[I’ve read many good books in the past few months. I’m reviewing some of them in a series of blog posts. So, if you’re looking for a summer read, maybe you’ll find a book to enjoy in one of my book review posts.]

Why did I read this book?

A few weeks ago, I visited the library and spotted Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano’s book on display. In 2018, I had followed news stories about the devastating Camp Fire in northern California. I decided I wanted to learn more about the fire because there are so many fires now, both in the United States and all over the world. I often read books about current events because I learn so much more than can be presented in a brief television news broadcast.

I worry about fire. I live in a small urban area that is surrounded by lots of woods and fields. While the temperatures tend to be cooler where I live (thank you, Lake Superior), we have been short on rain. And I wonder what might happen if the drought-like conditions continue for several years. If intense, uncontainable, hotter-than-hell fires can happen out West, on Maui, in Canada, and on the other side of the world, they can certainly happen here — in my backyard.

What is this book about?

The Camp Fire ignited on the morning of November 8, 2018, in Northern California in Butte County. Before the fire ended, it would burn most of the towns of Paradise and Concow and a large part of the towns of Magalia and Butte Creek Canyon, destroying more than 18,000 structures and killing at least eighty-five people. The fire, which cost over $16 billion, spread with unprecedented speed and intensity.

Gee and Anguiano’s narrative follows the stories of a variety of people who live in Butte County on the day the fire started. We learn something about their lives before the fire destroys their way of life. We learn how the violent fire spreads as it torches over 153,000 acres, and why the fire is able to devour so much so quickly. We learn about the attempts of both firefighters and civilians as they try to save homes, businesses, and people. And we learn about the fire’s aftermath as people struggle to rebuild their lives.

What makes this book memorable?

Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are both journalists. Gee has written for the Guardian, The New Yorker online, the New York Times, and the Economist. Anguiano has written for the Guardian and the Chico Enterprise-Record. They have researched and written a clear, concise piece of journalism covering the who, what, where, why, and how of the deadliest wildfire in California’s history.

As I finished reading Fire in Paradise, the fire in Maui started. I was struck by the parallelism between the two fires. Drought made each fire more potent. Once both fires started, they spread so quickly that evacuation of people was severely hindered. People in both fires survived by jumping in water. High winds played a part in making each fire more violent and deadly. Destruction in both Butte County and Maui was widespread, demolishing homes and businesses — the economy of whole communities.

A faulty electric transmission line started the Camp Fire, a recurring problem that had caused other fires in Northern California. The 2023 Maui wildfire is suspected to have been started by a sparking power line, and previous wildfires in Maui have been started by power lines. Burned buildings and cars leave behind toxic materials that pollute soil, water, and air, endangering the health of people and wildlife. Similar, heartbreaking stories are told as survivors hope to find their loved ones alive. The death toll in the Camp Fire was high, but the death toll in Maui will probably be much higher. People’s lives are forever ruptured.

Why is this book important?

Global warming caused the Camp Fire to be deadlier, faster, and more violent than fires that have preceded it, and the Camp Fire is part of an escalating trend of intense fires occurring around the world, like the recent wildfire in Maui. Fire in Paradise is an important story because global warming doesn’t care if some people deny its existence or if some people procrastinate, thinking there is more time to deal with it. Because global warming doesn’t care, we need to care. Fire in Paradise gives readers a chance to understand the enormity of what happened to people and whole towns. Perhaps reading personal stories about people who survive intense fires, storms, and floods attributed to global warming will make the cost of ignoring it more real.

[I’ve read many good books in the past few months. I’m reviewing some of them in a series of blog posts. So, if you’re looking for a summer read, maybe you’ll find a book to enjoy in one of my book review posts.]

Why did I read this book?

I’m a writer, and I’m always trying to improve my craft. So, I take classes about writing, I read about writing, and I listen to other writers talk about their writing. Many, many times I’ve heard writers and writing teachers reference The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. But I’d never read it, so I kept promising myself that I’d get a copy and read O’Brien’s collection of short stories. It seemed that to be a short story writer but to not have read The Things They Carried would be like training to be a surgeon, but skipping the class on suturing.

Then a few weeks ago, I walked into a bookstore and The Things They Carried was on display. It was destiny. I bought the book and carried it home with me. O’Brien’s book was triaged to the top of my to-be-read pile of books, and I began reading it that night.

What’s this book about?

The Things They Carried is a collection of related short stories with recurring characters set during the Vietnam War, but some of the stories occur before and after the narrator’s time in Vietnam. These are the stories of young men who go to a war in a hot, humid jungle, so unlike any place they grew up; who don’t understand what they’re fighting for; who fight against what they often can’t see; who watch friends die horrible deaths; who die horrible deaths themselves. These are the stories of soldiers who survive, sometimes broken in body but always broken in spirit to some degree, with some of them permanently alienated from their former lives. The Things They Carried is an unvarnished war story without heroes and romanticism.

What makes this book memorable?

O’Brien’s beautiful, but haunting prose gives life to the torrid heat, claustrophobia, and disorientation soldiers faced in the jungles, swamps, rice paddies, and mountains of Vietnam. His prose gives life to the emotions of the soldiers: their fear of dying, their uneasy boredom, their numbness, their guilt over killing and their guilt over surviving. His beautiful but haunting prose helps readers through the horrific events that happen to the soldiers in his stories. And the horrific events he writes about are an integral part of the stories. It sounds like a paradox, but without O’Brien’s beautiful prose and story-telling skills, it would be difficult to digest the heartbreaking stories of the American soldiers in the Vietnam War; a war, which killed over 58,000 Americans and between two and three million North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, and left countless survivors wounded and emotionally destroyed.

As a writer I will read O’Brien’s book again. I have to because the first time I read it, I was caught up in the characters and their stories, important stories that have so much to say about the human cost of war. The next time I will read the stories as a writer, paying attention to O’Brien’s writing techniques, hoping to better understand what makes his stories so powerful.

[To read excerpts or listen to a complete interview of Tim O’Brien from February 2021, click here: Fresh Air NPR.]

[I’ve read many good books in the past few months. I’m reviewing some of them in a series of blog posts. So, if you’re looking for a summer read, maybe you’ll find a book to enjoy in one of my book review posts.]

Why did I read this book?

Three reasons. One, Christina Clancy’s novel Shoulder Season is set in East Troy and Lake Geneva, an area of Wisconsin where I spent time during my growing-up years. Two, the novel’s main character takes a job as a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; I wondered “What would that be like?”* And three, I attended a writer’s residency at Write On, Door County in April, and Christina Clancy was my roommate for part of my stay. She is a kind, funny, and interesting person, who generously gave me a copy of her novel Shoulder Season before she left.

What is this book about?

Shoulder Season is a coming-of-age story that takes place around 1980. Nineteen-year-old Sherri Taylor is an orphan. Her mother, after a lengthy illness, has recently died, and her father has been dead for several years. After caring for her terminally ill mother, Sherri wants to leave East Troy, her hometown. She craves fun and adventure and an escape from grief. She also needs to earn a living. Sherri’s best friend convinces her to interview for a job as a Playboy Bunny. Sherri, much to her surprise, gets the job and fun and adventure. But being a Playboy Bunny is difficult and at times demoralizing work. Left without family and alienated from her best friend, loneliness, confusion, and insecurity cloud her judgment, and she makes choices that lead to heartache.

What makes this book memorable?

Shoulder Season grabbed me from the first page and didn’t let go. Clancy’s story-telling skills compelled me to repeatedly wonder: What’s going to happen next? And how is it all going to shake out in the end? I was never disappointed.

Clancy’s main characters are well-developed with shades of nuance. Like real people they have strengths, weaknesses, insights, and blind spots. And she has taken care to develop secondary characters that are engaging also. We care about her characters, even if we don’t always like them all the time. If her novel were a movie, I’d say it has great casting from the leading roles to the supporting and minor roles.

Clancy’s power of description and setting bring East Troy, the Lake Geneva Playboy Club, and other locations in her novel to life. I grew up near East Troy and Lake Geneva and often visited those areas. I saw Journey play in East Troy in the early 1980s. Clancy nails the feel of those places during the early 80s. She smoothly weaves setting and story together, each element adding to the power of Sherri Taylor’s journey into adulthood.

Shoulder Season is a moving coming of age story for adults. Without ever becoming sappy or sentimental, Clancy’s beautiful prose takes readers on an emotional ride with Sherri Taylor as she struggles to follow her dreams, while at the same time taking readers back to their youth when they too were filled with dreams and so much was possible.

[* As a teenager, I’d heard about Hugh Heffner and his magazine, his playmates of the month, and his Playboy Clubs. The Playboy magazine came to our house every month. My parents hid it, but my siblings and I sometimes “read” it. Well, actually, I often did read the short stories because they were very good, better than the syrupy romantic stories that appeared in the women’s magazines my mother bought; although, as a teenager with starry-eyed romantic notions, I read those too. I came of age in the late-1970s, and I also remember hearing about Gloria Steinem and her undercover assignment as a Playboy Bunny.]

[I’ve read many good books in the past few months. I’m reviewing some of them in a series of blog posts. So, if you’re looking for a summer read, maybe you’ll find a book to enjoy in one of my book review posts.]

Why did I read this book?

Three reasons. First, Thomas Peacock’s novel, The Wolf’s Trail is the 2023 One Book Northland community read, so it’s displayed in local bookstores. I like visiting bookstores, so the novel and I were bound to meet up. Second, I love the book’s cover, created by James O’Connell, an artist from Madison, Wisconsin. O’Connell’s cover art reflects the soul of Peacock’s novel. Third, the story is narrated by a wolf, which intrigued me.

What is this book about?

The Wolf’s Trail is a series of connected stories within a larger story. Zhi-shay, the Uncle wolf, is an old, wise wolf who “talks story” with the pups about creation, love, family, survival, and the Anishinaabe people. The stories are told to help the young wolves learn about the history of their world, the relationships between all living creatures, the nature around them, and the cycle of life and death. It’s the story of the importance of passing on wisdom, of passing on the wolf’s story; and through the wolf’s stories, the passing on of the Anishinaabe’s story.

What makes this book memorable?

Zhi-shay is a quintessential story teller. He is kind, wise, generous, humorous, reflective, and honest. His lessons are sometimes joyful and sometimes sorrowful, but they are all worthy of reflection. Each time I had to set the book aside, I longed for the time when I could pick it up again and sit with the wolf pups and listen to Zhi-shay, the Uncle wolf.

Peacock’s book is a beautifully written Native American literary narrative that does what powerful fiction should do: It builds bridges of understanding between people, and it expands a person’s view of the world. Without preaching to the reader, the book is a meditation, a guide for a better way to be in the world as we pass through our days on earth.

[Other Native American literature that I’ve read in the last couple of years and loved:

1. Dance Boots by Linda LeGarde Grover. This is a linked collection of amazing short stories.
2. There There by Tommy Orange. This poignant novel explores the life of Native Americans living in urban settings.
3. Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah. You can read my review of Hokeah’s book by clicking on the title. And you can read more about Oscar Hokeah by clicking here.]

Why am I reading this book?

I follow Lois Roelofs’ blog: Write Along with Me, Blogging as a Retired Nurse. Lois is a wonderful writer, and I enjoy reading her blog. When I started following her blog, she was already a widow, having lost her husband, Marv Roelofs. I also knew she was writing a book because she would occasionally blog about the book’s progress. When her book was published in the spring of 2023, I wanted to read it because I knew it would be well written and because Marv’s story about how he chose to live with his terminal diagnosis is an important one. I’m over half way through Marv Taking Charge, and it is a well-written, informative, and touching story.

What is this book about?

In January 2018, while vacationing in Arizona, Marv receives a call from his pulmonologist, who tells him he has lung cancer, small cell, the very aggressive type. The doctor explains to Marv that he needs to start chemo right away. Marv answers, “I’m not interested in treatment,” then hands the phone to his wife, Lois, who is a nurse.

The doctor makes it clear to Lois that Marv’s cancer is terminal, but that he must start chemo right away in order to have a chance of more time. Marv doesn’t change his mind, and he and Lois continue their vacation in Arizona. When they return home, Marv is enrolled in hospice care. Then he and Lois set about living their lives. They visit family and friends, and they do the everyday activities they’ve always enjoyed. Marv has a lot of good days, but Lois also writes about the difficult times.

Why is this book important?

Many people, like Marv, will learn they have a terminal illness, and they will face decisions about how they want to live the rest of their lives. Currently, most terminally ill cancer patients are treated with chemo and radiation, not because treatment will provide a cure, but because it may extend their lives a few months. However, those extra months often come with a decreased quality of life because chemo and radiation are harsh treatments with potentially severe side effects. Marv chose quality of life over quantity, then he and Lois made the best of the days they had left together.

Cancer is talked about with words like fight and battle, and patients are described as courageous. However, Lois, agreeing with Atul Gwande, who wrote Being Mortal, says terminally ill patients should be asked what is important to them.

Marv’s answer to that question was to live out his days without the side effects of medical treatments that were not going to save his life.

[Lois Hoitenga Roelofs book Marv Taking Charge is available here.]

Why did I read this book?

Carol Dunbar lives in northwest Wisconsin like I do. We live in separate towns, but they are close enough for me to be excited because an author near me has been published by a New York publisher. Also, in May 2022, Dunbar spoke at our local writers’ association. She was a warm-hearted and engaging speaker. After the meeting, I preordered her novel, The Net Beneath Us. And while you should never judge a book by its cover, the artwork on Dunbar’s book is stunning, and I have to admit that also influenced me.

What’s this book about?

Elsa lives with her husband, Silas Arnasson, and their two children, Hester, a first grader, and Finn, a toddler, in rural northern Wisconsin. They live in the basement of their future house, which they continue to build as time and money allow. Life in the woods is challenging. Weather and wildlife present difficulties as they build, haul water, and maintain a generator for electricity. But Elsa and Silas are partners, working together to achieve their dreams. They are happy and very much in love. Then everything changes.

Silas has a devastating logging accident. Elsa is determined to keep her family warm and safe during the approaching winter in a home without running water, central heat, or electricity, a home without Silas to help. Shrouded in grief, she isolates herself and her children from family and friends. She rebuffs help from Silas’s family, believing they already see her as incompetent and because they had envisioned another type of woman for Silas.

What makes this book memorable?

People experience loss uniquely, making it hard to understand each other’s grief. Family members overwhelmed by their own sorrow, struggle to comfort each other. Dunbar’s use of multiple points of view allows us to experience, firsthand, the heartache of Elsa, Hester, and Ethan and Luvera, Silas’s uncle and aunt. Additionally, Dunbar’s novel explores our need for self-acceptance and acceptance by others; and our wish to belong to a place, the land, a community.

Loss and grief are somber themes and make for heavy reading. But Dunbar’s use of beautiful imagery, sustained metaphor, and lyrical prose gives us hope as she guides us through a heartbreaking story, transporting us with her exquisite writing through darkness to a place of better understanding of both her characters and ourselves.

Sinclair Lewis said, “People read fiction for emotion—not information.” With The Net Beneath Us, Dunbar underscores the power of fiction as she draws us into an emotional story of loss, grief, forgiveness, and understanding, immersing us in a world of human nature that nonfiction cannot match. And, even though Dunbar’s story is fiction, it rings with truth.

Why did I read this book?

While returning home from running errands, I listened to only ten minutes of Kerri Miller’s fifty-minute interview with Oscar Hokeah on Minnesota Public Radio, but that was long enough to be intrigued by Hokeah and his novel Calling for a Blanket Dance. When I arrived home, I ordered the book from my library through the inter-library loan program. Because a library book has a “use by date,” Hokeah’s novel landed on the pinnacle of my reading pile; and its rising to the top–like delicious cream–was richly deserved.

What is this book about?

The story focuses on Ever Geimausaddle, who is Native American and Mexican. Each chapter in the book is narrated by one of his relatives, and the last chapter is narrated by Ever. Through these family members, we watch Ever struggle as a child and an adult, and we learn about his extended family and their place in his life.

In the first chapter, Ever’s grandmother Lena Stoop introduces us to him when he is six months old. Ever and his parents, Everardo and Turtle, are returning to the United States from Mexico when they are stopped by three Mexican policemen who severely beat his father and rob his parents. Throughout the attack, Ever’s mother tries to keep him from waking. She doesn’t want him to witness the violence, but he wakes up and sees the brutality and rage.

Lena travels to a border town in Texas to pick up her daughter, son-in-law, and Ever, returning them to Oklahoma. Lena tells her daughter that she is concerned about what Ever saw. Even though he won’t remember the episode, their Native American culture teaches that babies and young children shouldn’t be exposed to violence: “They could be witched. Their spirit forever altered. A witching was almost incurable.” Lena’s daughter snaps at her mother, calling her superstitious, but then she falls silent because she, too, is worried about what her baby boy saw.

Ever’s father suffers permanent physical and emotional damage from the beating, but Ever’s mother, with the help of relatives, strives to keep her family intact. However, the memory of violence that Ever’s family experienced can’t seem to be conquered or at least forced to retreat.

What makes this book memorable?

Every time I had to put Hokeah’s novel down, I looked forward to the moment I could pick it up again. Through his masterful prose and skillful use of twelve different narrators, the reader comes to understand Ever and his family: their pain and disappointments, their hopes and dreams, their failures and successes, and their capacity for love and forgiveness.

Hokeah incorporates themes of poverty, inter-generational trauma, discrimination, marginalization, and redemption throughout the story the way an artist uses exquisite but understated brush strokes to make a painting come alive–strokes so subtle, yet so integral to the work of art, that without them, the picture would be flat and lifeless. Hokeah’s landscape of story, theme, and narration make Calling for a Blanket Dance a richly constructed novel, drawing readers in and holding them until the last page.