labmom55

So, everyone knows about Marilyn Monroe. But how many know of Eve Arnold, the photographer who helped document Norma Jeane Baker's transformation into Monroe? When We Were Brilliant tracks the friendship of the two and how while they used each other to advance their careers they also appreciated each other and became true friends.

Cullen takes a ballsy approach by writing some of the book in second person narrative, with Arnold addressing the narrative to Monroe. I'm usually not a fan of this writing style, but it works here. I was unaware of the extent of the hardship Monroe faced as a child. It explains a lot about her personality. But what shines through is how Norma Jeane literally creates the persona of Marilyn Monroe. She wasn't a dumb blonde, she knew exactly what she was doing. Which makes it all the sadder as she succumbs to her demons.

Cullen hammers home the sexism of the day. While Monroe certainly used her sex appeal to her advantage, at the same time, the sexist attitudes fed her insecurity. Arnold's story is more familiar - the lone female in a male dominated industry. Cullen tried to express Arnold's talent, but one really needs to see her photos to get a real feel for her talent.

Cullen has obviously done her research and it shows. She fills scenes with the little details that make them come alive. She uses secondary characters to round out the story. Joan Crawford's constantly comparing herself with Marilyn, for example. I also appreciated learning about Arnold's friendship with Gordon Parks.

And can I say what a pleasure it was to have a historical fiction told in a linear manner?
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Denise Mina, but I’ve liked the ones I’ve read. I’m adding this one to the list. The plot was solid, the characters fully fleshed out. Dr. Claudia O’Sheil is about to blow the lid open on how her forensic evidence falsely accused a man and led to his conviction in a double murder one year earlier. Claudia was behind a blood spatter analysis program that became the industry standard and was a key component in the case. Now what she has to say will destroy not just her life but that of several others.

The story veers back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder investigation. It moves at a nice steady pace and there’s a constant underlying sense of tension.

Mina’s writing is descriptive without being overly wordy - that ability to nail a character or a scene in just a sentence or two. The book delves into class, corruption and power.
Claudia is a great main character. She’s dealing with her husband’s untimely death and some serious family issues. And she’s finally trying to grow the spine she lacked the year before. She let herself get sucked in by her ego, her desire to maintain her reputation and a lifestyle she’d never had before. It’s unclear until the bitter end whether she’ll have the strength to do the right thing.

This will not appeal to those that want their mysteries to be all about action. My one complaint was that Mina wasn’t consistent about using first vs. third person narration.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown & Co for an advance copy of this book.

3.5 stars, rounded up
This sweet debut looks at the changes in American life over one hundred years, as seen from the perspective of a tortoise living on an estate in Southern California.

Anthropomorphism can be a hard act to get right. Too much can come off as cheesy. Coulter does a good job of walking the line. This tortoise (who over the course of time has multiple names) can comprehend language but not verbally communicate with humans. She also has an appreciation of music, art and later, movies.

Since a tortoise has no concept of what year it is, Cousler wisely provides a feel by citing the popular music of the day. The tortoise befriends first a Japanese gardener and then a young girl. Because her lifespan is so long, she lives with multiple generations of the first family and then other owners. Grief is a constant as her friends, human and animal, pass away.

Through her eyes, we see glimpses of different aspects of American society through the years. It doesn’t try to cover everything but focuses on specific issues. The pace of the book is uneven and I can’t say I was equally invested in each section. Parts were beautiful and imaginative, other parts just felt flat. Coulter is a Professor of animal ethics and sustainability. Those two issues are front and center in the story. My thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

Life and Death and Giants is a moving, heartwarming, character rich story about a young man of uncommon size. There is a magical realism aspect to the story, which was very well done and felt totally natural. The book takes its time setting up its premise. A young Amish woman becomes pregnant out of wedlock. When she refuses to name the father, she is excommunicated and forced to leave the community. She gives birth to a normal son but later becomes pregnant again to an overly large baby and dies.

That son, Gabriel, goes to live with his Amish grandparents after his older brother dies. He grows up to be over 8’ tall. To put this in context, Andre the Giant was 7’4”.
The story is told from multiple POVs, including the Amish grandmother, a local bar owner who knew the grandfather as a child, the local veterinarian and the HS football coach. Despite Gabriel being the focus of the book, we never hear directly from him.
It handles the Amish religion thoughtfully and respectfully. I liked the juxtaposition between “English” interests, like sports, books or artworks, against the Amish beliefs about a simple life. While there are many sad scenes, overall it’s a heartwarming story about the multitude of people who look after Gabriel. The weaving of Emily Dickinson's poetry into the story was just an added bonus. Several times I was caught off guard to the point of gasping. I never saw the twists coming.

This would make a wonderful book club selection. There’s so much meat to this story and multiple themes about family, community, religion, forgiveness and values.
I listened to this and the cast all did a wonderful job.

I’ll be honest, The Names was a horribly difficult book to listen to. I can’t count the number of times a scene would just make me moan in sadness. The story tracks three different outcomes from a woman choosing the name of her newborn son. Cora’s husband, Gordon, is a well respected doctor. But at home, it’s a different story and he abuses her. He has told her to register their son’s name as Gordon following the family tradition. But in the first two story loops, she chooses a different name. In the third, she obeys her husband. The book tracks the three alternative stories across the following 35 years. Surprisingly. I was equally invested in each story arc. Despite the initial darkness, the good news is that in the end, there’s hope.

What struck me most is how spousal abuse just doesn’t affect the one actually suffering the abuse. Everyone is impacted. In different storylines, the character may be different but each was heartbreaking. The book continued to catch me off guard, even as the years passed. Knapp did a great job of impressing how a major event in one life was just something to be mentioned in another. And how someone who is a major figure for one is just a passing acquaintance for another.

As someone who changed her name at age 18, I truly understand the importance a name has on one’s sense of self. Knapp takes this idea to its ultimate conclusion. The story begs to be a book club selection as there’s so much to discuss. I listened to this and Dervla Kirwan was a fabulous narrator.

Big trigger warning - there are many graphic scenes of domestic abuse, both physical and mental.

It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Denise Mina, but I’ve liked the ones I’ve read. I’m adding this one to the list. The plot was solid, the characters fully fleshed out. Dr. Claudia O’Sheil is about to blow the lid open on how her forensic evidence falsely accused a man and led to his conviction in a double murder one year earlier. Claudia was behind a blood spatter analysis program that became the industry standard and was a key component in the case. Now what she has to say will destroy not just her life but that of several others.

The story veers back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder investigation. It moves at a nice steady pace and there’s a constant underlying sense of tension.
Mina’s writing is descriptive without being overly wordy - that ability to nail a character or a scene in just a sentence or two. The book delves into class, corruption and power.
Claudia is a great main character. She’s dealing with her husband’s untimely death and some serious family issues. And she’s finally trying to grow the spine she lacked the year before. She let herself get sucked in by her ego, her desire to maintain her reputation and a lifestyle she’d never had before. It’s unclear until the bitter end whether she’ll have the strength to do the right thing.

This will not appeal to those that want their mysteries to be all about action. My one complaint was that Mina wasn’t consistent about using first vs. third person narration.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown & Co for an advance copy of this book.

I was immediately drawn into The Botanist’s Assistant and engaged by its heroine, Margaret. Margaret likes things done to precision, right down to the second. Everything must be orderly, neat as a pin. She has her dream job, working as a research assistant II for Professor Deaver. That is, until Professor Deaver’s dead body is found in his office. And Margaret suspects foul play. Of course, no one else - the campus police, the Dean or the potential replacement for the professor’s job, believe her. Not only do they blow her off, they also threaten her job.

I adored Margaret. She knows the fine line she’s walking. She doesn’t want to lose her job at 54. She struggles in multiple situations with what’s the right thing to do. It was great to see her blossom into a new friendship and pet parenthood.
Townsend provided multiple red herrings and the story took several turns I didn’t see coming. The story moved at a nice brisk pace. I appreciated that Townsend includes enough real info about plants to educate the reader without slowing down the pace of the story. And some of the facts were so interesting. Like who knew that tomato plants secreted a chemical that causes caterpillars to eat each other? She did a lot of research for a cozy mystery.

Fans of other neurodivergent FMCs, like The Maid, will enjoy this book.
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

3.5 stars, rounded down

While The Original unfortunately lacks an original premise, it does a decent job with its chosen plot line. It’s 1899 and the heir of an English landed family left 13 years ago and no one has heard from him since. Then he sends word to his mother that he’s in Rome and wants to come home. But is this man truly the missing son?
Meanwhile, Grace is the poor cousin who has been living with her aunt and uncle since both of her parents went insane. She has prosopagnosia (face blindness). But while she can’t recognize a real face, she has the ability to flawlessly copy artworks, a trait she keeps hidden from her relatives. It’s just one secret she keeps hidden.
The book is primarily told from Grace’s POV. She goes back and forth whether she believes that this man is truly her cousin Charles. She longs to find a way to live independently, forging artworks to make her way. But it’s harder than it looks. A lot of the second half is Grace going back and forth over whether to marry “Charles”. That part got old fairly quickly. There were some interesting twists towards the end that finally engaged me.

While the plot sagged at times, Stevens still put forward some interesting themes and ideas. Of course, the whole idea of art forgery, cons and scams was well done. I will credit her with doing a good job of writing about creating art, especially given Grace’s face blindness. The book also worked well in its realistic look at money - the have and the have nots, those who struggle to not let it slip through their hands, inherited wealth.
But take away the queer aspect and I feel like this story has been done multiple times.
I listened to it and Kristine Atherton did a great job as the main narrator.

What We Can Know starts with an interesting premise. Tom Metcalfe is a scholar in the year 2119. He’s researching a literary figure from the early 21st Century. In the intervening years, the world as we know it has ceased to exist. England is now a series of islands as the lowlands have been submerged by rising seas. McEwan spells out how it all came to be. Unfortunately, it actually sounds plausible - the rise of AI, climate change denial coupled with extreme weather, nuclear war between rival states such as Pakistan and India.

The objects of Tom’s study are Vivien and Francis Blundy. For her 54th birthday in 2014, Francis has written a corona of 10 sonnets and his intent is to give her the only copy at her birthday party. The poem is never seen or heard again. Yet, it goes on to have an almost mythical status. Tom ‘s hope is to find the missing poem. But what he finds is something entirely different. I struggled to relate to any of the characters. Francis is well known and expects the world to revolve around him. He’s a complete snob, a climate change denier. Vivien has opted for a comfortable life with him. Infidelities abound. Tom was the perennial scholar, wrapped up in his own little area of expertise almost to the exclusion of his real world.

It’s a unique concept to write of our current time as if from someone in the future, looking back. It implies a remove, a coolness, while allowing McEwan to give his opinions of these times as facts, not that he’s wrong.
Vivien’s experience with her first husband’s Alzheimer’s felt very real - the claustrophobia, the banality of it all hit home.

The book is two very different halves. It defies being classified in a single genre, with elements of dystopia, mystery and literary fiction. I struggled to stay engaged with the first half. The second half, told from Vivien’s memoir written in her latter years, worked much better for me. I’ve been watching a lot of The Great British Baking Show, so I’ll take a line from Paul Hollywood and describe McEwan’s writing as beautiful flavors but over baked and too dense.

My thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for an advance copy of this book.

Life and Death and Giants is a moving, heartwarming, character rich story about a young man of uncommon size. There is a magical realism aspect to the story, which was very well done and felt totally natural.

The book takes its time setting up its premise. A young Amish woman becomes pregnant out of wedlock. When she refuses to name the father, she is excommunicated and forced to leave the community. She gives birth to a normal son but later becomes pregnant again to an overly large baby and dies. That son, Gabriel, goes to live with his Amish grandparents after his older brother dies. He grows up to be over 8’ tall. To put this in context, Andre the Giant was 7’4”.

The story is told from multiple POVs, including the Amish grandmother, a local bar owner who knew the grandfather as a child, the local veterinarian and the HS football coach. Despite Gabriel being the focus of the book, we never hear directly from him.
It handles the Amish religion thoughtfully and respectfully. I liked the juxtaposition between “English” interests, like sports, books or artworks, against the Amish beliefs about a simple life. While there are many sad scenes, overall it’s a heartwarming story about the multitude of people who look after Gabriel. The weaving of Emily Dickinson”s poetry into the story was just an added bonus. Several times I was caught off guard to the point of gasping. I never saw the twists coming.

This would make a wonderful book club selection. There’s so much meat to this story and multiple themes about family, community, religion, forgiveness and values.
I listened to this and the cast all did a wonderful job.

I recently listened to Blood Sisters, so I was interested in reading the second in the series, The Bone Thief. Syd Walker has returned to Rhode Island. She is quickly caught up in a newly discovered skeleton of a possibly 300 year old Indian sachem. But just as quickly, the skeleton is stolen. Meanwhile, a young Native woman has gone missing. Everything revolves around the Founders Society, an exclusive club of folks who trace their heritage back to the colonists. The club is looking to create a large public educational “experience” that would use Native artifacts and remains found on their site.
Syd is a well developed main character. It added an extra depth to the story that Syd understands the conflict between being an archeologist and a Native American. In fact, some of my favorite passages involved the desire to educate vs the desire to return artifacts and remains to the tribes. And because she’s Native, she continues to involve herself in hunts for missing girls when the authorities can’t be bothered.
It was also unique that this story involved east coast tribes. While I’m familiar with Cherokee history, this was the first I’d read about the Narragansett and the Great Swamp Massacre. It’s also the first I’d ever heard about land leases between Native Americans and colonists. There actually was one in RI in the 1700s. The book also does an excellent job of giving the reader a sense of the tribe’s economic struggles. Be sure to read the Author’s Note at the end of the book.

The book moves at a brisk pace and the tension ratchets up as the story moves along.
I would not recommend reading this without having read Blood Sisters. Lillie doesn’t waste a lot of time with backstories which could leave the new reader confused.
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for an advance copy of this book.

Dominion has multiple meanings in this book. It’s the town in Mississippi where it takes place, the rule of a minister over his church, a man over his wife, of men over women, of drugs and alcohol over the broken. It’s a book filled with important messages but also humor. I was especially taken by what Citchens has to say about the use of religion and a patriarchal society.

The story is told from the perspective of Priscilla, the minister’s wife and Diamond, the girlfriend of the minister’s youngest son. Citchens takes her time setting up the premise of the story. Both father and son are good looking men and respected by the community. But in both cases, a good looking exterior covers a rotten core. But the women in their lives continue to support them even as their eyes are opened to the truth. Citchens does a great job with the small town, church community. The ending rocked me.

Rarely do I comment on a book cover, but this one is perfect! “On the evening of February 14, 1976, my husband explained to me that because Eve ate the apple, I would have to eat the snake.” I listened to this and the cast of narrators was perfect. I can’t wait to see what Citchens produces next.

What We Can Know starts with an interesting premise. Tom Metcalfe is a scholar in the year 2119. He’s researching a literary figure from the early 21st Century. In the intervening years, the world as we know it has ceased to exist. England is now a series of islands as the lowlands have been submerged by rising seas. McEwan spells out how it all came to be. Unfortunately, it actually sounds plausible - the rise of AI, climate change denial coupled with extreme weather, nuclear war between rival states such as Pakistan and India.

The objects of Tom’s study are Vivien and Francis Blundy. For her 54th birthday in 2014, Francis has written a corona of 10 sonnets and his intent is to give her the only copy at her birthday party. The poem is never seen or heard again. Yet, it goes on to have an almost mythical status. Tom ‘s hope is to find the missing poem. But what he finds is something entirely different.

I struggled to relate to any of the characters. Francis is well known and expects the world to revolve around him. He’s a complete snob, a climate change denier. Vivien has opted for a comfortable life with him. Infidelities abound. Tom was the perennial scholar, wrapped up in his own little area of expertise almost to the exclusion of his real world.

It’s a unique concept to write of our current time as if from someone in the future, looking back. It implies a remove, a coolness, while allowing McEwan to give his opinions of these times as facts, not that he’s wrong. Vivien’s experience with her first husband’s Alzheimer’s felt very real - the claustrophobia, the banality of it all hit home.
The book is two very different halves. It defies being classified in a single genre, with elements of dystopia, mystery and literary fiction. I struggled to stay engaged with the first half. The second half, told from Vivien’s memoir written in her latter years, worked much better for me. I’ve been watching a lot of The Great British Baking Show, so I’ll take a line from Paul Hollywood and describe McEwan’s writing as beautiful flavors but over baked and too dense.

My thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for an advance copy of this book.

Tom Lehr once wrote a song about Alma Mahler and her prowess as a romantic enchantress. But Alma couldn't compare to Pamela Churchill Harriman. Pamela not only lived off her wiles, she used them for political gain during WWII. Of course, her willingness to bed a long list of men meant that she was forever plagued by enemies who thought of her as nothing but a courtesan.

Purnell does an excellent job of giving you the gist of the woman - her need to make a difference in a time when women weren’t allowed to have a seat at the table. Her lack of a formal education haunted her and she was determined to always be informed. Going from a frumpy debutante who was considered washed up at 19, she shape shifted into a glamorous temptress who helped bring American diplomats and journalists around to the English cause. The list of the men she entranced reads like a Who”s Who of American influence. And it didn’t stop with the end of WWII. She just broadened her sphere to include European aristocracy and power players. In her later years, finally married to one of the few men she truly loved, she became a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party. Her influence during the Bosnian Peace negotiations were invaluable.
The book is well researched and gives the reader a firm grasp on the times and places. In addition to providing a firm sense of Pamela, it also gave me a new understanding of Winston and Clementine Churchill. The book also focuses on her wrought relationships with her son Winston and her stepchildren through Leland Hayward.

At times the book drags, especially when focusing on the material things. My eyes started to glaze over at the descriptions of her house remodeling, furniture, clothes and jewelry. After the wild first half, the second half is much drier as it concentrates on her attempt to become a mover and shaker within the Democratic Party. But it was interesting getting a close up look at some of the politicians of the more recent past.
This was a book club selection and I’ll be curious what sort of discussion it leads to.

I’ll admit to deciding to read Buckeye when Jenna Bush picked it for her book club and seeing the high marks it had on GR. Praise from Ann Napolitano, Ann Patchett, Chris Whitaker and Jess Walter didn’t hurt either. And for once, all the praise is well deserved.

The book is a family saga covering forty years, stretching from WWII through the Vietnam War. It revolves around two couples. Cal, whose physical ailment prohibited from enlisting and his wife Becky, who communicates with the dead. The other couple are Felix and Margaret. While Felix serves in the Pacific, Margaret kisses Cal to celebrate VE Day. And from there, everything plays out.

The joy of this book is how much I was invested in these characters. Everyone has secrets. Not everyone handles those secrets well. I loved what it had to say about the way war affected everyone.

Ryan has managed to craft a story that feels at once ordinary but also so pertinent and meaningful. Every single one of the six main characters just felt so damn real.
The writing is exquisite. These little jewels of almost poetry, embedded in the story. I was highlighting paragraphs like crazy. It totally captures the times, especially the Vietnam War. It’s proof that a really good book can be quiet, not having to rely on major explosions of drama.

There is so much depth here. It tackles guilt, abandonment, identity, forgiveness. It’s a book that begs to be discussed. It’s also one of my favorites of 2025.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Amity is Nathan Harris’ second book. And while I didn’t love it the way I did The Sweetness of Water, I still strongly recommend it. Taking place in 1866, it follows Coleman and June, a recently freed brother and sister from New Orleans to Mexico. Their former owner left with June on an expedition into Mexico. Coleman stayed behind with the wife and daughter, until a letter came commanding Coleman’s presence in Mexico. The trip to Mexico meets with disaster and Coleman is soon on the run with Florence, the daughter.

The book flips back and forth between their two storylines. Both are still seeking the freedom they were promised by Emancipation. They are fully developed characters and I found each storyline equally engaging. Even the secondary characters are well fleshed out. Each has a story arc that is brought to fruition.

Harris does a fabulous job of setting the scene, whether it be on a riverboat, the Mexican desert or the town of Amity. The story moves at a steady pace, never getting bogged down. There is at least one cringeworthy scene of animal cruelty involving a horse. Luckily, no harm comes to Oliver, the dog. The writing is beautiful and I found myself savoring multiple passages.

My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy of this book.

4.5 stars, rounded up
The Lion Women of Tehran was an engaging historical fiction, set in Iran. The story starts in the 1950s, when Ellie’s father dies and she and her mother are forced to relocate from the wealthy suburbs to a much lower class neighborhood. There, she meets Homa and they become best friends. But Ellie’s situation soon improves and she moves away, losing touch with Homa. They reconnect as seniors in high school. The story continues as they move forward into their young adulthood.

The story does a good job of providing a sense of Iran under the Shah. It highlights the difference in the classes and the roles of women during the changing times. There was a big emphasis on the food which did help give a feel for their everyday life. Kamali does an equally good job of showing how things changed under the religious regime and the war with Iraq.

I didn’t initially take to Ellie. She berates her mother for being too status conscious, but yet she was just as much. And her lack of thought at a crucial time weighed on me. (I struggled with the blurb calling this an act of betrayal.) But she grew on me and was the perfect foil for Homa.

The book starts slow and it did take a while before I was truly invested in the story. But I loved what it had to say about being willing to fight for human rights, and how it’s the rare person who is willing to be a true activist. The character of Homa is very loosely based on a friend from Kamali’s youth, who still lives in Iran and works for a human rights organization. The book also has a lot to say about friendship and how our early friendships truly shape us.

I listened to this and was less than impressed by Mozhan Novabi. Her voice often seemed flat. I was happier with Nikki Massoud.

Amity is Nathan Harris’ second book. And while I didn’t love it the way I did The Sweetness of Water, I still strongly recommend it. Taking place in 1866, it follows Coleman and June, a recently freed brother and sister from New Orleans to Mexico. Their former owner left with June on an expedition into Mexico. Coleman stayed behind with the wife and daughter, until a letter came commanding Coleman’s presence in Mexico. The trip to Mexico meets with disaster and Coleman is soon on the run with Florence, the daughter.

The book flips back and forth between their two storylines. Both are still seeking the freedom they were promised by Emancipation. They are fully developed characters and I found each storyline equally engaging. Even the secondary characters are well fleshed out. Each has a story arc that is brought to fruition.

Harris does a fabulous job of setting the scene, whether it be on a riverboat, the Mexican desert or the town of Amity. The story moves at a steady pace, never getting bogged down. There is at least one cringeworthy scene of animal cruelty involving a horse. Luckily, no harm comes to Oliver, the dog. The writing is beautiful and I found myself savoring multiple passages.

My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy of this book.

I only became aware of My Documents when it was chosen as the book selection for our week at Chautauqua. But how eerie that this book, which obviously had to have been written even before Trump was elected, has become so prophetic. The premise is that after a terrorist event, for which several Vietnamese men are responsible, the US passes a bill calling for the internment of all Vietnamese living in the U.S. Nguyen draws as his inspiration the Japanese internment during WWII, the refugee camps after the Vietnamese War and current day immigration centers (although Alligator Alcatraz was not yet conceived at the time). But it’s not just the idea of rounding people up. There’s a whole segment on Google and how it’s in collusion with the government. Paramount, anyone?

The story tracks five relatives - 2 full blooded Vietnamese siblings who are detained, two half-Vietnamese siblings who receive exemptions and their father who goes on the run. Their stories are interspersed with the reports Ursula writes.
A few things struck me. The willingness of Ursula, the reporter, to publish things she has to know will backfire on her relatives. Yet, her ambition consistently wins out. The fact that she’s only half Vietnamese and can “pass” as white also figures into the story. Meanwhile, her half-sister, Jen, is left to pick up the pieces of her life at the detention center and after.

Nguyen does some clever things, like making the guards Hispanic. And all along, many folks, even those running an underground delivery service, do things just because it’s a job and they’re getting paid. His commentary on how quickly things pass from the public’s ability to care hits home.

The story slows once the internment is undone and I was less impressed with the final quarter. The story is dark, poignant, terrifying, yet at times humorous. I can’t wait to hear the author discuss it.

I only became aware of My Documents when it was chosen as the book selection for our week at Chautauqua. But how eerie that this book, which obviously had to have been written even before Trump was elected, has become so prophetic. The premise is that after a terrorist event, for which several Vietnamese men are responsible, the US passes a bill calling for the internment of all Vietnamese living in the U.S. Nguyen draws as his inspiration the Japanese internment during WWII, the refugee camps after the Vietnamese War and current day immigration centers (although Alligator Alcatraz was not yet conceived at the time). But it’s not just the idea of rounding people up. There’s a whole segment on Google and how it’s in collusion with the government. Paramount, anyone?

The story tracks five relatives - 2 full blooded Vietnamese siblings who are detained, two half-Vietnamese siblings who receive exemptions and their father who goes on the run. Their stories are interspersed with the reports Ursula writes.
A few things struck me. The willingness of Ursula, the reporter, to publish things she has to know will backfire on her relatives. Yet, her ambition consistently wins out. The fact that she’s only half Vietnamese and can “pass” as white also figures into the story. Meanwhile, her half-sister, Jen, is left to pick up the pieces of her life at the detention center and after.

Nguyen does some clever things, like making the guards Hispanic. And all along, many folks, even those running an underground delivery service, do things just because it’s a job and they’re getting paid. His commentary on how quickly things pass from the public’s ability to care hits home.

The story slows once the internment is undone and I was less impressed with the final quarter. The story is dark, poignant, terrifying, yet at times humorous. I can’t wait to hear the author discuss it.

The Emperor of Gladness is a beautifully written, poignant story. But I feel I made a mistake listening to, rather than reading, it. The writing is fabulous and I longed to be able to linger over it.
It’s an Odd Couple type of story - 19 year old Hai and 82 year old Grazina. They strike up an unlikely alliance when she interrupts his suicide attempt. Grazina is dealing with dementia and Hai becomes her caretaker. Some of the scenes of her hallucinations are positively heartbreaking.
The story flips back and forth between each of their memories along with their current lives. It’s a study in the lives of the marginalized. Several of the scenes are truly graphic. (I may just have to become a vegetarian.)
It’s a story about the bonds of friendship in all shapes and sizes. “These people, bound by nothing but toil in a tiny kitchen”, but who come together for each other and know each other better than their families know them.
BThe story is horribly sad. It’s obvious from early on that there will be no happy ending. So many are lying about something and the lies each come to light.
This would make a fabulous book club selection and it’s no surprise that Oprah chose it.
James Aaron Oh did a wonderful job as the narrator.