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A Thousand Ships

If you liked Circe by Madeline Miller, then you’ll enjoy A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes.

This is a novel about the Trojan War, but from the women involved, from meddling goddesses to ordinary mortals, all caught up in a civilization-ending cataclysm.

I love contemporary takes on Greek mythology. For this book, it helps to know a bit about the Odyssey and the Iliad. If not, there’s a guide at the beginning of the book to the characters.

In this novel, the muse Calliope sings, but of the women. The goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena who forced Paris to make a fateful judgement. Hecuba, enslaved, with her city destroyed. Clytemnestra slowly plotting revenge against her husband.

My favorite part was Penelope musing as she hears increasingly fantastical tales about her long-missing husband, Odysseus, and his wanderings through the known world after the fall of Troy. Supposedly on his way home, he sure gets kidnapped by beautiful women a lot.

Like Circe, this is another book where the man of twists comes off badly.

Which is why I liked Circe and A Thousand Ships so much. Both novels deconstruct Greek fables and force us to look at them with modern eyes. Maybe The Odyssey isn’t a tale of adventure and perhaps Penelope wasn’t as faithful as she appears. What woman wouldn’t get impatient with a man who goes out of his way to piss off Poseidon?

These stories have endured over the centuries because they are complex, with many layers, and contain dilemmas and challenges that even modern readers can appreciate. A Thousand Ships breaths life into these ancient tales to create a beautiful novel of women’s voices.

The Midnight Library

A review of The Midnight Library on Amazon is entitled, Like many things in 2020 this book is awful.

Books exist in context, being a product of their times. The ones that take off, like The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, succeed because they resonate with readers, expressing feelings that they possess but are unable to articulate.

In another year, I’d probably dislike The Midnight Library, too. A book recommended by Good Morning America? It’s probably mainstream and inspiring. Yuck! That’s not reality – give me a dark comedy that reveals the bitter truth that most people can’t grasp.

But 2020 was different. I did not want to read something dark and despairing in this long winter of disease and disunion.

Give Me Sunshine

Instead, I was drawn to something sunny. And I picked up The Midnight Library in a very sunny place: Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, FL.

I love this little indie bookstore next to a coffeeshop in the Kenwood neighborhood of the city. Sitting in the sun-soaked courtyard with my new purchase, I felt a world away from dark and boarded-up Washington, DC.

The Midnight Library has an intriguing premise. Between life and death, there is a library. Each volume in it contains a variation on your life, full of possible versions of you to explore as you linger between the worlds.

In the novel, Nora Seed gets to experience different paths she might have taken in her life, from rock star to Olympic gold medalist, while she decides whether she wants to live or not.

No Surprises

It’s not a book that will surprise you. Reading Nora’s adventures as she tries on different lives, you pretty much know where this is going. Also, it’s a tad too long.

Yet, all of this is overwhelmed by the hopeful spirit of the novel. It’s an antidote to regret. It’s an affirmation of life. You’re being manipulated, of course, with a feel-good parable that hits you across the head at times.

In another time, I would say: yuck.

But in this pandemic year, The Midnight Library is essential reading for reminding us that life is full of possibility. It is ever-changing and shaped by our choices. Good times could be right around the corner, as long as we keep moving.

Pick up The Midnight Library. Set your cynicism aside and dive into the spell of this uplifting novel.

LIKES: A great clever little nonstop book

I wrote LIKES because I wanted a little book of short stories about the dark world of social media.

In my book, I explored how social media addiction is warping all of us, from cyclists in pursuit of digital crowns to drunk tweets leading to online humiliation.

Above all, I wanted LIKES to be approachable. A short book of short stories that anyone could pick up and read.

A friend of mine left a copy of my book out to see if her mother would read it. She did and loved it, marveling over the variety of short stories in the collection, drawn from different people and parts of the world. Each story was different and well-told.

She called LIKES:

“A great little nonstop clever book!”

Which is better marketing copy than anything I was able to come up.

It’s hard to describe something you spent so much time on and have such a personal relationship with.

Looking at LIKES, I don’t see finished stories but, instead, I remember the experience of writing and editing them, recalling what I wrote but also what I took out. There were stories I loved to write, like “Twitter Famous,” my tale of viral humiliation in Florida, as well as stories that I wrote and rewrote, such as the first story in the book, “Avocado Toast.”

I don’t see the finished product, instead I see the process of getting there, all the messy backstage business that the audience never observes. That’s why it’s so hard to describe your own art. Only after time and distance do you start to appreciate what you created.

“A great little nonstop clever book!”

Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Glass Hotel

Ever since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, it’s felt like we’re in the wrong timeline. History is supposed to move forward toward greater equality. Instead, we fell into the abyss, with a clumsy fascist at the helm and a deadly plague in our midst.

Emily St. John Mandel is an interesting writer to read during these strange times. The Glass Hotel is ostensibly about a Ponzi scheme that goes awry. But that doesn’t happen until halfway through this lyrical, meditative novel.

The book is about the idea of the counterlife, what your life would be if you didn’t make that choice. For some, it’s backdating a stock transaction. For others, it’s deciding to go out on New Year’s Eve. Choices (and dumb luck) propel some characters toward wealth and others toward poverty. They question their lives, whether they deserve their fates, and if things would be better in the counterlife.

Interestingly, characters from her earlier novel, Station Eleven, make cameos in The Glass Hotel. In this version of reality, the pandemic that devastated the world of Station Eleven was swiftly contained.

Ranging across time and space, The Glass Hotel considers the idea of reality, as worlds and lives blur together into a melange of possibilities.

Station Eleven is a better novel, since it has a definite before and after. The Glass Hotel is a more challenging read, with less of a fixed point to hold onto.

But if you like complicated, literary fiction, check out The Glass Hotel. Emily St. John Mandel is a wonderful writer that I would follow anywhere. She’s written a kind of ghost story for the mind, one with a particular resonance for those of us stuck in the horrible year of 2020.

Station Eleven

When the coronavirus crisis began, I was reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. While I’m sure it’s an excellent novel, I couldn’t read a book about a pandemic while I was in a pandemic.

It took six months before I was ready to read anything about an infectious disease spreading out of control.

That book was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

It’s an excellent novel. The plague, when it occurs, is brutally short and efficient, wiping out 99% of the world’s population.

Mandel is less concerned with the pandemic but what happens before and after to her characters, who range from a world-famous actor to an aspiring EMT. All are caught up in the whirlwind; some of them survive and some do not.

While the novel was written before coronavirus, Mandel has illuminated the central truth of the crisis: a sense of wonder at the world before covid turned everything upside down.

Little moments of life before the pandemic are full of meaning, recalled with fondness and nostalgia. I remember the last time I went to a bar, squeezing with friends around a small table, shouting to be heard above the crowd.

In Station Eleven, survivors express wonderment about a society where cold drinks were available everywhere and planes traversed a landscape bright with electricity.

It’s a moving novel for it highlights that life is not about grand accomplishments but about the joys of having tea with an old friend or how the gift of a comic book can inspire a young reader.

Ultimately, it’s an optimistic novel. Station Eleven is a dystopia but one where people struggle on the best they can, with compassion and grace.

Rediscovering E. L. Doctorow

The historical fiction of E.L Doctorow provided solace to me during these troubled times.

It was the day before the world ended.

March 24.

Non-essential businesses were to be shutdown in a desperate attempt to stop COVID-19 in the nation’s capital. Washington, DC, was going into lockdown and I was at Kramerbooks searching for something to read.

The bookstore looked pillaged. Deliveries hadn’t come in for days and book-readers had snapped up as much as they could, desperate for something to read for what was announced as a 30-day shutdown.

Gloves and hand sanitizer was available but not masks. That requirement was in the future. Masks were for medical personnel, only.

I wanted to get in and get out. I figured two big books would be enough to last me for the month. The first was a massive tome, The British Are Coming, a serviceable work of history about the opening days of the American Revolution.

But it was the second book that imprinted itself on my memory, providing consolation during these chaotic, disastrous days.

Ragtime

That book was Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. It’s one of those books that I’m sure my parents read. They have bookcases full of novels. Maybe I picked it up at some point when I was kid and paged through it. Maybe even it made me think that one day I could write a novel.

I saw it on a ravaged shelf at Kramer’s and took it.

There’s a magic that only a good novel can perform. It’s a spell cast by an author that envelopes you completely, taking you out of your world and placing you in another one that seems just as real as your own.

Doctorow conjures America in 1906, all the heady optimism and crushing tragedy, with an operatic scope that touches upon lives large and small. We meet historical figures, like Harry Houdini and Henry Ford, and the ordinary folks of New Rochelle, NY.

Ragtime unfolds as if in a dream, a story told by an omniscient, God-like presence that zips back and forth in time, sweeping across the entire American continent. The stories pile up upon each other, a kaleidoscope view of a country in constant motion, powered by new technologies such as automobiles and electricity, a people finding their power on the world stage.

I read the book as the shutdown lasted well beyond 30 days. I read the book as the news grew dire. I read the book on park benches, the city as quiet as a tomb, no cars on the roads, no planes in the sky, with just dog walkers and runners outside.

On June 22, non-essential businesses like Kramerbooks were allowed to reopen. I think bookstores and libraries are essential; I was glad to see them open again.

I returned to Kramer’s. I masked up and picked up the only E.L. Doctorow novel on the shelf.

The March

The March by E.L. Doctorow is about Sherman’s path of destruction through the South during the Civil War. It’s a tragedy but is also about finding little bits of hope among the ruins. Like Ragtime, it features real characters. We go into the mind of Sherman himself, full of darkness and doubt, yet determined to prosecute this war to the bitter end. And we meet colorful characters like General “Kill Cavalry” Kilpatrick, whose roguish adventures were so unbelievable that I had to look them up on Wikipedia. They’re all real.

While the country has reopened, the coronavirus news is even worse. 138,000 dead, a total more than most of our wars. I read The March at home, sheltering from other people and the stultifying heat. And I finished it by the pool, on the first day it reopened, my neighbors and I carefully spaced apart on the rooftop, everyone a bit nervous.

Like you probably do, I spend too much time doomscrolling. Looking at Twitter and reading articles about contemporary disasters.

Reading fiction breaks that habit. A good novel does more than just transport you to another time and place; it heals your brain. The hours go by as you silently read, whether it’s on a park bench or poolside. The nervousness dissipates as you enter the dream world of the novel.

Put down your iPhone and take up a book instead.

Lincoln on the Verge

The Lincoln statue was a surprise.

I had biked to National Harbor to look at The Awakening. During this pandemic year, one invents activities to pass the time.

The Awakening is an aluminum sculpture of a giant emerging from the earth. Formerly at Hains Point, it was moved downriver a few years ago to National Harbor, the hotel/casino/shopping complex in Maryland.

The sculpture was blocked off by fences so I took the opportunity to bike around the abandoned streets of National Harbor, idly coasting by shuttered restaurants and stores until I spotted the Great Emancipator.

The rail splitter can be found on American Way, right by South Moon Under, up the steps from Potbelly. Lincoln overlooks a video screen (“Good morning from National Harbor: Capitalize on it all!”) and a massive Ferris wheel on a pier jutting out into the Potomac.

I just finished Lincoln on the Verge, the powerful and moving story of this common man advancing toward death and destiny.

If his statue in National Harbor could come to life, what would he think of America in 2020?

I think he would be pleased that we lasted so long.

He would be delighted by people of all races enjoying a stroll along the promenade. The bright colors and carnival wheel would be charming diversions to him. But the old boatman would be most pleased to be within sight of a river.

Plague would not surprise him. Death and sickness were old friends. He often talked with the dead, believing that they existed in a spirit world that was within reach.

Leaving his home in Springfield in 1861, he did not expect to return. Just getting to Washington required providence, as he was nearly done in by overly exuberant crowds and gangs of assassins, as depicted in Lincoln on the Verge. Four years later, he returned home, in a coffin, his route retracing his earlier rail journey.

Unlike other politicians of the era (who remembers anything James Buchanan said?), Lincoln’s words live on because he spoke clearly and directly. We’d call this authentic. To the people of 1861, who had suffered decades of sophisticated oratory to protect the institution of slavery, this was electrifying.

Elites in the cities scoffed at his homespun tales. But if he was liberated from his bronze, and was free to walk around National Harbor, he’d have a comforting story for listeners:

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, “And this too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses!

This too shall pass. Lincoln inherited a broken country and in four short years created an America worthy of its ideals. He knew he didn’t have long. But he endured and triumphed. We will too.

Lincoln on the Verge – Book Review

I’m reading the wonderful Lincoln on the Verge, which beautifully captures Old Abe’s rail journey to Washington after his election.

There were two countries in 1860, the year Lincoln was elected. A free and prosperous North and an aristocratic South where wealth was built by slavery.

Despite having a smaller population, the South had elected most of the presidents during the nation’s history. Congress was run for its benefit. The Supreme Court was stacked in favor of slave-masters.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the long tentacles of Slave Power had spread north as federal marshals hunted escaped slaves in states like Ohio. It was all perfectly legal. And obscene.

Washington was a swamp, literally and figuratively. Filled with half-completed monuments and stinking canals, it was a city controlled by powerful men in the lobby of the Willard Hotel. A new term was developed for them: lobbyists.

The Republican Party was formed in response to this corruption and the endless compromises that kept the slavers in power.

Lincoln was a fresh voice who spoke in simple terms that any person could understand. He said:

A house divided against itself, cannot stand.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

Plots were hatched to prevent his inauguration.

Parliamentary schemes were proposed of the type that would be familiar to Mitch McConnell. There was talk that Congress, still controlled by the South, would refuse to certify the election.

Conspiracies formed in Baltimore to assassinate the President-Elect.

Armed militias drilled in towns like Alexandria to oppose the federal government.

Lincoln on the Verge depicts how Abraham Lincoln made it to Washington, protected by a nation that wished to reclaim the true American ideals of equality.

More than a century later, the institutions of government are controlled by lobbyists once again. The canals of Washington are long gone but the city is still a swamp. Corporations have been bailed out while ordinary people line up for food banks. The stock market is juiced by a Federal Reserve devoted to printing money, which props up asset-owners while leaving the poor with less.

Once again, as in 1860, we have two nations.

An America of the grift, controlled by the Trump crime family, where favored industries are bailed out and insiders are tipped to dump their stocks before catastrophe.

An America of a precarious working class, one paycheck away from starvation.

Which nation shall prevail? As in 1860, we face a fight.

As told in Lincoln on the Verge, the United States found its champion at exactly the right moment in history. During the long journey to Washington, the people propelled Lincoln forward. They made him as much as he made them.

That is our task now. To fight for our country.

Dreams of El Dorado

History gives you perspective: things could always be worse. Rather than sitting at home with Netflix and DoorDash during a pandemic, you could be:

A fur trapper, stripped nude and forced to run for your life for the entertainment of Native American warriors.

A family on the Oregon Trail, bamboozled by your guides, and left for dead in the mountains.

A San Francisco resident during the Gold Rush watching the city burn down for the second time in a week.

The settling of the West, as told in Dreams of El Dorado by H.W. Brands, is the story that we’re all familiar with – human endurance in the face of hardship – but it also takes apart a host of comforting American myths.

Rugged individualists did not last long in the West. In an inhospitable landscape full of deadly people and things, you needed to work with others to survive.

For example, the wagon trains that set out for Oregon were cities on wheels, with experienced leaders, rules and a daily schedule. Fur trading was a multinational affair, with trappers from different countries working in teams and then partying at the end of the season as they exchanged their goods. The lone gold miner might find a nugget or two but the real money was earned by companies who organized workers and sluices to shift whole mountainsides.

And none of this success would’ve been possible without the tribes of the West. The Sioux, the Crow and other Native peoples were allies and competitors until they were exterminated or forced into reservations by the American invaders.

The story of the West is also the story of the federal government. Everything west of the Mississippi started out as federal land, when Jefferson purchased it from Napoleon. California and other territories were taken from Mexico. While Texas won its independence, the Lone Star State would not have survived without annexation by the U.S.

The West, unlike the settled states of the East, is a creation of the American government. Through the Homestead Act and other laws, Washington controlled who got land and (more importantly) water in region, unlike anywhere else in the country.

Yet, we cling to our myths of the open frontier, for they express the American ideal of endless reinvention.

Dreams of El Dorado describes how, for a few short and brutal years, freedom could be found in the West, often at a terrible cost, before it became just another region of America, a dry landscape that you glimpse from a window seat as you fly over the country.

Exposed DC: A Photographic Record of a Crazy Year

What a long strange year it’s been.

That was my thought looking at the 14th Annual Exposed DC Photography Show.

I’ve had photos in the show twice before. I was in the very first one in 2007 and again in 2012.

The annual Exposed DC show is always an interesting snapshot of the times, illustrating what life is like in Washington, DC.

In 2019, the Nationals won the World Series, an Apollo rocket took off from the Mall and Gilead came to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They’re all captured in the exhibit, as well as much quieter and more domestic moments, photographers finding beauty in the simplest of compositions, like a kitchen sink in light that is just right.

A couple of the photographers in the show recently spoke about street photography . Geoff Livingston is a storyteller that who looks for dramatic moments. His winning photo – Scoot Down the Highway – depicts an electric scooter rider in light and shadow. It’s an image which makes sense in 2019 but would seem like science fiction if it was in an earlier show.

Mukul Ranjan is not afraid to get up close and personal. His photo of three women in a convertible is more than just an image, it depicts a relationship between the photographer and subjects. Aware of his presence, they’re smiling for him, knowing that they look great and wanting him to capture this late-afternoon moment. His street photography advice is simple: get closer.

If I had to explain to someone what they missed in DC in 2019, I’d take them to the Exposed DC Photography Show. Full of feeling, the photos share what it was like to be alive in Washington during this tumultuous time.

Exposed DC Photography Show – 14th Annual Exhibition
Wednesday, February 19, 2020 11:00 AM – Sunday, March 1, 2020 5:00 PM
Touchstone Gallery
901 New York Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC, 20001
United States (map)