Recent Reviews
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of Sand and Fog is probably best read in December when the darkness of the month matches the darkness of this gripping story. This novel by Andre Dubus III was a National Book Award finalist in 1999. Dubus captures the characteristics, values, and motivations of each of his three protagonists. He provides compelling back-stories and psychological nuance for each of these characters. I felt frustration and anger as well as understanding and empathy as each character made choices that I knew were not going to end well. As my grandmother used to say, “We are all prisoners of our personalities.”
Dubus’ book also illuminates the ongoing culture clashes between immigrants and those who (erroneously) perceive themselves as indigenous Americans. Massoud Behrani is a former colonel in the Iranian Imperial Air Force and was forced to leave Iran after the overthrow of the Shah. Once in California, he drives a fancy car and dresses in a suit when he leaves for work. But then he parks the car and changes his clothes to collect garbage by day and clerk at a convenience store by night. He must maintain the impression that he is still affluent to his fellow Iranian exiles. When he sees an ad for "Seized Property for Sale," he purchases a three-bedroom ranch house with his meager remaining funds. Filled with hope, he and his wife and teenage son move into the home. Behrani intends to improve the house and resell it for a profit. The house symbolizes the beginning of his new successful life in America.
Unfortunately, the house was improperly sold due to a bureaucratic error by the county. The rightful owner of the house is a troubled young woman named Kathy Nichols who works hard at being a waitresses and keeping away from drugs. For her, too, this little bungalow, with a distant view of the Pacific Ocean, represents stability. When Kathy Nichols drives to the house to confront Colonel Behrani, Sheriff Lester Burdon is called to the scene. Before long, Sherrif Burdon falls in love with Kathy and becomes obsessed with helping her to get her house back. (A little cliché, but it works.)
When the county offers to return the Colonel’s money, he refuses. He is a man who is accustomed to getting what he wants and he wants the house. As the days and weeks pass by, Kathy and Behrani think of little else. Neither will give in. Their thoughts and behaviors become focused and narrow. It is as if they are in a tunnel from which they cannot escape. Kathy and Behrani both perceive that ownership of this house will provide solidity and stability to their lives. Their rigidity prohibits them from understanding each other’s perspective. There is tenderness when Kathy Nichols and Mrs. Behrani interact, which made me feel hopeful that the conflict could be resolved. But, not surprisingly, the terms of engagement seem dictated by the men and my hope soon faded. The Colonel’s obstinacy sets the tone and is a catalyst for the tragic chaos that ensues. Like characters in a Shakespeare play, Dubus’ three characters pass a point of no return where they abandon rational thought and make choices that lead to dire consequences. As Colonel Behrani says, “For our excess we lost everything.”
The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church
Though not as groundbreaking as Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own, or The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Church’s debut historical novel The Atomic Weight of Love, published in 2016, beautifully captures the life of a woman seeking autonomy and agency over her personal and professional choices while living in the southwest in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Meridian Wallace is a precocious only child whose curiosity about the natural world consumes her. Her parents indulge and engage with her as if she is an adult, ableit a small one. When Meridian's father dies of a heart attack at age 43, Meridian and her mother stagnate emotionally. But Meri perseveres and pursues a degree in physics at the University of Chicago with the hopes of becoming an ornithologist. The complex communication patterns of crows captivate her. Without really understanding all of her motivations, she marries her physics professor Alden Whetstone - a man that age of her father at his death - and moves to Los Alamos, New Mexico where her new husband is working on the government’s top-secret Manhattan Project.
Though Alden Whetstone is a kind and caring person, he directs and dominates the activities of his wife. When they first meet, he seems attracted to Meri’s brain. But by the time Meri moves with him to New Mexico, he has forgotten Meri’s impressive intellectual capabilities and is surprised that she is not finding fulfillment in cooking and sewing. Other academic wives with advanced degrees adapt to their limited roles, but Meri struggles to find any fulfillment in the suffocating social norms of this scientific community. When Meri defers an opportunity to pursue her Ph.D. at Cornell, Alden seems indifferent. Though Alden understands nuclear physics, he cannot understand the idea that Meridian is his equal. Even nice men can be sexist.
They are both victims of the times, but he has the power and she does not.
When Meri meets Clay, a Vietnam war veteran ten years younger, he exposes her to a new perspective on the world. Clay’s sense of freedom and empowerment embolden Meri and encourage her to think about her life in a different way. Clay symbolizes the generation that repudiated the prior cultural conventions and ushered in a new social order. Nonetheless, Meri loves both men and choosing between them weighs heavy.
I enjoyed this thought provoking book and it reminded me why the women’s movement of the 1960’s took hold with such ferocious energy. In addition, one can feel Elizabeth Church’s love of the topography of New Mexico and the birds that inhabit the landscape. At times the dialogue seems forced, but overall I recommend this engaging book about yearning for romantic love, intellectual engagement, and personal fulfillment in a world governed by policies and societal expectations that stifle the potential of women.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Jamie Ford’s perfectly titled book, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, inspired and touched me. Based on historical facts, the novel is about a middle-aged man reflecting on his childhood in Seattle during World War II. While in grammar school, Henry Lee becomes fast friends with Keiko Okabe and they bond over their non-Caucasian identities. Henry is Chinese and Keiki is Japanese, a not so remarkable fact in 2017, but a defining one in the 1940’s. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States government orders more than 125,000 Japanese-Americans to be “evacuated” from the Coast to ensure they are not spying for the Japanese. Distraught and confused by the edict, Henry races to the train station to see Keiko before she departs. Henry says, “Each person wore a plain white tag, the kind you’d see on a piece of furniture, dangling from a coat button." This description is a powerful reminder of how fear and racism can result in cruelty and injustice. Keiko and her family are taken first to a temporary relocation center outside of Seattle, and then to a permanent relocation center in Idaho. Possessions of the Japanese families were left at the Panama Hotel, a gateway between Chinatown and Japantown. (The hotel still operates today.)
Henry misses Keiko and feels the eeriness of her nearby empty neighborhood without the Japanese families. Henry’s immigrant parents don’t understand Henry. They simply want him to be perceived as American. When Henry wants to take a bus to visit Keiko in Idaho, Henry knows his parents will be opposed. Henry’s mother says, “You, me, all of us risk going to jail if we help them. I know you have a friend. The one she calls on the telephone. The one from the Rainer School? She is Japanese.” Henry worries about Keiko and wonders how she would cope if she were sent back to Japan; Keiko doesn’t even speak Japanese. Henry navigates his way to see Keiko and her family. They exchange long letters for months until eventually the letters mysteriously stop and they lose touch. Henry stays in Seattle, falls in love, marries, and has a son. Henry has made a sweet life from a bitter circumstance.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is rich with history; jazz, multiculturalism, an eclectic cast of characters and several plot twists. It explores racism and xenophobia and the painful distance that can exist between immigrant parents and their American offspring. At its heart, this novel is a story about Henry and Keiko’s love in the midst of WWII when they were powerless to affect the trajectory of their lives. The book also explores Henry’s journey toward an understanding of the frailties, vulnerabilities and complexity of his parents whose rigidity and fear hurt him. Though Henry did not have the life he envisioned with Keiko, he exhibits restraint, kindness, and a generosity of spirit. And after his beloved wife Ethel dies of cancer, Henry visits the dilapidated Panama Hotel and finds a couple of Keiko’s possessions in its basement. He wonders where she might be living. Without spoiling the ending, I will say that as I finished the last page, I hoped that Jamie Ford was working on a sequel.
