I decided to read Heti's "novel from life" after reading this interview with Heti on The Awl. It touches on a lot issues such as friendship, relationships, and creativity that I have been paying more attention to in my own life as I have settled into living in a place that I didn't necessarily expect myself to settle in, and changing some of my goals and priorities over the last year. The format of the novel is unusual; the main character is Sheila and the supporting cast are her real friends, but she has changed some of them to work with the novel's structure and it is never clear what is real, what is fiction, and what is a conglomeration of the two.
Swamplandia!, one of the novels shortlisted for the Pulitzer-Prize-that-Wasn't, hit me with a mix of magical realism and gritty reality that I wasn't quite expecting, leaving me feeling a little blind sided by some of the events later in the novel. Russell's unique novel features a vibrant and fierce young narrator, the preteen alligator wrestler Ava Bigtree, as well as her strange family. Ava's first person story began to intersperse with a third-person narrative following her brother, Kiwi, in the more urban world partway through the novel, and this juxtaposition enhanced the surreal atmosphere and served as a foil to make the Bigtree's plight seem even more dire.
I added this book to my fall vacation reading options at the last minute, and ended up being so absorbed by it that I couldn't put it down and finished it in about a day. It's told in the voice of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a man living mostly in his own head. Daniel has a strict regiment of rituals that make it difficult or impossible to venture far beyond his apartment, but a slowly building series of events leads him to begin venturing beyond his prescribed path and finding a new vibrancy in life. Martin brings a strong and honest voice to Daniel; reading the novel was like making a new friend and developing a level of intimacy with them.
Strayed's memoir of hiking a little more than 1000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail has been on my to-read list since it came out, but it wasn't until December that I finally decided to buy it and give it a go. I used to read a lot of hiking memoirs back when I first developed an obsession with the Appalachian Trail so perhaps it just didn't seem fresh enough to draw me in when I don't have as much time as I'd like for reading. I was completely wrong; Strayed's memoir is as much about hiking as it is a love letter to her mother and a rumination on all of the forces driving her life in the years leading up to her hike. At times laugh out loud funny or amazingly sexy, and others heart breaking or terrifying, Strayed has ultimately put forth one of the most honest and open memoirs I've ever read. She has put herself on the page, unafraid to present us with her worst moments as well as her best.
Obviously as a pleasure reader, I choose books I expect to enjoy, but I don't always (or perhaps ever, at this point in my reading life) choose them expecting to completely fall in love with them. Sloan's novel begins with someone who will seem familiar to most of us: a young man lost in post-recession malaise after the start-up he worked for after college went belly-up. Desperate for income, he begins working at the titular 24-hour bookshop and is drawn into a secret society in search of the key to a 500 year old code. I studied literature and art history, and with my particular brand of nerd-ism this book was destined to be a slap in the face of awesome. If you like graphic design, new media, or codes, read this book. If you enjoyed the documentary on Helvetica, read this book. If you're into programming and hacking, read this book. If you're into history and printing, read this book. Sloan manages to make both an exciting novel and a celebration of books and media for the digital age, and never ceased to impress me.
Honorable Mentions:
1.) An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin. Obviously I have a thing for Steve Martin, as he's shown up twice now. This is another book that was uniquely suited to fit my interests, following a driven young woman named Lacey as she makes her way through the gallery world in New York City. It's a fascinating look at the way the art world and the contemporary art market work, but its characters are slightly more at arm's length than the narrator in The Pleasure of My Company, and so it took second place.
2.) Threats by Amelia Gray. NPR hasn't steered me wrong yet. I read this debut novel after hearing a piece about it, and enjoyed Gray's strange imagery. This is a very psychological novel, focusing on a dentist named David after the sudden death of this wife Franny. As the novel progresses it becomes more and more unhinged, and I was never sure what was real and what was only in David's mind, or if the distinction even mattered.
3.) House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I bought this one quite a while before I read it, but I was intimidated by it and if you've ever cracked the cover you'll probably know why. It's an Inception-level frame story, riddled with footnotes to footnotes, text that swirls across the page and forces you to rotate the book as you read or read in a mirror. It demands a level of attention that many books do not, but I'm so glad I finally conquered my fear and picked it up. It's a creepy and constantly surprising book that forces connection in unusual ways, and I'm still unable to wrap my mind around what must have gone into its creation.
4.) Yes Chef by Marcus Samuelsson. I will admit my bias, as I got my (signed) copy of this book after a culinary demonstration by Chef Samuelsson, who was a very warm and engaging presenter. I read several culinary memoirs this year, and Chef Samuelsson's was the most consistently interesting. He has successfully created a narrative journey from childhood to the present, giving a clear picture of his motivations and goals as a chef.
5.) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It's true that it's impossible to talk about this book in much detail without spoiling it. If you've been living under a rock all year and haven't heard, Gone Girl is a thriller in which a young woman disappears on the day of her fifth wedding anniversary. It is the only book on this list that I told my mother she had to read, and the only one whose ending I would not have predicted at any point during reading, not even a little bit.
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