Tag Archives: ARC

Review | The Sausage Maker’s Daughters, A.G.S. Johnson

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Don’t let the cover fool you. Or the book description that begins with “It’s the end of counterculture and Vietnam. Women’s consciousness is being raised and they’re beginning to find their places outside of the home.” Far from the slow-moving, politically charged literary fiction I expected, A.G.S. Johnson’s The Sausage Maker’s Daughters is a family drama and legal thriller. Kip Czermanski has been arrested for the murder of her brother-in-law, an ex-lover whose body was discovered naked in her bed. She has no memory of what happened, and her family, owners of the Czermanski sausage empire (and therefore socially and politically powerful in her hometown) is more concerned about protecting the family name than in ensuring Kip’s well-being.

The murder case presents an interesting mystery — did Kip really kill her brother-in-law? Because she herself doesn’t remember what happened, we learn the truth along with her, through bits and pieces of evidence the prosecution uncovers. But the really fascinating part of the story is Kip’s family. The youngest of four girls, Kip can’t wait to leave her hometown with its repressive small-town mentality. Her mother died at a young age, the eldest daughter Sarah ran away to join a convent, second sister Sybel faced undue pressure to be the “mother” of the household, and third sister Samantha was left to play peacemaker between Sybel and the rebellious Kip. I know we were meant to feel sorry for Kip, but I felt even more sympathetic for Sybel and Samantha, who seemed to feel more strongly the responsibilities for the family. I enjoyed reading about the Czermanski family dynamic, and I loved that the family saga was told within the framework of a courtroom drama.

The writing falters somewhat whenever Johnson injects politics into the story. Often, despite the date markers citing the present day setting as the 1970s, I would forget that the story was indeed set in a different time. But once in a while, as if to remind us about the political background of the era, Johnson has her characters talking about the feminist movement or women’s rights, and the dialogue just sounds more written than spoken. Characters like Kip’s lawyer Phil sometimes sounded like didactic mouthpieces. Certainly, feminism is an important issue, but I wish the rhetoric had been more seamlessly integrated into the storytelling.

Similarly, when it came to really emotionally charged scenes, the dialogue felt stilted. I actually enjoyed some of the more melodramatic conversations. But, for example, in a particularly emotional confrontation among the Czermanski sisters, some of the lines just sounded like they were put there to narrate background information rather than express real emotion.

That being said, the story really takes off once the trial begins, and we get into the truth about the killing. The legal battles are fascinating, and I loved watching Phil’s legal strategies to keep the prosecution off balance. Kip is a sympathetic protagonist, though with too large of a chip on her shoulder to be really likable. Phil, both intelligent and brutally honest, is probably my favourite character; Phil’s ability to call Kip on her prejudices are definitely points in Phil’s favour. The book cover promises an ending that we don’t see coming. To be honest, I was more interested in Kip’s family drama and Phil’s legal maneuvers than in the identity of the murderer. That being said, the ending did take me by surprise, and I found it more sad than shocking.

Review | Ichiro, Ryan Inzana

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Raised by his mother in New York City and knowing very little about his Japanese heritage, Ichiro doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. He idolizes his father, a soldier killed during a war, and in his honour wears a shirt saying “Kill ’em all. Let God sort ’em out,” which his Grandpa Benny tells him is an army slogan. Grandpa Benny is racist, adding to Ichiro’s conflicted sense of self, being himself half-Japanese yet seeing his grandfather’s anger towards other immigrants. When Ichiro’s mother arranges a business trip to Japan and leaves Ichiro in the care of his Grandfather Sato, Ichiro learns a lot about that part of his heritage. More importantly, he learns that there is much more to war than a strict divide between a good side and an evil side. Ryan Inzana‘s Ichiro is an imaginative, textured graphic novel about the nature of war, and about the need for tolerance and open-mindedness.

I love that Ichiro explored the horrors of World War II from the point of view of the Japanese. Ichiro’s grandfather explains the historical context behind Japan’s belief in the emperor’s divinity, and tells Ichiro stories about victims of the atomic bomb. Inzana contrasts the horrific effects of the atomic bomb with a scene of teenage boys playing a war video game. “Waste that guy!” a boy exclaims, his friend happily pumping more virtual bullets into a soldier’s torso. This occurs right after images of Ichiro’s visit to a museum about the Hiroshima bombing, and, like Ichiro, we lose our appetite for such a form of entertainment. I have long been aware of the Japanese legend of the paper cranes — if a sick person can fold a thousand, she will be healed — yet, like Ichiro, I never knew that it originated in the historical figure of Sadako, a young girl afflicted by atomic radiation.

From identifying himself as primarily American, Ichiro is shaken at what he has seen and reacts by rejecting his American heritage. “How can you not hate America?” Ichiro asks his grandfather, to which his grandfather responds with a Buddhist saying, “Heaven and hell are in the hearts of all men.” That, ultimately, is the point behind Ichiro, that while there are two sides in any war, both sides are equally human, and equally capable of horrific destruction. The point, for Ichiro, is not to choose to be either Japanese or American, but to accept both sides of his heritage.

Inzana takes this subject a step further, and infuses his story with Japanese mythology. While trying to trap a persimmon-stealing raccoon, Ichiro is taken underground, into a land of Japanese gods and monsters. The Japanese-American war and its ensuing years of distrust and discrimination are mirrored in the underground war between the mythological lands of Ama and Yomi. Here, the injustice of war is even more pronounced, because we see how so much suffering was caused by a relatively minor misunderstanding. The parallelism turns somewhat didactic after a while, and I sometimes felt that Inzana was trying too hard to get his point across.

That being said, I love this imaginative way of portraying how senseless and unavoidable war is, and how horrible its consequences can be. In this land, Ichiro is viewed as a potential spy, making the experiences of Japanese-Americans in World War II all too real and immediate. As Ichiro begins to understand the complexity of his Japanese-American heritage, he faces the threat of being executed as a spy and worries about how he can get back to his real life.

I do wish Inzana handled his subject with more subtlety, perhaps by keeping it mostly mythological or mostly realistic rather than creating two parallel, yet equally weighty story lines. However, I do applaud his creative approach at tackling such a disturbing, emotional subject matter in the first place. I don’t know if Inzana’s story about Ama and Yomi are based on actual Japanese mythology, or if Inzana created it to parallel Japanese-American history. Either way, Inzana’s tale reminds me of how and why mythology is created in the first place — to attempt to make sense of situations that seem beyond understanding. With so much horror in history, how better for Ichiro to come to terms with his dual heritage than through mythology?

Ichiro is a rich story about a very troubling, emotional past. With so many stories about World War II, it is troubling to imagine how much in common we have with the teenagers happily killing soldiers in the arcade without reflecting on how real such horrors could be. Great graphic novel for anyone who wants to learn more about Japan, or about the Japanese side of World War II history.

Review | The Bellwether Revivals, Benjamin Wood

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Ever read a book you love so much it takes you forever to write a review for it? A book so amazing that you realize whatever you can write just won’t give it justice. That’s how I felt after reading Jo Walton’s Among Others, and that’s why it took me weeks to figure out what to write about Benjamin Wood’s amazing debut novel The Bellwether Revivals. 

Publisher McClelland and Stewart calls the book “part Brideshead Revisited” — how could I resist? The parallels to Brideshead are clear — nursing home care worker Oscar Lowe is drawn to the Bellwethers, a wealthy family of academics. He falls in love with Iris Bellwether, a Cambridge student, and befriends her brother Eden and their group of friends. Cambridge in fact becomes almost a character itself in this novel — characters speak of it so lovingly, so knowledgeably, that it almost takes on the mystique of Brideshead. Like Oscar, we are attracted to this world where we don’t need to worry about putting food on the table; rather, we can spend hours debating philosophy and discussing literature. The novel is set in the early 2000s, but something about the way Wood writes makes the story feel like it was set in the past. Perhaps this insulated world Oscar inhabits with Iris, Eden and their friends insulates us as well, provides us as much of an escape as it does Oscar.

With the Brideshead comparison, I was expecting the book to be mostly about Oscar’s relationship with the Bellwethers, but the story takes a much darker turn. The very first chapter, “Prelude,” does give us an idea of the tragic outcome at the end — Eden Bellwether is “still breathing, but faintly,” there are other bodies around, and Oscar says, “It’s over now…We can’t go back and change it.” What happened? We don’t know, but we know the story won’t end well. I agree with this blog review that revealing the end in advance allows us to then focus on the nuances within the events. From a lovely tale of romance and privilege, we are introduced into a chilling story of psychopathy.

Much of Bellwether Revivals focuses on music, something hinted at by the prologue being called a “prelude.” When we are introduced to the Bellwethers, it’s because Oscar is drawn to a church where Eden is playing the organ. I love Wood’s description: “There was a fragility to this music, as if the organist wasn’t pressing down on the keys but hovering his fingers above them like a puppeteer.” I imagine thready, tentative notes, and almost ethereal melody with the power to cast spells.

Eden is a gifted musician, but more than that, he believes music has the power to heal. Literally. Many acknowledge the power of music to bring comfort and influence emotions, but Eden, influenced by the ideas of Johann Mattheson, believes music can actually, physically affect behaviour. He says Oscar entered the church not just because of a generic attraction to Eden’s music, but because the music was specifically designed to get someone to enter a church and sit down. It’s a disturbing notion, one we could easily dismiss as utter nonsense, yet it also offers an intriguing possibility of hope. What if music can do more than just comfort those with terminal illnesses? What if music can actually remove tumours, reverse Alzheimer’s? What if music can, literally, heal? Eden firmly believes it can, and that he can create such music.

Iris believes her brother is a narcissist, as in actually has a psychological disorder and isn’t just being arrogant, and she turns to Oscar for help. To be honest, I thought her insistence on her brother’s psychopathy was a bit odd — it seemed a harmless enough belief, and I wasn’t sure why she was so determined to have her brother examined. I also didn’t really understand why Oscar was so willing to be involved. I found the romance between Iris and Oscar the weakest element in the story — I saw that he was attracted to her, but I didn’t really see how he became so devoted to her so quickly. I didn’t really see him in love, which bothers me mostly because he ends up having to go to such lengths to help her out in this story. That being said, it wasn’t enough to turn me off from the story, because all the other plot lines were so gripping.

As we learn more about Iris and Eden’s childhood, and as Eden takes his belief in music’s healing ability to even greater extremes, we begin to understand that Eden isn’t quite as harmless as we may have thought. One of the most fascinating characters in the novel is Dr. Herbert Crest, a psychologist who has studied Narcissistic Personality Disorder and who, losing his personal battle with cancer, is writing a book Delusions of Hope, about his failure to find an alternative cure for his condition. This makes him a prime candidate for Oscar to approach for help regarding Eden; perhaps Dr. Crest can expose Eden as a fraud. Or, perhaps, can Eden possibly prove Dr. Crest wrong?

Here’s the thing: Eden’s charisma affects even us. What if Eden isn’t a fraud? What if his music really can heal people? A rational part of my mind kept insisting that his ability couldn’t possibly be real, and yet another part of me couldn’t help but hope it was. As Dr. Crest says, “Hope is a form of madness. A benevolent one, sure, but madness all the same.” Yet it is a madness that we almost want to embrace. I’ve lost several loved ones to cancer, I also know others who have survived it, and I can’t even begin to describe how much I think cancer just really, really sucks. So when we have a character who might, conceivably, have the ability to cure cancer with music, well, it’s a seductive idea. Even within fiction, the tiniest, slimmest chance of a cure is offered, and yes, I want to believe in it. Eden, to me, had his controlling, arrogant moments, but I also wanted to believe he was a hero, that he did have this power, that, even in fiction, cancer could be conquered.

The potential of Eden’s power seduced me, and the reality of Eden’s megalomania devastated me. His desperation to have his power proven right, and to be viewed as a hero and a healer, leads to some truly horrifying acts. I think it’s because I was so sucked into this world that I was affected so completely. It was almost painful to be so disillusioned by Eden, not so much with regard to the veracity of his healing power, as with the realization that Eden is ultimately only after power.

I absolutely love Bellwether Revivals! A powerful, gripping story that seduces us much as the charismatic, frightening Eden Bellwether casts a spell over the people around him. In so many ways, Eden is a predator, and like any predator, he also has the ability to lure his victims. Bellwether is chilling because we realize how easy it is to be sucked in, indeed to want to be sucked in. For the reader, as for the characters, the return to reality is painful, but necessary. Difficult to believe this is a debut novel. Benjamin Wood is definitely an author to watch, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

Follow Benjamin Wood on Twitter: @bwoodauthor.