Good Reads & Views

Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton
Nonfiction   

What it’s about: In this candid, vulnerable, and engaging mash-up of memoir, genealogical research, science, and sociology, the author investigates her troubling family history. From shocking stories about her parents to disturbing discoveries about her Southern ancestors, Newton faces the unsettling truths about her family. Interspersed with her genealogical quest, she explores genetic research to learn more about nature vs. nurture, and she does some serious soul searching to determine how to respond to her findings.

You might also like: Readers of The Glass Castle will find Newton’s family story similarly compelling. To read another memoir about life-changing genealogical discoveries, pick up Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.

Reviewers say: “An engaging and thoroughly researched memoir relaying a family history that is at turns recognizable and abhorrent, as an honest and typical history of American exceptionalism, racism, and misogyny. Will appeal to lovers of memoirs, family secrets, genealogy, and the sociological makeup threading U.S. history” (Library Journal).

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Men in My Situation: A Novel by Per Petterson
Fiction

What it's about: After Arvid’s parents and two brothers perish in a ferry accident, his wife divorces him and takes their three daughters with her. For the next year, Arvid drinks, has many one-night stands, and often sleeps and drives around in his old Mazda, but fails to deal with his grief. Then the oldest daughter, Vigdis, reaches out to him for help and Arvid is finally forced to come to terms with the trajectory his life has taken.

Reviewers say: “Petterson has written a beautifully nuanced, deeply felt, and powerful story of survival” (Library Journal); “Petterson's bracing latest captures the rhythms and anomie of grief…” (Publishers Weekly).

Good to know: The narrative style here is almost stream of consciousness writing but with its often simple, yet elegant prose, it accentuates Arvid’s story instead of distracting from it. If you liked the author’s award winning Out Stealing Horses, you should also enjoy this portrait of a life going to pieces.

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The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Nonfiction

What it’s about: Sarah M. Broom grew up in the New Orleans that tourists never see—New Orleans East, where her family lived in the Yellow House, a shotgun house that was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. In this coming of age story, she writes from the perspective of “the babiest” of 12 children, raised by a widowed mother who supported her family. 

Why you should read it: If you appreciate beautiful writing, this book is for you. Broom’s phrasing is often poetic, sometimes blunt, always original; her unique voice speaks from these pages. In this memoir about race and class, her matter-of-fact tone and lyrical writing make her story all the more powerful.

Book buzz: Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, this book was also named a Best Book of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune, New York Times Book Review, and Washington Post.

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I Miss You When I Blink: Essays by Mary Laura Philpott
Nonfiction

Why you might like it: If you like gaining insight into other people’s lives, Philpott’s essays are likely to delight you. She writes with warmth and striking honesty about motherhood, the unexpected ways our lives can twist, and the Type A characteristics that are the source of her greatest strengths and most significant challenges.

You might also like: If you enjoy confessional personal essays, also check out Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan.

Reviewers say: Kirkus Reviews calls this book “Warm, candid, and wise… Delightfully bighearted reading.”

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Doghead by Morten Ramsland
Fiction

Winner of Denmark’s Book of the Year and Author of the Year awards and a big seller across Europe, this quirky novel is the tale of a rather dysfunctional Scandinavian family, told as a series of sometimes disturbing but often very funny vignettes. Ramsland describes his style of writing as “grotesque realism” and he does not seem to subscribe to any taboos but loves improbable situations. The family members’ tales may –or may not- be truly told, but their stories are never dull. Amongst the many members of this colorful family, there is grandpa Askild, obsessed with cubism which always seems to find its way into his work designs at the shipyard (and repeatedly gets him fired); nephew Applehead, who is the first (but not last) to have a certain part of his anatomy tattooed; Askild’s wife Bjork, a woman to reckon with; and Jug Ears, born in an outhouse and father of narrator Asger (who believes himself responsible for his grandfathers death). Definitely not for everyone, this book can seem bizarre and exuberant at the same time, it zigs and zags all over the place and bodily fluids make a repeat appearance. Those who stick with it, however, will be rewarded by quite an exciting ride and a story with characters that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.