A Song Everlasting by Ha Jin

Published by Random House/‎ Pantheon on July 27, 2021

A Song Everlasting tells the story of the tumultuous middle years of a man’s life. Yao Tian is a celebrated singer in China. He performs with the People’s Ensemble, a position that ensures social status and a comfortable lifestyle. Tian is married to Shuna, who also enjoys status as a professor. They hope their daughter will attend an American college because “universities in China merely fed students with platitudes and jargons, manufacturing the sort of minds needed by the governing apparatus.”

When the People’s Ensemble performs in New York, Tian surreptitiously meets with his childhood friend Han Yabin. Yabin lost his residential status in Beijing after he began to keep company with a foreign female teacher. Yabin responded by traveling to New York and not returning to China. Tian is concerned that meeting with Yabin might be a black mark against his record. He’s even more concerned when he’s offered a good bit of money to perform at a Chinese celebration in New York. He rebooks his return flight and accepts the gig, only to find after his arrival in China that his indiscretion has not gone unnoticed by Chinese officials.

Realizing that his passport will soon be confiscated, Tian flees China. He wants the freedom to travel, and more importantly to perform, internationally. He also wants the freedom to choose the songs he will sing, rather than performing propaganda songs that are selected by government bureaucrats. Shua agrees that he should establish residence in the United States so that he can be happy.

The novel follows Tian’s successes and struggles in America for a period of years. He needs to find a way to remain in the country legally. He’s not sure whether it will ever be safe for him to return to China. His initial successes in America stem from his popularity with Chinese audiences. Chinese authorities try to bribe him to return to China, then conspire to undermine him. A brief dalliance with a Chinese woman doesn’t help his relationship with Shua, while being accused of physically abusing her undercuts the popularity that he enjoys with Chinese audiences. Tian faithfully sends money home to support his daughter, but he and his wife seem to be drifting apart. He needs to find other ways to support himself when his singing career seems to be in jeopardy.

The tradeoff between freedom and security is the novel’s strongest theme. If Tian had stayed in China, singing the songs he was told to sing and saying nothing critical of the government, he might have lost self-respect but his prosperity would have been assured. Living in America assures Tian only of an uncertain future, but it also allows him to control that future, if only to the extent that he can choose the songs he wishes to sing. Tian feels no particular desire to express political opinions, but he does feel a desire to grow as an artist, something that he would never be able to accomplish in China.

Ha Jin’s novel is heartfelt, filled with moments of quiet drama while avoiding melodrama. It is realistic in the sense that Tian’s life might not work out as he hopes or expects. That’s true of every life. We can control what we can control, but some circumstances, including health conditions and the actions of others, are beyond our influence. Tian learns to accept that his fate isn’t entirely in his hands, but he also learns the value of not giving up the fight for the life he wants to have. His relationship with his wife might change because of his extended absence, but that change might open up the possibility of a new and unexpected relationship. He might not always be able to perform for large audiences, but he might find other ways to use his talent. A Song Everlasting reminds readers that being resilient, living according to your values, and persevering in the face of hardship can create a satisfying life, even if it isn’t the life we once envisioned.

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Red Traitor by Owen Matthews

Published by Doubleday on July 20, 2021

Notwithstanding its unfortunate title, Red Traitor is a smart, entertaining spy novel that is told from an unusual perspective. Although a few American characters appear, the protagonist and most of the key characters are Russian. The story primarily alternates between Moscow and a Russian submarine near Cuba. The events are loosely based on a Cold War incident in which Russian submarines were armed with nuclear torpedoes, and on a Russian (the traitor in the title) who provided clandestine information to the United States.

The novel takes place during the Kennedy Administration. Russia is establishing a military presence in Cuba and America is on the brink of war. The more important war that the story showcases is between two intelligence agencies in the USSR: the KGB and the GRU.

Alexander Vasin is a lieutenant colonel in the KGB and a favorite of his superior, Lieutenant General Yury Orlov. Vasin became a favorite by blaming a problem on an American spy. While the details of Vasin’s previous mission are described in Black Sun, it isn’t necessary to read Black Sun to understand Red Traitor.

Vasin invented the American spy, but Orlov doesn’t know that, or perhaps doesn’t care. Orlov’s mission is to undermine General Ivan Serov, head of the GRU and his chief rival for power. To that end, Orlov wants to prove that the spy works for Serov. Orlov has a candidate in mind — Oleg Morozov, a colonel in the GRU — but has only circumstantial proof that Morozov is a traitor. Orlov wants Vasin to find evidence that Morozov is a spy and isn’t overly concerned whether the evidence reflects reality.

Morozov has been behaving suspiciously, in part by collecting information from Sofia Guzman, a translator who has access to information about a secret project. The project involves the installation of long-range missile bases in Cuba. News of the project has made its way to American intelligence, making Morozov the likely source of the leak.

Vasin learns of a related project — the arming of submarines with nuclear torpedoes that are sailing to Cuba. Kennedy is creating a naval blockade around Cuba. A Russian lunatic, without the knowledge of Khrushchev, has ordered the submarine commander to launch the torpedo if the Russian subs are attacked while trying to run the blockade. Vasin knows that this will trigger a nuclear war and the likely destruction of Russia. He resolves to use his own initiative to stop the war, even if doing so might make him a traitor.

Part of the action takes place on one of the subs, where the fleet commander is at odds with a submarine captain who is eager to fire the first strike. Much of the novel’s tension comes from that underwater conflict, although Vasin’s tricky relationships with Orlov, Morozov, and Guzman add to the drama.

Like Black Sun, Red Traitor succeeds in part because the story is based on real events and in part because Vasin is a dark character who does not equate loyalty to his county to loyalty to autocrats who are willing to harm his country to achieve their personal ends. Owen Matthews keeps the various plot elements in constant motion, building suspense that is only partially tempered by the reader’s knowledge that nuclear war did not break out in 1962. Exactly how that war will be prevented, however, is something that the reader won’t know until late in the novel. The second Vasin novel is as strong as the first, making Matthews’ unusual look at espionage from a Russian perspective a good choice for fans of spy fiction.

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Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich

First published in Italy in 1973; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on August 10, 2021

Last Summer in the City was rejected by several publishers before it found a home and earned excellent reviews in the Italian press. Then it dropped out of sight until it was republished in Italy in 2016. It’s easy to understand why so many publishers initially rejected it. The first half tells a story that seems mundane. I’m guessing editors stopped reading and moved on to the next submission before they understood the book’s value. By the second half, the story gains significance from the cumulative weight of small events. The ending is something of a shock.

Last Summer in the City tells the story of a 29-year-old man who, finally realizing that he needs to be an adult, understands that he isn’t equipped for adulthood. Leo Gazzara narrates an empty year in his life. Leo is in Rome. He reads constantly and tries without success to write fiction. He scrapes by without a job, moving from hotel to hotel until he arranges to stay in the apartment of a couple who will be working in Mexico. He moves from woman to woman until he meets Arianna, an infuriating woman with whom he falls in love. Arianna entices him and pushes him away, always appearing to want the opposite of whatever Leo wants.

Leo drinks away raucous evenings with his friend Graziano, following a lifestyle that seems likely to doom them both. Graziano drinks even more than Leo, can’t satisfy his wealthy wife, and like all men, has a crush on Arianna. Leo and Graziano set out to write a screenplay about a man who kills his father, thinking that Graziano’s wife will finance the film. The only virtue of their plan is that they drink a bit less while they’re writing.

Leo eventually finds and loses a job before taking a position at a newspaper, transcribing stories without doing any reporting of his own, earning Arianna’s disappointment and adding to his own sense of frustration about a life that seems to be going nowhere. Arianna’s continued flirtation and occasional declarations of love only add to Leo’s gloom, coupled with the knowledge that Arianna is sleeping with a wealthy but untalented painter.

As a writer, Leo comments frequently upon writers. As an avid reader, he also comments upon readers, quoting Borges’ remark that good readers are even more rare than good writers. I was more taken by Leo’s observation that a reader’s perception of a book depends upon the reader’s mood during the reading process — a mood that is external to the act of reading and influenced by current experience. “A book that struck you as banal on a first reading may dazzle you on a second simply because in the meantime you suffered some kind of heartbreak, or you took a journey, or you fell in love.”

Leo has a love/hate relationship with Rome. “She’s not so much a city as a wild beast hidden in some secret part of you. There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to leave her, because that’s what the tender beast demands, to be loved.” The same description might apply to Arianna.

None of the characters in Last Summer in the City are happy. The novel might signal that we live in an unhappy world, that nothing can make us happy because the things we desire are all superficial, that we are alone “in the middle of this vast, terrible world” with no idea how to give our lives meaning. These are not happy thoughts, but they set up a surprising ending that in retrospect seems inevitable given the gloom that precedes it.

As it nears the end, Last Summer in the City seems like a belated coming-of-age novel, the story of a man entering the middle stage of life who is accepting the challenge to find a purpose. It is, at least, the story of a man who finds the courage to make a decision about his future. The book is depressing and might not appeal to readers who want books to be upbeat and life-affirming. Not all people view life from an optimistic perspective. Last Summer in the City illustrates how an intelligent individual might come to embrace a view of life that most people reject. Gianfranco Calligarich’s ability to put the reader inside the head of such a person explains the novel’s literary value, while the depressing tone explains why the story did not earn lasting popularity after its initial publication.

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Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka

First published in Japan in 2010; published in translation by Overlook Press on August 3, 2021

Kotaro Isaka brings a playful sensibility to crime fiction. Bullet Train follows a number of murderous characters through a complex plot, but Isaka balances the grimness of crime with the amusing oddities of human behavior.

As the title suggests, the story takes place on a train. Two passengers, Lemon and Tangerine, were hired to recover the kidnapped son of crime boss Yoshio Minegishi. Their second and third priorities were to recover the ransom money and to kill the kidnappers. They board the train with the son, having accomplished all three objectives. Unfortunately for them, little time passes before the son dies of an unknown cause. To compound their trouble, a fellow named Nanao has been hired to steal the suitcase full of ransom money. He snatches the bag, but his lifetime of bad luck makes it impossible to disembark with the bag before someone else takes it.

The novel’s other key element involves an eleven-year-old boy named Satoshi “The Prince” Oji. A personification of evil, the Prince has mastered the art of manipulating adults and other kids to do his bidding. Killing and torture are not an issue for the Prince, although he typically forces others to do his killing for him. Yuichi Kimura boards the train to kill the Prince because Kimura believes that the Prince is responsible for his six-year-old son’s fall from a building and the son’s ensuing coma. Kimura quickly becomes the Prince’s captive.

The train is largely empty as it journeys from stop to stop. Most of the passengers are killers. They are familiar with each other by reputation, including two late arrivals who had retired from the game before circumstances compel them to prove that their senior status hasn’t slowed their wits or determination.

The rising body count assures that the plot moves as quickly as the train. While the plot is fun, the novel’s characters account for much of the reading pleasure. Nanao is certain that he travels under a cloud of bad luck. Kimura has been trying to recover from alcoholism since his son’s fall and blames himself for his son’s fate, in part because Kimura’s father regards him as worthless. Lemon is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine while Tangerine is a serious reader of fiction. The Prince asks nearly everyone he meets why it is wrong to commit murder and is never satisfied with their answers. Only the grandfather who appears near the novel’s end delivers a thoughtful answer to the question.

Who killed Minegishi’s son? Who hired Nanao to steal the bag of money and why? Can any of the adults outsmart the eleven-year-old Prince? Bullet Train eventually provides satisfactory answers to all those questions. Mystery and crime novel fans should enjoy the clever plot, but the quirky characters make Bullet Train stand apart from the self-impressed heros and cartoon villains who populate crime novels that readers in the West usually encounter.

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All's Well by Mona Awad

Published by ‎Simon & Schuster on August 3, 2021

The first several chapters of All’s Well made me question my willingness to endure the pathetic protagonist for an entire novel. In later chapters, the protagonist transforms from pathetic to wicked. A wicked protagonist is more interesting than a pathetic protagonist. The more wicked she became, the more I was hooked on the story.

Miranda Fitch is a stage actor — or she was until, while playing the role of Lady Macbeth, she took a tumble off the stage and was hospitalized for back and hip injuries. Miranda regards her finest moment as playing Helen in All’s Well that Ends Well. Miranda sometimes believes she is Helen although, in true Shakespearean tradition, identity confusion becomes a common occurrence as the story unfolds.

No longer capable of performing on stage and barely capable of existing, Miranda takes a job as a theater director at a small college. She fudges her credentials — she’s never actually directed a play — but she leaves much of the day-to-day work to Grace while she lays on the floor, trying to endure her constant pain. When Miranda walks, she drags one leg like an anchor. Her physical therapy sessions only increase her pain. Various doctors and healers have proposed treatments that have no positive impact, leading her mental health provider (and perhaps the reader) to suspect that the pain is all in Miranda’s head. I’m not sure whether Mona Awad wants the reader to believe the pain is real. From Miranda’s perspective, at least, it is real enough, but Miranda’s perceptions are not entirely reliable.

Miranda’s students want to perform Macbeth. Miranda has settled on All’s Well that Ends Well. A young woman named Brianna who always plays the lead by virtue of having wealthy parents who spoil her (and who contribute to the college) leads a rebellion in favor of scrapping All’s Well in favor of the Scottish play. When college administrators pressure Miranda to relent, she goes to a bar to drink her troubles away. There she meets three men who somehow know her name, who know of her desire to direct All’s Well, and who insist that they support her effort because they all “want to see a good show.” Miraculously, when one of them helps her to her feet after another tumble, her pain and disability seem to be receding. Soon she is cured, perhaps better than she ever was.

Are the three men witches? Is Miranda? How about the young woman who takes the role of Helen after Brianna becomes afflicted with the same kind of pain that once troubled Miranda? The novel inspires more questions than it answers. All we know is that people who give Miranda a hard time (including her physical therapist) seem to take on Miranda’s pain and infirmities.

Cause and effect are difficult judge in a novel that adopts the Shakespearean reality of witchcraft. Miranda’s unreliable perception of reality also makes it difficult to know whether the events we read about are only occurring in Miranda’s addled mind. As the novel progresses, her perceptions seem increasingly distant from those of everyone else, including her belief in her own glowing beauty after she comes to rehearsal in a seaweed covered dress, having (she is certain) slept in the sea. She frequently mistakes the ex-con set designer with whom she is sleeping for her ex-husband, although she is the only one who notices a resemblance. Theatrical performances strike her as brilliant that others regard with less enthusiasm. So the reader can’t quite trust Miranda to provide an accurate narrative, but where the truth might lie is never quite clear. Perhaps only the witches know.

All’s Well, like its namesake play, is both a comedy and a tragedy. It is more successful as a comedy. Awad’s dark humor works best when she mocks Briana, a child of privilege whose sense of entitlement encourages her to believe that the dean will believe her when she accuses Miranda of witchcraft. The tragic elements draw upon magic and delusion to transform Miranda into a bad person, or a person who thinks she’s bad, apparently to teach her that it’s better to be good. But Miranda wasn’t a bad person to begin with. At worst, she suffered from a psychosomatic illness that made her a drag to be around. At best, she actually suffered chronic pain that had a physical but undiagnosed cause. The point of Miranda’s delusions is one I could never find.

In addition to the novel's comic moments, I appreciated Awad’s portrayal of Grace as Miranda’s enabler, a false friend who encourages Miranda’s belief in her own pain to undermine her. It is satisfying to watch Grace and Briana take their falls, even if the degree of Grace’s fall is magnified by Miranda’s delusion. Yet by the end, all’s well, and it doesn’t seem that Grace or Briana have learned anything from their experiences. Maybe the experiences only occurred in Miranda’s mind so they had nothing to learn. Who knows?

All’s Well offers a bit of fun for readers who want to catch and interpret allusions to Shakespeare’s plays and Shakespearean themes. Yet Shakespeare made strangeness work — there are allusions here to The Tempest, a brilliantly strange play — while Awad offers a strange blend of magic and delusion that doesn’t always seem to have a point. Still, the story’s energy and humor, its transformation of Miranda from a pathetic character to a wicked one (before she apparently renounces her deal with the devil), and its moments of sharp humor give All’s Well enough good moments to offset the confusion caused by the novel’s ambiguous nature.

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