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.”

Day 2,210, Quasi-Qauarantine: Moving "To Free The Captives" Explores Black Experience

“The conundrum of history is that we think it is behind us. But if it came first, doesn’t that mean it should be up ahead, turning back now and again to see if we are keeping up?”

Beautiful writing and constructions mark Tracy K. Smith's "To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul." A poet by trade -- she was the United States Poet Laureate from 2017-19 -- this work serves as a memoir and commentary on the national role of race.

“For my parents and their kin, born into a nation intent upon their diminishment and inured to their dying, the soul started out from unblinking eyes with the assurance of continuance. I matter, it said. Never mind what you attempt, I will last.”

The book is at its best when the author is not the central character and instead focuses on her family and the search for more information about their experiences and challenges. However, some complaints feel iffy or forced, which may undermine the power of some of the author's arguments for some readers.

Although relatively short, the book is both powerful and thought-provoking. To be sure, "To Free the Captives" brings an emotional punch that resonates long after the reading is done.

“But freedom isn’t a thing to be held or hoarded; its purpose is to be passed forward, given away. Freedom is an impossibility in places where the most one is encouraged to seek and guard jealously is power, permission, authority. Freedom is held captive in places like these.”

Day 2,205, Quasi-Quarantine: Retaining That Cali State Of Mind

 We experienced snow, wind, rain, sun, and even an earthquake. Sign us up for the full California experience, please.

The first part of spring break was spent in almost-impossibly beautiful Yosemite Park, where we explored Bridalveil Fall, Happy isles, Lower Yosemite Fall, Mirror Lake, and a number of other areas.

To paraphrase Kramer, up here, I'm still there.

Day 2,198, Quasi-Quarantine: "Beyond The Sea" Takes Deserved Place Among The Finest Survival Tales

“The thought that presses from the darkest place.

“What it says.

“To stare directly at it. What it might mean.

“You are alone.”

A harrowing fever dream of being lost to an unforgiving ocean, "Beyond the Sea" is a triumph of a survivor tale. Paul Lynch's exploration of the evolving relationship between veteran fisherman Bolivar and disinterested youth Hector within the prison of a boat is grim and existential.

Based on the true story of Salvadoran fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga, the novel uses sparse punctuation and short sentences to contrast the vastness of the sea. Hector examines an unlived life, while Boliver struggles with a dark, illicit past full of mistakes and bad decisions.

“Hector’s sorrowful, weighted eyes are the yes of a man watching his own life from some remote place without capacity to shout warning.”

Lynch has quickly emerged as one of my favorite writers, having secured the top spot in the 2024 Scooties with his incredible work "Prophet Song." His bleak, gutting stories incorporate contemporary issues -- the environment, geopolitics, degradation -- and challenge every emotional chord, leaving you feeling, well, like you've just survived a ship wreck.

“The countenance of a child growing before him as he crawls along the beach, his cry broken, he has not the breath to speak, to put into words, he wants to say it over and over again, home, I can go home now, but the words will not come. He falls before the child, it is a little girl, and he lifts his head and thinks, you believed. A feeling now of the world he once knew. And it is then he finds the breath to speak, and he seeks not to frighten her, speaks in his own tongue.

“I am only a fisherman.”

"Beyond the Sea" is a worthy entry into the company enjoyed by Hemingway, Melville, and Golding, and its ending is cleverly open to broad interpretation. The book will leave you exhausted and emotionally shaken -- but a thankful witness to deepest elements of man's soul.

“He thinks, what is life but waiting.

“He closes his eyes and listens.

“Always waiting upon the awaited thing. But what if you hold what is given?”

Day 2,193, Quasi-Quarantine: "Towards The End Of The Morning" Offers A Hysterical Parody Of Journalism In 1960s London

 

“He liked life to be predictable and orderly. He liked to have time to think what he was going to feel about something before it happened.”

Michael Frayn's hilarious depiction of 1960s Fleet Street captures all the stereotypes and realities of journalism. "Towards the End of Morning" is hysterical, peopled with angsty editors (Dyson), driftless writers (Bob), immovable lifers (Eddy Moulton), and vague social climbers (Erskine Morris).

“He had spent his youth as one might spend an inheritance, and he had no idea what he had bought with it.”

Anyone who has spent any time on a newspaper, magazine, or publication of any kind will recognize the characters and ethos of a newsroom and its environs. Frayn has nailed the vibe beautifully, making for an irresistible encapsulation of an entire trade.

“He settled back in his armchair with his beer, full of mutton and beans and well-being. He felt as though there were a space for him in the universe, and he exactly filled it.”

Day 2,182, Quasi-Quarantine: "Tom's Crossing" Traverses Genres Like Terrain In Sprawling Western

“For everyone there is reserved a great journey.

That include the dead? Kalen asked his friend.

Especially the dead.

I’ll remember that.

The journey don’t count unless you finish it.

We’ll finish it.

I’ll remember that, Tom said.”

Mark Z. Danielewski's sprawling epic is like nothing you'll ever read -- part Western, part romance, part horror, part procedural, part ghost story. "Tom's Crossing" evokes the best of Cormac McCarthy with an added supernatural spice.

“Kalin March was a dead-end kid who kept ridin into dead ends that couldn’t put an end to him.”

“That was Tom, one moment a river, the next, a cat, why not a goat. Whether feathered, scaled, clawed, or a current on earth or above it, he was allways wild beyond us. Wild inhabited him, and endless laughter was the result, because he was forever. For a moment at least.”

The author certainly makes you work for it: dense descriptions, archaic words, meandering soliloquies, and a lengthy roster of characters. The coincidences and eccentricities add up in the story, as an unlikely number of Orvop natives ended up living in foreign lands and dying in really strange ways, and Old Porch is let off the hook despite overwhelming evidence.

“But Kalin refused to let go of Tom, maybe not seein that it weren’t a dyin boy’s hand no more that he grasped but a rope of the severest kind and he was already hung up on the darkest beast of all.”

Based on Mount Timpanagos in Utah (a place that I've actually been), the book offers some interesting observations about the Mormon faith that hit close to home. A suspension of disbelief is required as well, on more than a few occasions.

However, the author renders the developing rapport between Kalin and Landry with the care it deserves. The tale celebrates their connection, but acknowledges that both lost something fundamental about themselves somewhere along the way.

“Because the price we pay for experience, the price that alters us permanent, can be paid only if we go beyond the limits of who we thought we were. Only then can we realize how we were all along someone else.”

Danielewski makes bold narratives choices, and the decision to switch to first person near the end was jarringly effective. His ability to blend the beautiful and melancholy with uncommon skill has resulted in an instant classic that is sure to be studied and appreciated for years.

“I’m still scared, Kalin.”

“Good. And now that you’ve said it, be done with it.”

“Landry kept chewin on the inside of a cheek. She liked the words even if they didn’t help.

“For these horses, right? she asked.

“Kalin looked at her real steady, and longer than he’d ever looked at her before, maybe longer than anyone had looked at her. Especially like that. 

“It ain’t good enuf to wanna be free, Kalin told her then, but in that way like all the embers he guarded deep in his heart to keep his life warm he was now givin over to her. Every dang livin thing wants to be free. It’s elemental I reckon. But like my momma taught me, and it’s how I see things too: to matter you gotta set free someone that ain’t you. That’s all that matters.

“And that applies to horses?

“World won’t matter for spit if there ain’t no horses.”

Scooter & Hum's Top Five Books Of The Year 2025

Needing the gift of escapism even more than ever, I set a goal of 37 books in 2025, with the idea being to focus on longer, deeper books. However, I ended up reading 41 in all, to the tune of 15,937 pages (more than 1,200 pages more than the previous year), with the shortest book checking in at 128 pages and the longest at 1,318. 

As always, I went back and forth a bit on my top five, and as a general note, I was fortunate enough to find a number of tremendous non-fiction books this year.

Without further ado ...

1. "The End of the Myth," by Greg Grandin

What I Wrote Then

What I Say Now: 

Grandin does meticulous research in outlining the chronology of the nation's founding. By documenting our country's long reliance on myths and brutality, the author unequivocally decimates the entire concept of American exceptionalism.

Passages to Remember: 

“It’s America’s new myth, a monument to the final closing of the frontier. It is a symbol of a nation that used to believe that it had escaped history, or at least strode atop history, but now finds itself trapped by history, and of a people who used to think they were captains of the future, but now are prisoners of the past.”

“There’s nothing united about these States anymore, except Standard Oil and discontent. We’re no longer a small people living and dying for a great idea; we’re a big people living and dying for money.”

~Owen Wister

“Increasingly politicized elites began to invest vast sums in any intellectual, lawyer, economist, or philosopher willing to tell them they were the new pioneers, that the individual was the sole source of virtue, the only creator of value, that the world was divided between makers and takers, that market solutions were the only effective solutions, and that new economic frontiers were always open to conquest.”

2. "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden," by Denis Johnson

What I Wrote Then

What I Say Now: 

One of my favorite authors, Johnson created this profound, absorbing short-story collection for a posthumous publication. The work captures a true American treasure’s brilliance just after his death.

Passages to Remember: 

“Before long, we wandered into a discussion of the difference between repentance and regret. You repent the things you’ve done, and regret the chances you let get away.”

~“The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”

“That’s what we gotta do is get down to just one story, the true person we are, and live it all the way out.” 

~“The Starlight of Idaho”

“Have I loved my wife? We’ve gotten along. We’ve never felt like congratulating ourselves.”

~“The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”

3. "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama," by Nathan Thrall

What I Wrote Then

What I Say Now: 

Thrall has built a devastating tale of what's required to eke out a life amidst fraught Palestinian-Jewish interactions. Out of respect for the subject matter, his prose is straightforward and succinct, but his work should be required reading within the current geopolitical climate.

Passages to Remember: 

“We do not see our hand in what happens, so we call certain events melancholy accidents when they are the inevitabilities of our projects, and we call other events necessities merely because we will not change our minds.”

~Stanley Cavell

“‘You’ve turned our autonomy into a prison for us,’ the lead Palestinian negotiator, Abu Ala, said.”

4. "Looking for Alaska," by John Green

What I Wrote Then

What I Say Now: 

Green evokes an absorbing sentimentality through is depiction of an Alabama boarding school that serves as the setting for coming-of-age misfits dealing with grief and love. Yes, this is technically a YA book, but I make absolutely zero apologies for ranking it here.

Passages to Remember: 

“She didn’t leave me enough to discover her, but she left me enough to rediscover the Great Perhaps.”

“‘Oh, they suck,’ replied the Colonel. ‘But we always beat the shit out of the deaf-and-blind school.’”

“She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.”

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”

“He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.”

5. "The Place of Tides," by James Rebanks

What I Wrote Then

What I Say Now: 

Stunning Norway is the setting for Rebanks's non-fiction depiction of a dying tradition being upheld by a force of nature. The author weaves his personal challenges into the experience, making for a rich and emotional read.

Passages to Remember: 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about the old woman on the rocks … It was like someone had shown me a few lines of a truly great book and then closed the covers tight shut.”

“She had built herself out of the old stories, as had each generation before her, and now those who told them were dying out. Sometimes, in the days that followed, if Anna told me a story and I didn’t scribble it down she would look at me like maybe I hadn’t understood its importance, and would glance at the paper as if I ought to record it.”

“Our lives are a series of choices – about what we do, and don’t do. Over time we decide what to let go of, what must die, and what we will fight to keep alive. Sometimes these are big, deliberate decisions, other times change happens in a thousand thoughtless little moments.”

“Anna reminded me that the first rule of living is to live. To see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the world. The more I tuned in, the closer Anna and I were growing as friends. I was beginning a journey back to the person I had once been – and needed to be again.”

“Anna’s example was simple: if we are to save the world, we have to start somewhere. We just have to do one damn thing after another. Hers was a small kind of heroism, but it was the most powerful kind. The kind that saves us. We all have to go to work in our own communities, in our own landscapes. We have to show up day in, day out, for years and years, doing the work. There will be no brass band, no parade. And we have to accept and keep the faith in each other, and somehow work together. It is the only way we can make our own tiny deeds add up to become the change we all need.”

Narrow Misses (in 15 words or less):

"Vera, or Faith," by Gary Shteyngart: Hysterical, gut-wrenching look at contemporary politics and how technology compromises what passes for culture.

"Barbarian Days," by William Finnegan: Melodic, mystic autobiography details the author’s quixotic search for the perfect, unexplored wave–and peace.

"Montpelier Parade," by Karl Geary: Stark, oppressive look at two sides of same Dublin, through the eyes of futureless Sonny.

"Foster," by Claire Keegan: Tale of the bond between neglected niece and caregivers in rural Ireland is devastatingly emotional.

"The Intuitionist," by Colson Whitehead: Memorable debut of generation-defining novelist is a many-genred racial allegory with compelling characters.

"Down and Out in Paris and London," by George Orwell: Seedy underbelly of two of world's most renowned cities revealed in tragic, stark, hysterical memoir.

"Master and Margarita," by Andrei Bulgakov: Subversive, posthumous work uses a satanic presence to offer satirical takedown of Moscow, Russian society.

"Isola," by Allegra Goodman: Privileged orphan suffers abuse, imprisonment, and abandonment, finding her spiritual center in a harsh environment.

"An Oral History of Atlantis," by Ed Park: Short-story collection feels like fever dream shot through with social commentary, ennui, and hilarity.

"Stranger in a Strange Land," by Robert A. Heinlein: Dense, intriguing sci-fi adventure loses steam as it devolves into commentary on religion, sexuality.

Honorable Mention (in 10 words or less):

"A Really Strange and Wonderful Time," by Tom Maxwell: Triangle takes center stage in meticulously researched indie-music memoir.

"Tentacle," by Rita Indiana: Queer politics, other social issues clash in short, challenging book.

"Rogues," by Patrick Radden Keefe: Meticulous researcher displays investigative gifts in collection of finest work.

"The Freaks Came Out to Write," by Tricia Romano: Dizzying number of interviews document definitive counterculture institution Village Voice.

"The Hum," by Helen Phillips: Poignant tale of budding AI terror diminished by slow pacing.

"The Boys of Riverside," by Thomas Fuller: Dedicated group of deaf boys embrace challenges, win state title.

"1Q84," by Haruki Murakami: Sprawling tale crosses worlds, but undercut by repetition, distracting fetishizing.

"The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024," edited by S.A. Cosby: Memorable collection of short stories boasts unique formats, styles, themes.

"Rebel Hearts: Journey Within the IRA's Soul," by Kevin Toolis: Painstaking research into history of the Troubles, impact of violence.

"The End of the World As We Know it: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand," edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene: Ambitious tales set in Stephen King's world. to varying effectiveness.

"Lazarus Man," by Richard Price: NYC takes the fore in tale of atonement, hope, community.

Notable (in 7 words or less):

"On Air," by Steve Oney: NPR's origin story is dense and invaluable.

"Everybody Knows," by Jordan Harper: Hollywood noir showcases underdogs toppling fixed game.

"On the Hippie Trail," by Rick Steves: Global trek as coming-of-age story.

"Brothers," by Alex Van Halen: Emotional tale of brotherhood overcomes sudden ending.

"Where the Line Bleeds," by Jesmyn Ward: Barren Gulf Coast features twins finding identity.

"CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," by George Saunders: Depressing, confusing short stories reveal future satirist.

"Never Flinch," by Stephen King: Holly Gibney, killer, stalker converge in Ohio.

"The Geek Way," by Andrew McAfee: Can speed, science, openness foster change, culture?

"The Emergency," by George Packer: Satirical parable worthy read for current moment.

"King of Ashes," by S.A. Cosby: Formulaic Southern noir gives what it promises.

"Black Woods Blue Sky," by Eowyn Ivey: Girl's connection to a mysterious Alaskan creature.

The Rest (in 5 words or less):

"Creation Lake," by Rachel Kushner: Weak protagonist sinks promising premise.

"Talent," by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross: Iffy role models undercut theme. 

"Kill Joy," by Holly Jackson: Fun prequel set in Scotland.

"The Reappearance of Rachel Price," by Holly Jackson: Coincidence, formula deter YA tale.