Three Reader Recommendations
The first book a friend recommended is Absolution by Alice McDermott. I enjoyed the book but kept wondering what the “absolution” was, who the absolution was for. The book is set in Viet Nam in 1963. The main characters are American women whose husbands work in the country. My friend liked it because, “the writing style is lovely, the story takes place in my young adult era, and the characters are so believable. I knew women like Charlene and Tricia, and I’ll bet you did too!”
In a very interesting interview with McDermott, she says that Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American was the launching pad for Absolution. The author read The Quiet American and decided that Greene’s depictions of both the American and the Vietnamese women were flat and uninteresting. McDermott wanted to ‘set the record straight’ to depict women as they evolved through the Women’s Movement during the Viet Nam era. After listening to the interview featured below, I came to understand the depth of the novel.
Another book about women is Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Prophet Song won the Booker Prize for 2023. The story is set in a dystopian Ireland that is moving toward authoritarian rule. It is about a mother who must face alone a no-win decision of whether to leave her home and save herself and her daughter or stay amidst the frightening turmoil. Will she leave? Why might she not?
The person who recommends Prophet Song admits that the story is dark and disturbing but nevertheless thinks it is an important book for everyone to read. We have all asked why so many Jews in Europe did not get out from under Hitler’s foreboding grip while they had the chance. Well, it’s complicated. Sometimes leaving a situation isn’t all that easy, and that is what this book is all about–that and the fear of authoritarian rule becoming widespread in the world.
The last book a blog reader recommended was in response to an earlier post featuring Marilyne Robinson’s newest novel entitled Reading Genesis. Diane Flaherty writes, “Marilyne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping is one of the best novels I have ever read! ” Housekeeping was published in 1980, and Flaherty remembers reading it for a book club. Housekeeping is a classic of women’s literature. Some consider it a masterpiece. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel and is now used in many college writing courses.
Can a first novel written in 1980 be relevent to us in 2024? Certainly. The story is about two orphaned sisters who live with their ecentric aunt in a remote area of Idaho. The themes include transience, family bonds, and the meaning of housekeeping. So why does Diane Flaherty and many other readers and critics think it is one of the best books they have ever read? I guess those of us who have not yet read it need to find out!
