Chika Gujarathi

FictionComic Fiction

The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Set in a small seaside village in Britain, Julietta Henderson’s debut novel, The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman, is a tender tale of comedy, hope and courage, told from the perspective of 12-year-old Norman and his loving single mum, Sadie.

Norman’s quiet, lonely life gets a surge of excitement when a new student named Jax joins his class. Jax is loud, funny and a perpetual troublemaker—the yang to Norman’s yin. Their instant friendship is strengthened by their shared love for stand-up comedy. The two dream of performing as a comedic duo at Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe when they turn 15.

But when Jax dies, a heartbroken Norman decides to revise the plan. Despite the fact that Jax was the one with the comedic timing, Norman will enter the comedy festival in four weeks’ time to honor his friend’s memory. He also wants to find out who his father is—something that Sadie cannot answer.

Sadie is caught off-guard by Norman’s announcements, but seeing him get excited about something, anything, makes it impossible for her to refuse to go along with his plan. Filled with fear and trepidation, she agrees to a road trip to Edinburgh, planned by her elderly but sharp friend Leonard. Reminiscent of the movie Little Miss Sunshine, the trio set out on an adventure with plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Henderson’s cheekiness and humor shine as mother and son share their innermost fears and discuss how to carry on amid loss and grief. A lineup of great supporting characters keep things memorable and often laugh-out-loud funny. At its core, the novel is a celebration of friendships, new and old, that shape life in the best possible way. This is a happy tear-jerker for sure.

Julietta Henderson’s debut novel is a celebration of friendships, new and old, that shape life in the best possible way—a happy tear-jerker for sure.
FictionHistorical Fiction

The Paris Library

Review by Chika Gujarathi

One might wonder if anything new can be written about Paris, but Janet Skeslien Charles reminds us of the city’s evergreen appeal and unbounded potential for stories with The Paris Library, which tells of the very real, very beloved American Library in Paris and the role it played during World War II.

The year is 1939, and Odile Souchet is nervously reciting the Dewey Decimal System as she prepares for a job interview at the American Library. It’s not common for young ladies of her class to get jobs, but Odile is in love with books as if they were walking, breathing bodies, and she wants nothing more than to be a librarian at a place she has loved since her childhood. It’s no surprise to the reader when she lands the job.

The comfort and whimsy that young Odile once experienced at the American Library are still very much alive. However, everything changes when the Germans occupy Paris and threaten to destroy everything she holds dear. Together with the rest of the staff, Odile joins the resistance, delivering books to Jewish readers banned from entering the library. When the war eventually ends, instead of rejoicing, Odile learns of betrayals that make it impossible for her to remain in the city she loves or to work in a place she had come to know as her sanctuary.

The book skips ahead to 1983 Montana, where we find Odile living alone. In all these years of calling a small American town her home, she hasn’t managed to shake off the mystery surrounding her. When a school assignment connects a lonely and curious teenage girl named Lily with Odile, a friendship is forged, and the two slowly confront the consequences of present and past choices.

What makes The Paris Library such a tender read is Charles’ firsthand experience at the American Library, where she was the programs manager. This is where she first discovered the stories of the brave librarians who fought the Germans with nothing more than books. Her meticulous research brings these figures to life with Odile as their narrator. Furthermore, Charles’ Montana roots help shine light on the small-town life that Lily can’t wait to escape. Together the two storylines provide wonderful insight into relationships and friendships that transcend time and place.

One might wonder if anything new can be written about Paris, but Janet Skeslien Charles reminds us of the city’s evergreen appeal and unbounded potential for stories with The Paris Library, which tells of the very real, very beloved American Library in Paris and the role it played during World War II.

FictionPopular Fiction

This Close to Okay

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Set in author Leesa Cross-Smith’s native Kentucky, This Close to Okay is the story of two strangers coming together to sort out their fears and disappointments.

While driving home from work one rainy October evening, Tallie Clark, 40 and divorced, spots a man preparing to jump from a bridge. A therapist by trade, she doesn’t hesitate before rushing out of her car, ignoring the traffic and the rain, to dissuade the man from jumping. Thankfully Tallie’s bravado in approaching the stranger catches him off guard and delays him long enough that he agrees to back off and get a cup of coffee with her. He won’t reveal his name or much else, but that doesn’t stop Tallie from inviting him to her home to spend the night.

The morning comes, and with it a kind of comfort and thankfulness that allows soft-spoken Emmett to reveal to Tallie not only his name but also the pain that brought him to the bridge. Tallie, though she seems perfectly put-together, isn’t any less heartbroken than Emmett. The two start sharing their deepest feelings with each other, making their chance encounter extend into a whole weekend together. Interestingly enough, their revelations don’t include the basic details that Tallie is a therapist or that Emmett has a pretty sketchy public profile. Both are still afraid on some level to completely reveal their identities.

Cross-Smith places mental health at the heart of this story, bringing attention to the importance of asking for help when navigating the complicated twists and turns of life. This Close to Okay is a fast-moving, drama-filled roller coaster that will keep you guessing about how things will turn out for these two lost souls.

Set in author Leesa Cross-Smith’s native Kentucky, This Close to Okay is the story of two strangers coming together to sort out their fears and disappointments.

FictionFamily Saga

The Sea Gate

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Author Jane Johnson’s portfolio is extensive to say the least. An editor, novelist and historian, she has edited for Dean Koontz and other big names, and written several novels for children and adults, including the film tie-in books to The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Her latest novel, The Sea Gate, is a beautiful story of love, loss and pain, bouncing between wartime memories of the 1940s and present day.

Set in the gorgeous seascape of Cornwall, England, the novel explores the trials and tribulations of two women: bold and eccentric Olivia Kitto, now in her 90s; and Becky, her 30-something cousin who has learned about Olivia through letters she discovered after her mother’s very recent passing.

After an unexpected fall that led to a stint in the hospital, Olivia desperately needs help restoring her beloved home in Cornwall. Becky, needing an escape from a despondent life in London, decides she’ll take on the responsibility that would have otherwise belonged to her late mother. Olivia’s memory is not quite what it used to be, but she remembers enough to know that the renovation of her home will need to include a few repairs that could quite literally unearth some troublesome secrets that she has managed to hide for so long. Becky, being naturally inquisitive, uncovers them anyway and eventually connects the dots that tell a scary tale of murders, Nazis and the courage it takes to protect the ones you truly love at any cost.

All of that—plus dives into history, a mind-blowing landscape and even a love story—make The Sea Gate a pleasant read.

Jane Johnson’s latest novel, The Sea Gate, is beautiful story of love, loss and pain, bouncing between wartime memories of the 1940s and present day.
FictionLiterary Fiction

The Heiress

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Such is Jane Austen’s brilliance that our obsession with Pride and Prejudice has hardly ceased over the two centuries since its publication. Along with Austen’s ahead-of-her-time ingenuity in creating characters, some might say that her mastery of subplots is what has kept readers talking and wondering for centuries.

Take, for instance, the mystery around Mr. Darcy’s cousin Anne de Bourgh. What we know about her from Austen’s novel is that she was sickly, had an ungodly inheritance and (much to our relief) never ends up marrying Mr. Darcy, as had been arranged since their births. But isn’t there so much more we have wished to know about her?

Enter Molly Greeley’s novel The Heiress, an entertaining elaboration to satisfy generations of readers who have wondered and theorized about Anne. In perfectly Austenesque style, Greeley reveals the backstory of the Rosings Park heiress and just what made her so sickly, so interesting and so complicated.

Anne begins life as a colicky baby, and with a doctor’s recommendation, her mother, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, gives baby Anne opium-heavy laudanum to calm her down. This leads to an addiction that weakens Anne and leaves her in a constant daze, as readers will remember in Pride and Prejudice. But Anne comes to a rare moment of clarity in her late 20s when she questions if her fragility and illness are truly real. Desperate to find out, she flees to London to stay with her cousin Colonel John Fitzwilliam. It’s a move so bold that it paves the path for other bold and unexpected decisions to follow.

Keen observations about society and strong supporting characters make The Heiress a perfectly joyful read.

Enter Molly Greeley’s novel The Heiress, an entertaining elaboration to satisfy generations of readers who have wondered and theorized about Anne de Bourgh. In perfectly Austenesque style, Greeley reveals the backstory of the Rosings Park heiress and just what made her so sickly, so interesting and so complicated.

FictionLiterary Fiction

The Lost Shtetl

Review by Chika Gujarathi

A long time ago, amid circumstances that no one seems so sure about anymore, a small Jewish village in Poland fell off the map of the world. Surrounded by thick forests, Kreskol has existed in a self-sustained bubble of peaceful isolation for decades, thereby missing the best of human civilization—like electricity, indoor plumbing and the internet—as well as the worst, namely the Holocaust and the Cold War. It is surprising, then, that what brings this peace crashing down isn’t an epic catastrophe but rather something as mundane as a marital dispute.

When young Pesha Lindauer disappears, everyone suspects foul play by her husband, Ishmael, who is also nowhere to be found. Having no means to further investigate the scandal, the rabbis convince young Yankel Lewinkopf, an outcast and an orphan, to find his way to the nearest town and inform the authorities of the suspected crime. Yankel leaves reluctantly, only to return three months later in a helicopter with gentiles who are less interested in solving the crime than in immediately thrusting Kreskol into the 21st century.

First-time novelist Max Gross is funny, insightful and mysterious in sharing what is essentially a coming-of-age story not only for Pesha, Ishmael and Yankel, each of whom realizes that they can choose to lead a different life, but also for an entire village that’s at once suspicious of and fascinated by the inundation of money and modern conveniences.

The Lost Shtetl is a fascinating combination of adventure, laughs and heartache, perfect for fans of Michael Chabon.

A long time ago, amid circumstances that no one seems so sure about anymore, a small Jewish village in Poland fell off the map of the world.
FictionComic Fiction

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett

Review by Chika Gujarathi

British humor is so darn good at bringing to light the absurdities of everyday life without being oppressive or depressing. Annie Lyons’ new novel, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, is no exception.

In southeast London, 85-year-old Eudora Honeysett has quite literally had enough of life. Living alone in the same house where she grew up, Eudora is increasingly baffled and annoyed by how the world around her has become louder and lazier. Though her brain is sharp, her body is a daily reminder of what’s to come: an undignified death surrounded by strangers. Without any friends or family to account for, Eudora signs up with a Swiss clinic to end her life on her own terms. She is completely ecstatic at the thought of being gone before Christmas.

Just when things are looking up, so to speak, a new family moves in next door, including Rose Trewidney, a sweet and hyper 10-year-old girl who is instantly intrigued by the grumpy old woman. Eudora finds Rose’s curiosity extremely nosy and obnoxious, but trying to resist Rose is even harder than summoning death.

Intertwined with these events are Eudora’s memories of her childhood, including heartbreaks, wartime survival and missed opportunities. These flashbacks give the reader something deeper to mull over concerning their own wins and losses, and how our perceptions change during different stages of life.

Even with death and loneliness at its core, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett is filled with personable characters, witty dialogue and relatable moments. It’s a vibrant and humorous celebration of being alive and learning to say goodbye. 

British humor is so darn good at bringing to light the absurdities of everyday life without being oppressive or depressing. Annie Lyons’ new novel, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, is no exception.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionFantasy

Flyaway

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Perhaps the first thing you might do after picking up Kathleen Jennings’ fantasy novella is pull out the map and look for Inglewell somewhere between the Coral Sea and the Indian Ocean. Does it exist? Is it real?

In this former mining town, full of withering things, there is a house with the prettiest front garden on Upper Spicer Street. There, 19-year-old Bettina Scott lives with her sickly mother, Nerida, who over the years has quieted Bettina’s curiosities about the mysterious disappearance of her father and her two older brothers.

But when an unexpected note makes an appearance in the mailbox, Bettina finds it hard to resist the urge to seek the truth about her family. She reluctantly turns to Gary Damson and Trish Aberdeen, two formerly inseparable best friends who’ve had a bad falling out. But much like everything else in this old town, they, too, are strangely connected to the riddle Bettina is trying to solve. Together, they embark in Gary’s old beaten truck to chase tales of cursed creatures, bewitched vines and desert monsters, all of which seem as much part of their past as Inglewell’s.

Jennings grew up on fairy tales on a cattle station in Western Queensland, Australia, and worked as a translator and lawyer before completing a master of philosophy in creative writing. Jennings is also an illustrator, and the cover design and chapter illustrations are her own. Part ghost story, part murder mystery and part fairy tale, Flyaway feels like a perfect combination of all Jennings’ experiences and imagination.

Part ghost story, part murder mystery and part fairy tale, Flyaway feels like a perfect combination of all Jennings’ experiences and imagination.
FictionFamily Drama

Mother Land

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Leah Franqui knows a thing or two about straddling different cultures and identities. She is a Puerto Rican Jewish American who lives in Mumbai with her Kolkata-born husband, and her perspective informs her latest novel. Set in the busy, noisy and chaotic world of modern Mumbai, Mother Land is the story of an expat, Rachel Meyer, who knows she’s living the dream—but whose dream exactly, she isn’t sure.

Upon meeting her now-husband Dhruv in a Manhattan bar, Rachel instantly fell in love with his boyish charm and assertiveness. His sense of purpose was a welcome change in her listless life, so she married him and followed him to India to make a home together.

To Rachel, Mumbai is mesmerizing—at first. Then cultural expectations, language barriers and mounting loneliness start revealing all the voids that can’t easily be filled. Things get even more confusing when Swati, Rachel’s mother-in-law, arrives unannounced one day from Kolkata with the intention of leaving her husband and moving in permanently with the newlyweds. The shock of it all, coinciding with Dhruv’s departure for a monthlong business trip, leaves Rachel paralyzed with fear. Thus, Franqui resurrects the age-old struggle between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law—and topples it with a spot-on exploration of what it means to stand up against other people’s expectations.

Mother Land is unexpected. It’s funny and relatable even if your mother-in-law isn’t anything like Swati. It’s a tender tale of two women who are lost and alone, but who eventually become allies and each other’s biggest champions.

Leah Franqui knows a thing or two about straddling different cultures and identities. She is a Puerto Rican Jewish American who lives in Mumbai with her Kolkata-born husband, and her perspective informs her latest novel. Set in the busy, noisy and chaotic world of modern Mumbai, Mother Land is the story of an expat, Rachel Meyer, who knows she’s living the dream—but whose dream exactly, she isn’t sure.

FictionHistorical Fiction

Code Name Hélène

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Ariel Lawhon’s Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding work of historical fiction inspired by the real story of Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, a woman so extraordinary that your first instinct might be to believe she is imaginary, like James Bond. 

In 1936 Paris, Nancy, an Aussie expat, cleverly bluffs her way into becoming a freelance journalist at the European branch of the Hearst newspaper group. It’s a career chosen out of necessity rather than a calling, but Nancy is nonetheless very good at it, earning respect from her male colleagues for her bravado and instincts. It isn’t long before she falls in love with a wealthy French industrialist named Henri Fiocca. The two marry and make Marseille their home, where Nancy is ready to spend the rest of her life as Henri’s supportive housewife. Truthfully, Lawhon could have stopped Nancy’s story here and left it as one of the most sensual romance novels you’ve ever read. 

But there is more to life than romance, as Nancy discovers in 1940 when Henri is drafted to fight the Germans. Alone, anxious and restless, Nancy starts by driving an ambulance for the wounded but soon finds her way deeper and deeper into the French Resistance until she emerges as one of its most powerful leaders. Nancy, also known as Madame Andrée the fighter, Lucienne Carlier the smuggler, Hélène the spy and the White Mouse, becomes the most wanted person on the Nazi target list. She is real, this really did happen is the mantra you may find yourself repeating, in awe at every page. 

In her acknowledgments, Lawhon describes the extraordinary life of Nancy as first and foremost a story about love and marriage. Right away it seems preposterous to consider a story about a woman who seemed to magically summon weapons for the Allied Forces, who killed a Nazi with her bare hands, who saved thousands of lives, a love story. But let the story sink in, and Nancy and Henri’s enduring love will indeed rise to the surface.

Ariel Lawhon’s Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding work of historical fiction inspired by the real story of Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, a woman so extraordinary that your first instinct might be to believe she is imaginary, like James Bond. 

A Beautiful Crime

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Christopher Bollen’s latest novel, A Beautiful Crime, is a thrilling story of passion and deception. Amid a labyrinth of Venetian canals, bridges and crumbling palazzos, we meet the scheming protagonists, Nick Brink and his boyfriend, Clay Guillory, two young Americans who have left their tumultuous pasts in New York to start anew in Venice. 

Their plan is simple: They will use Clay’s counterfeit antiques, inherited from his previous relationship with a formerly famous artist, to con a wealthy and arrogant American in Venice named Richard West. Nick, having apprenticed with a famous antiques dealer in New York, will use his charm and connections to pull off the scam. The millions from the sale will pay off Clay’s inherited debt (which surreptitiously came along with the counterfeit antiques) and allow him and Nick to start with a clean slate.

Can two good people pull off a con full of deceit and fraud? It’s a question that persists all the way to the book’s end, maintaining an incessant, fearsome tension, like holding your breath underwater. Bollen’s portrayal of the men’s relationship with the art world adds to the story’s persistent intrigue.

Drawing from his days as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Bollen mixes cultural and historical nuances into this crime saga. Daydreaming about Venice is an inevitable side effect of reading this book. Like the city itself, A Beautiful Crime is worth losing yourself in. 

This thriller from Christopher Bollen maintains an incessant, fearsome tension, like holding your breath underwater.
FictionSpeculative Fiction

Followers

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Is it too early to declare Megan Angelo’s debut one of the best novels of 2020? Maybe. Even so, it’s probably one of the funniest and most hopeful dystopian stories you’ll come across this year. Set in 2015 Manhattan and in a fictional community in 2051 California, Followers tells the story of three women who are all social media influencers and reality TV megastars of their time.

When Orla, a wannabe author who blogs about celebrity gossip, ends up with a roommate named Floss, a shameless fame chaser, they concoct a scheme to use the public’s collective obsession with famous people to their advantage. This is in 2015, when living without social media and smartphones is far more daunting for these young women than the seemingly unlikely concern of surviving without access to clean water.

But then comes the spill. Bringing back long-forgotten memories of Y2K hysteria, Angelo presents a future in which Apple and Instagram no longer exist. The internet as we know it is gone, but this advanced civilization nevertheless functions with self-driving cars, robots, networks and devices. Society is still obsessed with celebrity, and Floss’ daughter, Marlow, is its new star. Living in the government-created community of Constellation, where everyone is filmed 24/7 for the rest of the country’s viewing pleasure (and as a corporate marketing tool), Marlow begins to realize that maybe she has a choice—one that connects her back to Orla in the most surprising way.

Even if you aren’t a fan of science fiction or reality TV, Followers delivers a shrewd look at human relationships, habits and obsessions. Of all the doomsday scenarios out there, perhaps it won’t be too bad if this one comes true after all.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Megan Angelo shares her vision of the future and explains why landlines should make a comeback.

Is it too early to declare Megan Angelo’s debut one of the best novels of 2020? Maybe. Even so, it’s probably one of the funniest and most hopeful dystopian stories you’ll come across this year.
FictionLiterary Fiction

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Elif Shafak’s 11th novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, opens to the early dawn in the outskirts of Istanbul, where Tequila Leila is lying in a dirty dumpster, still wearing her her eight-inch purple slingback stilettos. She is dead. Her heart has stopped beating. Her skin is changing color to the grayish-white of a ghost. Yet her brain hasn’t quite stopped thinking. For 10 minutes and 38 seconds, Tequila Leila recounts flashbacks of people, places and things from her childhood in the tiny village of Van to her life as a prostitute in Istanbul. Try as she might to remember how she was murdered, what she ultimately remembers are five friendships and a very pink birthday cake.

These recollections, which begins from her birth in January 1947 to her death in November 1990, give glimpses of life as a woman in a country where personal, political and moral values are heavily dictated by religion and men. These glimpses are heartbreaking. They are unfair. And yet they also represent courage, beauty and hope, like a rag-tag team of misfits who are determined to stick it to the man against all odds.

Born in Strasbourg, France, to Turkish parents, author Elif Shafak moved to Ankara, Turkey, in the early 1970s after her parents divorced. Raised by a single mother in a strongly patriarchal environment, Shafak grew up in a lonely and curious world suspended between her independent, forward-thinking mother and a more spiritual, uneducated, old-world grandmother. This remarkable coexistence has made her not only the most widely read female author in Turkey but also an award-winning international author and TED speaker.

A dying woman’s recollections give glimpses of life in a country where personal, political and moral values are heavily dictated by religion and men.

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