Biography of X by Catherine Lacey was compulsively readable though the main characters weren't pleasant people. It's a lengthy but oddly addictive and sometimes off-putting book. Lacey places the story in a future time when the United States has split into Northern and Southern territories, with the progressives ruling in the north and the fundamentalists in the south. She reimagines Emma Goldman as a powerful politician whose assassination precipitates the divide. When it wasn't annoying me, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Yes, definitely part of the frisson of reading this book is recognizing that potential in our current political reality. And I'm a big Emma Goldman fan, so that appealed to me. The book is really about a woman's search for her dead wife's identity in the context of the alternative history and the undercurrents that you point out.
Once more, will briefly annotate the books I so perfunctorily listed in the survey. The Hungry Season by Lisa M. Hamilton, a writer based in Northern California, traces the life of a woman, Ia Moua, from Laos whose family escaped from the communist regime by traveling on foot to Thailand. Ia grew up in refugee camps and started a family and numerous businesses before immigrating to the United States, where she grows specialty rice in Fresno. Fresno is not known for its rice but through Ia's business savvy and endless physical labor, she supports her extended family in the U.S. and Laos. Having grown up with the Vietnam War on the TV news every night, Ia's story gave me a different perspective on that history.
So much to read!! And now I want to read “The Sex War”!
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey was compulsively readable though the main characters weren't pleasant people. It's a lengthy but oddly addictive and sometimes off-putting book. Lacey places the story in a future time when the United States has split into Northern and Southern territories, with the progressives ruling in the north and the fundamentalists in the south. She reimagines Emma Goldman as a powerful politician whose assassination precipitates the divide. When it wasn't annoying me, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
In other words, a glimpse of what is coming.
Yes, definitely part of the frisson of reading this book is recognizing that potential in our current political reality. And I'm a big Emma Goldman fan, so that appealed to me. The book is really about a woman's search for her dead wife's identity in the context of the alternative history and the undercurrents that you point out.
Fabulous! Now you’ve saved me from having to look at ANY of the million other year end book lists!
Once more, will briefly annotate the books I so perfunctorily listed in the survey. The Hungry Season by Lisa M. Hamilton, a writer based in Northern California, traces the life of a woman, Ia Moua, from Laos whose family escaped from the communist regime by traveling on foot to Thailand. Ia grew up in refugee camps and started a family and numerous businesses before immigrating to the United States, where she grows specialty rice in Fresno. Fresno is not known for its rice but through Ia's business savvy and endless physical labor, she supports her extended family in the U.S. and Laos. Having grown up with the Vietnam War on the TV news every night, Ia's story gave me a different perspective on that history.