Author: Meghan Siegler

The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy (Algonquin Books, 448 pages)

When I start reading a book that I know I’m going to review I immediately start looking for words, sentences, passages to use as examples of good or bad or mediocre writing. In the first 20 pages of The Magnificent Ruins I wanted to mark up dozens of sentences, meaningful words put together thoughtfully, examples of sharp, witty dialogue.

Nayantara Roy’s debut novel follows Lila De, an Indian American who lives in New York City and is dedicated to her job as an editor at a publishing house. She came to America to live with her dad and stepmom when she was 16, leaving behind her mom and the rest of her extended Lahiri family, and had no plans to return to India.

But that changes when Lila’s grandfather dies and she inherits her family’s crumbling, palace-esque home in Kolkata, India. Upon her return, she’s thrust back into the world of her complicated family, including her mom, who angers quickly and will stop talking to Lila for the smallest of perceived slights, sometimes for months at a time, until her wounds are forgotten and she calls her daughter as if no time has passed.

“The first conversation would be stilted on my end, exuberant on hers. I would revel in a universe where my mother wanted me. Over time, she would begin calling regularly again. Those weeks would inevitably lull me, slightly tipsy from the largesse of her motherhood, into a maternal buzz. And then I would say something that would hurt her feelings, which always meant the punishment of disappearance.”

Her mom, along with her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins, all still live in the house Lila has inherited, and none are happy that it’s been left for her — yet they’re genuinely happy to see her. In fact, all of the relationships in the family are messy and complicated, but their love for each other runs deep.

Throughout the book we see the juxtaposition of Lila’s experiences as an American and as an Indian. Before leaving for Kolkata, she visits her dad and stepmom and two half-siblings in Connecticut.

“My siblings were regularly hugged by my father, but he and I had the language of nods and unspoken affections that passed between Indian children born in the ’80s and their fathers. I dreamed of crossing over into the land of effortless holding and kissing that my siblings were citizens of.”

In a more American way, Lila goes to therapy every two weeks, something her family in Kolkata would never understand.

“Therapy felt like a shape-shifting myth across cultures. So acceptable in the Brooklyns and Manhattans of the world that it would be an aberration to not have a therapist, to not have problems. Everyone in New York was ravaged by their love affairs and debt and childhoods, by race and geography and loneliness. In Kolkata, people had fewer problems, because one did not talk about them.”

Those “New York” problems, as it turns out, are alive and rampant in Kolkata. As we meet the Lahiri family, we see these problems unravel slowly: domestic abuse, alcoholism, love affairs and all manner of generational trauma. And Lila isn’t exempt. Along with being a victim of these traumas, she’s at times a perpetrator, engaging, for example, in an affair with a married man — her childhood love, Adil — with seemingly little remorse.

It’s hard to be mad at her, though, given her complicated history with love. She seems to know what she “should” want — namely her American lover, Seth, who is also her star author and whom she openly refuses to commit to. That gets a little messy, though, when Seth comes to Kolkata in an attempt to win her over. (I appreciated that this plot twist supports Lila’s character development and doesn’t feel contrived like similar plot twists in romantic storylines often do.)

There are plenty of other storylines that support Lila’s main character development too, and I had some real feelings — good and bad — for many of Nayantara’s well-developed characters, like Rinki, a friend from Lila’s childhood who serves as a breath of fresh air outside of the Lahiri family.

Within the family, Lila’s grandmother is both loving and terrifying — not unlike Lila’s mom — and the relationship between her mom and grandmother is tenuous. Among other aunts, uncles and cousins, there’s the charming uncle Hari, his subdued wife Mishti, and their daughter Biddy, whose wedding is another plot point and gives the family something to talk about other than what Lila is going to do with the mansion.

Ah, and back to that pesky inheritance. Despite their love for Lila, the family fears betrayal, and Lila is forced to lawyer up to protect what is rightfully hers — even as she herself questions her grandfather’s decision to leave it to her.

The Magnificent Ruins is a beautiful, messy journey as Lila searches for her identity among two very different cultures and within a family defined by each other in the best and worst of ways. A- —Meghan Siegler

By Any Other Name, by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine Books, 544 pages)

Jodi Picoult does not shy away from heavy-hitting topics. In the same way that she tackles things like abortion in A Spark of Light, teen suicide in The Pact, school shootings in 19 Minutes, and Covid in Wish You Were Here, Picoult dives into the silencing of women today and throughout history in her latest, By Any Other Name.

Many of Picoult’s recent books have frustrated me with their strong political views and cultural commentary, not because I disagree with her, necessarily, but because I don’t want any author’s viewpoints shoved down my throat — put the topic out there and let me think about it. Also, I want my fiction to be a little more fictitious and a little less like I’m reading an op-ed in today’s newspaper.

By Any Other Name explores the history of repressed women in a way that mostly allows the story to do the talking. The book has two storylines: One harkens back to the 16th and 17th centuries and follows the semi-fictional life of a real woman, Emilia Bassano. Based on significant research, Picoult depicts her as a closet writer who is forced to be a lord’s courtesan for many years, then an abused wife for many more — all while writing poems and plays that an actor named William Shakespeare publishes for her under his name.

The second storyline takes place in modern day and follows Melina Green, a playwright who struggles to get her works produced, presumably because she is a woman. This is somewhat proven when one of her plays — about her ancestor, Emilia — finally gets published after its authorship is mistakenly attributed to her best friend, Andre. The irony here is that Andre is gay and Black and far from the cis white male stereotype that Picoult suggests dominates even the modern playwriting field.

Interestingly, given the subject, I felt that Melina and Emilia’s storylines could have been written by two different authors — Melina’s clearly by Picoult, where the moral of the story may as well be bolded, underlined and highlighted. (One of many examples is when Melina is talking to theater critic Jasper Tolle about why plays about “complicated, wholly realized women” don’t make it to the stage. When he says that she’s “painting with a very broad brush when it comes to what gets produced and what doesn’t,” she responds, “That is exactly the kind of thing a straight white man would say,” then waits for him to tell her she’s wrong — “which,” Picoult writes, “of course, would be proof of everything she was alleging.” Tell me, Ms. Picoult, how you really feel…).

Emilia’s story, on the other hand, seemingly could have been written by, well, any other name. Maybe this is a testament to Picoult’s ability to immerse herself in a different time period and develop a narrative based on thorough research, losing her own voice in Emilia’s in a way that she doesn’t with Melina, whose story is entirely fictional. With Emilia, it seems, all Picoult has to do is tell it like it is to get the point across (regarding Emilia’s forced relationship with Lord Chamberlain, she writes that Emilia “had been sold by her family, for her family” — no opinion there, just a fact that speaks volumes).

The difference in storytelling is somehow both fascinating and off-putting.

What I like about Emilia’s story: Emilia herself is a well-developed character whose strengths are best defined in her resilience and her intelligence; she uses both to get her writing in front of an audience, willing to forgo acknowledgment of her work in order to show her words to the world — and to make some much-needed money, as Shakespeare gave her a small portion of “his” earnings.

I also like Emilia’s secret friendship with Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, a well-known Elizabethan poet and playwright who was purportedly gay, a heavy drinker and a spy. Kit is rough around the edges but becomes a great friend to Emilia, adding an unexpected emotional arc and some comic relief. Meanwhile, Emilia’s secret relationship with Southampton is lovely and passionate and shows a spark of brightness that typically lies dormant inside her.

Emilia’s arranged relationship with Lord Chamberlain is not nearly as bad as it could be (as we see later, when she is beaten severely and often by the man she is forced to marry). She isn’t his mistress by choice, but Lord Chamberlain is a kind man, never controlling or cruel, and she benefits from both his wealth and the autonomy he grants her. She is, for those years, “a nightingale in the loveliest of cages.”

Melina’s story, by comparison, is more straightforward, specifically addressing her challenges as a female playwright. Her friendship with Andre is fun and quippy (at least at first), and her interactions with Jasper are intriguing. Her chapters are a breath of fresh, modern air, if you can get past the heavy-handed feminist commentary.

There’s a lot to like in By Any Other Name, but there’s also a lot going on — a lot of characters and a lot of scenes (if this were a play the stage crew would be marathon-level exhausted by the final act).

There were parts that dragged a bit and sometimes seemed redundant, especially in Emilia’s chapters. If I had been able to appreciate more of the Shakespearean references that Picoult weaves into those chapters — as notated at the end of the book — it probably would have enhanced my reading experience. But I’m a former English major who actually studied some Shakespeare (albeit more than two decades ago), so I have to question how much this will appeal to the masses.

By Any Other Name takes the often questioned legitimacy of Shakespeare’s authorship and makes a compelling case while weaving in a modern story that Picoult uses to show how far we’ve come as a society but also how far we have to go. It’s a long but worthwhile journey if you like strong female characters or you’re captivated by the idea that Romeo and Juliet may have been penned by a woman. B+ —Meghan Siegler

Our Kindred Creatures, by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy (Knopf, 374 pages)

With the notable exception of factory farms, cruelty to animals is generally not tolerated in the U.S. today. Criminal penalties exist for everything from neglect to the hoarding of pets; New Hampshire’s definition of animal abuse even includes taking a colt from its mother in the first three months of life.

It’s hard to imagine, then, that just 175 years ago animal cruelty was rampant and for the most part rarely noticed or remarked upon. The change to where we are now didn’t occur gradually but was the result of a moral crusade that began in the 1860s with three New Englanders at the helm.

In Our Kindred Creatures, husband-and-wife team Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy weave together the stories of George Thorndike Angell of Massachusetts, Caroline Earle White of Philadelphia and Henry Bergh of New York, the latter of whom was said to have founded “a new type of goodness.” While many other people have argued for compassion to animals over the course of human history, these three were especially effective and their stories are remarkable.

But let the reader beware: The book is tough reading for the tender-hearted and anyone who loved the movie The Greatest Showman. Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of P.T. Barnum, it turns out, left quite a bit out.

Angell is perhaps the best-known of the three crusaders, as his name is attached to a Boston animal hospital and an animal shelter near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire state line. But it’s Bergh whose story is the most compelling. He was left a fortune by his father, which enabled him to travel as a young man. During those travels he had a moral epiphany when he watched a brutal bullfight in Spain and was horrified not just by the suffering of the animals but by the glee he witnessed in the audience by a family with young girls. Bergh came to believe that “cruelism” arises when people are entertained by animal suffering of any kind, and that human beings themselves are made morally worse by even witnessing it.

Inspired by animal-rights efforts in Europe, he came back to the U.S. and founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. Shortly afterward, thanks to Bergh’s efforts, New York passed its first anti-animal-cruelty law and ASPCA officers were given power to issue citations and make arrests. Bergh himself took to the streets, at first going after people abusing horses, and cattle en route to slaughter. He also boarded a ship carrying sea turtles from Florida to New York and tried to bring its captain to justice. (The effort failed when the judge ruled that turtles were fish and were not subject to animal cruelty laws.)

But Bergh most famously sparred with P.T. Barnum, whose story in The Greatest Showman was shockingly whitewashed. As Barnum bought and displayed an enslaved person in his exhibits, he also had elephants and whales captured and brought to New York for display. The whales all died in short order, but none in such a grisly fashion as the two that were burned in the fire that consumed Barnum’s “museum” in 1865.

Bergh and his compatriots were operating in a time in which animals were as numerous as humans on city streets, and they were not romanticized as they are today. Their excrement and, often, carcasses, were everywhere, and stray dogs were rounded up and drowned en masse in New York and beaten to death in Philadelphia. Dogfighting and rat baiting (betting on how fast dogs could kill a collection of rats) were common and cheap forms of entertainment.

Animals were also suffering behind closed doors in more sterile environs — laboratories and classrooms where vivisection was common — and at one point Bergh sent his ASPCA agents undercover into hospitals to see first-hand what was being done, similar to the undercover operations still done by PETA today.

Word spread throughout New England about what Bergh was doing, and the ASPCA offices were visited by people hoping to launch similar efforts in their own communities. One such person was Caroline Earle White, who visited Bergh on her way home to Philadelphia after spending the summer in the Adirondacks. White, like many people drawn to the animal-abuse cause, was an abolitionist, and she went on to found the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania and the American Anti-Vivisection Society.

She was also instrumental in the change to a more merciful manner of killing shelter dogs — using carbon dioxide, which of course is seen as cruel today, but at the time was seen as a step up from bludgeoning a dog to death with an ax. Also, in a revolutionary shelter that White and her colleagues created, dogs were given shelter and water, “and all were fed a healthy diet of horsemeat, cornmeal, and crisped pork skin, even those destined for culling.”

A Quaker-turned-Catholic, White had been troubled seeing mules and horses struggling to pull streetcars heavy with coal. She had started changing her routes around town so that she didn’t have to endure the sight. But one of the more horrific examples of horses being literally worked to death happened in Boston in 1868, when a “sleighing horse race” took place that resulted in the deaths of both animals after they were compelled to pull 400-pound sledges from Boston to Worcester, a distance of 38 miles.

The winner died the night of the race; the other horse a few weeks later. Reading about the event compelled Angell to renew efforts on behalf of animals, pushing for a law that would prevent such abuses and starting a newspaper that would go to every town in Massachusetts with the name “Our Dumb Animals” (“Dumb” here meant mute, not stupid). The publication would endure until 1970.

Wasik and Murphy are excellent storytellers, which is no surprise — he is the longtime editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, she is a veterinarian, and their first book, 2012’s Rabid, a history of rabies, was well-received. What was surprising to me was how much of this story I knew nothing about, even as an animal lover living in New England — from the Barnum whales to a horse plague that swept the country in the 1870s to how a novel published more than a decade earlier in England, Black Beauty, came to be harnessed by Angell to galvanize compassion for horses.

The authors say they researched Our Kindred Creatures for three years; 30 would have been equally believable. They have crafted an extraordinary, though heartbreaking, story. A+ —Jennifer Graham

Not in Love,by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley, 400 pages)

Ali Hazelwood prefaces her latest book with what is, essentially, a fair-warning note to her readers: Not in Love, she says “is, tonally, a little different from the works I’ve published in the past. Rue and Eli have dealt with — and still deal with — the fallout from issues such as grief, food insecurity, and child neglect. They are eager to make a connection but are not sure how to go about it except through a physical relationship. The result is, I think, less of a rom-com and more of an erotic romance.”

Hazelwood has thus far been known by fans mainly as a rom-com writer who creates smart female lead characters and puts them in STEM-related work environments amongst other smart people and, inevitably, a male counterpoint. In Not in Love, Rue is a biotech engineer working in food science, so we’ve got the STEM setting, and we have the male counterpoint – in this case, his name is Eli, and he works for a company that’s trying to take over Kline, the company Rue works for.

The difference between Not in Love and Hazelwood’s other STEM romances is a much stronger emphasis on sexual chemistry and very explicitly written descriptions of what happens when that chemistry ignites. When Hazelwood warns readers that this is more “erotic romance” than rom-com, she’s not kidding.

But, in addition to the (plentiful) steamy scenes, everything I’ve liked about Hazelwood’s rom-coms is here too: witty banter, emotional complexity and well-drawn characters.

I love that Rue is science-smart but not unapproachable; there are plenty of relatable I-need-to-Google-this types of moments. Case in point, the book opens with Rue and her friend Tisha trying to figure out what a loan assignment is; they ask her friend’s sister, a lawyer, who doesn’t understand their lack of comprehension (“You guys are doctors,” she says, to which Tisha points out that “the topic of private equity firms and loan assignments did not come up in any class during our chemical engineering PhDs. A shocking oversight, I know….”).

Meanwhile, Rue could not be convinced to dumb down the title of her Ph.D. presentation: “A Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Investigation of the Effect of Three Polysaccharide-Based Coatings on the Minimization of Postharvest Loss of Horticultural Crops.” Her unapologetic thought is, “I had no talent for enticing people to care about my work: either they saw its value, or they were wrong.”

Rue is unapologetic about her dating life, too. She has a “no repeats” rule, meaning one and done, no exceptions; she doesn’t want a relationship, or the emotions that go with it. That was her plan when she matched with Eli on a dating app. She didn’t expect to ever see him again, so of course he ends up at the center of her workplace drama.

Rue probably could have stuck to her no repeats rule — she’s that emotionally stunted — but Eli falls hard for her. I like that the book moves between Rue’s point of view and Eli’s, because we can see how intense his feelings, emotional and otherwise, are, compared to her internal hesitations. And yet Eli is nothing but respectful to her and her hesitations, despite his desire for more, which makes him a very likable character.

The supporting characters aren’t always likable, but intentionally so — they all have a purpose and elevate the story, and many of their interactions with Rue and Eli are hilarious, adding to the novel’s smart, sassy vibe.

The plot is intriguing and believable, as Rue tries to save her scientific work from the grasp of Eli’s company, thinking — incorrectly, of course — that they’re being greedy. More seriously, as Hazelwood points out, there are mentions of grief, food insecurity and child neglect, but it’s not as depressing as it sounds. They’re issues that Rue and Eli dealt with that still impact them as adults, but there are no heavy-handed lessons or weepy sob stories — just real, life-goes-on reminders that what’s in the past doesn’t always stay in the past, and it can take a lot of work to build trust and open your heart after it’s been hurt.

This is another winner for Hazelwood, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes their romantic fiction smart, emotional and extra spicy. Just not you, Mom, and if you do read this, please never tell me. A-

Never Been Better by Leanne Toshiko Simpson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 288 pages)

If you don’t know what it’s like to struggle with mental illness, Never Been Better offers a fresh perspective with a fun plot and a good amount of humor — which, fair warning, veers toward the dark side at times. If you have experienced mental illness, or been close to someone who has, you’ll likely relate to many of the messages in this book.

The protagonist is Dee Foster, a woman with bipolar disorder who hesitantly agrees to travel to Turks and Caicos to attend the wedding of her best friends, Matt and Misa, then decides that as long as she’s there she might as well let Matt know she’s in love with him — and has been since the three of them met in a psychiatric ward.

I think it’s important to note that, although this is fiction, author Leanne Toshiko Simpson has bipolar disorder, so her characters are drawn in part from her own experiences — which, for me, was important to know, because some of the dark humor might have felt disingenuous, almost flippant, if it had been written by someone who hadn’t lived these thoughts and feelings. And using humor to cope is certainly not uncommon. (“I’m glad depression gives me the sex drive of a ham sandwich,” Dee replies when Tilley points out an attractive man and comments that she’s glad she wore her push-up bra.)

I should mention that I’m a (relatively new) therapist, so I read Never Been Better from that perspective, as well as the perspective of someone who has dealt with depression and anxiety. I respect that Toshiko Simpson doesn’t shy away from the very real challenges that mood disorders can present, even as life goes on and people plan weddings and love triangles ensue. The story somehow feels both deeply heavy and blissfully light.

Dee’s sister Tilley plays a solid part in that lightness; she’s wild, bold and fiercely dedicated to protecting Dee. She also embodies the challenges of loving someone with a mood disorder, navigating the slippery slope between emotional accommodations and tough love. In one scene, Dee is struggling hard to get up for an early-morning barre class at the resort they’re staying at, thanks in no small part to the side effects of her medications. But this is nothing new to her, or to Tilley.

“‘After this many years of living in the same house, I should have earned a damn black belt in helping you wake up,’ said Tilley. ‘Just today I’ve pulled all the sheets off your body, turned all the lights on, licked the side of your face…’ More footsteps, then Tilley dumped a full glass of water over my head.”

As Dee struggles openly and honestly, she feels some resentment toward Misa, whose wealthy family doesn’t know she met Dee and Matt in the psychiatric ward, because she never told them she was there as a patient and continues to conceal her mental illness from them, presumably because it doesn’t “fit” into their tidy, proper world.

“Misa went on to run an entire golf tournament dedicated to bipolar disorder without happening to mention her [own bipolar disorder]. … What I really wanted was for her to … be messy in her illness, like I was in mine.”

Good days for Dee are the ones where she doesn’t crave a depression nap, she can get across town on a bus without having a panic attack, or she can make it through a first date without the guy asking, before she’s about to spend the night, whether she’ll be the same person when she wakes up in the morning. So getting through this destination wedding is all kinds of hard, as she navigates her feelings about Matt (while also trying to figure out how to confront him after she finds out he’s stopped taking his meds) and her feelings about Misa, who she felt so close with when they were in the hospital but feels so distant from now.

Along with those considerable issues, Dee is fighting to keep up with the daily pre-wedding activities among Misa and Matt’s friends and family — a whole other fun cast of characters that bring levity to this book, from a kindhearted grandma to a spunky but wise cousin.

This is the debut novel for Toshiko Simpson, who, awesomely, also co-founded a reflective writing program at Canada’s largest mental health hospital. Though at times Never Been Better edges a little too close to the line between mirth and despair, in Toshiko Simpson’s understanding hands it comes together as a heartfelt story of persevering time and time again in the face of mental illness. A-

The Women by Kristen Hannah (St. Martin’s Press, 480 pages)

I am not, generally speaking, a lover of historical fiction, but something about the way Kristen Hannah does it is so right: a rich blend of shocking truths, visceral emotions and captivating characters. She did it well with Four Winds and spectacularly with The Nightingale, and she does it again with her latest, The Women.

The Women is set in the era of the Vietnam War. I am not a history buff, which is probably why I don’t veer toward historical fiction often, so I’m not sure if I wasn’t paying attention when being taught about the Vietnam War in school, or if it was just never talked about in a way that made any kind of lasting impression. Or at all. In any case, it was news to me to read that veterans coming home were spit on and shunned, and that the government, for a long time, wasn’t sharing the depth of the devastation that was happening overseas.

Frances McGrath — Frankie — joins the Army as a combat nurse and heads off to war at the age of 21. She’s following in her brother’s footsteps and hopes — naively — to make a place for herself on her dad’s “heroes wall,” which features photographs of all the men in the family who have served their country.

But when she tells her parents that she’s signed up for a tour, they’re horrified.

“‘Take it back. Unvolunteer.’ Mom looked at Dad. She got to her feet slowly. ‘Good Lord, what will we tell people?’”

It wasn’t the future that her parents expected for her, or that society approved of.

“Frankie had been taught to believe that her job was to be a good housewife, to raise well-mannered children and keep a lovely home. In her Catholic high school, they’d spent days learning how to iron buttonholes to perfection, how to precisely fold a napkin, how to set an elegant table.”

Instead, amidst the backdrop of war, Frankie grows up. We watch her lose her innocence as she’s confronted with gruesome injuries and innumerable deaths at work, deplorable living conditions, oppressive weather in the form of heat and monsoons, and a social scene that includes a lot of drinking. She arrives as a young girl who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and easily turns down propositions from married men. She’s not the same girl when she returns to Coronado.

Hannah splits the book into Frankie’s time at war and the years following her return. Both time periods are bleak for Frankie, for obvious reasons when she’s at war and for some pretty depressing reasons when she comes back home, including that the country seems to have turned on its veterans. On top of that, few people believe that women served in Vietnam. Her parents, whom she so badly wanted to impress, pretend she wasn’t there.

Through it all, fellow Vietnam nurses and “hooch” mates — bunkmates — Barb and Ethel are by Frankie’s side whenever she needs them. They show her the ropes when she arrives, and they show up at her door when she’s spiraling downward at home. The three women come from very different backgrounds, and despite the divergent paths they take when they return to the U.S., they never lose touch. More than once, Barb and Ethel prove to be Frankie’s lifeline. It’s a beautiful friendship, adding bursts of color to an intrinsically dark story.

And, of course, there are men, many of whom vie for Frankie’s attention. Love happens, in complicated and heartbreaking ways. But those are secondary stories, really; there is no doubt that Hannah’s intention is to give a voice to the women who served in Vietnam.

Although this is a work of fiction, Hannah makes it very clear in her author’s note and acknowledgments that she did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people who experienced the war, so I have to believe that most of Frankie’s experiences were not embellished or exaggerated. Hannah also notes that she originally used fictional names of places, but her Vietnam War readers felt strongly about keeping those details accurate, so the settings are all real.

There are a couple of moments toward the end of the book that seem somewhat contrived, but this is a small quibble, and honestly, the whole story might seem contrived if you didn’t know it was based in large part on real experiences.

Hannah superbly blends the heaviness of war with the frailty of humans at their most vulnerable — and often at their best. A

—Meghan Siegler