Getting your Downton Abbey fix in print: The Paying Guests

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

Fast Facts

• Set in 1920's London, featuring a "spinster" in her mid-twenties and her mother, forced to rent out rooms in their aristocratic home due to financial hardship
• Gets off to a slow start, followed by an addictive and unexpected middle section full of twists and turns, and a somewhat plodding, but satisfying, ending
• 576 pages
• Featured on Best of 2014 book lists by the New York Times and NPR
• Historical fiction so convincing in tone and detail that it's hard to believe it was only published last fall

My second Sarah Waters novel

I didn't remember having read anything by Sarah Waters before when I saw The Paying Guests on top 2014 book lists and added it to my Kindle shelf.  It wasn't until the protagonist, Frances, reveals her sexual past and embarks on a steamy lesbian love affair that I remembered reading Fingersmith, another popular Waters novel, with my book club a few years ago.  (Mainstream literature clearly needs more lesbian protagonists).

I didn't remember too many details of the Fingersmith plot, other than that it was historical fiction and also featured a lot of sex - but I do remember starting off thinking that I wasn't sure I liked it, and then being completely unable to put it down.  The Paying Guests sneaks up on you in much the same way.

Premise and build-up

The beginning of The Paying Guests sets up the sad fortunes of Frances and her mother, who, having lost Frances' brothers in the war and Frances' father shortly thereafter, must endure the shame of opening their home - to strangers! - of the lowly clerk working class! - for money!  There are many details involving Frances' efforts to keep up appearances in the home, cook very British-sounding meals for her mother, and adjust to the young couple, Leonard and Lillian Barber, who move in upstairs.

This starts to feel tiresome, and I nearly gave up (the way I've done with Downton Abbey, given long breaks between seasons and not having my mom nearby to binge it with.)  But a little perseverance paid off with an immensely enjoyable read, with pacing that broke into a trot and then a sprint, seemingly out of nowhere.

The Payoff

One minute you're reading about the many ways Frances cleans the floorboards, and then - with masterful build - you learn about all of the tension and drama bubbling under the dull, genteel surface.  

Secret affairs, forbidden sex, lies and intrigue, crimes of passion, mystery and mayhem - suddenly, this book has it all.

There are enough unexpected (at least, to me) turns that it would be wrong for me to provide any more detail.  But I can say that this novel is a great deal steamier and suspenseful than Downton, and draws you in completely.

Recommendation - read it!

I will admit, there were a couple of flourishes toward the end that I didn't love, including a man in a mackintosh so overused in literature that my eyes nearly rolled out of my head, and trial scenes that felt interminable.

But otherwise, The Paying Guests is massively entertaining and a nearly perfect period drama.  Waters has done a truly impressive job on the research and delivery - Frances' world felt intensely present and real, reflecting the social upheaval caused by the end of the war, and illuminating Frances' views of her own feminism and sexuality in the context of a culture unwilling to accept either.  

Though a bit on the long side, I would absolutely recommend The Paying Guests, particularly while you're trapped inside by this snowy weather.  Just set yourself up by a roaring fireplace with a cup of tea, and imagine all the characters with the faces of Ladies Violet, Mary, and Edith (the men are all just bit players, anyhow).

Companion to Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty": Autobiography of a Face

Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy

Fast Facts

• Autobiography of a Face is a memoir recounting Grealy's cancer diagnosis at age nine, the seemingly endless treatments and surgeries that followed, and Grealy's introspection and growth as she ultimately comes to terms with her appearance and her own definition of beauty
• The author, featured here:

• 260 pages, painfully sad but beautifully written - Grealy's background as a poet shines through
• Grealy's friendship with author Ann Patchett was the subject of Patchett's own memoir, Truth and Beauty
• A show case for Grealy's immense talent, highlighting our immense literary loss

Wanting to be Ann Patchett's best friend

Ann Patchett is one of my favorite writers, but I had never read her non-fiction until a year ago, when I stumbled upon someone's battered copy of Truth and Beauty in my apartment building's communal laundry room.  (Moving into an apartment building with my own washer/dryer has its benefits, but I have to say, I miss using laundry as an excuse to raid the lending library!)

I read Truth and Beauty over Christmas 2013,  in a Vermont hotel that pre-dates American independence (featuring the most comfortable beds known to man).  The snow was falling, my husband was snoring, and I read until my eyes were red and bleary, crying over Ann and Lucy.  

Does platonic friendship that intuitive, deep, and all-encompassing, really exist?  Why don't Ann Patchett and I have that same relationship, when I know in my heart of hearts that we should?  Is it wrong to feel jealous when the ending is such a tragic, heart-wrenching waste?  Just look at the two of them, rubbing it in all our faces.

Patchett's title is lifted from one of the chapters of Autobiography of a Face, and Truth and Beauty describes the publication of Grealy's memoir, the whirlwind press and Lucy's Today show appearance and celebrity dates that followed.  I put it on my "to read" list definitively with a recommendation from my best friend Ali (my memoir/non-fiction connoisseur,) and I finally bought it over Christmas 2014.

Summary of an Autobiography

Lucy Grealy is nine years old when she is hit in the face during dodgeball, and experiences such disproportionate pain in her jaw that she begins a series of doctor's visits that culminate in a diagnosis of Ewing's sarcoma.  It isn't until years later that she learns that this ailment was a rare form of bone cancer.

"I had cancer?" she asks her family, as someone in the kitchen dated an event as something that had happened "before Lucy had cancer."  "Of course you did, fool, what did you think you had?"  "I thought I had a Ewing's sarcoma."  "And what on earth do you think that is?"

A great deal of the book is devoted to Grealy's surgeries, some to remove the cancer and seemingly many more to reconstruct Grealy's jaw.  The aftermath of Grealy's illness is just as poignant as the frightening first chapters.  She grapples with personal loss and finding identity, as teenagers do, with the added burden that she barely recognizes the disfigured face in the mirror as her own.

Halloween becomes her favorite holiday, and a recurring theme of the book: she only truly feels free from the oppression of judgment behind a costume mask.  Her relationship to pain is complex, but no less complex than her relationship to body image and her struggles with leering classmates in the cruel jungle of middle and high school.

Gladly, the memoir ends on a positive note.  It feels as though Grealy's ability to find and create beauty in literature, poetry, college and graduate school friendships, and her hope that the next surgery will yield the appearance she wants, seem to leave her with some measure of personal peace.

Final Thoughts

The traumas in this memoir are hard to wrap one's head around, but Grealy's prose manages to still feel beautiful and even, incredibly at times, light.

Grealy crystallizes her experience so perfectly through her own child eyes that even though each paragraph is heartbreaking, there is also a sense that each hospital visit and each horrific round of chemotherapy is just her reality.  She is a young girl, and this trouble-maker roaming of hospital wings and going through surgery after surgery is simply what her childhood is - she knows no different.

Knowing from Truth and Beauty that Grealy later fell into surgery addiction and ultimately, heroin addiction, somewhat hampered my reading of Autobiography.  Still, I loved Grealy's insights as she grows up, gains self-awareness, and reflects on truth and beauty in light of her uniquely challenging experiences.

Making anthropology sexy: Euphoria

Euphoria, Lily King

  

Fast Facts

• Based loosely on a steamy summer in the life of Margaret Mead, an anthropologist researching and living amongst river tribes in New Guinea
• Presents a love triangle heavily stacked against the heroine's husband
• Listed on the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2014
• A sexy love story mixed with mystery and exoticism
• At 256 pages, certainly worth the read

Background

When you meet successful American anthropologist and author Nell, without a doubt the idealized heroine of the book, she is on a canoe with her Australian anthropologist husband Fen in New Guinea.  She and Fen are traveling along the Sepik River in search of their next study project, having fled the Mumbanyo, a river tribe characterized as cruel and cannibalistic.

Shifting in perspective, time, and narrative format, the story follows Nell as she and Fen begin studying the Tam, an isolated tribe notable for the social dominance of its women, and the absence of the village hero, the beloved Xambun.

And in a nutshell - love, lust, upheaval and disaster ensue.

Euphoric?  I'll say...

From the start, something about Nell and Fen's relationship feels off - a charged tension related to Nell's greater professional accomplishments, their struggle to have a child, and an air of mystery surrounding Fen.  

Of course, these marital tensions are amplified by the backdrop of heated jungle and tribal customs and the arrival of a famed British anthropologist named Andrew Bankson, who in the throes of depression becomes quickly obsessed with Nell and entangled in their marriage and work.

The scene is set for impossible love and a forbidden affair and unrequited passions and the threat of violence, all as these social scientists embark on morally questionable research in the summer of 1933, with World War II lurking just over the horizon.  

King immediately throws you into a thrilling set-up, and a finely crafted delivery.  You barely realize that you're holding your breath as you turn the pages.

Bottom Line

There is a remarkable amount of heft in this relatively short story, and I've found myself thinking about it since I've finished, particularly the disturbing, page-turning conclusion.  How much is accurately based on Mead's life?  How much is accurately based on the tribes in New Guinea?

Lingering thoughts and questions are a sign of a good read, even if Bankson's narration and whininess grated on my nerves at times.  Euphoria deserved the NYT Book Review commendation, and I'll definitely keep an eye on what other work King has in store.

Like your Twitter feed, but more poignant: Dept. of Speculation

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

Fast Facts

• Jenny Offill's second book seems to have found its way onto all of the "10 Best Books of 2014" lists: here, and here, and here 
• (Incidentally - I get so excited for these lists, so happy that so many great things have been written, so eager to read everything on all of them, and then so sad because, of course, I can't - they make me feel all of the emotions.)
• At 192 pages (with a lot of weird spacing), you can get through it in just a couple sittings
• Very Brooklyn, featuring: 
• artsy hipsters who don't make that much art
• idealization of a ramshackle house in rural Pennsylvania
• married people
• all-consuming babies, and 
• bedbugs
• Written in short, disjointed paragraphs and fragments, it's a perfect book for the distracted social media age
• Extremely intimate, emotionally fraught - a pleasing read (but not my very favorite)

Basic Premise

Offill's unnamed narrator is a woman reflecting on her life at various points, told through postmodern, disjointed flashes of memory, favorite quotes, and shifts in point of view.  

All boiled down, the story flows simply enough: girl has love affairs, girl gets married, girl faces tragedy, girl battles depression, girl raises daughter, girl reflects on dreams averred, girl experiences infidelity, girl repairs marriage.

This premise (and all those top ten lists) might have been enough to pull me in, but what makes this book really interesting and different, and frankly, addictive, is the length and style.  These particular choices are what must have made the book so fresh, memorable and irresistible to the critics.

Keeping my attention: who needs to check Facebook when your book feels like the newsfeed?

Offill has lured the masses in with a style that is perfect for today's distracted reader.  For good measure, she throws philosophic quotes alongside all the memes, and satisfies the intellectual crowd.  

It's hard to think of Offill's work in terms of paragraphs, though they are mostly short paragraphs, or even in terms of short chapters, though there are nearly fifty of those.  

Mostly, this book feels like it's made up of unfocused word bursts, like being in someone's internet-addled brain during a therapy session. 

It's a good thing that following her stream of consciousness is part of the challenge and fun.  It's clear that most of the author's effort has gone into the presentation of the story and the reader's understanding of the narrator's experiences.  You have to just go with it - that's what makes otherwise bleak subject matter much more enjoyable.

Bottom Line

The format of Offill's narrative choices are what drive the story forward, with little enigmatic breadcrumbs scattered throughout to make you keep pressing on: who is "the philosopher" - will they ever get together?  Why the foreboding and sense of doom?  Will her baby ever stop crying?  How will they get rid of those gross bedbugs?  When the narrator starts to use the third person point of view to separate herself from pain, will "the wife" and "the husband" make it last?

I don't think I would have liked Offill's novella as much if she had just told the story "straight", without the complex novelty of her chosen form.  But all things considered, this is a beautiful book - I would definitely recommend it, even if I don't think it's necessarily worthy of all this "top ten" love.

Fascinating and sobering: Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande

Fast Facts

• Atul Gawande is a practicing surgeon, a professor at Harvard, a staff writer at the New Yorker, and in my opinion, a total rock star
• This book, his fourth New York Times bestseller, was just selected as one of NYT's 100 Notable Books of the Year (review here)
• Being Mortal runs 300 pages, or 9 hours of audiobook time
• Perfectly balanced mix of anecdotes and education on cultural approaches to caring for the elderly and dying over time
• Deeply moving and sad, but a great choice for a fiction lover looking for a foray into non-fiction
• Required reading for anyone who faces big end-of-life choices; or, everyone

Why Did I Pick this Up?

Typically, I steer clear of non-fiction in book form.  Other than trying to make it through the New Yorker every week, and clicking around newspaper sites as a respite/distraction from work, I rarely read non-fiction because fiction is typically so much more fun, enjoyable, and relaxing for me.  It's hard to view non-fiction as attractively escapist.

But lately, and the farther I get from those sweet years of formal education, I've been getting worried that my brain might turn to mush.  That's extreme, but work doesn't always give you the learning opportunities you were inundated with in school.  

So, I decided to dip my toes into the non-fiction pool, starting with an author whose long-form journalism I'd read before and loved.  Definitely check out:

• Gawande's brilliant and creative comparison of Big Medicine to the Cheesecake Factory, which is amazing
• Gawande's look at an incredible non-profit in Camden, New Jersey, which is trying to lower emergency room medical costs for low-income patients by targeting preventative care
• By the way - this article helped my incredibly inspiring friend/superhero Megan with her first job on the road to running the public hospital corporation in NYC - how cool is that?!
• For other recommendations, check out my friend Matt's blog.  He completed (almost!) a 100-books-in-a-year challenge - all non-fiction.  Maybe I'll follow in his awesome footsteps in 2015...

Summary, and Why You Should Read It

Many people who are brilliant in the sciences struggle to communicate their ideas effectively.  Gawande opens the book with this critique of doctors: just because they've made their way through tough medical schools and residencies does not mean that they are talented caretakers.  In fact, they may be ill-equipped address some of the most difficult choices that patients and their families must make.

It's a good thing this is clearly not Gawande's problem - I can't think of many writers who are more clear, compassionate, and fascinating.

He tackles the task of educating his audience on end-of-life care, both for the elderly, as well as for young people afflicted with terrible illness (a timely topic with the tragic activism of Brittany Maynard in the news).  Technological progress in medicine, and its associated high costs and social constructs, presents us with challenges that need to be considered, however sobering they may be.

Many of Gawande's topics were eye-opening for me.  As a child, I visited a grandparent suffering from dementia in a nursing home, but this book has made me consider the adult choices that must be made when considering care in Assisted Living or in nursing homes, and the history of how these methods of care evolved in America.

By way of illustration, Gawande describes how his grandfather in India experienced the end of his life, cared for by many family members at home and able to maintain his relative independence until age ~100.  This is contrasted with the story of Gawande's wife's grandmother, who lived in America: a fiercely independent woman who, after a series of falls, a car accident, and extortion by a home contractor, was put in a home that slowly sapped her will to live.

These are only two of the narratives that Gawande weaves throughout his explanation of how end-of-life care is administered.  The result is a well-paced, interesting, and personal account that manages to be informative, easy to understand, and difficult to put down.

Recommended as an Audiobook

I "read" Being Mortal as an audiobook (my first), while cruising in Maggie the Mazda around New Jersey, and commuting into the city.  I'd recommend this approach for someone like me, who usually reads fiction but likes public radio and podcasts.  What better way to start forcing longer non-fiction down my throat?  The only downside is that you might find yourself heave-crying on Sixth Avenue (to be fair, this only happened once).

To Lena Dunham, I say: I want to be JUST that kind of girl (well, almost)

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned", Lena Dunham

Fast Facts

• Dunham was reportedly paid $3.5 million to write this collection of personal essays
• At 288 pages, that's more than $12,000 a page (!!!)
• At the ripe old age of 28, Dunham has been nominated for 8 Emmy awards and won two Golden Globes
• She was the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America award for directorial achievement in comedy
• Jemima Kirke, who plays the rebellious best friend to Dunham's character in HBO's Girls, is one of Dunham's best friends - they met at St. Ann's School in Brooklyn
• And she's dating (and surely marrying, and having babies with) Jack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of the band Fun!

Background

Lena Dunham is relatively new to me, but I feel - as many people of my generation, and anyone who watches or reads her work, must - that I know her intimately.  I have spent the last several weeks binge-watching all three seasons of Girls, listening to Dunham's interview with Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, reading an essay from this book that was previewed in The New Yorker, and now, gobbling up Not That Kind of Girl on my commute.  (And, it's not enough.  I will probably buy and watch Tiny Furniture tonight, and then go cry that she hasn't created more.)

The book of essays and lists is separated into five sections: Love and Sex; Body; Friendship; Work; and Big Picture.

Despite some of the heavy subject matter, the book feels generally bright, well-paced, and easy to consume in large quantities that don't feel large at the time (much the way I enjoyed Girls).  Dunham is a very talented writer, and I am still most impressed by her New Yorker chapter "Therapy and Me", which struck me as impressive on its own.

The chapters, some admittedly more entertaining than others, but with an easy flow, are varied in format.  Some are lists, some are essays, some are dated letters written to ex-boyfriends and amusingly over-footnoted by Present Lena.

Reasons why I wish I could be Lena Dunham

To be a little more like Lena Dunham, I could write this section in quippy list form.  But really, the first place I need to turn to spark the deepest I'm-jealous-but-happy-for-her-and-society feelings is the Acknowledgments section.

Who does she acknowledge?  "David, Esther, and the whole Remnick/Fein clan" - whom she thanks for friendship, wisdom, and matzo brie.  Yes, Lena Dunham is on familiar enough terms with the editor of the New Yorker and his family that she not only writes frequently for the magazine, but she also eats meant-only-for-Passover treats with them.

Who else?  Mike Birbiglia.  Judd Apatow.  B.J. Novak AND Mindy Kaling (naturally).  David Sedaris.  Zadie Smith.  And of course, the book is dedicated to her friend and mentor, Nora Ephron.

(She's also BFFs with Taylor Swift.  See: recent interview with TaySwift in People.  Haters gonna hate, but even haters must turn a little green with envy at this revelation.)

How has this woman been alive almost as long as I have (I've only got 7 additional months of breathing-in-and-out experience on her,) and is so @#$(*&! accomplished that I can barely fathom it, and pens an acknowledgments section of a $3.5 million book filled with people that I love so much that, if I could only meet them and exchange just 7-10 words, I could die happy?  I'm inspired.  Inspired to wish I could be Lena Dunham.

But...

Reasons why I don't wish I could be Lena Dunham

There is a contingent out there on the interwebs that hates on Lena Dunham for exhibiting a "poor little rich girl" complex.  With this book, maybe Dunham was engaging in the over-sharing she is famous for, as would be natural in a memoir.  Maybe she was also trying to show her critics that her life hasn't been as easy as their simplistic Money = Happiness equation would allow.

Regardless, she does not paint herself in the most flattering light (and I'm not just talking about all of the Girls nudity.)  Her sexual escapades are far from romanticized.  Her struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and body image issues and therapy and dissociation are laid bare (pun sort-of intended). 

In a particularly difficult-to-read section, she details the rape perpetrated on her in college by the campus Republican (given Oberlin's leanings, his identity was probably pinned down 4 seconds after the book came out).  Dunham is brutally honest with herself and others, even as she sprinkles humor and wit throughout the telling of her most difficult moments.

Recounting such personal moments strikes me as a very brave act, but these moments also give me (very few) reasons that I don't wish I was her.

Bottom Line

This collection is engaging throughout, and remains true to Dunham's television style, which I also really enjoy.  Jealousy aside, it wasn't my favorite book in the world, but I would certainly recommend it to friends looking for an entertaining read.

Most of all, it seems striking that someone so relatively young could have experienced enough to write a memoir that feels comprehensive and full.  I'm looking forward to her follow-up advice in twenty years or so.  I also look forward to aging with Lena Dunham, and relating to much, but not all, of what she has to over-share.

Yom Kippur post: The Marrying of Chani Kaufman

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, Eve Harris

Fast Facts

• A recommendation from my extraordinary friend Masha
• Long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize
• Written by half-Israeli, secular Jew who taught briefly at a religious school
• 384 pages
• Exploration of life in a London Orthodox community, from the perspective of its teenage newly weds and their clergy's wife
• Enjoyable and quick read, but not a favorite
  

Unlikely Choice


It is unlikely that I would ever have picked up this book, had it not been so highly recommended by my friend Masha, who is a human marvel.  I have some religious family and friends, but I would not personally choose (and it is hard for me to even imagine) immersion in an Orthodox belief system, community, or lifestyle.  But a window in to this environment piqued my interest, and the timing was perfect - I had a trip coming up with lots of plane time, and needed a new book.


What to Expect


The story opens with Chani Kaufman, a nineteen-year-old Orthodox girl, on her wedding day - wearing the same sweaty dress that her sisters and generations of women in her family before her have worn.  Harris spends a good amount of time describing body odors in the opening passages, and Chani contemplates (read: obsesses) about what her wedding night will be like.


The novel jumps around chronologically, detailing the weeks leading up to Chani's wedding - including 3 dates and a memorably awkward phone conversation - with her soon-to-be-betrothed, twenty-year-old Baruch.  The perspective shifts between Chani, Baruch, and Chani's mentor, a rabbi's wife or rebbetzin named Rivka, and Rivka's son Avromi, whose eye predictably wanders when he attends a secular university.


In the Chani/Baruch story line, Chani and Baruch fixate on sex; on what it means to marry someone with whom you've spent approximately an hour; and then on sex, some more.  There is some romance and even a bit of suspense in the telling of their fledgling relationship, but preoccupation with deflowering is really the focus.


Rivka's story is a little more complex.  Some 30 years before she was tasked with taking Chani to the mikvah spiritual baths and explaining basic reproduction, Rivka was a student in Jerusalem who fell in love with a student named Chaim, and together, they became religious.  Her reproductive difficulties in the present, and her struggling and evolving relationships with both her husband and her faith, are the most poignant parts of the book.


Culture Questions You Can't Get an Answer to on Airplane Mode


From the very start of the book, I wanted to know: is this author a member of an Orthodox community?  Perhaps that is a testament to Harris' level of research, or to my inability to catch her in an error due to my own lack of knowledge.  I couldn't find out for sure until I finished the book, because I started and finished it on a plane.


Now that I know that Harris is not and has never been religious, I find myself wanting to critique the novel even more.  Each character struggles with the Hasidic community that they have been born into or have chosen in different ways, and it seems too easy or simplistic to see Hasidic life as confining and full of struggle, if you're an outsider looking in.  I don't know if my devil's advocate view is somehow tinged with Jewish guilt for not being more observant, but I do wonder - how would I feel reading this if I were Orthodox? 


Would I be frustrated or upset that the novel depicts religious teenagers as far more preoccupied with sex than questions of faith?  That the strongest female voice in the novel, a rabbi's wife who became more observant after falling in love, has grown to resent and seek escape from her community?  That a prominent dramatic point in the novel focuses on the nasty antics of Baruch's mother, who threatens Chani against marrying Baruch because her family isn't wealthy enough?
Particularly pointed (and I'd imagine, offensive) is the critique of Chani's own very fertile mother, who seems to Chani "a stranger, an exhausted mountain of dilapidated flesh, endlessly suckling, soothing, patting or feeding"... "her mother had become a machine whose parts were grinding and worn".  Maybe that's an author grasping for descriptors, but that's a little cruel for my taste.


Worth Reading?


This is a well-paced and enjoyable read, and a fascinating one for anyone curious about particular rituals or cultural elements related to Orthodox Judaism.  Harris provides an interesting narrative, with just enough drama and romance to keep you baited, and a sweet ending.  With some of my misgivings and questions aside, I'd recommend this novel for a quick read - though I wasn't completely in love.