Bad weather is great for good books

Although Texas ‘winter’ has many folks alternating between flip-flops and down jackets, there have actually been enough cold days and rainy days for me to hunker down under the blankets and plow through some really good books.

Non-fiction

The summer after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, sending 120,000 Japanese Americans who were living on the West Coast to prison camps despite their never committing any crime. Bradford Pearson’s book ‘The Eagles of Heart Mountain,’ focuses on the young people, whose educations were interrupted, some just before their senior year in high school, who were sent to northwestern Wyoming to a prison camp named Heart Mountain.

Some of these young men turned to their love of sports to alleviate boredom and the sting of racism and discrimination. This book traces the paths that lead to their incarceration and their triumph on the football field despite a lack of proper equipment and training field.

The first half of this excellent book details about 150 years of Japanese migration to the US and the blatant racism--by individuals as well as government policy--that led to the undeserved imprisonment of innocent Americans. The second half focuses on the resilience of the Japanese American community and how, even under terrible conditions, they never wavered from their love of their country, the US.

The title of Chuy Renteria’s latest, ‘We Heard It When We Were Young,’ suggests that the memoir is primarily about racism and discrimination. Actually, the memoir is about so much more. Yes, Renteria recounts instances of both “casual racism”—name-calling and teasing—and the uglier, more visceral absolute hatred that he and his Hispanic and Laotian friends faced. However, the most compelling aspects of this work are the fraught relationships with his parents and his sister, the violence that permeates every aspect of life for him and the rest of his small town of West Liberty, Iowa, and the eating disorder that resulted from a lifetime of trauma.

The structure of Renteria’s book is not entirely chronological. There is some moving back and forth among his childhood, adolescence, and adult years that is suggestive of how memories flow from one to another. The effect is natural and organic storytelling accompanied by the insights that develop after reflection and time and maturity.

Short fiction

Mewborn, North Carolina, is like any small rural town. The locals relax at Duck’s Tavern, celebrate the Shad Festival and reigning Shad Queen, gossip about their neighbors, and sometimes flee their hometown. 'Proof of Me’ by Erica Plouffe Lazure, which releases March 24, is a collection of linked short stories, all about residents or exiles of Mewborn.

Each of the book’s five sections deals with one family or group of Mewborners. The second section, ‘Stitch,’ which includes the title story, concerns 16-year-old Anna, mother of little Cassidy Penelope. After Anna’s mother, and only defender, dies suddenly, Anna tries to raise her daughter. When the girl is four, Anna drops her off at the family home with her older brother and sister and leaves for good. The rest of the stories in this section follow Cass through her childhood and young adulthood.

All of the characters are set adrift by forces they have no control over: absent or incompetent parents, perfidious lovers, life-changing illnesses, or a profound sense of insignificance. Their complexity and humanity and voice make it no surprise that ‘Proof of Me’ is the 2022 New American Fiction Prize Winner.

Crime fiction

When 15-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff goes missing, his wealthy, prominent family claim that he’s been kidnapped. But the note left behind is cryptic at best and makes no demand for ransom. As Copenhagen police detectives Anette Werner and Jeppe Korner investigate, the mystery only deepens.

A body is found at the city’s waste incineration plant, and Oscar’s backpack is discovered at a dock near the family’s home by the odd caretaker at a fortress island in Copenhagen Harbor. A number of plot twists and no shortage of suspects make the book an interesting and enjoyable read.

‘The Harbor,’ the third installment of Katrine Engberg’s Korner and Werner series, is due out Feb. 22. Set in the perfumed and sunny Danish spring, Engberg’s book is not nearly as dark as the masterpieces that inspired the Nordic Noir genre: The Martin Beck series, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,’ and the Wallander books.

The detectives are fully-functional adults who are not alcoholics and don’t torture themselves with guilt of their failings. And although Copenhagen is realistically portrayed through the author’s use of actual places, there is very little criticism of the failure of the state to fulfill its promise of a livable world and a just society.

Although I would never wish for bad weather, I’m not going to complain much when it inevitably arrives and offers me an excuse to do nothing but work on the to-be-read pile on the night stand.

Latest Orphan X installment is a trip to the theme park

‘Can you save a bad man?’ is the question Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X asks in “Dark Horse,” the latest in the series, due out Feb. 8. And if the answer is ‘yes,’ then was the man really bad? These questions apply equally to the South Texas drug lord that Evan Smoak, aka Orphan X, agrees to help and to Evan himself.

Those who do not know the series will be caught up quickly in this seventh installment. Smoak was an off-the-books government assassin who left the program and is now pursued by his former trainers and handlers. He lives by his own 10 commandments and helps those who have nowhere else to turn.

Aragón Urrea is the patrón of Eden, Texas, and an elaborate, worldwide, high-tech drug and money laundering operation. His 18 year-old daughter has been kidnapped by a ruthless rival gang, and he is willing to give everything he has to get her back. And everything is just what Smoak asks of him.

The impossibly-wealthy, impossibly fit and fast-thinking Smoak is part Jason Bourne, part Batman. He has a multitude of identities and safe houses as well as nearly-magical technology readily available to him. His untraceable, unhackable phone has nanosuction backing that makes it stick to any surface he throws it at, so that he can watch a hologram of his phone call. Oh, and he MacGyvers a mask out of a plastic coke bottle and some trash so that he can enter a burning building to save some burning junkies.

Orphan X books are pure escapism, akin to a visit to the theme park. It’s no wonder that Hurwitz is a best-selling author. The prose is tight and the descriptions are detailed and quite good at creating the atmosphere of danger and desperation in South Texas and Mexico, where the story is set. At more than 400 pages, the book is still a quick read as it is loaded with action and suspense. The short chapters and alternating settings give the story a cinematic feel.

However, the conversation between Smoak and his protégé, Joey, I found grating. They are so cute that it’s annoying. But that is just a small drawback. She is, after all, a 16 year-old computer genius, maybe the most realistic character in the book.

The other characters are typical of the fantasy-thriller genre. Good guys, bad guys, innocents. Hurwitz tries to avoid this trope by making Smoak painfully aware that he is both good and bad. Drug lord Urrea is both brutal to those that violate his rules (rapists) and generous with his family and the townspeople that he takes a patrician responsibility for.

On the other hand, the villain, Mexican crime boss Raúl Montesco, is unnecessarily cruel and ruthless. He belittles his own son, holds women in a cage to be sex-trafficked, and feeds those who offend him (even accidentally) to his ‘pet’ lion. He is the ‘bad’ man, utterly unredeemable.

So, maybe you can’t save a ‘bad man,’ but you might be able to make a man that is both good and bad a little less bad.

‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ weaves history, myth into ‘paean to books’

Five characters living in three different centuries and four different places are all saved by a story. A story that allows them to “slip the trap” of their fear or misery. Anthony Doerr tells their stories in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land,’ a book that he calls a “paean to books.”

The ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ in the novel is a 1^st century tale written by Diogenes that tells the story of Aethon, a foolish shepherd who leaves home in search of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a fictional place where there is no pain and turtles walk around carrying honeycakes on their backs. On his journey he is turned into a donkey, a fish, and a crow.

Although there is no actual ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land,’ there was a 1^st century writer named Antonius Diogenes. Moreover, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of works that we know of but have been lost, some of them comedies about men being transformed into donkeys. Doerr uses this imagined tale to tie his characters together, even though they are separated by geography and time.

Konstance, 14 years old, lives aboard The Argos, a spacecraft launched 65 years earlier headed to a distant planet that is to be man's new home. Zeno is 80 years old and leading a group of fifth-graders in a production of ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ at the public library. Seymour is a young man who is intent on placing a bomb in that library. Anna is a young girl that works in an embroidery shop with her sister in 15^th century Constantinople. Omeir is a Bulgarian boy who is drafted by Sultan's army in their attack on Constantinople.

Each character is abandoned or outcast and each is saved by a story. Konstance is the last human left alive aboard the Argos. Zeno is a gay man in rural Idaho in the mid-20^th century; Seymour is autistic; Anna is an orphan; Omeir is born with a cleft lip.

Anna discovers a codex of ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ in an abandoned priory. She and Omeir escape Constantinople as it falls to the Ottomans. They view the book as a talisman that gives them luck in their escape and even heals one of their sons when he has a fever.

Zeno has spent years teaching himself ancient Greek and translating ancient works when a lost story, ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is discovered in the Vatican library. Zeno finds joy in the ancient tales and is elated by the discovery. Seymour, regretful of his crimes, assembles Zeno’s work on Aethon’s tale into a book, ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land.’ In doing so, he finds some redemption.

Konstance, alone on the Argos, recalls the stories of the foolish shepherd that her father told her and searches the ship’s library for the stories. In doing so, she discovers a secret that leads to her escape.

What links all these characters is a story. A story that was once lost and has been found. A story that saves each of their lives. A story that allows them to “slip the trap” of their heartbreak or existential misery. A story that allows them to live inside of it for a few precious moments and be content, entertained, and remember the loved ones they have lost.

The alternating chronologies and main characters make this book compelling. And although it’s over 600 pages, you will find yourself finishing it in just a few days. The characters are endearing, especially Zeno and Anna.

Anna, who is so young and so fierce, who trades stolen wine for reading lessons, is willing to brave any challenge to keep herself and her sister alive. Zeno, the sweet orphaned boy who is both foreign and a “sissy,” volunteers for the army to honor his father, who died in WWII, returns from a POW camp to dutifully cares for his dying guardian, a selfish woman who offers him only shelter, never love.

Even six weeks after finishing the novel, I find myself still thinking about these characters and their moving stories.

This love-letter to stories and books is beautiful and enthralling, a masterpiece, and has been predicted to be in the running for next year's Pulitzer. If you love books, you will love this book.

 

Types of flour and fat determine flakiness of pie crust

Finally getting my dream kitchen followed by a year of lockdown and almost another year of anxiety about going out has made me a competent home cook. I rarely cooked while I was teaching, as my job demanded about 60 hours a week. After I retired, I cooked a bit more, but I was very frustrated by the poor design of my kitchen. In February of 2020, we began a kitchen remodel. Everyone knows what happened in March.

So for the last 20 months I have spent plenty of time in the kitchen. And this is the time of year I bake pies. Lots of pies. My grandmother, Mam-ma, always made pie crusts from scratch. My go-to was refrigerated pre-made pie crust. However, I wanted to eschew the preservatives and plastic packaging, but mainly I wanted to make a pie crust as good as Mam-ma’s.

So as I began to making pie crusts using Flaky Pastry I from ‘Good Housekeeping Cookbook,’ 1955 ed. (which I inherited from Mam-ma and mom). It calls for all-purpose flour and then a choice of fat, either shortening, butter, margarine, or salad oil.

I don’t use shortening because it is so unhealthy (too much trans-fat), and I don’t use margarine because it doesn’t hold together in baked goods, so I used lard. Lard has 20% less saturated fat than butter, and is higher in mono-saturated fat and oleic acid, which are both good for the heart.

My pie crusts baked with lard always earned me praise at the big family dinners. However, we do have a few vegetarians and quasi-vegetarians in the family who will not eat lard. So I switched to butter and the result was a delicious pie crust and equal amounts of praise for my cooking.

And then I ate a prepared quiche from the local grocery store. The crust was so tender—much tenderer than mine. I did some research and learned that pastry flour, which has less protein than all-purpose flour, makes a tenderer crust. Pastry flour is hard to find except in gourmet stores. However, you can make your own from equal parts all-purpose flour and cake flour (which you can find locally). Cake flour is even lower in protein than pastry flour.

So I set out to discover which flour and which type of fat makes the most delicious pie crust. I made a batch of each: all-purpose flour and butter, pastry flour and butter, pastry flour and vegetable oil, cake flour and butter, and all-purpose flour and lard.

I abandoned the batch made with vegetable oil. It was impossible to work with—very sticky and fragile. It was difficult to roll, and it fell apart when I tried to lift it into the pie pan. The combination of all-purpose flour and lard was definitely the easiest to work with. It made a silky smooth dough that rolled and lifted easily.

First I rolled and baked a cookie-sized disk from each batch so I could evaluate them on their own merits. Then I blind baked (i.e. without a filling) crusts for cream pies, and finally I baked a two-crust fruit pie from each batch.

Among the disks, the all-purpose flour/butter combination puffed beautifully and was the flakiest of the four. The pastry flour and butter disk was not as flaky, but it was crisper. The disk made with the cake flour and butter was the second flakiest, but it did not brown as nicely as the others. The taste among these three was indistinguishable.

The disk made from all-purpose flour and lard was not flaky at all and too crumbly. Moreover, it smelled a bit “piggy,” especially before baking, but afterward also.

The cream pie made with all-purpose flour and butter was by far the prettiest. There was no breaking when cut, and it was the flakiest. This was also true of the fruit pie made with this combination of flour and fat. However, the crust of the fruit pie was a bit too toothsome, perhaps because of the sugar and cornstarch in the filling, which sticks to the crust and may make it a bit tough. Both of these pie crusts browned beautifully.

The pies made with pastry flour and butter were good, but not as flaky as the one with the all-purpose flour. However, they were much tenderer. There was very little difference between these and the ones made with cake flour.

The pie crusts made with lard were problematic. They fell apart when cut, and the top crust of the fruit pie even cracked during baking. The crusts made with lard were definitely the tenderest, and they were quite tasty. The “piggy” smell, I guess, was drowned out by the delicious pie-filling smell. In fact, they were so tender and delicate, they were a bit powdery.

So, if you’re looking for a pie crust that is light, flaky, and holds up well to baking and cutting, definitely use all-purpose flour and butter, especially for a cream pie. However, if you are baking a more substantial pie, like pecan or fruit, you might want to substitute cake flour for some of the all-purpose flour for a tenderer crust.  

Characters cross boundaries in new collection of short stories

Of course, as a retired English teacher, I could go on for pages about what characteristics make a piece of writing good: nuanced and realistic characters, a believable and suspenseful plot, imagery, natural-sounding dialogue, and on and on. However, two elements that I’m a particular sucker for are a non-linear plot and lyrical descriptions. Both are present in “The Boundaries of their Dwelling,” by Blake Sanz, the winner of this year’s Iowa Short Fiction Award.

In Sanz’s book, which was released Oct. 15, characters cross boundaries of culture, language, nationality, society, and morality. The stories are set in Texas, Louisiana, Miami, and Mexico, so they especially resonate with natives to this region.

The first story in “Part I – Lives of the Saints” is “¡Hablamos!” about two 17-year-old girls from Mexico City who travel to Miami to appear on a Spanish-language talk show similar to “The Jerry Springer Show.” They are given aliases and asked to “play” two sisters who will first argue heatedly and then shock and outrage the audience, who want to be shocked and outraged. The girls see it as a lark, but the show doesn’t go as planned.

In “After the Incident, Mary Vasquez Teaches Burlesque,” the title character delivers a monologue to her students, revealing her transformation from ballet to burlesque, from Maria to Marina Valentina, and suggesting it was prompted by the crossing of a moral boundary. The monologue is filled with delightful alliterative phrases and epithets, like “titillating traitor and translator” (61) and “Magdalenean Madams of the Metroplex” (54) and “fellow floozies” (59). Despite the clever and amusing language, the story is no comedy, but rather a loud triumph over trauma.

The last story in Part I, “Godfather,” introduces us to Manuel and Tommy and prepares the reader for “Part II – Manuel and Tommy.” Each of the stories in this part is about one or both characters and their failures at their father/son relationship. The stories are out of chronological order, but work together to produce a coherent narrative, which make this part more novella than a collection of short fiction.

In fact, there is an additional story in Part I that includes a character that we see later in Part II. After I finished the book, I found myself returning to the early stories to find more connections. I also find this book still in my head long after finishing it.

“Hurricane Gothic,” from Part I, is another non-linear story about a Louisiana man who repeatedly rebuilds his house after a succession of hurricanes. He also has to deal with his drug-addicted son, whom he tries to reform after his release from prison, and his own depression.

The stories in Sanz’s collection are so moving and evocative that I would like to describe each one. However, it would be better for you to read the entire collection. In fact, I suggested this title to my book club, hoping to discuss it with them later. Although this is Sanz’s first collection of stories to be published, I hope to see much more work by him, in both short and long form.

 

Historical fiction personalizes stories

I have come to really admire writers of historical fiction. Not only do these writers require imagination and skill in writing, they also must devote hours or months or, in some cases, years to researching their subjects.

“The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray presents a fictional account of Belle da Costa Greene, the personal librarian to financier JP Morgan and the driving force that turned Morgan’s personal library into an internationally acclaimed collection of rare books, manuscripts, drawings, and Renaissance art.

Greene was described as the most accomplished business woman of the time (early 20^th century) and the foremost expert on art and incunabula during her career. She moved in the most elite social circles in New York and London. But what was most remarkable about Greene is that she was born Belle Marion Greener to Black (or colored, as Belle and her family referred to themselves) parents.

Greene’s mother represented the family as white to a census taker, changed their name, and invented a Portuguese grandmother to explain their olive skin.

The novel focuses on Greene’s inner struggle with her authentic identity verses her ambition. She knew that if her race were revealed it would end her career, and perhaps her life, as well as tarnish the reputation of the Pierpont Morgan Library, which she loved as much or more than Morgan himself did.

Greene narrates the novel in the present tense, but her tone is objective and formal, almost aloof, as one might expect of someone who had to worry every moment of every day that her true self would be revealed. She holds the reader at arm’s length just as she must do with her colleagues, friends, and lovers, lest they learn her secret.

However, we are drawn to and sympathize with Belle as she sacrifices her extended family, marriage, motherhood, and even her father to maintain the life she built as a white woman.

“Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen” by Sarah Bird is another fictional account of an actual woman, Cathy Williams/William Cathay, who disguised herself as a man so that she could join the US Army after the Civil War.

Williams was a freed slave, or “captive” as she calls herself. In 1866 she joins a cavalry unit of the Buffalo Soldiers. She maintained her secret for two years of her three year hitch. However, her deception was discovered when she was hospitalized with a fever. She was discharged from the army.

This novel is also a personal account of Williams’s inner struggle to hide her “true nature,” as well as the logistical struggle to hide her sex from the men that she spends 24 hours a day with.

In stark contrast to Belle’s voice, Cathy makes the reader her confidante, drawing in the audience until we feel like we are right next to Cathy as she kills her owner by dropping a brown recluse in his pocket, falls in love with a dying soldier, and kills a rattlesnake and puts it in her enemy’s bed roll.

Both Belle and Cathy fight and sacrifice for their freedom and independence during times when their color and sex were considered inferior, and suitable jobs for them were washerwoman, cook, or worse. They defied society’s norms, proved their skill and worth, and bested many of those who would relegate them to the lowest rungs of society.

There are biographies and other non-fiction works that recount the lives of the actual women who inspired these novels. However, the documentation about them is scant, since the army placed little value on retaining the records of the Buffalo Soldiers and Belle Greene destroyed all her personal papers and correspondence shortly before her death.

Bird, Benedict, and Murray, however, fill the gaps left by the limited source material on these two remarkable women of color. They use not only research, but also logical extrapolations and story-telling skills. They bring to life the personal stories of two women that fought racism and sexism, and readers are richer for it.

Illustrated biography is more than a 'comic book'

When my children were school-age, the whole family would make a trip to Austin about once a month to eat in one of our favorite restaurants and afterwards visit Half Price Books. As soon as we arrived at Half Price, the four of us would split up, heading off to our own favorite section of books.

I would start in the literature or mystery section, the roommate in the history section, our son liked the children’s series books, and our daughter would pretty much plant herself in the manga section. When it was time to head home, I knew where to find everyone and herd them towards the door.

On one occasion, we were in a HP Books that I wasn’t entirely familiar with. I had trouble locating our daughter, so I went to the desk and asked, “Where are your graphic novels?”

The young man behind the counter answered, “We keep the erotica back here.”

I blinked a couple of times trying to figure out just how I had failed to communicate.

“Um, where is your comic book section?” I asked. He then directed me to the right area.

However, manga, graphic novels, and illustrated non-fiction are a great deal more than comic books. A good example is Joe Lee’s upcoming illustrated biography of Eva Kor, “Forgiveness,” which launches Oct. 5.

Eva Mozes was 10 years old and lived with her family in Romania when they were removed from their home in Operation Margarethe and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Eva’s parents and two older sisters were immediately murdered by the Nazis. Eva and her twin sister, Miriam, were spared to become victims of Mengele’s heinous twin “experiments.”

Eva and Miriam both survived the Holocaust. They migrated to the new state of Israel where Eva met and married another Holocaust survivor, an America, who was visiting his brother in Israel.

But Eva was not to live “happily ever after” as her experiences at the hands of the Nazis haunted her. She finally came to realize that she had to forgive in order to move past the trauma.

For her own sake, she did forgive her torturers and went on to educate others about the Holocaust and especially about the twin experiments as well as lead groups from America to the remains of Auschwitz.

The brutal honesty of the story makes it compelling for adult audiences. After Eva was liberated, she and Miriam experienced PTSD. The Nazis were said to have used the fat from murdered Jews in the manufacture of soap, and “Eva would sometimes suffer auditory hallucinations when she imagined hearing Mama and Papa’s voices crying from the bar” (p 80).

However, the book is also appropriate for young adult readers. The straight-forward and simple retelling of the events that led up to the war and the Nazi crimes will appeal to middle school audiences. Even reluctant readers will be drawn to the moving illustrations.

The art is detailed and conveys the terror, grief, and fear of the Nazis’ victims as well as the depravity of the Nazis themselves. The simple black and white drawings suggest an old movie or a nightmare. Most of the illustrations in the first part of the book are very dark, some with large areas of solid black, especially the illustration of Hitler. This is contrasted by the illustrations in the last part of the book, which have more white space, and many more curves as opposed the sharp lines and angles of the first section.

Readers who enjoyed Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” and more recently George Takei’s “They Called Us Enemy” or Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis,” will also appreciate this book.