New Books Coming Your Way Aug. 4, 2015 (from Chitra Viraraghavan, Liu Zhenyun & Iceberg Slim)

The Americans by Chitra Viraraghavan
296 p.
Publication date: August 4, 2015

The protagonist of the book is Tara, a single Indian woman in her mid-thirties who travels to America to look after her teenage niece while her sister Kamala is dealing with her autistic son’s treatment and issues at school. But theirs is just one story of many. Woven expertly together, The Americans tells the stories of eleven people whose lives span the country from Louisville to Chicago to Los Angeles to Portland, to Boston. And all of their stories connect back to Tara. The Americans is about a group of people who have come to the United States with the hope of a better life, and find out what it means to have arrived here and not fit in. For fan of Jhumpa Lhairi’s Interpreter of Maladies and Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, The Americans is an eloquent and heart-warming debut from an exciting new voice that brings up questions of race, ethnicity and point of origin, and explores the puzzles of identity, place and human connection.

The Cook, the Crook and the Real Estate Tycoon by Liu Zhenyun
288 p.
Publication date: August 4, 2015

Here's a new one from Liu Zhenyun, author of I Did Not Kill My Husband. The protagonist, Liu Yuejin, is a work site cook and small-time thief whose bag is stolen. In searching for it he stumbles upon another bag, which contains a flash disk that chronicles high-level corruption, and sets off a convoluted chase. There are no heroes in this scathing, complex, and highly readable critique of the dark side of China’s predatory capitalism, corruption, and the plight of the underclasses.

Shetani's Sister by Iceberg Slim
256 p.
Publication date: August 4, 2015

Here is the newly discovered novel by Iceberg Slim, the creator and undisputed master of African-American “street literature,” a man who profoundly influenced hip hop and rap culture and probably has sold more books than any other black American author of the twentieth century (not that he saw the royalties from those sales). In many ways Iceberg Slim’s most mature fictional work, Shetani’s Sister relates, in taut, evocative vernacular torn straight from the street corner, the deadly duel between two complex anitheroes: Sergeant Russell Rucker, an LAPD vice detective attempting to clean up street prostitution and police corruption, and Shetani (Swahili for Satan), a veteran master pimp who controls his stable of whores with violence and daily doses of heroin.

#BookReview: THE LADIES OF MANAGUA by Eleni N. Gage

Maria Vazquez has a love/hate relationship with her mother, Ninexin, a larger than life figure.  While she was out leading the revolution, she left Maria to be raised by her grandmother, Isabela, and grandfather, Ignacio.  And in Maria's eyes, her grandparents can do no wrong.  The Ladies of Managua follows the lives of these three generations of women.

Her father's death at an early age adds to the abandonment that Maria feels by her parents.  While he left her by death, her mother chose to leave her and lead the Nicaraguan revolution.  She has a good relationship with her grandfather, but can't help feeling that a part of her is incomplete because she never knew her father.  We see her involved in a relationship with an older man, a temperamental artist that takes her for granted.  As she bends to his will, at times forsaking her own desires, you have to wonder if he is a replacement father figure for her.  Even as he tries to right the wrongs in their past, I found myself rooting against him, believing that she would be better suited with someone other than him.

Ninexin is a complex individual, shrouded in layers of secrecy.  She doesn't strike me as a maternal character, so when she makes attempts to reach out to Maria, it's not difficult to understand why Maria rebuffs her attempts.  As readers, we know that Ninexin is now a high level government official and revered by many in the country, but we're only given a glimpse of her on a personal level.  Even as she begins to show her "real" side, Maria is unsure of what to make of it.  It's only when Ninexin completely lets her mask fall that Maria begins to understand the sacrifices her mother made for her in the name of the revolution.

Bela is absolutely my favorite character.  When we meet her in present day, she's mourning the loss of her husband.  But we learn that he was not the great love of her life, that would be Mauricio, a man that courted her during her time at boarding school in 1950s New Orleans.  I've visited New Orleans several times, but reading it through the eyes of a teenage girl in days past was an eye opening experience.  At a time when young women were expected to be prim and proper, Bela was bold, though not brave enough to go against her family wishes.  Still, the present day Bela is bold and brave.  She's reached an age where she has little regard to how people view her and she rarely bites her tongue.

Although the relationships among the three women are the heart of the story, I also enjoyed reading about their relationships with Ignacio - husband, father and grandfather. Even though he had other grandchildren, you can tell he went out of his way to make Maria feel special and to make sure she didn't lack paternal influence.  It would seem that all three women had a special bond with Ignacio.  He wasn't the man Bela initially wanted, but he was the man she needed. He didn't necessarily approve of, but understood and supported Ninexin's decisions.  And he stood in the gap for Maria when her own father couldn't.

I was initially drawn to this book because of the colorful cover, but was quickly drawn into the lives of the characters.  If you love a good generational saga with intense characters, this is a must read.

400p.
Published: May 2015