Nalo Hopkinson is becoming one of my favorite writers. Her novels are creative and humorous, informative and provocative. Sister Mine, like Brown Girl in the Ring, is set in Toronto and revolves around a family with formidable spiritual powers. As with BGITR, celestial beings or gods are characters in the story, and these gods are rooted in Caribbean religion/spirituality. While the search for lost mojo is a big part of this novel, and that part is fascinating and fun, the dominant theme that runs through […]
Keys and Locks
This collection of short stories by Helen Oyeyemi is a mix of fairy tale and the modern world, of the fanciful and the dark, with a generous portion of sexuality thrown in. In some ways, it reminds me of Angela Carter’s work, but Oyeyemi’s stories, while dealing with heavy themes such as betrayal, abandonment and disappointment, maintain a lightness. Her characters demonstrate a quality that’s not exactly optimism, but a willingness to carry on, a good natured fatalism that tempers the darkness. The nine stories […]
An Embarrassment of Riches in a Debut Novel
I’m not sure there could be a better time than now for this impressive debut novel from Kaitlyn Greenidge. She addresses racism, white privilege, female relationships, family strife, and loneliness in a novel that centers around a scientific experiment spanning some 60 years. Greenidge’s narrators are four African American girls and women who are intelligent but alone and lonely. Each is searching for a missing connection, for a love that has been missing and might even be considered forbidden or unnatural; each has felt alienation […]
“Reader, I murdered him,”or what if Jane Eyre got a shiv and wasn’t afraid to use it?
A while ago, I read a review of this new book by Lyndsay Faye which indicated that it was about a murderous governess who was a bit like Jane Eyre. While I am not a huge fan of Jane Eyre or the work of the Brontes in general (honestly, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights are both tremendous jerks and their women were well shot of them), I already knew from Gods Of Gotham that Lyndsay Faye was a wonderful writer […]
A Tale of Supernatural Burn Out
This novel, which could be classified as fantasy, folk tale or fairy tale, is, according to one review, based on a Senegalese folk tale and set in Barbados/the Caribbean. Our unnamed storyteller describes a world featuring deserts, pastures, villages and towns, and most importantly, djombi. Djombi are undying spirits, capable of taking on different forms — human, insect, animal — influencing events, and changing memories. Redemption in Indigo is the story of a djombi suffering from burn out and a human who must teach him […]
Our Shame and Dishonor
Sometimes things disappear and there’s no getting them back. This first novel from Julie Otsuka deals with the period of time that follows her second novel. The Buddha in the Attic told the story of the Japanese American experience from arrival in California at the turn of the century until the forced deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps during WWII. When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of one family, from the days just preceding their departure from California to a camp in […]
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