Tournament of Books discussion

OPENING ROUND 1 The Girls by Emma Cline versus The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo
Judge: Caroline :A self-proclaimed expert on both Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and Shakepeare's history plays, Caroline describes her personal brand as 'self-conscious eclecticism.' She has a degree in creative writing and attends the WisCon science fiction convention every year.

When I signed on to be a judge in the alt.TOB, I only made one rule for myself: I wouldn’t read any extraneous information about the books that I was assigned. No reviews, no cover copy, no buzz. A book is a book is a book, and it’s not fair to judge an author’s writing based on the conversation that might be happening around it.

It was good, pure, rule that, like many deeply held principles before it, disintegrated on contact with reality. That’s because the kind of book that has hype you can’t hide from is the only kind of book that needs the rule. And I had to judge The Girls.

I already knew about Emma Cline and Her $2 Million Manson-Family Novel. I read about it in newsletters, I saw it in airports. I even recommended it to a friend who I know is fascinated with stories (true and fictional) about young women who commit murder. She loved it, and I was glad, even though it didn’t seem like the kind of thing I wanted to read myself. Not quite my subject matter; a little too much buzz in the air. But the alt.ToB gods have a sense of humor, and so once again, I face The Girls.

The novel’s narrator, Evie, suffers in her own way from the preconceptions that accompany fame. When she was a young teen in 1969, Evie spent some time at the fringes of a West Coast cult, whose members committed a killing spree that became a legend. Decades later, when we meet middle-aged Evie, she’s living an unmoored life in the “borrowed house” of an old friend she no longer knows well. When the homeowner’s son drops in, he only remembers Evie when he associates her with the sensational story of her past.

The sections set in Evie’s adulthood make up a tiny part of the book -- less a frame story than a bit of dingy moulding, nailed haphazardly around the dizzy canvas of the 1969 narrative, hardly able to contain it. This effect seems deliberate, a suggestion that Evie has grown into a woman with no self. She lives in the blast radius of past events, where she was a witness not to a murder but to banal lives of people who would become murderers. Particularly, Evie cannot release the memory of Suzanne, the older girl whose charisma drew her into the cult. (The Manson figure, here called Russell, appears in the book and takes sexual advantage of the girls, but for Evie he is explicitly never the point.)

Cline’s precise, highly-crafted prose carries the story forward, but as I read along, the observations of human behavior kept stopping me in my tracks. Lots of writers can put together a pretty sentence I want to savor, but I save my heart for the ones who can make me close a book, look at the ceiling and say, “Damn, that is so true.” Jane Austen did it in her stories of young women in another era, Megan Abbott does it with teen protagonists in ours, and Cline now angles to join their company.

Take, for instance, this passage, in which Evie and a school friend observe the boys they have crushes on:

We were like conspiracy theorists, seeing portent and intention in every detail, wishing desperately that we mattered enough to be the object of planning and speculation. But they were just boys. Silly and young and straightforward; they weren’t hiding anything.

Where The Girls falls down a bit for me is in the murder plot itself. We know the outcome from the start, and we know Evie doesn’t have any real agency in it, so all she can really do is linger around the edges. I imagine this could be fascinating to a reader well-versed in the real-life Manson story, but all I knew with any confidence was that he auditioned for the Monkees, and now Snopes tells me that's false.

And as long as I’m breaking the rules and considering external evidence, I admit: I’ve lived through multiple waves of sixties nostalgia, and I’m ready to stop picking the bones of that decade for a while. In 2016, if an author in their 20s is writing about adolescence, I’d rather see a vision of 1998 than of 1969. Or if that’s too prescriptive, I promise I’d read about Emma Cline’s 1485, or her 2643: girls pining for their friends during the Wars of the Roses, or what a Manson cult would look like among the rings of Saturn.

Once you know what The Girls is about, it unfolds pretty much in the way that it has to. Predictability is not an issue with Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun, starting with the first sentence, in which our narrator sticks a very hot pepper into her vagina, like so:

I lift my skirt, pull aside the waistband of my underwear, and push my index finger in to test the sample.

My first reaction was, “Oh great, this book is going to be edgy. I hate edgy.” In no way did I look forward to reading another three hundred pages of vegetable/genital interaction. But The Core of the Sun kept surprising me. It delivered the Finnish weirdness promised by the (self-described) movement that Sinisalo helped to found, but weird ideas are a dime a dozen -- dystopian premises even more so.

What makes Sinisalo’s book such a joy is the way that its off-center world, with its curious rules, unfolds for the reader. The line quoted above begins a very short first person section attributed to a narrator named “Vanna/Vera.” Next comes a “Hearing Transcript,” in which an anonymous questioner interrogates a person identified as “FN-140699-NLP [Vanna Neulapää, hereafter V],” who, “owing to her legal status, was questioned in the presence of” her boyfriend, Jare. After the transcript, the novel presents excerpts from V’s letters to her sister (who we know from the first section to be dead or, at least, to have a memorial marker in the local cemetery).

Unfamiliar words and odd details are sprinkled throughout these sections: “eloi,” “masco,” “morlock.” Hints abound that the Finland of 2016 has long been operating in North Korea-like isolation from the rest of the world, with totalitarian restrictions on the freedoms of women. And then there’s the epidemic of addiction to capsaicin -- that glorious and pesky oil that gives chiles their heat -- and the eerie underworld of the illegal hot pepper trade.

That last detail threatens to make the whole exercise feel frightfully silly. Yet that silly/weird/slightly askew sensibility accomplishes a couple of things. First, it provides a layer of separation from V’s story, which might otherwise be unbearably bleak. Then, it challenges the reader to take it seriously anyway. The resistance I felt at that startling and really-kinda-gross opening line -- I accidentally ate half a jalapeno last week and my gastrointestinal system is still mad at me so I did not want to contemplate what V’s ladybits might be going through -- turned out to work in the book’s favor. “I don’t really believe the world you’ve set up would work that way,” said the resistant reader inside of me. “Prove it.”

And over 303 pages scattered with V’s letters, Jare’s recollections, entries from fictional dictionaries, and real historical details about dog breeding and Finnish demographics, Sinisalo does. What looks like a merely weird and random premise turns out to be a clever, deeply unsettling commentary about the way in which momentary trends in social science can solidify into decades of policy, and do untold damage. Plus, in case I’m making this sound dull and abstract, the last fifty pages contain a suspense-filled chase sequence that kept me up way past my bedtime.

When I finished The Girls, I feel like I should apologize for not being the reader it was looking for. Cline is a gifted and thoughtful writer who has produced a hell of a debut. Just because I’m fed up with sixties narratives and (still) have no desire to dig around in the scrap heaps of Manson lore, does that mean I should consign her book to the furnaces?

Fortunately, Johanna Sinisalo made the decision easy. The Core of the Sun is the best piece of speculative fiction I’ve read in quite a while. I’ll be lending my copy of The Girls to my teen-girl-murder-junkie friends (I might have more than one, okay?), but I’ll be pushing The Core of the Sun on everybody I can think of.

Winner: The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

Commentators:
Amberbug *shelfnotes.com* : Book blogger for shelfnotes.com by night, boring desk job by day. Amberbug started blogging a few years back when she realized free books sent to your doorstep wasn't a book lovers fairy tale but gifts from the publishing gods.
Jason Perdue : Jason has been following the TOB since the very first year. Jason travels for his current job and always finds the best indie bookstores to support. In the past year, Jason been to City Lights and Green Apple Books in SF, The Strand, McNally Jackson, and Greenlight Books in NYC, Book People in Austin, Hatchards and Daunt Books in London.

Jason: Here we are, back at the alt-ToB for a second year. I don't remember exactly how I stumbled upon The Morning News and the Tournament of the Books that very first year, but I'm sure glad I did. What a fun time it's been every year. The anticipation, the hoping and rooting, the lists of upcoming, best-of, and mid-year reviews, and then, of course, the reading.

I don't even think Goodreads existed back in year one. I certainly wasn't a member yet. But now, after twelve years, the ToB fanbase has grown, but it's also crystallized. The ridiculousness of judging literature and the ToB's irreverence for literary prizes was its founding principal and one that has found its audience of discerning readers, quick to see imbalance and unfairness in the way books find audiences, and ultimately, win prizes. And we've all found each other in our ToB Goodreads group.Yay, us!


Amber: I was definitely not around and following since the beginning. I was late to the game and I missed out on so much awesome. I can’t believe you’ve been following since year one! I’m so impressed that you’ve been with them from the start, I feel a little starstruck discussing this alt.ToB with an original follower. I can’t even imagine what it was like back in the day but I’m sure it’s been fun to see the fanbase grow to what it is now.

The idea behind judging books has always been difficult for me to swallow, it’s so subjective. The entire basis of the TOB, ultimately making light of book awards, perfectly aligns to my thinking. The TOB lured me in with the lighthearted competition but what truly won me over was the passionate readers who discussed each book in the comments. What’s better than that? Passionate readers who want to extend the TOB further and bring it to this Goodreads group.

Jason: So, here we begin this alt-ToB with a match-up that is the perfect metaphor for the Tournament of Books: one book with the marketing muscle, the big publishing house (with accompanying shelf-space), and the always darling "debut" attached to it versus the translated, genre novel, self-described as 'weird' and available almost exclusively online. Caroline saw this mis-match as well, despite her efforts to avoid knowing about these books, The Girls is just a literary marketing campaign you cannot avoid if you interact with contemporary literature in any way.

Amber: Jason, I completely agree. This is quite a unique match-up but one I would have really struggled with myself. I was in love with both these books and for very different reasons. One thing that has been bothering me of late, has been this hipster idea in the underground book-ter-net that mainstream should be tossed aside for the lesser known. Thankfully, even though Caroline mentioned it, she explained perfectly why the "hot item" book wasn't for her. I wonder if we cast aside the juggernauts in these contests too quickly. Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for the indie publishers and dive for those lesser known books. If I didn't, my reading life would be extremely sub par.

Jason: I torn on the point because I tend to be pretty picky about my books, and I avoid bestsellers like the plague. But The Girls never really fell into that category with me. I’d seen it around for sure, but I was more interested than repulsed. I haven’t read much 60’s fiction so I wasn’t in danger of going over well-worn tracks in my reading.

Amber: I have to mention Cline's writing, it was perfect for me. I don't know what about her sentences had me nodding my head up and down but I was like a bobble head throughout most of the book. She created a fan for life in me. It sounds like Caroline had a similar reaction to the writing, even if the book wasn’t perfect for her.

Jason: I completely agree. I think she writes beautifully. Some great sentences. I listened to 90% of it, and Cline read it herself. Her command of the language was impressive.

Amber:I never knew that there was a rumour Manson auditioned for the Monkees. I love that the judge put that in there. I have to agree that the sixties have been quite a popular decade to write about lately. It reminds me of the saturation of Apocalyptic books that just recently petered out.

But what about The Core of the Sun, I was just as infatuated with this book as I was The Girls. Did you read Troll: A Love Story? I did not but it's definitely been on my list for awhile now. I’m super into Finnish strange and The Core of the Sun is certainly that. This story is so cool and original, I love that.

Jason: I have not read Troll: A Love Story. I loved this book as well. I don’t read much genre fiction, but it captured my attention. I was fully engrossed in the story, but I don’t think I loved it as much as the judge. I think it had some structural problems.

Amber: One of things that stood out on Caroline’s judging was the social science influencing policy, the political undertones and futuristic feeling of a society gone wrong, definitely make The Core of the Sun more current and demanding.

Jason: I think it’s relevant to our times and does what I think a good SciFi story should: says more about our current time than the one portrayed. But some of the structural disjointedness with definitions of made up words and government files on justifications for enacting bizarre policies were unnecessary to me. I think we can all figure out what eloi and masco mean from context. Not to make it sound like I didn’t enjoy this book. I’m not entirely disappointed in the result. I’ve been on a hot pepper kick ever since reading it.

Amber:I loved both these books so much that I do wish we had a zombie round so i could see The Girls have more of a chance. Although, I have to say that I think I would have also picked The Core of the Sun to advance.

Jason: I actually enjoyed The Girls more and while I’m happy to see The Core of the Sun move on in the spirit of the ToB, I would probably have chosen otherwise. But in true ToB fashion, we are seeing that the alt-ToB will produce results that will not please everyone. (But no Zombie for us please).

Yeah! I'm glad The Core of the Sun took down the (to me) much over-hyped The Girls. I just really didn't connect with that book, so much so that I don't think I even necessarily agree that Cline's sentences are particularly beautiful or insightful. A lot of her descriptions felt ovewrought to me. (PS--is it ok/are we supposed to be commenting on the decisions/books in this thread, or is there another place we're supposed to do that?)

I feel that I'm in a minority in preferring The Girls. I enjoyed Core of the Sun, but I agree with the comments Poingu made in the book thread. It has two angles: the patriarchal dystopia and the Finnish-weird pepper plot. The dystopia is a well-worn Second Wave-nightmare; there's nothing new there. It doesn't reflect on where our society is now or is going, which is what good dystopias should do, but instead on where our society has been. That leaves the weird aspects to draw me in, and I loved them, but they just weren't enough.

our first upset! I have to admit I was surprised at the outcome here --- I went into the reading a bit prejudiced against a 'hyped' book and found to my surprise that I really liked The Girls despite it's wide-eyed, breathless style. I mostly listened to Girls while I read Core of the Sun and though I loved Core, The Girls felt somewhat more insightful to me.

and thanks to Caroline for being the first decision of the tourney with a great write-up and to Jason & Amber for daring to be first in our new commentary format!

amazing write-up/decision and commentary -- thanks to caroline, amber and jason! that was awesome to read. :)

Caroline, thank you for this terrific essay comparing these two books! I feel I learned a lot about both of them.

And thanks Jason and Amber for the commentary!

Caroline, I really like your thought that The Girls would have been more impressive to you if set NOT in the time/place of Charles Manson's helter-skelter time/place. I like your idea that the book would have been more of an achievement if the author were to say something about her own generation, OR alternatively if she had written about something completely outside of living-history-time. It's cheating in a way to write about a time where so many readers still have first-hand memories, and where they can draw on these memories, to give the book more heft and emotion than it maybe has on its own.

I have had similar feelings when 20-somethings have written about the Holocaust--when we're still historically in a place where there are still novels and nonfiction books written by people who experienced these times, it feels a little premature to me to have authors with no direct experience appropriating these extreme times for fictional purposes. So The History of Love for example was close to unreadable for me.

I'm not sure if my feeling is a defensible one. It's just a feeling.

I'm glad so many liked The Girls, it has been a favorite of mine all year. I was so happy that these are two of the books I got to comment on too.

Great commentary and thanks for the comments!

It did occur to me that people could be as fed up with second wave feminist dystopias as I am with loving recreations of the '60s, so I can imagine someone making the opposite choice for similar reasons (or even me at a different time).

Also I could have written pages more about both of these books, so I'm definitely interested in any further thoughts folks have about how they stack up.

I really loved both of these books, and was pretty torn. The judging and commentary are great. Perfect way to kick off the alt-ToB!

I've read most of the books, but still have two to go (Laurus & What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours). If only I could call off work this week...

Great commentary, Caroline! I'm not finished with TCotS yet but am loving it so far. I agree with you, there was some great writing in The Girls and I felt she really nailed some of the insecurities of teen girls.

And we're off!! Excellent judgment and commentary, you guys. The bar has been set high!

Caroline wrote: "
It did occur to me that people could be as fed up with second wave feminist dystopias as I am with loving recreations of the '60s, so I can imagine so..."

Good point.

Thanks y'all for the judgement and commentary!

Caroline wrote: "It did occur to me that people could be as fed up with second wave feminist dystopias as I am with loving recreations of the '60s, so I can imagine so..."

It's interesting that we could criticize either entries as well-trod subject matter ... they are indeed not truly new. But I thought each were very well executed and managed to connect with the readers (at least this one!) with their respective insights (unfortunately, feminist dystopias are still quite relevant).

OPENING ROUND 2 The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie versus Sweetgirl by Travis Mulhauser
Judge: Drew: Drew has been a community college librarian in southeastern Washington state for the past 20 years. She doesn't believe in shushing.

Were there ever two more different books paired in a tournament? (Probably, but for the sake of hyperbole let's assume this is the ultimate match.). One is a humorous, quirky story of a gentle young woman and her misguided fiancé; the other is a suspenseful sleigh ride through the meth lands of northern Michigan during a ferocious blizzard. The quirky book pokes fun at materialism, the medical device industry, the VA, and features a squirrel as the main character's spirit animal. The suspenseful book follows a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks determined to do the right thing and save her mother and a tiny baby from death during the storm. Her spirit animal is a drunk guy with a good heart who was as close to a father as this young woman ever had. (I won't count Bo, the dead dog who was decomposing in a meth dealer's house.) The only similarity between these two books is the protagonists are both young women with oddball names (Veblen and Percy).

Veblen is named after a philosopher her mother greatly admired, Thorstein Veblen. He was a noble nonconformist. Her father is in a mental institution and her mother is a narcissistic, controlling woman married to a decent man named Linus who loves Veblen. (Hmm, another similarity.) Veblen is in her early 30s and, as the story begins, has been proposed to by her boyfriend of four months, Paul. He is a good-hearted man but a know-it-all and materialist who is impressed by brand names. When Paul proposes, he offers Veblen "... a diamond so large it would be a pill to avoid for those who easily gag." Does this sound like an appropriate ring for a woman who rehabbed a dilapidated cottage herself and lives happily there despite the squirrel in the attic? This is the first of many clues that Paul (a) doesn't know who Veblen is and (b) he thinks he can mold her into the woman he wants her to be. This is why long engagements are good, children! Veblen wants happiness and laughter while Paul is mainly concerned with their material future.

Veblen accepts Paul's proposal despite his materialism and hatred of the squirrel. He's not a bad guy and Veblen realizes "... She hadn't been looking for a love affair, but rather a human safe house from her mother." At this point, I began to identify with Veblen, having done something similar in my 20s. Veblen begins to feel she is communicating with the squirrel while Paul runs out and buys a trap that he saw advertised in order to rid the house of the squirrel.

And that's just the beginning of their relationship! When they meet their future in-laws, Paul finds the structure he had wanted as a child growing up with hippie parents and their friends. Veblen finds the unqualified acceptance and affection she has craved from her parents although Paul's disabled brother is quite inappropriately smitten with her.

Meanwhile, Paul leaves his job in medical research to work for a medical device company making big bucks. His device for treating TBI on the battlefield holds great promise and this is an opportunity to run a trial on a group of veterans at the local VA hospital. His mentor at the lab discourages him since the device isn't ready for testing on humans but all Paul can see is fame and riches.

What a mismatch! Will Veblen and Paul stay together long enough to be married? Will Paul discover the pleasures of the simple life or will Veblen decide she likes the finer things in life? Will WWIII break out when the two families finally meet? Will the squirrel survive?

I was charmed by this book. Its gentle humor belies the seriousness of some of the issues it raises. And I learned something about Thorstein Veblen!

My main complaint about this book is that it may have been too quirky. The author included several black-and-white photographs, sprinkled throughout the text. They are related to the text but sometimes seemed unnecessary. The illustration of "selected guns for small furred game" above a paragraph mentioning the fact that there are recipes for cooking squirrels in The Joy of Cooking gives us the first hint that the squirrels' trust in humans is likely misplaced. A squirrel looks like it is spelling the word "muumuu" and there's a picture of a muumuu. (Although a quick survey of the 20-somethings at work revealed that most of them didn't know what a muumuu is so maybe the picture did serve a purpose.) When they get Mexican takeout, there's an extra burrito and surprise! A picture of a foil-wrapped burrito. It got a little too precious.

There's nothing precious about Sweetgirl. Most of the narration is Percy's first-person tale of her quest to save the lives of her mother and a stranger's baby girl but there are occasional chapters that focus on Shelton Potter, local meth cooker. Shelton probably wasn't too bright to begin with but years of drug and alcohol use have killed most of the brain cells he started out with. Mulhauser uses these chapters as comic relief and they really are quite funny. And you can really use the comic relief.

You know you're in for a rough ride from the first sentence of the book: "Nine days after Mama disappeared I heard she was throwing down with Shelton Potter." Percy and her older sister Starr have had to raise themselves as well as looking after their drug- and alcohol-addicted mother Carletta. Starr has married and escaped to Portland. She wanted Percy to go with her but Percy feels too responsible for Carletta. And that's how Percy comes to find a neglected baby at Potter's house and decides to save her. Percy is a good person who is determined to do the right thing.

Percy is aided in her quest by Portis, her mother's ex-boyfriend. All the adults in this book are either drug addicts or alcoholics. Portis is no exception. When he and Carletta were together he looked after the girls but when the story opens he's a drunk hermit with only his dog for company. When Percy finds herself stranded in the blizzard with a baby, she goes to Portis for help and he reluctantly agrees. It's not an easy path back to civilization and it's even more dangerous with Potter and his minions on their trail. The suspense builds until Percy discovers that she can't save her mother but she can save herself.

I read this book in one sitting. I could not put it down until I found out what happened to Percy, Portis, and baby Jenna. When I finished reading, I thought "This has to win! Isn't that what a good book is supposed to do: hook you and not let you go until the ride is over?" But the more I thought about it, the more this book seemed like empty calories. Great while you're reading it (especially during a heat wave!) but not very nourishing. And it reeks of "poverty porn" which I admit is one of my guilty pleasures.

Veblen, on the other hand, had substance. Mckenzie wrote a charming, humorous book that also addressed serious subjects like the pharmaceutical/medical device industry, materialism, upward mobility, and the VA's treatment of veterans. I wasn't glued to it but I enjoyed it from start to finish and felt like I gained something by reading it.

Winner: The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie

Commentators:
Amberbug *shelfnotes.com*:Book blogger for shelfnotes.com by night, boring desk job by day. Amberbug started blogging a few years back when she realized free books sent to your doorstep wasn't a book lovers fairy tale but gifts from the publishing gods.
Amy:Amy spends all day in front of computers playing with Powerpoint and Excel, so the alt.TOB has provided her an excellent excuse for using spreadsheets for her reading and tourney organizing!

Amy: I actually had a similar experience to Drew with Sweetgirl; I raced through the book and adored the characters (even the bumbling meth-head baddie). Meanwhile as charming as Veblen - the book and the girl - appeared, I was initially sure of where it was going AND tire easily of passive women. But Elizabeth McKenzie surprised me with all the hidden depths of observation as well as Veblen's decisions in the end. Looking back on the passages that struck me as most funny, I also realize they were some of the best satire I've read in awhile (how horrific was the pamphlet for the "Pre-Wounded Summit" for example!?)

Amber: I have to say, Sweetgirl won my heart on this one. Every time I tried to get involved with Veblen, I felt disconnected with the characters. This is going to be a hard one for me to comment on since I had such an adverse reaction. I do have to admit that the "hidden depths and observations" as you said, are chock full. I might have to finally admit that satire isn't for me (ducks to avoid the spoiled fruit).

Amy: Sounds like you agree with Drew’s “too precious” criticism. I was definitely with Drew in the beginning rooting against Paul and thinking that he and Veblen were a terrible mismatch. It seemed like the author spoonfed us details to dislike Paul that made for a pretty flat character and though she likely meant it as a joke (“long engagements, children!”), both characters were pretty infantilized within the first few chapters. But I think the author managed to grow them and show hidden depths to change my mind.

Amy: Also, is it just me or is this a big year for dead or anthropomorphized animals?? The dog in Sweetgirl was SO much like the one in The Past, and Veblen had both.

Amber: Yes! The sad part is that is should be my wheelhouse, I'm a huge animal lover but the quirkiness of that in Veblen didn't grab me the way it should have. Again, is my brain broken? I want to like satire so bad, I want to get it...I just don't. Going back to the animals though, so many books lately have been down this road (many of them highlighted in both the original alt.tob and last years TOB).

Amy: It’s not just you RE: satire… I rarely like it, I think partly because most of the time even if I recognize it as such, I don’t feel in on the joke. Last year’s The Sellout is a perfect example. Some obvious humor, absurdity, and thumbing of the nose at the powerful, but difficult for me to identify with the protagonist as a result. I realize I wasn’t meant to feel comfortable with the subject matter, but I suspect identifying with Veblen in a large way made Portable’s satire palatable for me. (I’m with Drew on escaping into a relationship in my 20’s - though aren’t we all? Anyone?) Some of her thoughts on her mother and finding herself in a long-term relationship have definitely run through my brain.

Amber: Ah! I’m so glad I have a fellow reading friend who wasn’t a huge Sellout fan. I felt pretty left out. I do admit that Veblen had more power for me. I definitely related to that mundane relationship and struggling with the idea of what the purpose is all about. The philosophical elements of Veblen hit home for me but they didn’t hit me as hard as Sweetgirl did.

Amy: So let's mourn the loser a bit now as we won't see Sweetgirl in upcoming battles (I'm realizing the zombie rounds in "real" TOB add additional drama to these discussions because of the possibilities of rebounds). Of all the books I read in the tourney, I honestly think Sweetgirl had the best dialogue (even if there weren't many passages). The others are more introspective or examples of misunderstanding and witholding while Portis and Percy spoke frankly and jocularly and were a joy for me to read. In addition, though not the only one to use the device, I really loved the descriptive use of weather in setting the scenes and as symbolic metaphor with the story arc. My favorite conversation happened in a literal and figurative eye of the central storm.

Amber: Oh, Sweetgirl how I'll miss you. I really do miss the zombie rounds because I'd love to see this book go a little further. You definitely hit the nail on the head about the dialogue, it felt so real. The characters felt real even though I don’t think I have ever met anybody in real life that embodies them.

Amy: Also, I felt that Shelton was more than just comic relief. There was definitely humor, but I thought he evinced a great deal of pathos too… his passages constantly humanized him for me. In spite of the violence and chaos he caused, there was a sheen of childlike simpleness to him that kept him from ever seeming truly evil. Or maybe I just forgive dog lovers.

Amber: I’m so glad you mentioned Shelton because I truly felt bad for him by the end. I should hate this guy, he is pretty deplorable, but I just couldn’t bring myself to by the end. The Author clearly knew what they were doing by giving him a sympathizing side to him. I absolutely adore when Authors have the ability to create conflicting emotions about a character, especially ones that change over the course of reading the novel.

Amy: Side note - was anyone else strongly reminded - by more than just the name - of last alt.TOB's Sweetland when following Percy through the Michigan landscape alongside cranky loner Portis?

Amy: It’s interesting that Drew points out the fallability of all the adults in Sweetgirl. Until then, I hadn’t noticed that there really aren’t any good role models in grown-ups for either of the books. Everyone’s either addicted, depressed, childish or downright crazy. Meanwhile, a 16-year-old has the wherewithal to survive in a harsh Michigan winter and to fend for herself AND take care of the adults around her. Does this make Percy less believable or just speak to the realities for youth in impoverished rural America? Maybe both. I’ve seen other criticism that Percy is just a little too fantastic and while I didn’t mind, I can see justification in that characterization.

Amber: Funny you mention that Amy because at times I had trouble remembering how old the girl was. At times she seemed so mature but yet other times it reflected more pre-teen. I didn’t mind that all the adults were crazy and immature, I just think that’s who she found herself surrounded by (sadly). We did see some maturity from her sister and her husband, so the world does have sane people in it! The depravity surrounding her really did make this story quite the downer though. These people exist though and I’m always glad to see the side of humanity that isn’t all sunshine and cupcakes, it’s real.

Amy: Have you heard about this “Poverty Porn” genre Drew mentioned? I honestly hadn’t heard the term until 2017 Contenders conversations brought it up… I read GodPretty In the Tobacco Field from that discussion. Personally I don’t like the term… it makes it seem as if a reader is revelling in an ‘exotic’ experience. I’m not sure what the term is trying to criticize exactly but I think that reading is one of the only ways that people learn to empathize with other cultures, times and socio-economical experiences that they won’t otherwise have a chance to know. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn could be dropped into this category as could A Fine Balance. Perhaps the term is only applied to tales with a ‘feel-good’ ending so the reader doesn’t feel any responsibility or indictment? What do you think?

Amber: Oh boy, I might be the wrong person to ask about “poverty porn” or any kind of book porn in general. I tend to seek the books that will shock me because they usually have the ability to make me feel something. Yes, there is such a thing as an Author taking it to the next level to shock the reader but like you, I think it’s important to see the reality of how other people live. Empathy! That is the perfect word for what stories like these can teach you. I believe the TOB has had many conversations surrounding shock value and porn in different books. Remember, Roxane Gay’s novel Untamed State, that had all sorts of uproar about the “unnecessary” violence. I didn’t really see that myself but I suppose the same could be said about “poverty porn”.

Amy: I didn’t get to Untamed State but I’m a recent convert to Roxane Gay and feel like she’s exactly qualified to write a scene that serves the purpose of telling the victim’s story/furthering the victim’s arc and avoiding exploitation. She’s also pretty adept at identifying when a scene (in any media) is not succeeding at walking that line. I think that these scenes are difficult and arguably overused but I tend to dismiss criticism that isn’t well justified.
At the same time, who comes up with these awful genre classification names? Are we just so stymied with genre-benders that we have to bucket them in awkward groupings? Is the publication industry dubbing these or do we blame the critics? The booksellers? I can see the need in some cases, like “Cli-Fi” makes sense… its the near-future climate change science fiction which Not Dark Yet falls into. But “Poverty Porn” or (a winner for my peevishness) “Chick Noir” just seem disparaging and unnecessary. If Sweetgirl and GodPretty are “Poverty Porn” & Gone Girl and Fates and Furies are “Chick Noir,” then sign me up.

Thanks to Drew for your decision and reasoning! So now we know The Core of the Sun will face The Portable Veblen in quarterfinals. Plucky female heroines battle royale!

Love the decision and the commentary -- lots to think about. I haven't read either of these but they both sound really interesting. The description of 'Sweetgirl' reminded me of 'Winter's Bone.'

I really enjoyed both of these novels, and I would have advanced Veblen also. That novel just had sooo many incredibly funny quotes that also managed to reveal some significant truths about humanity...so much so that I forgave the novel its excessive quirkiness and at times meandering plot because of them.

Caroline wrote: "Love the decision and the commentary -- lots to think about. I haven't read either of these but they both sound really interesting. The description of 'Sweetgirl' reminded me of 'Winter's Bone.'"

Yes, the ghost of "Winter's Bone" was haunting me all through Sweetgirl.

Yeah @Caroline, Sweetgirl's elevator pitch was "Winter's Bone" crossed with "True Grit" done by the Coens

If there's a character named 'Portis,' it sounds like the author knew what they were doing.

Thanks Drew! Absolutely great!

Thanks Amy and Amber for bringing in an extended conversation about "poverty porn." I also really don't like that label for it very much--it sounds pejorative, and I believe that novelists have fallen down lately on illuminating the lives of the poor, something they used to think was part of their job---Hugo, Zola,Eliot, Hardy, Forster, Wright, Steinbeck...one of the reasons I loved Preparation for the Next Life is that it returned to that tradition.

poingu wrote: "Thanks Drew! Absolutely great!

Thanks Amy and Amber for bringing in an extended conversation about "poverty porn." I also really don't like that label for it very much--it sounds pejorative, and I..."

And Dickens! I also loved Preparation for the Next Life.

poingu wrote: "Thanks Drew! Absolutely great!

Thanks Amy and Amber for bringing in an extended conversation about "poverty porn." I also really don't like that label for it very much--it sounds pejorative, and I..."

meanwhile there have been a lot of literary books about members of the privileged upper-class without a similar bucketizing. It's even a specific "members of the upper class who are worried about money/maintaining their lifestyle-image"

Let me just add my love for Sweetgirl, since this is its last round, and also for Preparation for the Next Life, which is one dark and gritty book but so well done. Drew, Amy & Amber, great jobs of judging and commenting. You guys have all touched on a lot of what I loved about Sweetgirl (and also about Portable Veblen, but I'll leave that for another time)...the humor, dialog, full-blooded characters, great use of weather, and a real feeling for the region and people he was writing about.

But really, how can you NOT love a book where one of the characters talks about the travesty of Warren Zevon not being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Hear, hear!

Also, if anyone wants a fun audiobook experience that might deepen your appreciation of Sweetgirl, pick up or download the Charles Portis' True Grit read by none other than Donna Tartt of Goldfinch and The Secret History fame.

I'm so enjoying these judgments and commentary! What thoughtful, original perspectives from everyone.

I hadn't read the opening round books, but identity strongly with Caroline's exhaustion with the 60s obsession.

This round, I did read both, but barely in time( and only because Veblan was due back at the library. For a quirky book, it sure didn't grasp me by the hand and skip me through the trees. In reading the commentary, I realized that part of it was that both of them had such difficult families of origin, and were portrayed as emotionally immature because of that. Yet both were so terribly on-task and adept and charming and capable in every area of their lives, except when we needed a complicating drama. Brilliant young doctor invents machine, has both medical and engineering skill necessary to create device. Personable young temp volunteers as translator, can ace language and retile roof and tolerate micromanagers.

Just too much. Screwed up parents, again. How unexpected in a quirky-hero book. I also thought many of the observations / social satire was low-hanging fruit. Advertising tries to make you want a thing by playing on your hopes and fears! Corporate medicine will cut corners for more profit! The military spends too much money on crony-approved line items with questionable benefit! Overweight lonely rich kids shouldn't be shuffled between parental homes and shamed for their appearances or something bad might result!

Whereas screwup parents didn't bug me in Sweetgirl. Maybe bc the narrator ought to be emotionally immature (taking the baby into the storm w just her diaper bag isn't the best advertisement for your frontal cortex, Percy) and transcends that, so she's punching up all the way. It was tense and also sweet and heart rending. I'm so glad to have read it.

OPENING ROUND 3 The Book of Harlan by Bernice McFadden versus The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Judge: A. : Aletheia is an attorney at an appellate court, reading, researching, and writing law for a living. She lives in (SUNNY!) New Mexico with her spouse and future baby boy, is an avid reader particularly (of late) of speculative fiction and tech-sci-fi.


First, I cried. Then, I cried some more. But then, I was merely heartbroken.

I am generally considered a fairly voracious reader (depending on life circumstances) with very broad tastes and interests. That being said, I tend not to read many of these sort of heart-wrenching, real-life drama type books. So I felt very fortunate that, although both of these books fall into that “drama” category, they were both quite readable and good. Not just good. Quite good. But I felt that, although they both taught me so much about … well, so much, one was the clear winner at the end of it all. Let me explain…

I read The Book of Harlan first. I understand Bernice McFadden has written many award-winning novels, but this is my first. It is, as implied by the title, a book describing the life and times of Harlan, a black man with a life worth telling. It starts before his birth, briefly delving into the life and drama of his parents in the early 1900s in Macon, Georgia. It then, interestingly, follows his parents, rather than Harlan himself, for most of his childhood. This, I believe, adds to the overall tone and point of the book, even though it is, arguably about Harlan, and I enjoyed this portion of the book quite a bit. Once Harlan moves to Brooklyn with his parents as a teenager, we then begin to follow his life more closely (with understandable digressions from other characters’ perspectives to add to the completeness of the narrative). McFadden incorporates real-life historical figures and events in her narrative as she tracks Harlan through several decades

I understand that there is some personal history (ancestral) for McFadden, and I assume that, while this is a novel and a work of fiction, much of the skeleton was built from real-life events people McFadden knew about actually suffered. Along these lines, I wondered while I read the book how much of Harlan’s story was the fictionalization of one individual, how much of it was added to add to the drama, how much may have been removed to give her readers a break, and how much of it was combined and pieced together from various historical incidences. I have to believe that the experiences of Harlan are not altogether unique of all black people in that time. And that is only part of what made the story so sad.


While reading Harlan, I learned so much. I learned about history, cultures, and unbearable heartbreak. Although McFadden’s writing style is rather simple (short, non-complex sentences), and although the story flows easily, it was still not a one-sit read book for me. I had to take it in manageable doses with recognizable breaks in between, primarily because the subject matter was so dark and difficult. So in that sense, it was not an “easy read.”

Ultimately, I found the book very moving and would definitely recommend to people who are prepared for the emotional weight and enjoy historical fiction novels that delve into some of the worst of what people experience. Although the details were not abundant, any imagination brings you fully into the world McFadden is describing.

One of my biggest critiques about the book was that I felt almost that it was an effort to make a reader feel “all the feels.” In other words, at times, I felt assaulted by the one-bad-thing-after-another syndrome. Nonetheless, although it did, at times, feel a bit emotionally intentional, it did not feel fake or purely made up. Additionally, although Harlan’s life had a lot of downs, he also seems to have had plenty of ups, and, in any event, some people have very hard lives. I don’t think that McFadden’s account was unrealistic per se, just full of heartbreak. I cried no less than two full cries while reading this book, and as someone who tends not to cry at all during books, this is saying something. (“First, I cried. Then, I cried some more.”)

The other critique was that an entire storyline fell through the cracks. Although The Book of Harlan doesn’t have quite the narrative arc that you might be used to in reading novels, all of the apparent side-tracks seemed to have purpose once the story was complete. All of them, that is, except one. I definitely do not want to include spoiler here, but what I will say is, there is a set of characters that seems as if it should play a pivotal role and, not only does it not end up doing so in Harlan’s own life, but the reader receives no closure with regard to the storyline at all. Yes, of course, this is life - there are some things we never know - but this is also a novel about life. Readers have certain expectations, and I think the decision to not revisit this set of characters was a mistake.

Overall, a very good book with a lot of information, intrigue, and heart in it. On a 5-point system, I would give this book a solid 4 stars.

I read The Vegetarian second. The Vegetarian, as has been mentioned by many reviewers, is a difficult book to read. This is not because the language is difficult or because Kang’s writing style is opaque, but because, like Harlan, the subject matter is difficult.

Let’s see, loosely, The Vegetarian is about a woman in South Korea who suddenly decides to become a vegetarian. Although vegetarianism is not unheard of in South Korea at this time, it generally seems to be linked to a very logical reason---e.g., health reasons. In Yeong-hye’s case, it is based on a dream or set of dreams, which is baffling to literally every single person in her family, at times to the point of violence. Prior to this decision, Yeong-hye and her husband lived a very “normal” and plain life, which her husband preferred. As time passes and Yeong-hye remains vegetarian despite the entreaties of her family and health care professionals, the impact of Yeong-hye’s decision on her husband and other members of her family evolves into the story that is The Vegetarian.

One of the things I loved most about this book is the way it is told. It is not told from Yeong-hye’s perspective (save a few, momentary glimpses into her dreams), but, rather, from her husband’s, her sister’s husband’s, and her sister’s perspectives, in turns. Kang manages to bring Yeong-hye’s very deep struggle to life through the perspectives of these other characters, while simultaneously bringing to light their own reactions, struggles, and flaws.

The other thing I loved most about this book is how Kang delves into so many different psychological actions and reactions in her little book (under 200 pages!), while never weighing down the story with unnecessary exposition or irrelevant explanations. Rather, through the actions/reactions and thoughts of her various characters, Kang shows us manipulative/controlling behavior, abuse, neglect, sexual issues, obsession, perversion, judgment, righteousness, self-righteousness, sympathy, empathy, love, pain, loss, fear, and a complete mental break, as well as, I am sure, several others. As you can imagine, despite Kang’s fluid prose and pace, this can be difficult to read. (“But then, I was merely heartbroken.”)

I didn’t have any real critiques of The Vegetarian, although I understand and accept those of others. For example, although I understand that some people will have a difficult time accepting the likelihood of the reactions of some of the characters (namely, the husband and the brother-in-law), I felt that Kang’s exploration included the unusual people and the unreasonable reactions some people can have to extreme situations. I also felt that, although Kang is rather explicit at times with regard to some of the more difficult material, she did not delve so far into the details as to fall prey to the lure of the “gratuitous” scenes that many modern authors seem to rely on. Rather, it felt that the story that was told was the story that needed to be told in order to best convey the psychological impact Yeong-hye’s decision had on certain others.

Overall, I would give The Vegetarian a very strong 4 stars. It did not warrant 5 stars from me only because I tend to reserve 5 stars for books that, for some reason or another, simply “blew me away” or made me unreasonably happy or left an indelible impression on me, and The Vegetarian, as impressive and as good as I thought it was, simply did not fall into that category.

As between the two, although both were very good books, The Vegetarian wins. Although both told very “heart-ful” stories dealing with difficult issues in an accessible and admirable way, I was most impressed with Kang’s ability to explore so many different psychological issues and responses in such an evocative and moving manner.

Winner: The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Commentators:
nomadreader (Carrie D-L) :Carrie is an academic librarian by day and an avid reader of literary fiction and mysteries by night. She spends the rest of her time goofing off with her rambunctious and sweet 2-year-old Hawthorne (and her spouse), traveling, cooking, drinking wine, cooking, or watching documentaries (and most often doing more than one of those.) Since 2007, she has blogged at http://nomadreader.blogspot.com

Nicola : Nicola is a 44 year old British transplant who arrived on the shores of Connecticut 11 years ago and never left. A self confessed Americaephile with the eclectic reading tastes that can be expected from growing up on a diet of Thomas Hardy and Stephen King. Favorite book of the last 12 months - The Tsar of Love and Techno.


Nicola: I guessed that The Vegetarian would win the round. I felt it weighed heavier in the ‘worthy’ department, even though from a storytelling point of view, I prefered The Book of Harlan.

Carrie: I guessed The Vegetarian would win too. I didn’t manage to read The Book of Harlan (yet…), but I really liked what Alethia had to say about it in her judgment. It sounds like the kind of book that is exactly the one I would love, whereas The Vegetarian is one I appreciate, but I felt like I was supposed to love it more than I actually did.

Nicola: I was a vegetarian once, I kept it up for 10 years through my student years and beyond. It had a certain practical economy, but as I got older and developed more expensive tastes, I gave it up and came back to the meat eating fold. I was subjected to major parental eye rolling and general mocking, but nothing approaching the antipathy felt towards poor Yeong-hye.

Carrie: I was a vegetarian for five years as a teenager. It started as a deeply held conviction when my uncle joked about eating my new pet goldfish for dinner. It was my first pet, and it made me see the connection that animals we eat are the same as animals we adopt and care for. Over time, I realized the issue is far more complicated and my commitment to vegetarianism softened. Also, I really like eating meat. For many years after, I would go out for steak on the anniversary of not being a vegetarian anymore. I found the initial introduction of Yeong-hye and her vegetarianism interesting. For me, it was less about her vegetarianism, even though it’s importance was clear in the book’s title, than it was about how her husband talked about her only in the context of himself. It felt so much bigger than vegetarianism. I think that’s one of the central tensions in the book, and it’s made more clear with the title: is it the story of Yeong-hye or just her vegetarianism?

Nicola: I love books where the characters feel real to me and I can connect with them and have things in common with them. This book was too obtuse for me. We don't know the main character we only see her through the lens of other people in her life - her husband, her brother in law and her sister. This distance didn’t work for me, it was very hard (nay impossible to empathise for a character without a personality)

Carrie: I love books like that too, but I liked that Kang did something different here. I kept expecting Yeong-hye to get a chance to speak (perhaps a holdover from Fates and Furies?), and I was surprised she didn’t (really.) But the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the guts to tell a story in that way. Yeong-hye is the title character, except she’s not: the title character is one aspect of her. We hear about her from other people. As I read, I couldn’t help but think, what would she think about these things being said about her? I see how that could disappoint other readers, but I loved the distance because I thought it added up to something more profound that the story itself. It’s the kind of thing I like because I’m interested in novelists experimenting with form and structure, and this felt so different in an interesting way.

Nicola: I get that she decided to give up instead of endure like her sister does. and she was finally broken - tried to cut herself and ended up hospitalized when her abusive father tried to shove meat down her throat. But gee, what a great thing to read a book about mental disintegration without any redeeming qualities from the supporting characters

What a cast of vile horrible people, except for the sister who was pretty much driven by guilt that she was not abused by her father and didn't help her sister out more. I lacked connection to this book.

Carrie: You had a really strong reaction, and I think my response has similar roots, but I reacted quite differently. Perhaps because I wasn’t connecting with the characters, I was more interested in how they presented and represented Yeong-hye. I was also really interested in the storytelling choices Kang made. I didn’t read this novel immersed in the characters or what they were doing. Rather, I read as a reader immersed in what Kang was having her characters say and do. It’s a level of disconnect from the characters and story, but my mind was engaged in the structure.

Nicola: I liked the cultural insight of the single lidded / double lidded opinions of her husband, a reminder of subjective judgements of people dependant on culture. A bit like making a huge fuss about someone becoming a vegetarian in the first place.

Carrie: I found the insight into Korean culture fascinating in this book. Your comment makes me wonder if I would have had the same reaction to this book if it were written by a U.S. author in English and about Americans. I knew the author is a woman, and I did wonder as I read if I would find this book more maddening than compelling if a man wrote it. I think I would have. What’s subversive and fascinating from Kang would be something very different in another writer’s hands.

Nicola: This book compelled me to visit our neighborhood Korean restaurant for my favorite bim bop dish (with beef)

Carrie: Now you’re making me hungry! Let’s talk a little bit about The Book of Harlan.

Nicola: Full disclosure, I am a history buff. I love diving into a book time machine and a good book that evokes the feelings of a bygone age. I was in 30s Brooklyn listening to Jazz with Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. I breathed in that smoky bar atmosphere and could hear Satchmo on the trumpet. As the child of musicians Harlan finds his passion as a guitarist and with that he finds booze, weed and women. Harlan is a flawed individual who makes some very stupid decisions as a young man, and who hasn't been there?

I have never really thought about someone ordinary finding themselves suddenly caught up in a war they hadn’t given much thought to before. Poor Harlan in his naivety is stranded in Paris when Germany invaded in May 1940, he ends up in Buchenwald for the color of his skin. The story of his friendships and how he overcame the exceptional cruelty that he found there, was spellbinding in its cruelty and its humanity. Pared back to the bare minimum, Harlan becomes his best self and the best version of himself to others. After years of cruelty he is a shell of his former self when he is returned to his family. The way in which he scrambles back out of the abyss - finding a connection with physically wounded soldiers, and how he becomes their drug dealer was a bit of light relief for a moment... until he ends up in jail. Harlan did pack an awful lot into his life and by the end of the book we are moving at a breakneck speed to cram everything in. The final section of the book, although improbable, was very moving.

Carrie: I feel like I’ve read so many books about ordinary people getting caught up in World War II. It’s a fascinating thing to explore. Hearing you talk about Harlan reminds me of Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan, a book I really enjoyed, that is also about black musicians in Paris in World War II.

Nicola: Who can resist a story that is about the triumph of human spirit over bigotry, intolerance and cruelty? This is my kind of tale, one man’s journey through life. I’m taking marks off for how much it packs in in a relatively small number of pages. It became an unrelenting catalog of events that were not dealt with in the detail and depth that they deserved.

Carrie: I really liked Aletheia’s discussion of where history ends and fiction begins in her decision. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction based on real people.

Ultimately, I can’t say how I would have voted, but I thought Aletheia’s decision was well thought out, and I found myself agreeing with her. She does an admirable job wrestling with two very different books in a way that seems quite fair. Well done, Aletheia. The Book of Harlan may not have won, but I’m still going to read it.

I can’t wait to see what The Vegetarian will face off against in the next round.

First off I just have to say how fantastic the alt-ToB is! The judging and commentary have been wonderful so far, and I'm realizing how tough it is because I've honestly loved all the books that have gone head to head in these first three opening rounds!

(I do wish that each round had its own thread for ease of navigation and ease in commenting in previous rounds.)

I thought that the experience of reading The Vegetarian felt very foreign to me, and now I'm eager to read some other modern South Korean fiction to see what of that may be general national tone, and what is the truly unique character of this particular novel. I read that it was originally published in the three parts, and I can definitely see how these could be three separate novellas. All that said, I haven't stopped thinking about this book after months of distance, and that's why it would ultimately win this match for me, too.

(An aside, I am a vegetarian, and went in thinking it would be much more about the actual vegetarianism, but ended up thinking it was more about self-determination, what it looks like when someone defies societal norms, and how someone is shaped by others' perceptions.)

I also loved The Book of Harlan. I loved the history, and that it went to unexpected places. I was also bothered by a significant storyline being abandoned (I'd elaborate, but no spoilers!). I'm so glad I read this book, but the indelible mark that The Vegetarian left is what remains.

Once again, insightful judging and commentary. The Book of Harlan insisting you "feel all the feels" sounds like A Little Life.

I haven't cracked "The Book of Harlan" yet but knew "The Vegetarian" was going to be hard to beat! it has really stuck with me.

@Ehrrin - a favorite South Korean book in the last couple of years for me was Please Look After Mom which follows different adult children as they search for their missing elderly mother (in similar fashion to The Vegetarian without alternating; each POV receives only one chapter.)

"The Vegetarian" was such a mind-blowing experience. I appreciated the shift in styles from one section to the other, as the type of story seemed to change based on who was telling it. I really felt for Yeong-hye but also could see the frustration of the people around her who were legitimately worried about her harming herself (which is why it's interesting that the first two sections are from the husband who could only see her developing problems as an inconvenience, and her brother in law, who could only seem to view her from a aesthetic point of view, which seemed like a commentary on men and art and 'the muse.') I honestly remember the least about the third part even though the sister was much more sympathetic, so I don't know what it says that it's the monstrous men who stuck with me most. . .

The sister (In-hye?) was indeed the most sympathetic but I was struck in the third section with how she perceived that the doctors in the mental-health facility were sick of Yeong-hye. These are the caretakers that are supposed to be kind and safe for their patients and yet in her mind they were really there for her and other family members and they were as irritated as everyone else with the mentally ill. I couldn't decide if that was just her ego-centricity, her embarrassment and projection of irritation at Yeong-hye or if that is the norm in the culture.

I've said this a few times before, but I'll say it again here: The Vegetarian was not a book that I loved immediately. If I'd read it and had to judge it immediately, my opinion would have been very different than it is now. Eight months after I first read it, I still find myself thinking about it and talking about it. Very few books can leave such an impression, and I don't know that I've ever before had a book leave a "stealth" impression that becomes deeper and deeper over time.

I so agree with Carrie here: Perhaps because I wasn’t connecting with the characters, I was more interested in how they presented and represented Yeong-hye. I was also really interested in the storytelling choices Kang made.

It fascinated me to try to glimpse at the truth of Yeong-hye through the lenses of the others. We were given so little of her beyond her body language and actions - so few lines of dialogue, and all of them overwhelmed by the constant analyzing of her by others. It appealed to the puzzle-lover in me, as well as the reader.

I liked Harlan - well, I liked the book more than the character, at times - but it didn't stick with me the same way. I expected more fiction from it than what I got - it reminded me in some ways of Girl Waits with Gun, with the history somehow keeping the story at a remove.

poingu wrote: "Thanks Amy and Amber for bringing in an extended conversation about "poverty porn." I also really don't like that label for it very much--it sounds pejorative, and I..."

This discussion makes me feel a little better about my penchant for this type of literature. It makes me feel a bit voyeuristic and just a tad schadenfreude-y. Donald Ray Pollock, anyone?

Thanks, @Amy. I just went to add that book to my to-read list, and it was already on it. I'll have to move it up. :)

Wow, I didn't realize I was so behind on reading the judgments. September is flying. I only got to 5 of the books, so I won't have much to add. I'm glad Core of the Sun is still in, but sorry The Girls isn't. My only real disagreement is that The Portable Veblen was my least favorite book I've read so far this year. I didn't even bother finishing it because it grated so badly on my nerves. Irritating is the only word I have for it. I hope it isn't around much longer.

Amy wrote: "Yeah @Caroline, Sweetgirl's elevator pitch was "Winter's Bone" crossed with "True Grit" done by the Coens"

...and there's the line that clinches it for me - two of my all time favorite books! I've been turned off thinking Sweetgirl was 'suffering porn' (nothing will make me read A Little Life) but Winter's Bone and True Grit (Portis or Coen) both have characters so stoic and lacking in self-pity that suffering doesn't apply.

When I read The Portable Veblen I rated it five stars, and gave Sweetgirl four. But now thinking back, I would have guessed that I'd reversed those. Or actually, that I don't really have strong feelings about either at this point. Huh.

If I were exclusively judging the books by their covers, it would definitely go to Veblen. :)

Ha. I found the cover for Veblan so self-consciously "cute" that it was a relief to open it and start enjoying the characters and solid writing. The squirrel in the text was a lot more appealing to me than the one on the cover.

But I also am bored by the cover to The Nest, which apparently is one of its draws, so what do I know?

OPENING ROUND 4 The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian versus Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
Judge: Jeff Morgan : Jeff lives just outside New York City in Astoria, Queens, with three key destinations just a few minutes away: an awesome little bookstore (shout-out to Astoria Bookshop), a great bar for quiet reading and good beer, and his beloved New York Mets at Citi Field. Aside from those pursuits, Jeff makes his living by day as a technical/blog/content writer, and enjoys traveling with his fiancée (just over a year until the big day!)

2004
Me, stocking books as a fiction merchandiser at a Barnes & Noble on Long Island: “More copies of Midwives? I hate this book, and I hate Chris Bohjalian. I know we didn’t sell all those last copies.”

We had, but this remained a common (if unwarranted) thoughtstream that ran through my head in those days. Chalk some of it up to early mornings, more to the tedium of 8 copies of the same books rolling in like clockwork a few times a week, and my expectation that I’d soon be frustrated to the point of anxiety or rage by a search for somewhere to put them.

This wasn’t what I thought working at a bookstore would be like. Hell, this wasn’t even a job I was supposed to have after college. But until things changed, a disproportionate share of my existential ire ended up projected onto Chris Bohjalian.

2016
I came into this with a bit of baggage.

***

The opportunity to serve as a judge in the alt.TOB was and is one that I was excited about as soon as I found out about it – even before I knew which books I’d be reading and commenting on. Which is why I felt a sense of responsibility to quickly check myself after my gut reactions to my two assigned books: Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone (“Awesome, this has been on my list!”) and Bohjalian’s The Guest Room (“Shit.”)

We’ll be on a first-name basis with the authors moving forward for ease of typing.

So yes, it dawned on my pretty quickly that I was liable to approach The Guest Room with something close to a hate-read sensibility. I came around to a point where I mustered excitement – an author and even a type of book that I had written off for so long, now presented to me as an opportunity to broaden my horizons. It’s a big part of why I read in the first place – to break out of a comfort zone.

Chris builds The Guest Room around a premise that I found intriguing: Richard, a successful Manhattan banker, hosts a bachelor party for his younger brother Philip, with the intention of relatively good and relatively clean fun involving “dancers” – aka strippers – but nothing more. Again, that was the intention. The situation quickly spirals out of control, illicit sex and extreme violence ensue, and lives are changed forever. I’ve been privy to several bachelor parties without particularly enjoying them, and I was looking forward to a potentially incisive look at just how wrong these indulgences that we of relative privilege call normal can go, and what happens in the aftermath.

Chris further sets up his intriguing premise by alternating chapters from the point of view of a bachelor party attendee there against her will – Alexandra, one of the two female “dancers” who was hired by a friend of the bachelor (not, it should be mentioned, Richard). It is revealed that the dancers ostensibly intended for “reasonably clean fun” at Philip’s bachelor party were actually sex slaves from Russia. I respected the author’s intention to present things from all points of view and affected parties, not just the privileged male or the affluent family. And it should be noted any criticisms of the text are in no way intended to minimize the very real problem of sex slavery and human trafficking.

I eagerly started reading, making it through the first couple chapters very quickly – and feeling pretty successful in my goal of keeping an open mind. I admired Chris’s attention to detail and the quirks he painted into his portrait of Richard’s family: Yes, they were rich Westchester-dwellers, but they kept a cool vinyl collection!

I started to get a feeling in the back of my head not much later, though. Richard, his wife Kristen, and their daughter Melissa started seeming just a little too perfect, even in their quirks. In my continued quest to keep faith in Chris, I started waiting for the cracks to show – I expected (or hoped) that it would be revealed as a satire of that seemingly perfect, just-suburban-enough life. How can lines like “The house was a mannered world of very conventional domesticity” not be a setup?

But it was not to be… for Chris, that world existed not as a sheen to be broken through by the realities of marriage, parenthood, and adulthood, but as an object that exists, in the book’s world, solely to be shattered by a bad decision on Richard’s part. In essence, The Guest Room reads as if this family had not a care in the world prior to this mistake. Worse, character development was non-existent. Even for the few characters who had what seemed to be intended to be an “arc” – it was not what I would call development. Here’s why: each character hit exactly the notes that you would expect them to. There are no surprises. The way I saw it, character reactions and interactions in The Guest Room were what any reasonable person would like to think that their reactions would be.

This is not to say that The Guest Room isn’t highly readable: it is. Chris has an ear for realistic dialogue and the rhythms of conversations, and he sketches in settings really well. His pacing and structure are the work of a pro – I’m tempted even to say masterly, though I don’t think that word applies to this book. But in thinking back on the way he juggles several – not an extraordinary amount, but several – characters, points of view, locations, and situations, and builds a cohesive whole out of it while propelling the reader forward – the word comes to mind.

On the surface, it might seem noble of Chris to address the real-world problems that he does in his novel, in hopes of raising awareness. My problem with this kind of “fictional journalism,” however, is that it’s much more fiction than journalism. In fact, it’s not journalism at all, though I don’t doubt that The Guest Room was well-researched – in fact, (a few) sources are mentioned in the afterword. I see a very real risk, however, of too many people reading this book and thinking they’ve learned all they need to know about sex slavery. How it happens. How it can hit close to home. And – and here’s where the danger lies – patting themselves on the back for now knowing just how bad it really is, and for feeling all the right ways about it.

I think of The Guest Room as a cautionary tale for those who don’t even need it. It seemed meant to inspire head shaking, “tut-tut”-ing, and the easy satisfaction of knowing exactly who and who not to sympathize with. I know that there are readers for this, but it’s not me. I did not find this book to deliver at all on an intriguing premise and a promising setup.

I happily moved on to Beatlebone.

Full disclosure: my commitment to keeping an open mind on both these books was not only on account of my irrational pre-existing issues with Chris. I’m also a pretty intense Beatles fan, though I trusted this wouldn’t overly sway my opinion.

It’s no exaggeration that I felt – almost physically – lighter several pages into Beatlebone. Kevin writes a loose, elliptical, dialogue-heavy prose that exudes freedom. After The Guest Room, it was indescribably refreshing to be reading something that threw out the rulebook a bit, that had only a skeleton of a narrative, that I didn’t know what was going to happen in the next few pages, let alone by the end of the book.

The elevator pitch for Beatlebone is pretty easy, because anything beyond a five second description wouldn’t provide much help at all – it’s too intricate and weird a book for that. Post-Beatles John Lennon (circa 1978) goes to Ireland to try and find a private island he had purchased years earlier, in order to escape the ever-crushing pressure and publicity of life in New York and perhaps Scream out some of his frustrations.

Beatlebone is structured as a number of reasonably lengthy and loosely connected set pieces, shifting between prose and stage-direction-like dialogue chapters. There’s also a major shift towards the end, mentioned if not described in nearly every review of the book that I’ve come across. Kevin pulls whatever he needs to from his seemingly inexhaustible bag of tricks in order to tell the story that he wants to tell, which is, essentially, a lost man trying to find his way back somewhere – a destination even he might be unsure of.

If that sounds a bit too on-the-nose and heavy-handed – finding island as metaphor for finding self – that onus is on my own shortcomings of description, not Kevin’s or the book’s.Beatlebone wouldn’t dare settle for such a tidy narrative or neat analogue. The key is that, again, John himself often seems quite unsure of really what exactly he wants, beyond the surface goal of finding his way to the island. And even that eventually falls under doubt. Because really, who is ever sure of what they want?

Therein lies the genius of Beatlebone. Kevin creates “John Lennon,” the character – based on an absolute icon, one of the most recognizable names and personalities of our time – and makes him totally relatable. John is unsure of himself. He wonders if he might be going crazy. He misses his mum. He loves, and he hates, and he gets horny, and he gets angry – sometimes for no reason. He has an ego – perhaps even too big of one. Beatlebone doesn’t shy away from painting John alternately as an asshole and the sweetest man alive – which, by many accounts, he was (both) – but the trick lies in that it’s never less than completely relatable and vulnerable. It’s on a human level, not the level of cultural icon.

What also impressed me was the blatant disregard for genre shown throughout the book. At times, it was laugh out loud funny. One set piece essentially becomes a haunted house story in a brilliant exercise in mood. It asks the kinds of philosophical questions that make you sweat a little bit and look around a crowded subway car trying to momentarily lock eyes with someone so that you know you’re still here (true story). Hell, it’s even sentimental, but in the way that Lennon was sentimental – and, as described by the book, his entire line of ancestry is sentimental.

Finishing Beatlebone and looking back on it in relation to The Guest Room, I was struck by how much I related to the John Lennon of the former, while relating not at all to anyone in the latter (which featured many more characters ostensibly similar to me).

It’s never explicitly mentioned anywhere in Beatlebone, and it’s hard (but legitimately)-earned, but for my money, the underlying theme at the end of it all comes from one of the Beatles’ greatest gifts to the world: the assurance that “all you need is love.” Beatlebone is a gift as well, and is my easy choice to advance.

Winner: Beatlebone by Kevin Barry

Commentators:
nomadreader (Carrie D-L) :Carrie is an academic librarian by day and an avid reader of literary fiction and mysteries by night. She spends the rest of her time goofing off with her rambunctious and sweet 2-year-old Hawthorne (and her spouse), traveling, cooking, drinking wine, cooking, or watching documentaries (and most often doing more than one of those.) Since 2007, she has blogged at http://nomadreader.blogspot.com

Nicola : Nicola is a 44 year old British transplant who arrived on the shores of Connecticut 11 years ago and never left. A self confessed Americaephile with the eclectic reading tastes that can be expected from growing up on a diet of Thomas Hardy and Stephen King. Favorite book of the last 12 months - The Tsar of Love and Techno.

Nicola: I had never heard of this author before. I came with no baggage. I was immediately gripped, and as the Kirkus Review puts it, I found it ' A Compulsive readable train wreck’

At its best The Guest Room is a compelling, character driven, page-turner that offers up a fascinating dilemma without any easy ways out of it. It would be a great book club book to mull over with wine and a bunch of girl friends.

I wanted Richard to be forgiven, I did indeed believe his only true crime was to allow a bachelor party with a stripper in his own living room. I mean seriously. If my husband asked if he could host a bachelor party in our home with a bunch of people I didn’t know, the answer would be NO! Everyone was a little bit at fault here.

High art, this was not, The Washington Post had it down when describing it ‘more like an X-rated version of Law and Order.

Carrie: I read The Guest Room before the brackets were announced, and while I quite enjoyed it, I was surprised it was included in the tournament. As you allude to, it feels lighter than literary fiction. Granted, it feels heavier than popular fiction too.

I came in expecting it to lose, but I thought Jeff was too hard on The Guest Room in his decision. It clearly didn’t work for him, and while I would have been surprised to see it win, I was surprised he found the book “didn’t ring interesting, enlightening, surprising, or memorable.” I found it to be all of those things. He takes issue with characters acting as you would expect them to, but that’s one of the things I liked most about the book. The situation itself is so big--the murder of a human smuggler in a suburban guest room--that if the characters were big, it would lose all sense of reality. I found the biggest accomplishment of this novel was seeing how very real people react and respond in a dramatic situation. For me, this book was filled with tension. How would I act in this situation? I don’t know, but I could not stop thinking about what actions I would take if I were any of the characters.

I clearly like the book more than Jeff, but I also didn’t think it tries to do too much. If this book makes someone aware of the issue of human trafficking, or makes someone aware that it’s something that is around us even if we don’t see it, or hell, if it makes someone think twice about hiring strippers who are prostitutes, that’s a good start. If Bohjalian thought anyone reading this book would think reading a novel about sex trafficking, particularly innocuously titled “The Guest Room”, would think it’s the same as journalism and that there is research is done, then I sure missed that. I’m also a fan of novels based on current events and issues.

I listened to this book, and the only reason I picked it up was that my favorite narrator, Mozhan Marno, narrates it (along with Grace Experience). I really like multiple narrators, and I will listen to any book Marno narrates, so the listening experience may have made me enjoy this book more than reading it did. As I read Jeff’s verdict, I think it made me as mad as The Guest Room made him. We can just agree to disagree. Shall we talk about Beatlebone? I didn’t read it, and I know you weren’t a fan.

Nicola: First impressions, A jarring number of similes and metaphors in the first 50 pages. Gripped? More like I was sliding inexorable off the side of a cliff. Flowery language, some call it lyrical and poetic, I call it vague. You can keep your extravagant Irish lyricism, it's really not for me. Don’t get me even started on whining middle aged super successful man who can’t handle his home life and needs to escape it all. Try as I might, I just couldn’t find any sympathy for what our protagonist was going through. Was I meant to? I was having trouble focusing on what was actually going on.

It's a novel that takes a chance on form, its originality in that respect is part of its charm. Experimental format elevates it somewhat, buuuut, It's not one I will be recommending to anyone. Barry states in a review in The Atlantic that “I knew their voices (Lennon and Cornelius) were the engine of the novel” well, that's just not my bag baby, I like to know the inner workings of my characters, not just hear them pontificate with each other.

Could someone please explain to me why the author inserted himself in the middle of this novel? I don’t get it.

Do you have to be a John Lennon fan, or maybe a man, to get this? I find myself consciously applying the Bechdel test to most things I watch and read. Do you know the one? It asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added. I harshly judge anything where this doesn’t happen.

Carrie: I love the Bechdel test. To be honest, I don’t read a lot of fiction by men because I am surrounded by what what men think and do in most areas of my life. Fiction is one of the only places I can shift the balance and focus my energy on women telling stories. I’m also not a big fan of the Beatles, so this would not be a novel I’m likely to pick up on my own. I’m not surprised it was a novel I did not make it very far into. Nothing you or Jeff said about made me want to reconsider and pick this one up again. After a peek at my GoodReads friends, where I saw the dreaded words ‘magical realism’ applied to this book, I stopped feeling guilty and realized some books are not meant to be read by me. Jeff makes a strong case for why he liked it, and why it won, but neither convinced me to give this one a second chance.

Nicola: So entertainment and exposition on human trafficking, sex and consequence vs. an experimental format, rambling stream of consequence. Risk and innovation pitted against a ripping good yarn on a much trodden subject. I'll take the sex any day!

(I didn't love the end, (view spoiler)[when the bald headed baby guys came back to Bronxville and meted out their justice (hide spoiler)], it does tie the loose ends up nicely though!

Carrie: I too found the end of The Guest Room problematic. That’s where I expected Jeff to level some heavy criticism I could have gotten behind. It’s the part where the reality gave way to something unrealistic, and it felt forced. I was hoping for the ambiguity of real life rather than a finale, but I still enjoyed the book.

And now that today’s verdict is out, we know Beatlebone will face The Vegetarian. Those books seem like an intriguing face-off to me, and I look forward to discussing the judging with you.

I DNF 'The Guest Room' and though I don't agree with Kevin's characterization of people taking it as a substitute for journalism, the idea of a cautionary tale for folks who don't need it resonates with me and helps me put my finger on the distaste I sometimes have for this kind of 'ripped from the headlines' fiction. Bohjalian seems like a smart guy who cares deeply about these issues and he's obviously found a way to hit a chord with readers. I feel like I should try another of his books at some point to find out if the subject matter just wasn't for me. (It doesn't help that I had just read Marra's 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' which is similarly a book of researched fiction that deals with world events including sex trafficking, but worked so much better for me).

A side note, and I don't mean this to sound scoldy, but Chris Bohjalian is Armenian- American, it seems to be an important part of his identity based on the content of this book & the afternotes. Having the judge essentially declare that his Armenian last name is too hard to type (I assume it wasn't 'Barry' that was an issue) isn't cute, it's pretty off- putting. Just something for future judges (and editors) to think about.

I didn't read 'Beatlebone,' not sure if I will, but the judgment and commentary gave me a good idea why one person would like it and another wouldn't, which to me is a sign of good criticism.

Does somebody want to spoil the end of 'The Guest Room'? Mark it as a spoiler w/ big letters or message me if you don't want to write it here?

Caroline wrote: "Does somebody want to spoil the end of 'The Guest Room'? Mark it as a spoiler w/ big letters or message me if you don't want to write it here? "

Sure - here you go:
(view spoiler)[The sex slave, Alexandra, after hiding out a bit in NYC & getting freaked out when she loses track of her friend (who was killed when she went to get them new identity papers, and Richard ends up going to the morgue to ID her), heads back to Richard's house in search of a phone number that was written on a condom wrapper used in the daughter's bedroom. (WHY she would know it was that particular condom or suspect it's still available to be found is waved away - but she is desperate, and felt that Richard was a kind person, so whatever.) She's on the doorstep when Richard gets back from the morgue. His wife & daughter are out - they're all living back home, and he is basically out of his job & one friend of his brother's is blackmailing him bc when he went upstairs to have sex with the other sex slave in Richard's daughter's room - the important condom - he took video of Richard & Alexandra naked in the guest room.
Okay, so Richard brings Alexandra inside & talks her into handing over the gun she stole from the mob guy, tries to convince her she can go into witness protection. She's almost convinced, and wife/daughter get home, so they're standing there in the doorway trying to navigate the "Who's This?" "In My House?" stuff, and an ominous black-tinted-window-SUV rolls by. Richard shoves wife/daughter off into woods to hide, Alexandra shoves Richard into house to hide, gunfire exchanged (Alexandra got weapon back), Richard returns to door to check on Alexandra, now both are shot. Guys in car are / are not dead, can't remember.
Richard is dead. Alexandra is alive and will go into witness protection when she's out of hospital. Wife/daughter visit Alexandra for Moment of Grace. The End. (hide spoiler)]

Ohhh-kaaayyy.

And thanks, Melanie :)

One note on the commentary, Carrie - the mob guy/smuggler didn't die in the guest room - one was in the living room, another in the foyer. The guest room is where Richard brought Alexandra for their (potential) sexual encounter. So in making that the title, Bohjalian is, I think, reinforcing that despite the horrible crimes in the public parts of the house, it was Richard's transgression in the private space that is the engine of his own guilt & downfall. He stripped and kissed and (view spoiler)[was caught on film leading to the dumb rote blackmail subplot (hide spoiler)] in the guest room, so the blood-spattered living room is still, later, an easier place for him to sleep than in the clean-but-tainted guest room.

And that's as far as I'll go in defending this book. I agree with Jeff that the characters don't rise above their external identifiers, and it was irritating.

I haven't read Beatlebone yet but will pick it up at the library tomorrow and I hope to finish it before it comes around again.

I had read Midwives for book group several years ago and enjoyed it. I don't have children but the other women in the group did and they all though Bohjalian did a good job portraying the women characters and the situation. I think he's an earnest guy who writes very competent "issue books" unlike some other currently-popular authors who will not be named. It was a quick, entertaining read but one dimensional. None of the characters seemed real to me.