WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C3
book world
Literary Calendar
THURSDAY | 8 P.M. Thomas Keller, Corey Chow and Michael Ruhlman discuss “The French Laundry, Per Se” with Alice Waters streamed through P&P Live,
politics-prose.com/events.
If you’re planning to give a lot of
books this holiday season, save a bit of
space on your list for one or more of
this month’s best reads, which include
a manifesto for “full-fat activism” (that
doesn’t have anything to do with
omega-3s), an unusual fairy tale
featuring a thoroughbred horse and a
fun look at the companionship of dogs.
“The Opium Prince: A Novel,” by
Jasmine Aimaq (Dec. 1)
The story begins in 1970, when an
American diplomat, posted to
Afghanistan, accidentally hits a young
girl with his car. The girl’s death
becomes blackmail leverage for a local
kingpin, and as the drug lord and
diplomat tangle, Aimaq — w ho, like her
protagonist, grew up in Afghanistan —
shows that country’s complicated
history in a pulse-pounding thriller.
“Admission: A Novel,” by Julie
Buxbaum (Dec. 1)
“Admission” examines the recent
scandal of Hollywood parents bribing
officials to secure competitive
placement for their kids. Buxbaum’s
latest smart, funny book is from the
perspective of high-schooler Chloe
Wynn Berringer, whose life is
practically perfect — until her mother
is arrested, and Chloe has to question
more than just her choice of college.
“Long Time Coming: Reckoning
With Race in America,” by Michael
Eric Dyson (Dec. 1)
In his new book, the author of “Tears
We Cannot Stop” addresses each of five
chapters to a Black martyr, including
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and
Clementa Pinckney. Taken together, it’s
a plea for our country to finally address
the societal forces causing systemic
racism.
“Rest and Be Thankful: A Novel” by
Emma Glass (Dec. 1)
The “Peach” author re-creates the
hallucinatory inner life of a hospital
nurse who works long hours in the
NICU. Her psyche splinters while her
professional self remains intact, and
the tension between her two realities
gives Glass’s second novel the feel of a
thriller.
“Perestroika in Paris: A Novel,” by
Jane Smiley (Dec. 1)
Fans of the Pulitzer winner know she
can handle Shakespeare (“A Thousand
Acres”), satire (“Moo”) and even sagas
(the Icelandic kind); why not a fable?
As a young Parisian boy and his
centenarian great-grandmother help a
thoroughbred with a knack for making
friends across the animal kingdom, the
story considers the nature of freedom
— and the freedom of the natural
world.
“Survival of the Thickest: Essays,”
by Michelle Buteau (Dec. 8)
If you think actress Buteau (“Russian
Doll,” “Tales of the City”) is funny on-
screen, wait until you see her on the
page. Buteau describes her Caribbean
Catholic upbringing in Jersey, marrying
a Dutchman and her professional
ascendancy with “a full heart, tight
jeans, and stardom finally in [my]
grasp.”
“The Particulars of Peter: Dance
Lessons, DNA Tests, and Other
Excuses to Hang Out with My Perfect
Dog,” by Kelly Conaboy (Dec. 8)
This might be one of the month’s, if
not the year’s, sweetest books —
zaniest, too, as Conaboy indulges her
love for her rescue mutt with a visit to
“Woofstock” (“the largest outdoor
festival for dogs in North America”),
among other adventures. Conaboy, a
New York magazine editor at large,
brings voice and verve to this
examination of why our pets make us
swoon.
“The Book of Moods: How I Turned
My Worst Emotions into My Best
Life,” by Lauren Martin (Dec. 8)
Five years ago, Martin decided to ask
other women whether they experienced
the same negative feelings —
irritability, inferiority and more — that
she did. The group she founded, Words
of Women (now a burgeoning
community online and IRL), became
the place where Martin and others
learned how to understand moods and
find the peace and stability they craved.
“The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A
Novel,” by Marie Benedict (Dec. 29)
Benedict takes on Agatha Christie’s
most personal mystery: The 11 days in
1926 when she vanished, inciting a
countrywide search and sheer panic for
her family, friends and fans. When she
reappeared, claiming amnesia, many
hypothesized about her lost days.
Benedict takes a stab at filling in the
gaps.
“This One Wild and Precious Life:
The Path Back to Connection in a
Fractured World,” by Sarah Wilson
(Dec. 29)
If you can get past the cheesy title
and, okay, the cheesy cover, you may
find that the author’s Nutribullet
amalgamation of wisdom can help you
in the here and now: hike; practice
mindful shopping; read poetry and
listen to meaningful music; practice
“full-fat activism,” meaning
wholeheartedly embracing a cause.
Blend, sip, repeat. Why not? Smoothies
of all kinds can be refreshing.
[email protected]Bethanne Patrick is the editor, most
recently, of “The Books That Changed My
Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors,
Musicians and Other Remarkable People.”DECEMBER BOOKSWRITTEN IN
THE STARS
By Alexandria
Bellefleur
Avon. 384 pp.
$15.99perience of immigrant success. In his
telling, the American Dream is disrupted
by nightmares that a good job and a
house in the suburbs can’t quell.
The novel revolves around Liang
Cheng and his wife, Patty, who moved
from China to the United States in the
1990s. By all appearances, they have
attained exactly what they wanted, but
Han’s descriptions are flecked with notes
of muffled dismay. Liang ostensibly runs
a photography business, but it’s really a
collection of booths in which high school
girls snap their own pictures. Liang
realizes he has become like his drunken
poker buddies, men who wobble home
“snoring into their wives’ turned backs,
waking up their children for hugs they
did not wish to give.”
Patty, far more sophisticated in the
ways of American culture and more
fluent in English, is a leading engineer
with Texas Semiconductor, but the job
scuttled her PhD studies, and the hours
— synchronized with an office in Banga-
lore — are exhausting. Somehow, the
benefits of American prosperity have
yielded little actual pleasure. These days,
Patty finds that just commuting to work
feels “like an accomplishment” — “no
taxis, bicycles, rickshaws, mopeds, or
bodies interrupted her.”
Han keeps his focus on this sad family,
but he’s a subtle and astute cultural critic,
too, casting a satiric eye over the land of
opportunity and the unbounded promis-
es of consumer paradise. The Chengs and
their two children live in Plano, Tex., in “a
suburb of oven mitts and motion sensors.
Voice recognition and outlet plug covers.”
It is a city wholly controlled, thoroughly
engineered for convenience. Best of all,
Han writes, “Plano had the lowest crimeBOOK WORLD FROM C1It’s hard to dream when you can’t sleep
rate in Texas.” Patty and Liang chose it “in
order not to be scared.”
Why, then, do they feel slightly afraid
all the time?
The novel opens in November 2003, at
night, a realm of muted sounds and
colors that feels both peaceful and omi-
nous. Eleven-year-old Jack hears some-
thing and slips out of his bedroom to look
for his little sister, Annabel. “He wan-
dered outside without slapping on shoes,
his mind still muddled with dream
sounds,” Han writes. “The houses on both
sides of Plimpton Court stood like
tombs.” Jack finds one of Annabel’s slip-
pers in the grass. His heart beats so
loudly that it seems to call him along the
trail. Then he finds her other slipper.
We’re primed for the worst — abduc-
tion! murder! — but we soon learn that
Han is pursuing something more intri-
cate and indefinite.
In the dim light, Jack sees his sister
standing on a bridge over a creek. Still
partially asleep, she thinks Jack is her
father. “They needed to go back,” Jack
thinks, “to the sprinkler-fed grass, the
potted mums, the vanilla-scented pine-
cones.” But all those efforts to artificially
beautify the environment can’t eliminate
the current of apprehension that runs
through this family.
The title “Nights When Nothing Hap-
pened” is meant to be ironic, of course,
but impatient readers may feel it’s spot
on. Persist! Han builds the tension in this
story slowly, but he builds it with exqui-
site care, and it’s entirely worth the
investment.
Liang, still suffering the effects of a
traumatic childhood back in China,
thrashes violently in his sleep and trudg-
es through his days in a fog of disquiet.
Patty suspects their marriage was prob-
ably a mistake, but she carries on, believ-ing her unhappiness is irrelevant. Their
bigger concern is Annabel, who is having
social troubles in kindergarten. Patty is
convinced that another little girl in the
class is to blame, but in chapters bril-
liantly told from Annabel’s point of view,
we see the situation is more complex.
Han has a perfect ear for a child’s
perception of the world, that uncanny
mixture of confidence, innocence and
mystification. Eventually, in the novel’s
most masterful scene, Annabel’s willful-
ness and her father’s awkwardness bring
down an avalanche of suspicion that
shakes this family to its core.
Physical attacks, name-calling, job dis-
crimination — such dramatic expres-
sions of prejudice naturally draw our
attention, but “Nights When Nothing
Happened” captures a more insidious
breed of racism: an atmosphere of White
wariness that the Chengs must constant-
ly navigate. It’s a collection of pained
smiles, whispered comments and polite
avoidance that saps their confidence and
poisons their spirit. Liang and Patty must
exert so much effort to be flawlessly
normal, appropriately suburban, perfect-
ly neighborly that rest becomes impossi-
ble. Without comprehending the cause,
their children detect the electricity in the
air of their troubled home.
Han’s expansive sympathy and twi-
light lyricism make “Nights When Noth-
ing Happened” a poignant study of the
immigrant experience. This is an author
who understands on a profound level the
way past trauma interacts with the pres-
sures of assimilation to disrupt a good
night’s sleep, even a life.
[email protected]Ron Charles writes about books for The
Washington Post and hosts
TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com.WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION; ISTOCKSimon Han,
author of “ Nights
When Nothing
Happened.”BY ELLEN MORTONThe manifold reboots of “Pride and
Prejudice” practically require their own
section in the bookstore these days, so
when you pick up a rom-com with lead
characters named Darcy and Elle, you
might think you know what you’re in for.
But Alexandria Bellefleur’s queer ro-
mance “Written in the Stars” gives its
inspo a mere wink before unfolding into
a distinctly modern frolic, charming and
effervescent and entirely itself.
Ever hopeful, astrologist Elle heads to
a blind date, feeling the anticipation “like
glitter rushing through her veins.” Darcy,
an actuary and the reserved sister of
Elle’s business partner, is decidedly less
excited. After an awkward conversation
and a sad quantity of spilled wine, Darcy
and Elle are both happy to go home alone
and never meet again. Each feels a sexy
spark, but Elle doesn’t care to break
through Darcy’s condescension, and Dar-
cy won’t risk her heart on anyone, let
alone a starry-eyed charlatan.
But Darcy wants a break from her
brother Brendon’s relentless setups, so
she lies and tells him they hit it off.
Brendon loses no time in congratulating
Elle on her new love connection, forcing
Elle back to Darcy for answers. Darcy
proposes they pretend to date for a few
months, which would benefit them both:
Darcy will get Brendon off her back, and
Elle will show her disapproving family
she can attract a stable, responsible
adult. “This sounds like a supremely
stupid plan. Like, awful,” Elle tells her.
And Darcy admits, “That’s a fair point.”
This is a dyed-in-the-wool rom-com,
filled with familiar tropes. Opposites
attract, they embark on a fake relation-
ship, they suffer misunderstandings and
unfortunate overhears. What makes
“Written in the Stars” so refreshing is
that it doesn’t rely on flimsy constructs.
Elle and Darcy confront conflicts with
frank and realized points of view. When
their attraction outpaces their resistance
to each other, they don’t bumble forward
and hope for the best. They admit their
feelings and decide together to abandon
their plan.
From Page 1, when Elle suffers the
indignities of “brand-spankin’-new un-derwear” that make her feel like a “bear
in the woods with an insidious itch,” Elle
and Darcy are as recognizable and enter-
taining as your best friends from college.
Their first impressions are a credible
mismatch, but over time they fit together
more and more surely. Elle laughs at
Darcy’s dirty jokes and draws out the
quirks Darcy usually keeps to herself.
Darcy unearths the layers beneath Elle’s
enthusiasm for astrology and appreci-
ates her sense of fun and search for
connection. Their romance builds natu-
rally and capitalizes on the physical
allure they felt all along.
Later, when things inevitably fall apart
(did I mention this is a dyed-in-the-wool
rom-com?), it’s because their struggle is
emotional and character-based rather
than convenient and easily solved. Elle
and Darcy have to reach past superficial
hurts and work hard to overcome the real
discord between them. The ending they
find together feels hopeful, happy and
written in the... well, you know.
[email protected]Ellen Morton is a writer in Los Angeles.Venus is ascendant in t his charming descendant o f Austen
AVON
Alexandria Bellefleur, author
of “Written in the Stars.”