Category: Fiction Reviews

The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt

Kathi Appelt’s novel The Underneath (with illustrations by David Small) is a beautifully told story about pretty much everything all the time: life, death, love, hate, forgiveness, jealousy, generosity, cruelty, loyalty, betrayal, hope . . .

When the story opens, a mama cat and her two tiny, not-yet named kittens are in a bad way.

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned at the side of the road. A small calico cat. Her family, the one she lived with, has left her in this old and forgotten forest, this forest where the rain is soaking into her soft fur.

But mama cat soon finds a lonely, chained-up old hound, Ranger, who offers them hospitality in the “dark and holy Underneath,” where he is safe from the beatings of Gar Face. The cat family is safe there too. Cozy, even. Ranger names his kittens, immediately choosing Sabine (for the Sabine River) for the girl. And tentatively choosing Possum for the boy, then changing it to Puck when the boy, who has lots of puck, protests. Ranger sings his kittens to sleep every night. And Appelt’s lyrical writing makes us feel the preciousness of the odd little “found” family of cats and a dog.

But as in all good stories, something must go wrong. And because it’s in his nature, Puck leaves the safety of the dark and holy Underneath, and the scary, harrowing adventure begins: mama cat is drowned and Puck is left muddy, lost, and miserable on the wrong side of the river.

He isn’t alone on his journey back to Sabine and Ranger, which he had promised his mother. He walks with thousands of years of history, with old grudges and loves and wrongs and betrayals and friendships and alliances of the shape shifters and Grandmother Moccasin and the hundred-foot-long Alligator King. And, of course, Gar Face, the brutal man who is ultimately, and very appropriately, eaten by Alligator King at the end.

Appelt creates this narrative tapestry of trees and rivers and denizens of the bayou who bring thousands of years of love and loss and opinions and passions into Puck’s journey to find Ranger and Sabine. The outcome of the story rests not only on the bravery and love of Ranger and the kittens, but on the very personal choice Grandmother Moccasin makes after a thousand years of raging in a big clay pot, tangled in the roots of an ancient loblolly pine.

When she is finally freed, will Grandmother choose hate (and everybody dies) or love (and almost everybody lives)? Appelt keeps the reader wondering until the very last moment when Grandmother finally chooses love and frees Ranger from his rusty chain. And even that satisfying resolution is not really the end.

For trees, stories never end, they simply fold one into another. Where one begins to close, another begins to open, so that none are ever finished, not really. For Puck and Sabine and Ranger, this old story was the beginning of their new one.

                                                                        . . .

If you could ask the trees about them, the sweet gums and tupelos, the sycamore and oaks, oh, if only you cold decipher the dialects of tallow and chestnut and alder, they would tell you that here, in this lost piney woods, this forest that sits between the highways on the border of Texas and Louisiana, here among the deep paths and giant ferns, along the abandoned trails of the Caddo, here in this forest as old as the sky and sea, live a pair of silver twins and an old hound who sings the blues, right here . . .

Puck . . .

       Sabine . . .

                  . . . and Ranger.

                                                            Here.

A timeless and universal story, indeed.

One of the most interesting parts of our discussion of this novel was about whether it’s really a book for kids. (The publisher recommends it for ages ten and up.) Our conversation about suitability evolved from a semi-serious Maybe this book should actually be banned! to a But wait. No book should be banned. But maybe some books should be read only with adult helpers who can offer context. Or maybe it’s a matter or not every book being for every reader.

I fondly remember being a Godly Play storyteller for K-2 kids back in the day. One of the things I enjoyed most was the “wondering” questions at the end—particularly: “I wonder where you are in the story?” Most kids would usually find themselves somewhere. But occasionally, a child would shrug and say Nowhere. I’m not in that story.

I wish there were no children who could see themselves in The Underneath. But unfortunately, because of the way of the world, I imagine many can. I think of immigrants, refugees, kids from broken families, homeless kids, abused kids. Kids in foster care, kids in seemingly odd, atypical families, kids who have lost a parent or feel responsible for siblings. Kids whose parents are incarcerated. Those young readers may see themselves in Puck and Sabine’s story, and—in some sense—be at home even with the terrifying parts. And I think those readers may find hope and community in the dark and holy Underneath.

— Sharelle Moranville

The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese

The Covenant of Water is a voluminous, voluptuous multigenerational family epic teeming with characters connected by water, genes, and community. It is set in Kerala, a lush region on India’s southwest coast of the Arabian Sea, land that becomes a character of its own.

At 736 pages, it is a commitment. The audiobook clocks in at 32 hours. Author Abraham Verghese’s family is from Kerala, but he was born in Ethiopia, of missionary parents. The story was inspired by his grandmother from Kerala.

The novel starts with Big Ammachi as a 12-year-old bride. She immediately becomes mother to Jojo, barely nine years younger. Her gentle, loving husband is never given a name in the book, but is called Big Appachen, or father. Their daughter, Baby Mol, stays a mental age of five but has the emotional range of a savant. Their son, Philopose, arrives with great promise but needs a village to help him find his way. He marries Elsie, a gifted artist, who gives birth to Baby Ninan and almost dies in childbirth with Miriamma.

Big Appachen’s family suffers from what they call The Condition, an ailment that leads to death by drowning at least once a generation, even in shallow water. The problem is exacerbated by Kerala’s geography—it’s laced with canals that largely provide transportation, especially in the early-to-mid 1900s, when most of the novel is set. Big Appachen has The Condition and therefore avoids water, even if it means walking for hours instead of taking a short boat ride. Philipose has it too, but he responds by insisting he can learn to swim. He’s stubborn, but he still can’t swim.

Big Ammachi, a devout St. Thomas Catholic, prays for a savior to find a cure for The Condition. Will it be the gentle Rune, a doctor from Sweden, who builds St. Bridget’s Leprosarium? Or Digby, who comes to India from Glasgow, with his surgeon’s skills and tendency to love women married to other men? Or will the answer come from closer to home? Verghese takes his time to give us the answer, luring us into multiple side journeys that educate and entertain, introducing a slew of characters so well developed we miss them when we finally finish the novel.

The book develops like water itself, building momentum through the years, as traditional medicine merges with Western and as both integrate with the community. Finding a treatment for The Condition means listening to the people, learning their history, using traditional techniques to understand the patient and the tools of modern medicine to define the disease and search for a cure.  

It’s the kind of medicine Verghese teaches as a professor at Stanford Unversity, the kind that works with and for people.

Death is a profound part of the book, and Verghese uses it to show the necessity of truly living with and through family—biological or not. Trauma forges the people of the ovel; in loss they find love; in despair, they turn to goodness.

Verghese says the meaning of “covenant” in the title should remain a bit mysterious and, as in the rest of a novel, “the reader provides their imagination and somewhere in the middle spaces a mental movie takes shape.”

As the book unfolds, the covenant of water becomes a baptism, a rebirth, and an absolution. To coexist with the water, the Kerala community must respect its rhythms and barriers. They know water can heal, it can serve, it can kill, and it can keep secrets.

Verghese does a masterful job reading the audiobook, especially nailing the book’s many accents—Swedish, Scots, British, and varied Indians castes. He has special fun with one particular scene, in which a missionary from Body of Christ (Corpus Christi), Texas, a stand-in for Billy Graham, gives a bizarre sermon that is translated into a form nothing like the original by Uplift Master. (Uplift is one of the many characters named for his function in the community—he takes care of things and boosts morale.) The scene deserves to be listened to, read, and reread.

The book ends in the 1970s, a time of social progress and change. Women doctors are common, valued friends are no longer required to eat outside because of their caste, and medicine is at a crossroads. A new hospital is being built because the community—especially Uplift Master—envisioned, financed, and staffed it. Old ways of healing remain and, ideally, guide a new generation of doctors.

— Pat Prijatel

Note: This version of Pat’s review of The Covenant of Water was adapted from her original review published at Psychology Today: Storytelling as Medicine

Absolution, by Alice McDermott

Alice McDermott’s most recent novel Absolution is a masterpiece. The setting and plot are fresh while at the same time abundantly nostalgic for readers who came of age in the 60s and 70s. They focus attention and elicit involvement through excellent writing, intrigue and character development that focuses closely on the nuances of body language and facial expression. The structure reinforces the overall complexity of the plot by suddenly in Part II switching to a different narrator fifty years or more into the future, and then in Part III back again to 1963, the initial year of the narrative, which completes the story but leaves the reader with numerous questions to ponder and discuss.  

The setting is Saigon, Vietnam in a single year of America’s on-the-ground presence there. The war itself is mostly in the background, except for a couple of vivid scenes – one in the children’s ward of a hospital and the other a trip to and from a leprosarium by the principal characters, two young wives of American officers temporarily serving the military from the corporate world.  

In Part I and Part II the year is 1963 and Tricia is the narrator. In Part II the time frame is fifty to sixty years later, and Rainy the daughter of Charlene, the other main character, is the narrator. 

As the plot unfolds, we learn that Tricia is narrating the story as a letter in response to a request by Rainy to provide background on Dom her new neighbor in a rural location in Maryland who was a medic in Saigon and friends with both Tricia and Charlene when Rainy was a child there with her family.

The plot centers on the relationship between Tricia and Charlene and especially on Charlene’s overpowering and complex personality. She pushes and pulls at naïve, self-conscious newlywed Tricia, and much like the spider with the fly, enmeshes her in the web of her cabal – as Charlene’s husband describes his wife’s circle of fellow do-gooder friends. In fact, she designates Tricia as the originator of two major projects that occur to her seemingly off the top of her head but drive much of the narrative: One to produce Vietnamese outfits for Barbie dolls and sell them to make money for Charlene’s hospital charity baskets and the other, far more ambitious one, to make silk garments for patients in the leprosarium. Tricia realizes that Charlene needs a foil, what Tricia identifies as a “saint” to dilute her “smarter that everyone else” persona.

As the novel progresses, we learn that Charlene has another do-gooder project. She procures Vietnamese babies to sell to the highest bidder. Knowing how desperately Tricia yearns for a child, she gifts her a baby.

The simple urge to do good versus the lofty goal to “repair the world” runs throughout the novel.  The later seems largely the aim of men fighting a righteous war against communism while the former occupies women and is frequently dubbed inconsequential, even by the women themselves. Though Charlene and Tricia return to America, a place of safety to love and live with their families, more globally the war doesn’t bring about a better world for all. As we see in Part II, Rainey and her eventual husband both fall victim to the burgeoning demon of drug addiction in their youth. Dom and his family live in a nearly ramshackle house, and Dom dies after falling into a pit of human waste. The epigraph from Graham Green’s The Quiet American captures a common sentiment about the war’s aftermath – “…but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could say I was sorry.” – someone who could grant absolution.

Perhaps Charlene’s small acts of goodness – soothing wounded children in a hospital ward by providing treats and stuffed animals or delighting the lepers with the promise of fine silk clothing – accomplished more and required no absolution, though this avenue of activity was the only one open to women in Charlene and Tricia’s circumstances, at least the only legitimate one. Sexism was alive and well in the early 1960s. It’s evident in the everyday condescending interactions between husband and wife under which Charlene chaffs, but to which Tricia is largely oblivious, befogged by the joys of early married life.  

Demonstrating her Catholic faith in an act deserving absolution, Tricia returns Charlene’s gift child after initially being tempted to keep the baby. She says,”…I can think only of hot and cold – hot with anger, at Charlene, at Peter, at everyone in my life who had considered my opinions inconsequential, who had lied to me, or ignored me or manipulated me for what they considered my own benefit. Hot to think of those who’d set out to do good on my behalf.” And when her husband comes home, she stands up to him for the first time.

Let the women’s movement begin.

— Sue Martin