Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

I had been curious about this book and this author for quite some time, having heard about him and the book on the NYTimes Book Review Podcast.  But I never took it out when it was "new" and "hot."  Recently, on another podcast I listen to, Pop Culture Happy Hour, one of the hosts during the segment, "What is making us happy," mentioned this book. So I took it out as an audiobook and listened to it on my walks.  It was gripping and gritty and very well written.  A little violent for me, however.

I respect the author a great deal and I thought the story was great, if not a little bit "too relevant."  After having seen the movie, American Fiction, this book struck me as one that was written for this specific genre.  The difference between this and the books referred to in the movie is that this is a VERY well-written book.  

Two fathers, one black, one white, both ex-convicts, are on a mission to find their gay sons' killer.  Neither father bought into their son's life-style, so there was a lot of regret and angst in the story.  But there was also a lot of violence along with the sentimentality.  I truly enjoyed the book, even though some of it rang as a bit cliche for me.

But I just may read another Cosby book.  I like a good crime story once in a while.

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

I listened to this book and what a treat!  The language, the flowing passages with such level of detail, the rich characterizations....all were enhanced by the beauty of the narration. 

Alice McDermott is an amazing author and I just read two in a row by her.  There are several more, but I have other things on my list right now, but I must get back to this author.

From Amazon:

On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.

In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Interesting book about the US's early years in Vietnam.  The characterizations are compelling. I found the story a little confusing at times, because of the way it skipped around in time. But all in all, a great book.

Maureen Corrigan's summary:

The main character is a newlywed, a young wife who is pulled into this group of women who are doing charitable work in Vietnam while their husbands are busy doing something else. And without being heavy-handed, McDermott manages to make a connection between the insistent charity of these women and early American intervention in Vietnam.

All the Broken Places by John Boyne

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve. She doesn’t talk about the grim postwar years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps.

Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.

Immersive, chilling, unputdownable, All the Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel’s girlhood in Germany and present-day London. Here, Gretel is at a similar crossroads to the one she encountered long ago. Then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief, and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before—whatever the cost to herself.

Wellness by Nathan Hill

 

Really liked this book.  There was so much to think about on so many topics.  

From NPR:

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. 

For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.