Lincoln in the Bardo

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders won the Booker Prize in 2017. It's about one night, in a cemetery, in Washington D. C., in 1862. "Bardo" is a Tibetan term for the transitional period between death and rebirth, and this novel literally involves Abraham Lincoln, grieving over the recent death of his son, as he moves sadly among the undead. Most of the narration is the voices of these souls, many of whom are in denial about their condition. Interestingly, Saunders also includes a variety of actual nonfiction sources about Lincoln, and the effect is an echoing, kaleidoscopic mosaic. Although the voices are at times repetitive or juvenile, the meditations on grief and slavery are transcendent, and elevate the novel. There are passages I read and reread, struck by the beauty of Saunders's language. 

The novel is a quick read--over one hundred chapters in 340 pages. I feel like I've been tearing through these books. In the last month, I've been reading about one a week. It's mostly the works themselves: I am a slow reader by nature, and when the paperback edition of Karl One Knausgaard's My Struggle: 6 comes out later this spring, it'll take me at least a month to knock that one off. Still, it's satisfying to add notches to my belt. 

Transit

Transit by Rachel Cusk is the second in her "Outline" trilogy. I read the first, Outline, in January. Transit is terrific. It continues to follow the London writer, Faye, as she navigates the post-marriage expectations of middle adulthood. It is still mostly focused on longer dialogues between Faye and a variety of characters: her contractor, her hairdresser, her extended family. While every conversation is believable and ordinary on the surface, underneath there's a brutal tension that, in this novel (unlike Outline), sometimes explodes to the surface. Fueled by this momentum, Transit is a quick and satisfying read. Cusk is becoming one of my favorite writers: she treats the reader like an adult and her sentences are as well crafted as anything by Didion or Hemingway.

I love the point-of-view choices in Transit. It's all in first-person, from Faye's perspective, and yet you are told almost nothing about Faye. For example, she describes a reading she gives with two other writers at a literary festival somewhere. She devotes twenty pages to those writers, both memoirists, as they describe their childhood trauma and their sexuality. When it's her turn to read to the audience, she narrates "I took my papers out of my bag and unfolded them. My hands shook with cold holding them. There was the sound of the audience settling into its seats. I read aloud what I had written. When I had finished I folded the papers and put them back in my bag, while the audience applauded." I imagine that Faye revealed something at that reading: reflections on divorce, struggles with children, etc. But I wasn't going to read it. Almost every conversation or exchange is like this: you only hear her respond to and absorb others, never reveal. And yet, in this decision, there is so much to infer, and Cusk is brilliant about carrying us along. 

Dreamland

Dreamland by Sam Quinones won the National Book Critics Circle Award for its exploration of America's opioid epidemic. It's one of those amazing nonfiction books that you tear through, carried on by the momentum of the fascinating subject matter. I am reminded of my experiences reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall or Evicted by Matthew Desmond. None of those books would be "literary" in an artistic sense, but the writing in all is clear, strong, and passionate. Dreamland traces the convergence of two unhappy trends: the loosening of restrictions on opioid prescribing and the efficient trafficking of black tar heroin. Quinones spent about half his adult life in Mexico, so he has a unique perspective on the cultural and economic forces at work. He also strikes me as empathetic, big-hearted, and intelligent.

When I was in college, I would sometimes take evening walks with friends and enjoy a cigarette (or two). As a moody English major, it seemed to fit. Cigarettes, it turns out, are hard to shake. I spent the first few years of my career sneaking a drag (or two), finding opportunities to smoke. Only the sheer force of peer pressure--my wife and all my friends did not smoke--led me to quit. We make funny choices when we're young. Had I been injured, during that time in American history, and prescribed a powerful pain killer, well . . . there, but for the grace of God . . .