Now Reading — April 2021
In “Song of a Second April,” poet Edna St. Vincent Millay writes:
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
After the difficult year 2020 wrought, we find ourselves enduring a second April in the throes of the pandemic. Yet hope is on the horizon. Cases of the virus are beginning to decline in many areas, and vaccinations are starting to turn the tide. We have good reason to predict the best is yet to come. As always, a good book can provide a momentary escape from our complicated reality, a chance to enter another world and let imagination take the reigns. In January, reading challenges dominated literary websites. It’s not too late to take one on—the year is still young. The sheer number and variety of challenges that exist are astounding. A few examples include an epistolary book challenge, a medical examiner challenge (the main characters must all be specialists in forensic science), and even a “series ender” challenge, where readers feast on the final books of various long-running series. Check out GXO’s comprehensive list for more. Below find selections Literary Mama editors have enjoyed that might provide a good start for your path. And as this month draws to a close, remember the words of naturalist Hal Borland: “April is a promise that May is bound to keep.”
Senior Editor Christina Consolino writes: “After virtually meeting author Rachael Herron, I picked up her 2015 novel, Splinters of Light, which features three Glass women—twins Nora and Mariana, and Nora’s daughter, Ellie. Nora and Mariana have been close all their lives, but as similar as these twins are, they are also vastly different. Nora, the steadfast, organized one, moves through life with poise and succeeds even after her husband leaves her. Mariana, meanwhile, seems to stumble a bit, though at forty-something she’s finally finding her feet and her place in life. And then there’s Ellie, who at sixteen years old knows more than her mother and doesn’t need her at all. Of course, in reality, Ellie needs Nora more than she can probably articulate. The real test for this trio comes when Nora is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, thrusting all three into completely unknown territory. Can Nora depend on Mariana? What will Ellie do when Nora’s gone? How will the three of them cope with such a debilitating illness? Herron does a fantastic job of showcasing the strength and resilience of her characters in this compelling tale about single parenthood, relationships, guilt, love, grief, and acceptance. The prose is evocative, and Herron writes about the disease with authority, lending the story an authenticity that draws the reader in. This is an emotional, heartbreaking book, and I’d caution you to keep the tissues handy.”
“Reading Jasmine Mans’s poetry collection, Black Girl Call Home,” writes Reviews and Profiles Editorial Assistant Lolita Pierce, “was a sanctified and profane experience. Bearing truth as naked as diary entries, these poems are a reckoning with love, heartache and home. ‘Because even poverty knows ritual,’ the devout Sunday house cleaning, the baptismal Black girl wash day, and the rites of menarche, grief and loss are all stars in the constellation of her girlhood. Mans’s resentment of her mother, ‘for the things she has sacrificed on my behalf’ does not occlude her naive concern. Mans wonders, ‘before I took up so much space in her prayers, who did she pray for?’ This collection involves the evolution of a queer Black woman, and for any Black woman to own her body and sexuality is, still, a revolutionary act. When her mother asks if she’s ‘gonna be a dyke now,’ Mans knows the question armors fear. Her mother wants to protect her from her queerness because it is difficult enough to be a Black woman. Her mother asks, ‘who hurt you?’ But no woman is safe—not just those murdered for being transgender and those raped for owning their bodies—even her ‘Nana’s heart sits between two cancers.’ Knowing what it means to be ‘broken into,’ her poems harbor knives and tender flesh. Mans limns cultural icons through personal history; paying homage to Whitney Houston, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama while dressing down Kanye West with his own rap lyrics. In a crossword puzzle, she hides the names of missing Black girls and describes the day Sandra Bland didn’t die. Mans makes room for kisses worthy of God’s gaze and for admitting to not loving someone enough to let her go. By tracing (and even visually diagraming) the deeply personal route that led to herself, Mans has called home and conjured a poem for ‘every women [she] has ever loved.’ At the end of the collection, she leaves you with a telephone number. As a spoken word poet, Mans is best understood aloud. When you call she will not introduce herself because you have already been to her home. “
Profiles Editor Kelsey Madges asks: “How well do we really know the people in our family and what do we owe them? Which loose thread could be tugged to unravel the fabric of our family’s story? These are just a couple of the questions that confront readers in Jessica Strawster’s latest novel, A Million Reasons Why. Caroline and Sela are half sisters, but they each spent decades of their lives not knowing the other existed. When a seemingly whimsical family Christmas gift unites the two strangers by DNA, both women are forced to confront difficult truths. For Caroline, the discovery changes everything she thought she understood about her parents’ relationship and offers her something she’s never had, a sibling. For Sela, the discovery means she may get a second chance at life in the form of a compatible kidney donor, if she’s willing to ask Caroline to help her. Initially it seems that Sela is the only one with something to lose, but as the story unfolds, Caroline’s discoveries threaten her marriage and her relationship with her parents. Family relationships take center stage here, with special attention paid to Caroline and Sela as mothers. There’s a lot of drama as Strawser builds the tension against the ticking clock of Sela’s illness. Ultimately, A Million Reasons Why reaches a satisfying conclusion, taking plenty of twists and turns (including one that made me gasp out loud) along the way.”
I recently devoured Telephone by Percival Everett, the prolific author of Erasure, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, and many others. Protagonist Zach Wells is a geologist and paleobiologist undergoing an existential crisis. His marriage is lackluster and perfunctory, and he essentially phones in his work. Interoffice flirtations and indiscretions do little to assuage his ennui. Zach’s bright spot is his daughter Sarah, who, early in the story, is diagnosed with a deteriorating brain disease. While he and his wife process what this may mean for their family’s future, a shirt Zach ordered on eBay arrives with a note asking for help stashed deep in the pocket. Uncertainty about Sarah’s prognosis leads Zach to turn his feelings of distraught towards an attempt to locate and save the author of the note. As he embarks on a circuitous adventure, Zach draws metaphors to his field of expertise as he juggles his role as a father on the precipice of losing a child and his desire to make a difference in the life of an imperiled stranger. In addition to the absorbing plot, the publishing background of this novel is unique. Three incarnations of Telephone exist, each with a distinctly different ending. Described by some reviewers as a “choose-your-own-adventure story, without the choosing,” the three editions are distinguishable only by slight, almost imperceptible variations on the covers. In so doing, Everett plays with the notion of story—are stories ever really over? Who decides? Who determines the nature of the ending and which characters prevailed? When asked why he chose to pen the book—or books, as is the case—in this unprecedented way, Everett responded, “I’m interested not in the authority of the artist, but the authority of the reader.”