"The bean trees" by Barbara Kingsolver (Virago, 1989)

The main character Marietta (first-person - a girl living in the states) doesn't know who her father is. After 5 years working part-time in a medical lab she buys a cheap VW and leaves home, renaming herself Taylor Greer. On the way, in a bar, she's given a Cherokee pre-toddler. She calls her Turtle. She finds a hotel in Broken Arrow to stay in for a while, paying her way. Then she drives to Tucson, gets punctures, finds "Jesus Is Lord Used Tires" run by Mattie. Upstairs is a sanctuary for Guatamalan and Salvadoran refugees.

Lou Ann Ruiz (third person) is giving birth in 2 months. She's into horoscopes and signs. Ivy's her mother and her grandmother's close. Her husband Angel, an ex-rodeo, who lost half a leg in an accident, has left her. After the birth of Dwayne Ray she advertises a room. Taylor applies and moves in.

Turtle's first word is "bean" (it looks like what it will grow into) and she soon learns the words for other vegetables. Taylor's mother phones to say she's remarrying. Lou Ann gets a factory job. Angel wants her to go to live with him. Mattie is interviewed on TV about the sanctuary. Taylor becomes friends with 2 refugees who live with Mattie - Estevan (an ex-teacher of English; she rather loves him) and Esperanza (who wants children). They speak to each other in Spanish because they know different Mayan languages. Esperanza tries to overdose on aspirin. Taylor learns that their daughter was taken from them because they didn't reveal names of union members. Taylor says "Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner too. I come from a place that's so different from here you would think you'd stepped right off the map into some other country where they use dirst for decoration and the national pastime is having babies ... Half the time I have no idea what's going on around me here".

When Turtle is X-rayed the doctor says she has old compound fractures. Social services say Taylor has no claim on Turtle. She decides to try to find Turtle's relatives so she can get them to sign something. She offers to take Estevan and Esperanza - they're in danger of being deported. They set off early and are stopped. The couple say that Turtle's their daughter. They find the original bar but the owner etc has changed. They rent a lakeside cottage for the night. Turtle twice says "Mamma" where humans are buried. Was her mother buried? Does she think humans grow like beans? Estevan and Esperanza can easily merge into Cherokee Nation. We're led to believe that Taylor will leave Turtle with them (thinking Turtle would have a better life that way) but in the end they pretend to be Turtle's parents and sign adoption papers. Taylor phones her now-married mother for the first time in months. Then she has almost a conversation with Turtle, about the people back home. They pause in a library where Taylor identifies what Turtle calls a bean tree as wisteria. It came from the Orient. It thrives in poor soil thanks to rhizobia - bugs that help the plants. She phones Lou Ann, who isn't going to join Angel - she asked advice from his mother. She's found a boyfriend of African descent.

Chapters have titles which are the odd-page headers. There's an avalanche of happy news at the end - I guess the characters deserve it. Some symbolic loose ends are tidily tied up too. Themes include motherhood, language, finding a home, friends vs family. The prose is fast-moving, the style flexible -

• The clouds were pink and fat and hilarious-looking, like the hippo ballerinas in a Disney movie
• I began to suspect that sharing harmonious space with an insightful Virgo might require even greater credentials than being a licensed phlebotomist in the state of Arizona
• she was looking at me the way you do when you first notice someone is deformed. In sixth grade we had a new teacher for three weeks before we realized his left hand was missing. He always kept his hanky over it. We'd just thought it was allergies
• White rocks sloped up out of the water like giant, friendly hippo butts
• the city was like a palm stretched out for a fortuneteller to read, with its mounds and hillocks, its life lines and heart lines of dry stream beds
• Cynthia was concerned about Turtle's tendency to bury the dollies, believing that it indicated a fixation with death, but I assured her that Turtle was only trying to grow dolly trees

I like it.

Other reviews

• Annie sauveur (I see its faults. A book about a white woman making a lot of half-hearted commentary on POC issues. ... it’s weird that she didn’t call the police—especially when she discovers that Turtle had been sexually abused. It’s a little strange that she just adopts Turtle and that’s the end of it. But I think that is who Taylor is. She is very straightforward, steadfast, and headstrong. Blunt, to a fault. ... In some scenes, she blends into the background, she asks and answers in ways that fit the other characters a little too well. ... The writing is magic.)
• Winona media (This novel is about great damage and great healing. From a rich mix colloquial language, off-beat characters, and an imaginative plot, a central theme of hope in the face of justified despair is skillfully developed.)

"some strange music draws me in" by Griffin Hansbury

An audio book. 2 alternating timelines.

1984 in Swaffham, USA. Mel is 13. She's overweight and will soon move to a new school though her friend Jules won't. They try to learn about sex by watching films. She's into Michael Jackson. Mel sees a trans - Sylvia - though she doesn't realise that at first.

Mel's sister Donna left home early with a man. Mel's father is useless. Mel attracts all the rage of her mother Irene. She seeks out the trans. There's a beautiful sunset that draws people from their houses. Sylvia befriends her. S/he hitched to NY when about 15 and mixed with Patti Smith's friends. Mel doesn't know if Sylvia likes girls or boys. She flirts. She doesn't know whether she fancies Sylvia or wants to be her.

2019: Max is suspended from work. He taught LGBT literature before it was common. Then the school boasted about him. But he was careless about pronouns. He's forced to have a sensitivity tutor. He realises that "today, weakness is a weapon". His mum has recently died. He's come back to sell her house. He's visiting sister Donna [ah, so Max used to be Mel] who he's not seen for a decade. Donna's husband Stetson is in prison for 5 years - drugs. They have a daughter, Dakota, 12, who's clued up about non-binaryism - she goes to a talk by a queen in a library. Donna asks Max if he'd like to look after Dakota long-term. He realises Dakota (who says she's pan - she's already told her mother) needs him in the way that he'd needed Sylvia.

1984: Sylvia "folded you into whatever she was doing.". She's maybe 23? She's planning to sell her dead mother's house. She was preparing a station wagon for the Demolition Derby, painting the driver's door white so cars don't crash into that side. Mel went there with Jules to watch. She introduced Sylvia and Jules to each other. Sylvia won the "most agressive driver" prize. Two men dead-name her (use her old, male, name). She has an interesting bunch of "outsider" friends. Sylvia and Mel talk about live. Sylvia says that trans are a minority within the minority of non-mainstream behaviours, and she only knew about male-to-female transitions. At 14 Mel has sex with a Harvard boy. She tells Jules about it and they come together. Sylvia's arrested for using a woman's toilet. Jules' parents put up "Wanted" posters and practice shooting. A rumour goes round that Mel and Sylvia made out. Boys challenge her to prove she likes sex with boys. Sylvia's house is set alight. Did Jules do it? She was jealous

Jules died in a car accident when she was 20. In 2019 Max tracks down Sylvia. She's divorced from a woman, working with LGBT people. She says that her house being burned down was the best thing that happened to her - with the insurance money she got herself through college. She admits that she caused the fire.

It didn't dwell on self-pity nor did it deliver sermons. As it says, "A small town can feel threatened by an outsider, and an outsider can come from within." and Queerness was a way to escape from a low-down life that was risky anyway. I liked "when she fell out of herself" but not the use of "audible" in"I swear I heard an audible crack inside my skull"

Other reviews

• Milo Todd
• goodreads (a 4.41 rating - 1,469 ratings)

"Little Earthquakes" by Jennifer Weiner (Pocket Books, 2004)

Lia (first-person), an ex-actor, seems to have lost a child. She can't cope. She flies from LA home to her unemotional mother (who she's not seen for 11 years) telling her sitcom-writing husband Sam not to look for her. She's stalking a woman. After 9 weeks with her mother she still hasn't told her what's wrong. She met Sam, married after a year, then left him 10 months later after having lost a child Caleb (though after 100 pages we still know nothing). She pawns her ring and moves into her own place

Becky co-owns/manages Mas, a restaurant in Philadephia. Becky feels overweight. She knows that a woman is watching her. She's married to a kind doctor Andrew whose mother Mimi has married 5 times. Andrew had sex problems caused by his overbearing mother that Becky coached him out of - she lubricated herself with olive oil the first time they had sex. When Becky goes to a yoga class, a fellow mother-to-be Ayinde breaks water. Becky and Kelly (an event planner) get her to hospital. She has model looks, a Yale degree, and is married to Richard, a very famous basketball player. He flies back smelling of woman's perfume. She gives birth to a boy, Julian, and regularly invites her new friends around. In flashbacks we learn how the women met their husbands. Then they compare their pregnancies. Kelly's mother was strict. Kelly's husband Steve is suddenly sacked.

Becky wants an all-natural birth but ends up with a C-section, giving birth to Ava. Kelly wants an epidural She gives birth to Oliver. Steven, now sacked (though Kelly doesn't tell the others), passes out. Ayinde wants to bring her baby up without help. Her mother Lola sends her a book about how babies love routine.

The women compare strollers, the support their mothers provide, their experiences of sex after giving birth, and breastfeeding. Julian sleeps in his parents' bed, which displeases Richard. Ayinde want to return to TV journalism but is told she's too pretty and famous. Andrew's mother Mimi turns up at short notice to stay for a while. She's against breastfeeding. She wants to give the baby a manicure. She stays over 3 weeks.

Becky brings Lia into the group (chats with Lia give her a chance to escape Mimi). Lia says her baby was unplanned. She offers Lia a menial job at Mas. Lia goes to a therapy group and is angry about mothers who grieve about children who died when 11. Caleb was 10 weeks old when he died. Kelly applies to return to work after 3 months, while Steven is still job hunting. She struggles to combine work (20 hours/week)with childcare - Steven hangs around in pyjamas do nothing much. Lia babysits 3 times a week.

News of Richard's one-night-stand breaks. Damage limitation. Julian has a heart murmer. The woman rally around. Julian's ok. Mimi insists that Jew Becky celebrates Xmas, sending a tree and ham. Andrew at last puts his foot down.

Lia meets a woman who had another child after her first died. They talk. Her mother contacts Sam and finds out what happened. She tracks Lia down and that chat about why they've not liked each other. Lia calls Sam, asking him to fly to er - she's ready now. Becky is pregnant again. Andrew finally agrees that his mother is manipulative and needs to be controlled. His mother over-reacts. Becky suddenly decids to apologise. Somebody interviews Kelly in her home about combining work and parenting. She lies - saying that Sam is on a business trip whereas in fact he's jobless and has been send out to do shopping. Alas Steven returns early, the baby vomits, etc. He's not been helping. She tells him to get out. The girl who said Richard made her pregnant turms up on Ayinde's doorstep to apologise. Her mother won't talk to her.

A month later Steven returns promising to turn over a new leaf. The girls all meet before Lia returns home to live with Sam.

Mimi soon becomes cartoonish - not funny, just predictably OTT. The ending's too cosy.

Other reviews

• Sahar's blog (her characters do not become four aspects of her own personality, but remain four distinct and very different women.)
• Kirkus reviews (each woman starts out with an issue and each faces a challenge. Lia’s challenge is obviously her loss; her underlying issue is her mother’s emotional coldness. Becky’s issue is weight ... Becky’s challenge is her obnoxious, overbearing mother-in-law. Overachieving Kelly’s issue is the poverty she has overcome. ... Kelly is thrown a curve when her husband gets laid off ... . For Ayinde, ... being biracial has been a lifelong struggle. Now her basketball star husband is slapped with a paternity suit by another woman. But love conquers all. Becky’s husband miraculously grows a spine and quits being a mama’s boy. Kelly and her husband learn to communicate and support each other in following their real professional dreams. Ayinde’s husband proves he is a devoted father ... Lia finds peace with her loss, realizes that her mother has always loved her, and reunites with her husband. After her realistic examination of new motherhood and marital strain, Weiner pulls her punches with a too-neat ending)

"Bad Blood" by E.O. Chirovici

An audio book.

Prologue - Paris, 1976. A man with a bloodstain on his clothes is about to return to the States. He regrets that he'll never she someone again - someone he saw 2 days ago?

After a talk by James Cobb (35) about altered states of consciousness - how hypnotism makes people more submissive rather than more honest - he's invited by a rich dying man, Fleicher (62), to visit for a huge amount of money. Cobb was investigated when Julie, a patient of his, killed herself (she'd tried 3 times before they'd met and killed herself a year after their last appointment. She's tried to seduce him).

In long monologues, Fleischer tells James that he followed a friend, Abe to Paris. A French women Abe was interested in, Simone, turned her affections to Fleischer. Abe said bad things about Fleischer to Simone. After a night when the 3 of them were together, Feischer had found Simone dead. He disposed of her body in a suitcase, thinking that Abe killed her but worrying that he, Fleischer, might have. Under hypnosis by James, Fleischer is more sure that he killed her, and James thinks he, Fleischer was somehow invoved. After, Fleischer tells James that he chose him because they shared an uncertainty about whether they were murders. Fleischer sends James a letter written by Julie. He dies.

James is sent some notes of a dead investigator who looked into the death of Abe in America. He'd died of an overdose in his room where there were 2 glasses, one with lipstick. While in Abe's room, reading notes, he's interrupted by a woman who he later meets. He thinks that Abe had loved the woman, Simone, but that a man, Fleischer had messed things up. He meets Fleischer, who seemed unaware that Simone was alive and in the States. When the investigator visits Simone, a call-girl, she assaults him and he ties her up in the bath. He sleeps. Next morning she's dead. Knifed.

The dead investigator had been to a psychiatrist who discovered that the investigator's story was untrue. He'd tried to knife Fleischer and had changed his name from Abe. He's paid a whore to dress up as Simone each week. He was mad.

James finds that there really has been a missing Parisian woman Simone. He thinks that Fleischer may only have pretended to be under hypnosis. He finds out that young Fleischer behaved strangely with women. His rich parents consequently stipulated that he'd lose his inheritance if he was ever arrested for accosting women. James interviews a US lover of Abe, an older woman who had followed him to Paris. He interviews a friend of Simone's sister and goes to Paris. Apparently Simone was a lover of neither Abe nor Fleischer. Did Abe cover for Fleischer's crimes?

James meets Laura, Simone's sister. He realises that Laura is actually Simone. Simone killed Laura because she was going to reveal their war-time hero father (who's still life) as a traitor. Julie's letter was actually for someone else. At the end Cobb wants to admit that Julie's death was his fault. He's banned for a few years.

There are many long, rather slow monologues in the book, from several perspectives. The final twist came out of the blue, which isn't a problem for me. Why does Fleischer ask to be hypnotised? Perhaps he really was unsure what happened that night. Why does Cobb ask to be investigated? Because someone had to pay for that murder 40 years before?

Other reviews

• ireadthereforeiblog (Chirovici’s literary psychological thriller is a smoothly written but thin affair that meditates on the nature of memory and the power of guilt but it’s hamstrung by a pompous main character whose reasons for investigating don’t quite ring true, a central friendship between two equally unpleasant men who I never connected with and an ending that feels like an unearned cheat and which left me unsatisfied. ... James never really rises about being a device that Chirovici uses to explore his main themes, which are the fallibility of memory, how memory can be influenced by guilt and how different people have different perspectives on the same events.)

"A natural" by Ross Raisin

An audio book. An excellent, ambiguous title.

Tom, 19, was at a premier football club and played for England U-18, but they dropped him. His father supports him strongly. He's with "Town" now a team in the 4th league. He's a lodger in Mr Davy's house. Mrs Davy volunteers at a hospice. Her son Liam (a groundsman) seems interested in Tom who's famous enough to be noticed in the street. He looks at male bodies and is interested in men's emotions. Clark is their stroppy manager. Tom notices the tolerance to racial, sexism, etc. Steven is humiliated by strippers at the club party.

We learn about football life - community visits, chairman-manager conflicts, contracts, christmas parties, fan blogs, tactics, price-lists of fines, etc.

Chris Easter used to play for them, then went to a big team where he flopped, then came back on big money. He's not doing well. His wife Leah doesn't know why he's become solitary. She's doing a design course. They have a little son Tyler. The manager gets someone on loan to replace him. His form improves. Then Chris is injured. Tom sees his more thoughtful side.

A new manager arrives and the team improves. Because of the manager? Because Chris has a long-term injury? Because of the new player on loan? Tom's often not in the team. A new player, Beverly, gets on with Tom. They share rooms when playing away. Liam is nervous about continuing the relationship. Tom stalks him and drink-drives. Then Tom and Liam start meeting. They go for a week in Portugal. Other gays are there. Liam tells his old friend Leah about Tom. Tom's contract is renewed. He gets a house. He and Liam meet there. When his parents come down, he goes through the house removing all trace of Liam and gayness.

New, good, black players arrive. Beverly tells Tom about his girlfriend. When drunk, Tom tells Beverly he's gay. Beverly's understanding - he has a gay cousin. Leah goes away to a design exhibition and wonders about sex with others. Tom is loaned out to a team 2 leagues down and far away. He does well and soon returns to Town. He comes out to his sister. A story on the team's discussion site says that a groundsman had an affair with an ex-player. Fans say that a gay player will attract chants from opposition crowds, and will lose some of their market value. Tom checks to see if the story spreads. He distracts himself with football. The crowd cheer him on - they don't suspect! In the cup they're paired against giants Spurs. "rather be a faggot than a yid," people chant. Fellow player Spenser's genitals are painted black. Tom and Beverley help hold him down. A few days later Spenser leaves the club. Leah wants to separate and start her own company. During the big match, Tom has a chance to score. He feels like a confident schoolboy again.

There's no explicit sex. I'm suprised that Leah doesn't suffer from sexual frustration. I thought she might show more signs of anger or worry. Belatedly she asserts herself. I like soccer, so I was happy to read about the internal politics. Tom has difficult decisions to make and plumps for pragmaticism.

Other reviews

• Jude Cook (Raisin’s speciality is the lone, peripheral, terminally awkward male)
• paceamorelibri (in the second half of the novel, when we start to dive into the meat of the story ... I found that my frustration with Raisin’s narrative choices was beginning to abate. Yes, I still found the soccer talk endlessly tedious, but the criticisms that I’d had ... started to mostly* fly out the window, because it’s impossible to deny how well-crafted this book is ... Chris, and his wife Leah['s] story does dovetail with the central narrative and I do understand the decision to include their point of view, but I’m not convinced that we needed as much detail here as we got.)
• John Cook (I found the book a little difficult initially to get into as Raisin provides an incredible (but entirely believable) amount of detail about this young man’s daily life and routines and the club and family life that surrounds him. ... There are some weak points in the plotting that emerge late in this book but I do not include the conclusion in that assessment)

"The Woman in My Home" by Kerry Fisher

An audio book.

Cath (57) hasn't been in relationship for 21 years. Her husband Andrew had been a womaniser. She has a pool and gym in the house. Her new boyfriend who'll move in is Robin, who started from nothing. Robin's ex-wife is Chloe, who's allegedly making the sale of their home difficult. Sandy, Cath's 32 y.o. son, distrusts him.

Rebecca's husband Graham bankrupted the family so they're separating. They have children Eddy (7) and Megan (9). Her mother lives in a bedsit after a financial issue years before. Her sister Debs (who's with Jason) is expecting. Rebecca's looking for work. Out walking she meets Doris/Dolly (80), mother of Kath, who needs help after breaking her ankle. They get on well until some jewellery disappears.

Cath invests £50k in Robin's Spanish property development. He proposes to her. They go on holiday to Deal. He disappears for a night. He says he doesn't like being distrusted.

Rebecca's children prefer to be with Graham. While she's in Cath's house a woman knocks, saying she's Amy, that Robin was with her on the night he was missing, that she's been in a relationship with Robin for 5 years, and that he's not to be trusted with money. Rebecca flirts with Sandy. We learn that 13 years before, Robin swindled her mother out of £200k. She's engineered this way to get revenge. She gives Robin a month to return the money otherwise she'll tell Cath everything. Robin frames Rebecca, making it look as if she's stolen jewels. He tries to borrow more money from Cath. Sandy moves out to try reconciling with his wife. Rebecca tells Cath her suspicions, thus losing out on the blackmail money. She tells her mother and sister. Sandy returns to his mother, the reconciliation failed. He repeats to his mother his doubts about Robin. Cath begins to have doubts. She visits Amy, who gives more details. They visit the house he claims his wife is delaying the sale of. Moira, his mother lives there. She severed contact with him a decade before. Amy and Rebecca visit Cath at her workplace (the section is from Cath's 1st person PoV) and Cath believes them. She chucks Robin out - he disappears from the book. Cath finds Rebecca a job - house-sitting a big house. The kids like it. Sandy does the gardening each Saturday. She has Sunday lunch with Dolly, Cath and Sandy.

I didn't believe that someone as supposedly able as Cath would fall for Robin, even though after audio novel, the author says she's heard of such cases. Language-wise, it's common for an emotion to somehow move through the body - e.g. "A wave of irritation wrinkled through me"

Other reviews

• firefliesandfreekicks (I found Cath to be unlikeable, and somewhat of a snob. ... I wished there had been more oomph behind the comeuppance of the character who deserved it. After everything else, that fell decidedly flat for me. I expected more “thriller” from the ending – like how would the person react?)
• Goodreads (rating 4.00, 1,905 ratings)

"The Rest of Our Lives" by Benjamin Markovits

An audio book. Booker shortlisted.

Tom (first-person) ditched a literature Ph.D. Now he's a 55 y.o. law lecturer married to beautiful Amy, a jewish ex-cutter from a rich family. He has an undiagnosed illness - dizzy spells, etc - and the college is letting him go. Her father died young. 12 years before, at a time when she wanted another baby but Tom wasn't sure, she had an affair with Zak, in a kind of self-harming way, and miscarried. Tom had decided then to leave her as soon as the kids were at university. Tom rates their marriage as C-. They have kids Michael and (6 years younger) Miriam. Michael knows about Amy's affair but Miriam may well not. Miriam and her mother tend to argue. Once Michael left home he didn't try hard to stay in touch with his parents.

He gives Miriam a lift to distant Carnegie-Mellon. On the way back he visits his brother, a room-mate ("Sam hasn't fully inhabited his life, as if he's still renting it"), an ex-lover, a friend who thinks that white american basketball players are being victimized, then his son. Out of the blue with 2 hours of the book to go there's "Sometimes sitting in the hospital chair I think about that afternoon.". He's impressed by the relationship his son's in. He sometimes blurts out that he's leaving Amy. People keep telling him he looks ill. Michael calls an ambulance when he passes out. In a rather slow section we learn about his hospital visit - scans, etc. He has a long talk on the phone with Amy. He tells her about the people he's met. He has a large tumor in his chest, which should respond to treatment. Amy drives him away from the hospital.

There are some sub-themes -

• Acting - Various characters had tried acting. He and Miriam had watched all of "Friends" episodes seeing the characters become caricatures.
• Basketball - lawsuits, but also he tells people he's writing a book about neighbourhood play areas. He sometimes plays with people he meets.

The narrator's calm tone doesn't change, even after the hospitalisation - no panic, no fear.

Other reviews

• Marcel Theroux (it focuses on the difficult middle passage in the life of its protagonist, as he tries to figure out who he has been, what parts of himself he has surrendered, and who he might yet become. We learn as much from Tom’s encounters with other people as from what he tells us himself ... you sense how frustrating it would be to be in a relationship with him – a feeling that at any given time he’s holding a great deal back. While this might make him an annoying spouse, as a prose stylist, it makes him exemplary. This is a literary novel whose great literary qualities are understatement and self-effacement)
• julias-books (This is a road trip novel where the central character goes on a journey of self-examination. This could be a cliche if it was not handled extremely well. And I’m afraid that, for me, it was not handled extremely well. I found the author’s writing style languorous and dull. The ending was abrupt and it felt like the author had just got rather bored with his story and decided to stop. The characters lacked spark.)
• awriterreading (Tom has his own problems and isn’t telling us everything. There is a sort of blankness to his narration, an almost mannered refusal to let emotion in, or out ... The ending does redeem the novel, but it’s still distinctly understated.)