Moon of the Turning Leaves

 Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice

I don't read many apocalyptic stories, I find them too bleak and too stressful (and sometimes too prescient). I read Waubgeshig Rice's first "Moon" novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, about a Native American community in Ontario, where the phones and power going out is first seen as a nuisance. Gradually it becomes clear that something very serious has happened, and the community leadership tries to organize resources and ensure everyone gets what they need to survive until the power is restored. But that never happens, and as stores dwindle, outsiders arrive, asking for sanctuary and help, and the community begins to fracture. A group led by a young man, Evan Whitesky, returns to their Anishinaabe traditions and older ways of life to try to hold the community together. He is also trying to protect his family, including his two young children.

Soon after I read that book, I learned there would be a sequel, and I immediately put it on my reading list. The second "Moon" book takes place twelve years later. The survivors have left their small town and built another community on the shores of a lake. The story opens with the birth of a child, Evan and his wife Nicole's first grandchild. But the small settlement is under strain. There are fewer of the animals and fish that they depend on, and the plants they harvest for food and medicine are failing. One member points out that their people were not meant to settle permanently, that to do so wears out the land and its resources. He challenges the community to seek out a new home, perhaps to the south, near the Great Lakes, from where their ancestors were removed.

Evan volunteers to make the journey, as does his daughter Nanghons. Four others join them on the trek, on foot, for which they have only outdated maps and people's memories. From their travels, they learn more about what happened twelve years ago, and how it is affecting the land and the people left behind. It is a difficult and dangerous trip, and I did have to set the book down at one point, when the two women in the party are threatened with sexual assault (which does not happen). This book has a high body count, including one suicide, both on-page and off.

The book ends with another jump forward in time, eleven years this time. It does give a sense of closure to the story, but I would have liked to read more about how the characters got to and through that time. It felts like I had walked with them on their long journey, which ended abruptly. I wanted to know more about them. I did see this labeled as "Moon Book 2," which made me wonder if the author has stories to tell of those eleven years. If so, I'll be reading them.

"A Memoir of Surviving India's Caste System"

Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt (library book)

"Born into a 'formerly untouchable manual-scavenging family in small-town India,' Yashica Dutt was taught from a young age to not appear 'Dalit looking.' Although prejudice against Dalits, who compose 25% of the population, has been illegal since 1950, caste-ism in India is alive and well. Blending her personal history with extensive research and reporting, Dutt provides an incriminating analysis of caste's influence in India over everything from entertainment to judicial systems and how this discrimination has carried over to US institutions. 

"Dutt traces how colonial British forces exploited and perpetuated a centuries-old caste system, how Gandhi could have been more forceful in combatting prejudice, and the role played by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, whom Isabel Wilkerson called 'the MLK of India’s caste issues' in her book Caste. Alongside her analysis, Dutt interweaves personal stories of learning to speak without a regional accent growing up and desperately using medicinal packs to try to lighten her skin." (Overview from my library's catalogue.)

I was really struggling to sum up this searing memoir, because it covers so much, about India's history and its current social systems, interspersed with the author's experiences growing up - and most of what I read was completely new information to me. I don't remember when or how I learned about the country's caste system. I knew about the class of people considered "untouchable" (a term now considered offensive). I had the vague idea that particular status was part of the country's history and had no place in modern India. This book taught me just how wrong I was.

In January 2016, a Dalit university student named Rohith Vemula committed suicide, leaving behind a letter about the discrimination and difficulties that he faced, experiences many of his fellow Dalits have shared. After reading about his death, Yashica Dutt "started a Tumblr page where Dalits who, like [her], were passing as upper caste could anonymously or openly talk about their experiences. It would be a safe space, without judgement from upper-caste commentators, where our voices would be free to shape our stories the way we wanted." She goes on to say, "But I couldn't in good conscience be the provider of that space before I dealt with my own identity." Her page is called "Documents of Dalit Discrimination."

This is the epitome of an "own-voices" story, which is crucial because Dalits have been denied access to education, to basic literacy, and their stories have not been told. Or they have been told by outsiders, in ways that reinforce the stereotypes that are used to justify the persecutions. The technological revolution has changed that, especially the internet, giving the communities ways to connect, to share information and resources, and to make their voices heard. They are also able to focus on the challenges that Dalits face in their daily lives. In the past, Dalits were denied access to water resources like reservoirs if they were used by upper caste people, which remains a problem in rural areas. Sexual assault against Dalit women is common, because of stereotypes that the women are sexually available, and the justice system is prejudiced against the victims. Suicide is sadly common, particularly among university students facing situations like Rohith Vemula's. "Manual scavenging," one of the few jobs open to Dalit women, involves cleaning outhouses by hand and carrying the human waste to dump sites (often in baskets that leak, exposing the women to diseases and a corresponding high morality rate).

I am still processing everything I learned from this book. I want to read more about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, who returned to India after earning degrees in Britain and the US. He was the first Indian student to earn a Ph.D. from Columbia University, which Yashica Dutt learned only after she enrolled there herself as a graduate student. "In March 1927 he organized the first conference for the Depressed Classes in Mahad to alert Dalits to their civil rights," and his book Annihilation of Caste is a foundational text of Dalit identity and resistance. Unfortunately for me, the only works our library has on him are not in English, but I will see what interlibrary loan can do for me.

Romance and alt-history

The House of the Red Balconies, A.J. Demas (2024 TBR)

I very much enjoy A.J. Demas's romances set in an AU ancient world with echoes of Greece and Sparta, rather like the world in Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series. (The gods do not intervene in Demas's world as they do with the Thief and his compatriots.) Her stories usually revolve around a romance between two men, often from different countries who have to negotiate their differences, and sometimes solve a mystery, on their way to a happy ending. My favorite are the Sword Dance trilogy, with retired soldier Damiskos and dancer/intelligence agent Varazda; and One Night in Boukos, set in the city of that name, where an ambassador goes missing during a riotous festival, and two couples set out separately to find him.

It has been a while since A.J. Demas published a new story, because she also writes urban fiction as Alice Degan. I was very happy when her newsletter arrived with an announcement of this new book. It is a different, quieter story than some of her others, and I loved it. Hylas has come to the island of Tykanos to build an aqueduct. But once he gets there, he finds Governor Loukianos rather vague about the details of the project, and about his salary. The Governor is much more interested in the tea houses, which draw tourists to the island and provide important income. The houses are places of entertainment, with geisha-like staff who offer conversation, poetry and music. The houses are not brothels, though the entertainers hope to attract patrons who may become their lovers.

Hylas is from a country that doesn't have tea houses, and he has rented a room in The House of the Red Balconies without knowing what it is. His room shares a garden with a beautiful young man named Zo, one of the entertainers, who suffers from a chronic illness that often leaves him unable to walk. Zo is at first suspicious of Hylas, who is shy and uncomfortable around strangers, particularly one as beautiful as Zo. But they begin to bond over breakfasts in their garden. Meanwhile, since Hylas can't build his aqueduct, he keeps busy with other small projects like fixing the town's plumbing issues, working in what has become their garden, and figuring out ways to help Zo navigate his illness. He quickly endears himself to the house's residents, and to the town at large.

It was fun to explore Tykanos, and to watch Hylas find his way to friendship and love. He takes good care of Zo, and people take care of him in return, and (spoiler alert) he finally gets to build the aqueduct! It was a lovely story, one I know I'll come back to.

Two very different train trips

First, Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome K. Jerome (TBR stacks, 2016)

I have no idea what finally inspired me to pick this up, after so many years on the TBR stacks. Orginally published in 1891, it is an account of a trip Jerome K. Jerome took with his friend "B" to see the Oberammergau Passion Play. I first learned about this play, presented every ten years since the 17th century, from Maude Hart Lovelace. In Betsy and the Great World, the title character visits the small town in an off-year, when the play is not being presented, meeting the villagers who play the different characters and enjoying the town's hospitality. Jerome's story begins in England with B's invitation. It reads like a travel journal, detailing their mishaps and adventures. The tone is familiar from To Say Nothing of the Dog, but I found it funnier and more engaging than his later account of a bicycle tour through Germany, Three Men on the Bummel. I was surprised by a sincere meditation on churches and religious faith, and a serious discussion of the Passion Play. Unlike the fictional Betsey, he was there in a presentation year (1890). He also had the chance to meet the villagers/actors, and some of the names were familiar from the fictional visit.

After I finished the book, I checked for biographical information on Jerome. I learned that he published an autobiography called My Life and Times in 1926, the year before his death. I also learned that on an American tour, he was horrified by the lynching of African Americans and protested during his talks, even in the South; and that he drove an ambulance in France during the Great War, after being declared unfit for service. I promptly located a copy of the book, and I am determined not to let it languish unread.

 

Second, The Wheel Spins, by Ethel Lina White (2024 purchase)

One of my favorite podcasts is Shedunnit, hosted by Caroline Crampton, which covers Golden Age detective fiction. I think I have said before that I don't read much modern crime fiction lately. The cosies often seem too twee, and the police procedurals have too many serial killers. Martin Edwards through his collections of Golden Age stories, and the British Library reprints, have introduced me to new authors, as has the podcast. One I have been anxious to read is The Wheel Spins, which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. I saw the film years ago and remembered the basic plot, but not well enough to see where book and film diverge.

In the novel, Iris Carr has been on holiday in the Balkans with a groups of Bright Young Things. The rest of the groups leaves for England two days before she does (to the relief of the other British visitors, tired of their shenanigans). While Iris is waiting for her train on her own day of departure, she has an episode of sunstroke in the station. She is helped on to the overcrowded train, and in her compartment is a "tweedy spinster" named Miss Froy, who takes her to the dining car for tea, chattering about her work as a governess and the home she is returning to for a holiday. Afterwards, Iris falls asleep in her seat. When she wakens, Miss Froy is not in the compartment, and everyone else asserts she was never there and doesn't exist. Iris searches for her frantically, while being dismissed as ill and hysterical.

It is a very tense story, with Iris feeling very alone and vulnerable, particularly since she doesn't speak the language. She has one ally, who isn't actually that much support, since he doesn't completely believe her. I found his transition to her love interest the weakest part of the story. Despite having a general idea of how the story ended. I did read the ending early on to make sure it was a happy one. I don't know that I'll look for more of Ethel Lina White's books, especially since one of them features a serial killer, but I'll keep my eyes open for copies turning up.

A mystery on Mars

 The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Malka Older

This is the second book in a series set on Mars. The "Giant" has been settled by refugees fleeing an Earth that became uninhabitable. They live on platforms girded together by rings, railways that connect settlements and even towns. There are agricultural platforms, both on Mars and on its moons. Scholars are studying not just how to sustain life on Mars, but also how to re-establish life on Earth.

The first book, The Mimicking of Known Successes, introduced Mossa, an Investigator looking into the disappearance of a man on a remote platform. The story is narrated by Pleiti, a Classical scholar at Valdegeld University, whom Mossa turns for help in her investigation. Pleiti plays Watson to Mossa's Sherlock, complicated by their past history when they were students and lovers at the university.

That story was action-packed, leading to an explosive ending. This story is quieter but just as enjoyable. It did take a couple of tries for me to settle into it. The language is formal and feels a bit opaque, which seems a marker of the differences. These aren't 21st century people plopped down in Mars. Malka Older makes you feel the distance and the difference, and also the precariousness of life on Mars.

Here Mossa returns to ask Pleiti's help, as she is again investigating a disappearance, this time a student from Valdegeld. Pleiti is shocked when she learns that the student is one of 17 missing from the university - students, faculty, support staff. Their investigation will take them into university politics, as well as a trip to Io, Mossa's home planet, and a trip around the rings to the dark side of the Giant. There was a fascinating bit of backstory in that Io was settled first, by rich people with the means to escape Earth in comfort. But Io has active volcanoes, and it has become difficult to sustain life there. Those who settled Mars had a much harder time, but now the mother planet is thriving, and residents tend to side-eye the Ionians.

I enjoyed the mystery, but even more learning about Mars and Io, and particularly life on the Giant. It was also lovely to see Pleiti and Mossa settle more deeply into their relationship. There is a lot of care in this book, with tea and scones available via demand in Pleiti's rooms, as well as hot baths (one of the benefits of living on a gas planet). There are also delightful insights into the culture: this planet has a Murderbot opera, and I would pay good money just to read the libretto.

I hope that we will have more mysteries for Mossa and Pleiti to solve, maybe even on the other moons. I read a library copy of this, but I will be adding a copy to my shelves.

The Five Year Lie

The Five Year Lie, Sarina Bowen (library book)

I have enjoyed Sarina Bowen's romance novels, those set around family orchards and breweries in Vermont (I haven't read her hockey stories). When I learned from her newsletter that she had written her first suspense novel, I wanted to read it. The cover labels it "A Domestic Thriller," but I haven't parsed the nuances between suspense and thriller - and this one could have been labeled a mystery as well.

The book opens with a nervous mother helping her young son in a bus station restroom. By the end of the short prologue, her face has been captured on the station's surveillance cameras, and while the security guard watching passes right over her, AI software is analyzing and then identifying her. The first chapter then jumps to Ariel, a single mother taking her young son to pre-school. She goes on to her job at her family's tech company, Chime Co., a major distributor of doorbell cameras. In a meeting that morning, she gets a text. It is from her son's father, Drew, who disappeared out of her life five years ago (before she knew she was pregnant). It's a shock to get the text, because she knows that he died shortly afterwards, she has his obituary - pretty much all she does have from him, aside from her son.

The chapters that follow alternate between Ariel's narration (first person present), and an account of Ariel and Drew's relationship five years ago (third person present). It turns out that the text was actually sent five years ago, part of a cache of texts that was held up and then suddenly released, creating havoc in different people's lives. For Ariel, it spurs her to begin looking for Drew, trying to figure out what happened. The reader knows much more than she does, from the chapters that include Drew's perspective. 

I found the story interesting, though I don't like jumping between dual time lines, especially when there is a gap of time. It's a complicated story, with characters helping Ariel and hindering her. Technology plays a major role in it, particularly the family's cameras and how they can be used. The author brings it to a neat conclusion, though I had a couple of questions about the solution and the ending for the characters. I'll continue to read Sarina Bowen's romances, but I hope she writes more suspense stories as well.

Two novellas, continuing favorite series

I had the great pleasure of reading two novellas this week, both fantasy stories, and both continuations of series I really enjoy. 

The first is The Brides of High Hill, by Nghi Vo, from my 2024 TBR stack. This is the fifth book in the "Singing Hills Cycle," about clerics who travel around telling and collecting stories. The new stories they hear are brought back to archive at the Singing Hills abbey. Clerics are aided in their work by neixin, spirits that take the form of a hoopoe and help the clerics remember. The main character in these stories, which can be read in any order, is Cleric Chih, who travels with their companion Almost Brilliant.

In The Brides of High Hill, Chih is traveling with the Pham family but without Almost Brilliant, to bring their daughter Nhung to her wedding. Her future husband, Lord Guo, is the master of a fortress-like estate, Doi Cao. When they arrive, Chih finds that Lord Guo is at least thirty years older than his bride, and his estate is crumbling around him. The servants are nervous, his son is unstable, and no one wants to talk about any previous wives. Nhung asks Chih to help her explore the many buildings scattered around the grounds, to try to figure out what's going on. I honestly thought I knew what was going on, but then there was a major twist to the story that came as a complete surprise. It is really cleverly done, with both the set-up and the denouement. This is a great addition to the series.

The second book is Penric and the Bandit, by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is part of her "Five Gods Universe," which started with three novels set in a medieval-Renaissance world with echoes of our own, and a remarkable theology. The first of these, The Curse of Chalion, is one of my desert-island books. I had hoped for more books in that series, but instead Lois Bujold began writing novellas about a young man named Penric, who inherits a demon from a dying sorcerer. In this world, there is a Holy Family of five gods. The Bastard, my favorite, is a god of chaos and untimely events, and of demons. Demons can only exist in the world of matter if they attach themselves to a person or animal. If the demon has control, then it can do a lot of damage in its physical form. But it can be mastered, and then its powers can be used for good. One who possesses and controls a demon is a sorcerer, and usually a divine of the Bastard. Penric's demon, Desdemona, has had twelve previous "riders," all women, and so she is a demon of great age and power. The story of her partnership begins with Penric's Demon, and the books should be read in order. They are a delight.

Lois Bujold describes herself as retired from traditional publishing. The Penric books are self-published, and she writes when she has a story to tell, never on a schedule. So it was a lovely surprise to find her posting on Goodreads last month about a new Penric & Desdemona story. Penric and the Bandit opens with Penric sitting in a roadside inn, with a map. Roz, who needs money and to get far away, picks him out as a likely mark and starts chatting him up. He thinks Pen is a treasure-hunter who might be relieved of his treasure, but he has a lot to learn about the man he labels "Goldie." This was another great adventure, with a surprising treasure to be found (Roz is certainly surprised). I admit to a slight disappointment that the Bastard didn't make an appearance this time. As I said before though, he does tend to take over the story a bit when he appears, much like DEATH in Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

The Fixed Period - the last Anthony Trollope novel

This novel, the last Anthony Trollope wrote, was published first serially and then in novel form in 1882 - ironically, given its subject matter, the year that he died. I don't think I will be a Trollope completist, because I don't plan to read his historical fiction set in France, or all of his travel writing. But as weird as this last novel was, I'm glad to have read it.

The Fixed Period is set in the late 20th century. Narrated by John Neverbend, it is the story of Britannulia, whose citizens seceded from New Zealand to settle an island in the Pacific, as an independent republic. Neverbend, the founding president, has a dream the implementation of which he believes will make him a great benefactor of humanity: state-run euthanasia. On their 67th birthday, a citizen of Britannulia reaches their Fixed Period. He or she is then to be escorted to the government-run College - named to Mr. Neverbend's dismay the Necropolis. The newly-deposited resident spends the next year preparing herself or himself for their 68th birthday, at which point they are given laudanum, put into a warm bath, and killed, after which the remains are cremated.

This is the law of Britannulia. However, in this June of 1980, the first resident about to celebrate the milestone birthday does not want to be deposited. Neither do the four people in line behind him. The population is divided over the question, while the President keeps insisting that the law must be upheld, and that Gabriel Crasweller's example will bring glory to the country and their plan. As the reader learns in the first chapter, Great Britain has sent out a steam launch stuffed with troops to prevent this from taking place, and an ambassador to turn the republic into a Crown Colony - and to take John Neverbend back to England.

This story was first serialized in Blackwood's Magazine, with no author listed. I wonder if I would have known it was Anthony Trollope if I'd read an uncredited version rather than the Penguin edition I found years ago. There is a weird parallel between this and his first novel, The Warden, with its ancient residents of Hiram's Hospital, who are at least allowed to live out their unfixed period of years in peace. There is also a chilling parallel that Trollope could not have seen. The grounds of the college include a crematorium, where the bodies of those killed will be cremated. One of the objections to living at the Necropolis is the ash and smell from the bodies (though the only test was done with pig carcasses). Even Neverbend realizes this was a mistake. It was hard not to think of Nazi death camps reading that.

There are typical Trollope tropes, such as a beautiful young woman who must choose among suitors. The fact that she is Crasweller's daughter, and her husband will inherit her father's property after the older man is disposed of, adds more than one complication to the story. There is conflict between father and son, husband and wife, as Neverbend's family oppose the Fixed Period (Mrs. Neverbend does not even accompany her husband in exile, though she does send him off with flannel drawers). There is an extended sports scene - cricket rather than fox-hunting, and with steam-powered bats. That's another weird thing about this book, Trollope doesn't seem to have spent much time on developing his future world. It's pretty much 19th century Britain. Women of course don't vote in Britannulia, even in 1980.

I did learn from the brief introduction that Trollope was a strong supporter of cremation, and there is a conversation cited where he supposedly spoke in favor of euthansia. It is ironic then that he died, at age 67, having reached the Fixed Period of the story.