Hi there!
Shirley's March 2021 newsletter = 3 more books for your TBR list
What’s that warmth? That tingling? That flush in your face? Why, those are the feelings you get after a stretch of good reading—and I’ve got them right now, thanks to these three books, which I would now like to describe for you in irreverent detail. 👇👇👇
First off, I owe you an apology for missing the February newsletter. I had Covid. It was not fun and I do not recommend it; still, I left you hanging, and for that I am sorry.
If you’re curious what it felt like, I was lucky—no fever, no respiratory issues, really nothing scary. Mostly, I was extremely tired, I had a headache, and my legs hurt a lot. (I do not advise googling that if it happens to you.) All in all, it was a couple of weeks of hibernation. (Again, very lucky… but I still can’t wait to get the vaccine.)
Onto the books! If I had to pick a theme for these three (which I don’t, because who would make me?), I guess I would say “Youngish Persons Finding Themselves in Foreign Lands,” a concept that is very appealing to me at the moment, for the obvious reason that I am finding myself nowhere but my house.
Then again, as with all Shirley newsletters, I could also call this one “Three Books I Really Enjoyed Reading and Think You Will, Too,” which, in terms of reading roundup themes, is ranked pretty high up there for me. So buckle up, you crazy readers—it’s book time.
CURRENT:
Exciting Times, by Naoise Dolan
June 2020 (Ecco)
The best reason to pick up a book is when someone who really gets you asks, “Have you read X Book? I think you’d love it.” That’s the exact message my dear friend Ann Marie (an incredible writer and a woman who I swear can legitimately see into my soul sometimes) sent me recently. Except in place of “X Book” she had written “Exciting Times.”
The elevator pitch for this novel, according to the internet, is: Normal People with a queer twist. While that description is succinct and memorable (and I love Normal People), it hardly touches Exciting Times’ singular charms.
Yes, Naoise Dolan (like Sally Rooney) is a young Irish author who writes impeccably perceived character studies in which nothing and everything happens; in which hyper-specific communication is as common as miscommunication; in which young adults strive to find their places in the world; and in which the characters uncannily seem to understand that the person they love at that moment means everything to them in that moment, but perhaps not all that much to them in the long term, except for how it affects their idea of who they are and who they will become: transactional, yet no-less-deep-for-it love.
Exciting Times is all of the above (emphasis on transactional—this book is more spot-on about money and class than any I’ve read in a long time), plus capital-F funny. (💀 💀 funny, not 😂 😂 funny.)
Its narrator, Ava, is a 22-year-old Irish expat teaching English in Hong Kong. Compared to those around her, she’s wildly unambitious. But, charmingly, she doesn’t have to be—she is intelligent enough that her wit is her currency. She begins kind-of, not-really dating a chilly banker named Julian (“Julian had gone to Eaton and was an only child. These were the least two surprising facts anyone had ever told me about themselves.”) and quickly moves into the extra bedroom in his flat. When one of Julian’s work trips extends multiple months, Ava befriends a dynamic lawyer named Edith. They begin dating. But what will happen when Julian returns?
That’s more or less the plot. But you’re not reading it for the plot. You’re reading it for the the razor sharp observations and hilarious writing.
You’ll like it if you like...its lines:
At the restaurant he put his phone facedown on the table, so I did the same, as if for me, too, this represented a professional sacrifice.
[Insert 💯 emoji, push away from desk.]
The men around me talked about their schools. As an adult with a job, I did not find the topic altogether piquant—but British men were resourceful, and found school not only interesting, but the most interesting thing they’d ever done.
(If I typed as many ha has as this excerpt deserves, my “h” and “a” keys would threaten to go on strike.)
I wanted to explain that to Edith: that holding Julian’s hand was like holding a museum pass, and holding hers was like holding a grenade.
(An untouchably beautiful line.)
“I found it scary in Ireland,” I told her in my bed, “having sex with men.”
I was really telling her that “I miss you” meant more from her than from Julian. It was not a link she could humanly be expected to make, which was why I could say it.
(Proof that a withholding character can be lovable so long as they don’t withhold from the reader.)
CONTEMPORARY:
Mr. Fox, by Helen Oyeyemi
2011 (Riverhead)
You have probably heard of Helen Oyeyemi, the prolific British author of such books as What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours; Boy, Snow, Bird; and Gingerbread. Maybe you know her as that author who plays around with modern fairy tales, or simply as a wunderkind. When I first picked up Mr. Fox in 2011, I didn’t know her at all. I had only read a kind of weird review of this kind of weird book. I picked up the kind of weird book and found it kind of magic. When I pulled it off the bookshelf again last month, I worried that the magic wouldn’t be as strong on second read. Happily, it was stronger.
(Here, a brief note about Oyeyemi: If you’ve read some of her more recent works and found that you didn’t love them as much as their effusive reviews suggested you would, I implore you to read Mr. Fox. My theory is that, once Oyeyemi’s genius was recognized, it could not be unrecognized and every new work of hers somehow pushes reviewers to stumble over themselves producing ever more fawning observations that teeter on the cusp of being untrustable. I believe something similar has happened to Fiona Apple.)
But back to Mr. Fox. This book is “about” a famous writer named Mr. Fox, who keeps killing off the female characters in his books… which angers his muse, Mary Foxe, who—although she is a figment of his imagination—seemingly comes to life to challenge him to a game in which they co-write love stories (often starring some version of themselves) that become more and more elaborate and are supposed to end without one or both of their proxies dying, or at least not before their proxies have experienced the realities of true connection.
These stories, which are grounded in classic fairytales, make up most of the book, but they are interspersed with Mr. Fox and Mary’s real-life (as it were) interactions and the complications her presence brings. There is a Mrs. Fox, for instance, who comes to believe her husband is having an affair (which he kind of is).
It’s strange and it’s shockingly wise and you should read it. And if those aren’t good enough reasons, how about this: A friend of mine recently suggested it to her book club and reported that its members had never been so active before a meeting and were “chomping at the bit to discuss” it.
Chomp, chomp, my friends. Chomp, chomp.
You’ll like it if you like...its lines:
I looked at the walls as I ate my toast—everything was butter and marmalade. The blondest wood that Mitzi had been able to find, yellow countertops, yellow tablecloth, linoleum of the same colour but in such a shocking hue that I can never quite believe in it and constantly find myself walking or sitting with only my toes on the ground, never my full weight.
(There have been many passages I’ve wanted to fall into throughout my life, but never one this soft.)
I often think it would be such a luxury to go mad, and not have to worry about anything. Others would have to worry for me, about me. There would be some sort of doctor there to tell me: “Don’t worry, Mary, it’s just that you are mad. Now, be quiet and take this pill.” And I would think, So that’s all it is, and I would be so glad. But aloud I would say, “What? I’m perfectly sane! You’re mad…” Only mildly though; just for show, really.
(Poignant and funny and eminently relatable.)
The man liked to make things. He took a chisel to stone with kindness and enquiry, as if finding out what else the stone would like to be.
(Unexpected but perfect—the cadence of Oyeyemi’s sentences so often matches her themes.)
YORE:
The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy
1958; reissue 2007 (New York Review Books Classics)
I am not smart enough to know all the good books to read, but I am smart enough to have the sorts of friends who know all the good books to read. That’s also how I came to The Dud Avocado, which was recommended to me by my writing wife Agatha. When I told her I was getting into books about loose women in the first half of the 20th century, she paused for a mere second and said, “You should read The Dud Avocado.” And I said, “The dud what now?” and then swept this pronouncement into my pile of Agatha brain crumbs, which I hope will one day lead me into the inner sanctum of her mind.
In this joyful romp of a book (one of the best phrases in all of life), our young heroine, Sally Jay Gorce, has recently graduated from a college that we can only assume is small, liberal arts, and expensive, and has now gone to live in Paris for two years because she wants to find herself and also because she has a rich uncle who can fund the whole thing. What follows is her series of comic (mis)adventures.
Sally Jay is one of those genuinely dynamic and funny women who, although/because they are deeply observant, are able to live their lives fully, shame-free, and in a way that makes others want to gobble up their stories and bask in their sunshine.
Sometimes, when reading a book like this, I get annoyed at the class privilege oozing off of every page; but, then I remember that’s pretty much exactly why I picked up the book in the first place. (How else will I learn the things that are worthy of doing with my own surprise privilege in life and learn how to do them right? Also, hi—let’s not forget that any single woman in the 1950s wasn’t exactly walking around in a judgement-free zone, a la Planet Fitness.)
Add this one to your list of rainy (or sunny) day escapes. I will definitely be turning back to it in all kinds of weather patterns.
You’ll like it if you like...its lines:
As a stamp of their approval, other young couples began having us to dinner. It was just at the time (and it may still be, for all I know), when the Aubergine, or Fried Egg-Plant school of cooking was getting such a grip on beginners’ cuisines, and I remember very few dinners without that harmless but insipid vegetable staring up at me from the main dish, often quite unadorned except for a sliver of melted cheese on top.
(Hahaha. This is just one of many expertly observed dinner party customs that are shockingly similar six decades later.)
There was another reason why I wanted [a drink]. My own private celebration. A few minutes before, alone in my bedroom, it had burst upon me that for the first time in my life I was in a house—actually in a whole house—without a single grownup! I felt I could have walked on air. On water I mean. I couldn’t possibly have explained to the others what it was all about, this exaggerated sense of liberty. Frequently, walking down the streets in Paris alone, I’ve suddenly come upon myself in a store window grinning foolishly away at the thought that no one in the world knew where I was at just that moment.
(Unmatched, unbridled, childlike exuberance for everyday adult-life happenings will always have a prime spot in my heart.)
Now here’s the heavy irony. So I went back to New York to become a librarian. To actually seek out this thing I’ve been fleeing all my life. And (here it comes): a librarian is just not that easy to become. I’d taken my lamb by the hand to the slaughter and nobody even wanted it. Apparently there’s a whole filing system and annotating system and stamping system and God knows what you have to learn before you qualify.
(Nothing I can say here will make this passage funnier.)
And that’s it for now! Thanks for reading. Tune back in next month when I experiment with making these newsletters shorter so that they will actually happen every month and will actually be readable.
And always remember: As they say in the south, the higher the clicks, the closer to god. Here are some opportunities for transcendence:
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