Argentina: Cartwheel

CARTWHEEL
by Jennifer Dubois

 

Cartwheel, by Jennifer Dubois, isn't really about Argentina.  It just happens to be set in Argentina, which is why I selected it, but I can't claim to have learned anything about the country, its people, or culture through reading it.  But that's okay because it was a really intriguing novel that spoke volumes about how difficult and dangerous it can be to be a stranger in a strange land, especially when youth and lack of experience influence one's judgment and inform one's decisions.  The story is about an American college student who is studying abroad for a year in Buenos Aires.  Lily is smart, confident, and hopeful but somehow, in her enthusiasm and naiveté, manages to get off on the wrong foot with her host mother, who misinterprets Lily's behavior and disapproves of her romance with Sebastien next door, and with her roommate Katy, whose demeanor is more serious, reserved, and contemplative.  When Katy is brutally murdered, Lily's discordance with those who believe they know her well proves to work against her in a terrifying and irreversible way.

Neither Katy's murder nor Lily's arrest and prosecution are the focal point of the novel, however.  Rather, the book is about perspective.  Dubois's storytelling weaves together the points-of-view of many characters: Lily; her lover, Sebastien; her host mother, Beatriz; her prosecutor, Eduardo; her sister, Anna, her father, Andrew, and to a lesser degree her mother, Maureen.  Their beliefs about Lily, who she is and what she's capable of doing, stem not only from their observations and interaction with her, but also from what they've heard from others and what assumptions they bring to the equation, irrespective of anything having to do with Lily at all.  Dubois artfully crafts multiple narratives of Lily, and only through careful attention and close reading is the reader likely to pick up on all of the subtleties and nuances of what details lead to which misconceptions.

Who is Lily?  No one truly knows, including Lily herself since that is both the curse and the blessing of the young adult.  She went to Argentina for the very purpose of beginning the journey to discover herself, a journey that is horrifically interrupted by Katy's death.

The author discloses that the inspiration for the book was the case of Amanda Knox, an American college student who studied in Italy and found herself in identical circumstances to the fictional Lily.  Most of the fact pattern in Lily's case follows closely, if not exactly, with Amanda's.  What Dubois does with her novel is take us inside the minds of those involved.  Anyone who followed the Knox case probably felt perplexed and disturbed and indignant and sympathetic all at the same time.  Dubois illustrated for us what we should know but often forget in the human drama that takes place all around us ... that things are often not as they seem and that it is impossible to ever be free of bias and assumption.  In terms of Lily's guilt or innocence, we don't get to explore this much, not even through peeking inside Lily's thoughts.  Dubois sticks tightly to the theme of perspective, and what we know about Lily is mainly what she thinks and feels and assumes about others.

Cartwheel is what I call a "head book."  There's not a lot of action.  Instead, it's largely philosophical and extremely intellectual.  I literally read every single word for fear of missing some fascinating detail that would help me to understand.  If only we listened to one another so closely ...

Other Books Considered

Imagining Argentina, by Lawrence Thornton

Departing at Dawn, by Goria Lis

The Honorary Consul, by Graham Greene

Stealing Mona Lisa, by Carson Morton (mystery, Kirkus Reviews' Best of 2011 Fiction and a Library Journal Best Mystery of 2011) **

Life, After, by Sarah Darer Littman (YA)

An Open Secret, by Carlos Gamerro

The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander

The Lighthouse at the End of the World, by Jules Verne

Blood Tango, by Annamaria Alfieri

The Story of the Night, by Colm Toibin

No Place For Heroes, by Laura Restrepo

The Foreigners, by Maxine Swann

 

The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club, by Jessica Morrison
 

The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri

The Tango Singer: A Novel, by Tomas Eloy Martinez 

 

Antigua and Barbuda: Lucy

Lucy

by Jamaica Kincaid

I finished my book for Antigua and Barbuda over a week ago, but with the holiday season fully in swing, I haven't been able to spend time writing about Jamaica Kincaid's enchanting novel, Lucy.  Instead, I've been doing the usual Christmasy sorts of things:  putting up a tree, shopping, wrapping, a little baking (this is more my daughter's domain), and spending time with family.  Since I've been in a long phase of trying to be more minimalist in my lifestyle and to stay in control of the ever-present clutter that comes with family life, all of the Christmas paraphernalia has generated more than a little stress.  I've tried to balance that out with making sure we spent time and energy on holiday activities that remind us of what Christmas is all about in the first place.  I took my daughter Grace and my eldest son's girlfriend Brittanie to see the Nutcracker, which was a wonderful way to kick off the season.  We've been Christmas caroling and to a couple of holiday concerts.  And we've tried hard to simply enjoy the peacefulness that is underneath the Christmas chaos ... seriously, it's there ... you just have to dig for it.

So far, my favorite Christmas activity was the early gift exchange we had last night with my husband Tim's family.  We've gotten to be a rather large group that spans an age range of more than 80 years.  My father-in-law just turned 86, and there's one great-granddaughter who is only five years old.  Fifteen of us crammed in around the kitchen table in the tiny kitchen of Tim's childhood home.  We needed two tables:  one for the adults plus the little one, and another for the "kids," who are ages 22, 22, 21, 19, and 16.  There was no Christmas tree as my very practical mother-in-law gave that up years ago in favor of a holiday wreath featuring lights and a handful of her favorite ornaments.  There were no expensive gifts, just small presents that were thoughtful and loving.  Tim's oldest brother always gives everyone a lottery ticket and some kind of little toy that amuses even the biggest kids.  It's now a tradition to which we all look forward.  Many years ago, my mother-in-law realized we share a love of books, so I always give her a few books, wrapped individually and tied together with a bow, which I look forward to enjoying after she's finished.  We have fried oysters for dinner, a holiday tradition that my father-in-law enjoyed in his childhood and has handed down to all of us.  We hold hands when we say the blessing before we eat. 

This year, we sang Jingle Bells together, much to the little one's delight, and best of all ... Santa Claus made an appearance!  It was too bad that Uncle Mike missed the whole thing though since he was "out of the room" the whole time Santa was visiting!

Best of all, we laughed, told jokes, reminisced, and enjoyed the company of one another.  THAT is what Christmas is really all about.  Later this week, we'll be heading to Tennessee, where my mother, sister, brother-in-law, 8-year old niece, and 6-year old nephew will be part of another set of cherished days and memories.  We'll have another chance to remember why we go through all of the chaos and stress of holiday preparations.

Despite being busy with holiday preparations and events, I have, of course, made time for reading ... just not as much for writing about reading.  There aren't a lot of books that are set in the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua, but I managed to find a few.  Years ago, I read Jamaica Kincaid's novel, Annie John, and found it to be delightful, so I decided to give Lucy a try.  In the spirit of transparency, the main action of the novel takes place in the United States, and Lucy's flashback memories are about an island home in the West Indies.  There is no specific mention of Antigua, but given that the author hails from there, I think it's a safe bet that the cultural background Lucy brings to her experience of New York City reflects Kincaid's Antiguan heritage.  If you want to know more about Kincaid, the Huffington Post published a great article about why she's "such a badass." 

With fewer than 200 pages, Lucy is a quick read and a compelling story of a young girl who leaves her small island home and her family to work as an au pair for a wealthy family in New York.  We hear Lucy's voice throughout, and the single perspective offers a deep and powerful level of insight that doesn't often happen when stories are told by multiple characters.  What's magical about this technique is that as the story develops, the reader experiences life inside Lucy's mind while also recognizing how Lucy might be perceived from the outside.  She's angry, self-centered, and not especially nice ... that's how her actions and thoughts make her appear, and about halfway through, it becomes apparent that this is also how she feels.  She doesn't like herself any more than the reader does (at first.)  However ... as time passes, Lucy begins to share more (with readers) about why she is hurt and angry.  As she shines light on what happened in her childhood, she begins to understand herself ... but, being young, she is not mature enough to take action that will help her move through and deal with her feelings.

Lucy's relationship with Mariah, her employer, perfectly depicts their separate struggles as Lucy fights against wanting to break free of the home she both loves and despises, and Mariah tries desperately to hide from her crumbling marriage and hollow life by frantically showing Lucy all of the "wonderful" things about living in the United States.  As things begin to unravel, Lucy becomes impatient with Mariah's pretend sunny disposition and has no hesitation about telling her what she thinks and what life in the real world, away from Mariah's life of fortune and opportunity, is really like.  The story is truly about the coming of age, one with a fascinating glimpse of how difficult a time of life young adulthood can be, especially when you're navigating outside of everything that is familiar.

Other Books Considered

Ladies of the Night, by Althea Prince (short stories)

Loving This Man, by Althea Prince (fiction)

Considering Venus, by Isaac Gisele

Antigua and My Life Before, by Marcela Serrano

Angola: A Band-Aid for a Broken Leg

 

 

A Band-Aid for a Broken Leg

by Damien Brown

 

 

Although I'm not a big nonfiction fan, I do enjoy a good memoir.  They do for me the same thing fiction does ... give me a glimpse into the lives of others in a way that makes me think philosophically about things and issues I might otherwise not contemplate.  A Band -Aid for a Broken Leg is Dr. Damien Brown's story of his experiences serving a volunteer with the aid organization Doctors Without Borders.  Brown, who hails from Australia, gets hooked on the expat life after a medical trip to Thailand.  After returning home, his life in Australia seems mundane and uninspiring, so he signs up for DWB and soon finds himself in a sparsely populated village in Angola where poverty, AIDS, and desperation are all around him.  His memoir is both funny and sobering at the same time.  You'll find yourself laughing at Brown's deer-in-headlights response to things like lack of indoor plumbing, local surgeons trained on battlefields instead of medical schools, and a series of misunderstandings that arise because of cultural differences.  And then, on the next page, you'll find your heart breaking at the descriptions of starving children, young adults dying of AIDS, and mental illness that is misunderstood and untreated. 

Having been an expat myself, I can vouch for Brown's accuracy in describing how surreal is can be when nothing at all looks, sounds, smells, tastes, or feels familiar.  It is thrilling and overwhelming, all at the same time.  Once Damien finds his footing, he forges vibrant friendships that help him learn much about himself and realize how disparate and unknowable the world can be.

At the end of his six-month assignment in Angola, Brown decides to continue volunteering with DWB and spends time in two other African countries, both of which have similar challenges but neither of which steal a piece of his heart the way Angola did.  His love for his Angolan experience shines through in his writing.  I chose this book because of DWB's recent presence in current events during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.  I wanted to peek behind the curtain and understand more about the work of the organization, the motives of the volunteers, and what life is like on the ground.  When I turned the last page, I did so with enormous respect for what DWB volunteers do ... and what they give up in order to do it.

Other Books Considered:

Angola: A Love Story, by Brandon Aguiar

Buried in the Sky, by Rick Andrew

Walking on Dry Land, by Denis Kehoe

Human Love, by Andrei Makine

The Book of Chameleons, by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

The Small Bees' Honey, by George Clark