Tournament of Books discussion

OPENING ROUND 5 The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan versus Not Dark Yet by Berit Ellingsen
Judge: Mainon : Mainon's non-work life revolves around three questions: what to eat, what to drink, and what to read. On perfect days, you'll find her in a hammock (with a Kindle, a back-up Kindle, three hardback books, and a craft cocktail in hand), soaking up the Puerto Rico sunshine while her partner Christopher makes nachos. She discusses books on GR & Twitter as @bravenewbks.

Longer books often have an advantage over shorter books in a tournament like this. There’s more time to develop a sense of place, to let characters grow and breathe, and more room to arrange themes and ideas in new or unexpected ways.

That said, other than knowing that The Sport of Kings (“SOK”) was significantly longer than Not Dark Yet (“NDY”)—almost three times as long, actually—and was putatively about some horse-related sport (polo?), I didn’t know much about either book going in.

I did quickly realize (or remember) that it’s horse racing, not polo, that is the eponymous activity in SOK. And so, I began SOK expecting a darker, fictional version of Seabiscuit, and I braced myself for some sort of horrific racing injury (either to a jockey or a horse) that would ruthlessly destroy Triple Crown dreams. But for the first 400 pages, horses turned out to be less the focus of the story than its incidental backdrop.

Instead, SOK builds up to the story of Henrietta, a rich white daddy’s girl whose main role in the story is to have a lot of sex. I’m emphatically not slut-shaming here—it’s refreshing to have a female character who straightforwardly analyzes what she wants out of sexual encounters, then goes out and gets it—but I wish the character were a little more well-rounded. I was also troubled by murky consent issues: she starts initiating sex with grown men at age 14, which is almost certainly statutory rape; at some point we realize she’s sleeping with her hyper-racist father, Henry, though it’s not clear exactly when it started or how consensual it is; and she arguably rapes Allmon, a poor black man in Henry’s employ. The uncomfortably exploitative nature of her sexcapades with Allmon is never remarked upon, and their eventual relationship is highly romanticized. A skeptic might say Henrietta exists only to build tension between Allmon and Henry, thus advancing their character arcs at her expense. The author gives Henrietta almost no agency in her most climactic contribution: rather than trying to get pregnant, or even choosing to give birth knowing her baby would be mixed race, Henrietta: (1) discovers she’s pregnant; (2) doesn’t know who the father is, and (3) belatedly realizes she hasn’t been using birth control. (There’s an awful line about 29-year-old Henrietta thinking her sex organs were “like something she had invented—sui generis” and her period being “only a nuisance,” until “pregnancy shattered that illusion,” as though this woman who started seeing mares bred to studs at age 13 somehow failed to grasp the mechanics of reproduction. That fanciful ignorance is so absurd as to be unbelievable.) Nonetheless, Henrietta fulfills her narrative destiny of having a child, a sweet biracial baby whose bare existence will miraculously cure not just his grandfather Henry’s racism, but also Henry’s lifelong devotion to the cruel sport of thoroughbred racing. As a bonus, Henry will also, for the very first time, come to regret committing incest with Henrietta. So it’s all okay, because although neither Henrietta nor Allmon gets a happy ending, they’ve successfully changed the only thing that matters: the rich white man’s opinions. Cue sarcastic applause.

I moved on to NDY, which started off with what seemed like standalone stories in wildly disparate settings. Chapters 1–4: man moves into isolated cabin, doing a survivalist off-the-grid kind of thing, then applies for the space program’s mission to Mars. At first this seemed like a non sequitur, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. What is space travel if not the ultimate isolation, and a serious test of self-sufficiency? Chapter 5: soldiers in the desert watch two boys plant an IED; one of them fires a bullet that explodes the bomb. Chapter 6: a man takes a job photographing owls in a lab, documenting some kind of scientific study.

Watching these three stories come together to form the rich backstory of a single character was, for me, an intensely rewarding experience. Everything about who the man was, and had been, and would be, made a perfect and sometimes terrible sense. Yet as much as I felt I knew him (because I knew so much about him), he never became predictable. That is one of the supreme accomplishments of fiction: to develop a character whom we think we know, and who yet can surprise us.

One of my favorite passages was—in another seeming non sequitur that makes more sense later—written from the point of view of an ancient monk performing rites of self-mummification. It was horrendous and beautiful and profound, all at once, in the tradition of some of Darren Aronofsky’s best film work. Just as Requiem for a Dream made me feel (much to my surprise) that I knew a little bit of what it felt like to be strung out on drugs for days on end, NDY made me think I knew a little bit of what it felt like to devote myself willingly to dying.

He didn’t know how the end would come, but imagined it like falling asleep without noticing, which he had done all his life, or as something common, yet unstoppable, as the first snow in winter, or when the ice melts in spring.

Stylistically, SOK is beautiful but overwrought, suffused with purple and endless sentences, astonishing surfeits of adjectives and herds of metaphors, similes, and analogies rushing headlong and pell-mell down the narrative slope. (In case you can’t tell, that sentence was my attempt to imitate the style I’m describing.)

A bird trills from the southern shore and the northern shore echoes the call, near intimates but never intimate, now a single lush billow of wind suggests rain and a muggy wet woolen is tossed over the shoulders of the land, the river valley swaths herself in wedding gauze, misty evening hums, this is a shroud or a mother’s shhhhhhhh, a droning prayer, this river is a lullaby and a dirge, this river is a promise made in daylight but upheld by night, and soon there will be no color because the night is coming on…

There are still two more clauses in that sentence before it ends. Is it lovely and evocative? Surely. Would it be any less lovely and evocative if it gave the reader a place or two to rest her thoughts before plunging onward? I think not.

NDY shares some of those same characteristics, though to a lesser degree. In fact:

Now he had the same feeling of sudden, unexpected discovery, and started running down the fir-shaded hill, stubbed one boot against a stone, stumbled in the soft, rain-sodden ground, nearly fell, and slid the remaining distance to where the grass-covered slope ended in a short overhang of roots and straw. He darted to the first plants risen waist-high and crawled between two, prostrating himself on the damp, turned bed. His face pressed against the soil, which was neither red nor brown like bole when it stained his tattered cheek…

Tricksy hobbitses! Half of that paragraph is from SOK, and half is from NDY. Can you tell which is which?

In fairness, there are probably more passages of beautiful, striking (though deeply purple) prose in SOK than in NDY. And the constantly speechifying black jockey who rides Hellsmouth is one of my favorite characters in recent fiction, so SOK gets mad points for that. Allmon’s backstory is also searingly and poignantly written. One review I read afterwards posited that there were several really great short stories or novellas that could have been excerpted from SOK. I agree. But some gorgeous descriptions and a dazzling minor character were faint recompense for the overarching nonsense, over-the-top racism, and painful awkwardness I touched on above. In fact, at one point, I realized that I was finding excuses NOT to keep reading SOK. (Like … laundry! Or washing dishes! What?) As someone who usually reads ten books a month or more, I usually have the opposite problem. (Meaning there are not many good reasons for me to stop reading once I’ve started. Dirty dishes are never one of those reasons.)

In the end, SOK is less haughty thoroughbred than gilded carousel mount: it’s beautiful, elaborate, and it achieves its motion via complex machinations that I can’t fully appreciate. For all that, it’s still a plastic, decorative, almost gaudy attraction that ultimately fails to transport me. I choose to stick with the frisky mare that never quite goes where I want, but delights in showing me unexpected landscapes. In this particular horse race, the sprinter bests the marathoner.

NDY wins, not by a nose, but by two or three lengths at least. ♠

Winner: Not Dark Yet by Berit Ellingsen

Commentators:
Kristin-Leigh :Kristin-Leigh explains mobile app marketing to tech brands by day, reads compulsively by night. She’s trying to tackle 125 books before the end of the year and is particularly focusing on female authors and first-time novelists. Recommend her your favorite book about haunted houses/weird-sentient-buildings-and-landscapes!

Sarah Tittle After a career in NYC publishing, Sarah relocated to Minneapolis to start and grow a family, who are the only people she loves more than books.

Sarah: Hey! How do we do this thing?

Kristin-Leigh: I was rereading some of the ToB commentary from earlier this year and it seems like we’re responsible for a pretty straightforward response to the judgment - whether we agreed with the judging in terms of how fairly each book was treated, whether our favorite pick won, other thoughts rabbit trailing off that & etc!

Sarah: I can just jump in, I guess. Because I was really surprised that Not Dark Yet was chosen over The Sport of Kings. I think SOK is possibly one of the most profound books I've read in a long time. Highly flawed, sure, but worth eliminating right out of the gate? The writing is incredible, the plot twisty and turny in all the right ways. Big picture, little picture, it's all there. What did you think?

Kristin-Leigh: Oh, I totally agree - I thought our round 5 judge was really tough on SOK! My reading of Henrietta especially was very different. I'm referring specifically to the characterization of her as a racist sexpot - I'd say she's pretty clearly a victim of abuse who her father views as his property, and working through her racist upbringing and coming to the conclusion that her father is wrong is a pretty big element of her story arc. There’s a lot more to her ~30 year span as the point-of-view character than sex!
I'd also disagree that she rapes Allmon - I saw their relationship as consensual, if unequal and full of racial baggage (maybe the judge was making an argument that it's impossible for any relationship to be consensual when there are such social dynamics at play?)

Sarah: Morgan pulled in so much stuff: racism, sexism, the history of Kentucky, the whole bit about Louisville (Lexington?) and Cincinnati being opposite sides of the river, the river itself, the history of horseracing.

Kristin-Leigh: And NO character was 100% likable or morally good. As soon as Henry, the likable little boy whose dad didn't understand him, threw his mother to the proverbial wolves I knew I needed to buckle up.

Which I would lay in contrast to NDY, which for me was much simpler in terms of characters fitting "types" that I already knew how to react to.

Sarah: NDY was a totally different kind of book. I read it at a cabin and there was a storm one night and the power went out. I was lying in bed, hot because the fan wasn't blowing, and there was no water because it was a sump pump, so I was lying there feeling like it was the end of civilization. And then I realized I could cool off by going for a swim in the lake that was 20 feet away and I felt so ridiculous. But NDY spoke to that part of me, that wanted electricity more than a jump in a cool lake to make me comfortable.

Kristin-Leigh: Yes, NDY feels sci-fi and otherworldly in the way that a power outage at a lake retreat does. That sounds sarcastic but I mean..."What if the power went out someday and didn't come back?" is a question that's hard not to consider in those moments, and it’s definitely one of those kind of novels. The early stages of the end of the world.

Sarah: Exactly. Just close enough to home.
And I mostly liked the prose, or at least the style. Reminiscent, to me, of Canada by Richard Ford. Spare is okay if there's a good story to hang it on. But this felt meandering to me. Honestly, I felt like I was watching a foreign movie without subtitles. It was so distant and cold.

Kristin-Leigh: Ha, that's a good comparison!
If you read NDY straight through there are a lot of chapters that could either be atmospheric and interesting mood-setters...or straight filler, kind of like the artsy scenery montages set to music in the middle of a love-it-or-hate-it Sundance darling.
I remember there being a chapter that was almost entirely devoted to the protagonist paying for a meal at a restaurant - handing his card over, signing the credit receipt, etc.

Sarah: OMG, yes, There was that scene when he was describing all the food at the astronaut training center. What? It seemed as if the author was filling a word count quota.

Now, I have to admit that SOK went a little off the deep end at times as well. In my editor's mind's eye I was slashing entire pages with my little red pencil. But at least the overflow was readable and rhythmic. Fun to read aloud. I think that we need to encourage folks to read The Sport of Kings. I have a friend who picked it up, without me even recommending it, and she loved it. I didn't hate Not Dark Yet, I just thought it didn't hold water next to its opponent.

Kristin-Leigh: I think it's important to note that while horseracing factors in heavily as a motif, it really is more of an aesthetic thing - the book is "ABOUT" privilege and racism and the way the proverbial sins of the forefather are visited upon one's descendants. It's a heavy book and it does a lot! Way harder to nail down than NDY.

Sarah: There's a great quote at the end of the book: “Some men are born to be kings and some are content to be jewels on the king’s sleeve. Maybe it’s in the blood.”

Kristin-Leigh: I thought it was SO INTERESTING reading all of these thoughts about blood and breeding and animal worth juxtaposed against portraits of these people who want to apply these concepts to human beings. Was Henry broken by his father like a thoroughbred horse?

Sarah: I would say the “breaking” happened to Henrietta. He basically treated her like a racehorse, “breeding” her in the most horrific way possible, to keep the bloodlines.

Kristin-Leigh: I disagreed with even the basic assertions of the verdict on SOK - for instance Henrietta is a victim/martyr to her father (view spoiler)[the rapist who won’t allow her to see her mother for even a few weeks! (hide spoiler)] and I didn’t see Henry repent of his racist views. I felt like we read two different books.

Sarah: Henry reminded me of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. And also King Lear.

Kristin-Leigh: Ha, yes. He was somewhat humanized again in his grief (I was reminded briefly of young Henry, who I really liked for a while) but he was still the same complicated person who did a lot of terrible things and had a lot of entitlement.

Sarah: I loved how you start out loving Henry and then end up hating him. When he betrays his mother he changes. He starts ordering Maryleen around realizes how much power he has in his world, even for a little kid. I could read this book all over again and find so much more in it. The descriptions of Cincinnati alone. Brilliant.

Kristin-Leigh: Yes! He goes from a little boy who sees the injustice in the way his father treats his mom like a decorative object (can we talk about how John Henry never even bothers to learn sign language??) to a man who does the same to his own wife (who at least is able to file for divorce and escape), and then to his own DAUGHTER with a super sexualized version of the domineering crap his own father did. It’s just so intricately wrought.

Sarah: SOK does have a bad cover though. Looks like a Dick Francis novel.
Although NDY has probably most hideous cover I've ever seen. Self published?

Kristin-Leigh: I don't think it's self-pubbed but it is small press. The cover of NDY made me think it would be some kind of “battle with a space golem” adventure. But it turns out I just like to project monster faces onto spooky galaxy fog images! For reference: http://i.imgur.com/i7I7JDf.png

Sarah: I don't think I even looked at it that closely. I read on my iPad, so I only had to see it in miniature. It looked like marbleized paper, like a DIY project.

So I think I need to go to bed. This was SUPER fun. I am looking forward to Small Bombs vs Evel Knievel!

Kristin-Leigh: Yeah!! Those two I really liked, both, so it should be a more friendly chat, at least on my end. ;)
Good night!

Sarah: Same here. Makes it harder, too though. 'Night.

despite the many raves on Sport of Kings, I just couldn't get into it and abandoned it around the 120pg mark (Henry is still a child). I found the writing lovely and evocative but there were only so many references to "verdant green rolling hills" that one needs in the same book. I could see how this could feel a little mashed together.

Mainon had a footnote that I didn't include as well about how difficult it was to place the time of the book and I would agree... I kept thinking "wait, are we at the turn of the century?" with John Henry's bizarrely antiquated philosophical and political arguments... they felt like contemporaries of the Scopes trial.

Meanwhile, I LOVED Not Dark Yet! I keep thinking about it and might return to give it the full five stars because the slim book keeps rising in my memory.

Amy wrote: "Mainon had a footnote that I didn't include as well about how difficult it was to place the time of the book and I would agree... I kept thinking "wait, are we at the turn of the century?" with John Henry's bizarrely antiquated philosophical and political arguments... they felt like contemporaries of the Scopes trial. "

I think that was intentional - the idea that there are these characters who act modern and egalitarian when watched but behind closed doors behave like 18th century plantation owners is really interesting to me. It's not like there aren't people with beliefs like this walking around today (which we're all too aware of lately in the US). I'm not sure the depiction was 100% successful, but I don't blame Morgan for making the attempt!

Two books I haven't read, and I thought the judgment did a wonderful job of making its case:

"Would it be any less lovely and evocative if it gave the reader a place or two to rest her thoughts before plunging onward? I think not."

This is a great way to characterize the kind of prose I think of as 'slippery' ("The Girls" has moments like that, too, honestly, though I liked enough of the prose that I didn't get granular in critiquing it.)

But then the commentators made me interested in 'Sport of Kings' again so I don't know! Maybe I'll try it in audiobook where the size won't be as intimidating.

Great job again by judge and commentators. This is such a cool discussion to be part of.

I haven't read NDY yet but did struggle through SOK. When I say I struggled through it, I don't mean it was poorly written or hard to understand. It was so painful to read, I had to take frequent breaks.

I can't disagree with anything Judge Mainon says and yet I got so much out of this book! I can't even begin to enumerate all the issues the author touched on. Line breeding/incest, class/race privilege, the cruelty of the horse racing industry .... And I loved Morgan's name check of Ruffian. As soon as Henry began calling Henrietta "Ruffian," I knew things would not end well for her. For those of you unfamiliar with the racehorse Ruffian, check Wikipedia for the full story. I will never be convinced her owners/trainers didn't know she would break down in that race.

I didn't read The Sport of Kings. I might now. My favorite book about horse racing is Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley. But I loved Not Dark Yet. I found it original and moving and oh so subtle on the climate change. I am happy that it won this round.

I laughed over the book cover discussion ... both the Dick Francis mention because I had the same sense of recognition as well as Kristin-Leigh's universe-monster!

This is the kind of commentary that makes me want to read both books!

The reactions everyone is reporting about these two books is so interesting! Another wonderful round of both judging and commentary!

I had the opposite experience from the judge--i couldn't put Sport of Kings down, but had to force myself to finish Not Dark Yet. I didn't even dislike NDY really, but just didn't feel compelled by it. I found it interesting, and liked the lovely sentences, but just didn't feel very connected.

SOK, though, had me constantly on the edge of my seat and my nerves. Some parts were really tough to read, but I thought it was a wonderful book.

I also sometimes got 'lost in time' with SOK, but I agree with someone above (sorry; can't look while I'm in the middle of a comment!) that speculated it was intentional to show the inside vs outside face with racism.

I'm sorry SOK won't continue, but I am loving the tournament!

Ehrrin wrote: "I had the opposite experience from the judge--i couldn't put Sport of Kings down, but had to force myself to finish Not Dark Yet."

That was my reaction too, Ehrrin! I cut a lot of my negative commentary @ NDY for use in the next round it's in, but I really found it a slog to read and didn't find any of the characters realistic. I'm firmly in the hater camp on that one, and this judgment broke my heart a little bit - both because I loved SOK so much, and because I thought it was almost a given that NDY would be knocked out by whatever it went up against!

Amy wrote: "despite the many raves on Sport of Kings, I just couldn't get into it and abandoned it around the 120pg mark (Henry is still a child). I found the writing lovely and evocative but there were only s..."

I got a bit further than you, I think (I was listening and the CDs were due back at the library & I thought: "is it worth it to take these inside, find the portable CD drive, burn them to my computer, and listen to all these remaining hours of this book?" Answer: nope.) Henry was still a child & had already hit that 'mom under the bus' crisis point & I didn't want to dwell in his world any longer.

Haven't read NDY but was more intrigued by the conversation here about it than I expected based on the book description.

I haven't read either of these books (although the commentary makes me want to try TSOK), but can I just say how envious I am of judge Marion's life, if being in a hammock in the Puerto Rican son with stacks of books, a craft cocktail, and a plate of nachos is a frequent occurence?

Excuse my typo; I know it's Mainon, not Marion, but my phone has an overzealous autocorrect. And since I'm on my phone I don't know how to just edit my comment.

see also, son for sun

Thanks to Kristin-Leigh and Sarah for adding their commentary and defense of SOK. One of my favorite things about this tournament is that it's made me grow as a reader by challenging me to read outside of my comfort zone. I would never have read NDY if not for this tournament. And while I found myself enormously irritated with portions of SOK, the exercise of thinking through and explaining why I hated them was very educational. And, as there were some truly great moments in SOK (see my stolen comment above about it encompassing several short stories and novellas that I would adore), I'm delighted that it found such stalwart fans among its readers. Cheers!

I do want to respond to a few points you guys made above, because I think it's always great to understand how other people approached a text, and I'm curious to know more about some of the areas where we disagreed over something other than personal taste.

1. Kristin-Leigh, you said you "didn’t see Henry repent of his racist views." I felt that came across in the following passage:

Finally, Samuel in his arms. It was true that at first he'd seen only his color--a dark shock, an intrusion. But day after day, the more he stared at this child, the more he found the old revulsion shifting... Admit it, Henry, you stand before a mystery, an immensity, and inside [Samuel's face] you will find something previously unnamed, something that until now you never wanted to know."

If you read that differently, I'd be interested to discuss.

2. Because, as Amy mentioned, I really struggled to believe SOK was set in the present, I was really interested in your proposition that this was intentional, that "there are these characters who act modern and egalitarian when watched but behind closed doors behave like 18th century plantation owners." Could you give me some examples of Henry acting modern and egalitarian when watched? I came away with this impression that he was just the most incredible over-the-top racist, not just unapologetic but proselytic about it, and don't remember him ever hiding or downplaying it. But I freely admit I may have missed things that gave that impression, so I'd love to be pointed to some.

3. Re: what I called Henrietta's arguable rape of Allmon, I reread the description of their initial encounter several times, and am pretty convinced that if you put the same conversation in a more familiar modern context, like if she were the white female director of a company and he the young male intern, we would have less problem identifying it as rape.

First, she corners him when he's alone, at his place of employment while he's working. She asks, "Do you know what I want?" and then speaks to him explicitly about what she likes to do in bed. He freezes and says nothing. Then she sits in his lap, grinds on him, takes his hands, "forcing them up her shirt." When he doesn't do what she wants, she "placed her fingers over his and forced them down hard." Throughout this whole scenario he neither says anything nor seems to do anything of his own volition. Then she says something that could (arguably) be interpreted as threatening: "But trust me when I say I don't like to wait too long." So the woman who hires him sexually assaults him in his place of work, tells him in graphic detail the kind of sex she wants to have, and literally forces him to touch her... then strongly implies that she will be unhappy if he makes her wait "too long."

I find it really hard to construe that encounter as consensual in any meaningful way. I definitely did not mean to employ that employer/employee relationships can never be consensual, with or without racial baggage. I apologize that I wasn't clear in my judgment about what I was saying; hopefully this helps explain where I'm coming from.

I am really appreciating the thoughtful discussion in these threads, you guys, and especially the serious discussion of SOK, which I love. I am all in for big, meaty, panorama-type books (Hello, Barkskins & Queen of the Night), especially when they tackle big, meaty subjects (Barkskins) or have opera-level amounts of drama (Queen) and especially when they're written by women (Barkskins), and SOK hits all those sweet spots. I would have advanced SOK on audacity, seriousness and magnitude, even if I didn't find it a profound and admirable attempt to wrestle with America's racist history. And the writing--I guess one person's purple is another's glorious and hypnotic.

The one issue I pondered that I haven't seen brought up was cultural appropriation. Did anyone have thoughts on this aspect of the book? I tend to feel like it's OK to write out of your ethnicity but for crap's sake at least please get beyond stereotypes and create full-throated characters with agency(paraphrasing a quote from Omar Musa in this thoughtful article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Did Morgan do right by her AA characters? Henry and Henrietta were both so hideously deformed that Allmon and his family and Scipio and the jockey all seem downright heroic by comparison. Did these lives move beyond stereotype? Did they present a rich and accurate (and heartbreaking) portrayal of racism?

I'm gonna be thinking about this book for a long time.

Mainon wrote: "Kristin-Leigh, you said you "didn’t see Henry repent of his racist views." I felt that came across in the following passage:
Finally, Samuel in his arms. It was true that at first he'd seen only his color--a dark shock, an intrusion. But day after day, the more he stared at this child, the more he found the old revulsion shifting... Admit it, Henry, you stand before a mystery, an immensity, and inside [Samuel's face] you will find something previously unnamed, something that until now you never wanted to know."
If you read that differently, I'd be interested to discuss."

Hey Mainon! I borrowed the alt-TOB books from the library so I don't have a copy to refer to anymore for exact quotes, but there are a couple times after Samuel's birth and naming that Henry reflects on him being "the wrong color" but still very much very much of Henrietta (and therefore very much of him) - my reading was that Henry was still very much racist in his dealings with Allmon and with [the housekeeper/author whose name I no longer recall] but that he viewed Samuel as an exception. Sort of an "I can accept my family member flaws and all" take, like the way he accepts his racing fillies despite their disappointing, personally-devastating female-ness.

Thanks for the thoughtful remarks, I'm honored you took the time to respond so in-depth! I hope you don't feel attacked by my disagreement with your take - I recognize that reading a novel is a very subjective experience, and it's possible to come away with something very different than even the author themselves intended (death of the author and all that, etc etc). I don't have time to dig into the other stuff right now, but I wanted to at least give an off-the-top-of-my-head response to the first piece of your post!

Jan wrote: "The one issue I pondered that I haven't seen brought up was cultural appropriation. Did anyone have thoughts on this aspect of the book? "
thanks for the article Jan - I appreciated that it didn't have a pat answer or opinion but rather struggled with it as I think this is such a tough one! personally I am glad SOK has the AA points of view that it has because otherwise it would not be a book I even cracked, however since I didn't read past Henry's childhood, I couldn't weigh in on how representative the representations actually were. I did love the cook's part as a strong, self-aware woman shaken by the child Henry.

Amy wrote: "I did love the cook's part as a strong, self-aware woman shaken by the child Henry. ..."

She returns in a most wonderful way later in the book. Not that I'm trying to tempt you into making another go at the book or anything, ha ha.

And thanks for your other thoughts too.

Opening Round 6 Daredevils by Shawn Vestal versus The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
Judge: Ester : Ester is an appellate lawyer based in New York. She uses book shopping and talking about books as stress relief.

The Association of Small Bombs begins with the story of a small bomb, a “flat, percussive event” in a crowded Delhi market, that results in the death of two young brothers, “the sum total” of their parents’ children. These opening pages are staggering; the writing beautifully captures the chaos of a bustling marketplace torn asunder in the middle of a day and the onset of unspeakable guilt and grief for the parents of the deceased boys, Vikas and Deepa Khurana.

The first half of the novel explores the theme of grief as compellingly as I have ever read. Vikas, a deeply self-absorbed man, can’t help but blame himself for the death of his sons because he sent them to the market to pick up an old TV from the repair shop, which reflected on the family’s poverty. While his love for his sons is sincere, you cannot help but feel that his sadness is enhanced by what he feels to be a sense of shame and exposure. Deepa, on the other hand, responds with anger and rage directed at a man who (as the reader knows) is wrongfully arrested and jailed for the crime. His factual guilt or innocence is immaterial to Deepa, who fruitlessly seeks comfort in retribution. The inability of Vikas and Deepa to deal with the loss of their sons—and the variety of self-destructive and misguided coping mechanisms that each of them adopt—is my favorite aspect of the gorgeous first half of this novel.

The other main character of The Association of Small Bombs is Mansoor Ahmed, the boys’ best friend who was with them at the time of the bombing but survived the attack. Unlike the Khuranas, Mansoor’s parents are wealthy and Muslim, which drives much of the tension between the families. While the Khuranas resent Mansoor for surviving, the Ahmeds blame the Khuranas for the trauma that Mansoor experienced. The tension between the families is at once familiar and fascinating. But Mansoor is cursed as a survivor—his inability to cope turns him into a recluse and his feelings of alienation take on new forms after 9/11, which occurs while he is in college in the United States. Mansoor’s inner life is tormented and troubled and drives much of the narrative in the second half of the book.

Where The Association of Small Bombs fell apart for me was in the introduction of a number of other characters—including the terrorists who planned the bombing at the beginning of the book as well as other radicals who appear in the latter half. Although I was originally interested in the idea of what drives radicalism, by midway through the book, I was committed to the characters I had already met. The introduction of yet another major character two thirds of the way into the book was frustrating, at best. The jumpiness of the narrative—between time and space—became more of a distraction as more and more characters were introduced. The last few pages are a whirlwind of conclusions to too many different stories, and by the time I reached the last sentence, I was certain that I did not care about them all.

Daredevils was, in many ways, a much easier read than The Association of Small Bombs. The narrative is straightforward and sincere. The writing is beautiful and easy. The plot moves along at a predictable, but satisfying, trot and the ultimate climax of the book is thrilling even if it depends a little too much on slapstick. My frustration was largely with the missed opportunities in characterization.

The novel focuses largely on two Mormon teenagers, Loretta and Jason. Loretta is a 15-year-old girl raised by fundamentalist Mormon parents. At the beginning of the novel, “she wants to fly into her future” and escape from her father’s “stern but halfhearted righteousness” and her mother’s “constant acquiescence.” After she comes home late one night, Loretta’s parents abruptly marry her off to Dean Harder, a patriarch within their small polygamist community. Loretta becomes Dean’s second wife and moves in with Dean, his first wife Ruth, and their children. Jason is a 17 year old boy, raised by “regular” Mormons. Jason is bored with his life and fascinated by Evel Knievel and his brushes with death and adventure. Dean is Jason’s uncle, the “black sheep” of the family because of what everyone understands to be his embrace of polygamy. After Jason meets Loretta, he falls in love with her (or at least thinks he does) and dreams of rescuing her from what he understands to be her predicament.

Loretta, the most compelling character in the book by degrees of magnitude, is also the most frustratingly portrayed. Although she is the nominal protagonist, we get only a sliver of Loretta’s interior life. At one point, Loretta says that she does not want to be what men want her to be. Yet the entire book is focused on Loretta through the eyes of men as an object of sexual lust, including chapters told from her point of view. It is a bizarrely limited characterization for an interesting character. In part, this is because Loretta sees that sexual lust is a weakness in men that she can exploit. But in the last third of the book, the author seems to portray this darkly—that Loretta’s “use” of other men to facilitate her escape was cruel in some way. I was not impressed by this narrative turn. I wanted to know Loretta as more than an object of someone else’s lust, and I wanted to see her liberation be driven by something other than a manipulation of sexual desires.

The characterization of Jason was much more cohesive, especially in the first half of the novel. However, once Jason meets Loretta and becomes obsessed with “saving” her, my empathy and curiosity reached its limits. Nor was I moved by the interludes told from the point of view of Evel Knievel—the masculinity reflected in these chapters is of a type that has been revered and explored over and over again. The stories of girls like Loretta have not been, and I wish that it had been told more compellingly here.

I chose to advance The Association of Small Bombs simply because it made a larger impact on me. I originally read it when it was released in March, and despite my frustrations with the second half, the first half has stayed with me. Over the months that followed, I found myself picking it up from the shelf and rereading the opening pages. I have even recommended it to friends. Although I left Daredevils feeling frustrated, that initial feeling has never metastasized into something more. The Association of Small Bombs is the type of book that reviews like to call “ambitious,” which is usually a back-handed compliment. This book is indeed ambitious—it seeks to capture the impact of a bombing from every angle, including the victims, the survivors, the perpetrators, and the criminal justice system. In the end, the novel is too short to take on all of these stories well, but the goodwill built from the sublime first half of the novel is enough to advance it.

Winner: The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

Commentators:
Kristin-Leigh : Kristin-Leigh explains mobile app marketing to tech brands by day, reads compulsively by night. She’s trying to tackle 125 books before the end of the year and is particularly focusing on female authors and first-time novelists. Recommend her your favorite book about haunted houses/weird-sentient-buildings-and-landscapes!

Sarah Tittle : After a career in NYC publishing, Sarah relocated to Minneapolis to start and grow a family, who are the only people she loves more than books.

Kristin-Leigh: I don't envy this judge because I felt almost exactly the same about both books. I liked them, thought they both at least glanced at interesting/current themes, and I had problems with at least one narrator in each book. I’d end up going with my gut and then having a hard time defending my choice! I’m happy about Small Bombs taking the win this time because some of its situations were more surprising (and even delightful!) to me...but I wouldn't have felt bad about either pick. Did you agree with the judgment?

Sarah: I agree but not for the reasons she gave. I enjoyed Daredevils more--it's an easier read, almost like a YA book, but with some knock-your-socks off language. But somehow Small Bombs just feels more...important. Maybe more timely. I don't know of any book (and, yikes, not that I've read every book) that follows the explosion of a bomb and its aftermath. I mean, the explosion of a bomb in India that wouldn't even make the news in the US. I thought that was brilliant. But I didn't enjoy it as much. Also, I don’t mean to dismiss Daredevils as a YA novel. I think it's all about faith, and how people lose and find it.

Kristin-Leigh: Daredevils had pacing issues for me. The Knievel chapters really slowed things down - though I know some people really enjoyed them!

Sarah: I totally agree. Interesting how they were problematic just like in Sport of Kings.

Kristin-Leigh: I think it's difficult to change narrator/style so abruptly and hold momentum; it's more remarkable to see a book do it RIGHT than badly. That said, I really liked Jason and Loretta’s alternating chapters. It was really interesting to watch that kind of reverse fairy tale of the would-be rescuer with unrealistic expectations slowly learning that his damsel has her own personality and escape plans. He objectifies her just as much as Bradshaw does, as we come to realize, just in a different way!

Sarah: I really dug into the religious critique of this book. The author kept mentioning "faith." And Loretta and Jason are both struggling against the faith traditions they've been brought up in. I think Evel was supposed to represent some kind of false idol. And that he is worshiped blindly by people. So that was a device to thread together Mormonism and its other forms. So when the "real" Evel shows up, he might be a phony. He's certainly disappointing. But in a way it's too neat a package.

Kristin-Leigh: It felt very magical, their meeting with Knievel.

Sarah: You weren't disappointed?

Kristin-Leigh: Oh for sure, but it seemed like kind of a Hollywood twist--really fated in an almost silly way. A fairy tale meeting.

Sarah: So by magical you mean, gimmicky?

Kristin-Leigh: Ha, yes, I think so. By contrast if that section had been written by Mahajan it would have been “magical” in the sense of feeling possibly like a dream or hallucination...I'm still a little hung up on that ending scene on the beach, if you couldn’t tell! That's the kind of stuff that makes a book really stick with me. It's a riddle.

Sarah: I feel like when they met Evel, or whomever it was, everything started to fall apart. And then it was sort of built up again. I mean, they get rid of Bradshaw. Loretta strikes off on her own. Jason realizes Loretta is not his ticket out of his family and Loretta realizes that only she can save herself. I loved that last scene. I don't think it was slapstick at all. I felt more like, oh, shit, is this over? What's going to happen to Loretta?

Kristin-Leigh: That was genuinely suspenseful! I could have believed a half dozen different endings to that book, whereas Small Bombs may have been less of a “page-turner” because the ending seemed kind of fated. We knew what we were marching towards. Mahajan just wanted us to languish in it for a while first, which is powerful in a different way.

Sarah: Yessssss, sort of. I think it was less of a linear narrative. There's the bomb going off. Then the people who made the bomb, then the people who were affected by the bomb and who they met. Then moving to Kashmir and showing how people make the decision to make a bomb. It sort of spread out for me--the story around the bomb had more of an impact than the bomb itself.

Kristin-Leigh: That's true. Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, you've already seen the picture on the box, now you have to examine all the little pieces that it's composed of.

Sarah: It was so damn sad. Even though it was also a little funny. But the way these people are trying to make a point, and they're disappointed that their bomb was a "small chocolate" and "only" killed 13 people, when in fact they completely ruined the lives of a bunch of people. I didn't realize how different the lives of Muslim and Hindu people are in India.

Kristin-Leigh: Yes! Is any bomb really "small"? Definitely not for the victims.

Sarah: And even though Mansoor wasn't killed, he was injured in such a way that he couldn't achieve the dream of becoming a computer programmer, and ended up in some dead-end job. And Deepa and Vikas have a daughter that Vikas can't love. It's just two families against the millions/billions of people in India. It's just a bomb that went off in some market that no one outside of India has ever heard of. And it was made by some people who aren't ever going to go down in history (unlike the 9/11 bomber Shockie idolizes). And for what?

Kristin-Leigh: Exactly.

Sarah: I gave Daredevils 5 stars because I was so caught up in the beauty of the language. And I gave Small Bombs 4 because I just felt--disengaged, I guess. But I think Small Bombs IS the more impactful book.

Kristin-Leigh: For me Small Bombs had better characters; the various Mormons in Daredevils all seemed fairly stereotypical to me. Especially Loretta and her big city lipstick ad dreams.

Sarah: I agree. Definitely Small Bombs was drawn with a finer pen. Maybe that's why Daredevils felt so YA to me.

Kristin-Leigh: And maybe with Daredevils that was the point: deconstructing the stereotypes of fairy tale knight and maiden Jason and Loretta. I wonder if there's a way to do that in a more complex/layered way; there must be.

Sarah: It's funny, the judgement discusses character so much, but I didn't think either book was really character-driven as much as the writer making a point about something.

Kristin-Leigh: Both are much more about immersing you in a particular setting, showing you a few different angles on it. Surrounding you with fundamentalist true believers, modern evangelicals, and the altogether uninitiated.

Sarah: In Daredevils it's about blind faith, or choosing your "savior." In Small Bombs it's about how not-small the bombs actually are. And I guess at this point in time, Small Bombs seems more important.

Kristin-Leigh: My book club likes to ask the questions "What was the author trying to do, and was it worth doing?" And those questions are really great for these two books. It’s very clear what each author was intending to accomplish. I would say in the case of Small Bombs, the “doing” is both more successful and more worthwhile/important.

Sarah: I think both authors succeeded in their "quest."

Kristin-Leigh: I would say if nothing else, I would probably find myself shoving my copy of Small Bombs into a friend's hands before Daredevils. For all of the interesting themes, it does it doesn't feel relevant or unique in the way that The Association of Small Bombs does. i'm happy with the advancement.

Sarah: Thanks partner. And I say that in my most Evel-Kneviel-type voice.

Kristin-Leigh: Ha! gotta use the royal "we."

Sarah: We bid you good night.

Kristin-Leigh: ‘Night!

Jan wrote: "The one issue I pondered that I haven't seen brought up was cultural appropriation."

That really bothered me too. I kept resisting looking for an author photo and when I finally did (last week), I was shocked to see she appears to be white. I don't know quite what to think.

Great judgment and commentary. I just finished Daredevils last night and, while I enjoyed reading it, it's already fading. I found The Association of Small Bombs a revelation.

I loved the conversation here about the 'save the princess' aspect of Daredevils. I didn't feel that the author actually thought Loretta used the men in her life, I thought he was pointing out the dark sense of entitlement that is everywhere in our culture. Here is a girl who wants to be saved (either through her own merits or with help) but doesn't want to marry the prince. And all of her potential princes believe that they are entitled to her if they help her out. Because I've been reading so much on the topic lately and tend to see it everywhere as a result... it seemed a great example of rape culture; you have the range of actual rape with her husband Dean all the way to "nice guy" Jason who doesn't know what exactly he wants but expects enough to feel betrayed when Loretta isn't dependent and madly in love with him due to his help. And you have a few steps in between (e.g. Bradshaw) that show that they are all part of the same spectrum even if at one end of the spectrum is a genuinely sweet kid.

Can I comment, even as a commentator?? (Amy feel free to delete this if not).
I don't think Loretta was any kind of princess. I think this novel was about generations and religion. And I think both Loretta AND Jason were looking to be saved. Jason thought Evel K. could save him. No dice. Then he thought Loretta could but she's out of there. At the same time, Loretta thought Bradshaw could save her, and then, also she thought Evel could (just briefly). And she thinks the gold back at Elko will save her. None of this pans out and at the end she realizes she has to save herself. Evel is a "false idol" just like one could say JC or the Mormons version of JC is. Does any of this make sense?

Sarah wrote: "Can I comment, even as a commentator?? (Amy feel free to delete this if not).
I don't think Loretta was any kind of princess. I think this novel was about generations and religion. And I think both..."

please comment away!

I agree... Jason was definitely looking for a way out. And I don't actually believe Loretta was a princess but that Jason applied that heroic story to himself as part of both his mythology of her and his impetus to actually get out of Dodge. Before he just hated it but was willing to wait until college to leave. Each of the men had a twist on this story; Dean saw Loretta as a gift/prize awarded to him due to his righteousness, Bradshaw saw Loretta as property earned by him because he had "let her say no to him." Each person didn't actually know or value her for more than her age and beauty and saw her as a thing to have as a man/prince/hero/saint.

and I love the 'false idol' line of thought with Evel! I enjoyed his short chapters unlike the judge and commentators but I hadn't really figured out their purpose. False idol contrasts so well with the heavy religiosity elsewhere in the two families' lives.

I think Vestal limned but could have gone deeper into exploring Loretta's relationship to herself as commodity. She did spend her entire life being told she existed for service to others - the community, her family, religion, and primarily men who valued her as a sexual object - one which they held exclusive rights to. So inasmuch as she treated herself transactionally - "if I give X to Bradshaw, will I get Y in return? Is that worth disentangling myself from him afterwards?" - that made sense to me. And also, she opted out - repeatedly - of actually making that bargain. She knew she could have gained freedom from her community at any time if she gave Bradshaw those exclusive rights - even from the first chapter. That was always on the table. She could have traded sex-before-16 with Dean for more power within his household, though not freedom. And she seemed clear that Jason was willing to go to great lengths with the expectation that he would be her prince. She left with him because there was no explicit promise, and because she saw a way to extract herself from his company once they got to the gold. (And sure, he was sweeter - we knew how that sweetness was op top of the same thoughts / impulses as Bradshaw, but it may have been less obvious to her.)

Anyway, I undoubtedly am reading into this the things I'm interested in - I agree that Loretta isn't given nearly enough of an interior life. And that it was a flaw in the book. An even bigger one than the Evel sections - whatever Vestal's intentions with them, I don't think he achieved them. This book was fine, and even good at times, but did nothing to cure my Male Writer Fatigue.

I have been looking forward to getting home and reading these comments! Thank you to the commenters and organizers for putting this together.

In retrospect, I realize I may have been a little too tough on Daredevils, but I realize that it was probably coming from that place of "Male Writer Fatigue" that Melanie identified and that I've been feeling all year.

what is Male Writer Fatigue? I can guess but I'm not sure.

Nice judgment and commentary, everybody. I liked Daredevils, loooved Bombs. Thought it was a courageous book, and I appreciated reading about terrorism from non-Western POVs.

poingu wrote: "what is Male Writer Fatigue? I can guess but I'm not sure."

Oh, it's tongue-in-cheek but I'm tired of shallow perspectives on female characters, and the hype that books by male authors can garner when they create worlds that treat women as accessories or objects to be coveted or degraded etc.

Did you see this? https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...

All the usual caveats about #notallmalenovelists but I'm finding my brain & heart enormously more rewarded when I read female author, on balance.

Melanie wrote: "poingu wrote: "what is Male Writer Fatigue? I can guess but I'm not sure."...

Did you see this? https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...

heehee

Melanie wrote: "All the usual caveats about #notallmalenovelists but I'm finding my brain & heart enormously more rewarded when I read female author, on balance. "

ok, I totally get this feeling now, but now that you mention it, it feels like the gender issue went away for me a little bit this year, because I've really been trying hard to read much more internationally, and this particular kind of book (that the wapo piece is lampooning) feels like an American phenomenon.

OPENING ROUND 7 What is Not Yours, Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi versus Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
Judge: Jen : Jen is a counselor by day and avid reader by any other time. She reviews for NetGalley and plans to actually post in her book blog someday (bookandcat.blogspot.com).

“Open me carefully,” reads the epigraph of Helen Oyeyemi’s new collection of short stories, What Is Not Yours, Is Not Yours, quoting an inscription on a letter from Emily Dickinson. This epigraph could easily be applied to both Oyeyemi’s collection and to Tanwi Nandini Islam’s debut novel, Bright Lines, both on the docket for judging today. Indeed, these works are to be opened carefully, for they are onions with layers that contain multitudes, but beware, there be beasties within.

Bright Lines follows the story of a Muslim Bangladeshi family living in a remodeled home in New York City, in particular, the story of three young women (daughter, cousin, friend) who stay in the home, as well as the other occupants of the house (husband and wife, tenant). What is Not Yours, Is Not Yours has a series of somewhat interlocking yet often unrelated short stories. These books are hard to compare based upon their structure, let alone their plots, but both are an English professor’s dream - they offer a lot to unpack via character and theme, and the baggage the characters carry is heavy indeed. These books share one thing in common, however - the idea of secrets and the impact these secrets can have on lives.

Each book approaches the idea of uncovering secrets in various ways. I compare one to a dollhouse full of locked rooms, Alice-in-Wonderland style, the other to a series of Russian nesting dolls, each separate and secret and tucked within. Ironically, the book about the house (Bright Lines) is far more similar to the Russian nesting dolls, while the book of short stories is far more connected like a house, characters meandering through each others lives like dolls being placed in different rooms. Indeed, each story in What is Not Yours, Is Not Yours has a continued motif of keys and the rooms and things and people they lock away, while Bright Lines is about the search for true identity despite a mismatched facade, the search for the smallest doll: “Now, the person in front of her was perhaps the truest she had felt to her insides,” Islam writes.

Oyeyemi’s writing is haunting, and full of her trademark magical realism (or so I’ve heard, I confess I have not yet read Boy, Snow, Bird). Her stories are not easy to digest at first because they can take effort to wrap your mind around. However, they do make me think. The second story in the collection, is your blood as red as this?, is almost like watching a literary version of Black Mirror as it kills you softly with its depiction of the consumption of someone’s tragedy via YouTube. It made me question what I know about sincerity, pop culture, and my participation at the intersection between the two (here’s looking at you, Kim, Kanye, Taylor Swift). This story for me affected me most. One of the characters in this story, Tyche, appears again and again, a different constellation around her star forming each time. The best way to describe Oyeyemi’s book is that it is “bigarurre”. One of the characters in the sixth story, a brief history of the homely wench society, is asked to write a “bigarurre” response in order to join the society. She defines the word as “a medley of sundry colors running together” or “a discourse running oddly and fantastically, from one matter to another”. Indeed, this is the best way to describe this collection of short stories. They run from odd to fantastic about one matter or another, blending together in a beautiful Jackson Pollackian rainbow, leaving you squinting to determine what just happened but appreciating the picture all the same.

Bright Lines has one of the most unique perspectives in a book I’ve read recently. It’s more straightforward in terms of story, though it is truly literary fiction and not as much concerned with plot arcs as it is with character development. Indeed, the events of the story seem to peak and valley without regard to their time placement within the manuscript, but rather occur organically and serve to drive the character’s identities forward. It’s jarring but haunting. The phrase “bright lines” refers to the lines of color, the phantasms seen by a character who has been traumatized in the past. However, it also could refer to the clear brushstrokes Tanwi Nandini Islam makes on her canvas of characters. Each one is painted clearly, defying stereotype and breathing life into each individual. In a world where many of the women in the story are dressed in hijab, each one is made whole and visible. “Hijabs were like a protective and beautiful room, build just for one,” Islam writes. And indeed, each character hides from the other, all alone in their individual rooms. Despite many living together in one house, none of the characters are able to accurately see each other for who they are in a consistent fashion, they are always swathing each other and themselves from view. Two lines in the book stand out for me: “It was a case of misdirected love,” and the concept of “swadhin”, or “ultimate liberation”. Indeed, each character is victim or perpetrator of that misdirected love, and it is the search for identity - for swadhin - that drives the plot.

I would not consider either book “happy”, nor books you would want for light summer reading--these books are too outside the concept of each in terms of structure, character, plot to be considered as such. Nor is either book my favorite I’ve read this year (that belongs to A Little Life). Each earned a solid 3 stars on my Goodreads. However, they are both worth reading, and each affected me deeply. Indeed, Bright Lines gut punched me (my Kindle note reads “WTF”, and I had a moment where I shouted out loud when I was reading), and I previously mentioned how moved/horrified I was by the second story in Oyeyemi’s collection. These books are both written by talented writers who think outside the box, even if these proverbial boxes hold heartbreak and jewels together.

Since I cannot pick both, Pandora will open the box held by Tanwi Nandini Islam. Bright Lines wins this round. Unleash the beasties within.

Winner: Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

You're right - White American Male Writer Fatigue is the more accurate name for my syndrome.

Commentators:
Jan : Jan is a freelance marketing flack who gets paid to learn stuff, interview people way smarter than she is, and write about technology trends in healthcare, education, supercomputing, and other fields. She lives with her husband in the Portland suburbs, and their favorite date destination is Powell’s City of Books.
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.

Jan: My first thought is what a thoughtful, professional summary and comparison of the two books and laying out of themes by Judge Jen. My Discus name for the TOB is “Amateur Reader,” and I’m always impressed with (and intimidated by!) the knowledge and expertise in our TOB community. So my hat is off to Judge Jen H.

Jason:Agreed. Jen’s reasoned and intelligent judgment is impressive. I’m so intimidated I don’t even have a Discus name and don’t post on the ToB site.

Jan: I know the feeling, but really, I hope you’ll feel freer to chime in there.You’re a thoughtful reader with interesting insights and I’d like to hear more of them.

Another yay to our judge for the A Little Life shoutout. In the ongoing “Was It a Hot Mess OR a Masterpiece” discussion, I am squarely in both camps—I see all the stuff that’s over the top and maybe even sadistic in its treatment of readers, and still think the book is a freaking masterpiece.

But I digress.

Part of being an amateur reader is giving myself license to focus on the experience of reading a book. Can I ask, Jason, how did you feel as you read these books? And would you have made the same decision if you were judging? I would have given the nod to What Is Not Yours because Helen Oyeyemi is such a polished and intriguing writer. She made me work hard to keep up with her, but she also kept me totally engaged with her fancy-pants tricks and connections. I felt like I had to have my senses on high alert at all times lest she slip something past me. (Is this character male or female? Is this portion being narrated by a puppet????!!!) I loved it!

Jason: This was definitely a match-up of very different books. I didn't get a strong sense of her reason for choosing Bright Lines, but I felt that the overall consistency of Islam's story and grounded world won over the more challenging and sometimes incomprehensible stories of Oyeyemi. 3/4 of the way through Bright Lines, I was sure I would have chosen What is Not Your is Not Yours. But by the end, I was torn and glad that I was doing commentary and not picking a winner.

I was enchanted by the other-worldliness of Oyeyemi's stories. The fairy tale-like quality, but with relevant 21st century takes/morals on gender, feminism, office politics, among things. Oyeyemi is in complete control of her words and stories. I will say that I had the exact opposite feeling about the stories as Jen though. I was enthralled with the first story, "books and roses," but the second story that Jen points as the defining one in the book was so confusing and convoluted that I actually stopped reading it and stopped reading the book for about a week. I eventually realized that I could skip it and read the other stories. I'm glad I did as they redeemed the book for me. But I truly disliked that second story.

Jan: I will confess I’m not a fan of short stories. I don’t read that many, so I haven’t developed that part of my brain. Also, maybe this is laziness on my part, but by the time I’ve gotten situated in a story and bonded with the characters, I want to amortize that investment of time and emotional energy over 300 or 400 or 800 pages, not 5 or 6 or 20.

Like you, I loved the way Oyeyemi blended fairy-tale/otherworldly elements that almost made us feel like we were outside of time, with of-the-moment political and social issues. But I basically judged the stories on how confused I felt. So, ‘Sorry Doesn’t Sweeten’, definitely not my favorite. ‘Is Your Blood As Red As This?’, also not a favorite. ‘Drownings’, much better for me. And I really thought ‘Presence’ was going to be straightforward, with Jack (I mean Jacob) and Jill as our protagonists, but then the experiment started up, and by the time Jill FORGOT TO LOCK THE DOOR, I was totally spooked. If I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with ‘The Homely Wench Society’, but really, I just fell for the magic spell Oyeyemi wove for us over and over again. Like I said, I liked the connections among the stories, although, as with Anthony Marra’s Tsar of Love and Techno last year, I’d need to reread the book to pick up on them all.

Jason:I think the opening story with its hidden library and locked doors and books had me expecting the subsequent stories to be much closer related to each other informing each other's’ mysteries and building a fantastical Oyeyemi world, like Marra’s Tsar did. I was disappointed when that wasn’t the case. The miniscule use of the same character in a different story really didn’t add much to either story. What about Bright Lines?

Jan: I loved Bright Lines for its rich stew of characters, and for being a Brooklyn Novel that’s not a hipster/literati/Park Slope Brooklyn novel… also for being an immigrant novel where the family has pretty much settled in and carved out its spot in America.

And I loved that both these novels were so cosmopolitan and so accepting of multiple forms of diversity. Oyeyemi’s London and Tanwi Nandini Islam’s Brooklyn are a lovely break from my white suburban Portland neighborhood. But Bright Lines seemed very much like a first novel, and it lost some of its momentum once the action shifted to Bangladesh.

Jason:As Jen points out, these books are a contrast in styles. Islam's book is rooted in the real world, fleshing out a family and characters with depth and reflection that rivals some of the more epic books in the alt-ToB. Oyeyemi's stories are rooted in the unseen and unreal; they ask us to go with her on a trip and they mostly deliver.

I agree that when they first arrive in Bangladesh, Bright Lines suffers from several pages of scene setting and character orienting that stalls the story in a big way. I wasn't sure it was going to recover, but she comes in with the biggest plot twist of all and then brings home (literally back to Brooklyn) the novel in an expert way. Keeping the book about the freedom and swadhin of the El and Charu, I felt like it worked beautifully. It glosses over the grief, but that's another story I suppose.

Jan: Good points, Jason. Although I enjoyed reading Bright Lines, especially the first two-thirds, I guess I see Islam as a developing writer. Some of the psychology seemed a bit shaky, and some of the plot lines wrapped up a bit too quickly or arbitrarily for me. But I wonder: did the Big Surprise regarding El work for you? I liked it, but felt like the groundwork hadn’t quite been laid for it. I wasn’t sure El’s neurological condition provided much payoff for all the time we spent on it. I’m also not a big fan of resolving a big plot point by having a character write a letter, and Islam did that twice. But again, I enjoyed the book and am happy to see it advance.

Jason: I agree about the pronoun shift with El. While I’m completely unqualified to have an opinion on this, as a reader, the leap from same sex crush/lesbian to trans seemed extreme. Again, I’m assuming the pronoun change indicated a transition for El, but I could be wrong. I will say that with a bit of remove from having read both books, I still have a visceral sense of the sights and smells and atmosphere of Bright Lines, while several of the short stories I can barely recall.

As an aside, I'm on Team Hot Mess when it comes to A Little Life. I stopped reading it with less than 80 pages left. I just couldn't take it anymore.

Jan: Yeah, it was brutal.

Jason:Since you and I were both on the selection committee for the alt-ToB, any anecdotes about how or why these two books were chosen? Were they on your radar?

Jan: I did have them on my radar: Oyeyemi because I’d read and been amazed by Boy Snow Bird, and Bright Lines because I’d seen a couple blurbs in roundup articles. I thought a Muslim/Queer/Immigrant/Brooklyn/Semi-YA debut novel by a young woman author made Bright Lines sound just right for the Alt Tourney, so I put it on my individual List of 16 when we were putting forth our nominations. How about you?

Jason: I had already read What is Not Yours is Not Yours and included it on my suggested list of books when we were building our long list and then our eventual final 16. I remember that we had three short story collections and, for a period of time, we were considering having all three of them, including American Housewife and A Manual for Cleaning Women. I actually had all three on my list of 16. In the end, after flirting with having a first-round short story head-to-head, we settled on one and Oyeyemi got the nod. I had Bright Lines on my list as well, but I don’t remember why, other than it just being one of those books I kept seeing around, being written about, and it fit my 2016 goal of reading more diverse books. Can I admit here that I thought Oyeyemi was a Japanese name? It wasn’t until I looked something up about the book that I saw her picture.

Jan: Yay for reading more diverse books. And you’re making me want to work on my short-story aversion. I did read an Alice Munro collection once, so I’m not hopeless.

Jason: Haha. There’s definitely a minimalist art to writing short stories that feel complete and not like it’s just the beginning of a longer story.

Jan: Thanks, Jason. This has been fun! I am eager to see how others have approached these two books.

Jason:Likewise. Looking forward to reading the judgment on the last pairing between our cheeky alliterative match-up between LaRose and Laurus.

I really liked both of these books, but agree with most of you that found The Association of Small Bombs to be the more memorable and revelatory.

As someone else mentioned, I was really struck by the difference between how "small bombs" are treated by those not personally affected (largely ignored and quickly forgotten) and by those whose lives are forever changed by the personal experience of being touched by the bomb. I also appreciated the glimpse into the lives of the bombers. How differently they viewed the effects of their actions from those affected.

I liked Daredevils, but was frustrated by the unending male claims on Loretta's body and interest--particularly as she is a child. I was very, very glad that she saved herself.

I'm still in the middle of reading What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, so my opinion is incomplete.
This is the first thing I've read by her, and I love the fairy tale quality. I could have absolutely read an entire book out of the first story, Books and Roses. I didn't realize I was reading short stories until a couple pages into the second story (I avoid spoilers to such an extent that sometimes what I'm reading is a total surprise!)

I'm also not generally a fan of short stories. I just find it hard to stay compelled when I've already reached an ending, I think? That said, these are lovely, and I'm eager to read the rest. I did get lost a couple times in the drowning story trying to figure out what/who/huh, so I think I have to start fresh with that one.

I liked Bright Lines, and am always happy to read queer characters. But I also was a bit frustrated with the tidy wrapping up of some of the storylines. For whatever reason, this story started to immediately fade for me.

I think I would have made the opposite choice on which book to advance, but I do appreciate the judging and commentary! Even when I don't agree, I'm satisfied with the great discussion.

These two books were both effective antidotes for my aforementioned Fatigue.

I'm not always a short story person, but Oyeyemi is an automatic exception for me (her longer work is fun, too - the way she plays with magic and folklore to delve into psyches really resonates with me.) I wasn't expecting the stories to be linked, so when the overlaps happened it was more like - tfw someone irl suggests you read the article your Twitter friends were bantering about. "Oh, hey, you're here, too? Cool!" I wasn't trying to draw a lot of lines (bright or otherwise!) between them.

Bright Lines, otoh, is the book I recommended to my Twitter friends (a coven of intersectional feminists who love books and Hamilton and also everything else good, even things I don't know or care about). So many people have called it YA-adjacent, and it did have moments of resonance with books like Written in the Stars and maybe Shadowshaper - the exploration of self and society as the main characters are on the brink of adulthood / leaving the nest. Nandini Islam's whole quirky botanical deal is very Hip Brooklyn Youth, but I enjoyed how she incorporated it into her story.

I find myself wondering if she'll write another book, and what it'll be like. With Oyeyemi, I already know I will read and enjoy her next publication. With Nandini Islam, I will have to find out first if it's a chap book of mediations on the volunteer plants growing in the concrete jungle, and then decide. But I was happy to see Bright Lines move forward and get in front of a bigger audience.

The writing in this judgment was really lovely.

Lovely analysis Jen! I think we sort of expected the short story collection to lose early because it is so difficult to engage as strongly as a full novel, but I am still sad to see What Is Not Yours, Is Not Yours out so quickly! This was my first Oyeyemi read and it made me a big fan. That being said, I find Bright Lines lush and lyrical and at times even a little magical so it made a decent competitor to Yours.

|sorry doesn't sweeten her tea| was probably one of my favorites after |books and roses| but I definitely felt ups & downs with this collection and could see where some would hit and some would miss a different person.

i just would like to offer a huge thank you and my deep appreciation to the judges and commentators and organizers. i haven't been able to participate (or read) the way i would have liked for this edition of alt.TOB, but all of the hard work and time you have all put in is amazing!! thank you!!! i have been truly enjoying the decisions and the discussions that complement the judgements. you are all awesome.

sorry for the interruption -- i didn't know the best place to post this general comment!! :)

Jennifer wrote: "i just would like to offer a huge thank you and my deep appreciation to the judges and commentators and organizers. i haven't been able to participate (or read) the way i would have liked for this ..."

I have really enjoyed being a judge in both alt.TOBs so far. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to apply to be the reader judge for the official TOB!

Drew wrote: "I have really enjoyed being a judge in both alt.TOBs so far. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to apply to be the reader judge for the official TOB!..."

Do it, do it!!

Melanie wrote: "Nandini Islam's whole quirky botanical deal is very Hip Brooklyn Youth, but I enjoyed how she incorporated it into her story. ..."

Haha, yes it is, now that you mention it!!

Thanks so much for the nice feedback, everyone! It's my first time judging, and I had fun.
I love all the commentary I'm seeing about this judgment and wanted to respond (albeit briefly as I'm typing from my phone). Basically, neither book I read was one of my favorites. I had high hopes for the short stories and thought midway through Bright Lines that I would surely enjoy the short stores more (I read them second). However, Bright Lines stuck with me more - and still sticks with me. It is imperfect, but affected me more as a reader, which is why I picked it. Both books had positives and drawbacks so I had to go with my gut, and Bright Lines punched me in the gut harder. I will still look forward to reading Boy Snow Bird though (it's on my shelf to be read).
On another note: I didn't want to go into it too much in my judgment for fear of spoilers/I am not writing a paper for my old English major, but El's transition was nicely foreshadowed in my opinion (iirc, I mentally predicted it within the first few chapters). What WASN'T foreshadowed well for me was the deaths of some main characters (that part I yelled out loud; I was backstage at a performance waiting for my next cue and got shushed big time), ha!
Thanks to TOB for letting this alternate get a chance to judge!! I had fun.

*altTOB! silly autocorrect :-)

Jen wrote: "Thanks so much for the nice feedback, everyone! It's my first time judging, and I had fun.."

Jen, thanks. I learned so much from what you wrote about these books and these authors.