems to be the heart of the novel until Antonia has her own moment of truth — a moment that gives her a chance to grow as a woman in a man’s world of crime. The Family is a fresh and original take on the crime family genre.

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Blue-Skinned Gods by S.J. Sindu

Published by ‎ Soho Press on November 2, 2021

People engage in spiritual journeys to achieve personal growth. Blue-Skinned Gods tells the story of a man who needed to shed the cloak of spiritualism before he could find himself.

Kalki has blue skin. In an ashram on the outskirts of Tamil Nadu, Kalki’s parents raise him to be a god, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu. Kalki sometimes thinks he sees earlier incarnations, particularly Krishna. During playtime, he reenacts stories from Hindu mythology, always playing the heroic god. As Kalki gets older, he leads meditation and yoga sessions in the ashram. Even as a child, he engages in prayers and rituals that heal visitors. Or, at least, he believes he is healing them.

Despite — or because of — his status as a god, Kalki lacks faith. At some point he comes to realize that gods don’t need faith. Others have faith in their gods, but gods have nothing to prove. Yet Kalki has doubts, even as he passes tests that prove his divinity. S.J. Sindu plants clues that allow the reader to understand that the tests might be rigged, that Kalki’s father is using Kalki to attract believers to their ashram. Kalki is his meal ticket. He jealously protects Kalki from any outside influence that might have a negative impact on the ashram. Unfortunately for Kalki, his father believes that any glimpse of the larger world might divert Kalki from the course that his father has plotted.

Culture and religion are significant forces in the story’s background. Kalki’s family follows Vishnu. Kalki’s controlling father refuses to allow him to read Hindu texts favored by worshippers of Shiva. More important to the plot is India’s caste system. When Kalki falls in love with Roopi, a girl he believes he cured who works as a servant at the ashram, Kalki’s father puts an end to their relationship. Roopi comes from one of the higher castes but she isn’t Brahmin and therefore wouldn’t be a suitable mate for Kalki even if he were a mere mortal. Kalki’s father also forbids a friendship between Kalki and a transvestite whose status as a hijra is honored by Hindu mythology. Sindu illustrates social injustice in India by contrasting the god Kalki is forced to be with gods in his lineage who were less concerned with caste and sexuality.

As Kalki gets a bit older, foreign visitors to the ashram give him insight into the world he has never glimpsed. Kalki reads books that his father has forbidden for fear that literature might open Kalki’s mind to new understandings. One of those visitors exposes Kalki’s father as a hypocrite. A female visitor who might be in love with Kalki’s mother drives a wedge between his parents.

Kalki’s best friend is a cousin named Lakshman. Kalki’s true test comes when Lakshman’s mother is stricken with cancer. Lakshman and Kalki are separated for years after Lakshman moves to America. Their next meeting marks a turning point in the novel.

The last half of the story is driven by Kalki’s identity quest. If Kalki is not a god, perhaps he is a guru. Or maybe he’s a drunk. Or bi. Or a singer. As Kalki tries to understand himself, he knows only that he feels like a fraud who has harmed the people he cares about. It’s not easy being blue.

The story is told in memory. We learn early on that in the present, Kalki is a professor. He tells his students that religion is in a crisis perpetrated by scandal: Catholic priests and Hindu swamis using their positions to sexually abuse children; Middle Eastern honor killings, terrorist acts, and extreme reprisals committed in the name of religion; Buddhist monks inciting genocide in Sri Lanka. Having come to understand that he was not a god but a fraud, it is no surprise that the adult Kalki views much of religion as perpetuating a harmful charade for the benefit of charlatans.

The story at times threatens to become a soap opera, particularly when the controlling nature and unfaithfulness of Kalki’s father drives Kalki’s mother to an extreme response. Sindu's characterization of the father is a bit heavy handed. A scene in which Lakshman explodes at Kalki over a perceived grievance makes little sense, given that Lakshman is just fine with Kalki before and after the explosion The attempt at inclusiveness (including an off-camera gay sex scene) sometimes feels a bit forced. The plot loses some of its appeal after Kalki journeys to America and experiences a whirlwind identity crisis.

Yet the story as a whole is engaging. The lessons it offers about religion and intolerance, truth and fraud, are worthwhile. And Kalki, blue skin notwithstanding, comes across as representative of other young people whose parents have tried to fit them into a life that pleases the parent without regard to the child’s right to find his or her own way of living.

RECOMMENDED

The Giver by Lois Lowry

First published in 1993 by Houghton Mifflin

The Aaron Rodgers book club has become a feature of Rodgers’ Tuesday appearances on the Pat McAfee show. McAfee is a former NFL punter who offers an opinionated, amusing, and often insightful take on football, the world of sports, and whatever crosses his mind during his daily broadcast. Rodgers is a legend, a future Hall of Fame quarterback who, at 37, continues to lead the Green Bay Packers to victory in game after game. How Rodgers started a book club on a sports show is a bit of a mystery, but Rodgers is a cerebral athlete who views life as a beautiful mystery.

I commend Rodgers for urging sports fans to read. I commend McAfee for giving Rogers the space to talk about the universe outside of football. Rodgers’ book club selections tend to be inspirational or self-help books that are meant to guide people as they learn how to live in the moment, to acquire their best life, and to succeed in their endeavors, just as Rogers has done. Of course, it helps that Rodgers can throw a football into a bucket from a distance of 70 yards, but still.

The Giver is one of the books Rogers recommended. McAfee is 34; he claimed that he was supposed to read The Giver in grade school. McAfee is a loquacious, funny guy, but he makes no secret of the fact that he’s not much of a reader. I was between marriages and well into my career when The Giver was published, so I wasn’t asked to read it in school. In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing about it, notwithstanding that The Giver was a YA bestseller.

It seems that The Giver has been widely assigned in middle school since its publication. It is also widely challenged or banned for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, although I never understand the desire to ban books. Almost any book that asks readers to think about social justice is challenged or banned by people who fear social justice. Still, I don’t know what aspect of The Giver could possibly frighten or offend anyone, beyond authoritarians who view the controlling society depicted in the novel as ideal.

The Giver is a parable. It imagines a community that has divorced itself from the rest of the world. The community lives by a strict set of rules. The governing council assigns jobs and spouses. Married couples are given children to raise on the community’s behalf after they have been nurtured by specialists in infant childcare centers. At puberty, everyone takes a daily pill to suppress their sexual desire. Older people are segregated into facilities where they receive care until it is time for them to be released. People are given a strict set of rules to obey that focus largely on civility. They can’t go outside at night unless their job requires it. They can’t ask intrusive questions or make rude remarks. Three offenses will result in the offender’s release. There are no hills because they make productivity more difficult. There are no animals or colors because they distract from a productive life. Weather is controlled so every day is the same as every other day. That’s the point of the society. Sameness is the ultimate value. When everything is the same, when everything is controlled, there are no risks. People feel no pain, no jealousy. They have no sense of loss. Crime is nonexistent. The society seems utopian.

The story follows a boy named Jonas. As the story begins, he is about to become a Twelve. At the Twelve ceremony, he will be assigned his life work. His little sister is eager to reach the age at which she will be assigned a bicycle. Jonas’ father is a Nurturer who takes care of babies before they are assigned to a home. Jonas’ father is hoping that a baby who cries at night will become less burdensome so that it won’t be necessary for the community to release the baby. You can guess what “release” means, although Jonas has no clue.

At the Twelve ceremony, Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of memories. He replaces the old Receiver, who becomes the Giver of memories. As Jonas receives memories, he is able, for the first time, to see colors, to feel warmth, to experience love. But he also experiences cold and pain and terror and loss, all the things that the community shields from its members in the interest of pursuing a utopian society. Jonas and the Giver agree that it is wrong to deprive people of enriching experiences even if they are protected from disturbing experiences. They agree that something needs to be done. The choice they make leads to an ambiguous ending, but the ending really isn’t the point. The point is that they exercise the power to make a choice in a society that denies choice.

The story argues that people don’t really live if they don’t experience everything that comes with life. If eliminating pain means eliminating pleasure, if eliminating the perception of loss means eliminating the perception of love, if the only feeling is contentment, people exist but they don’t live. On McAfee’s show and elsewhere, Rodgers talks about learning by being open to experience and by overcoming adversity. He talks about gratitude and appreciation and openness. In the world of sports, winning games becomes more special when the winner remembers all the losses that were endured while rising to the top. The message of The Giver fits the Aaron Rodgers theme of living in the moment and experiencing life fully. Both sorrow and ecstasy have their place in the fullness of life.

While The Giver is clearly a Young Adult novel, I agree with Jen Doll, who talked to Kate Milford (a YA author who also hadn’t read the book) and wrote an article in the Atlantic about their experience of first reading it as an adult. Doll argues that the book is about “the ability to choose versus having things told to you, dictated, or prescribed. Choosing is harder, but in a free society, we have to be able to do it for ourselves, and of course, we value that.” Taking choices away from kids is what parents do (and with good reason), but notwithstanding the desire of helicopter moms to protect their kids from the real world, part of maturing is exercising the power to make choices, good and bad, and to experience consequences, painful and pleasurable, and to grow as a result of chosen experiences. Doll and Milford both thought the book is a gripping read for adults who haven’t encountered it. It’s certainly a vehicle for thought. And if Aaron Rodgers recommends it, how could I do otherwise?

RECOMMENDED

The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 26, 2021

Charlie Parker makes only cameo appearances in the nineteenth Charlie Parker novel. His dangerous friends Louis and Angel carry the novel, traveling to Europe on a dark mission that places Parker at risk despite his absence. Shaking up the series by giving collateral characters a starring role is a bold move that Parker has made before, always with a strong payoff. The Nameless Ones is one of the best recent efforts from a writer who produces nothing but excellent thrillers.

The Nameless Ones is a tale of two Serbian brothers, Radovan and Spiridon Vuksan. They are villains. The brothers and the criminals who work with or against them dominate the story. Louis and Angel have their moments, but the plot focuses on the brothers’ increasingly desperate attempts to survive the various forces that want to end their existence.

An FBI Agent named Ross has a history with Parker. That history began with the death of Parker’s wife and daughter. More recently, it includes an adventure that Parker had in the Netherlands and the death of a man named Armitage, whose phone (according to Ross) showed communications with the Vuksans. The Vuksans learned from Armitage that their cousin died at the hands of Louis, who was doing a favor for an old friend named De Jaeger. When Spiridon (the less reasonable brother) tortures and kills De Jaeger and his family in a scene that is all the more gruesome for being understated, Louis has new deaths to avenge.

The Vuksans have more enemies than Louis to worry about, but none more formidable. The Serbian and American governments would both like to consign the Vuksans to oblivion. Radovan would like to disappear, although not by dying. He tasks a shady Austrian lawyer named Frend to acquire fake passports that will allow the Vuksans to retire in a foreign land. Spiridon is less interested in retirement. The brothers quarrel about Spiridon’s wish to return to Serbia, where he will surely be punished for his history of war crimes.

Parker novels almost always have an element of the supernatural. In some novels, the supernatural dominates the story. In others, including The Nameless Ones, it lurks in the background. The supernatural element here is a woman named Zorya who kills ruthlessly for Spiridon. Zorya has the appearance of a child but has lived a long existence on the border of life and death. The only thing that frightens her is Parker’s dead daughter.

The novel’s supernatural terror is less frightening than its depiction of the evil war criminals and the various thugs and henchmen who populate their world. Frend, whose estranged daughter conspires against him to help Louis, is one of the novel’s few sympathetic characters, although he is far from a good person. Good people are rare in Charlie Parker novels. On a continuum from purely good to purely evil, Louis and Angel are somewhere in the middle, capable of empathy that motivates extreme but focused violence. Most of the other characters are scattered along the evil side of the continuum, with Spiridon and his ghost woman at the dark end and Riordan approaching it. Ross is the kind of ambiguous character who would rather not know how someone like Louis accomplishes the government’s ends as long as they are accomplished. Series readers might be happy to see the Fulci brothers make a brief return. They provide a bit of comic relief for those who have a taste for very dark comedy.

The novel gives the reader a more informative look at Serbia’s dark history than the rather sunny Wikipedia entry provides. John Connolly brings all of the novel’s locations alive, from Amsterdam to Vienna to South Africa. As always, Connolly’s graceful prose is masterful. He is among my favorite prose stylists in crime fiction. With its dense and intricate plot, its complex characters, and its insightful examination of evil men in evil times, The Nameless One showcases Connolly at the top of his game.

RECOMMENDED

Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Chlid

Published by Delacorte Press on October 26, 2021

Despite their formulaic nature in recent years, I’m generally a fan of Reacher novels, in part because the formula is a good one, in part because of Lee Child’s spare writing style. The formula is to have Reacher walking down a road, stumble into a dangerous situation, make a reluctant decision to help the endangered, and fight his way through adversity as he subdues dangerous thugs and saves the day. Better Off Dead follows the formula but it lacks the tension and the style that keeps me coming back to Reacher.

In a slight departure from the formula, the story begins with Reacher lying dead on a morgue table. Readers know that Reacher is indestructible of necessity; killing him would end Lee Child’s income stream.

A few quick flashback chapters get back to the formula. As Reacher walks down a road, he spots a woman in a crashed car. She pulls a gun on him when he tries to help. Satisfied that Reacher isn’t one of the bad guys for whom she set a trap, the woman (Michaela, a/k/a Mickey) resets the trap and acquits herself handily, despite having a prosthetic foot. Reacher gets her to explain her problem, which involves the capture and possible murder of her twin brother, then reluctantly agrees to help her go after the bad guys. Part of helping her includes the opening scene in the morgue.

Dendoncker is the first of two bad guys. He seems to be manufacturing bombs. Maybe they are smoke bombs. Maybe they will release a poisonous gas. Michael was either willingly or unwillingly helping Dendoncker make the devices. I didn’t care much about Michael's fate because Mickey is such a one-dimensional character that her woes about her brother left me unmoved.

The second bad guy is named Khalil, although he exists more as a name than as a character. Whether he is working with Dendoncker or working at cross-purposes is a question that isn’t set up sufficiently to whet the reader’s interest in the answer. The eventual explanation of their relationship is strained and uninteresting.

The plot goes off the rails in the second half when Dendoncker decides to enlist Reacher in his evil scheme. The smart move, easily accomplished, would be to kill Reacher, but that would end Lee Child's income stream, so the villain can't behave intelligently. It’s not like Dendoncker has a shortage of lackeys to do his bidding. Instead, he has Reacher deliver one of his devices while holding Mickey hostage. The outcome is easy to predict.

The nature and purpose of Dendoncker’s device wasn’t made clear until after I stopped caring. Unfortunately, its purpose is the only clever and unexpected part of the story. The rest of the novel consists of Reacher hitting people. That’s fine, it’s what Reacher does, but the fight scenes in Better Off Dead lack pizzazz. At least Reacher didn’t hit someone in the throat (the current go-to move in tough guy thrillers), although he thought about it.

Lee Child is known for a crisp writing style that emphasizes short, punchy sentences. His style makes for easy and rapid reading, which probably contributes to his popularity. At the same time, he balances fragmented sentences with longer, more elegantly constructed passages. He creates a rhythm. This novel emphasizes the punch and minimizes the rhythm. I don’t know if that’s because Lee had less input into the writing style than his brother Andrew, but the style differs from other Reacher novels. I’m not used to seeing pointless sentences like “That was for sure” and “That was for damn sure” in a Reacher novel. The writing style feels like an attempt to copy Lee Child rather than authentic Lee Child. Enough Lee Child bleeds through the narrative to make the novel worth acquiring for Reacher completists, but readers looking for Lee Child at his best might to give this one a pass.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS