Most Octobers I have posted one or more reviews of “haunting books” that I’ve read in the past year. This month, because of other things I’ve had to write about (a novel about to be published, a family wedding), I haven’t posted any book reviews yet. This post remedies that situation.
Here are a few books I found haunting this year. I’ve listed them alphabetically by author.
The Flight Attendant, by Chris Bohjalian:
I am a huge fan of Bohjalian’s. His novels are always well-written with great characters. In this murder mystery, an alcoholic flight attendant, Cassie Bowden, wakes up after an apparent one-night stand next to a dead man. The reader knows that the murderer is a Russian hitwoman who killed the guy, but spared Cassie. The hitwoman’s handlers send her back to kill Cassie. Cassie makes one drunken bad decision after another in up trying to figure out who killed the guy she slept with.
This plot wasn’t as thoughtful as some of Bohsalian’s others (The Midwife, for example). Also, because Cassie makes so many bad decisions it is hard to relate to her. Nevertheless, The Flight Attendant is an excellent murder mystery by a great writer. It makes for haunting reading.
The Dry, by Jane Harper:
This is another murder mystery, though this one is set in Australia during a drought, about four hours from Melbourne. Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to the town where he grew up to attend the funeral of his childhood friend Luke. Luke and his wife and child have been killed in an apparent murder-suicide. Aaron is persona non gratis in the town, because he and his father fled due to suspicion one of them had killed a female classmate of Aaron’s. Luke had been Aaron’s alibi, but both boys lied. The past death and the current deaths seem intertwined, and Aaron and the local police officer look into the killings of Luke and his family. I didn’t see the answer to the new murders until it was there, because there were several plausible suspects.
This was my first exposure to Jane Harper, and I’ve gone on to read another of her books (though not the sequel to The Dry). This novel is nicely plotted, though the ending was somewhat unresolved. Readers learn what happened to the girl who died twenty years ago, but we are not sure if her killer will be brought to justice. What haunted me most were the descriptions of the Australian outback. In Harper’s hands, the harsh land becomes not only scenery but character in The Dry, which is something I have attempted to do in my novels about the American West.
Lost Roses, by Martha Hall Kelly:
This is the story of Eliza Ferriday, mother of the character in Kelly’s first book, Lilac Girls. The story takes place during World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The three main characters are Eliza, a wealthy American, Sofya Streshnayva, a member of the Russian aristocracy, and Varinka, a Russian peasant hired into Sofya’s household. Only Eliza and her family are real people. Sofya (an aristocrat relative of the tsar( and Valinka (a Russian peasant) are fictional, but are well-done characters.
This prequel to Lilac Girls is not quite as good as Kelly’s first book. Lost Roses starts off slowly, using points of view from Eliza, Sofya, and Valinka. Because there are so many characters, the first third of the book is confusing. Once it starts moving, it gets much better, and the end moves fairly quickly. It is a good story, well-researched, but the writing had many weaknesses. There were also some typos in the e-book edition I read. Nevertheless, the story of the plight of White Russians, both in Russia and as emigres in France, is not well-known. This novel of a haunting and tragic epoch taught me some history.
The Wives of Henry Oades, by Johanna Moran:
Based on a true story, this historical novel is set in England, New Zealand, and California during the late 1800s. Henry Oades and his wife Margaret emigrate from England to New Zealand, where tragedy befalls them, and Henry believes Margaret is dead. In fact, she and their children were kidnapped by Maori natives. Fast forward a few years, then Henry leaves New Zealand for California, where he marries Nancy. Margaret escapes the Maori with her surviving children and follows Henry to the United States. The three—Henry, Margaret, and Nancy—are persecuted (and even prosecuted) for bigamy.
What haunted me about this novel was that all three protagonists—Henry and his two wives—were sympathetic and likable. I wanted the best for all of them. Of course, both wives cannot win. And maybe neither of them can. Both have strong moral claims. And I also liked the historical depictions of both New Zealand and California and of 19th-century mores. I felt very much at home because these settings are similar to those in my novels.
Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng:
Lydia (the middle child in a Chinese-American family) is dead. We know this from the first page. This novel tells the story of her family both before and after her death. Her mother, father, older brother, and younger sister are all impacted by the tragedy. As the book progresses, readers see that Lydia had been the focus of the family before her death. To keep her mother happy, Lydia had forced herself to live the life her mother wanted for her (which was the life her mother wanted for herself). The whole family is messed up by this dynamic. Ng’s premise is that the parents’ reactions to the father’s Chinese heritage is part of the cause—he does not want to be seen as different than his Caucasian neighbors, while his wife wants the distinction of being different.
This book haunted me because each family member was struggling with his or her own identity, both before and after Lydia died. They each have to come to terms with who they are as individuals, not just in relation to Lydia nor as part of the family. They more or less succeed, but Lydia’s death remains a tragedy, most likely a preventable one.
Educated, by Tara Westover:
This is a compelling memoir about a girl raised in a fundamentalist Mormon family. Her father was probably mentally ill, and one of her older brothers abused her physically and mentally. She was home-schooled and received a very spotty education as a result, though she did socialize with those outside her faith through jobs she held and through musical performances. Tara overcame her upbringing to go to college at Brigham Young University, then at Cambridge and Harvard. Eventually, she received a Ph.D. in history.
Although Westover ended with a sophisticated education by any standard, her real education came as she pulled away from the fundamentalist beliefs of her childhood, which caused her great emotional pain. I was raised in a very conventional family, and I couldn’t relate to much of Westover’s childhood. Yet the emotional pain of her separation from the environment in which she grew up was described so well I could understand it on a visceral level. That’s why the book haunted me.
What books have you read recently that haunted you?
