Thursday, March 26, 2020

Bored in Quarantine? Try Armchair-Travel Fiction

Suffering cabin fever after only a short time of at-home lockdown due to COVID-19? Armchair travel is a proven antidote available to fiction readers. And, for me, given the current downbeat national mood, that also means the exotic locales need to be spiced with romance, whimsy and humor. One choice from my book club (when will we meet in person again?) is the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer. The author lyrically describes the journey of failed novelist Arthur Less after he accepts invitations to half-baked literary events around the world just to avoid the wedding of his ex-boyfriend. Less ends up in humorous misadventures in France, Germany, Morocco, India and an Arabian Sea island. This satirical novel is, at bottom, a love story, and I think we all need a little more laughter and romance right now. Or how about an old favorite: A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. The author writes about realizing a long-cherished dream of moving into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the Provence region of France. Even if you've never longed for a house in the south of France, as you vicariously experience the pleasures of the culture, from cuisine to goat racing, don't be surprised if you are inspired to add French cooking experiments to your quarantine diet. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by bestselling author Maureen Johnson is another European romp that will take you back to youthful days when hostel beds, backpacking and minimal budget meant adventure not discomfort. Johnson's heroine Ginny Blackstone receives a little blue envelope from her deceased Aunt Peg, with $1000 cash for a passport and a plane ticket, and a letter instructing her to retrieve twelve other envelopes abroad. So Ginny begins a backpacking adventure from London to Edinburgh to Amsterdam and beyond, discovering stories about her aunt's past along the wayand even more about herself, of course. Finally, readers can head to the Orient with New York Times bestseller Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. This love story/family drama set among the super-rich in Singapore also satisfies the armchair traveler with tours of Singapore's famed locales and food markets, as well as visits to neighboring Macau and Hong Kong. For some more armchair-travel ideas, see https://matadornetwork.com/read/books-armchair-traveling-2020/

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Quarantines Can't Stop Sleuths, or Mystery Fans

As mystery fans across the country find themselves in quarantine conditions because of the novel coronavirus, they can enjoy reading about detectives in similar situations. Pandemics don't stop murderers or sleuthsor authors' imaginations. For example, Lydia Kang's Beautiful Poison is set in New York during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Young socialite Allene begins to suspect poison, and not the flu, is responsible for her social circle's spike in deaths, all accompanied by mysterious notes. She recruits friends Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner, and Birdie, a woman of fragile health, to investigate. As deaths and suspicions mount, they must race to find the culprit before one of them becomes the next victim. In Black Death, author M.J Trow re-imagines playwright Christopher Marlowe as a Tudor-era sleuth. In the midst of a plague outbreak in 16th century London, Marlowe feels duty-bound to investigate the baffling death of a former Cambridge scholar who sent him a desperate letter before dying. S.D. Sykes' Plague Land also uses the plague as part of its mystery landscape, but this time the setting is Medieval Kent. After the plague deaths of his father and two older brothers, 17-year-old Oswald de Lacy is called back from childhood exile in a monastery to take on the role of Lord of Somerhill Manor, a place transformed by pestilence and neglect. But before he can move forward, he is confronted by the shocking death of a young woman whom the village priest claims was killed by demonic dog-headed men. Oswald must deal with political intrigue and family secrets, and the death of second women, before he finds the truth. Jumping back to modern Texas, Quarantined, by Joe McKinney, imagines that a deadly flu outbreak has caused the military to completely quarantine San Antonio, Texas. While working on burial statistics at San Antonio's mass graveyard, Detective Lily Harris finds a murder victim hidden among the plague dead and soon also discovers a corrupt local government conspiracy to hide the truth of a new deadly flu strain. She must lead her family through rioting streets and beyond the quarantine walls with news that might save the rest of society. For more fiction with disease/virus motifs, see https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/19535.Best_Fiction_Books_About_Diseases_or_Viruses

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Pandemics Inspire Fear — and Fiction

Worried about the novel coronavirus becoming a global pandemic? Remember that humanity has faced such crises before, and authors have used them as explorations of the attendant personal and social dislocation. Going all the way back to the Black Death, the bubonic plague that decimated Europe periodically from the Middle Ages through the 18th century, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks offers Years of Wonder, about a housemaid named Anna Frith in an isolated village outside London in 1666, where a contaminated bolt of cloth brings the disease that soon reaches into every household. Anna must confront the disintegration of her community, superstitious witch-hunting, the lure of illicit love and a fight for survival. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 inspired another Pulitzer winner, Katherine Ann Porter, in Pale Horse, Pale Rider. It's about the relationship between a Denver, Colorado, newspaper woman, Miranda, and a soldier, Adam. Miranda becomes sick and delirious with the flu, but recovers, only to find that Adam has died of the disease, which he likely caught while tending to her. Meanwhile, Pulitzer winner Philip Roth's Nemesis recalls the impact of the 1944 polio epidemic on a closely knit Newark Jewish community as its children are threatened with paralysis, lifelong disability and death. Protagonist Bucky Cantor, a 23-year-old teacher devoted to his charges, joins his girlfriend at a polio-free summer camp only to have the disease follow him there and alter the course of his life. La Peste (The Plague) by Albert Camus is considered a classic that explores the human condition as a plague sweeps the French Algerian city of Oran, and characters, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, struggle with love and loss, isolation and social responsibility, selfishness and sacrifice. Of course, no one beats Stephen King for dystopian terror, and The Stand takes place in a world in which 99% of the world's population has been wiped out by a mutated strain of super-flu. Survivors now must choose between the leadership of Mother Abagail, a benevolent 108-year-old woman, and Randall Flagg, the "Dark Man" who delights in chaos and violence. Finally, circling back to our usual mystery theme, there is EVO by Diane May. Livio Marchiori, a homicide detective in Verona, Italy, is battling "The Hypnotist," a serial killer who never touches his victims and leaves no evidence except detailed videos of his murders. So Marchiori is initially pleased to partner with Captain Victor Miller from Interpol, only to discover that illegal CIA genetic engineering has created the serial killer with mind control powers and a terrifying threat to humanity. For acclaimed nonfiction books on pandemics, see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/books/pandemic-books-coronavirus.html