2020 in Books

I read a lot less in 2020 than I have in recent years and I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about this, even though I went into lockdown with the best of intentions. (Didn't we all, before this year kicked us in the face?) Still, I did read some truly excellent books, and I love sharing reading lists.

Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi
Reading this reminded me both of The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann, maybe more because of the language than the content (although there are some connections for me there, too). I almost didn't pick this up because I've read so many lukewarm reviews on Goodreads, but that was true for Anthropology of an American Girl, too. What can I say? Reading experiences differ. I simply loved the writing, and this was just such a deeply satisfying reading experience, because what she does with language and structure is brilliant.

I also feel that this is a novel best enjoyed without knowing too much about it because of her structural choices, so I'll leave it at that. I loved this one.

Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, by Megan Phelps-Roper (The latest edition is titled Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope)

"I couldn't allow bitterness to steal the beauty in my family, or love to conceal the destructiveness in it. I wouldn't rewrite history. I would hold the whole messy truth of it to myself all at once."

I've been fascinated by the Westboro Baptist Church for years, and I couldn't wait to read Megan Phelps-Roper's story. It's markedly different from Lauren Drain's Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church, a book I devoured seven years ago for its story but not its writing. I appreciated that for the insider's glimpse into the daily workings of the church, but Lauren Drain wasn't born into it; her father joined as an adult, bringing his family along. Steve Drain seems absolutely monstrous to me in every account I read or see, and I've never been able to see him as anything but a small man hungry for power.

But Phelps-Roper has a different story. She was born and raised in the church, and her book takes us into the heart of her family and her love for them. For their love for each other. We can't forget that the people she has lost--the people who reject her now--are the ones who read her stories, braided her hair, comforted her during sickness and sadness, played games and shared meals, and did everything that any loving family would do. And because she was part of a family who rejected the people who left before her, we're given painful insight into what that's like--to truly believe, and then to doubt. And, ultimately, to leave her family as well.

I appreciate not only her desire to tell her truth but her call for all of us to "foster a culture in which we have the language to articulate and defend sound arguments as to why certain ideas are harmful, the precise ways in which they're flawed, and the suffering they have caused in the past." She didn't change because of people who threw cups of soda at her head while she marched on the picket line, or by those who surrounded her--quite literally--with hatred. She changed gradually, through interactions with people who were willing to share ideas and conversation. The people she condemned to hell even as she played Words With Friends with them. This matters so much right now. What horrifies me is the realization that the WBC doesn't seem particularly "fringe" anymore; they seem like part of a larger cultural phenomena in which people feel newly emboldened in their hateful views.

I still have so many questions about people still in the church (Jael Phelps fascinates me, though she doesn't get much attention in this book, and for the first time I have real empathy for Megan's mother Shirley) and about others who have left (she and Lauren Drain seem to have no contact; in fact I don't think she mentions Lauren's name here). But I think this is a story that will continue to unfold.

Hard to Love: Essays and Confessions, by Briallen Hopper
This book was a gift from a friend, and it really felt like a gift from her soul to mine. I'm not sure how else to describe it; it honors relationships and emotional investments we often overlook but that matter so very deeply to a human life. I know I'll return to this collection when I need the comfort of friendship and the solace of good writing.

How We Fight For Our Lives, by Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones tells stories of growing up black and gay in the south during a time when Matthew Shepherd was murdered and a black man could be tied to the back of a white supremacist's pickup truck and dragged to his death. So it's strange to say that this is a beautiful memoir, but Jones is a poet and his prose lights up every page, showing the real power of language to draw us into common human experiences of love and loss and grief. It's a gorgeous, heartbreaking, necessary story.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
The fact that the third installment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy would be released in the spring spurred me into finally picking up the first, which has been on my to-read list for a long time. This was both deeply pleasurable and a lot of work to read -- simply because my knowledge of the history is fairly superficial, and I found myself flipping frequently to the character lists and family trees. But the work is absolutely worth it and I loved the writing, and somehow Hilary Mantel made Thomas Cromwell a likable character. It's brilliant historical fiction. I'm looking forward to sinking into the rest of the story.

How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
There really is no comfortable ground between racism and anti-racism, and anti-racism takes work. This book is an excellent resource for folks willing to take on that work, which should be all of us. It's a courageous, insightful piece of writing from an important voice, and I think it's a challenging, uncomfortable read for pretty much anyone. As it should be. Because we have work to do, and that work won't happen if we're comfortable where we're at. (Sidenote, I loaned my copy to someone last winter, before lockdown...who still has it?)

Love, by Toni Morrison
I wouldn't start with this novel if you've never read Morrison before, but every sentence was a pleasure even when the story was dark, and as always, every character is allowed to be flawed and human.

The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
This novel delivered a reading experience I wasn't expecting when I picked it up. I love every sentence Ben Lerner writes. He hasn't been on my radar as a writer I urgently need to read, but he is now.

Weather, by Jenny Offill
I read this novel in two sittings and it really felt like it was written straight to my soul. (For me it paired rather beautifully with Ducks, Newburyport and I love that I read them close together.) After I finished, I wanted to keep carrying it around with me because I might just need it.

Memories of the Future, by Siri Hustvedt
I believe books find us at the right time, and this was certainly the right time for me. I think Siri Hustvedt is brilliant, and I've loved every novel of hers that I've read, but I couldn't have fully appreciated this if I were in my twenties. And I still don't know how to talk about it. It's a novel that reads like a memoir, but that doesn't quite fit, either. It's the "multilayered Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman." I loved this like I loved The Blazing World.

Tell Me a Story, by Cassandra King Conroy
I had to read this because I love Pat Conroy, and his widow clearly loved him dearly, but it's impossible to rate. What I wanted was more of his voice, and this wasn't the place to find it.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
I loved the protagonist of this strange and wonderful novel; never underestimate the power of an old woman used to men dismissing her as crazy. This book succeeds as both a philosophical study of human behavior and a surreal crime novel.

Sabrina & Corina: Stories, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Gorgeously written punch to the gut: luminous, beautiful, and sad. This will join my favorite collections of short stories.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays, by Alexander Chee
It's always a little difficult to rate collections of work; some essays and stories soar above the rest and some fly a little lower. I think Chee is a brilliant and important writer and his voice matters, and the last essay in this collection, "On Becoming an American Writer," is worth the purchase of the entire book.

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel
I loved Station Eleven, which is perhaps the only reason I picked up a novel about subjects I didn't know I was remotely interested in reading about (Ponzi schemes and the shipping industry?). And I'm probably still not interested in reading novels about those subjects, but in Emily St. John Mandel's hands they become compelling character studies that also evoke a vivid sense of place (from a remote and wild corner of Vancouver Island to Manhattan), two of my favorite things in fiction.

This is an absolutely perfect novel to read while sheltering in place, when it's hard for me to concentrate on much of anything. It was delightfully escapist and absorbing, and her storytelling is just as wonderful in this novel as it is in her previous work. Considering how different the stories themselves are, I'll follow her anywhere now. Five stars because I was honestly sad for the story to end, and because it delivered exactly what I so needed in the moment.

Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart
This novel is dark, to be sure, but so big-hearted, expansive, and loving. And so evocative of a particular time and place -- in this case, 1980s Glasgow, Scotland. It's a story of addiction, sexuality, class, and, above all, love, in the many forms love can take. And I loved the characters, even Agnes, even at her worst, which is a testament to the author's love for them as well, and his skill in drawing them as complex, messily human, and real.

A House on Stilts: Mothering in the Age of Opioid Addiction, by Paula Becker
An affluent white Seattle mother's memoir of a family coping with a beloved son's drug addiction. It's a tough one to rate.

Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry
A few years ago, upon her return from a trip to Ireland, a friend of mine gave me a collection of short stories edited by Kevin Barry. And I love Irish literature, so when this hit the Booker longlist, I was eager to read it -- but I wasn't prepared to love this like I did. I was utterly charmed by these aging Irish criminals, and my heart was appropriately battered, too. Barry's language delivered everything I love about Irish lit, and he deserves every accolade.

Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
I admired Wolf Hall, but Bring Up the Bodies was just so much fun to read. The first novel in Mantel's Cromwell trilogy took me a few weeks get through (that shouldn't put anyone off; it's a brilliant book, but I had to work a little harder at it, perhaps because I needed to rely heavily on the tables of characters); the second took me four days. The writing is brilliant. I'm not often drawn to historical fiction, but Mantel's gift is that she imagines fantastic characters (who else could make Thomas Cromwell likable?) and I'm in awe of her prose. I'm glad I waited so long to read these two, simply because now I don't have to wait for the third and final volume, which is ready and waiting on my bookshelf.

August, by Callan Wink
I wanted to love this book, especially since Callan Wink writes from a place that is dear to my heart and soul. And there's a good deal about Montana that he gets exactly right, but when he's writing about people, I had a hard time not rolling my eyes. He had a woman in her late twenties talking to her teenaged lover about "the man that makes your womb glow." And every woman who made an appearance in this book was reduced to thighs (so many mentions of thighs, more than once "thick"), or breasts (either small or heavy and veined and swinging free). August's mother (the parent he lived with throughout his teenage years) was always smoking a cigarillo, and we don't know much more about her. To be fair, the story is written from the perspective of a nineteen-year-old boy, but this reader grew weary of feeling like women were little more than rotisserie chickens. ALSO. The rape scene near the beginning is an incredibly flimsy, shitty plot device in this book that seems to serve no purpose whatsoever beyond allowing two male characters to punch each other in the face and share a swig of whiskey a year later, and the more I think about it, the angrier it makes me. It's not quite enough to knock it down to one star (I still appreciate his evocation of a very particular place and the details that ground me there), but almost.

The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
It's always wonderful to return to Erdrich's writing. As a reader, I just trust her. She's really telling two stories in this novel, and they're both important and beautifully told, but sometimes they didn't seem to fit together in a way that seemed natural to me. I still enjoyed it.

Conjure Women, by Afia Atakora
Incredibly important story, staggeringly good writing. Atakora's characters are fierce and her language is a wonder. This book is everything.

Unashamed: Musing of a Fat, Black Muslim, by Lean Vernon
Hers is an important story and I wanted to love it, but I didn't love the writing, and ultimately that took me out of the story itself.

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, by Jane Allison
This is a thought-provoking and inspiring book about narrative patterns. I love it as a writer, as a reader, and as a teacher of high school literature, and as I read I marked both sections that I would love to share with my IB lit students and sections that resonate with me.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn
This book is incredible. I picked it up because a writer I love blurbed it, and all I knew was that a young boy on a cruise ship fell overboard and was delivered to safety by the very sharks everyone thought would destroy him. That's all I needed. But I didn't know it would be a gorgeous, layered story about family, love, anger, grief, rage, class, hope, and perseverance. The real story is about the family in the aftermath of a complicated miracle. The language is stunning, the story is everything, and I can't believe this is a debut novel.

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, by Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Another must-read for anyone interested in doing anti-racist work, and a truly fascinating and well researched study of bias in education, business, and the workplace. It's an incredibly smooth read and I recommend it to literally everyone.

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo
This book is both brilliant and truly pleasurable to read. I love the way Evaristo brings twelve different characters so beautifully to life in these interconnected stories, spanning years and families and illustrating the ways in which people lean on and love each other, though she never shies away from the complexities of families and friendships. Her language is a hybrid between poetry and prose, and I found it a joy to just fall into the rhythm of it all; I couldn't put it down, and I wept at the ending.

Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, by Matthew R. Kay
A must-read for educators, administrators, or anyone working with kids. (Or anyone with opinions about those things, frankly.)

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
This is the story of twin sisters -- light-skinned black girls -- in a fictional small town in Louisiana, where light skin is the rule, carefully cultivated. They run away to New Orleans at the age of sixteen, and there they part ways; one sister marries a black man and gives birth to a daughter who is "blueblack" dark, and the other cuts off all ties with her home, begins passing for white, marries a white man, and gives birth to a blonde, blue-eyed daughter. Their stories converge once again when the daughters' lives converge quite by accident on the other side of the country, and while perhaps this requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief, Bennett is a storyteller I trust and I'll follow her anywhere. Bennet addresses race, gender, sex, and class, and while the book is absolutely a page-turner, she never sacrifices prose or characterization at the hands of the plot. I loved it.

Inland, by Téa Obreht
I loved The Tiger's Wife when I read it years ago, but I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, which is a historical western set in the American southwest with some supernatural elements, and...camels. Why not. The story follows Lurie, an immigrant and a man wanted for murder, and Nora, a tough frontierswoman waiting for her husband to return from his quest for water during a drought; her two older sons have also disappeared, leaving her with her youngest son Toby, her husband's young cousin (who claims to be clairvoyant), her wheelchair-bound mother-in-law, and the constant voice of her long-dead first child, a daughter named Evelyn. Lurie's story spans his lifetime, Nora's a single day, but they converge in an ending that left me breathless. Obreht's writing is every bit as masterful as I remember, and this novel was worth the wait.

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, by T Kira Madden
I loved this memoir. It belongs on the shelf next to Ariel Gore, Lidia Yuknavitch, Briallen Hopper, Chelsea Clammer, Chanel Miller -- but it's not like them, exactly, it's just its own gorgeously honest work. I love writers who can take me inside a context so far from anything I've experienced and make me feel the humanity of it anyway, and do it with gorgeous language.

Raising a Rare Girl, by Heather Lanier

"But when you push away disability, you also push away your humanity. When you push away any fissure of vulnerability, you also push away the tender truth about yourself. You were not, were never made to be, SuperHuman. You were made to be human. And this doesn't exactly break the heart, but it does split apart every clapboard and nail and piece of barbed wire you've hammered to it."

I've been following Heather Lanier's blog for years, every since I read an essay of hers in The Sun. This is her story of trying to create the perfect "Superbaby" -- like so many of us expectant moms do -- by doing everything right (organic this, Hypnobabies that), only to realize that maybe we're completely wrong about what makes a body and a life worth valuing, loving, and celebrating. It's a beautiful story and she's a beautiful writer, and this book is one I wish every single educator could read before they enter a classroom, or every single parent before they welcome a child, or everyone who has ever grappled with the messiness of being human. Which, wait, is everyone. (This is one of those rare books I would literally recommend to anyone.)

Actress, by Anne Enright
I loved this story of a complicated mother, narrated by her daughter Norah, the child of a celebrity and no stranger to scandal. I love even more the ways in which Norah's life stands in contrast with her mother's. Norah never comes across as bitter; her life lacks the fame and celebrity of her mother's (not to mention the drama and trauma), but she is a successful writer and happily married mother, who manages to see her mother with clear eyes and loves her anyway.

I really think Enright is brilliant. Period. She takes us straight to the heart of her characters and she does it in perfectly crafted sentences. She writes about difficult people with grace and humor, and I found this a pure pleasure to read.

Summer, by Ali Smith
This couldn't have been a more timely read, although that's how I feel about all of Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet. I read this one more quickly than the others, determined to finish while it was technically still summer, but it was actually that propulsive.

This is the book that made me really consider the connections between all four novels, and the one that made me see it -- the Quartet -- for the masterpiece it is. All the stars. I'm looking at them on my shelf all together now, and it feels like one book instead of four, and one I should revisit now that I have all the pieces.

Sisters, by Daisy Johnson
Fall is a perfect time to read this slim but unsettling and haunting novel. It's best to go in not knowing anything about it, but the reading experience was something I'd expect from Shirley Jackson. Perfect for a chilly, dark autumn night.

The Searcher, by Tana French
Like most of Tana French's fans, I love the Dublin Murder Squad and hope we haven't seen the last of it; but I've loved these last two standalone novels. The Searcher is nothing like The Witch Elm, which I loved but which left me feeling more gutted than I expect to after reading what is supposed to be a "fun" mystery. But it is what I needed this October, when I'm gutted all the time and really wanted a cozy mystery on a chilly fall weekend. Her latest novel is a much quieter book, and the mystery is less of a focus than the atmosphere and the characters -- both of which are everything I love about her work. All the different kinds of Irish rain, the hidden cottages tucked up in the mountains, ominous shadows and sounds in the night, the isolation, the lively pubs, the cozy shops, the mentions of food. And I loved Cal and Trey and Lena. Loved. If she keeps them around for a future novel, I am here for it.

Real Life, by Brandon Taylor
Taylor makes it clear that this book is not written for the "white gaze" but rather for queer, black folks like himself; he never saw himself reflected in the kind of novel he loved to read. He addresses race in academia, but he also goes straight to the heart of human experiences: loss and longing and our most tender, vulnerable moments. And he does it in absolutely stunning prose. I loved Wallace as a character and I love the way Taylor draws us so intimately into his lived, physical experiences.

Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
This novel is so different from Homegoing (which I also loved). This book focuses less on the sweep of history than on one young woman in a very particular context. Gifty is a graduate student at Stanford, trying to make sense of her family's history, her upbringing as the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants in Alabama, and her relationship with her evangelical mother after the death of her opioid-addicted brother years earlier. Gyasi's exploration of mental illness, evangelism, and complicated family ties is nuanced and tender. Her writing is equally powerful in her second novel, and it showcases the incredible range of her talent.

One by One, by Ruth Ware
I think this was my favorite of Ruth Ware's mysteries. She is no Tana French (I'm not going to buy her books; I can wait however long for a library copy), but she is fabulous for a day of escapism, and I read this one almost all the way through on Thanksgiving Day. Who are these people who say it's boring? I had a great time reading it. I didn't want to put it down.

I don't know if it's objectively her best; it might not be. But it was exactly what I wanted to make a holiday during a Pandemic seem cozy.

The Great Offshore Grounds, by Vanessa Veselka
This might be my favorite book of 2020. I'm not quite sure how to characterize it: Part road trip novel, part sprawling family saga, part epic journey of discovery. I absolutely loved the sisters at the core of the story, and the way Veselka centers the poor and marginalized, those who usually remain unseen and forgotten. And she's a writer of incredible agility, "[spinning] a tale with boundless verve, linguistic vitality, and undeniable tenderness" (from the publisher; I couldn't say it any better than that). This won't be for everyone, but I absolutely loved every moment of reading it.

The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter
What a fabulous book for the end of the year. Walter draws us into Spokane, Washington (and to some extent Seattle, Idaho, and Montana) in 1909 and the story of two brothers, Gregory "Gig" and Ryan "Rye" Dolan, orphaned and trying to survive in the world. It's a historical novel about the struggle for fair working conditions and free speech, but it's also just so much fun to read. The characters are some of my favorites in any book I've read this year, and Walter is a marvel as a writer. This was the perfect follow-up to The Great Offshore Grounds: fantastic characters, exhilarating language, and a story I would follow anywhere.

My list for 2021 is already long and I love it; creating reading lists makes me feel hopeful. I'd love to know what folks read this year, so if you're reading this, please share!