Books, Fiction

The Travelers by Regina Porter

Worth A Read Definitely
Length 320
Quick Review Starting with a bang, Porter dives into America’s past and complex issues with racism, classism, feminism, and all the other -isms as two families intermingle from the 1950’s to the last years of Obama’s presidency. 

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Reading The Travelers by Regina Porter in Old Town Spring, Texas. | Dress | Watch

Regina Porter knows how to write. Her skill is on full display from the very beginning of The Travelers. This is an impressive piece of literature in and of itself, but the fact it is her debut makes it even more momentous. Simultaneously concise and epic, Porter packs a punch with every character and plot line. A story that is sure to leave an impression on anyone who picks it up. 

With a huge cast of characters, The Travelers does its readers a favor by including a cast and familial context before the intricately woven plot begins. Convenient for reminding myself who’s who in the milieu without having to backtrack, I appreciated it.. 

Porter dives into the plot and complexities of relationships and humans search for answers with “When the boy was four, he asked his father why people needed sleep. His father said, “So God could unfuck all the things people fuck up.”” Two sentences. A striking way to start a novel that lives up to and surpasses the promise of its first impression. Spanning seven decades, The Travelers explores the realities of living in the United States through a variety of lenses and eras as two families come together. 

This is not an easy book to read. It challenges readers to follow along a journey mired by stark realities. As chapters change so does the perspective, characters, era, setting, style, and tone. It’s a chameleon of a novel; changing drastically to fit the characters, situations, and times. There are no good characters or bad. Although, there are a few who fall much further on the wrong side of bad. Flaws and brilliance are present in each character. Instead of relying on tropes, The Travelers snapshots people’s lives to depict the greater faults in American society not just historically but currently. 

People are not one thing. They are not just black. Just white. Just gay. Just rich. Just a father. Just an anything. Being human means being many things all at the same time and experiencing events in very unique and personal ways. We walk through life as a culmination of all our identities and experiences commingling simultaneously. Porter does not dilute her characters. They are not just white, mentally ill, black, veteran, sister, mixed, lover, poor, victim, straight, abuser, rich, gay, etc. She allows them to be many things concurrently. 

The real triumph in The Travelers is Porter’s resistance to explain. She does not water down her stories or characters or layers by telling the reader how to perceive it. She lets it play out and leaves it. She has a straightforward yet nuanced way of writing. As in life; she allows the reader to infer and interpret what happens outside the line of sight. Readers are used to having a degree of omniscience, but Porter doesn’t allow this.  

As a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, Porter delivers one of the most believable literary sexual abuse encounters I’ve encountered. I admire her dedication to tackling often misunderstood and misrepresented atrocities with sincerity and tact. It’s a hard line to walk, and she does it well.   

This is good Literature. With a capital L. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop has a reputation for excellence. It has earned this reputation because Regina Porter and writers of this caliber called it home for a time. It is an incredible program, and I’m not just saying so because I grew up in Iowa. 

The Travelers is one of the most affecting contemporary novels I have encountered.   

Memorable Quotes
“You can’t see the end in the beginning. So play it safe and get the beginning right.”
“But we inherit it. Don’t you want to know what makes them tick?”

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Title: The Travelers
Author: Regina Porter
Publisher: Hogarth
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525576198

 

Books, Fiction

How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs

Worth a Read Yes
Length 256
Quick Review In How to Love a Jamaican, Alexia Arthurs compiles a book full of resonating short stories. I can’t stop thinking about the various characters and stories she tells.

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Reading How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs.

Alexia Arthurs was born and raised in Jamaica before emigrating to New York with her family at 12. These experiences are highlighted in her collection of short stories How to Love a Jamaican, which was published earlier this year. I was drawn to her stories because she attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and I’m from Iowa. I always root for people who have a connection to Iowa. Although, I have no idea if she liked her time in Iowa or not.

She starts of her book with a bang. Immediately she captured my attention. Even though I’m not black or Jamaican, I can completely identify with the story about friendship and college. It is incredibly relatable. I was taken by the sentiment: “I don’t know why more love stories aren’t written about platonic intimacy.” Boom. Feels were hit. I had to finish the book in one sitting; I was so captivated by her words.

Jamaica, immigration, and family are almost characters in their own right as they wind their way through How to Love a Jamaican. Each story fleshes out their entities more and more fully. Jamaica is ever present in the story and the characters minds, which extends to the reader.

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Arthurs has a fabulous voice in these stories. It is personal and warm. Even when the topic is racism or immigration, there is always a warmth to her tone. This warmth, I can only assume, stems from a deep affection and desire to help effect change. There is a certain amount of nostalgia within the collection.

The stories are told from various perspectives. Depending on the story, the narrator is male or female. In some stories, there is a first person or third person point-of-view. It was done really well.

Two things I loved most about the stories are a constant search for belonging as well as a tension between the younger and older, or “country,” generations. They are very much part of the human experience. I believe everyone feels alone or out of place in the world. The feeling that the older generation just doesn’t get it is human. We all have grandparents or aunts or parents or friends’ parents who are out of touch with the norm of today.

There are so many things I loved reading in How to Love a Jamaican. It’s so exciting to read an author from a culture, which is probably known more for their bobsled team, than almost anything else. I just get excited when women of color win. This book is for sure a win. It was so good.

One story really hit home for me. The Ghost of Jia Yi is set in Iowa. (Yay Iowa.) It was eery. In the story, a college-aged woman is killed in Iowa. One of her classmates, the protagonist, ruminates on it. This was eery because two young women in college were murdered in Iowa over the past two months. One woman was murdered in my hometown. Very sad.

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Memorable Quotes
“I don’t know why more love stories aren’t written about platonic intimacy.”
“Iowa isn’t the kind of place Jamaicans talk about when they talk about America.”

Title: How to Love a Jamaican
Author: Alexia Arthurs
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9781524799205

Books

Homegoing

Read: YES
Length: 300 
Quick Review: Follow the descendants of two sisters, whose lives take different paths, through eras of great turmoil in Ghana and the US.

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I rarely read a book that vibrates my heart, but this shook my soul. I knew it would be good because of all the hype both critical and popular, but I was thoroughly unprepared for the depth of Gyasi’s abilities. It is rare writers produce such a masterful work and even rarer it happens in their debut novel.

Beginning in Ghana there are two sisters who never meet, and their lives go in very different directions from an early age. One marries a white man and her descendants remain in Ghana for many generations; the other is sold into slavery in America.

Chapters are snapshots of lives for each generation alternating between the sisters’ descendants. The stories never have fulfillment or completion, but each has a depth allowing for an emotional connection to each person’s struggle. Each struggle the character goes through represents a similar struggle hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people experienced. The realness is palpable and heartbreaking and absolutely necessary.

Throughout the entire novel and each chapter there is an ominous air penetrating every corner of the narrative, but Gyasi is able to weave in tiny traces of hope, which is a human necessity to carry on through the darkest times. 

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Gyasi explores the history of the slave trade with roots in the Gold Coast and follows it through the history of Ghana as well as the history of America. Slavery, rape, murder, mining, Jim Crow, police, drugs, passing, so on and so forth.

It is an epic story of how people are formed and shaped by their pasts and their ancestors pasts. Every action cumulates and snowballs to create opportunities and circumstances which affect those who follow in our footsteps.

I absolutely cannot recommend this novel enough. Homegoing is phenomenal and important and entertaining and impactful. It’s a novel that will not leave you quietly.

Memorable Quotes
“He looked at her like her body was his shame.”
“the methods of gathering slaves had become so reckless, that many of the tribes had taken to marking their children’s faces so that they would be distinguishable.”
“watching this man she’s been told is her husband become the animal he’s been told he is.”
“They couldn’t tell one black face from another.”

Title: Homegoing
Author: Yaa Gyasi
Publisher: Vintage Books
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9781101971062