The Caretaker by Ron Rash

Published by Doubleday on September 26, 2023

The Caretaker is an unconventional story of love and loss. It combines a domestic drama with a war story, yet the loss is occasioned by lies rather than battlefield violence.

After their two daughters died, Daniel and Cora Hampton should have been kind to their son Jacob despite his instinct to rebel against their controlling nature. Instead, they disinherited him after he eloped with Naomi Clarke, a 16-year-old hotel maid. Naomi did not satisfy their small town standards of propriety.

After Naomi became pregnant, Jacob was drafted and sent to Korea. Jacob’s parents refused to look after Naomi so the task fell to Jacob’s friend Blackburn Gant, the caretaker at the local cemetery. Jacob and Naomi live in North Carolina but, after a confrontation with Daniel while Jacob is still in Korea, Naomi returns to her parents’ home in Tennessee to give birth.

Ron Rash takes the time to develop detailed backstories for the central characters. They all suffer from poor parenting. We learn how Blackburn’s parents disregarded his polio symptoms and made him work in the fields until he fell, clenching the soil with his fists for an hour, barely able to breathe until his father found him. He can walk with a bit of a limp but his facial muscles droop. Rash conveys Blackburn’s feeling of helplessness as he is stricken, followed his sense of shame at his appearance.

Naomi’s parents wanted her to marry a man who would help them with their farm. They made her drop out of school in third grade and were distressed when she left home to work in a motel. Naomi is sympathetic because, despite having little control over her life, she perseveres.

Daniel and Cora wanted Jacob to finish college and take over the family store. We see Jacob thriving at manual labor in the family sawmill because his father thought he would gladly return to college after spending the summer performing grueling work. Daniel didn’t understand that Jacob preferred work that tired his body, not his mind. He was made foreman before the end of the summer.

This is a story of parents who don’t listen to their children, who expect them to accept a dictated path rather than making their own lives, who treat children as property. It is ultimately a story of parental selfishness. When we think of evil people, we think of violence. Daniel and Cora Hampton do not behave violently but they are the personification of evil. Naomi’s parents are little better.

Jacob sees and causes death in the war. Rash describes Jacob’s most traumatic war moment in vivid detail. Jacob survives his wounds and holds on in anticipation of reuniting with Naomi and his child when he comes home. Losing that opportunity convinces him that he has lost everything. Naomi’s sister remarks that “the heart’s full knowing came only with loss.” Jacob wonders whether love is strongest after it can no longer be shared.

This review has danced around the plot. It’s impossible to explain why The Caretaker is so good without giving away the surprise that drives the story. To avoid saying too much, I can only reveal that Jacob, Naomi, and Blackburn are all devastated by a scheme that serves only the selfish interests of Daniel and Cora. Naomi’s father becomes an accomplice to the scheme when he learns of it.

The story seems to move toward an inevitable climax yet when the moment arrives, it takes a sharp turn, one that is foreshadowed yet (at least to me) unexpected. The novel’s final moments offer Blackburn a difficult choice, one that invites him to be just as selfish as the worst characters yet a choice that, in the logic of the novel, might serve everyone by setting multiple lives on a better course. What choice will Blackburn make? This is the kind of novel that invites readers to think about the choice that they would make. From strong characterization to an original plot to searing moments of drama, The Caretaker is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

RECOMMENDED

Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop

First published in France in 2021; published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on September 19, 2023

Beyond the Door of No Return is a love story combined with an adventure story, set in the eighteenth century when adventures were still possible and when interracial love was often viewed as an abomination.

The story begins in the third person. Michel Adanson is old and nearing death. He made an academic career as a botanist. To the exclusion of everything else in his life, including marital happiness and a relationship with his daughter Aglaé, he has devoted himself to cataloging the various plants, shellfish, and animals he has encountered on his travels. His hope to publish a 20-volume encyclopedia of nature has been dashed, in part due to lack of interest among academic publishers.

About six months before his death, a broken femur inspires the revelation that over the course of time, Michel’s work will be forgotten, supplanted by “the eternal churn of human beings crashing over one another like waves” that would “bury him under the sands of his ancient science.” What suddenly seems important to Michel is “to figure in the memory of Aglaé as himself and not merely as some immaterial, ghostly scholar.”

To that end, Michel composes the story of an episode that shaped his life, a personal history that he has never shared. He hides the story in a desk, anticipating that Aglaé will care about him enough to decode his clue and find it. She does. The story helps her understand why her father’s last word was “Marak.”

Aglaé’s own story is that of a young woman who craved but did not receive her father’s attention. Her mother forced her into an unwise, short-lived marriage before her second husband, despite his absence of passion, gave her two children during another doomed marriage. Aglaé has come to believe that love and happiness exist only in romantic fiction. It is in this state of mind that Aglaé discovers the notebooks that contain her father’s story. I was disappointed that we do not learn more about Aglaé's reaction to the notebooks after she reads them. She is an important character until she disappears from view.

The novel’s greater focus is on the two stories that Aglaé discovers. One is Michel’s written account of his trip to Senegal when he was a young man in pursuit of botanical knowledge. Guided by Ndiak, son of the king of the Waalo, Michel hears about a revenant named Marak Sek who returned to Africa after being sold into slavery. It turns out that Marak is very much alive, not the walking dead. By coincidence or fate, Marak meets Michel after he falls ill.

The other story is Marak’s, told in the first person to Michel who recounts it in his notebooks. Marak survived two attempted rapes, escaped her confinement, was found and nurtured by a tribal healer, and has taken the healer’s place. While she does not live in her uncle’s village, she accepts the risk that he will find her and return her to the slave trader from whom she escaped. Her uncle’s reputation might be at risk if she is free to reveal his attempted incest.

Marak’s story is filled with harrowing moments. Enraptured by Marak’s beauty and fighting spirit, Michel falls in love with her. Perhaps he feels lust more than love. He denies that he is governed by desire, but the novel does little to explain what other qualities inspire Michel's love. In any event, their relationship propels the adventure story when Marak’s village turns out to be less safe than she had hoped.

Ndiak is the story’s philosopher. He talks about the “what if” moments in life that determine events. What if Michel had been taken to a different village when he fell ill? The chain of events that determined Michel’s and Marak’s lives would have been very different. Those events also change Ndiak’s life by inspiring him to understand the evil that is perpetrated when his fellow Africans sell each other into slavery.

By the end of his stay in Senegal, Michel discovers that European plants adapt nicely to Senegalese soil. Rather than enslaving Africans and exporting them to America, it would have been more profitable to pay Africans to grow sugar at home. Yet Michel knows that nobody wants to disturb the profits generated by the slave trade. Michel feels shame that he does not take an active role in clarifying the economics of slavery. He feels similar shame that, after returning to France, he did not confess his love of a Black woman. As a product of his times, Michel is not an exemplary character, but readers might appreciate his capacity for interracial love and his occasional spark of decency.

For reasons I won’t reveal, Michel’s life moves forward without Marak. The grief of loss cements his dedication to science as an alternative to heartache. He tries to forget but the novel suggests that the heart remembers what the mind chooses to ignore. Michel’s love story proves to be tragic in multiple ways, but an event near the end of his life proves that powerful memories may be suppressed but never forgotten. A work of art, a piece of music, can have “the power to reveal to ourselves our secret humanity.”

The final chapter makes clear that even if the significance of our lives and memories might be lost on others, they are nevertheless important. Michel’s story might be of no consequence to anyone but himself and perhaps Aglaé, yet the novel reminds us that listening to stories of others helps us understand our own lives. Integrating those stories into our own memories and sharing them contributes to a collective understanding of humanity. David Diop makes those points with subtlety in a story that is always interesting, sometimes exciting, and occasionally moving.

RECOMMENDED

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Published by Tor Books on September 19, 2023

Starter Villain is more a crime/conspiracy novel than a science fiction novel, but John Scalzi writes science fiction so it needed an sf hook. Which is, talking cats.

Scalzi has written dramatic science fiction that is notable for its pathos. Some of his work is lighter. Starter Villain is meant to amuse. It made me smile consistently. I even laughed out loud a couple of times, but it’s not the kind of work that puts a reader through a gamut of emotions.

Scalzi focuses the novel on a decent man who happens to like cats, probably a man who is a lot like Scalzi. Charlie Fitzer is unlike Scalzi in that Fitzer lost his career as a writer — a journalist who covered the business world — when the economy tanked. Fitzer is working as a substitute teacher and falling behind on his bills. His father bequeathed his childhood home to a trust for Charlie and his half-siblings but gave Charlie the right to live in the home provided he paid the insurance and utilities. His half-siblings believe their father’s intent was that Charlie should get back on his feet before the house is sold out from under him. They are irked that Charlie is making insufficient progress toward that goal.

Charlie has a wealthy uncle he hasn’t seen since the uncle had a falling out with his father at his mother’s funeral when he was five years old. Charlie learns from watching a financial network broadcast that his uncle has died. His uncle’s assistant, a woman named Mathilda Morrison, shows up unexpectedly to tell him that he’s in charge of his uncle’s funeral. Charlie responds dutifully. The only other people who show up at the funeral are the designees of wealthy criminals (think oligarchs) who want to stab the uncle’s corpse to make sure he isn’t faking his own death (again).

After someone blows up Charlie’s house, Mathilda explains that his uncle was a successful criminal. She provides temporary housing for Charlie and reveals that his cats have been genetically modified, enabling them to communicate by keyboard. Charlie’s uncle used modified cats to spy on his enemies, Charlie, and pretty much every important person who owns a cat.

Charlie is soon introduced to a criminal organization to which his uncle belonged, or joined and left, or never joined, depending on who is telling the story. Ian Fleming loosely based SMERSH on rumors of the organization and loosely based Blofeld and his cat on one of its members. The plot concerns the organization’s belief that Charlie, as successor to his uncle’s criminal enterprise, owes the organization billions of dollars because his uncle either stole property belonging to the organization or competed unfairly with its members or breached an agreement to tithe his profits to the organization. Charlie takes a casual approach to their demands but proves to be a smarter businessman than any of the criminals, all of whom have a sense of entitlement but no business sense at all.

While I prefer Scalzi when he’s telling stories with more drama than talking cats can provide, I can’t fault the entertainment value of his lighter fare. His novels are often a roadmap for how to behave decently even when surrounded by people who behave selfishly. Charlie is easy to like and Scalzi rewards the reader’s interest in the character. The plot is surprisingly coherent for a book that features talking cats and unionized dolphins. Starter Villain moves quickly, seasons a pleasant story with amusing moments, and reaches a satisfying resolution.

RECOMMENDED

The Traitor by Ava Glass

Published by Bantam on September 19, 2023

Emma Makepeace is a predictable spy novel heroine. She volunteers for dangerous assignments, expresses her displeasure when her bosses want her to play it safe, disregards their instructions when she feels she is the only one who can complete the mission, outfights thugs, and exposes the mole. The existence of a mole is one of the plot elements that makes The Traitor predictable, but nothing about the story is fresh.

Emma is in MI6. Despite her success in Alias Emma, she feels her gender is a barrier to the assignments she deserves. She begins the novel by trying to catch a Russian who is laundering money through a British bank. Emma is pulled off that project and tasked with figuring out why a low-level MI6 number cruncher was murdered. The investigation brings her to a Russian oligarch who is suspected of selling chemical weapons. She joins the staff of the oligarch’s yacht with the hope she will find evidence of those sales.

Emma follows the usual path of an undercover agent. She takes risks to search the oligarch’s yacht-office, dodges the suspicions of the oligarch’s security thug, and befriends (uses) the oligarch’s gorgeous, bored, drug-addled girlfriend. The oligarch eventually learns that Emma is a government agent. While MI6 blames that discovery on Emma’s tradecraft, Emma is convinced that someone sold her out to the oligarch. Hence, the obligatory mole.

Later in the novel, Emma befriends (uses) another oligarch’s girlfriend. This oligarch is the boss of the oligarch whose yacht she infiltrated. Emma thinks that surveilling him will let her discover the mole. Well of course it will, and of course Emma’s plan places her in grave danger.

Emma has almost no personality. Her complaints about not being taken seriously because of her gender are at odds with the important assignments she receives. She feels unappreciated because she has sacrificed any semblance of a personal life to serve king and country. Her last relationship fell apart because she couldn’t tell her boyfriend why she was always jetting off without notice. Although she bemoans her fate, Emma manages a spark of romance with another MI6 agent. This leads to cheesy sentences like “With Jon, though, everything felt possible” — sentences that would be at home in a romance novel.

Fortunately, the cheese is not overdone. Unfortunately, the plot — including the identity of the mole — is entirely predictable. Emma outfights large thugs with blows that are only vaguely described and occasionally stabs them with a tiny knife. The plot is mundane, the action is underdeveloped, and the compulsory mole subplot is so obvious that the reader will guess the mole’s identity well before the reveal. Had the mole been anyone else, I might have recommended the novel without reservations. I thought Ava Glass might at least try to surprise the reader, but she makes no effort at all.

While Glass has technical ability as a writer, she fails todeliver the suspense and credible action that spy novels require. The Traitor is at best a time-killer for spy fiction fans who are waiting for a better novel to give them their espionage fix.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Pole by J.M. Coetzee

Published in Argentina in 2022; published in translation by W.W. Norton & Co./Liveright on September 19, 2023

The Pole is in his seventies but still vigorous, a concert pianist known for his unusual interpretation of Chopin, an interpretation that is arguably more authentic than the “hard, percussive” Chopin that has become fashionable. He is invited to perform in Barcelona by a Concert Circle that caters to a wealthy, aging audience with conservative tastes. The Circle refers to him as “the Pole” because Witold Walczykiewicz has “too many w’s and z’s.”

Beatriz and Margarita are members of the Concert Circle’s board. Beatriz is intelligent but not reflective because an “excess of reflection can paralyze the will.” She defers to Margarita’s desire to invite the Pole because Margarita knows more about music and has glowing things to say about him. Beatriz and Margarita are both society wives and not taken seriously, so they do the good works that society wives are expected to perform as their husbands go about their business. Margarita enjoys having affairs; Beatriz considers them but can’t be bothered.

Beatriz is pressed into service to entertain the Pole when Margarita, the more natural choice for that task, falls ill. Beatriz is concerned because, unlike Margarita, she is not the type to flirt and flatter. Beatrix is more than twenty years younger than the Pole and expects that they will have nothing in common. His presence does not change her expectation. She does not enjoy his interpretation of Chopin. He cannot answer her question about his performance in a way that satisfies her. She does not like his dentures: “too gleaming, too white, too fake.” They have an uncomfortable dinner with a couple from the Circle and Beatriz expects never to see him again.

Weeks later, the Pole comes to Spain to give piano lessons and asks to see Beatriz again. He admits that he has come to Spain for her, but she does not know what that means. She tells him she isn’t going to sleep with him. She thinks he speaks nonsense when he says she gives him peace and joy. She wonders if he wants a caregiver to help him in his declining years.

Beatriz does not know why the Pole wants her but feels vaguely insulted that he does. Perhaps he knows he would not have a chance with a more vivacious woman but regards her as attainable. Anyway, she is married. Yes, her husband has affairs, but that’s the way men are. She is busy with her social life and has no time for the Pole. She is not the answer to the riddle of his existence, even if he believes that to be the case. And yet.

The Pole invites Beatriz to take a vacation with him in Brazil. Beatriz refuses. He sends her private recordings of Chopin, claiming he is playing just for her. She cannot hear a personal message in the recordings. Still, she can’t get the Pole out of her mind. Perhaps she is discontented. “Discontent is not uncommon. Discontent: not knowing what one wants.”

Yet Beatriz is frustrated because she does not know why the Pole wants her. Why her? The question haunts her. She does not understand why he would love her without expecting to be loved in return. Her conversations with the Pole return platitudes about destiny, not answers. Their conversations are like “coins passed back and forth in the dark, in ignorance of what they are worth.” Perhaps there are simply no words to answer: “Why me?”

The Pole is the story of a woman who persistently says no as she inches toward yes, never acknowledging to herself that yes is even a possibility. She delights in the Pole’s admiration, his “dazzlement, as though he cannot believe his luck.” He makes her feel wanted. He is happy to take what she gives him, and that joy makes her want to give more and more. Yet she always wants more than the Pole can give. She is disappointed that he does not woo her or try to seduce her. He cannot give her a younger body than his tired old physical frame. He cannot play music that speaks to her. He cannot write love poems that transfigure her body into soul.

Why is the Pole never enough? Why does Beatriz want him to be more than he is? These are questions J.M. Coetzee leaves for the reader to decide. The right kind of book club might enjoy exploring the answers.

By the last half of the novel, the Pole is merely a puzzling memory in Beatriz’ life — apart from poems that he wanted her to have, poems that often refer to Dante and his girlfriend Beatrice. What do the poems mean? Are the poems vengeful, written to turn her into “a plaster saint”? What meaning should she attach to his description of the rose left between Beatrice’s legs? Does meaning matter? Is it enough that the poems cause a burning between Beatriz’s legs?

There is plenty for readers to unpack in Coetzee’s novels. This one is no exception. The story is told in a minimalist style that makes each sentence seem important. Beatriz and the Pole are the only characters of significance. While the Pole sees parallels between his relationship with Beatriz and Dante’s with Beatrice, Coetzee flips the story by focusing not on the man’s perspective but the woman’s. Beatriz often tells the Pole that his attention is unwanted, yet she encourages his interest, then discourages it, then feels guilty for doing both.

It is difficult for the reader to explore the depths of Beatriz’s heart, if only because it is difficult for Beatriz to do so. Perhaps that is the novel’s point. The Pole is a straightforward man, even if he cannot communicate with Beatriz in the way she believes an artist should. Beatriz’s confusion may reflect the tug-of-war between the heart and mind in matters of romance. The Pole knows what he wants even if he can’t express it. Beatriz seems to know what she wants but refuses to listen to her heart because her mind is busy cataloging the Pole’s faults.

How the conflict between heart and mind should resolve is a profound question that most people address at some point. The Pole illustrates the conflict by stripping it to its essence, again leaving it to the reader to arrive at an answer.

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