'Cause this is Thriller, Thriller Time...

I’ve had thrillers on the brain lately. Last week marked 11 years since Michael Jackson died, so naturally I’ve been listening to the album “where every song was a killer.” Recently, my sis and I followed 80 West from Connecticut to Utah—we did some first-rate yackety-yakking, interspersed with listening to the talented Jane Harper. The Dry is definitely an awesome whodunit (Five star). Oh, and I may or may not have binge-watched Defending Jacob, a legal thriller that caught my eye. Because Chris Evans.

I’m a suspense junkie as of late. Not surprisingly, I checked out Harlen Coben’s new release The Boy From the Woods. (Never read a Coben before.) When a teen named Naomi Pine goes missing, Wilde (the boy, now man, from the woods and an outcast in his own right) sets out to not only get answers but to find the young girl. Is Naomi’s disappearance somehow related to the presidential aspirations of a Senator named Rusty Eggers? You’ll have to read to find out. This book had mystery, plot twists, some political intrigue, and great characters (especially Wilde and Hester Crimstein). It definitely held my attention; however, there were things left unsaid, big things. This was a good read, but it didn’t come close to The Dry or The King of Pop, or Defending Jacob for that matter. Take it to the beach or listen on a long drive, you’ll definitely be satisfied. For what’s it’s worth, the reviews I’ve since read suggest this isn’t Coben’s best.

Posted by Tracy

As the Moor Turns

Tracy,

I was all caught up in the elegance of the historic perspective you brought into this conversation—visions of Brontë sisters trapped by their gender writing gothic novels about women trapped by their gender—when you dragged me back into the story with the question, "what is it about Heathcliff that makes him a somewhat redeeming character?" At this point in the book, I can only respond at the top of my lungs, NOTHING! He is horrible. The extent to which he will abuse Isabelle is prefaced by his cool response when Catherine reveals Isabelle's crush to him, "...thank you for telling me your sister-in-law's secret: I swear I'll make the most of it." What a creep! He continues to explain that while he's angry at Catherine for not being jealous, he won't take his revenge on her because "the tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them." So, for his own cruel amusement he whisks Isabelle off (killing her dog on the way, as you point out), marries her, and brings her back two months later only to alternate between ignoring her, verbally abusing her, and telling her how much he loves Catherine. I believe in modern times we'd call his behavior sociopathic.

Imagine if your best friend was dating Heathcliff. Would you try to support her through this bad boy crush and hold back your real opinion to avoid risking your friendship? (We've all been there.) Or would you practically stage an intervention, getting your whole group of friends together to shake her and shout, "what are you doing?! This guy is completely bananas! You can do so much better!" I'm thinking the latter. There are some guys that are just that bad, and I'd put Heathcliff solidly in that category. And yeah, yeah, I know, a few chapters ago I was blathering on about nature versus nurture and he's just become what they made him, but it doesn't matter how he got here. He's cruel and horrible and I don't want my friend dating him.

Except, Catherine.

Catherine is turning out to be no one I want to be friends with. I think she sums up her own self-obsessed arrogance when she says to Nelly, "I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.” When her husband finally confronts Heathcliff, she humiliates poor Edgar to such an extent that he ends up punching Heathcliff in the throat and throwing him out of the house. She then dramatically declares that she'll get her revenge on both of them by breaking her own heart to break theirs. Sheesh. What a drama queen. One of my favorite moments comes when—during one of her teenagerish dramatic moments - Catherine tells Nelly to wipe the look of apathy off her face and try to look a little worried. (I really want to read a book with Nelly as the main character—want to write some fan fiction with me?) So maybe they deserve each other.

You know what my problem is? We're halfway through this book and I'm finding that I don't care. Heathcliff and Catherine are so unpleasant that I don't really want to spend more time in their company and I feel like whatever misery they end up in is just well-deserved. You see? When we started this I wrote that I remembered this book appealing to my gloomy, moody teenager self. Now I just feel like I'm too old for this stuff. I want to just tell them to get over themselves and get over their drama. I'm not patient enough to be a good friend to Catherine.

You want to know why Heathcliff is considered a Byronic hero? Beats me. But trying to answer that question might be just enough to keep me reading this soap opera.

Posted by Eliane

A Rattlingly Good Story

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.” – Oscar Wilde

 If I didn’t know better, I’d think Dorian Gray’s mastermind got an advanced reader copy of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows over 200 years ago. Surely, Wilde would have been pleased: sexuality, drama, and mysterious deaths?!!?

Set in present-day London, Balli Kaur Jaswal puts a unique spin on the popular East-meets-West novel. Nikki left her parent’s home in the Indian neighborhood of Southall for modern city life. The big city proved rough after Nikki dropped out of law school and lost some of her shifts at the bar. Money was tight. On top of it all, her older sister agreed to participate in the Indian tradition of arranged marriage. Nikki felt wholly devastated. After reluctantly agreeing to post her sister’s profile on the marriage board at a large Sikh church, Nikki comes across a Help Wanted ad to teach creative writing to women from the congregation. Nikki is passionate about storytelling and empowering women, so this job seems to be the perfect fit.

During the first class, Nikki’s shocked to find she’s been duped into teaching English to Sikh widows. The widows received a special surprise on Day One when they stumbled upon a book of erotic stories Nikki purchased (as a joke) for her marriage-seeking sister. Taking their lead from literature (and counter to their Sikh culture), the women begin to record their fantasies—ones they’ve kept close to the chest (so to speak) for too long.  

 As the women grow closer through their stories, more is shared beyond salacious fantasies and vegetable descriptors (I kid you not) of the perceived prudent widows. The class eventually realizes that there’s more than meets the eye to a local woman’s suicide. (Move over Alexander McCall Smith, there’s a new No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency!)  The widows underestimate everything that comes with exposing controversial details to a conservative church community.

If you read Jaswal’s book title and balked a bit, I wouldn’t be surprised.  You might be shocked to learn that my 56-year-old mother recommended the book to me. Rarely have I read a book that has made me consistently laugh and gasp throughout its entirety. It’s good for the gut. Deborah Maggoch, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, had this to say: “I loved this novel—it’s so big-hearted and earthy and funny. Best of all, it turns many preconceptions upside down, and opens up a world that so many of us have only glimpsed. A rattlingly good story.”

P.S. Be warned, there is some sexual content, and some of the descriptions are a bit graphic. But I never felt as though the sexuality took away from the story’s message about stereotypes and suppression. As an added bonus, it may just help you answer the age-old question on everyone’s mind: is it similar to an eggplant or cucumber? #TeamEggplant

Guest Post by Michelle

Bad Boy for Life

Dear Eliane,

Finally, I’m writing back to tell you that you are not going a little nuts. I love that you unearthed important parallels between our mixed-up modern with Bronte’s twisted tale, heavily influenced by the Gothic tradition. It makes me wonder how far have we really come? The Gothic tradition, dating back to the 18th century, featured isolated locations, ruined buildings, and supernatural elements—not to mention other creepy stuff. (Think Frankenstein.) I feel pretty darn isolated these days. As for ruined buildings, there are no 4 for 4’s at the Wendy’s in Atlanta where Rayshard Brooks innocently slept.  And if you’re skeptical about supernatural, creepy comings and goings, here’s a quick read for you.

The Bronte sisters were obviously progressive. They must have anticipated that novels as a form of entertainment were on the rise—no longer was literature reserved for wealthy aristocrats. Members of the middle class were learning to read, especially females. Of course, that doesn’t mean females were empowered. Sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all wrote under male pseudonyms, as they were well aware that novels written by women were taken less seriously. It was only after Emily and Anne prematurely died that Charlotte fessed up as who the real authors of Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were. Let’s be honest, they were as much isolated by virtue of their gender as they were by their geography. Do you think you and I would have been considered a witch? (Yes, that’s rhetorical.) Cue Monty Python.

The real question I have for you is would you have turned Heathcliff into a newt?

Let’s recap, from chapters 11-16, why you may answer yay to that. The gypsy turned (supposed) gentleman seduces young Isabella to marry him as payback for Catherine being an above-ener. (That’s a made-up word, but it’s such a good one I’m adding it to my vernacular.) Catherine didn’t love Edgar the way she loved Heathcliff—that becomes pretty darn obvious in Chapter 11 when she calls Edgar a coward; clearly, she loves a manly man. But I digress. I’m re-focused on reasons you may want Heathcliff extricated from the moors for good. He’s a total jerk to his new bride. Oh, and he threatens to keep the somewhat meddling, but loveable Mrs. Dean hostage if she won’t let him see his one true love. I’m not sure he needed to tell an unnerved Catherine that she was responsible for her own demise (and ultimately death) because she denied her true feelings for him. How’s that for sufficient reasoning to not like Heathcliff?  Need I remind he tried to kill the family dog?

And yet, I still find myself secretly rooting for the scoundrel. So, tell me Eliane, what is it about Heathcliff that makes him a somewhat redeeming character? Why is he considered a Byronic hero? I’m dying to know what you think. (Your opinion matters as much to me as Lord Byron’s.)

Your friend who usually doesn’t fall for the bad boy,

Tracy 

Wuthering Heights: A Horoscope for the World?

Dear Tracy,

I’m sorry to spam you, but I’ve read chapters 5-10 and my thoughts are overflowing. I need to get them to you so you can tell me if I’m going a little nuts, because right now I feel like Brontë’s masterpiece is starting to feel like it’s a horoscope for the world. We read the first five chapters, which dwelled on themes of isolation, just as we were all locked in, learning how to sew masks and absorbing new concepts like ‘social distancing’. Now, as America explodes with violence and protests in a reckoning of 400 years of racial inequality and oppression, we read chapters about class and race and privilege. Is it like reading the horoscope pages for you, too? Is this just proof that what we’re reading is great literature – poignant and applicable across distance and time?

Let me start by saying I’m thrilled that Mr. Lockwood has basically handed the narration over to the delightful Nelly Dean to tell us the juicy story within his story. While I find him to be a bit of a boring, pretentious whiner, I think she’s direct, down-to-earth, and just the right level of judgy. She’s like that one friend you have who has a crazy story each time you meet and knows exactly how to tell it, so you’re totally absorbed and don’t care that she’s hogging the conversation.

Nelly, the well-read servant, is keenly aware of the impact of class and privilege, and starts this part of her tale by pointing out that when Hindley returns to Wuthering Heights with his tubercular wife, Frances, he wastes no time in throwing Heathcliff out of the house to live and work like a servant. In one fell swoop, Heathcliff is demoted from being the adopted favorite of a wealthy man to being the servant of that man’s children. It’s something that Hindley could never have done if Heathcliff were his blood brother, but as a dark-skinned foundling, Heathcliff had neither power, nor claim to the family assets. For her part, Catherine remains his best friend, that is, until she gets attacked by the Linton’s dog, spends five weeks with them at Thrushcross Grange, and gets tamed by nice clothes.

When she returns, she laughs at Heathcliff and calls him dirty, and suddenly they are friends from two different worlds, divided by class. Heathcliff loves her, and in a final attempt to bridge the growing gap, he begs Nelly to make him “decent”. He wants to be lighter, blonder, well-dressed, well-behaved, and rich. Despite his efforts, Edgar Linton insults him, and at that point, he knows that despite feeling that Catherine is “immeasurably superior…to everybody on earth” she has become unobtainable. After Frances dies and Hindley becomes an abusive, unpredictable alcoholic, Catherine devolves into a spoiled, mean, lying brat, yet still Edgar Linton proposes.

Catherine says yes, but is tormented so Nelly takes her through a love catechism – Why do you love him? How do you love him? It seems that Catherine accepted Edgar’s proposal simply because he’s handsome and rich. Heartbreakingly, as she expands to explain the true worries of her soul, we learn that she loves Heathcliff deeply, but because her brother degraded him too far and he’s no longer a suitable match, she said yes to Edgar to play the long game. As she puts it, “…if Heathcliff and I married, we would be beggars, whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power”. Catherine’s plan is to use the privilege and power she obtains through marriage to help Heathcliff because she loves him. How sad is that? As rich white dudes, Hindley and Edgar have all the power here. Hindley pushes Heathcliff down to the servant class, making him no longer a viable partner for his sister. Catherine knows Heathcliff is her soulmate but settles for Edgar so that at least she can try and make Heathcliff’s life a little better. It’s awful. And Heathcliff will have none of it. He disappears, leaving them all to their upper-class misery.

Catherine starts her marriage as gunpowder that everyone tiptoes around, but she eventually seems to accept her fate and settles into some form of stable happiness with Edgar. That stability is immediately shattered when Heathcliff comes back after three and a half years away. From the first moment, Catherine tries to close the class gap, telling her husband to set a separate table for her and Heathcliff, since they’re from the “lower order”. But she underestimates Heathcliff. He has come back a changed man. Dignified. Rich. He moves into Wuthering Heights with Hindley in order to be close to Catherine (and maybe get some kind of revenge?), and Nelly leaves us with a nice plot twist when we learn that Edgar’s sister, Isabella, is in love with him. It only took 3.5 years for Heathcliff to turn himself from an unviable partner for Catherine into a suitable love interest for Isabella. What a difference a little money can make!

So tell me Tracy, are race, class and privilege on your mind? I find it interesting that as a woman of at least some means, Catherine is still more limited in her choices than a man who is a servant. After all, she doesn’t have the option to disappear for three years and make (steal? con her way to? find? sleep her way to?) her fortune. She’s as trapped as Nelly, who is forced to abandon a child she loves and has raised to move to another house when Catherine gets married. Combined with everything that’s going on in real life around us, all of this is another slap-in-the-face reminder of how privileged I am. In so many ways.

 Your friend for more than just the present,

 Eliane

She was a Voice

“Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it . . . . When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.” 

 When I discovered Sue Monk Kidd had a book on the press, I couldn’t wait to download it. The release day drew near, and I drew in my breath. Then I realized The Book of Longings was about the secret life of Jesus’s (fictional) wife. I deflated. I don’t love trying to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to Him. My sister, Sharee, did not shrink from the task. Here’s what she had to say about last month’s big release:

 I have to admit I was skeptical when I started Sue Monk Kidd’s latest novel, The Book of Longings. As a firm believer in the sacred and divine mission of Jesus Christ, I struggled with the idea of someone writing a “what if” scenario about his life before ministering. But the more I read, the more I realized that this is Ana’s story.  Ana, the young wife of Jesus, was such a well-developed character that I found myself captivated by her determination to follow the longings she carried within. Ana is an intelligent, educated, and strong female character. She is willing to risk her own life to help others. Ana spends years trying to find and share her voice at a time in history when women were expected to be utterly silent. While it was difficult for me to embrace the author’s portrayal of Jesus, Ana’s amazing story (which could stand on its own in my opinion) definitely left me longing for more. 

Posted by Tracy

Family Gossip

Tracy,

Wow, I can’t imagine a beginning more suited to these strange pandemic times than chapter one of Wuthering Heights. Isolated in a house full of grumpy people? Check! Happy for any kind of social visit, even with rude company? Check! Animals acting up due to lack of socialization? Check! Mentally rehashing old relationships and feeling bad about exes? Check! All I’m missing is the servants.

Our introverted narrator, Mr. Lockwood, makes a big deal about what a loner he is while continuously seeking out the company of others. What gives? He repeatedly invites himself over to Wuthering Heights and then complains about how poorly he’s treated. And boy howdy, what a gossip! He really knows how to milk Mrs. Dean for the backstory on the whole irritable gang. About that gang…did anyone else have trouble wrapping their heads around all the people? I sure did. I ended up drawing myself a little family tree:

Notice that Heathcliff is on there twice. It took me ages to figure out, but I finally came to the conclusion that to make this work, you should imagine bending it into a circle, so that the two Heathcliffs are on top of each other, because nothing is healthier in a family tree than a circle! No, I recognize that this is actually two families and that Heathcliff is what ties them together, first through adoption (or at least being found on the street and taken home, like a stray dog), and then through marriage, but I’m still worried about how intertwined these families are. Mrs. Dean summed it up nicely when she points out that Catherine Linton is Hareton Earnshaw’s cousin on her mother’s side and her husband, Heathcliff Jr.’s, cousin on her father’s side. What a tangled mess! No wonder there’s good gossip.

 And you’re right, Tracy, these first chapters queue up so many questions about Heathcliff, our suspicious, black-eyed, morose hero. Foremost in my mind: What is wrong with him?! So rude and ill-tempered. How did he get this way (I mean, other than being abandoned on the streets as a young child)? What’s the deal with that haunted room? Why does he dislike his daughter-in-law so much? Considering how irritable and rude he is, how did he manage to win the affection of Mr. Earnshaw to such an extent that he ended up with Wuthering Heights instead of Hareton? So many questions.

 Finally, many of us are currently dealing with the stress of being temporarily trapped in our homes with family members because of a pandemic. Can you imagine being permanently trapped in an isolated home with people you don’t like because you live in a time with essentially no mobility, social or otherwise? These people – especially Catherine – have literally nowhere else to go. I’ve got it comparatively easy with my toddler-interrupted Zoom meetings and home deliveries. In any case, I do feel confident that if you and I were in the same place now, we’d also be “a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us”.

 Yours in gloom and gossip,

Eliane

Havana-ooh-nah-nah

 "Half of my heart is in Havana"  —Ariana Grande

Havana-ooo-nah-nah is right after reading Chanel Cleeton's novel. Next Year in Havana has everything you can think of…drama, romance, beach vibes...communism? What starts as Marisol Ferrera's journey to spread her recently deceased grandmother's ashes in Cuba (and learn more about her roots), turns into a history lesson on the powers of communism and the secrets that come with it.

Bouncing back and forth between 1958 and 2017, we learn more about the story of Marisol's wealthy grandmother, Elisa Perez, and her exile from her home as communism came into power. Elisa and her family were kicked out of the country after pledging loyalty to President Batista before being overthrown by Fidel Castro. Along the way, Elisa must make choices to help protect her family and those she loves most.

Set in the stages of before, during, and after communism, our eyes are opened to the hardships, struggles, and depression that comes with dictatorship and political unrest. As Marisol's family secrets are slowly revealed, you'll be hard-pressed to put this book down as you discover the answers to the book's biggest questions—what happened to her grandmother's best friend? Where should Marisol spread her ashes? Is Ana's hot grandson TRULY married?

In true Goodreads fashion, I give this book a 4.3 out of 5 stars. A great, light book club option for readers of all ages, but I felt like the parallels at the end of the book were a bit too neatly tied. It did motivate me to read the sequel about Marisol's aunt. (More on that later.)

Guest Post by Michelle, Tracy’s Niece