Tony Kuehn

Set in fictional Port Bonita, on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, West of Here is no less than epic. The narrative covers a timeline that is split between the late 1800s and the early 2000s, two periods that are united by the sublime power of the wilderness that surrounds the novel’s characters. The early settlers of Port Bonita are presented with a vast expanse of harsh land on the cusp of statehood, but blessed with what appears to be nearly limitless possibility—if only they can survive long enough to grasp it.

Fighting to maintain a hardscrabble existence on the very edge of the American frontier, bounded on one side by unconquerable mountains that threaten to push civilization into an inhospitable sea, the early frontiersmen and women of West of Here are truly on the very edge of a newly explored country. In contrast to their ancestors, the contemporary denizens of Port Bonita are watching their small corner of the world slowly erode as they attempt to undo the ambitions of their predecessors, chiefly a massive dam that, though it once brought power and progress, now chokes valuable fish runs and threatens to capsize the civilization it engendered.

The twists of the plots in West of Here are manifold and far too extensive to cover in any one review. Regardless, the journey down the paths author Jonathan Evison has created is so delightful that anyone who has taken it is loath to spoil it for another. This book is a living, breathing testament to Evison’s singular talent for creating portraits of people who may be fictional, but nevertheless are so vital that one is certain their names must be in a historic register somewhere. Like the people in his book, Evison’s grand ambition seems to have been snatched out of thin air and made real in a way that is simply undeniable. 

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, especially in India. Like its cuisine, India is vast, complex and defies easy categorization. To say that you are eating Indian food is not nearly specific enough. Is it Southern or Northern? Did you put tomatoes in the Rogan Josh, or did it take its red color from the peppers? Like the people of India, the country’s food varies from region to region, with no simple consensus on how to prepare anything. But in Jaspreet Singh’s outstanding debut novel, as the characters learn to understand the origins of their food, they begin to understand each other.

As Chef opens we learn that Kirpal Singh (known by most as “Kip”) is a former military chef who has been out of the service for 14 years. After years of silence, his former commanding officer has asked Kip to cook for him once again—only now it is at his daughter’s wedding, outside the auspices of the military and under the weight of painful memories. Until this point Kip has led a quiet life, cooking and caring for his ailing mother, but as he begins his journey north to the beauty of Kashmir and the sublime oppression of its glacial border with Pakistan, the trappings of his former life come flooding back. Through a series of flashbacks, Chef becomes a coming of age tale in which a young Kip learns how to understand the people and the world around him through food and its infinite complexity. When a Pakistani “terrorist” with long hair and her own ideas about a “proper” Rogan Josh washes up on the Indian side of the river, the course of Kip’s life—and cuisine—is changed forever. Brilliantly interleaved with the memories of Kip’s awakening is his current journey north into the twilight of his existence as he prepares to cook a meal that could save his life.

Quintessentially Indian, Chef is a book that eschews complex prose in favor of authenticity. Touching in its deft handling of Kip’s journey into maturity, Chef helps its readers realize that true understanding comes when you recognize not only how people are alike, but also how they are different.

A prime number is a number divisible only by one and by itself. As numbers grow larger, the frequency of primes decreases, and these mathematical islands become more and more distant from each other. “Among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special,” writes Paolo Giordano in The Solitude of Prime Numbers. “Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13.” Alice and Mattia, the novel’s two main characters, are the human analogues to twin primes; they fit with no one but each other, and even that connection is tenuous. It’s a high literary concept, but Giordano’s clear understanding of all things mathematical—by day he works as a particle physicist—provides a clarity that can be appreciated by anyone, including those with math phobias.

In concise chapters over a 24-year time span, we learn that Alice is an anorexic with a permanently disabled leg and Mattia is a mathematical savant who is forever scarred, emotionally and physically, by the loss of his twin sister at a young age. The story vacillates between the two narratives, allowing the reader a glimpse into the void that surrounds the pair, yet also binds them together. Linked by a common tapestry of childhood tragedy and social isolation,  Alice and Mattia remain disparate, always separated by a gap that neither of them can ever seem to bridge.

Giordano deftly creates a sense of loneliness and loss through the use of simple, beautiful language and powerful imagery. The brevity of this novel does not diminish its power, while the maturity of the prose and the courage of the storytelling belie the fact that this is Giordano’s first novel. Translated from the Italian, The Solitude of Prime Numbers won the Premio Strega, Italy’s prestigious literary award, and is well-positioned to win more acclaim on the international stage.

Tony Kuehn writes from Nashville.