November 2018 Quick Lit: What I've been reading

Today I'm participating in Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit linkup, where we share short reviews of what we've been reading. 

This month I read one memoir and two novels, all of which were excellent.

Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow. When Chapters had its moving sale a few months ago I picked up several $1 or $2 books, including this one. I wasn't familiar with Blow's work as a journalist or even with his name, to be honest; I chose the book simply because it looked interesting. I'm glad I did, because it is a beautifully-written, moving memoir of Blow's life beginning with his boyhood in Louisiana with a philandering father and hard-working mother. Blow always felt lonely and different in his family, which he says contributed to his being taken advantage of sexually by a cousin -- an event that separated his life into before-and-after and was the catalyst for his lifelong exploration of both his sexual identity and his identity as a black man. Well worth reading.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. The only other book of Patchett's that I've read is her most famous, Bel Canto. Commonwealth doesn't quite live up to that standard, but I still really enjoyed it. It begins with a long scene in which the Keating and Cousins families intersect, setting in motion two divorces and one marriage. The story focuses mainly on the six children (two Keatings, four Cousinses), who are thrown together in the wake of their parents' breakups. Their troubled relationships come to a head when they grow up and one of the daughters becomes involved with an older writer who uses her family's story as inspiration for what becomes a wildly successful novel. There are a couple of minor subplots that  didn't seem particularly significant, but overall I loved how the plotlines interwove together, filling in the details of past events from various characters' perspectives. Patchett is such an accomplished writer: she knows just how much detail to provide in any given moment so that we understand the situation without requiring a huge amount of backstory, and her characters are distinct and believable. This is an excellent novel about how families can come through very tough situations, reconfigure, and become even stronger.

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger. I loved this novel. It starts slowly with narrator Virgil Wander, a middle-aged bachelor, recovering from concussion symptoms after a freakish car accident and reorienting himself to his quiet life in a down-on-its-luck Minnesota town. In the early chapters we meet a whole cast of quirky characters: a kite-flying stranger seeking information about his son, a beautiful woman whose husband went missing years ago, a local boy who made it big (maybe?) in Hollywood and is now back and attracting attention ... and more. At first it's hard to keep everyone straight, but Enger is such a warm, trustworthy storyteller -- and Virgil is such a likeable person -- that soon I was fully absorbed in the lives of all the characters. Then, about halfway through, the plot kicks into gear with a series of unsettling events that kept me turning pages and rooting for Virgil and his little community. So good.