For starved Serial Season 2 fans: The Yellow Birds

The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers

Fast Facts

• If Kevin Powers had written a book about his favorite breakfast cereal, I would buy it
• Powers served in Iraq and spent four years writing this incredible, poetic novel about Private John Bartle, a twenty-one-year-old soldier's experience in Iraq and the aftermath stemming from his complex relationship with fellow Private Daniel Murphy and Sergeant Sterling
• 241 pages
• National Book Award Finalist
• Winner of the Guardian First Book Award
• Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction
• Michiko Kakutani called it one of her top ten books of 2012
• I am still picking my jaw up off the floor after finishing this masterpiece - not light reading, not for the faint of heart, but breathtaking and worth every minute

Serial Has Gone Bi-Weekly - Read This While You Wait

This season's Serial podcast on runaway soldier and Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl is engrossing and requires every ounce of a listener's attention - otherwise, prepare to be utterly lost and have to rewind.  With a little more intellectual and emotional energy, I would re-listen to all of the episodes uploaded so far.

While Sarah, Julie and co. are busy flexing their journalistic muscles, use your (long) time between episodes to get a flavor from Powers of what it is like to be a soldier in a Middle Eastern battlefield.

The story flows backwards and forwards in time, beginning in fall of 2004 in Al Tafar, Nineveh Province, Iraq (perhaps a stand-in for Tal Afar, a stronghold currently held by ISIS); flashing back to training in Fort Dix, New Jersey; jumping forward to an air base and nearby town in Germany and then to Bartle's home in Richmond, Virginia after his tour of duty; and finally finding Bartle, all grown up and reflective, in 2009 Kentucky.

There is a deep and ominous connection foreshadowed between Bartle, Murph (the fellow soldier and friend that Bartle has promised to protect,) and their Sergeant Sterling.  "What happened over there?" Bartle's mother asks pointedly when Bartle returns, and her voice echoes the reader's on this major source of suspense pushing the story forward.  (I'm wondering the same thing about Bowe.)

Staggering Subject Matter, Gorgeous Writing

This is some of the most magnificent writing I have ever read.  I haven't spent much time reading poetry since 10th grade English class (too much work, too boring, no clear answers, not enough story - lots of excuses).  I didn't fully realize how poetic narrative fiction could be until I began reading Powers.  This is how he starts:

The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. It made love and gave birth and spread through fire. 

Every paragraph of this novel was filled with Powers' masterful command of language and often beautiful imagery, despite (and often enhancing) the stark subject matter.  I am not typically drawn to books or films about war, finding it difficult to relate to experiences so uniquely traumatic and geographically distant.  This book, however, is worth the special effort and discomfort.

Another poignant example describes the futility Bartle feels before a battle in an orchard:

We'd go back into a city that had fought this battle yearly; a slow, bloody parade in fall to mark the change of season.  We'd drive them out.  We always had.  We'd kill them.  They'd shoot us and blow off our limbs and run into the hills and wadis, back into the alleys and dusty villages.  Then they'd come back, and we'd start over by waving to them as they leaned against lampposts and unfurled green awnings while drinking tea in front of their shops.  While we patrolled the streets, we'd throw candy to their children with whom we'd fight in the fall a few more years from now.

There are too many other examples to share and spoilers to be avoided, but suffice it to say that I am in awe of Powers' hard work and talent.

Stay Tuned for the Movie

When I started reading articles after finishing the book, I learned that Jennifer Aniston will play a supporting role in the movie version of The Yellow Birds coming out this year.  I felt some snobby disappointment for about 30 seconds, but overall, I'm glad that this will bring more attention to an excellent novel.  (How I wish Justin Theroux played a soldier or something - anything!)

The role of John Bartle is an incredible one, as his mental anguish is painted in such detail throughout the book.  I'm interested to see whether Murph and Sterling, characters that felt a bit like cardboard symbol markers by comparison in the book, are fleshed out more on-screen.

While I wait for the big screen version, I'm going to pray that Powers writes another novel immediately, shamelessly push The Yellow Birds on everyone I know, and refresh my Serial feed in vain.

Spend time with a wonderful, dysfunctional family that isn't yours: A Spool of Blue Thread

A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler

Fast Facts

• An immediately engrossing, wonderful portrait of the Whitshank family and their patriarch's dream home in a suburb of Baltimore
• This is Anne Tyler's 20th novel, but the first I've read, and surely not the last
• A perfect book to read after you've recovered from family time over the holidays
• 370 pages
• Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker
• Sweet and highly recommended - you'll recognize some of your own family members in the Whitshanks, and feel as close to the characters as though you were a member of their salt-of-the-earth clan

Family Stories that Become Folklore

Tyler's lovely book is solidly founded on family folklore - the anecdotes you tell and re-tell one another at every Thanksgiving, and the examples you use to define and explain your family members to an interested friend or acquaintance.  The one about the sibling who ate all the Christmas cookies and hid the crumbs under his pillow, the one about the drunken uncle's hilarious wedding speech, etc.

The novel opens with ageing married couple Red and Abby Whitshank, lying in bed waiting for their estranged son Denny to call them back after he has called to say that he's gay and then immediately hung up, never to mention the topic again.

This is the first of many Whitshank anecdotes that feel familiar and real without being stereotypical.  Within paragraphs, you are enveloped in the comforting habits and quirks of Red and Abby's decades-long marriage, and you've begun to understand Denny's moody tendency to bolt at the first sign of conflict.

The House that Junior Built

The book revolves around the home Junior, Red's father, built for another family but eventually moved into himself.  The house becomes a character in its own right, its merits and flaws both a setting and a metaphor for the little family dramas it hosts.

Each question posed by the family home opens the door to a story that is ordinary in its subject matter and extraordinary in its compassionate, lovely, raw telling.  How did Red's parents end up in the home that raised four generations?  How do adult siblings deal with one another and with parents growing older, with bodies and minds beginning to fray?  What was on Abby's mind the day she and Red fell in love?  What is it like to be on the Whitshanks' annual beach vacation?  What does it mean to join and truly be part of a family?

Tyler has built her novel with as much care as Junior built the Whitshank home.  Every time a story had reached the end of its narrative (blue) thread, the scope or generation of focus would seamlessly shift, and Tyler would fill in a detail previously only hinted at that would feel crucial and satisfying.

I enjoyed every moment I spent with the Whitshanks - if you're looking for something to fill the hole in your time and heart after the Neapolitan novels, this is the book to start with.