Rushdie crafts modern masterpiece
Keller tackles heroin in 24-hr crisis
‘The Golden House’ (Random House), by
Salman Rushdie
If you read a lot of fiction, you know that every once in a while you stumble upon a book that transports you, telling a story full of wonder and leaving you marveling at how it ever came out of the author’s head. “The Golden House” is one of those books. The title refers to the lower Manhattan residence of the Golden family. It’s the home of Nero and his three sons, Apu, Petya and D. The narrator is a neighbor named Rene, an aspiring filmmaker who realizes the Goldens have a story to tell.
And what a story. With a patriarch named Nero, it’s a tale borne of tragedy doomed to end with even more, but Salman Rushdie grounds it in realism, setting it against contemporary politics and culture. The year is current, but instead of Donald Trump, Americans elect “The Joker” — “his hair green and luminous with triumph.” There are plots that center around the Bombay mafia, terrorism and gender identity, and enough film references to stump even the most ardent cinephile. Rushdie plays with narrative forms throughout as well — from Rene’s first-person account to character monologues to entire scenes imagined as a screenplay, complete with stage directions.
If that sounds like a recipe for a jumbled mess, it’s not. The narrator is never gone for long and his voice is so original and the story so propulsive that all the references and storytelling forms feel organic, not forced. “I rued the day when I allowed myself ... to be drawn into the orbit of the Golden house ...” writes Rushdie as Rene, “After Hubris comes Nemesis: Adrasteia, the inescapable . ... To be untrue to thyself, youth!, that is the highest treason. Even the strongest fortresses can be taken by a siege. And the sky that we look upon may tumble and fall, and a mountain may crumble to the sea.”
Each turn of the page adds another piece to the unfolding puzzle. Slowly, Rushdie relates the backstory of Nero and reveals the fates of his sons, all the while ensnaring his narrator in the story. The final image, of a spinning camera circling the survivors, is dizzying, a fitting end to a novel that tackles more than a handful of universal truths while feeling wholly original.
“Fast Falls the Night” (Minotaur) by Julia
An ongoing theme in Julia Keller’s superior series about Raythune County prosecutor Bell Elkins is how these West Virginia residents maneuver when jobs are scarce but drugs have overrun the area. Hope, though often in short supply, is the only thing to which they can cling.
Hope seems elusive in “Fast Falls the Night,” Kellers excellent sixth novel that takes place during 24 hours, mainly in the town of Acker’s Gap. By the end of the horrific day, 33 people will have overdosed from tainted heroin, three will have died from the drugs and two other deaths are directly related to the heroin that has been laced with an elephant tranquilizer. The epidemic stretches thin the prosecutor’s office, the police, paramedics and hospital staff as each hour brings more overdoses.
The situation also brings a moral conundrum — how to treat addicts for whom few have sympathy. “They’ve done it to themselves,” becomes a constant refrain. But nothing happens in a vacuum as the problem seeps throughout the community.
Kellers challenge, which she rises to beautifully, is making the reader care and understand why these people turned to drugs, without sanctioning their actions. “Fast Falls the Night” is less a tale about drug overdoses and more about compassion and complex characters. Connections run deep in this multigenerational area with its decades of secrets, stymieing the investigation to find the local dealer.
The balance in “Fast Falls the Night” comes from Bell and Sheriff’s Deputy Jake Oakes, both of whom, for different reasons, have chosen to live in the area. Bell’s sense of justice and desire to make her hometown a better place propels her daily, both professionally and personally.
Bell’s strident personality can be off-putting to her co-workers, but her intentions are pure. “Fast Falls the Night” finds her making some tough choices that will affect her future. Jake came to police work almost accidently, but he shares Bell’s quest. His development as an incisive detective and his personal growth throughout “Fast Falls the Night” is a revelation.
The 24-hour timeframe imbues a sense of urgency to the plot as Keller shows the day’s events through various points of views. Keller also avoids the pitfalls of the TV drama “24,” in which Jack Bauer raced across Los Angeles in minutes. Here, a cop really can quickly make it across town.
A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Keller again perfectly captures a community that, despite its struggles, will survive.
“Sourdough” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), by Robin Sloan
Since best-selling author Robin Sloan has already proven himself worthy in the adventure genre, he recently moved on to writing about another topic many love: food. In his second novel, Sloan serves his audience a culinary delight in “Sourdough.”
Lois Clary works endless hours as a software engineer. Day after day, it’s the same routine: work, skip lunch, work some more, lament over the lack of a social life and order the absolute best spicy soup and sandwich from Clement Street for dinner. Go to bed. Wake up. Repeat.
When the owners of Clement Street are forced to leave the country due to visa issues, Lois is baffled to learn that they have gifted her, their favorite customer, with their sourdough starter. Lois barely uses her kitchen and offers zero experience in any cooking arena. How is she supposed to keep the starter alive?
The good news is that all the starter needs is a little flour and water, as well as a sound system to play the starter’s favorite music from the special CD thrust into Lois’ hands along with a ceramic crock of gray glop. After a few hours of light sourdough research, Lois finds her starter bubbling, singing and even emitting strange smells. She mixes the ingredients, bakes the bread and is floored when her first two loaves turn out beautifully.
Lois tends to the starter like a beloved child. She even builds an outdoor oven and sells loaves to the chef at her workplace, who gives her the green light to share her baking skills with everyone who shops at the local farmer’s market. Suddenly Lois must decide between her stable, yet dull, job as a software engineer or a new adventure as a naturally gifted bread maker with an incredibly rare and special sourdough starter.
“Sourdough” is the story we all secretly dream about. Could we leave our mundane lives and take a leap of faith in the direction of our newfound passion? Sloan takes readers on a thoughtprovoking journey to answer that question and asks them to consider the irony that it takes a living concoction of yeast and microbes to force Lois to consider living her best life. (AP)