Coincidence by J.W. Ironmonger

March 2022 - Coincidence by J. W. Ironmonger

How do you choose a book?

Do you roam the aisles of the bookstore and wait until the cover, the title, the name of the author, or a staff pick gets your attention? Do you read the reviews? Or do you scan a website like Goodreads or BookBub? Or wait for something to jump out from the books Amazon recommends for you?

The books I choose can come from any of those sources, though many, including Coincidence, are recommended by friends.

Coincidence is a contemporary novel set in 2012 and first published in 2013, but it feels like a volume that might have been pulled from Dickens' bookshelf. Maybe, it's just the way this American reader experienced the British setting, the rain, the fog, the moodiness, the dark nook of an office in one of their old universities. Was it Oxford or Cambridge or Hogwarts?

Thomas Post is a professor of Applied Philosophy and studies coincidences. He works in that nook of an office that smells like tea and doesn't seem to be the least bit handicap accessible. By his way of thinking, there are no coincidences. So the fact that you ran into your friend from school at a concert in Mexico is not remarkable. And Thomas Post can prove mathematically that the odds of that sort of thing are well within reason statistically. The human brain seeks out patterns where none exist.

Azalea Ives enters the well-ordered world of Thomas Post with a life that is nothing but coincidences. Her mother died on a particular date, and her father died on the same date ten years before that, and she has it in her mind that she too will die on the next anniversary of that date. (There are a few more coincidences, but I don't want to spoil the fun) Azalea would very much like Thomas to reassure her that this is not her destiny.

Is Coincidence a romance? Maybe. I guess it depends on the pattern you choose to see. It's smart, with intelligent observations and insight into human emotions. Thomas Post is an intellectual loner, Azalea Ives a troubled and tragic heroine. There is an element of romance tangled in a series of mysteries and tucked in a philosophical treatise on the question of free will, destiny, and predetermination. For me, that makes it a great read.

The sense that you have picked up a book from a by-gone era also comes through as Thomas and Azalea build a relationship. They progress slowly and a bit awkwardly as they work together to find answers to Azalea's many questions and coincidences. They are a bit prim with each other. Is that from the last century, or is it simply the quirkiness of Thomas, or could it just be British?

The pacing of the writing and the details in the descriptions all add to the feeling that this is a book written by the reincarnation of Agatha Christie. I promise I mean this as a compliment. The writing contributes to the sense of mystery and intrigue rather than detracts from it.

In Coincidence, Ironmonger reminds us that anything can happen, and instead of seeking to explain it, maybe we should just enjoy every minute. So pick this one up or download it. I promise it's more fun to read than reading about it.

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

January 2022 - Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

"Bildungsroman."

Say that three times fast.

New word for me and maybe for you. I would have thought with my interest in literature and having a mother who was both German and an English teacher, I would have come across this word sooner, but I had not. Instead, I discovered it accidentally in a google search. Maybe you already know it, but just in case it’s new to you too, it refers to a sub-genre of the coming-of-age story that centers on the psychological growth of the protagonist. The German word literally translates as educational novel.

And that brings us to fourteen-year-old Mary Jane and how her worldview and her ideas evolve during the summer of 1975 when she takes a job as a nanny for five-year-old Izzie Cone. Mary Jane Dillard is charming, delightfully naive, easily shocked, and kind, and smart, and honest, and funny.

Mary Jane has grown up sheltered in the affluent neighborhood of Roland Park in Baltimore. She goes to an all-girls private school. She helps her mother around the house. She does what she’s told. She goes to church. She sings in the choir. She swims at the Country Club and lunches there with her parents.

Her parents don’t know the Cones, but since Izzie’s father is a doctor, a respectable profession, her mother allows her to take the job. When Mary Jane discovers that Dr. Cone is, in fact, a psychiatrist and meets his patients in an office in the garage, she wonders whether he would count as a doctor in her mother’s eyes.

It was a time when children referred to adults as Mister or Dr. or Mrs. and their last name. But Mrs. Cone asks to be called Bonnie, Mary Jane’s visceral discomfort is palpable.

The contrast between Mary Jane’s home and the Cones household is a constant source of amazement, bewilderment, and shock. You can nearly see Mary Jane taking it all in wide-eyed, polite, and attentive. Where her home is structured, a place for everything and everything in its place, the Cones thrive in chaos. Books are stacked on the stove. Shoes are strewn down the hallway, and assorted items are piled on the stairs. Mary Jane’s mother has a notebook for meal planning. The Cones get carryout. Her parents are reserved in their manner and affection, while Izzie is exuberantly covered in kisses and tickled and hugged. Dr. Cone has sideburns. Mrs. Cone doesn’t wear a bra.

Mary Jane loves Izzie and loves being at the Cones. Soon though, she feels that if her mother knew what she was hearing, what she was learning, and a few of the secrets that the Cone’s are hiding, she might not be allowed to keep working there. Her fear of losing her new family leads her to tell her mother the first lie. And then another.

Everything Mary Jane thought of as normal gets questioned. There are so many things no one talks about at her house, but the Cones talk about their feelings, their bodies, and their thoughts. Nothing seems off-limits. Mary Jane learns that life can get messy, and that might be okay. The best part is that she learns to think of herself as special, to see her own talents, and discover her strength.

Mary Jane is a book to experience and enjoy. Easy and fun, but with so much humanity, wisdom, and truth.

P.S. I listened to this novel as an audiobook. The narration by Caitlin Kinnunen is spot-on as the 14-year old Mary Jane and if you are mixing listening with reading, I recommend you add this one for your TBH list. (TBR To Be Read: TBH To Be Heard?)

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

December - Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

I had heard of this book. The slightly absurd and nonsensical nature of the title appealed to me. I love offbeat. Had I been paying attention and realized that Anthony Doerr was also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All The Light We Cannot See, I probably would have downloaded it right away. However, it wasn't until another author mentioned it at a writer's retreat that I downloaded it. One of my better decisions. Download it yourself, now, before you forget.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a magical place "between earth and heaven far from the troubles of men and accessible only to those with wings where no one ever suffered, and everyone was wise." Or so we are told by the writer Antonio Diogenes.

The novel, however, is something else altogether. It combines dystopian, contemporary, and historical timelines and connects them back to the lost ancient Greek text from 414 B.C.E. about Cloud Cuckoo Land.

We travel between The Argos, a spaceship carrying the last humans to a new planet, the library in Lakeport, Idaho, The Korean War, and Constantinople in the 1400s. We meet rich and infinitely human characters and discover vivid and detailed worlds.

Anna rescues a moldy, ruined copy of the fable from an abandoned tower in the final days before the fall of Constantinople. Zeno learns of the text from a fellow prisoner during the Korean War. Konstance hears the story in bits and pieces from her father as they travel to Beta Oph2.

The thread that pulls the separate timelines together is the life of the fable through time. The story of Cloud Cuckoo Land has the power to soothe, to allow the reader to escape their pain, their prison, or their circumstances. Cloud Cuckoo Land also reminds us to marvel, reminds us how incredible and mystical it is that words written in 414 BCE can still resonate with readers thousands of years later. It is a magical truth whether Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Odyssey, the Bible, or Beowulf. It is something very close to miraculous that these stories not only exist but still resonate so far into the future.

The revelations of Cloud Cuckoo Land remind us why we love to read and why we love story. We seek the truth with Konstance.

We worry with Omeir and cry with Anna.

We feel Zeno's desperation and mourn with Seymour.

We learn empathy.

We gain new perspectives.

We discover.

We imagine worlds.

We escape.

We are entertained.

We revel in the beauty of the written word.

It's rare to find a book that does it all at once, but Cloud Cuckoo Land comes very, very close.