NW by Zadie Smith

Published by Penguin Press on September 4, 2012 

The primary characters in Zadie Smith’s new novel -- residents of North West London, from which the title derives -- are dissected and analyzed, or more often skewered, as Smith lays bare their hypocrisies, ambitions, facades, insecurities, prejudices, and fears.  The four central characters stand on different rungs of the social ladder.  The impact of class and social identity on relationships is the novel’s central theme, why some people rise above their beginnings and others don’t is the central question, but -- setting aside those social issues -- I enjoyed NW for the portrait it paints of troubled individuals coming to terms with their changing lives.

Leah Hanwell, 35, is married to an African named Michel.  Leah has a love/hate relationship with Michel, and also with her friend Natalie (formerly Keisha), a barrister whose upward mobility (assisted by marriage to a prosperous money manager) has eluded her childhood friends.  Just as J-Lo tried some years ago to convince her audience that she was still “Jenny from the block,” Natalie is experiencing something of an identity crisis.  Having shed the name Keisha, she still clings to her past, at least to Leah, whose attendance at Natalie’s posh parties seems designed to contrast Natalie’s humble beginnings to her current status.  Although Leah has done well for herself, earning a degree and finding employment with a nonprofit, she remains tongue-tied in the company of educated professionals (Natalie invites Leah to tell stories and then gladly tells them for her) and is embarrassed by Michel’s sincerity (but only when they are in public).  Leah also seems envious of and disquieted by Natalie’s children.

A couple of lesser characters haven’t made the same progress as Natalie and Leah.  Nathan Bogle, the recipient of Leah’s childhood crush, is mired in a slang-filled, weed-smoking life, a life on the streets that is dedicated solely to survival.  His role in the novel is to teach Natalie that she knows nothing about his social class despite attending the same school when they were both ten.  Nathan knows Natalie has “made it” because she can squander her tears on something as insignificant as a distressed marriage; she has left more fundamental worries behind.  Yet for all her success and despite Nathan’s complaint that she is needlessly self-pitying, Natalie feels trapped by her circumstances.  Her desperate sadness motivates foolish behavior.

Positioned somewhere between Nathan and Leah on the ladder of success is Felix Cooper, whose Jamaican father lives in the West End.  Felix craves the freedom of a better life in the North West with Grace (half Jamaican, half Nigerian), who wants to free him of his “negative energy.”  While interesting and well written, Felix’s story seems out of place, having only a tangential connection to the rest of the novel.

Readers who cannot abide unconventional writing might dislike NW.  Each of the novel’s sections is written in a different style.  Dialog is often (but not always) set apart in condensed paragraphs; in the first section, quotation marks are nonexistent.  Sentences, like the thoughts they reflect, are sometimes incomplete or scattered.  One passage is written as free-form poetry; another as an online chat.  The largest chunk of the novel is written as a series of vignettes, scenes that deftly sketch out Leah’s and Natalie’s lives from their childhood to the present.  One section follows Natalie as she takes a long walk through the North West.  It is divided into subsections (“Hampstead to Archway”) like a guide to a walking tour.  I enjoyed the different styles -- they aren’t particularly daring and they don’t make the novel inaccessible -- but readers who favor a straightforward narrative might be put off by the jarring changes in format.

As we have come to expect from Zadie Smith, much of the story is wryly amusing, if not laugh-out-loud funny.  Her description of “marriage as the art of invidious comparison” is one of many sly observations I admired.  Smith’s prose is as graceful and unpredictable as a tumbleweed.  The pace is relaxed, not slow but unhurried.  In a good way, the story is slightly meandering.  Smith takes her time, developing the characters and their surroundings bit by bit until it all becomes real.

I suspect that readers who dislike Jonathan Franzen’s most recent novels will dislike NW for the same reasons:  there isn’t much of a plot and the characters aren’t always likable (although Smith’s characters aren’t as determinedly self-centered as Franzen’s).  Both writers strive to say something about society at large by focusing on smaller segments, families and friends who are defined by geography and class.  Readers who believe that good writing often illuminates the world as it exists, not as we want it to be, that it is just as important to understand flaws as perfection, will find much to admire in Smith’s surgical exploration of characters struggling to come to grips with their changing lives.

RECOMMENDED

Stranded by Anne Bishop (ed.)

Published by Bell Bridge Books on August 24, 2012 

Stranded brings together three lengthy science fiction stories, all written for this volume, that share the titular theme: stories about being stranded. Each is preceded by a short introduction written by the story's author.

James Alan Gardner wrote "A Host of Leeches."  Alyssa Magord, the victim of an alien plague, wakes up alone -- alone except for a hybrid computer/dolphin that shares her blood and a variety of weaponized robots. She soon realizes she's in quarantine ... the kind of quarantine from which it may be impossible to return. While this is a promising premise, the story descends into silliness as the robots squabble with each other. The story isn't quite funny enough to succeed as laugh-out-loud comedy, although I assume that was the author's intent. It has its moments, and the ultimate resolution is moderately clever.

Anne Bishop wrote "A Strand in the Web."  Willow lives on city-ship that travels around the galaxy. The crew's mission (which carries quasi-religious overtones) is the restoration of devastated worlds (sort of like playing SimPlanet). Although she is merely a student, Willow mysteriously becomes responsible for restoring an entire island. Apart from an unfortunate bit of silliness involving unicorns, the story becomes interesting when it focuses on the restoration work, the careful balancing of plants and birds and bees, predators and prey. On the other hand, Willow's triumphant development as a character and the story's conclusion are predictable and dull.

Anthony Francis wrote "Stranded."  For no apparent reason, the girls are at war with the boys in a ship that is falling apart, and it's up to a "Halfway Boy" named Sirius to save them all. Now, with the ship in distress, they must land on an uncharted planet. Add an elf-monkey child (seriously?) and a centaur (seriously?) who carries a staff that lets her "skip from world to world" (seriously?) and you've got what amounts to a fantasy married to cheesy science fiction. The story reads like it was written in the Flash Gordon era (the nastiest weapon the humans can muster is a "blaster"). The writing style is cliché-dependent and overwrought, relying too amply on exclamation points!!! to signal conflict and create drama. The plot is preachy (and rather stale in its condemnation of patriarchy and homophobia), often more soap opera than space opera, but the last third of the story introduces some interesting concepts.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Stranger in the Room by Amanda Kyle Williams

Published by Bantam on August 21, 2012 

My reaction to Stranger in the Room is similar to my assessment of The Stranger You Seek: an enjoyable read that falls well short of greatness. In common with the first Keye Street novel, the story occasionally has an engaging, playful quality and the characters are fun. When it tries to be a serious thriller, however, Stranger in the Room suffers from many of the problems that marred the first novel.

In addition to Keye Street, two characters who played critical roles in The Stranger You Seek return in the encore. Street's computer whiz helper, a stoner named Neil Donovan, shows up from time to time to provide comic relief. Street's boyfriend, homicide lieutenant Aaron Rauser, is investigating the murder of a child. Street, of course, becomes embroiled in that mystery.

The novel's other significant storyline involves Street's troubled cousin. Miki Ashton is off her meds but she isn't cutting or overdosing. Her current problem is a stalker who, we soon learn, is also a killer. Street needs to keep her safe and find the killer. The odds of a connection between the two cases are, of course, infinitesimal, but in the world of thrillers, coincidence is commonplace. Unfortunately, the stalker/killer is more a collection of buzz words than a believable character.

As was true in the first novel, some of the best (and funniest) moments involve the mundane aspects of Street's job, including picking up a bail jumper who has weaponized his boogers. Unfortunately, another assignment -- one that occupies several chapters -- adds little value to the novel. Street is hired to investigate a crematory operator after a family receives an urn filled with cement mix and chicken feed. Apart from being less interesting than the central plot, this storyline is awfully far-fetched. It doesn't deserve the degree of drama that Amanda Kyle Williams tries to attach to it.

To flesh out her characterization of Street, Williams delves into the circumstances of Street's adoption and devotes some scenes to Street's interaction with her adoptive parents. Despite the pop psychology overtones (Street's mother feeds feral cats, giving her an opportunity to demonstrate love without getting too close to its recipient, just as she did with her adopted children), the story does manage to advance the reader's understanding of Street's personality.

Several aspects of the novel are problematic, including a chapter in which Street, calling upon the profiling skills that supposedly allow a profiler to "see" everything a killer did while preparing for the murder, finds a clue that only the stupidest of killers would have left behind. This is the stuff of mundane television crime shows, not carefully constructed thrillers. On other occasions, Street relies on glib insights to feed her assumptions about the killer's motivations. The notion that Street could actually find the killer based on her vague and generalized profile is the product of wishful thinking rather than the reality of profiling (in the real world, profilers are more often wrong than right). The psychological profiling that was (fortunately) underplayed in The Stranger You Seek is given a more significant role in Stranger in the Room, and the novel is weaker for it.

Street's temptation to renew her love affair with alcohol leads to more than one trite moment, and the frequent reminders that she's a recovering alcoholic become tiresome. Only slightly less wearying is Street's tendency to define herself as a victim because her grandparents were murdered thirty years earlier. A lifetime of self-pity does not an appealing protagonist make.

Williams occasionally tries to add hip humor to her story with gratuitous celebrity bashing. If anyone reads this novel twenty years from now, they'll probably wonder who Anna Nicole Smith and Lindsay Lohan were. I'm not a fan of either celebrity, but I'm also not a fan of cheap shots. Given the sympathetic attention Williams pays to Street's alcohol addiction, snarky jokes about addicted celebrities seem misplaced.

Setting all of those qualms aside, Stranger in the Room has sufficient merit to earn a lukewarm recommendation. The story moves quickly, the supporting characters are strong, and the ending, although predictable, is reasonably satisfying.

RECOMMENDED

Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig

Published by Angry Robot on September 6, 2012

Mockingbird fails to equal the emotional resonance of Blackbirds, the novel that introduced Miriam Black, but it is written with the same intensity.  Chuck Wendig again tells a fast-paced, enjoyable story that delivers a solid punch.

If you read Blackbirds, you know that Miriam envisions the death of any person she touches.  Miriam is living a mostly platonic life with her friend Louis in an Airstream on Long Beach Island -- not quite what she had in mind at the end of Blackbirds.  Working the checkout line at Ship Bottom Sundries isn’t for her, a truth she confirms when her smart mouth gets her fired.  To earn some cash, she accepts a gig forecasting the death of a hypochondriac who teaches at a boarding school.  There she meets twelve-year-old Lauren (“Wren”) Marten.  What she learns of Wren’s fate is beyond disturbing … and even worse is the knowledge that other girls at the school will meet the same gruesome death.  To do something about it, to change fate (a task she does not undertake lightly, given the events that transpired in Blackbirds), Miriam must find the man she sees in her visions.  Unfortunately for Miriam, fate doesn’t like to be changed.

The story is delightfully creepy but a bit over-the-top, and for that reason is less powerful than the story told in Blackbirds.  It is nonetheless a story told with intelligence and humor.  Wendig works Julius Caesar and The Waste Land and the myth of Philomela into the plot, not to mention a variety of talkative birds.  I also liked the motivation for the child killings -- it’s original and clever -- as well as the ethical dilemma Miriam must confront.

Mockingbird offers additional glimpses of Miriam’s childhood that contribute to the reader’s understanding of the character.  Miriam’s rebellion against her oppressive religious upbringing explains her foul mouth.  (Warning to readers who don’t like profanity:  this is not the book for you.)  Unlike Blackbirds, however, the Miriam who starts Mockingbird is pretty much the same Miriam we see at the end.  Her character doesn’t evolve in this novel as it did in the first one.  Perhaps that’s to be expected, but I would like to see her continue the journey of self-discovery she started in Blackbirds.

Wendig writes snappy prose that is filled with attitude.  He has a knack for making obnoxious characters endearing.  Miriam won my heart (again) when she made fun of Applebee’s (Crapplebee’s).  The novel’s abundant action scenes are blistering, and just when you least expect it, Wendig adds a touch of sweetness to the story.  Although Mockingbird isn’t as surprising or moving as Blackbirds, it made me anxious to read the next installment in the saga of Miriam Black.

RECOMMENDED

Nine Months by Paula Bomer

Published by Soho Press on August 21, 2012 

Nine Months is a counterpoint to smiling Super Mommies and happy chatter about the miracle of childbirth.  The story is disquieting but told with unvarnished honesty, in prose that is intense and immediate.  It’s also very funny.

Sonia isn’t made for the rituals of motherhood.  Hanging out with the neighborhood mommies reminds her of high school cliques.  She doesn’t agree that children are sacred, that mothers should sacrifice careers and passions to stay home with them.  She loves her two boys, envies their unbridled aggression, but raising them does not provide the sense of contentment that other moms seem to experience.  At the age of 35, she is deeply ambivalent about having a third child.  She feels her accidental fetus sucking the life out of her.

As the story begins, Sonia is experiencing guilt because she is “the worst thing on earth”:  a mother who left her children.  Even worse, although she’s in denial as she haunts malls and lays around her hotel rooms, she’s due to face the horror of labor for a third time.  Sonia thinks she deserves the pain of giving birth; it is a punishment she has earned.  After the baby is born, the story backtracks eight months.  We meet Sonia’s husband Dick.  We follow Sonia through the hellacious first trimester and the blissful second trimester of her pregnancy before, in a moment of panic, she begins a road trip that she defines as a “find-myself mission.”  The drive to Indiana and Colorado and Wisconsin seems more like an excuse to escape from the reality of her life than a vehicle to understand her life, but it gives her an opportunity to revisit her past and thus allows the reader to develop some insight into her acerbic personality.

Chunks of Nine Months are long rants, the sort of thing that usually bores or annoys me, but these are so well written and so amusing that I enjoyed reading them.  Paula Bomer’s take on female artists and poets and their relationship to motherhood is priceless.  Bomer has fun with parents who obsess about preschools, who eagerly medicate their kids, who gender stereotype them (having a daughter means having a helper with the housework), or who “treat their children like a combination between a science and an art project.”  Her description of parents who need to find a “disorder” to explain unexceptional behavior -- who fail to recognize that every kid isn’t just like every other kid -- is hilarious.  Sonia’s road trip gives Bomer the opportunity to lampoon a variety of lifestyles.

Yet not all of Nine Months is devoted to rage.  Some scenes are tender.  Some are erotic.  A few -- particularly those that focus on Sonia’s reaction to her pregnancy -- are insightful.  Whether Sonia is angry, crazy, or horny, she never slacks in her devotion to comical commentary.

My reservations about the novel are few.  Some scenes are predictable, as when Sonia recalls (and bemoans) her lost youth.  On occasion, Sonia’s judgmental nature wears thin, particularly when she indulges her sense of East Coast superiority.  Given that much of Nine Months is a road novel, the sense of place is surprisingly thin -- Indiana is so much like Colorado that I wondered whether Bomer has ever visited either state.  The “you can’t go home again” vibe that appears mid-story isn’t terribly original.  The “road trip of self-discovery” theme has also been done to death, but this one has some freshness, even if Sonia doesn’t discover anything more profound than “I hate myself when I’m pregnant.”

Nine Months is probably not a book that Super Mommies will appreciate.  Nor is it the right book for readers who want characters to behave in exemplary ways.  (When, near the end, an ex-lover gives Sonia a rather cruel lecture about her willingness to inflict pain to satisfy her self-indulgent whims, I wanted to applaud.)  But Nine Months generates serious laughter, the writing is sharp, and Bomer manages to create sympathy and understanding for Sonia despite her shockingly irresponsible behavior.  That’s a pretty good trick for a debut novelist.

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