Guest Post by M.C. LeBrun

The Foundling is Stacey Halls’s much-anticipated second novel. Like her debut The Familiars, we are placed in a world where patriarchal powers dictate the mores of the day and women must use their wits to regain their autonomy. This is a tale of two mothers situated on either side of the class divide in 18^th century Georgian London but connected by a child, born to one and raised by the other.

Bess Bright, newly delivered of her illegitimate little girl, is passing through the gates of a Foundling home, ushered along in a line of destitute mothers in various states of despair. There is little time for recovery from trauma, heartbreak, and physical pain when a lack of coin means a life on the streets. For the next six years, Bess does all she can to muster together the money she needs to bring her daughter home for good. However, when the time comes, she discovers her child missing, claimed by another who has stolen Bess’s identity.

From the vivid descriptions of Bess’s life on the streets hawking shrimp and sideswiping lecherous hands, we are introduced to Alexandra Callard, an orphan and widow whose vulnerability is more easily disguised by her wealth and power. Agoraphobic and distrustful of the world, Alexandra tightly controls every aspect of her existence and that of her child, Charlotte. Compulsively repressive and lacking in maternal instinct, Alexandra struggles to understand the needs and desires of Charlotte as separate from her own. When Alexandra is finally coerced to permit the presence of a nursemaid in her child’s life, it is then these women’s worlds collide.

An entangled story of juxtaposed dichotomies unfolds: wealth and poverty, power and deprivation, the expressed and suppressed. We the readers are moved from one subjective reality to the other, playing judge to their choices and witnessing the powerlessness of the child at the center of it all. What makes a good mother? Stacey Halls’s finely tuned and richly evocative historical narrative transports us to another era to explore this very modern question.

The Foundling by Stacey Halls. Manilla Press, February 2020

Guest Post by Olga Zilberbourg

I’ve just finished The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. It took me about six weeks to read it—it’s a big book, and I’ve had snippets of time. What I loved about it is the way it moved from being a historical narrative into science fictional territory, creating something of an alternative reality for Zambia’s near future. I don’t really know any other novel that does this movement in quite this way. The story is told by a chorus of voices, each of whom is engaging in their own way, and another fascinating way about this book is the unexpected way they come together at the end. I still need to mull it over.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. Hogarth, May 2020.

Reviewer bio: Olga Zilberbourg’s fiction has appeared in Confrontation, World Literature Today, Narrative, Outpost 19’s Golden State 2017 anthology, and others. She co-hosts the weekly San Francisco Writers Workshop.

Guest Post by Christopher Chambers

I discovered Eduardo Halfon in a used bookstore, not so long ago but long enough ago that used bookstores were open and one was able yet to indulge in the decadent past-time of browsing. Halfon’s novel The Polish Boxer caught my eye. I bought it and read it, and then purchased the other two books of his that have been translated into English (all handsomely published by Bellevue Literary Press).

I began Monastery in solitude amid the pandemic. Upon completing it, I experienced the uncanny feeling of when the lights come up after the end of good film and you walk out of the theater into the world, now dark, perhaps raining, and it seems like a strange and different world as you emerge from the world of the film (another of those experiences no longer available to us). We still have books though, and reading as a strategy for survival. I’m slowly emerging from the world of Monastery and I’m in no particular hurry to leave it behind. I’m resisting for the moment reaching for Mourning, the next of his books which awaits on the shelf alongside a selection from the lovely NYRB reprint series, some of which also await reading, some re-reading.

Halfon has said that he’s only writing one book, and everything he publishes is just part of it, as if each book he writes is another chapter. Mourning awaits me, the next chapter of this ongoing book. And I await Mourning, which I suspect will become necessary in the coming weeks and months as we proceed further into this century and all it has in store. Robert Bolaño once said: “The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to (Andrés) Neuman and to a handful of his blood brothers.” Eduardo Halfon is among that number.

Monastery by Eduardo Halfon. Bellevue Literary Press, February 2014.

Reviewer bio: Christopher Chambers is editor of Midwest Review, and author of Delta 88, a small book of very short fiction. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Guest Post by Ashanté J. Ford

The rawness and compassion of “White Oleander” by Janet Fitch had me turning pages so fast that I was surprised when it was finished. This book read like a favorite album that I can’t stop listening to on repeat. It carried me into the deep despair and depression that comes with being an orphan child, and raised me like I was its own. White Oleander is a book I will never forget.

Fitch captures the bond of a mother and daughter like a photograph, while simultaneously weaving the implications of imperfection into their relationship. This renowned fictional story follows a young girl by the name of Astrid Magnussen into adulthood while she navigates how to grow up and deems her religion as “survival.” This novel captivated me in the same way poetry does. I wanted to listen to the brute advice Astrid’s mother gave and I wanted to fall into lust with every person that gave Astrid hope. Hope was a loose character in this book. It left as soon as it was near and pulled away every single time.

This novel has gained praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, and was even adapted into a film after it became a national bestseller in the early 2000s. I applaud this book for its versatility and creativeness. The themes of motherhood were depicted in such a poignant manner—they made me grovel and thank God for the woman that birthed me.

White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Hachette, September 2006.

Reviewer bio: Ashanté J. Ford is 21 years old. She is in college pursuing her bachelor’s degree in International Relations.

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Guest Post by David Armand

My kids’ last day of school was on Friday, March 13, four weeks ago today. They left class that afternoon not knowing that they wouldn’t be seeing their friends or teachers again for who knows how long. They seem worried sometimes, confused. So am I. But we’ve finally been able to settle into somewhat of a routine here at home: we made a vegetable garden in the backyard last week, bought some baby chickens and built a brooder for them. It gives everyone something to do.

And I like to spend the first hour or so of each morning—when it’s still dark outside and quiet—reading before everyone else wakes up. I’ve always done this, but now the act seems more meditative, more important than it ever has before.

You see, the day after the schools closed and I went to working remotely from home, I picked up Stephen King’s The Stand from my bookshelf. It’s an old copy and the dust jacket is torn off, tucked between the yellowed pages as a bookmark, but still I’ve been reading it every day since all this started.

It’s a long novel, just over eight-hundred pages, and I’ve spent this last month reading it for what is now the third time (I read the unabridged version, which is over a thousand pages long, in 1998; then I read it again about fifteen years later).

But now, on this third read, it seems more poignant than ever: not necessarily because it’s about a plague that wipes out most of the human population, but more because it’s a novel about the inherent sense of hope that people tend to have, about the faith we place in the goodness of others—even in the darkest of times. Which is something to remember now more than ever.

The Stand by Stephen King. Anchor, 1978.

Reviewer bio: David Armand’s latest novel, The Lord’s Acre, is forthcoming this fall from Texas Review Press.

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Guest Post by Bill Cushing

Retiring in mid-February, I foresaw a sedentary future. However, this virus has taken even that to unexpected heights. With my time in isolation (so to speak; I have a family), I’ve been able to read Moses, a fictional narrative based on the biblical figure’s life by Anthony Burgess.

While most know Burgess for Clockwork Orange, that’s hardly his best. He is the primary reason I pursued an MFA after a 15-year absence from school.

Now I recall why I love (and envy) his writing so much. Moses is a bit closer to two of his earlier works: Napoleon Symphony, where he presents his interpretation of the diminutive conqueror’s life while dividing the book into four sections attempting to replicate the pacing of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and Man of Nazareth, a look at the life of Jesus as narrated by a Greek merchant returning from business in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion.

Moses strikes out on its own in several ways, beginning with its structure. A narrative in verse. it reminds the reader of the Greek epic poems. It humanizes its characters—even Ramses. Moses himself suffers from a speech impediment. This is not unexpected for readers familiar with Burgess; most of his characters with outward defects tend to be the only complete person: recall the grotesque minister defending Alex in Clockwork Orange or the narrator’s disfigured sister in Earthly Powers.

But, like all things coming from Burgess, there are lessons to derive from this one. Issues such as free will, individual responsibility, and respect for simply stated (not grandiose and intricate) law are chief among those. This may be one of the easiest books from Burgess to read although I’d still recommend having a dictionary handy since the linguistic “tricks” found in his diction are always entertaining.

Moses: a narrative by Anthony Burgess. Dempsey & Squires, 1976.

Reviewer bio: Bill Cushing writes and facilitates a writing group for 9 Bridges. His poetry collection, A Former Life, was released last year by Finishing Line Press.

Guest Post by Katy Scrogin

Sheltering in place has provided the perfect opportunity to dive into Edoardo Albinati’s The Catholic School, a thorough exploration of the author’s coming of age in a particular Roman neighborhood in the 1970s. More than simple description or reminiscence, the book is propelled by a comprehensive search for explanations—specifically, regarding a gruesome crime committed by a few of the quarter’s well-heeled young inhabitants. The story is itself an unsparing quest to understand the conditions and sentiments and reigning assumptions that made such a thing even conceivable.

This is no straightforward mystery or crime novel, and indeed, readers not fond of philosophical or sociocultural speculation will probably not enjoy what for this reader amounts to delicious intellectual revelry. But if the lengthy and incisive discourses on bourgeois morality and hypocrisy, the nature of violence, the troubling and troubled realities of masculinity, the strange arena that is the family, or religion and politics in Italy, aren’t your bag, all is not lost! The 1200-plus-page behemoth can most certainly be incorporated into that weight-training routine you have time to take up now that we’re all stuck inside.

The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati. Macmillan, August 2019.

Reviewer bio: Katy Scrogin’s most recent online work is featured at The Book Smuggler’s Den and The Bookends Review. She can also be found at katyscrogin.wordpress.com.

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Guest Post by Eliza Mimski

When I go through troubling times, I often reread certain chapters in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. It’s the part starting in Chapter 27 where Jane knows that she can’t morally stay at Thornfield Hall any longer and that in order to be true to herself she must leave Mr. Rochester. On her sad voyage away from him, she loses her money and is homeless and starving and yet her connection to nature and to her God is at its strongest. She carries on, not knowing that she will soon happen upon her long-lost relatives and will later reconnect with Mr. Rochester.

What Jane, or Charlotte Brontë, does for me here is to remind me that when I’m in the middle of a crisis I need to remember to connect to my spirituality in a big way, and also to remember that no matter how bad the situation seems, the future can bring change and that I won’t stay stuck forever. To place this in the present situation, it is necessary for me to remember that the suffering brought about by the pandemic will end.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. October 1847.

Reviewer bio: I live in San Francisco, California, and am doing my best, like the rest of you, to stay healthy during the pandemic. Find my website here.