notanotherbookreview

Autonomy becomes urgent necessity in a volume of interlocking stories and a novel, Heroines must shed socio political expectations  and  their conditioning to remake their worlds.  GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER  (Grove Atlantic) by Bernardine Evaristo, won the 2019 Booker Prize and I am glad I just got around to reading it.  In our emergence from Covid, it seems more relevant than it might have in 2019.  These intertwined stories are like a musical ronde, each a different aspect of the subject, Black women finding autonomy, despite daily lives that demand conformity. Their voices, unexpected and enjoyable, come from present day Britain, though they extend to intergenerational immigrant experiences in Guam, the Caribbean, Nigeria.  Mothers, daughters, wives, fled wars and poverty, only to face new struggle and danger in public housing and menial jobs, no matter what education they brought. Their children, second generation, are caught in ambitions "to make it" and...

Jex Blackwell Saves the World (Pelekinesis, May) by P. William Grimm was both refreshing and a complete surprise. Grimm an American writer and fillmaker, has written novels and short story collections-- The Seventh and Counselor, Valencia Street and Sick Sense of Hubris. He 's published in lit blogs, like Eclectica Magazine and HTML Giant . His influences are Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Didion, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett. So he likes the truth, outrageous or otherwise, and a mystery with soul and style. Grimm's final inspiration is  Encyclopedia Brown, a series of kid's books about a boy genius. Grimm thinks of Jex Blackwell as a "Dadaesque homage" to that series. So this is kind of an adult YA mystery, written like an underground graphic novel with a heroine (not unlike orphaned Anne of Green Gables or headstrong Jo in Little Women ). Jex is aware of her potential and completely invents herself at aged 16. She wants to do good in the ...