Godshot, by Chelsea Bieker: Just a Really Good Cult Novel

You know me, I love a good cult novel. And whoa boy, is Godshot, by Chelsea Bieker, a GOOD cult novel. But it's so much more, too. Taking place in a suburb of Fresno in California's drought-addled Central Valley in (I think?) about 2011, the story is about 14-year-old Lacey May, her mother Louise, and the bad-man preacher Vern who is hell bent on bringing rain, but only succeeds in destroying everyone's lives. 

Louise, who has ambitions of stardom, abandons her daughter and takes up with a man who tells her he'll make her famous — you know, the tale as old as time. But so Lacey May is left to live with her grandmother, and is stuck in the thrall of the two-bit preacher, Vern. Things go very badly for her from there. 

One of the main messages of the novel, which rings so incredibly true in this day and age, is how mediocre white men use whatever means necessary — religion, drugs and booze, promises of fame — to try to control women and keep them subservient. Indeed, is a cult-like religion really that different than the sex industry? They're both run by awful men who are addicted to their own fantasy of themselves and have mostly never drawn an honest breath in their lives. Lacey May imagines a meeting where these terrible men get together to compare notes: "Did they have a club where they traded these ideas with one another? I imagined a low-down shitty man meeting, all of them sitting in circle..." There are just way too many low-down shitty men out there, aren't there?

This is an immensely readable, quickly moving, "fiercely written" (as Entertainment Weekly said) coming-of-age-in-the-worst-possible-ways novel that's part John Steinbeck, part Mean Girls, and part Going Clear. I LOVED this book.

No Time Like The Future: Michael J. Fox Considers Mortality, Optimistically

My dad passed away three years ago from a variety afflictions — dude was on his sixth (!!!) cancer, the last one of which is what ultimately got him. But he also had rare skin disease, had recently broken his hip for the second time, and had battled Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years. My brothers and sisters and I joked (I guess somewhat morbidly) that it's a good thing he wasn't around for Covid, because even if he'd been locked in a hyperbaric chamber, he still somehow would've gotten it. 

But like all his other health issues, he would've handled it like a champ! He was unfailingly optimistic, almost infuriatingly so. I'd always think "Dad, it's okay to be mad, or frustrated, or even just mildly irritated." But he never was. It was truly inspiring. 

Michael J. Fox is probably the most prominent advocate for Parkinson's patients, and this book, No Time Like The Future, is about a tough year (2018) for him and how he did his level best to remain optimistic amidst his worsening Parkinson's, and a number of other health calamities, including a fall that left him in a wheelchair for several months. 

The highlight of this book, other than its message about optimism, is Fox's total dad humor. He's self-deprecating and goofy — and actually reminded me a lot of how my dad was: Using silly humor to deflect. 

You certainly don't need to have Parkinson's or even know someone that has Parkinson's to enjoy and be inspired by this book. Even as he's jetting off to Bhutan to shoot a documentary, and meeting Keith Richards at a New Years Eve party, just reading about Fox's everyday struggles helps put things in perspective. The next time you have to do something that seems really difficult, or aren't motivated to, say (as is sometimes the case for me) go for that run, just imagine how difficult it is for Michael J. Fox and/or my dad just to get up in the morning and get out the door. Everyone's fighting a battle. Parkinson's disease is a particularly shitty one. So reading about how Fox remains optimistic, and remembering how my dad did too, is a much-needed dose of inspiration.

PS. April is Parkinson's Awareness Month — hence the timing for this post. My brother Geoff and I are running the Chicago Marathon in October and raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. If you'd like to donate, you can do so here. Much appreciated! 

Klara And The Sun: A Master Class in Empathy

When a living Nobel Prize in Literature winner publishes a new novel, you read it. You just do. Thankfully, this one is really, really good.

Klara And The Sun is an absolute master class in empathy. Kazuo Ishiguro's singular genius is making incredibly complex ideas seem deceptively simple and he does that here in this parable told from the perspective of an Artificial Friend — a robot — about how we hope, love, and connect to others. 

As always with Ishiguro, though the world seems just like ours, key details are different, and the novel has its own rules and logic. And you have to sort of learn as you go. And you do. 

Rich with symbolism, allusion, and poetry, this is just a stunning work of art. Easily a favorite of the year.

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Some New Dork Review Changes:

You may have noticed this is the first post in a little while (since February). I've been thinking about how to revamp The New Dork Review of Books to make it more relevant these days. I've been writing this thing for 11.5 years now, and it was getting stale. I thought briefly about shutting it down. But after a lot of soul searching, I decided, yes, I still want to do this, and also, I don't really want to change much! Good times. 

Okay, but for real, the biggest changes will be shorter, more frequent, and hopefully more interesting posts (see above as example) — no one likes the 800-word book review anymore. These posts will be more reactions to what I've read than actual reviews. I've been doing this on Instagram for a bit, and it's fun! So I'm going to work hard at being more concise (but also allow myself the freedom to do longer posts if the mood strikes).

Another change is that I've set up Substack for email subscriptions. That seems to be what the kids these days are using most frequently. If you already get each post via the old email system Feedburner, you don't have to do anything. The old system I used is still active, though it has moved into maintenance mode, so I don't know how much longer it will be active. So if you want to subscribe via Substack to make sure you continue to get posts in your inbox, or if you don't subscribe yet via email and want to, just toss in your email address in the little box in the sidebar or here.

One other minor change is that the affiliate links to books I've read now are all to Bookshop.org — that's been the case for about a year now, but figured I'd point that out. Bookshop donates part of its sales to independent bookstores, so you're doing a good thing if you buy books from there. You can also always buy books at RoscoeBooks, the store I work at, too — we ship anywhere in the U.S. 
Thanks, as always, for reading! Let me know if you have any suggestions for content you'd like to see. 

How I Learned To Hate In Ohio: Teenagers Growing Up Quickly

How I Learned To Hate In Ohio, David Stuart MacLean's terrific debut novel, is one of the most authentic accounts I've ever read of growing up in a small town. Having grown up in a small town in rural Ohio, I know a bit about this. And real recognize real. 

Baruch — but he goes by Barry, because it's less pretentious and less likely to earn him an ass-whoopin' as he's beginning high school — is your average, ordinary, everyday, bookish 14-year-old. He's gawky and awkward, like many small town 14-year-old boys, and he has trouble talking to girls and spends his free time reading dead white guy books. His father, who named him after Baruch Spinoza, is a philosophy professor at the small college in town and his mother is an executive for Marriott, traveling the world to scout locations for new hotels. It's the mid-80s, they're comfortable, everything seems completely fine. 

But then a new kid comes to town. Gurbaksh Singh is the first Sikh kid anyone in this small town has ever met. But he's a charismatic kid — he goes by Gary for similar reasons Baruch goes by Barry — and that helps him avoid the worst of what the standard high school cruelty you'd expect for him. Barry and Gary soon strike up an unlikely friendship, as do Mr. Singh and Barry's father. Then Barry's mother comes home from a long work trip, and things get weird. Barry and Gary are forced to grow up pretty quickly and tangle with some adult issues. These, especially racism, are issues they're not yet properly equipped emotionally or maturity-wise to handle.

Even so, and while Barry and Gary's collision with adulthood only gets more intense as the novel goes on, this is often a very, very funny novel. Yes, small town life is patently absurd, and MacLean captures this with expert comedy chops. As you'd expect with any novel about high school, there are bullies and girls, bad lunches and worse teachers, and immature jokes and horrific nicknames. (Barry's nickname, which literally everyone calls him, is Yo-Yo F@g, after a seemingly innocuous incident with a yo-yo in grade school. And while we're here, if very politically incorrect terms are a trigger, you may want to skip this novel — there are kind of a lot.) 

I picked this up solely for its title, which I'd misread the first time as "How I Learned To Hate Ohio." :) Either way, though, it's still a fantastic read. It's short and powerful (and powerfully funny), and I really loved it. 

New Dork Review's Top 10 of 2020

So...that was an unusual year, right? Thankfully, there were still plenty of great books! 

Here are my 10 favorite of the year (in no particular order):  

10. The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter — Jess Walter really hits the mark here — fascinating characters, a well-told historical story with plenty of resonance to today, and just a lot of fun. There are gangsters and anarchists, labor warriors and dirty cops, bums and even dirtier rich guys...and a whole lot of anger, I couldn't turn these pages fast enough. 

9. Cher Ami and Major Wittlesey, by Kathleen Rooney — Yes, Cher Ami is a pigeon. And yes, she's one of the two alternating narrators. But it works! And this inventive, smart historical fiction about a little-known episode of World War I is all the better for it. Like Jess Walter, Rooney is such an adroit storyteller, she got me to care a lot about something about which I knew nothing before picking up this novel. And truly, pulling off a pigeon narrator — even though the human Major Wittlesey does his duty of narrating parts, as well — is a high risk, high reward prospect. Here, it worked, and the reward to readers is indeed very high. 

8. Red Pill, by Hari Kunzru — Pure and simple, Kunzru is a genius. I didn't review this one because I couldn't — it fully blew my mind too much to write coherently about it. But I still can't stop thinking about this novel, its construction, its ideas, its terrifying timeliness. The story is about a writer who goes to an artist retreat in Germany, and winds up basically losing his damn mind. But the how and why here are just so fascinating. This is the first novel I've read of what will sure be many that deals with the unique psychological and long-lasting issues of the Trump era. This novel also includes my favorite quote of the year (it's about the protagonist visiting a psychiatrist): "Their work was predicated on the assumption that the world is bearable, and anyone who finds it otherwise should be coaxed or medicated into acceptance. But what if it isn’t? What if the reasonable reaction is endless horrified screaming?" That's how 2020 felt, didn't it? That the only natural reaction is endless horrified screaming? 

7. Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar — Inventive, passionate, and heartbreaking. This novel that blends memoir and fiction in a way I’ve never read before is about the immigrant experience and how Trump and his cult have put a hard stop on the American dream for so many. It also presents a fascinating take on how Trump and Cult 45 could possibly have happened — a combination of American greed, anti-intellectualism, and truly a desire to stick it to big city liberals. And finally it’s about what it really means to be an American and how fraught being a Muslim American (or even just an American with a “Muslim name”) can be. I intensely loved this book. 

6. Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell — Duh. Naturally a new Mitchell would be on my list. And this one, like all else of his brilliant oeuvre, is pure reading joy. Ostensibly about a 1960s folk band, really it's about music, art, and inspiration as only David Mitchell could portray them. It almost seems like a slight to call this more conventional, but don’t worry, he’s still got some Mitchell-ness waiting for you here (#horology). This might be my second favorite of Mitchell's novels, after The Bone Clocks. 

5. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins — Everyone who puts this novel on his/her year-end list would be wise to acknowledge two things: 1) There was considerable controversy in early 2020 about the authenticity and accuracy of this novel, and 2) Remember when that controversy was the biggest of big deals? And then the world went nuts, and a literary fiasco seemed like a tempest in a teapot. Anyway, controversy aside, I really loved this tale of a mother and her son's escape from Mexico. I thought it was riveting and heartfelt, and shined an important spotlight on the plight of the migrant. 

4. The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, by Christopher Beha — This long, immersive novel was a surprise inclusion on the National Book Award longlist this year. Because of that, and because it's partly about baseball, I gave it a shot. And I was immensely rewarded. In baseball, as in life, one should never underestimate one's ability to screw up. That's essentially what this novel's about. So if, like me, you like watching otherwise smart people do dumb things, this novel's for you too. It's early 2009, the excitement of Obama's election has warn off, and the grim reality of the financial crisis has set in. Set in New York City, this is the story of several characters whose lives intertwine and whose decisions (usually poor) affect each other, often in devastating ways. It's one of those terrific literary trainwrecks from which you can't look away. But I kept reading precisely because I was hoping any of them would be redeemable, that they'd learn lessons. Do they? You should check it out to find out. 

3. Deacon King Kong, by James McBride — I quick search reveals I only used the word "rollicking" one time on the blog this whole year (which is a damn shame — but 2020 didn't feel very rollicking did, it?), and it was in reference to this amazingly entertaining read. I mean, how could you not LOVE a novel with a character named Hot Sausage. Set in a Brooklyn housing project in the late 1960s, the sometimes goofiness here belies a series of serious themes of racism, injustice, and drug abuse. McBride is as good a pure storyteller as we have writing right now. 

2. Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi — Science vs. religion: The debate continues in this fantastic novel from Gyasi, who scored huge with her debut novel Homecoming. There is no sophomore slump here! You wouldn't expect a novel about such a heady subject to be so entertaining. And there's a lot going on in this novel: It's about the immigrant experience, substance abuse, family loyalty, and a lot more. But it all comes together deftly.   

1. Hollywood Park, by Mikel Jollett — This is the only non-fiction book on my list, and actually it's also the only book that IS in particular order — it's hands-down my favorite book of the year. I'm not ashamed to admit I shed a few tears reading this sad, very introspective memoir about Jollett growing up in California, being emotionally abused, struggling with substance abuse, and so much more. This is one of the more self-assured, self-aware, and well-written memoirs I've ever read. REALLY loved this book. (Oh, and the album of the same name is pretty good, too.) 

(Note: I haven't finished A Promised Land yet, but if I had before this post, it SURELY would've been on this list.)