Neshama’s Choices for October 14

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Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen

When journalist Rachel’s mother Lucie dies in Maine, she must go back there because she inherited Lucie’s house. Their relationship was troubled from the get-go but 10 years ago when Lucie broke her leg, Rachel came to help her, and it was so nightmarish that they’d been out of touch ever since. Rachel’s younger sister Celeste saw Lucie through her last days and there are hard feelings between the siblings. Lucie—alcoholic, flamboyant, narcissistic, and manipulative—created the dissent between them, and also kept the girls away from their rural relatives.  Celeste appears to have everything (she married a rich man and lives a cosseted life) as contrasted to Rachel who loses her job and much more. But when the sisters go to the family’s camp to spread Lucie’s ashes, home truths and possible healing emerge. Atmospheric and emotionally intense.

Woe by Lucy Knisley

Subtitled: A Housecat’s Story of Despair. Anyone who lives with a cat has heard that mournful, kvetching wail. This author, one of my favorite graphic artists, deeply loves her cat Linney, and has always tried to understand and capture the paradoxes of cat behavior. Here we have the full gamut, portrayed with wit and tenderness and exasperation in turn. Be forewarned: the ending produced tears from many of my fellow librarians (I passed the book around like hotcakes).

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

A nature preserve in the thick forests of upstate New York with a camp for kids embedded in it would seem to be paradise.  Not so, because the reigning family, the Van Laars, has lots of secrets, dysfunction, and tragedy in its history. Their 13-year-old daughter Barbara, who’s a camper, goes missing, years after their 8-year-old-son also disappeared.  Their chalet is called Self-Reliance, a misnomer because it was built by others, but they arrogantly claim it as work of their own hands. Their privilege, money, and politics interfere with investigations into both incidents. Chapters toggle between years, offering points of view from family members, campers, workers, blue-collar locals, and police inquiries. Multi-layered, atmospheric, and suspenseful.  (Finally, a completely satisfying novel—I’ve gone through many recently that were interesting enough to keep reading but not good enough to recommend here.)

Completely Kafka by Nicolas Mahler

Subtitled A Comic Biography.  The subject of this graphic novel is so close to my heart that I studied German in high school so I could read him in the original.  We don’t automatically think of Kafka in comic terms, and he’s certainly a mixed bag, of which mordant humor is an element. Mahler uses source material to shed light on Kafka’s work with quotes from Kafka’s writing as well as from those who knew him. Lots of inside dope about this enigmatic writer offered up succinctly with eccentric drawings that add lightness to weighty material.