Only two books this month due to the usual September demands, but both were excellent books! Of course, if family drama and/or trauma isn’t in your wheelhouse, you may want to give these careful consideration.
Close to Hugh, by Marina Endicott
I found this to be one of the more peculiar books by Marina (not in a bad way!) It’s hard to describe this book and do justice to it at the same time, but here goes nothing. A group of aging artist friends with much drama and a group of young-adult artist friends with much drama interact in ways that are very …. familiar. Teachers, students, mentors, proteges, parents, children, all trying to move forward in a complicated and anxiety-filled world. It’s a book that I had to work to stay with because it draws you into other people’s, well, drama, and I find that emotionally tiring at the best of times. It pays off, though, if you can hang on and live with these people for the week that the book spans in their lives. Also, I guarantee some of these people are part of your real life and there’s some fun in trying to figure out who they are.
Medicine Walk, by Richard Wagamese
Franklin, a first nations man, is asked by his estranged, alcoholic, and dying father, Eldon, to accompany him on a journey, both physical and spiritual, to a sacred place in the mountains where the father can be buried in a traditional Ojibway manner. Along the way, Eldon tries to make amends by sharing the tragic stories of his own past, while Franklin works to better understand his own backstory. If you’ve ever wondered how someone can repeatedly ruin their chances at a better life through alcohol abuse, this book provides some poignant possibilities. It’s a solid book, but our little local Amnesty book club agreed that we’d have appreciated a bit more depth on a few key characters that were left fairly undeveloped. For example, the father and son stop off at the cottage of an elder woman who saves them from starvation and she gets minimal page time. Of course, she is also not the key focus of the story, so perhaps that was an active choice by the author.