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Jessica Wakeman

FictionHistorical Fiction

The Children’s Train

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The displacement of children is a vexing problem in international and national politics. Italian author Viola Ardone’s novel explores issues surrounding children who are separated from their parents, but in this case, the families willingly send their youngsters away to live in the care of strangers.

The Children’s Train is the story of 7-year-old Amerigo Speranza, who lives with his mother in Naples after World War II, when the Germans occupied the city and the Allies bombed it to pieces. Food and new shoes became scarce, and Amerigo had to drop out of school. Then Italy’s Communist Party approached struggling Neapolitan families with an offer: Their children would be sent to Northern Italy to be cared for by wealthier families throughout the winter.

Amerigo joins the train of children, and he is placed with a single woman in the Communist Party. His new life includes school, violin lessons and plenty of food. His life is undoubtedly better in the north, but the children of the “Mezzogiorno” aren’t meant to leave their parents permanently. The novel’s most heartfelt conflict involves Amerigo’s feelings about returning home to his life of poverty. A new world has opened for him; not so for his mother and their neighbors.

The novel jumps forward in time to Amerigo’s adulthood, which is when the novel shines. (Ardone writes adult Amerigo more convincingly than the 7-year-old boy.) Amerigo was privileged to have the opportunity to leave Naples and its poverty behind, but it came at what cost to his mother, his community and, ultimately, himself? Did taking that opportunity actually better his life, or did it drive a wedge between him and everyone he loves?

Translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford, The Children’s Train explores difficult decisions made by people living extremely hard lives. There are no easy answers and no heroes or villains. Ardone’s novel will appeal to fans of Elena Ferrante, but it stands on its own as a fictionalized account of an exceptional—and exceptionally complicated—social experiment.

The displacement of children is a vexing problem in international and national politics. Italian author Viola Ardone’s novel explores issues surrounding children who are separated from their parents, but in this case, the families willingly send their youngsters away to live in the care of strangers.

NonfictionMemoir

American Daughter

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The memoir genre is flush with inspiring stories about children who overcame horrific abuse to become healthy, functioning adults. If Stephanie Thornton Plymale’s American Daughter were merely that type of memoir, it would still be impressive. Plymale spent her childhood fending for herself as one of five kids raised by a mentally ill and drug-addicted mother. At times, the children slept in a car and scavenged for their own food; other times they were wards of the state.

However, the memoir Plymale has written supersedes the journey of perseverance with an investigation into her family’s fascinating but tragic past. When Plymale’s mother announced that she was dying of lung cancer, the author decided to learn more about her family history while she still could. For starters, she had no idea who her father was. Her mom often claimed that she was related to George Washington—which everyone dismissed as either a delusion or an outright lie. And when ill, her mom had often taken on alternate personalities, including a sad 11-year-old girl who was always afraid of getting pregnant. What, Plymale had long wondered, was that really about?

The family history that Plymale discovers is wilder than anyone could have guessed. Readers will find themselves recalibrating their judgments about villains and victims and questioning how one family could fall so far down through the cracks. The title American Daughter is a reference both to the author’s determination to survive and succeed and to America’s failing social systems, like mental healthcare, child protective services and the justice system.

Tough topics like sexual abuse, kidnapping and miscarriage make this a heavy read at times. But for anyone looking for a moving tale of finding a way to give the love we don’t receive, American Daughter will resonate.

But for anyone looking for a moving tale of finding a way to give the love we don’t receive, American Daughter will resonate.

NonfictionMemoirLGBTQ+

All the Young Men

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. is often told from the perspectives of white, openly gay men who lived in major cities. But that’s not even close to the whole story. Ruth Coker Burks’ All the Young Men tells of the HIV-positive men who lived and died in the deeply conservative state of Arkansas, where the stigma of homosexuality was nearly as deadly as the virus.

In 1986, Burks was 26 and visiting a friend in the hospital when she became aware of a young man dying of AIDS in another room. The medical staff, disgusted by the disease, neglected him in his final hours. As a devout Christian, Burks couldn’t bear to let the man die hungry, scared and alone.

She soon developed a reputation in Hot Springs, Arkansas, as someone who would help care for gay men dying of the virus. Many of the men who came to her were from religious families who believed that, through illness and death, these men got what was coming to them. Refusing to treat people with HIV as outcasts made Burks a pariah in her community and particularly in her church, where appearances mattered more than anything. As a single mom, Burks was well versed in the conservative social politics of the South and adept at “killing them with kindness.” She showed great ingenuity as she shamed politicians, businessmen and medical workers into taking action on behalf of AIDS patients.

Throughout the memoir, it’s hard not to fall in love with Burks for her big-heartedness and enduring sense of humor in the face of suffering. However, All the Young Men isn’t an uplifting book. Ignorance, denial and cruelty have always been, and always will be, killers. But as Burks forges a path alongside these vulnerable men, her embrace of education and rejection of bigotry light the way forward for us all.

The history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. is often told from the perspectives of white, openly gay men who lived in major cities. But that’s not even close to the whole story. Ruth Coker Burks’ All the Young Men tells of the HIV-positive men who lived and died in the deeply conservative state of Arkansas, […]
NonfictionTrue Crime

We Keep the Dead Close

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The true crime genre has been so successful in podcasting that one might forget it originated in publishing. Becky Cooper, formerly of the New Yorker, has already drawn comparisons to In Cold Blood with her true crime masterpiece, We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence—and for good reason.

On a winter night in 1969, Jane Britton, a 23-year-old grad student in the Harvard anthropology department, was brutally murdered in her Boston apartment. Aspects of the crime scene suggested that her murderer may have had some knowledge of ritualistic burials. For decades, rumors suggested that a powerful archeology professor killed her. Cooper, herself a Harvard graduate, finally decided to find out.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: We chatted with author Becky Cooper about her transformation into an investigative journalist and the community she found along the way.

Over the course of 10 years, Cooper turns over every stone trying to identify Jane’s killer. She perseveres mightily in her investigation, driven in part by the way she identifies with the quirky, complicated victim. This identification may draw in readers who see themselves in Jane, too. But for others, the author’s embrace of a stranger who died 50 years prior may never quite gel. The book is strongest when we’re empathizing with Jane—her romantic foibles, grappling with sexism within academia—rather than with the author.

For aspiring journalists, Cooper’s impressive work in We Keep the Dead Close is a masterclass on how to do investigative reporting. She dug deep into archival research and interviewed most everyone involved in the case, drawing uncomfortable information out of her sources with particular skill while still withholding judgment. Along the way, the narrative ventures down rabbit holes and zigzags from Cambridge to Hawaii to Iran to Labrador.

Cooper’s 10-year investigation is a meandering one that may drag on for readers who want a neat and tidy resolution. For everyone else, there’s so much to chew on in We Keep the Dead Close. The resolution, when it comes, is as unexpected as it is heartbreaking.

The true crime genre has been so successful in podcasting that one might forget it originated in publishing. Becky Cooper, formerly of the New Yorker, has already drawn comparisons to In Cold Blood with her true crime masterpiece, We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence—and for good reason. […]
YA FictionYA

Every Body Looking

Review by Jessica Wakeman

In Candice Iloh’s debut novel in verse, Every Body Looking, college and the newfound independence it brings launch 18-year-old Ada from her conservative upbringing into a discovery of what she wants.

When we first meet Ada, she doesn’t seem to know how to articulate her own desires, either for her relationships or for the direction her life will take. A first-generation Nigerian American girl, Ada has been sheltered as much as her religious father could manage. After working hard in high school, she earns a scholarship to a historically Black college and leaves Chicago on her own for the first time. Though she registers for accounting classes, it doesn’t take long for Ada to realize that she doesn’t care about credits and debits. What she really wants to do is dance—something she’s always done but has kept hidden from her dad. When Ada meets an entrancing dancer named Kendra, she begins to see a way to build her future around her love of dance.

Every Body Looking pivots and spins across time, from Ada’s early childhood all the way to her first year of college, as it touches on themes of abuse, trauma and healing. Ada experiences abuse at a young age, and it impacts her life in ways that Iloh depicts with sensitivity. Ada also struggles with loving and being loved by her unreliable and sometimes cruel mother, who is dealing with addiction.

Iloh movingly explores the concept of safety through Ada’s relationships with her parents, as well as in her evolving perspectives on money, potential careers and budding romantic crushes. Teen readers who long for more independence than adults are willing to grant them, or who long to be seen as individuals rather than vessels for adult influence and direction, will find many points of identification with Ada’s story.

As Ada learns to feel and appreciate the power of her own body through dance, she develops strength in other areas of her life as well. Every Body Looking is a powerful acknowledgement of what we gain when we grant ourselves permission to embrace who we are fully and completely.

In Candice Iloh’s debut novel in verse, Every Body Looking, college and the newfound independence it brings launch 18-year-old Ada from her conservative upbringing into a discovery of what she wants.

FictionHistorical Fiction

The Wrong Kind of Woman

Review by Jessica Wakeman

Often in books and movies, dramatic settings like Hollywood or Washington, D.C., serve as the backdrop for stories of sociopolitical changes. However, in The Wrong Kind of Woman, first-time author Sarah McCraw Crow instead zeros in on a sleepy college town in New Hampshire. It’s 1970, and upheaval in the world, such as the events at Kent State University, feels far away. But the feminist and antiwar movements are determinedly creeping in.

The Wrong Kind of Woman features an ensemble of characters, but the primary focus is on Virginia Desmarais, whose husband, a professor, has died. Virginia put her academic career on pause to raise their daughter, and without a husband or her own Ph.D., she doesn’t know where she stands with the administrators at the all-male Clarendon College campus. Worse, she doesn’t know where she stands with herself.

Fans of the FX on Hulu miniseries “Mrs. America” will find the same feminist themes addressed in The Wrong Kind of Woman. Crow has tapped into a less flashy character of second wave feminism: the reluctant but curious wife and mother. The book, however, isn’t preachy, and the few strongly opinionated characters aren’t portrayed as necessarily likable.

The Wrong Kind of Woman explores the sublimation of self within a marriage, sexism in the workplace and the pros and cons of activism versus revolution. These are heady topics, but this slow burn of a novel proves a perfect place to give them serious thought.

Often in books and movies, dramatic settings like Hollywood or Washington, D.C., serve as the backdrop for stories of sociopolitical changes. However, in The Wrong Kind of Woman, first-time author Sarah McCraw Crow instead zeros in on a sleepy college town in New Hampshire. It’s 1970, and upheaval in the world, such as the events […]
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

Sex With Presidents

Review by Jessica Wakeman

Sex has the ability to provoke arousal, confusion and even disgust. Sex With Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman is a mostly playful account of politicians experiencing all three of these emotions while making history. The book covers the love affairs and heartbreaks of 10 presidents, two politicians who bollixed their presidential aspirations and numerous first ladies, girlfriends, secretaries and, um, “secretaries.”

Rather than being salacious, Sex With Presidents explores the nearly impossible ideal Americans have for public figures’ sexual behavior. We tend to view sex as undignified, a base urge that must be controlled. We want our male leaders virile and strong but not outwardly libidinous or philandering. And until thrice-married Donald Trump was elected, divorce—in particular, not being seen as a family man—was unthinkable for anyone seeking the job.

Sex With Presidents is well researched and aggregated from a long list of sources. The author delves into all manner of unorthodox living arrangements, secret children (and the financial arrangements to keep them hidden), extramarital hanky-panky and emotional affairs. Although humorous at times, the book does not water down some of the real miscreants who lived in the White House: There are several rapists in the bunch, and the sexual double standard is a historical constant.

However, the book deserves a closer critique of several passages. Some of the jokey language does not always land, particularly in the chapter about Bill and Hillary Clinton. Additionally, the chapter about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the ensalved woman who gave birth to many children by him, could have benefited from more interrogation.

Still, Sex With Presidents will be an entry point for some folks to learn more about history and the social mores of yore. The book is especially useful for illustrating how journalists have increasingly probed—some would say intruded—into politicians’ private lives. Whether our country is the better for it is up for debate.

After all, politicians are only human. And as Herman writes on the book’s first page, “The sex drive mocks logic and is resistant to common sense.” Even for presidents.

Sex has the ability to provoke arousal, confusion and even disgust. Sex With Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman is a mostly playful account of politicians experiencing all three of these emotions while making history.
NonfictionSocial Science

Can’t Even

Review by Jessica Wakeman

It is my sincere hope that millennials will read Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen’s new book about the professional zeitgeist—that is, if they’re not too burned out to do so.

In nine well-researched chapters, Can’t Even feistily fleshes out Petersen’s viral 2019 BuzzFeed article about millennial burnout. Interviews with a diverse array of millennials and deep analyses of labor history, class and sociology illustrate just how bad life has gotten for many members of this age group. What was called “workaholism” in the 1980s is called “hustle” in the 2020s—and if you can’t hack it, that’s on you. The result for too many Americans is insurmountable student debt, an erosion of job security, the rise of the gig economy, the fetishization of freelance work, a lack of leisure time and a trend toward “competitive martyrdom” in parenting.

Woven throughout Can’t Even is a sharp critique of boomer parents and employers. White, middle-class boomers in particular inculcated high expectations for the future in their children while tearing down the safety net beneath them. Petersen drives home the point that our current problems are not personal but societal—and yet, when a millennial cannot afford health insurance or a down payment on a house, it’s judged as laziness. No wonder so many people experience life as constant busyness and feel guilt for relaxing. “Burnout . . . is more than just an addiction to work,” she writes. “It’s an alienation from the self, and from desire. If you subtract your ability to work, who are you?”

However, readers don’t need to be personally burnt out for Can’t Even to resonate. If social media or the gig economy touch your life in any way, there’s something to chew on here. Fortunately, Petersen doesn’t offer any “hacks” or “tips” to pare back our busy lives. Instead, she advocates for societal self-reflection and an assessment of our values to spur change: Do we really want to live this way?

It is my sincere hope that millennials will read Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen’s new book about the professional zeitgeist—that is, if they’re not too burned out to do so. In nine well-researched chapters, Can’t Even feistily fleshes out Petersen’s viral 2019 BuzzFeed article about millennial burnout. Interviews with […]
FictionThriller

Leave the World Behind

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The phrase “worst-case scenario” calls to mind extreme situations, like being on a hijacked plane or a bridge during an earthquake. But perhaps more realistically, most worst-case scenarios are mundane. They’re quieter and less violent. They might even happen while we’re on vacation. Such is the premise of Rumaan Alam’s novel, Leave the World Behind.

White parents Clay and Amanda leave Brooklyn for a gorgeous vacation rental home far out on Long Island. Their kids are thrilled about the pool, less thrilled about being isolated in the woods with no cell service. Their respite has barely begun, however, when the house’s owners, wealthy Black couple George and Ruth, appear at the door in the middle of the night. There’s been an epic blackout in New York City. Something seems very wrong, and the older couple thought they should get out.

At first, Amanda is annoyed that their vacation has been interrupted. How bad could a blackout really be? And couldn’t this rich couple just go stay in a hotel? But then eerie occurrences begin to happen where they are, too. It’s clear something terrible is happening.

Alam’s brilliance is less in what he reveals and more in what he doesn’t. Fear of the unknown ratchets up the reader’s anxiety, and yet Leave the World Behind unfolds slowly for a thriller. The internet and TV are down, and cell phones won’t work, so information about the crisis is scarce. “I can’t do anything without my phone,” Clay laments. “I’m a useless man.” Trying to reassure the children and each other, the two couples hit the expected notes for grown-ups in a crisis: We’ll be fine. The government will have everything under control. We’re safe here. None of this turns out to be true.

Leave the World Behind is certainly timely in the era of COVID-19, but it’s also relevant for anyone who has questioned our society’s dependence on technology or our unwavering faith in the social contract. The characters second-guess their beliefs about safety and security. Readers who are safe at home—maybe?—can’t help but do the same.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Rumaan Alam reveals the personal fears at the heart of his terrifying new novel.

The phrase “worst-case scenario” calls to mind extreme situations, like being on a hijacked plane or a bridge during an earthquake. But perhaps more realistically, most worst-case scenarios are mundane. They’re quieter and less violent. They might even happen while we’re on vacation. Such is the premise of Rumaan Alam’s novel, Leave the World Behind.

YA FictionYA

Ever Cursed

Review by Jessica Wakeman

As children, we learn sunny, sanitized versions of fairy tales that always begin “once upon a time” and end “happily ever after.” It’s only when we’re older that we learn how the original versions of those stories, including those by the German folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, contained far more violence, cruelty and darkness. If the Brothers Grimm were still putting pen to paper today, they might conjure up something like Corey Ann Haydu’s Ever Cursed, a modern fairy tale of rage, revenge and power.

Princess Jane is the oldest daughter of the king of Ever. She used to believe her kingdom to be a loving and just place, but she and her four sisters lived a cosseted life in which the harsh realities just outside their castle walls have been carefully concealed from them. Then a young witch named Reagan placed Jane and her sisters under a powerful curse that would become permanent if it was not broken in five years’ time, on the youngest sister’s 13th birthday. Haydu brings readers into the story just before this momentous day, as Jane tries to lift the curse and Reagan reflects on her reasons for casting it in the first place.

Ever Cursed is at its strongest when Haydu employs all the trappings of traditional fairy tales—princesses and kings, witches and spells—to illustrate how men encourage divisions among women in order to diminish female power. Unlike in our world, magic in the kingdom of Ever can be deployed by women in order to silence or to save. As both Jane and Reagan discover their their families are not who they seem to be, Haydu’s tale treads a dark path, well-worn and lined with the familiar thorns of all the cruelties humans inflict on one another. Yet in its contemporary-minded depiction of the age-old battle between good and evil, Ever Cursed casts a bewitching spell indeed.

As children, we learn sunny, sanitized versions of fairy tales that always begin “once upon a time” and end “happily ever after.” It’s only when we’re older that we learn how the original versions of those stories, including those by the German folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, contained far more violence, cruelty and darkness. If […]
YA FictionYA

The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep

Review by Jessica Wakeman

In April of 1846, the Donner party—a group of 89 men, women and children with plenty of wagons, animals and food—headed west from Illinois. One year later, more than half the group had died, mostly from starvation and fatigue. Infamously, the survivors resorted to eating their dead after heavy snowstorms trapped them in the Sierra Nevada.

The Donner party is sometimes treated as a curious footnote to history, and perhaps rightfully so. Allan Wolf’s The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep revisits this grisly chapter of westward expansion to take a fresh and thought-provoking look at the doomed travelers.

Wolf constructs his story in a multivoice verse format he calls “narrative pointillism.” Readers experience the perspectives of adults, children and even a pair of hardworking oxen. The format also gives voice to lesser known figures in Donner party lore, such as Luis and Salvador, two Native Americans who were conscripted to help the party and were fatally betrayed.

Over the book’s nearly 400 pages, the Donner party members abandon animals, people, loyalties and hope itself. There are many deaths, including murders, and characters must grapple with the moral choice between cannibalism and survival. Readers in the mood for a lighthearted romp should look elsewhere.

In a stroke of brilliance, Hunger serves as a Greek chorus throughout the book. The hunger for food becomes the characters’ primary focus once the expedition goes figuratively south. But this narrative device also cleverly speaks to the many motivations of various Donner party members, including hunger for land, prestige, love, warmth and closeness to God.

Although the surviving members of the group are eventually rescued, nothing is tied up with a neat and tidy bow. To his credit, Wolf does not sensationalize this story’s numerous tragedies, nor spare the reader illuminating details. The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep is historical fiction at its very best.

In April of 1846, the Donner party—a group of 89 men, women and children with plenty of wagons, animals and food—headed west from Illinois. One year later, more than half the group had died, mostly from starvation and fatigue. Infamously, the survivors resorted to eating their dead after heavy snowstorms trapped them in the Sierra […]
FictionSatire

Impersonation

Review by Jessica Wakeman

Your favorite celebrity memoir was most likely written by a ghostwriter, an author who anonymously pens books for others (often famous folks) to publish under their own names. Taking a bunch of garbled notes from a celeb and writing up something legible is interesting work, to say the least.

Ghostwriters have to be adaptable and discreet about their clients. This hasn’t been a problem for ghostwriter Allie Lang, a single mom in suburban New England who is the main character in Heidi Pitlor’s Impersonation. Or rather, adaptability and discretion haven’t been a problem for Allie before—until she is hired to ghostwrite a book for famous activist Lana Breban about raising a feminist son.

Allie admires her ballsy new client, and adopting the voice of a trailblazing feminist comes naturally to her. Allie wants to raise a feminist son, too. Yet it becomes clear over time that the two women are not fighting the same battles. In fact, they might not even be fighting on the same battlefield. Lana has a financially generous book deal, an assistant and Hollywood pals on speed dial. Furthermore, she’s spent little to no time actually raising her son. She has a nanny for that.

Pitlor’s genius is that Impersonation doesn’t resort to pitting two women against each other. One woman’s career is circumscribed by care work, and the other’s career is not. But when Allie laments that “integrity—and real feminism—were clearly for people more financially secure than I,” it’s apparent that the issues between this ghostwriter and her client are emblematic of so much more. Impersonation isn’t just a critique of the “white feminism” of privileged women who prioritize money and success in existing power structures. It’s also more than a critique of the publishing industry, which only cares that Lana seems “maternal” enough to sell parenting books. Impersonation is a critique of our society’s fragile social safety net for so many vulnerable women, full of satirical humor and a lot of harsh truths.

Ghostwriters have to be adaptable and discreet about their clients. This hasn’t been a problem for ghostwriter Allie Lang, a single mom in suburban New England who is the main character in Heidi Pitlor’s Impersonation. Or rather, adaptability and discretion haven’t been a problem for Allie before—until she is hired to ghostwrite a book for famous activist Lana Breban about raising a feminist son.

FictionLiterary Fiction

Luster

Review by Jessica Wakeman

It may occur to the reader of Luster that the title has a double meaning. “A soft glow” is the dictionary definition of luster, and given that the protagonist, Edie, is an artist, that reference makes sense. But if we are to read the title as “lust-er,” as in one who lusts, that interpretation makes sense, too. Luster is a gritty novel about appetites—for sex, companionship, attention, money—and what happens when they are sated.

Luster is narrated by Edie, a 23-year-old Black woman in Brooklyn with a crappy job and crappier apartment. She begins dating Eric, an older white man she meets online who is in an open marriage. Then Edie is fired from her job for inappropriate sexual behavior and subsequently evicted from her apartment. Eric’s wife, Rebecca, invites Edie to stay in their suburban New Jersey home until she gets back on her feet.

Despite the open relationship that brought Eric and Edie together, this is not a particularly sexual novel. The beginning is front-loaded with intimate scenes, including some violence that may or may not be consensual BDSM. But the remainder of the book focuses on the wary relationship between Edie and Rebecca, as well as Rebecca’s adopted Black daughter, Akila. It might come as a relief to Edie that this happy suburban family whose home she has stumbled into is, actually, anything but happy. Or it might just be a disappointment.

Some readers will view Edie as an unlikable narrator who makes destructive choices. Others will read her as lost and complicated, struggling to stay afloat in a racist and sexist world. Either way, Edie is deftly written as a young woman saddled with generational trauma and suffering from the rootlessness of an addict’s child.

Leilani’s writing is cerebral and raw, and this debut novel will establish her as a powerful new voice. There are no easy answers or resolutions in Luster, and no one comes out looking good. But the author has proven herself to be a keen social observer—especially about the truths that some people don’t want to see.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Raven Leilani discusses the want and rage of her female characters in Luster.

This is a gritty novel about appetites—for sex, companionship, attention, money—and what happens when they are sated.

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