Entertainment / On the Shelf: May’s Must-Read Books

On the Shelf: May’s Must-Read Books

Entertainment May 17, 2016

by Matthew Currie

This month's lit picks include a woman on the run, a man's journey to radicalization and a fascinating, visceral portrait of motherhood.

Before We Visit the Goddess (Simon & Schuster)
By Chita Banerjee Divakaruni

^{Photo Credit: Simon & Schuster}

Divakaruni (The Mistress of Spices) delves into the inspiring, poignant and often challenging connection between mothers and daughters in this rich, generation-spanning saga. She starts with Sabitri, a poor baker’s daughter who gets a chance at a real future thanks to an unlikely benefactor, only to see her hopes for a better life dashed by one fateful misstep. It’s a choice that will go on to haunt her daughter, Bela, who eventually flees to America with her dissident husband, only to find the land of opportunity is different than either of them had imagined, ultimately tearing their relationship apart. That leads us to Bela’s daughter, Tara, who, having been shaped by the triumphs and mistakes of the two women who came before her, spends much of her life grappling with questions "freedom, heartbreak and loyalty.”

Sweet Lamb of Heaven (W.W. Norton)
By Lydia Millet

^{Photo Credit: W.W. Norton}

Hailed as a propulsive yet profound work of psychological terror, Millet’s 10^th novel centres on young mother Anna, who’s on the run from her sociopathic politician husband. Stalked across the U.S., from Alaska to Maine, she holes up with her six-year-old daughter in a seaside motel, bracing herself against the inevitable arrival of the obsessed spouse who’s chasing her — a man who grows increasingly monstrous at every turn. And that's not all, as the longer she stays at this seedy little lodge, the more it seems the other guests aren’t what they appear to be.

LaRose (HarperCollins)
By Louise Erdrich

^{Photo Credit: HarperCollins}

A unique exploration of insurmountable grief, LaRose begins with a gunshot exploding from the rifle of Landreaux Iron, as he hunt on the edge of his North Dakota property in 1999. But the bullet that was meant for a deer instead tears through Dusty, the five-year-old son of Peter Ravich, his close friend and neighbour. Devastated, Landreaux goes takes a trip to the local sweat lodge to figure out some way to repair the deep bond the two families have always shared. His solution: give the Raviches his own five-year-old son, LaRose, who also happened to be Dusty’s best friend. So begins the poignant, confusing and unconventional journey of the title character, as he’s taken from his own family to become the replacement son for another.

Quickly bonding with his precocious new sister and becoming his unstable new mother’s sole reason for not giving in to her suicidal thoughts, LaRose's new lot in life gradually allows both families to heal — until a man arrives to threaten everything they’ve so painstakingly rebuilt.

Akram’s War (Atlantic Books)
By Nadim Safdar

^{Photo Credit: Atlantic Books/thenational.ae}

Safdar’s challenging debut novel centres on Akram, an ex-British soldier living a quiet life in the West Midlands. When we meet him, he’s leaving his house for the last time, headed to a Remembrance Day celebration to set off a bomb and achieve martyrdom. On the way, however, he meets Grace, a woman with whom he seemingly has little in common but who is, in her own way, just as damaged and scarred as he is. As the two begin to talk, Akram gradually reveals his harrowing journey to becoming a radical — touching on bonds forged in the country’s tight-knit Pakistani community, horrors experienced while fighting overseas for Britain and a loveless arranged marriage. But could a moment of connection with a stranger be enough to pull a broken man back from the brink?

Eleven Hours (Tin House Books)
By Pamela Erens

^{Photo Credit: Tin House Books/goodreads.com}

Offering readers a “visceral portrait of childbirth,” Erens’ latest centres on two pregnant women whose lives collide during the titular time period. Franckline is a Haitian nurse whose baby bump is just about to start showing; Lore is the patient who barges into her maternity ward, already in labour, with a very specific birthplan: no IV, no epidural, no fetal monitor, no family, no friends, no baby daddy. Naturally, things are going to get painful, but not just in the physical sense, as both women are forced to band together and work through the immense emotional baggage that comes with bringing a new life into the world while their own lives are still such a mess.

^{Main Image Photo Credit: telegraph.co.uk}

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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On the Shelf: May’s Must-Read Books

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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