HH’s 2020 Book List/Review
Inspired by Elisa Gabbert’s year-end book reviews, here’s a list of every book (27) I read in 2020 (favorites in bold), and some personal reviews of those (6) I really loved or were particularly memorable. Listed by category (Novels, Short Stories, Nonfiction, Memoir, and Poetry) and the order in which I read them. Naturally some books blur the genre-lines, and so I’ve placed them in the category they most felt like to me. I read some poetry and stories in litmags and online, but did not include those here. If you follow me on Goodreads, you might have seen some of these reviews. I’ve beefed them up a bit here, and when deemed necessary, dragged in snippets of others’ reviews. Next year, I hope to give at least a sentence to each read book, but for now, here we are (now here = nowhere!) Please enjoy and send questions if you’ve got ’em. I love a book chat. Happy New Year, friends. ❤
Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans LA (April, 2020)
The List
Novels
In Zanesville, Jo Ann Beard (2011)
Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid (1985)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers (1940)
Godshot, Chelsea Bieker (2020)
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews (2014)
The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett (2020)
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid (2020)
10:04, Ben Lerner (2014)
Salvage The Bones, Jesmyn Ward (2011)
The Topeka School, Ben Lerner (2019)
Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier (2020)
Luster, Raven Leilani (2020)
Short Stories
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories, Etgar Keret (2001)
Best American Short Stories 2019, Various Authors, edited by Anthony Doerr (2019)
Nonfiction
Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, Jane Alison (2019)
Silence: In the Age of Noise, Erling Kagge (2017)
Three Women, Lisa Taddeo (2019)
The Unreality of Memory, Elisa Gabbert (2020)
Memoir
Ordinary Girls, Jaquira Diaz (2019)
A Year Without a Name: A Memoir, Cyrus Dunham (2019)
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton (1973)
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Jenn Shapland (2020)
Poetry
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong (2019)
Bestiary: Poems, Donika Kelly (2016)
Life on Mars, Tracy K. Smith (2011)
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay (2015)
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, Anne Carson (2001)
The Reviews
In Zanesville, Jo Ann Beard (2011)
“We can’t believe the house is on fire. It’s so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all.”
Those are the first two lines! Jo Ann Beard is a master of character and voice, and the dialogue is pitch-perfect. This was a second read for me (as a sort of case-study for my own novel*, whose narrator is of a similar age/disposition), having read it the first time a few years ago. Reading this novel, which is an expansion of sorts on the title essay Boys of My Youth (from Beard’s more famous work) is like getting catapulted back into your 9th grade brain in all its beauty and sorrow and hopelessness and hope. This novel is “quiet;” the high stakes don’t come in the form of any grand action, but the coming-of-age is wrought so specific (and so universal, like all the best are) that it’s a page-turner nonetheless. A girl named Jo navigates the wildness of teenagehood, life, art (there’s a very endearing art teacher/mentor and though there’s no crush factor, I thought of Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher anyway) alcohol, and friendship. It is so beautiful in its subtlety, and so funny! And I won’t give it away, but the last sentence, at two words long, is just as good as the first. JAB knows how to start ’em and end ‘em.
*Most of you know, but for those who don’t: I’ve been working on a book for about a year n a haff now. I’m on the 3rd out of ??? drafts, and who knows how long it’ll take me, but I sure hope someday you’ll all get to hold it in your sweet little hands.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers (1940)
Nine years after my first read of this book (and 80 years after its publication!), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter held me all the same. Whether or not it’s true, this is the title I give when I’m forced (aka simply asked) to answer the inane but well-meaning question: what’s your favorite book? It’s a novel so full of believing, wanting, yearning, knowing, growing, loving (that somehow also deals with gender, race, injustice, sexuality and mortality). Even more amazed this time around at how fully each perspective is rendered (like five books in one). Each a thorough and vivid depiction of our satellites, our stars: the introspective cafe owner Biff; the wise, drunk Blount; an aging and frustrated Dr. Copeland; and the music-loving girl(?)child Mick — all of whom so beautifully orbit around our mute sage, our moon: Mr. Singer. I love them all. Carson McCullers forever.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong (2019)
It’s poetry in novel form or a novel in verse or it’s just lots and lots of beautiful sentences that are also a letter and also give some semblance of a story. The lattermost (lack of coherent narrative) gave me pause in knowing whether I loved this book or not. When viewed through the lens of a novel, it’s harder to appreciate On Earth for its true magic. You can find in many places what this book is about so instead I’ll tell you what I remember (after six months): it remains so far unlike anything I’ve ever read and contains some of the realest sex-scenes I’ve ever come upon. It’s also an aching book, like I’d clench my fist and kind of hold it to my stomach, bowling over a bit, when people asked me how it was. And here’s what I said on Goodreads immediately after reading: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was, indeed, gorgeous and so raw and full of rich interiority and emotion. As an extended letter/poem, it was striking and heart wrenching, and there were many riveting and beautiful scenes, but overall the poetic prose felt too dense. I lingered over sentences for their music — and it often felt like a long song — but I did not always feel pulled along narratively. I really, really liked it, but I wanted a bit more story and a bit more light.
My opinion hasn’t necessarily changed over the last six months, but the essence of the book is strong and has remained with me (which is not nothing, and so it felt worth reviewing). The lasting sense: what was given outweighs what remains wanted. Whatever you want to call it, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a special book.
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews (2014)
Wow! I’ve never before read a book so full of and “about” death that held such humor and charm. I laughed out loud and then got punched in the gut/heart over and over. My god, what a tribute to being a sister, mother, daughter; to being human in this weird, dark, cyclical and yet wildly surprising world. The narrator Yoli and her sister Elfrieda are the central characters, who like Toews, grew up in a conservative mennoite family; they’re now in their forties and DEALING or precisely not dealing with life/adulthood/etc. I’ll say of my own synopsis what The New York Times said of theirs: that if I hadn’t read the book, I wouldn’t be enticed by such a recapitulation, but it was for me un-put-down-able. I’m in awe of Toews deft, witty, headstrong and heartfelt writing; she is so damn smart, and All My Puny Sorrows is worth every bit of its heartbreak. This was my favorite read of the year.
The New York Times: The dialogue is realistic and funny, and somehow, almost magically, Toews gets away with having her characters discuss things like books and art and the meaning of life without seeming pretentious or precious; they’re simply smart, decent and confused.
And a snippet of my friend Vincent’s review: “I want to say more about exactly how and why this book so thoroughly and eternally rearranged me, but I regard the task of doing so as distinctly on the other side of what I’m able to make language effectuate.”
10:04, Ben Lerner (2014)
“I breathed in the night air that was or was not laced with anachronistic blossoms and felt the small thrill I always felt to a lesser or greater degree when I looked at Manhattan’s skyline and the innumerable illuminated windows and the liquid sapphire and ruby of traffic on the FDR Drive and the present absence of the towers.”
A description (not my own) from Goodreads:
Lerner captures what it’s like to be alive now, when the difficulty of imagining a future has changed our relation to our present and our past. Exploring sex, friendship, medicine, memory, art, and politics, 10:04 is both a riveting work of fiction and a brilliant examination of the role fiction plays in our lives.
This book might come off as pretentious/cold to some, but I think those some might be missing the point. There were moments in which I almost wanted to hate this book but the thing is: I didn’t hate it, I loved it. Because Lerner’s self awareness and self-reflection are so apparent and felt, what may seem ostentatious at first is proven authentic: This is who he is! This is the way this narrator/author (is there a difference? we are always asking) really thinks; this his true diction. The authenticity, for me, makes compelling. And funny! I think Lerner means to be funny (and not “smart”) when he, for example, describes crying as a “lacrimal event.” I, for one, laughed. I also love how Lerner cross references and synthesizes media, weaving in threads from the film Back to The Future, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc (my favorite painting at The Met), and photographs of New York City. Lastly, I’ll say, despite all its head, there is also so much HEART here in 10:04. It’s a beautiful, impressively formed, and funny book. I loved it.
The Unreality of Memory, Elisa Gabbert (2020)
This was my last read of the year. In many ways, it reminded me of (or made me think of — is there a difference in those phrases?) Ben Lerner’s 10:04, in the way that Gabbert looks at how we fantasize about and revel in disaster, and the way she uses images to help support the idea that the visuals of a thing (disaster/catastrophe) can leave a more lasting impact on society than its actual death/destruction toll. This book is full of essays that seem prescient in ways (one essay in particular on the increasing inevitability of a pandemic, written in 2018) and others that are curiosity peeking/seeking, raising questions without attempting to answer them (about the pathology of hysteria and witchery, our automatic othering, the inevitable death of our planet, you know v light n fun stuff). This isn’t about the unreliability of memory like so many ironically misremember the title, but the unreality of reality; about the curation of our very experience; about defining what is exactly “the present”, and how to enjoy everyday life (like Pixar’s new movie Soul does such a great job of reminding us to do; lovely little film) when everyday is ever-changing and for Earth’s sake, for the worse. In an essay called “Doomsday Pattern,” Gabbert retells stories from Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich, a book of survivor testimonies. In one story, Alexievich spoke of meeting an old man in a dead village (dead bc radiation). “Aren’t you afraid?” she asked. He answered: “Of what? You can’t be afraid the whole time, a person can’t do that; some time goes by, and ordinary life starts up again.”
Pair this book with Elisa Gabbert’s episode on Between The Covers podcast with David Naimon. I listened to it first, and it’s the reason I bought the book. Their conversation made my brain light up. No promo, but p sure it’ll light yours, too.
Behind Waffle House on West Bank, New Orleans LA (December, 2020)
