Life After Life

September - Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Published in 2013, so I’m late in the game on this one.

I swore off World War II novels. There were legions of them. And I read so many, loved many of them, but the telling and retelling of this history had made it overly familiar and drained of nuance.

But then I discovered Kate Atkinson. I read Case Histories and wanted to read one of her books that was not in her Jackson Brodie series. And to be fair, I’m not sure we can describe Life After Life as a World War II novel though much of it does center on the war.

The main character, Ursula Todd, is born in 1910 and then born again, and again. With each reincarnation of herself, her choices and subsequent outcomes branch into alternative futures. World War II comes along, but we experience it through the eyes of a Brit, and when Ursula is cleaning up corpses during the bombings of London, and when Ursula is living in Berlin. The perspective that Ursula brings is a new one or at least new to me.

During one of her lives, Ursula meets and marries a German. She doesn’t see the rise of Hitler for what it is, and then it’s too late to return to England. We see the devotion for Hitler, the fervor of the crowds, the shouting, the flag-waving, the blind faith. We hear about the promises of a strong economy and regaining the respect of the world. Through Ursula, we watch an entire nation seduced by the smoke and mirrors. (The parallels to current events are difficult to ignore. And remember, the book was written in 2013, so there was not an intentional comparison to Trump.)

But that’s only one of Ursula’s incarnations. With each life, her choices and subsequent outcomes branch into alternative futures. You see how the events change her and those around her. Reading Life After Life, you explore multiple paths that Ursula could have taken.

I also love this book because I’m a writer. This book seems to reflect all the books that Kate Atkinson could have written about Ursula Todd. Sometimes in writing, something unexpected happens. Something is revealed during the writing process, and the story takes a turn. It begins to have a life, a storyline, a plot point that doesn’t feel like you invented it, but more like you are reporting it. With each new incarnation of Ursula Todd, we feel the tipping point and race to see where her choices take her.

I love finding authors that I enjoy and have not read before. Kate Atkinson has been writing for a while, and so she has lots of books out there for me. I think I might read them all.

The Vanishing Half

August - The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

In Brit Bennett’s imagined world, the sisters are raised in the small town of Mallard, Louisiana. A place founded by light-skinned African-Americans and where light-skin is favored with a cult-like obsession. The two girls escape to New Orleans to start a new life for themselves. Stella is seduced by the prospect of becoming white and by her boss, who believes she is white and disappears from her sister’s life. Desiree feels abandoned and moves to DC, where she meets and marries the blackest man she can find.

The story unfolds, and we see the lives they have chosen and the lives they forfeited. The events in the novel parallel what we see in our black and white world and forces us to ask questions that go deeper than race.

If you are one half of a set of twins, do you always feel like a half? Are you sure that you are who you are and not the other twin? Could you have woken up and switched places? Is your twin living your life? Who vanishes? Is it the half of you that was your twin, or was it the half of you that never wanted to go home?

The Vanishing Half follows Desiree and Stella and then their daughters. Stella’s secret creates a trap that she passes down to her daughter, a blond actress that can’t sustain relationships. Desiree’s daughter, Jude, meets and falls in love with a transgender man. Jude never waivers in her commitment to Trace. Watching the fate of the next generation of these divided halves, you wonder if the message is about acceptance, more than about separation and loss.

What, after all, does it mean to pass for white when race is merely a social construct? What does it mean to be a woman, if you are certain, you are meant to be a man? Was Stella passing or just fulfilling her life with a man she fell in love with? Can you help who you fall in love with? And if you learn that the man that you love, started life as a girl, do you no longer love the person? The Vanishing Half seems to ask: What does it mean to be human?

The questions asked in The Vanishing Half are not answered, only posed. But Brit Bennett has us rooting for her characters and wishing we could meet them. Wishing we could heal them. Wishing we could offer a world where being white or black or male or female didn't matter or at least didn't carry so much fear of rejection. Wishing for a world where just being human was to be enough.

The Book of Lost Friends

July - The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

Walking has become part of my quarantine routine. It's one of the things I can do to avoid spending all my time sitting and eating. And to keep me going, I have been listening to audiobooks as I walk through neighborhoods and wind my way along new routes.

My most recent book companion on my walks has been The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate. I save most of my audiobooks and only listen to them when I walk, but I couldn't stay so disciplined with this one and found myself tuning in as I drove to the grocery store, while I folded laundry and any other spare moment.

I selected the novel because I read Lisa Wingate's previous book: When We Were Yours. I started the first chapter without so much as a glance at the premise.

The Book of Lost Friends alternates two storylines, one historical and one more contemporary. The storyline in 1875 follows eighteen-year-old Hannie Gossett, a freedwoman who works as a sharecropper on Goswood Grove plantation in Louisiana. Hannie's adventures are set in motion when she learns that the owner of Goswood Grove Plantation is missing. Hannie and a handful of others are nearing the end of their contract, meaning that they are about to secure ownership of the parcel of land they have been farming. The former master is considered a fair man, but his wife cannot be trusted. Hannie is convinced that Mrs. Gosset will try to cheat them out of the land.

When Hannie was a child, her mother, siblings, and other family members were separated and sold to various owners and plantations across the south. Hannie lives with the heartache of not knowing where her family is or how to find them. During her travels, she learns of the Lost Friends column. This newspaper publishes advertisements for former slaves seeking family and friends. So many families were separated by being traded or sold or because of the chaos of war.

The more contemporary storyline of 1987 follows Benny Silva. Benny is starting her first year of teaching English at the High School near the historic Goswood Grove Plantation. Benny is trying desperately to find a way to grab the attention of her students. Many are from families struggling economically and emotionally. The names of students in Benny's classroom and neighborhood echo the names that we hear in Hannie Gossett's storyline.

One of the values of literature and storytelling is its ability to connect us to people who are from different backgrounds or circumstances. Through story, we can travel through time. The newspaper that Lisa Wingate writes about is a real part of history. She includes excerpts of these notices seeking family members between chapters. We read postings from parents and children, brothers and sisters trying to find their family and friends. It is an authentic reminder that slavery had many consequences and repercussions that lasted long after the emancipation proclamation. Churches across the country read the newspaper notices from pulpits to spread the word to families.

Wingate has created a compelling story around these postings, these hopes of being reunited with family. She has crafted a compelling story of adventure and heartache and hope around the history of these advertisements. And while she captures the emotion of the ads, she also shows how history continues to impact the circumstances of lives far in the future. The Book of Lost Friends provides a context for the world that we live in today. It deepens our understanding of how circumstances from long ago can continue to impact lives now. This novel shares a point of view we may not have previously heard and compels us to respond with empathy and compassion.

Lisa Wingate makes us feel the hurt, feel the loss, and feel as if Hannie and Benny are our lost friends.