Saints at the River

 Saints at the River by Ron Rash is a novel that presents a morally ambiguous question. A vacationing girl is swept downriver and tumbles over a waterfall, drowning in the hydraulic behind the cascade. Unable to retrieve her body, her grieving family petitions to temporarily dam the river, an illegal operation as it has been given Wild and Scenic status. This proves controversial, and well-meaning people settle on both sides of the debate (a Christian burial vs. an untouched river). The conclusion is dramatic and tragic. Rash is a good writer and this is an absorbing, complex, and weighty narrative. While the dialogue is weak at times--too utilitarian, too expositive--the characterization is haunting and affecting, and I found myself pondering the events long after finishing the book.

Krakatoa

 Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester is an exhaustive nonfiction account of a big volcano. The Krakatoa eruption was the deadliest in human history. It killed over 36,000 people, mostly from a series of enormous tsunamis. Winchester explores everything around the volcano: plate tectonics, the discovery of plate tectonics, volcanology, animal evolution, Dutch colonialism, Victorian-era communication, Javanese local politics, the rise of Islam, economics, cartography, maritime technology, and on and on. It's too much, actually. The volcano doesn't even erupt until page 234, and by that point I don't know what else there is to possibly learn about the context of this event. Winchester's obsessive attention is made palatable by his easygoing, almost conversational prose. While I think the book probably overstayed its welcome, the writing itself was pleasant and interesting. 

The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy is an excellent novel. Set in his fictional region of Wessex, and beautifully incorporating the wild countryside ("Egdon Heath"), the story centers on flawed characters in a doomed marriage. Its protagonists--Clym Yeobright and Eustacia Vie--are both fully rounded characters that contain multitudes but share an inability to overcome their tragic flaws. Allowing them to fall in love, the story anticipates Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road or Noah Baumbach's A Marriage Story in its unflinching depiction of domestic decay. Hardy is a tremendous, poetic writer, and The Return of the Native was as rich and realized as his Far from the Madding Crowd. Highest recommendations for this haunting, monumental novel. 

One reason I avoid novels from the nineteenth century is that while the writing is elevated and often beautiful, the plots tend to be convoluted and labyrinthine. This is a function of being serialized. Most of these writers released a chapter at a time in a monthly magazine. The back third of these novels can a rough read, just like seasons three and four of a serialized television show can be rough watches. The writers lose their way. Hardy rarely does this, and he maintains excellence throughout all of The Return of the Native. However, I think he is irritated by the form as well. Late in the novel, two minor characters actually do get happily married. He didn't want this to happen, but he allowed it, and he includes the best author's note I have ever read. I will end this review with Hardy's own words:

"The writer may state here that the original conception of the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining a widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led to a change of intent. 

Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be the true one."

I like to think that I have an "austere artistic code," but so happy was I with the novel overall that I accept either ending as believable and satisfying--artistically or otherwise.

The Anxious Generation

 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt is perhaps the most influential book of the last five years. My state, and many others, have enacted school-wide phone bans directly after its publication and subsequent popularity. While the passages on smart phones and social media are moving (and well-known by this point), his later chapters on free-range parenting invite as much reflection. I'm thinking more about those ideas now. I'm reflecting on how quickly I can give my children the type of physical, real-world freedom that was common two generations ago.

The Afterlife of George Cartwright

 The Afterlife of George Cartwright by John Steffler is an impressionistic work of historical fiction. Cartwright was a real Canadian explorer who settled in Newfoundland and Labrador during the time of the American Revolution. Steffler uses Cartwright's actual journal entries, along with third-person narrative sketches, to evoke a dramatic life story. Much of it is engaging, and all of it is well-written. Some early chapters, documenting an early-life passage to India, are vivid and beautiful. As he travels to Canada, his encounters with landscapes, animal life, and inclement weather are crystalline and believable. Later interactions with the Inuit are profound and heartbreaking. It's a worthy read, which makes certain decisions annoying. The "afterlife" in the title is a framing device (Cartwright as a ghost in England's midlands) that is completely unnecessary and holds up the rest of story. I skimmed those vignettes: they did nothing to further our understanding of literary elements. But on balance, The Afterlife of George Cartwright, when focused on his earthly life, is a fine novel. 

In Search of the Old Ones

 In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest by David Roberts is a book I'd seen in many a visitor-center gift shop. I finally read it, and enjoyed the interesting blend of memoir, travel narrative, archaeology, and anthropology. The Anasazi* of the title are an ancient group of Native Americans spanning centuries, mountain ranges, and artistic achievements. They are united in their pueblo-style housing and their propensity for cliff-dwelling. Roberts writes quite a bit about the "search" for their ruins and artifacts: much of this reads as a backpacking memoir. Throughout, with every fact of information gained, it seems that more mysteries arise. Why did the Anasazi abandon their dwellings in 1300 A.D.? Did they, in fact, practice cannibalism, as compelling evidence seems to suggest? How peaceful were they compared to their neighbors? What do their petroglyphs mean? Why did they dwell hundreds of feet above canyon floors? How much local knowledge--in  modern-day pueblos--accurately answers these questions? And on and on. Roberts doesn't give easy answers. An honest archaeologist wouldn't have firm opinions on these shadowy historical mysteries. 

I found this book engaging, but frustrating at times. Roberts is Jon Krakauer's old writing instructor, and in a fun late chapter, the real Krakauer appears and the two of them descend a remote canyon. The comparison between the two writers, then, was highlighted. I find Krakauer a master of building suspense, of creating a cohesive narrative that seeks to answer a central mystery. Roberts, by contrast, is more slapdash in his approach, and I didn't really know why I was being taken narratively into various ruins. A larger picture emerged, but it wasn't clear when certain characteristics would be explained. For example, he would often use anthropological terms in the early chapters that weren't defined until the later chapters. In Search of the Old Ones could've used a good editor. But its subject matter is fascinating enough to overcome the shortcomings of its structure. 

*"Anasazi" is a controversial term, as it's the Navajo word for "ancestral enemies," and the descendants of these people are Hopi, Zuni, and others that historically, well, were enemies of the Navajo. Roberts addresses this in an author's note, finding the more updated term "Ancestral Puebloans" even more problematic and inaccurate. I don't know enough to weigh in with authority here, and in this post I'm using the language of the book.

House of Sand and Fog

 House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III is a wrenching, brutal read. The novel centers on two deeply flawed characters: a proud Iranian colonel exiled after the Islamic Revolution, and a woman in recovery reeling from her husband's abandonment. Through unfortunate circumstances, they both seem to have legal claim to the titular house. A police officer falls in love with the woman during the eviction process, and their love affair (he's married) is a doomed, slow-motion car crash of somewhat understandable but terrible decisions. At almost every fork in the road, the characters pick the wrong option, and while they are sympathetic and well-meaning, they lack the intelligence or self-control to pull of their schemes. 

In one sense, the story reads like a good noir, maybe one of James M. Cain's fine books of adulterous misfits making violent, bad decisions. In another sense, it's a Shakespearean tragedy, where fate and the dark side of the Human Condition ultimately flood through the narrative. Some scenes near the end pushed the pathos a bit too far, but on the whole I was effectively disturbed as I read. These fictional characters hit me on an emotional level, which is impressive, given that that doesn't normally happen to me, and that Dubus III wrote from taboo perspectives (by modern standards). In 2025, it would be unlikely to read a white male author narrating from a Persian perspective--or even from a female one--but he did in 1999, and, by my judgment, pulled it off. 

Dubus III is the son of the great Andre Dubus. Dubus the elder was a thoughtful, spiritual essayist and short story writer that I've admired for a long time. His Catholic background made him keenly aware of human sinful nature and the need for grace. Dubus III, from what I understand, isn't religious, but House of Sand and Fog evokes Old Testament themes of guilt, purity, retribution, and atonement. Father and son are equally talented and worthy of attention, and American fiction is better off from both of their contributions.