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Let me start with a short disclaimer. I love short stories. I’m a sucker for stories that are a few pages long, especially when there’s a lot of work and I can’t seem to concentrate on longer works of fiction. Short stories also help me get out of the inevitable reading slump. Here, I must admit that I’m not very happy with how much I’ve read this year. Apart from a few rereads and some odd slim novels here and there, I haven’t enjoyed many of the books I’ve picked up.

A short story collection is always a safe bet. I don’t have to invest much time and mental energy into getting to know a character. And since a story takes an hour or two at the most to finish, I feel like I’ve at least accomplished my reading goal for the day. I’ve mostly gravitated toward horror stories like Bora Chung’s ‘Cursed Bunny’ and Carmen Marie Machado’s ‘Her Body and Other Parties’ which is why Cho Nam Joo’s ‘Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories’ was such a refreshing read.

Cho is the author of the best-selling novel ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’ which sparked a debate on feminism in South Korea while catapulting the writer to global fame when the book was longlisted for the United States National Book Award. Cho is known for highlighting gender inequality and misogyny in South Korea. Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories is a collection of eight stories about women from all walks of life. They are stories of life in South Korea from a female perspective. But the themes—loneliness, domestic violence, dysfunctional families, aging etc.—are universal.

What I liked about the book is that the stories aren’t dramatic but they leave you with some important messages—they might be things you already know and experience but you might have seldom paid attention to them. Women often make room for misogyny by not speaking up and letting things slide, and Cho draws our attention to that. She writes about the invisible labor women put in at home, work, and society at large, celebrating all the ‘little things’ they do to keep the ball rolling. In one of the stories, a neglected worker quits and the entire office starts to malfunction. In most of the stories, women are often repressed and maybe even unaware of what they want.

Some stories were a let-down. They felt a bit too cliché, like ‘Dear Hyunnam Oppa’ where a woman writes a letter to her boyfriend of 10 years, who has just proposed to her, listing out all the reasons why she doesn’t want to marry him. It felt too generic and forced. In ‘Puppy Love’, which explores love during Covid-19, the narrative ends abruptly, leaving you feeling unsettled. But that could have easily just been me and not a problem with the stories. Perhaps, I couldn’t relate to them. Maybe you will. With Cho, you never know, as her writing has the potential to tap into long-dormant emotions.

Short stories

Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories

Cho Nam-Joo

Translated by Jamie Chang

Published: 2023

Publisher: Scribner

Pages: 218, Paperback

Elizabeth Strout has a knack for bringing characters to life. She explores them in great detail, adding layer upon layer of nuances to their personalities, and thus makes us resonate with them. I read ‘Olive Kitteridge’ in high school and remember falling in love with the character and the setting. The character comes back in ‘Olive, Again’. Both the books are set in a fictional town in Maine.

Lucy Barton, the protagonist of ‘Oh William’, which was longlisted for The Booker Prize in 2022, is another character Strout seems unwilling to let go of. Lucy has appeared in Strout’s short story collection ‘Anything Is Possible’ and the novel ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’. It’s a delight getting to know Lucy. She’s every bit as endearing and complex as Olive and I’m hoping Oh William won’t be the last we will see of her, though I fear it is probably where her story ends.

In ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’, Lucy Barton was a young mother. She wakes up after an operation to find her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in years, sitting beside her. The story moves back and forth between the five days her mother stays with her at the hospital and Lucy’s traumatic childhood in Maine. The novel explores childhood trauma and poverty. It’s a portrayal of how childhood trauma almost always defines your life.

In Oh William, Lucy is divorced from her first husband (William). She had remarried but David is no more. In My Name is Lucy Barton, her children, Chrissy and Becka, were young but now they are married. There is some gap in the stories between the two books but we get to know what has transpired in flashbacks. Oh William is focused on William but the story is told through Lucy’s perspective.

After the death of his mother, William discovers that she had another child before him. This shocking piece of information is what sets him off to Maine to look for his half-sibling. He asks Lucy to accompany him and this trip forms the main plot of the book. We get to know William but we also get to know Lucy and all her thoughts and emotions as well as the things and incidents that have shaped her.

William is Lucy’s ex-husband but she ‘has only ever felt at home with him’. Despite his repeated affairs and Lucy’s decision to leave William, the two are still a team for their children. Lucy confesses that David, her second husband, made her happy and that they were made for each other. But she calls William after finding out about his illness and later after his death as well.

Strout is an empathetic writer and the result is that we never judge Lucy for her decisions. Nothing comes across as shallow or callous. Instead, we are left to wonder if first love never really leaves us, and how, as human beings, we are all inherently flawed, as much as we’d like to believe otherwise.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56294820  

Oh William!

Elizabeth Strout

Published: 2021

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 240, Paperback

‘Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun’ is the third book in the Finlay Donavon series by Elle Cosimano. Whether it’s the final book perhaps depends on the popularity of the series but I think it’s time to end it. I enjoyed ‘Finlay Donovan Is Killing It’ and ‘Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead’ but the story feels a little stretched out by the third book.

Here, Finlay and Vero are trying to reveal the identity of EasyClean who is the hitman hired on an Internet forum to kill Steven, Finlay’s husband. Russian mob boss Feliks, to whom Finlay owes a favor, is behind bars but he wants Finlay to do something for him. She is to find and identify the contract killer before the cops do. But the killer might be a police officer.

Luckily, Nick, a cop who has feelings for Finlay, has just been tasked with starting a citizen’s police academy. Finlay and Vero see this as a perfect chance to do some digging without raising suspicions and join the group. To make matters worse, Finlay has a deadline to meet and she can’t seem to rewrite the parts her editor wants her to change. Vero’s past is coming back to haunt her. The two find themselves in a precarious situation and they, as always, make it worse just by trying to dodge it.

I love Finlay and Vero. They make a nice team. Vero is a great wing woman for Finlay, dealing with her ex-husband, handling her children, and generally egging her on. She is a character you enjoy reading out and getting to know more than the protagonist in Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun. But the same antics get boring after a while. I searched high and low for the book but now after having read it, I realize I wouldn’t have missed out on much even if I hadn’t found it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it. Just not as much as I enjoyed the first two parts of the series.

In the third book, something is amiss right from the start. A lot of time goes into reintroducing characters. The buildup is slow. The sense of urgency that made the earlier books work is largely missing in the latest installment. It lacks fun. It lacks adventure. Incidents feel pointlessly drawn out. But I can also understand why it would appeal to some readers. It has fewer of the outlandish moments of the earlier two parts. The things that happen feel more real. Even though nothing much happens, it’s a light read for when you want something to take your mind off things.

Thriller | Mystery

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun

Elle Cosimano

Published: 2023

Publisher: Headline Review

Pages: 297, Paperback

I believe there’s a right time and place for every book. Not all books resonate with you all the time. ‘The Reading List’ by Sara Nisha Adams reiterated that sentiment. It was a lovely book. The plot was simple and comforting. But I would have probably enjoyed it a lot more if I had read it, say, before the pandemic. By the time I came across the book (just a few weeks ago), I had already read similar stories. There was nothing new in it.

But I’d recommend The Reading List to anyone who wants to read a heartwarming tale of how books can change your life. The story is partly inspired by the author’s grandfather, who found a connection with his granddaughter through books. Set in Wembley in London, The Reading List is the story of two individuals—80-year-old Mukesh Patel, a widower, and 17-year-old Aleisha, who works part-time at the local library.

Mukesh is mourning his wife, Naina. His three daughters take care of him but there’s a hole in his heart that just won’t go away. He’s lonely and, at times, miserable. Naina was a voracious reader, often asking Mukesh to keep quiet because she was reading. When he stumbles upon a copy of Audrey Niffenegger’s ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ that his wife didn’t get to return to the library, he sits down to read it. He doesn’t expect to get so engrossed in the story. Reading it makes him feel like Naina is around.

When he finishes it, he goes to the library to return it where he meets Aleisha. He’s also hoping to read other books so that he has something to talk about with his granddaughter who, like his wife, loves to read. But Aleisha is unhelpful and Mukesh runs away. Aleisha, on the other hand, is stuck at the library. She never really wanted to work there but her brother, Aiden, recommended it and she couldn’t say no. She’s trying to escape a problematic mother and would do anything to get a few hours away from home.

Then, she discovers a crumpled reading list tucked away in one of the library books and she starts reading the books on them as well as recommending them to Mukesh when he eventually returns. From Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ to Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’, the octogenarian and the teenager go on a journey of self-discovery while forming an unlikely book club of two.

I found the plot to be slightly stretched because I could see where it was going. Apart from that, I enjoyed the book as it reinforced the power of reading and reminded me of some of the reasons why I love books. The book is peppered with references to other books—some of which I have already read and some that I haven’t but they are now all on my reading list. As characters, Mukesh and Aleisha feel a bit cliché but they remind us that the need for connection is a constant across generations.

Fiction

The Reading List

Sara Nisha Adams

Published: 2021

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 425, Paperback