Books I Read February 13th, 2022
This week I've been iterating versions of a cinnamon-raisin swirl loaf and trying not to notice it's 90 degrees in February. Like everyone else here in LA I've suddenly remembered I'm a longtime Rams fan, since back when they were playing in South Bend, or even Poughkeepsie.
Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabo – After her husband dies, a peasant woman moves in with her upright, emotionally stunted daughter, is slowly strangled by a lack of empathy and understanding. Effective is slightly manipulative, but it does remind me I need to call my mother.
A Game for Eagles by Oakey Hall – A California stringer of dubious morality gets involved in a coup attempt against a small Caribbean nation on behalf of the sugar company he works for. Excellent 70's paranoid thriller, shades of Ambler. A fun digression, I'll pick up more by Hall soon.
Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Lauren Dubois – A first rate popular history of the island nation of Haiti made for my second book about American imperialism in two days. We really fucked some shit up there, amiright? Anyway this was an excellent primer on a complex topic, nuanced, thoughtful and well-written.
Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America by Johnathan Kozol – What's disturbing about this classic account of homelessness in America – and many similar volumes I've been reading lately – is of course that they are written in the midst of crises that have only been compounded over the succeeding decades. This account, primarily of the experiences of unhoused families living in shitty hotels, presents a homelessness services system of horrifying decrepitude which is nonetheless far better than anything we work with here in LA in 2022. By coincidence I was reading this the same day I got to tell a woman I know who lives behind a chain-link fence next to the 5 that her housing opportunity had been revoked and the whole time I was thinking that things have only gotten worse. Also, I hope some devil somewhere is giving Ronald Reagan a high-colonic with a heated corkscrew.
My Merry Mornings by Ivan Klima – A series of semi-fantastical vignettes depicting Prague in the 80's, and the author's own peculiar position as a writer banned by the communist state. Fun, funny, sharp and strange, with the idiosyncratic black humor characteristic of Czech writing.
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone by Tennessee Williams – An aging actress takes refuge in a love affair with a Roman cad. Sharp, insightful, sad, an excellent short work.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner – I've read nearly everything that Faulkner ever wrote over the years but somehow skipped over this story of a family of white trash dragging their mother's corpse from their homestead into town. Obviously Faulkner's style is, well, Faulknerian, and although the narrative leaned a bit too much into the Southern Gothic shtick of having everything that can go wrong go ruinously (I'm looking at you, Flannery) it has an absolutely ferocious ending.