Eighteen months since I last saw my parents and two of my siblings, this is a homesick theme. Apologies for the missed month — it turns out publishing a book is both relatively time-consuming and has the unexpected side effect of making me briefly lose my ability to read, plus there are a few more of you now (hi!) and I got the stage fright. I climbed out of my anxiety hole partly because of a series of books with huge, all-encompassing families, families you wanted to dive into, families who dragged you in whether you wanted them or not. When we got married, a friend remarked to my wife that weddings always gave him crushes on people’s families, a concept that felt immediately familiar to me: seeing a big group high on their own group dynamics, at their best or worst, with a sprinkling of drama and great outfits. Here’s a bunch of good books that gave me the same feeling.
A reader friend — Martha of the impeccable taste — posted an urgent command a few weeks ago, alerting me to the existence of Rebecca K. Reilly’s GRETA & VALDIN, which can only be bought via its New Zealand publisher and which takes weeks and $$$ to make its way to Europe, or, I assume, any part of the world that is not NZ. Look: it’s worth it. It is ridiculous that this novel about two awkward gay half-Māori-half-Russian siblings living in Auckland is not going to surge to the top of the bestsellers list and sweep every literary award in known history, but it also kind of adds to its appeal, which is that of a delicious secret that you can pretend belongs only to you. (I think there are a few people in the world of publishing who read this newsletter… you should publish this book. I want at least two more copies.) Greta and Valdin, the eponymous siblings of the novel, climb in and out of their family’s lovely and troubling embrace to fall in love and have their hearts broken, not always in that order. I laughed out loud at least once every two pages and cried twice, once because of a bag of limes. There is a stern older brother who steals your heart, and one of the best sexy mum reveals of all time. I can’t help being hyperbolic about this novel. It deserves it.
(buy it from VUP)At its heart, Tia Williams’ SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE is the kind of love story built to sweep you away: a second chance romance where two high school soulmates meet later in life, after years spent forging their own successful literary careers. I particularly loved Shane — one of the first really adult romantic heroes I’ve come across; not in the sexy way (although…) but because there is a level of strength, maturity and intelligence to him that felt both refreshing and alluring. But behind the romance, digging its fingers in, comes the spectre of family, especially our heroine Eva’s generational curse of troubled women, following her around with the unforgettable perfume of “White Diamonds. And Black drama.” In between swooning over Eva and Shane, our very-swoonable romantic leads, I found myself unexpectedly captured by Eva’s mother Lizette: complicated, distressed, dangerous, hard and fragile at different turns. She reminded me of a screwball heroine, widening her eyes and laughing loud at each fresh turn of fate, the kind of woman you can’t trust but want on your side anyway.
(buy @ bookshop)Tina McElroy Ansa does something weird and clever with her 1989 novel BABY OF THE FAMILY: she makes you feel as though you belong to the McPhersons, too. Set in the 50s in rural Georgia, the McPhersons are at once completely separate from my experience and strangely familiar, as though McElroy Ansa dumps you so completely in her world that you can’t help but cleave to it. It’s partly about her lively writing, always both lovely and hilarious (“I don’t mind being the wax,” one bar regular says, despondent over his unfaithful boyfriend, “I don’t mind being the wick. But I be damned if I’m gonna be the flame.”); it’s partly about her way of enunciating family clichés in quick, grinning humour that makes them feel new (Jonah McPherson, in ultimate dad vibes, “couldn’t explain it or understand it really, but there was just something about a road map that seemed to dare him to strike out in his own direction regardless of what the lines and signs told him to do”); it’s partly about our heroine Lena, who was born with a caul over her face which at once makes her special and sets her apart even amongst her kin. Lena can see ghosts and there is a magical realist pulse to this novel alternately dreamy then frightening, but it’s ruthlessly invested in life and society, and its depiction of its Black family is both tender and furious. There is something lovely at the heart of this novel I can’t put properly into words — it has to be read to be felt.
(buy @ bookshop)Australians will laugh at me for floating Benjamin Law as an under-appreciated writer, but I’m not sure how far his reach goes beyond the country, and THE FAMILY LAW is too delicious a treat to keep to ourselves. It’s a memoir in vignettes, a collection of stories funny and charming and sad about Law’s childhood and adolescence with his Chinese-Australian family. The star of the show is his mother - dramatic, hilarious, ready to steal any scene or simply resolve it with the perfect one-liner - but I fell for the whole family, the messy sibling dynamics, the workaholic father with his affection and distance, the in-jokes that you get to experience as though they were your own. Law has an eye both scientific and empathetic; when he turns his gaze beyond his family, especially, to bullies in primary schoolyards or his cohort at university, there’s the sense of an observer who is accurate, detailed and merciless in his sum-up of others — with a kind of gentle warmth which envelops each incisive blow. It’s really, really funny, and secretly romantic. (It was also made into a TV show! Which I have not seen and cannot comment on, but in case that floats your boat.)
(buy @ bookshop)ALSO CONSIDER: the classic joy of My Family and Other Animals, with the particular pleasure of watching acclaimed British novelist Lawrence Durrell being mercilessly depicted by his little brother as a grump stomping around with his rifle shouting “I am TRYING to be a GENIUS”; Tolstoy, impossible to ignore — I’m always fascinated by how much more attention he pays to the children of his novels than American and European writers of the same period; Family Love Michael and Kendall in Succession gleefully shouting FAMILY FAMILY; a piece I wrote about missing Australian Christmases, if ya fancy it; the Barbours from The Goldfinch and especially poor old Platt; a previous newsletter about siblings.
In case you would like some more of my writing (+ a better writer’s) this month:
for Bad Form, Onj and I wrote about co-writing a novel, feat. the mean robots that live in Google Docs
for LitHub, we wrote about the beguiling appeal of writing about rich people
for Marie Claire, we wrote a paean to our best friends
we also spoke to Shondaland, TIME (!!), and fellow substackians Sit Down And Write
and as ever, if you are looking for books to read, it would make me so happy if you read ours.