Lemonreads: The Wife Upstairs

As a fan of all things Brontë (and I mean by ALL the Brontës), I was very excited, when looking for my next read, to come across the recently published The Wife Upstairs, which was described as a modern day retelling of Jane Eyre, set in Birmingham, Alabama.  I have never hit “Buy” so fast in the Kindle Store.   I thought that the gothic elements of Jane Eyre would lend themselves so well to a modern day thriller.

And, they might, but this isn’t that book.  Sure, this is a thriller. There is murder and mystery and intrigue a-plenty.  And yes, many names and some plot lines from Jane Eyre are used in The Wife Upstairs, but it should not be described as a re-telling.  

The Jane of The Wife Upstairs is a foster child who aged out of the system, and has suffered from the loneliness and trauma of an insecure childhood, like the original Jane, but the resemblance stops there.  This new Jane steals.  She deliberately lies.  She manipulates.  She is eager to climb the social ladder and take advantage of all of the material spoils of the well-to-do suburban society where she works as a dog-walker (the modern day equivalent of a governess, natch), at whatever cost.   The integrity, the bluntness and steadfastness of character that is really the hallmark of Jane Eyre herself is missing here completely. 

I found some of the homages to Jane Eyre clever (the subdivision in which the book takes place is called “Thornfield Estates,” for example), but shuddered every time the new Mr. Rochester was referred to as “Eddie,” and didn’t find the concept of his ward, Adele, being portrayed in this book as a DOG that needs walking to be anything but cringeworthy.

In her acknowledgements, Rachel Hawkins thanks readers who, like her, believed the original Jane “deserved better” than Mr. Rochester, implying that in her novel, she’s given that to her.  I completely disagree.  Read this book if you like easily digestible thrillers, but don’t read it because you are hoping for a clever interpretation of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece. 

Lemonreads: Conversations With Friends

I enjoyed but didn’t love Normal People, Sally Rooney’s most celebrated novel, which was recently a BBC miniseries.  I found the main characters of Normal People, Connell and Marianne, both fairly unlikeable and frustrating.  I really enjoyed this book, however, which was Rooney’s debut novel, published in 2017.

Frances, the narrator, is a brilliant, depressed millennial cut from the same cloth as Connell and Marianne, but she possesses a level of self awareness that they don’t seem to have - or maybe they do, but Frances wants to move past what she currently is and grow, while Connell and Marianne seemed, to me, to be resigned to some fate.

I liked Rooney’s exploration of the love “square” between Frances, her best friend and ex Bobbi, and the older married couple, Nick and Melissa.  I found the messy but passionate understanding they all eventually reach to be hopeful and a more realistic, less idealized depiction of polyamory, and love in general: it’s hard, and there are no rules.   I would definitely recommend this book.  

Lemonreads: Hidden Valley Road

First, imagine having 12 children.

Then, imagine 10 of them are boys.

Then, imagine 6 of those 10 boys suffer from severe schizophrenia. 

This happened to Don and Mimi Galvin, raising their family in Colorado in the 60s, 70s and 80s.  One of their sons commits a horrific violent crime, one sexually abuses his younger siblings for years, and all of the boys demonstrate a terrifying level of physical aggression towards their family.  All of the boys spend their entire lives in and out of mental institutions.

Reading this book, it’s hard to believe it’s true.  The story is only made bearable by understanding how the Galvin family’s suffering’s contribute to science’s understanding of schizophrenia, how it is transmitted genetically, and how it can be treated and, someday, prevented.  Sadly, I think it will be too late to make any of the Galvin family members’ lives easier.  

TW for this book: domestic violence, sexual abuse, mental illness.

Lemonreads: A Delhi Obsession

I have never been anywhere so DIFFERENT from my own life as Delhi.  I find it hard to articulate how out of place and foreign I felt when I visited in November 2019.  With some distance, I now feel very nostalgic for that visit and want to someday dive back into the delightful, terrible, awesome bedlam of Delhi.  In this 2019 book, M.G. Vassanji perfectly describes how the “crowded, jostling, cluttered and infinitely noisy” Delhi overwhelms with its millennia of history, labyrinthine neighbourhoods and masses of people.  Vassanji shows us the city through the eyes of a Muslim Indo-Canadian writer, who desires to belong but can never shake off his foreignness.

I was very interested in Vassanji’s exploration of the Hindu/Muslim schism that I had no idea was still so prevalent in India until I visited.  In my experience, it varies by intensity, from a benign observation of difference to a justification for violence and oppression, depending on where you are and what is happening.  Just in the month I was there, our trip was re-routed at one point to avoid Muslim riots, and the Hindu government shut down the internet for several days during our trip to try to dispel unrest after an Indian court awarded ownership of a site sacred to both Hindus and Muslims to the Hindu community, after years of legal challenges - both of these events was shrugged off my our guides as normal.  

I am not sure India can ever be (or ever wants to be) a completely secular society where these cultural and religious identifiers don’t matter, and this is the central conflict of the book, both in terms of the plot, the internal struggles the protagonist Munir has to understand who he is and where he belongs, and between Munir and his lover, Mohini.  Beautifully written, heartbreaking and though-provoking.  I loved this book.

Lemonreads: Story House

I adored Timothy Taylor’s first novel, Stanley Park, published in 2003.  My copy is now coffee stained and dog eared after years of re-reading.  I’m not sure why I never got around to reading Taylor’s 2006 follow up, Story House, until now.  Like Stanley Park, Story House is set in Vancouver and I always get a kick out of reading books set in places I am familiar with - it helps to bring the story to life for me.  Much of this book takes place around a dilapidated house in the Downtown Eastside (my old neighbourhood), a structure that may be a relic of a world-famous architect, Packer Gordon.

Taylor does a deep, DEEP dive here into the world of architecture.  The majority of the characters are architects or architecture enthusiasts, and there are many very, very detailed descriptions of settings in this novel as seen through the eyes of these architecture-fluent characters.  It’s tough as a person without that architectural knowledge to envision what Taylor is describing as he waxes poetic about beams, light, angles and lines.  I almost wish architectural drawings of the places described had been included in the book to help ground layman readers such as myself.

What kept me interested in this book was not the plot, around the revival of the building known as Story House, but the web of love, hurt and lies that tie together Graham Gordon, an architect, his half-brother Elliot, their wives, and their dead architect father.  In both Stanley Park and in Story House, Taylor is a master at creating characters so layered, with such deep and intricate histories, that you are sure they are real and that he is writing biography.  He is also skilful at depicting the complicated nature of families and relationships - this is what makes his writing stand apart for me.

That being said, I was somewhat disappointed in this novel, perhaps because I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the world of architecture in which the story is set.  I also found the prose to be so dense, so determinedly poetic, that I often had to re-read sections.  I found the end dissatisfying and wasn’t sure that it was the logical conclusion to the story.  I look forward to reading more from Timothy Taylor, but this book doesn’t achieve “instant classic” status for me as his first novel did.

Lemonreads: We Wish You Luck

First book of 2021! Written in a plural first-person narrative (“we”), this book recounts a series of traumatic events between students and faculty at a low-residency writing MFA workshop in Vermont. The author, also a literary editor, is a graduate of a real-life program, the Bennington Writing Seminars, that no doubt provided the inspiration for this fictional college. The novel takes a very long time to identify who this “we” narrator is, and I spent much of the book wondering about this point, which was an interesting experience - you don’t generally spend an ENTIRE novel wondering whose lens is framing the story, and who is necessarily missing from the narrative because they are the one(s) telling it. The book repeatedly foreshadows some major event (lines like “we didn’t know then that...” or “of course now looking back we understand that...” I am paraphrasing but you get the gist), and the payoff of that major event that looms so large for the narrator(s) didn’t live up to that foreshadowing, in my opinion. That being said, the book is still a very good read, introducing fascinating three dimensional characters, exploring the dynamics of students and teachers in a small creative program, experimenting with collective storytelling and memory, and questioning the nature of art, writing and for whom we write. I have found myself thinking about it days after I finished reading, which is the sign of a food book. Published by @penguinrandomhouse, and I believe the paperback is being released in the next few weeks.

Lemonreads: The Refining (Book 1), JC Brown - Advance Review

I have to say, I’m always a little nervous when I realize a novel is going to be written from multiple perspectives.  It can be a challenge for some authors to create sufficiently distinctive voices for their characters so that you know who’s speaking without referring to the beginning of the chapter to check “Who is this again?” I have to say, in The Refining, the first in what will likely be a series, JC Brown has nailed it.  She’s created compelling (if sometimes infuriating) characters, members of a band and their manager working towards their debut at a huge music awards show, who must wrestle with their individual pasts and present as they fight for their future.  The Refining skilfully follows each of these intersecting stories and lays the foundation for what I think will be a compelling, thoughtful series.

The pace of the narrative is quick and we’re thrown into the plot right away, but thanks to Brown’s skill in deftly providing enough backstory and voice to her characters, it’s not hard to follow.  Being a performer myself I love that this story centres around a band, and a performance, as I related to the anxiety, frustration and excitement of the lead up to music awards show appearance, as well as the aftermath.  I also loved reading something with a Canadian setting as this book takes place in Toronto, and as a musical theatre performer I got a huge kick out of the fact that this was originally a musical!  I wish I could have listened to the soundtrack while I was reading!

The Refining will be released SOON - on November 4th, and will be available on Amazon.  Thank you very much to the author for providing me with an ARC of this book to review.

Lemonreads: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)

Would you believe that I had never heard the term "cozy mystery" until very very recently?!

According to Wikipedia, a cozy mystery also referred to as a "cozy," belongs to a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur off stage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.

I worked as a bookseller AND have an English Lit degree, and I had never heard this term?! I just don’t know how this is possible given I love ANYTHING that takes place in a small town (see: my rabid consumption of the entire Virgin River series earlier this year). Plus I love anything where the protagonist runs a bakery/chocolate shop/candy shop/bookstore (see: Jenny Colgan). So Joanne Fluke’s “Murder, She Baked” series featuring professional baker and amateur detective Hannah Swensen was bound to be right up my alley and a great introduction to the cozy mystery genre. I wasn’t disappointed with the first in the series, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. I enjoyed meeting the quirky cast of characters living in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and while the murder plot was slightly predictable, its resolution was still satisfying. I love that the author includes recipes for items from Hannah’s bakery, The Cookie Jar, in the book, and I had a go at making Chocolate Chip Crunches - a yummy chocolate chip cookie with cornflakes in it to make it crispy! I think I’ll try to bake something from every book as I go! Lucky friends are going to get all this baking; I don’t want it all in my house or I’ll just keep snacking! OK, OK, maybe I’ll keep a little...just for a taste...

In Defense of the Comfort Read.

Books have always defined me.   When I was a kid, the local library had to set a limit on the number of books I was allowed to check out at one time.   The limit was set by one incredulous librarian who had never encountered me before, and arbitrarily set the limit of books I could take out to 34.   I remember her even more incredulous look when I was back in just over two weeks, all 34 read and ready to be returned.  A good vacation was one where I could get through at least a book a day.   I often walked home from school with a book in front of my face.   When I started having problems sleeping at a very young age, my mother always told me that it was OK to stay awake, as long as I stayed in my bed, and so I would often read through the night.  Beloved books were often re-read, countless times.  

And I read anything and everything, even if I didn't understand it.  I read Jane Eyre in Grade Three.  At that age,  I thought it was purely a horror novel due to the scary room Jane's aunt locks her in, the terrible atmosphere at Lowood School, and the crazy wife locked in the attic - only subsequent re-reads as an adult allowed me to see the powerful romance between Jane and Rochester as the driving force of that novel. Anything by L.M. Montgomery was a particular favourite of mine, although I much preferred the aspiring writer, Emily Starr, to Anne Shirley.  I read every popular murder mystery and thriller my parents read:  Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, Sidney Sheldon, Nelson De Mille.  Nothing was off-limits from their bookshelves.  If you asked me what my favourite book was at age 11, I would have told you it was Gone With the Wind, and meant it.  As I entered my "teen" years, I added romances: Jackie Collins, Danielle Steel, The Judiths (Krantz and McNaught) and the very disturbing catalogue of V.C. Andrews to my repertoire.  At the relatively late age of 15, I discovered Jane Austen and life has never been the same. 

Given the prominence of books in my life, there was never any question that I would study literature.   All through my English degree, I spent my off-hours working in an antique bookstore.  I was never not talking about, thinking about, or reading, books.  Books are what I know best of all.  I still don't know what possessed me to leave the English department after completing my undergraduate degree, to push off to the very unknown world of law (well, I do know what possessed me, and it wasn't a very good reason - but that's another post for another time),  because I loved studying English.   The language of literature - of novels, poetry, drama - was, and is, one that I speak fluently.   I know, inherently, in my soul, the magic of language.  

However, somewhere during and after my studies, both undergraduate and postgraduate, and during this past decade of building my law career, my relationship with books subtly changed.  Not only was I reading so much for work that I had little time to read for pleasure, but, I became a huge snob about it.   As a member of the esteemed Faculty of English, I couldn't read Danielle Steel, for goodness sake, and these books went out the door to be surreptitiously dumped in the nearest charity drop-off bin.  For a good chunk of time, I only read biographies and non-fiction, and could only stomach a novel if it was "acclaimed" - if it wasn't on an awards long or short list,  or mentioned breathlessly on CBC Radio as a must-read, I wouldn't touch it.  I would privately sneer at Sophie Kinsella or JoJo Moyes books that well-meaning loved ones had bought me as gifts.  How I chose what I read was less about whether I thought I would enjoy it, and more about whether I thought I was *supposed* to enjoy it, whether it was something my professors would read, or, worse, what it said about me as a person to have that book on my shelf.  My pleasure reading intake tapered dramatically, as my GoodReads list of books read helpfully, and publicly, illustrates.

This fall, I started looking at the online books offered by my library.  I loved that I didn't have to try and schedule a library visit to find books to read.  I could browse the catalogue and download something to my iPad whenever the mood struck.   Before I went home to Victoria for the holidays, I downloaded a book by an author I'd never heard of, Jenny Colgan, that I thought looked like fun.  It didn't look like it was going to win any awards, but it didn't have a cotton-candy pink cover with a high heel on it, either. Because it was free, downloaded on a whim (and, OK, I admit, it could be read in secret on my iPad) my usual concerns about whether it was "literary" or "noteworthy" didn't seem as pressing. 

The book was called The Bookshop on the Corner.  The premise involves a heroine who has been made redundant at her job at a local library in Birmingham in the UK, so she buys a bus that she turns into a travelling bookstore, and moves to a tiny village in Scotland, where she of course finds love with a hunky farmer and her bookstore is a dazzling success.   I found Colgan's writing witty, charming and romantic without being saccharine.  I devoured it in a night, relegated to the air mattress in the den at my brother's house.  I instantly wanted to read more.   Up next: her series (yes, there was more than one!) about a London woman who is fired from her job in marketing and starts a successful cupcake bakery (and of course finds love with the local banker who gave her her small business loan).  Then it was onto the series about the London lawyer who leaves behind her job in a corporate firm to return home to her Scottish Isles home to run a bakeshop with her cheese-making brother, and the series about the woman whose design business with her boyfriend goes bankrupt, so she moves to Cornwall to start a bakery and live in a lighthouse with a pet puffin (and has a romance with the local beekeeper).  In about a three week period, I read every rom-com novel Jenny Colgan had ever written, and tweeted her to ask when her next book was coming out.  I also took to Indigo and Amazon to do the "If you liked Jenny Colgan, you'll love X/People also search for" searches, to find authors who might write similar kind of stuff.  At my local used bookstore (which also serves coffee, because THEY KNOW), I asked for Jenny Colgan books, and was directed to Jill Mansell, Emily Giffin, and Cecila Ahern. I dove into some YA greats, and re-read childhood favourites I've had on my shelf forever.  Since January, I have enthusiastically, unashamedly, had my nose in a book 24/7, and I love it.

I am enjoying reading again, in a way I haven't in years, and it's because I'm reading things I enjoy, rather than things I think I ought to enjoy.  I've discovered a whole Twitterverse of other people, including both authors and readers, who enjoy this type of writing, and I enthusiastically bookmark recommendations from favourites.  In March, the author Jasmine Guillory (whose book The Wedding Date, a romcom about a couple who meet cute in an elevator in San Francisco is delightful - and if you don't believe me, Roxane Gay did the blurb) asked Twitter for recommendations for "soothing books" and I have been methodically working my way through the list of romances, mysteries and YA novels that other people subsequently recommended.  I am yet to be disappointed.  Reading is a comfort again, in a way that is hasn't been in a long, long, time.  

I am using the words "comfort" and "comfort reads" deliberately to describe these books I am now in love with.  I only want to categorize a book based on the feeling it gives me, rather than on a preconceived notion of who the audience of the book should be.  Using the sneeringly misogynist term "chicklit," or the oft-used "trashy romance", really means making pre-judgments on an entire genre's worth by limiting its audience.  To dismiss YA novels as only for children means to miss out on some wonderful stories that adults could learn a thing or two from.  To say that rom-com or mystery or YA books are not literary, or well-written, is ignorant and untrue.  There is some masterful writing done in these genres.   There is also terrible writing done in these genres, but there is terrible writing done in Canlit or more high-brow fiction - I know because I've slogged through a lot of it. 

What these "comfort read" books do for me, which my previous reading habits did not, is to invite me to escape a little from my real life.  I've always fantasized about quitting law, to start a decorating business, or a clothing boutique, to become a novelist or run my own bookshop, and in reading these books, I can live that life, just for a few hours.  It always turns out happily in the end, there's no worry about paying car payments and mortgages, and there's always love.   The prose isn't too challenging, nor is the plot hard to follow, so I can turn my exhausted brain off for an hour or two after a long day at work and just enjoy the story.  Why this had any less merit to my former self than a Giller Prize nominated novel, I don't know. 

I'm not trying to say that I no longer enjoy more literary, prize-winning novels.  I still can, and do, read these.  I've been slowly making my way through the latest Giller Prize shortlist, and this year's Canada Reads nominees.   But I also know when a book is too challenging for my current state of being, and I also don't feel bad putting down a book that I'm finding it difficult to get through, to turn to something I might enjoy a little more. 

This rediscovered love of comfort reads makes me wonder how we determine the literary merit of a book to begin with. I know my English student self would say that it's about the craft that has gone into the work (although that somehow implies there's no craft in rom-com or YA, which is patently false). That it's about hearing stories that urgently need to be told, that might not have happy endings but that hold up a mirror to society and make us question ourselves.  But my late thirties, world-weary lawyer self would reply that right now I can't contemplate re-reading The Handmaid's Tale without having a panic attack about how close it is to real life, that I am all too aware of the horrors of society to need it spelled out in the latest post-apocalyptic bestseller.  That reading a book about a woman baking bread while chatting to her pet puffin named Neil seems like it would be relaxing, something to be done perhaps while having a glass of wine (or whisky).   

Maybe to have merit a book just needs to make you feel...something.  And right now, what I want to feel is happy, so I welcome the comfort read with arms (and eyes) wide open.  There will be no more book snobbery from me.   My comfort reads will  take up equal space next to the Pulitzer and Man Booker Prize winners, and I will read them with the covers out, loud and proud.  

Theatre Review: Beggar's Opera

Seven Tyrants Theatre

 has remounted their successful 2013 production of

Beggar's Opera

at Jericho Arts Centre, and Caitlin and I made the trek to see it last night.   Adapted and directed by David Newham from the classic 18th century opera by John Gay (which also inspired the

Threepenny Opera)

, the show features new music by Daniel Doerksen that crosses multiple genres, with self-conscious homages to jazz, rock, musical comedy and pop.  The story is told in 10 "Fantasias," or song sequences designed to communicate a particular plot point or a character's point of view.  

I will start by saying the show is weird in the most delightful way.   David Newham has made a choice to create a world that is surreal and almost absurd.  The characters are all dressed as easily recognizable "types:"  the whore, the thief, the "virgin," the servant, sporting garish, almost-kabuki style makeup and at times, using commedia dell'arte style masks.  The tale is a relatively simple one, but the stylized movement, the deliberately poetic and stilted dialogue, interspersed with decidedly modern music, made it hard for me to follow the story.  At intermission, I turned to Caitlin and our friends Dawn and Vanessa, and said, "I love it!  I have no idea what's going on, but I love it!"  

What

Beggar's Opera

lacks in linear narrative, it more than makes up for in visual spectacle, bursts of startlingly effective comedy (which completely and self-consciously subverts the "serious" nature of opera), and great use of the ensemble, who are present and doing interesting things in the background of every scene - almost interesting enough to be distracting at times, but for the most part they operate effectively as a kind of Greek chorus.  Catherine Burnett's choreography is more movement than dance, but it effectively contributes to the mood of each "Fantasia" and is visually cartoon-like in places (it reminded me in places of

The Triplets of Belleville

), making use of lighted scrims to play with shapes and shadows.

While there were no standout numbers in terms of songs that I went away humming, Doerksen's use of many genres was impressive, and one number that parodied "Mack the Knife" (in reference to heartthrob highwayman Macheath) had the audience giggling and applauding.  The band (including Doerksen on guitar and Phyllis Ho on violin, as well as several cast members chiming on on recorder, sax and accordion) was fantastic, and the cast were enthusiastic performers, if not necessarily all accomplished singers.  Sharon Crandall's Mrs. Coaxer was a vocal highlight, and some of the three part harmonies between the "Whore's Chorus" were delightful.

I have to give a particular shout-out to my friend Chris Lam, who very nearly steals the show playing dastardly butler Filch.  Chris is a master of physical comedy and a mere change of posture, the raising of an eyebrow, the shrug of his shoulder, had the audience in stitches.  Also he stood on one foot for a very very long time in the finale, with nary a wobble.  Well done sir, well done.  

Is

Beggar's Opera

a perfect piece?  No.  Is it a brave one?  Yes, and absolutely entertaining.   To see a large ensemble cast fully commit to the craziness and the spectacle of this original work was just wonderful, and the production values in terms of lighting, costume and makeup were great.  If you have a chance to see it, do - it's running at Jericho Arts Centre until March 14th.   I am looking forward to seeing with Seven Tyrants gets up to next.  

Score:  4 out of 5 (Dani) Lemons.

Lemon Family Book Club: February's Read

We're a bit behind on getting together to discuss

last month's selection

, but in the meantime, here's February's book (my pick):

I greatly enjoyed the recent movie adaptation (not least because my future husband Benedict Cumberbatch was in it), so decided I'd like to read the book, because many of the movie reviews said the film had greatly simplified the plot of the novel. So, we'll see. And Alex, Laura and I will FaceTime soon and give you our verdict on World War Z.

In the meantime, here's a picture of my love, to inspire you:

Happy Reading!

Look, I'm a real journalist!

I'm a "special correspondent" to the Cowichan Valley Citizen now, yes I am! And you can read my review online!

Players' show a fun, charming farce