Nevermore: Murmur of Bees, Bitter and Sweet, Alexander Hamilton, The Historian, Man on a Raft, Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good

 

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began our latest Zoom book club discussing Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years by Michael E. Newton. Our reader is a huge Hamilton fan and has read many books about him over the years, but was highly impressed with Newton’s research. She said that she thought she knew everything about Hamilton, but learned so much more with this reading. Hamilton’s heroic exploits of the Revolutionary War were emphasized, even praising his compassion at the Battle of Yorktown as he quickly outmaneuvered the British troops, but let the defeated soldiers go rather than dispatching them with bayonets.

Our next reader picked up a recommended book from six decades ago, (1960!) Man on a Raft by Kenneth Cooke. Although faded and worn, this little paperback was proclaimed to be wonderful, even though the main character endured so much misery. Our reader said that it was truly about courage, and that she was inspired by others’ perseverance.

 

On another serious note, the same reader highly recommended the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Set in Seattle and moving between the 1940s and the 1980s, this debut novel tells the story of Asian families removed to internment camps. The Panama Hotel once served as an intersectional place for the Japanese and Chinese communities, and indeed, Henry Lee met his first love, Keiko Okabe, there during the war years. Our reader said that one of the best parts of the book was how Henry and his father came to understand each other as they each tried to define their cultural identity.

 

Moving further back in historical fiction, another book club member read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, a venture back to the fifteenth century in another retelling of the Dracula tale. The novel uses three different narrators: an unnamed young woman in the 1970s, her father Paul in the 1950s, and Paul’s mentor a generation earlier in the 1930s. The story weaves much travel through Eastern Europe through the pages, visiting monasteries and villages while looking for the origin of Dracula.

 

Back on this side of the Atlantic, our next reader read another novel that sounds all too familiar these days because it involved an influenza pandemic, The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia. The first of this Mexican author’s books translated into English, this is the tale of Simonopio, a baby found under a bridge and covered in bees. As he grows, he has visions, causing some villagers to view him with superstition. With the 1918 pandemic and the Mexican Revolution intertwined, Segovia’s beautiful voice tells of turbulent times of change.

 

Finally, another reader enjoyed a book that has been making the rounds of Nevermore for months: An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten. This small book of stories was translated from the original Swedish, and has been well enjoyed by most readers. Maud is 88 years old and has been living in her inherited apartment for decades, (rent-free, mind you) and has no plan to give it up anytime soon. She is clever, possibly criminal, and an absolute joy to know—as long as you don’t cross her.

Nevermore: Olive Again, Constitution, Symptoms of Being Human, This Is How It Always Is, Historian, Less

Reported by Jeanne

Nevermore opened with praises being sung for Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout.  The first book, Olive Kitteridge, was greatly enjoyed by the group (indeed, someone was currently reading it) and this second one is deemed a most worthy sequel. As with the first book, there are a series of connecting stories about the lives of ordinary people in the small town of Crosby, Maine.  Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher, is the link between them.  Olive is a wonderful creation. Blunt, stubborn, curmudgeonly, Olive is still very relatable.  Strout has a gift for creating characters who feel real and for infusing her stories with a deep humanity.  One reader commented that she found it amazing that Ms. Strout, who appears so young could write so movingly and realistically about old age.

How to Read the Constitution and Why by Kim Wehle is a very thorough examination of the U.S. Constitution.  Very. Thorough.  Word by word thorough. And not just the current meaning of some of the words but the historic meanings as well.  Our reader said it was good but slow reading.  She had heard the author speak and found her to be lively and interesting, but that didn’t really show up in the book.  It’s an important book on an important subject, but it was not engaging.

The next reviewer has been reading about the changing concepts of gender and sexuality.  In The Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin, Riley is a fourteen year old who is gender fluid.  Some days Riley feels more masculine, sometimes more feminine.  Riley dresses in a neutral style, but that doesn’t stop bullying by classmates.  To complicate matters further, Riley’s father is a congressman who is running for re-election in a very conservative district, so Riley’s questions of identity must be kept secret. This is a YA novel, so there is a good bit of teen angst but our reader still found it entertaining and informative.

Her second book was Laurie Frankel’s This Is How It Always Is which centers around a family with a child with similar issues, but at a younger age. Rosie and Adam have four sons—or so it seemed, but their youngest child, precocious Claude insists that he wants to be a girl when he grows up and wants to wear feminine clothing.The family accepts this, but problems arise as Poppy becomes old enough to attend school. (Kristin reviewed this book back in 2017.)

A new Nevermore attendee was enthusiastic about The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  As the story opens, a young woman finds a dragon-emblazoned book which contains a collection of letters that seem to indicate the legendary Dracula is very real.  This launches a search across countries, with flashbacks to earlier time periods.  The reader said that the book bogged down somewhat in the middle, being packed with well-researched historical information.  There are some genuinely chilling scenes as well--another Nevermore member said she had put it down at times because it was so frightening.

Another character who sets out on an international adventure isn’t so much searching for something as avoiding a situation.  Andrew Less is a middle aged man whose younger lover has decided to marry someone else.  In a desperate attempt to avoid the ceremony, Andrew accepts every professional invitation he can and sets out on what will become an international journey and a voyage of self-discovery.  Our reader called Andrew Sean Greer’s novel Less funny and satiric, but also a poignant book about love.