Summary:

The idea for her second novel came to Sarah Perry in a flash (Ref. 1) as her husband was telling her about the 1699 sighting of a serpent or dragon in Henham, a village slightly to the northwest of the town of Essex, where Ms.Perry was born in 1979. The late 19th century events of the novel occur primarily in Aldwinter, a fictional fishing village on the Blackwater estuary.  Divided into 4 books (with titles derived from a 1669 pamphlet on the Serpent), each with subdivisions by month, further subdivided into chapters, the story takes place over 11 calendar months, from New Year's Eve to November, 1892. Although the story does not feel complicated and should not be difficult to describe in a synopsis, it is a tribute to the novelist's Dickensian talents  that in fact it is somewhat complex, involving four couples and their various children and friends and their increasingly intricate relationships, all revolving around the palpable feeling in Aldwinter that the famous Essex Serpent has returned, resurfaced, or decided to re-animate all the lives therein. The protagonist is Cora Seaborne,  a recently widowed free-thinker, adept in biology and natural sciences, and mother of an adolescent boy, Francis, who would nowadays probably receive the label "autistic." After the death of her abusive husband from oropharyngeal cancer, Cora becomes emotionally involved with Luke Garrett, the treating surgeon, an idiosyncratic, brilliant man, who has a bosom buddy, George Spencer (simply called "Spencer"), a very wealthy former medical school classmate. With an introduction from her friends Charles and Katherine Ambrose, Cora and Martha - her intimate companion - visit William (often referred to as just "Will") and his wife Stella Ransome in Aldwinter, where Will is the parish minister and father to three children. The eldest is Joanna, a precocious adolescent girl one imagines, alongside a younger Cora, as a younger version of this novel's author, who describes herself as vibrantly curious of all her surroundings while growing up in Essex as a young girl. (Ref. 2)

With the arrival of Cora and Martha in Aldwinter, the narrative begins in earnest with the development of the mounting anxiety over the mysterious events (a missing boat, unexplained drownings) attributed to possibly a resurgent Essex Serpent besetting Aldwinter; Luke's miraculous operation saving a man named Edward Burton from a knife wound to the heart; the increasingly romantic relationship between Cora and Will, to Luke's dismay; Stella's rapidly progressive pulmonary tuberculosis; the disappearance of Naomi Banks, a friend of Joanna; and an attack on Luke by the same man who had knifed Edward Burton. By novel's end, without spoiling the plot, most loose ends have been cauterized, left more neatly dangling or deftly retied.  

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Australian writer Cory Taylor was diagnosed with untreatable melanoma at the age of 60.  In a few short weeks she wrote this memoir, exploring what she was feeling and what is missing in modern medical care of the dying.  She died at the age of 61, a few months after this book appeared in her native country.  

The book has three parts. Part I, Cold Feet, starts right off discussing a euthanasia drug purchased online from China. Taylor’s melanoma has metastasized to many parts of her body, including her brain. It was first diagnosed in 2005, a malignant mole behind her right knee. In the decade of her cancer, she has tried three drug trials, thought about suicide, and received palliative care. She has harsh words for doctors who don’t mention death, a psychologist who doesn’t help her “Adjustment disorder,” and medicine in general that sees death as a failure.      
       
Taylor feels anger, sadness, and loneliness. She finds comfort and camaraderie in a group called Exit, where there’s frank discussion about death. She writes, “We’re like the last survivors on a sinking ship, huddled together for warmth” (p. 14). She has neither religious training nor interest in it. She became a writer late in life, and now she sees a clear purpose for her “final book.” She writes, “I am making a shape for my death, so that I, and others can see it clearly. And I am making it bearable for myself” (p. 31).  

Although scared and suffering, she is reluctant to commit suicide because of the impact on her husband, two sons, and friends. Dying, she writes, “is by far the hardest thing I have ever done, and I will be glad when it’s over” (p. 49).

Part II, Dust and Ashes, describes her earlier life with her mother and father. Her parents were unhappy together and eventually divorced. In her life review, Taylor searches for meaning in the influences on her life. Her family moved often in Australia, also to Fiji and Africa. She feels rootless herself, traveling to England and Japan. Both of her parents die with dementia; she was with neither one at their ends.  
   
Part III, Endings and Beginnings, goes further back to her childhood. She reflects on an idyllic time in Fiji, her discovery of the power of language and writing, and various trials of growing up. She worries that she wasn’t vigilant enough in checking her skin, thereby allowing her disease to become fatal. She feels autonomy in having the Chinese euthanasia drug, but her life is clearly closing in. She says she weighs less than her neighbor’s dog. The last page of the book imagines her death as a cinematic montage, ending with “Fade to black” (p. 141).  

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On a stormy night in 1968 a retired, widowed schoolteacher in rural Pennsylvania opens her door to find a young couple, she white, he African American, wrapped in blankets, drenched, and silent.  Letting them in changes her life.  They have escaped together from a nearby mental institution most locals simply call "The School."  The young woman has recently given birth.  When Martha lets them in, her life changes forever.   Supervisors from "the School" show up at the door, the young man escapes, and the young woman, memorably beautiful, is taken back into custody.  The only words she is able to speak out of what we learn has been a years-long silence are "Hide her."  Thus she leaves her newborn baby to be raised by a stranger.  The remaining chapters span more than forty years in the stories of these people, linked by fate and love and the brutalities of an unreformed system that incarcerated, neglected, and not infrequently abused people who were often misdiagnosed.  Homan, the young man who loved Lynnie, the beautiful girl from the institution, was deaf, not retarded.  Lynnie was simply "slow," but a gifted artist who recorded many of the events of her life in drawings she shared only with the one attendant who valued and loved her.  Though her pregnancy resulted from being raped by a staff member, the deaf man longs to protect her and care for the baby.  Years separate them; Homan eventually learns signing; Lynnie's sister befriends her and an exposé results in the closure of the institution.  Over those years Lynnie and Homan witness much cultural change in treatment of people like them who were once systematically excluded.  They find social identities that once would have been entirely unavailable to them.  And eventually, after literal and figurative journeys of discovery, they rediscover each other.   

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Summary:

Evan Hansen, an awkward, lonely high school senior, struggles with Social Anxiety Disorder. On the advice of his therapist, he pens supportive letters to himself: “Dear Evan Hansen, Today is going to be an amazing day, and here’s why.  Because today all you have to do is be yourself. But also confident.”   

Connor, another loner student, picks up one of Evan’s letters and, several days later, commits suicide.  When Connor’s parents find the letter, they take it to be their son’s suicide note.  Instead of dissuading them, Evan concocts an account of a close friendship with the classmate he barely knew, creating an email trail. Connor’s family swallows the story.  

As Evan gains the attention he has always craved and comes out of his shell, he finds that he cannot stop himself.   He founds the “Connor Project,” an organization dedicated to preserving his “friend’s” memory where he shares his musings on social media:  “Have you ever felt like nobody was there?  Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?  Have you ever felt like you could disappear?  Like you could fall, and no one would hear? ...Well, let that lonely feeling wash away…Lift your head and look around.  You will be found.  You will be found.”  Once Evan’s postings go viral, the Connor Project becomes a veritable industry, with a budget, and fans who look to it for inspiration.  As the stakes rise, the Project can flourish only by being fed more lies. 

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Summary:

The subtitle is accurate enough: “A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” although the author J.D. Vance is, in fact, the focal point of view throughout, from his childhood to his success as an adult. Few young people made it out of the hills to enjoy stable and successful lives, but J.D. was one of them, earning a degree at Ohio State University, then a law degree at Yale. While recounting his life, he also describes his relatives and neighbors, and he interprets the many dilemmas of his hillbilly culture. 
 
Vance was born in 1984 and grew up in Jackson, Kentucky, a poor town following the collapse of coal mining. His family was beset with poverty, alcoholism, mental instability, and more. His mother had nine miscarriages and suffered from addictions; she had multiple husbands. The culture around him suffered from domestic violence, drug abuse, hoarding, unemployment, honor defended by fists, knives, or guns, as well as bad financial habits, bad diets, obesity, lack of exercise, sugary drinks, dental problems, and what he calls “emotional poverty.”  There was welfare abuse and, in general “a chaotic life.”  He credits his grandparents, other relatives, various teachers and professors for supporting him, guiding him, and comforting him when he was hurt, angry, and/or confused.  

Like many other hillbillies, J.D. moved some hundred miles north into southern Ohio, where steel companies provided jobs—that is, until they closed, like many other employers in the Rust Belt. There also, hillbillies were left without income and social problems increased. Stores and restaurants closed. Payday lenders and cash-for-gold shops took their place. Drug dealers and users took over empty houses.  

After high school, Vance joined the Marines. He credits the military for teaching him discipline, persistence, and for developing his self-respect. For his success at Yale, he thanks his professors, his girlfriend (later wife), and classmates for helping him understand customs of New England society. One example: he leaves a banquet to call his girlfriend; she instructs him on how to handle the nine pieces of unfamiliar silverware surrounding his plate.  

The last three chapters (11, 12, 13) and the conclusion analyze his experience on more conceptual terms, including the “social capital” prized by the the New England world, social instability of the culture he was raised in, and “adverse childhood experiences” (or ACEs), the psychologists’ phrase for the damaging events children experience in a culture of poverty, violence, and limited futures. He writes that governmental child services have policies that don’t understand the important roles of aunts, uncles, and grandparents in subcultures that rely on extended families.  Indeed, faithful to his mother, he, as an adult, provides specific help to her. 

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Summary:

Lee Chandler is approaching middle age and working as a maintenance man for an apartment complex in Quincy, Massachusetts. We get a sense for his days as we watch him shovel snow from the walks, unclog toilets, fix leaks, and argue with tenants. We get a sense for his nights as we watch him at a bar drink himself into a fighting mood and then watch him fight. He returns to his sparse subterranean apartment that he shares with no one to sleep off the beer and the bruises. He’ll do it again the next day.  

Lee takes a call as he’s shoveling snow. His older brother Joe is in the hospital in Manchester. He would not get there before Joe dies. A few days later Lee finds out he’s now guardian to Joe’s teenage son Patrick. This is not a responsibility he knew about or welcomed, and one that anchors him to his hometown of Manchester. He doesn’t want to stay in Manchester. Through a series of flashbacks, we find out that it’s not the struggles that come with taking on the responsibility of a rambunctious teenager that makes him want to leave again, it’s the unspeakable tragedy he experienced there years before. He blames himself for this tragedy, as did his wife Randi, and many of the townspeople.  

Over the next few months, Lee is busy making burial arrangements for his brother, situating his nephew, and looking for work while being reminded regularly of what causes his profound suffering. He also experiences fresh assaults. One in particular is the reemergence of his now ex-wife Randi. She attends Joe’s funeral forcing him to bear the sight of her with a new husband and in the late stage of pregnancy. A little later he encounters her in town with her newborn child in a buggy. She wants to make amends for her contribution to his suffering. Lee’s response to Randi’s entreaties is gracious but lifeless, and explains how he gets through the days. He has no internal resource to muster responses to anything, good or bad. He’s hollowed out. “There’s nothin’ there,” he tells Randi.  

We’re given no reason to expect there will ever be anything there again for the rest of Lee’s life through a conversation he has with Patrick. Lee has arranged for a family friend to adopt Patrick so that he could leave Manchester for a job in Boston. When Patrick pushes him to stay, Lee confesses: “I can’t do it. I can’t beat it. I can’t beat it.”

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The narrator Lucia works in a California city emergency room. Her job title is not specified - possibly a registration clerk or triage nurse. She enjoys working in the ER and marvels at the human body: "I am fascinated by two fingers in a baggie, a glittering switchblade all the way out of a lean pimp's back" (p90). Death, however, is a regular visitor.

All day, ambulances back up to the emergency room, gurneys rumble by, and charts accumulate. The staff is too busy. Patients are restless, frightened, and angry. She notes how everything associated with the ER appears gray - patient's skin, blankets, emergency vehicles. And perhaps the prognosis of patients as well: "Everything is reparable, or not" (p90).

Lucia describes Code Blues, the deaths of gypsies, an encounter with a blind man whose wife was DOA, drunks, and suicide attempts. She wonders why the elderly fall down so frequently. She's frustrated by the large number of people who come to the ER without an actual emergency and longs for "a good cut-and-dried stabbing or a gunshot wound" (p93). But Lucia worries that she has become too desensitized working in the emergency room, maybe even inhuman. Yet the flow of patients doesn't slow down - those with true life-threatening conditions and those who probably don't need to be there.

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Summary:

It is a strange and cruel world that Amelia finds herself in. The 17-year-old woman from Mexico who speaks very little English travels to Oakland, California to marry her boyfriend Manolo. Soon after, he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amelia is already pregnant. She and her newborn son, Jesus Romero, move in with Manolo's aunt and uncle. Amelia refers to the baby as "mijito" (an affectionate Spanish term for "little son"). He cries constantly and has a hernia that requires repair. But the teenage mother is overwhelmed and frightened. She receives little support.

Amelia and Jesus go to the Oakland Children's Hospital where they meet a cynical but kind nurse who works with a group of 6 pediatric surgeons. Most of the surgical practice consists of Medi-Cal welfare patients and lots of illegal aliens. The nurse encounters crack babies, kids with AIDS, and plenty of disabled children. When the surgeon examines Jesus, he notes bruises on the baby's arms. They are the result of Amelia squeezing him too hard to stifle his incessant crying. Surgery is scheduled but doesn't get done.

Later, the uncle makes sexual advances and, while drunk, rapes Amelia in the bathroom. The aunt insists Amelia and Jesus leave the apartment. She deposits them at a homeless shelter. Amelia spends her days riding buses and her nights at the shelter where she is harassed and robbed. All the while, Jesus cries. Amelia notices his hernia is protruding and she is unable to push it back in place as she was instructed. After office hours, the same nurse evaluates the situation and accompanies them to the emergency room where surgery is performed.

Amelia and Jesus return to the ER. She has been sedated and is staring blankly. Jesus is dead with a broken neck. The nurse from the surgical clinic is at Amelia's side and learns that Jesus was crying in the homeless shelter and keeping others there awake. Amelia shook the infant to try to quell the crying. She didn't know what else to do.

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Summary:

The speaker of this dramatic monologue in prose is an archangel.  He attempts to tell his listeners—mortals, presumably—of the beauty to be treasured in the extraordinary ordinary of the everyday world.  The Archangel speaks in nothing less than glorious diction, baroque syntax, and enchanting rhythm: he labors, rhetorically, to communicate in a language congruent with the complex, extravagant beauty of the world he describes.  He pleads with his audience to listen to him and share in the profound aesthetic experience so readily available—but he pleads to no avail: his audience will not listen.  In response to his audience's attempted departure, the Archangel implores, “Wait.  Listen.  I will begin again.”

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Summary:

The narrator of this story is a lifeguard who contemplates his identity and life-roles as he lounges in his lifeguard chair, elevated above the crowd of beachgoers.  In the winter months, he is a student of divinity; in the summer months, he ascends the throne marked with a red cross in the hopes of guarding the lives of those at play before him.  While he remains vigilant for calls of help, those calls never come, and the lifeguard confronts the troubling insight of the limited contributions he’s devoting his life to make.

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