Day 2,248, Quasi-Quarantine: Pacing, Humor Propel "Lost Lambs" To Must-Read Status

“She did not subscribe to the notion that some things were the way they were, always had been, always would be. That the sun set early in the winter, limiting playtime. That, once out, toothpaste could not be put back in the tube. Things only were the way they were because she had not yet been around to fix them.”

Mix bizarre family dynamics and teen angst, stir vigorously, insert dark themes, and somehow produce freshly baked hilarity? Somehow that's what Madeline Cash has achieved with her debut novel, "Lost Lambs."

“Louise was in a prison of her own mundanity. She’d taken to intentionally throwing out the metal forks with the food scraps when she scraped her dinner plate, just so that she might feel a momentary rush.”

Three teenage girls face adolescent challenges interlaced with global scandals while their parents experiment with an open, confusing marriage. The result is a series of subplots that ends up overlapping in delightful ways at the end.

“It was the best part of a new relationship, when you could fill a library with what you didn’t know about another person. Pure potential.”

The slight quibbles are that Cash employs an intentional stylistic device that doesn't quite work and ends up being an unnecessary distraction. Also, the pivotal scene in the mansion resolves without a real explanation of what happens.

Beyond that, "Lost Lambs" is an escapist's delight, capturing the weighty, existential issues of our time without ever forgetting to laugh.

“Control what people do and you’re a king. Control how people think and you’re a god.”

Day 2,246, Quasi-Quarantine: The Sharing Spirit Was Missing With This Noel Puzzle

 

'Twas the season for puzzling, and this one was a good follow-up to another Yule puzzle we'd wrapped up a bit earlier. It was a fun one, but unfortunately my partner worked on it quite a bit behind my back and ruined part of the experience.

7.1, would cobble together again with a better teammate

Day 2,245, Quasi-Quarantine: Fever-Dream Writing Of "Brawler" Undermined By Cardboard Characters

“I look around and can see it in so many other women, passed down from a time beyond history, this wind that is dark and ceaseless and raging within.”

~“Wind”

This gut-wrenching collection features short stories that include large twists and real emotion. Groff examines gender dynamics, relationships between guardians and children, and the lasting effects of trauma.

Some of the standouts include "Wind," "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?", and "Under the Wave." In addition, "Between the Shadow and the Soul" was complex, "Such Small Hands" was nuanced, "Annunciation" had a compelling ending, and "Sunland" was straight-up gutting.

“Oh, but she hadn’t wanted to leave him, not really, had she. She had just wanted to know what it was like to brush up against the dazzling future again. She felt the part of her that the lush spring had stirred to life go dormant, deep in her, once more. She knew that it would not awaken again in her lifetime.”

~“Between the Shadow and the Soul”

I had some experience with Groff's work, but the short-story form feels like a better fit for her than the novel. Despite it coming highly recommended, "Fates & Furies" was a bit overwrought for me. 

While the bulk of these tales highlight one-dimensional male characters -- with a lack of nuance hurting some of the plots -- "Brawler" as a whole is well worth the time for those readers ready to experience a full range of feelings.

“But that was the moment when she knew he would lie to her, and everything her spun away from him, and he was the one she hated as she walked out the door.”

~“Brawler”

Day 2,235, Quasi-Quarantine: "The Director" Captures The Whirlwind Experience Of A Captive Director During World War II

“ … There was one thing experience had taught her: directors didn’t accept a gentle no, for the simple reason that people who accepted a gentle no never could have become directors.”

Daniel Kehlmann's sprawling tale follows the exploits of famed director G.W. Pabst, who eventually finds himself captive and coerced into creating movies for the appeasement of his Nazi overlords. 

“It was one of those moments when everything seems to have been said, when it suddenly feels like the present has been used and nothing is left but a threatening future.”

Kehlmann's strongest accomplishment is allowing the narrative to veer into farce and satire without ever giving short shrift to the mild terror directly underneath. His story -- translated by Ross Benjamin -- allows for exploration of questions about the relationship between dictatorship and identity, the role of artistic license, and the value of autonomy.

“Suddenly there was silence. All conversation had stopped. The director stood in front of him, her mouth half open, looking at him. I was wrong, he thought. You actually can recognize the truly evil people at a single glance.”

"The Director" bounces around from Austria to Los Angeles to Czechoslovakia to France to Nazi Germany, lending a manic pace to elements of the narrative. The tale serves as a worthy exploration of the true meaning and merit of talent -- what is it worth and what is it worth sacrificing for?

“This was exactly what it had to be about–that music only seemed to speak of beauty, but in reality it spoke of how nothing was ever enough, how everything always fell short. How so much would never be ours.”

The appearance of famous people and stars from history lends weight to the novel. Kehlmann does a stellar job of capturing the fragile state of culture against the backdrop of horror, making "The Director" a memorable -- and vital -- read.

“‘Times are always strange. Art is always out of place. Always unnecessary when it’s made. And later, when you look back, it’s the only thing that mattered.’”

Limerick Friday #650: The Mets Keep Digging For Rock Bottom -- Day 2,221

Lost twelve in a row

It's a long road to hoe

Now wins back to back

It's not too late to sack

Mendy now, don't you know

So Will Wade is a bitch

Steered the Pack into a ditch

Now Gainey's here

And hope is near

Through this transfer portal sitch

Another draft day for the 'Fins

After another season for the bins

Draft picks galore

But forgive me if I snore

Wake me up when we have some wins

All these ticking clocks

For entitled families of jocks

Paul McNeill is disrespecting State

Refusing to decide his fate

Time to tell him to kick rocks

Ass-kissing simps

And visibility pimps

Sell your creative soul

To that AI slop hole

Find some self respect, ya gimps

Last time ...

Day 2,220, Quasi-Quarantine: "Football" Serves As Thoughtful Love Letter To The Sport

“Football imitates American society by generating a sensation of chaotic freedom within an environment of near-total control.”

Chuck Klosterman’s meandering missive on America's actual national pasttime can feel a bit dense and esoteric -- while somehow managing to be hilarious and absorbing. "Football" is an eclectic mix that works, with the author dropping surprise bits of wisdom into discussion of the vagaries of six-man football.

Along the way, the author also manages to almost perfectly capture my feelings toward the Miami Dolphins.

“ … I sometimes fear I’m experiencing the most bottomless version of fandom, where I love a team I don’t even like, emotionally betrothed against my will.”

Klosterman peppers the prose with fortune cookie-ish sayings, giving the work heft interspersed with nostalgia, concern, and doubt.

“Pervasive institutional control, so entrenched that it’s become unremarkable, is both the facilitator for society’s overall enhancement and the reason so many individuals within that society feel alienated by the very things making their life easier. Everything was upgraded and nothing got better.”

Klosterman closes with an entirely plausible scenario that predicts the eventual disappearance of the game, serving as a fitting ending to a fascinating read.

“If football did not already exist and was being invented today, there’s no way this amount of idle loitering would be included. The elevator pitch would seem like a joke: ‘Let’s create a complicated, violent game where nothing happens during 94 percent of the telecast, shown from a camera perspective that limits the viewer’s ability to see what’s happening.’”

Day 2,214, Quasi-Quarantine: "Vigil" Offers Combustible Thematic Mix Of Atonement, Accountability, And Grief

“Who else could you have been but exactly who you are? I said. Did you, in the womb, construct yourself? All your life you believe yourself to be making choices, but what looked like choices were so severely diminished in advance by the mind, body, and disposition thrust upon you that the whole game amounted to a sort of lavish jailing.”

The master of satire is back with "Vigil," which attempts to balance hilarity and accountability to mixed results. George Saunders offers up shades of "Lincoln in the Bardo," peopling his afterlife with an eclectic cast of characters charged with consoling and eliciting atonement from the dying.

K.J. Boone is the latter, an oil magnate who led the effort to cover up the environmental destruction wrought by his industry. His liaison to the afterlife, Jill, grows frustrated in her efforts to elicit any measure of apology or recognition of his sins from Boone.

“ … only the two original Mels remained, wincing somewhat at the discomfort associated with the ongoing, continual rear reentry of their miniature selves.”

I'm an avid reader of Saunders's -- see "A Swim in the Pond in the Rain," "Fox 8," "Liberation Day," and "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," in addition to "Lincoln in the Bardo" -- and appreciated this one, but would not count it among my favorites of the author's. 

“Grandma Gust, we’d called her. Because of her late-life farting. She’d been the first to call herself that. After ripping one at dinner. And then we all picked up on it.”

"Vigil" is at is best when the focus is on Jill, who must reckon with her own mysteries in the wake of her sudden death. Saunders packs a lot into a fast-paced, short novel, leading a reader to wonder whether it would have benefited from more or less space to roam.

“What keeps you here, I said.

“She leaned forward to answer, as if about to tell me some long-kept secret.

“Then did a little fart, like in the old days, so we might part on good terms.

“And off she went.”