The Parable of the Sower, by the brilliant Octavia Butler (author of Kindred), is a piece of dystopian fiction set in California in the 2020s. It’s not clear precisely what happened, but rule of law and access to utilities, education, and basic necessities have been severely curtailed. Our narrator is Lauren Olamina, a teenager who lives inside one of the remaining walled communities on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Lauren is a “sharer” or “feeler,” i.e., a person who has a condition called hyper empathy […]
…like a fish needs a bicycle
The Summer House Trilogy was originally published as three separate pieces in 1987, 1988, and 1990. Putting all three together is not just convenient for the reader but a boon for seeing Ellis’s overall picture of her female characters’ friendships, romantic relationships, and independent thinking. Each story is a perspective on the same event: the weeks leading up to the wedding of very young and reserved Margaret to neighbor Syl, who is old enough to be her father. In fact, Syl has known Margaret’s mother […]
44-Year-Old Novel Finally Published, Worth the Wait
Australian writer Elizabeth Harrower published several well received novels in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Her much anticipated fifth novel, In Certain Circles, was set to be published in 1971 when Harrower abruptly changed her mind and withheld it from publication. She essentially retired from writing shortly afterward. In 2014, Text Publishing was able to get Harrower to agree to the publication of In Certain Circles, a novel of post-war Australia that focuses on social class, trauma, and their impact on friendships and romantic relationships. […]
It Is What It Is
This novel is short and told in what I might call an impressionist manner, its form occasionally reminiscent of entries that you could find in Twitter or FaceBook updates. And yet in the end, it is a very rich story of a marriage and motherhood, with poetry, philosophy and some wry commentary on both institutions along the way. The narrator, who refers to herself as “the wife,” takes us through the highlights and lowlights of her adult life: dating, yoga, work, colic, bedbugs, infidelity, and […]