October Reading Recap

This post arrives later in the month than usual because I was on vacation, but here's my latest roundup of great books, including some new favorites:

→ A WALL IS ALSO A ROAD by Annalee Newitz: Gardenpath is excited to enter graduate school at the most exclusive science institute in Rational Space. They hope to earn their doctorate through fieldwork in the galactic plane by tracking down evidence of life within the harsh gravity of a rocky, watery planet. What Gardenpath finds when they reach the planet is still more astonishing: Multicellular animals that possess consciousness, even intelligence, something their civilization of single-celled people believe is impossible. One of these surprising creatures helps Gardenpath acclimate to the ways of the planet. When communication becomes possible, Gardenpath learns their strange new friend is a woman named Murtis, who lives in a bustling city called Pompeii. As Gardenpath travels back and forth between Rational Space and Pompeii, relationships in both places become increasingly complicated, and institutional politics threaten their research and career.

This novel contains such an unusual combination of elements that it's challenging to explain, but Newitz pulls the pieces together into a terrific story. Gardenpath and their people are imaginatively alien in many ways, and it's fun to gradually understand how their bodies and societies work. Yet the alien characters are easy to relate to, because they have familiar emotions, desires, and relationship problems—and the same goes for the humans of the ancient world. (The horrors of grad school are also universal, to deliberate effect.) This is a wonderful and unexpected story about the connections between people, with delightful characters and an exciting plot.

→ LIFE OUT OF ORDER by Audrey Niffenegger continues the story of the THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, focusing on the time-traveling daughter, Alba. Because Alba doesn't experience time in a linear fashion, the chronology of the novel is also carefully fractured (like that of the original). The book opens on an important night in Alba's young adulthood, in 2022. She meets the man she will marry, and she and her friends participate in a covert anti-fascist operation, with guidance from her older selves. (Alba's 2022 is not quite ours, but not so different.) As the story unspools, the near and distant consequences of that night are revealed, the important people in Alba's life are introduced to the reader and each other, and the timeline of Alba's world continues toward an unavoidable future.

Though I approached this sequel with trepidation, my concerns lifted as soon as I began reading, and I found this to be a worthy and satisfying follow-up. Alba's story is her own, but it also comments on and expands Henry and Clare's story in interesting ways, so I don't think this would work as well without knowledge of the first book. I loved spending time with both familiar and new characters, and watching relationships evolve over time. I was impressed by how complex the narrative becomes, between the time travel and the revelations that are held back until later on. I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE.

→ THE DEPARTMENT OF WHAT IT (REALLY) MEANS TO BE HUMAN by M. Darusha Wehm: In a near-future, post-capitalist Aotearoa New Zealand, Emerald supplements their basic income by tracking down artists who stop checking in for grants funding. Usually the work is straightforward and barely requires Emerald's advanced investigative skills, acquired in a previous career they'd rather not think about. But this case is unusual: A celebrated installation artist known as Gen Ecks has dropped out of her regular life and into an altered mental state. She's under the influence of a mysterious drug, and Emerald is determined to find out what it is and where she's getting it. As they follow the trail of clues, Gen Ecks relives the memories of important events in her decades-long artistic career.

This story kept me interested with an intriguing plot, distinctive characters, and strong writing. I enjoyed accompanying Emerald on their investigation and discovering how many unexpected subjects were explored along the way. The worldbuilding presents an optimistic but plausible future that's more progressive and cooperative, offering a nice break from the dystopian visions I've read lately (and from reality!).

→ OFF THE RESERVATION by Stephen Graham Jones: Nate Yellow Tail and his best friend have a plan to break in to one of the fancy lakeside cabins on the Blackfeet Reservation, but it goes wrong fast. First, Nate encounters a pair of impossibly tiny deer who may or may not really be there. Next, the teens realize the house belongs to other Indians, not white people like they assumed. Finally, the whole endeavor ends in disaster, landing the friends in the hospital with serious injuries. As a result of that night, Nate embarks on a quest that he hopes will set things right again. With a crew of strange companions in an unusual RV, he heads from Montana to the old Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, intending to recover the bones of a Blackfeet boy who was killed there long ago. But this plan is also cursed, and it's possible that nothing will ever be right again for Nate and the others.

This book takes place several years after THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, which Nate played a role in, but there isn't much other overlap in characters, and it's a self-contained story. I didn't connect with this one as well as the first novel, I think because many of the characters are harder to get to know. The story starts out merely unsettling before turning gruesome and disgusting in ever more creative ways. For me, it was often too much, but I think that speaks to the effectiveness of Jones's horror writing.

→ THE PANOPTICON by Jenni Fagan: Anais has grown up in Scotland's foster care system, spending her entire life in and out of homes and placements. As the story opens, police are dropping 15-year-old Anais off at yet another institution, one that was designed as a panopticon prison but is currently in use as a therapeutic unit for troubled youth. Anais has been accused of assaulting a police officer who remains in a coma, but she didn't do it. Or at least she doesn't think she did, though she uses drugs so habitually that she isn't always sure what's real. Anais has the persistent belief that she's always being watched by "the experiment" who created her as an object of study.

This is a disturbing and intense first person narrative. While the novel is informed by the author's own experiences in the care system, it's a work of fiction, with compellingly crafted characters and plot. Anais is an unforgettable narrator who tells her story with imagination, insight, and dark humor. (Also with a lot of Scottish dialect and slang.) What she goes through is often terrible to read about, and it's a relief that the story ends on a hopeful note. A difficult read, but a rewarding one.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ At Literary Hub, Will Maclean describes how his notebook practice helps his novels take shape: "The notebook is a refuge from the digital world. I love the fact that it can be wrestled with, torn, glued, fixed, burnt, chewed, left out in the rain, bleached in the sunshine. I have covered pages in paint, print, collage, scrawl, mud, even blood. The notebook for Solace House is filled with—among many other things—cut-up remnants of Clue cards, a handwritten housekeeping ledger from 1901, sepia photographs from the 1890s, handwritten notes, old wallpaper, Edwardian stamps, and most delightfully, three pressed flower petals which fell like confetti from a dusty old book from 1807 I found mouldering in a bookshop basement, a sentimental souvenir of a sunny day over two hundred years ago."