Recent Reviews
Cost by Roxana Robinson
I recently reread Roxana Robinson’s 2008 novel Cost. If you haven’t read this book, you are in for a treat. Not because the story is happy—it is not—but because Robinson is a gifted connoisseur of deconstructing family dynamics. Her elegant prose penetrates the emotional interiority of her characters with precision and empathy.
On one level, the story is about a 22-year-old man named Jack Lambert, who is a heroin addict. On another level, the story is about how a destructive family dynamic is passed from generation to generation, resulting in one family member unconsciously being assigned to carry the burden of the damage.
Jack’s parents, Julia and Wendell, are divorced. When Jack’s older brother Steven tells his parents that Jack’s drug use has become dangerous, they each choose denial, but soon an intervention is arranged. Jack’s parents, brother, grandparents, and aunt gather at Julia’s summer home in Maine. When the addiction counselor asks them to write about what they love about Jack, they all bristle. “Love is not a word their family used.” Though the family members have pleasant public personas, their past anger, hurt and distrust lurks when they are together.
Robinson writes about Jack’s heroin addiction with intimacy and captures the obsessive thoughts of an addict looking for his next fix. She also depicts the emotional cost to Jack’s family as his stealing and lying intrude on their lives. Their feelings alternate between grief and guilt to fury and rage. This theme propels much of the plot.
(Spoiler Alert) However, the more compelling theme is the family dynamic that has pathologized Jack since childhood. “He was always a wild center of the storm.” Jack carried the burden of his parents’ and even his grandparents’ choices. The ambiguity of Jack’s paternity was never discussed. It was unconsciously known. Jack’s father Wendell says at the intervention, “I think I was too hard on Jack.” And then later, “It’s like hearing that he is Chinese or that he’s not my son.” Wendell knows and doesn’t know, and Julia is not sure.
This powerful novel about the scourge of heroin addiction and the scourge of toxic family dynamics long ignored is heartbreaking. Robinson’s ability to illuminate each family member’s past and present interiority is extraordinary. Jack pays a painful price for his addiction as does his family. Eventually, there can be a cost of not dealing with the past. 5/5
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ozawa
The Housekeeper and the Professor is a touching and original novel by Yoko Ogawa that embodies the quiet sway of love.
The novel’s premise is unique. A brilliant math professor suffers a traumatic brain injury which has damaged his short-term memory. He can only remember 80 minutes at a time. The Professor’s sister-in-law hires a housekeeper with problems of her own. Luckily, the Professor is fond of the Housekeeper’s ten-year-old son, whom he named Root (as in square Root.) And every 80 minutes, he needs to be reintroduced to them. After school each day, Root walks to the Professor’s house, and the Professor helps Root with his math problems. They also discussed Japanese baseball as long as the players and the games occurred before the accident.
Each day, the Professor works diligently on mathematical formulas despite the limitations of his short-term memory. He puts sticky notes on his clothes to remind himself of mundane tasks or recent progress in solving an equation. The Professor sees the world in patterns and numbers. When he realizes that the sum of his Housekeeper’s birthday (220) factors and those on the back of his prized watch (284) are ‘amicable numbers,’ he ascribes deep meaning and connection. And though the Housekeeper didn’t finish her schooling, her intellectual and emotional curiosity is evident as she cares for the Professor and his unique situation.
Over time, the emotional capacity of each member of this triangle expands exponentially. This beautiful story reveals quiet characters who offer love, acceptance and compassion to one another. 4/5
Zorrie by Laird Hunt
A finalist for the 2021 National Book Award, Laird Hunt’s quiet novel Zorrie penetrates the resilient soul of a woman living on the Indiana plains. Hunt’s inspired description of Zorrie Underwood’s interior is incisive. The story begins in the Depression and spans much of the 20th century. Echoing the sparse prose of Kent Haruf or Elizabeth Strout, this novel is about emotional resilience, an appreciation of simpler times, and a reminder to savor life’s small gifts.
Zorrie Underwood was orphaned when her parents died of diphtheria. She was sent to live with a cold and distant Aunt, who died of a stroke when she was 21. The year is 1930. With no family, Zorrie is left to fend for herself. After living in barns and taking odd jobs in Illinois, including a stint in a radium plant, the Indiana land calls her home.
When Zorrie finds a community in Hillisburg, Indiana, her life improves. She falls in love and she and her husband farm the fertile Indiana soil like the neighbors surrounding her. Though loneliness and sadness stalk her life, she is embraced by a community that looks out for one another.
Zorrie and the other characters take time to think before uttering their thoughts. They spend time ruminating. They find solace in pondering their encounters or remembering loved ones who have passed. A restraint permeates this Indiana farm culture, which is such a contrast to our current times when people impulsively post anything and everything they think on social media.
Laird Hunt’s beautiful novel is about one woman’s perseverance and resilience despite her losses. It is also an homage to a simpler time when community socials, the beauty of the landscape, singing and cooking provided solace and meaning. This story is a reminder to slow down, embrace human connection and appreciate the small joys of being alive. 4/5
