The Red Lotus

The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian (2020), narrated by Rebecca Lowman

It was all very dramatic because I was on hold for this book through the library but by the time it was published we were closed because of the coronavirus. Also, a friend had mentioned to me that the audio version was narrated by Rebecca Lowman, one of my favorite (possibly my very favorite) narrators. So I bought some extra Audible credits, and it was worth every penny.

Alexis is an emergency room doctor who met her boyfriend Austin when he came to the ER with a bullet wound. In a strange coincidence, it turns out that he works there too, but in a fundraising position. Six months later they are on a bicycling trip in Vietnam and Austin goes missing. I won't say much more about the plot because I don't want to give too much away, but the story really becomes intriguing when Alexis learns Austin lied about one of the reasons why he wanted to go to Vietnam.

On top of what happened to Austin, Alexis then has to deal with the fact of that lie and what it meant about the person she thought she knew. Having their relationship be fairly new is what made this storyline great. And there's more - there's a whole plot having to do with rats and disease and what Austin potentially had to do with it.

This book shouldn't have made me want to go on a bike tour of Vietnam, but it did and I don't even ride a bike. Vietnam sounded gorgeous though. The novel is very much in the same vein of Bohjalian's last couple of books, The Flight Attendant and The Guest Room, as opposed to his older books. A little bit mystery, a little bit thriller, very much character-driven. Alexis has some darkness in her past, but as an emergency room doctor she has learned to be calm in difficult circumstances. I really liked being immersed in her story, and Rebecca Lowman was the perfect narrator for her. (Honestly I think I like characters more when she narrates them.)

You probably know that Chris Bohjalian is one of my favorite authors and I've read all of his books except I think The Water Witches. The only other one I've listened to on audio was Before You Know Kindness because I happened to come into a free copy of it. They are the kind of books I don't have the patience to stretch out into 2 weeks, which is how long it usually takes me for an audiobook. But thanks to the pandemic, I've been at home with nothing but knitting and puzzles to occupy me which has been the perfect environment for this. If you've liked his other recent books, you'll likely enjoy this one too. And if you're into audio, I do highly recommend that version.

The Flight Attendant

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian (2018)

Cassandra Bowden is a heavy drinker, prone to blackouts. Such is the case after she landed in Dubai, and spent the night with a passenger she had met and flirted with on her flight. She woke up in his hotel room in the morning, bits of the evening slowly coming back to her: drinking lots of arak, coming back to the hotel room, a female guest named Miranda who brought a bottle of vodka, breaking the bottle, leaving the hotel room. Yet here she still was. Then Cassie finally turned her head to look at Alex Sokolov, and saw that he was dead. Panicked, she feared that maybe she killed him. Even if she hadn't, just being beside him in the bed would surely implicate her. So she slipped out of the room and caught her next flight.

This isn't a whodunnit. We know who did it by the next chapter, though we don't know why. More important though, is what happens to Cassie, the fallout from her decision to say nothing and leave the hotel room as though she didn't know a murder had taken place there. What could possibly make a person look more guilty? Especially a person known for being a party girl, for hooking up with a lot of guys, and for generally being irresponsible.

Do you ever read a book, see what the protagonist is doing, and want to shake them by the shoulders and tell them it's a really bad idea? I felt a little bit like that with Cassie, but it was also easy to understand why she made the choices she did. She didn't make these choices because the author needed her to in order to advance the plot; her choices were completely believable for her character. Her weaknesses were real, and they determined her behaviors. It wasn't pretty, but it was genuine.

But back to the plot. I don't want to give too much away, but there's some international spy activity happening here involving Russians. And Cassie, in addition to hoping she won't lose her job because of her involvement in a murder (oh, of course it comes out! She didn't cover her tracks that well) has a strained relationship with her sister who doesn't trust her, and the baggage of their whole family situation.

During this whole time that Cassie is waiting for the authorities to figure out she was in the hotel, and then waiting for the consequences of her involvement, she's trying to go about her regular life. She's reading Tolstoy's novella Happy Ever After, and keeps putting off getting a manicure because of inconveniences like having to meet with her lawyer. She also thinks a lot about her drinking, how much she enjoys the ritual of alcohol, how she's not an alcoholic because she can go days without drinking. But, all it took was one Negroni (her drink of choice) to start her on an all-night binge that resulted in hours of lost time.

I was drawn into this story from the very first page. In the scope of Bohjalian's work, it reminds me most of The Guest Room, perhaps because someone who is essentially a bystander makes one poor decision and gets drawn into an international crime scene. But another way that The Flight Attendant is similar to that book is that I'm likely to keep thinking about the main character for a good long time.

The Flight Attendant will be published in March 2018. I received my copy courtesy of Penguin Random House. I was not compensated for this review.

The Sleepwalker

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian (2017)

Annalee Ahlberg sleepwalks. One night she was found spray-painting the hydrangea in front of the house. Another time her daughter found her on the precipice of the Gale River bridge. One day, however, she just disappears. Twenty-one-year-old Lianna notifies the police and her father, who is out of town for work. She tries to reassure her young sister Paige, but they both know about the dangers of their mother's night-time wandering.

Lianna is drawn to a detective on the case, both attracted to him and convinced he knows more than he is saying. She stays home from college to take care of her father and sister, and continues trying to learn more about her mother's life and discover what could have happened to her that night.

What Annalee suffered from went beyond the sort of sleepwalking that I remember from my childhood. I would sometimes wake up in some part of my house and not remember how I got there. But Annalee would leave the house, her compulsions driving her to seek something she couldn't get, at least not when he her husband was gone. It was eerie, and a little scary in the way that any loss-of-control is scary. There's much more to Annalee than what her daughters know, of course, and experiencing the uncovering of secrets along with Lianna felt illicit and suspenseful. And sad too, because after all she has lost her mother.

We know there's a lot we don't know, and throughout the story I kept formulating my own theories about what might have happened. There are a couple of threads that turned out to be red herrings, but I enjoyed speculating about them and, in one case, I was very relieved that what I feared wasn't true.

The story takes place in a small town, of course, with the requisite gossip and rumors and I liked how that all played into the story of Annalee's disappearance. I also liked the way Lianna's relationship with the detective, Gavin, developed and what she learned from him. It wasn't a thriller by any means, but it was a mystery that, despite the sadness, was a pleasure to unravel.

Since I've read almost all of Chris Bohjalian's books, I'm trying to decide how this one compares. I don't think it will stick with me the way The Guest Room did, but it's just a very different kind of book, slower paced and with fewer surprises. I think the one it reminds me of most might be Secrets of Eden. If you like Chris Bohjalian, you won't want to miss it.

The Guest Room

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian (2016)

When Richard Chapman agreed to host his brother's bachelor party at his house, he assumed there might be a stripper. But he never anticipated the party getting so out of hand it would end in murder. When it was over two people were dead, two young women were on the run, and he worried that his marriage wouldn't recover. Shifting perspective between Richard and a young woman named Alexandra, this forthcoming novel takes an intimate look at one victim of human trafficking and a family that becomes fractured by one ill-fated night.

As he so frequently does, Bohjalian delves into an issue without making it feel like an "issue" book. Human trafficking has been getting a lot of attention (though I'd say not as much as it probably deserves) and reading a story about a victim, even if it is fiction, is enlightening and horrifying. Alexandra was just a regular girl with dreams of becoming a dancer until the deaths of her parents left her vulnerable. Thinking she was going to an elite dance school in Moscow, she was entrusted into the care of a man who trapped her in a horrible and dangerous life from which she couldn't escape.

Bohjalian does not shy away from the graphic details of what young women like Alexandra go through once they are abducted, and there's another storyline about a particularly smarmy attempt at blackmail. Honestly, the whole thing kind of made me feel dirty. Which, these are dirty subjects so I guess that's a sign of effective writing. Well played, Chris Bohjalian.

The parts of the story focused on Richard's wife and daughter, however, were introspective and touching. This novel expertly captured the fragility of marriage, illustrating how very easy betrayal can be, while also asking at what point you've actually crossed a line. Richard's wife Kristin reacted to the situation as you might expect, clearly upset with her husband but also committed to their marriage. She was easy to relate to, completely reasonable and sympathetic while still being angry and emotionally distraught. Nine-year-old Melissa's perspective was poignant and sometimes funny as she tried to make sense of what happened in her house. I loved the consideration she put into comparing the facts of what happened with her limited knowledge about sex. She had the basic idea of what sex slaves are, even if it wasn't totally fleshed out. She wasn't infantilized like children so often are in books, but given a level of knowledge and awareness about the world that was more realistic.

I was struck by the family's apparent nonchalance regarding the bloodstains left at their house. It never occurred to me to think about what it must be like to return to your home when it has become a crime scene. Of course the blood was shocking at first, but I suppose it wasn't much compared with everything else they were dealing with, and they had no choice but to just live with it until they could get rid of the couch and get the walls repapered. None of that happens instantly. It just stood out to me as I've never seen this situation portrayed in a book, and I keep thinking about it.

Somehow this felt different from other books by Chris Bohjalian, but I can't put my finger on why. Perhaps just because some of the subject matter was so seedy, and perhaps because one of the main characters is a man and his protagonists are usually female. At any rate, I became engrossed in this story right away. I really felt for these people and everything they went through, and will likely keep thinking about all of them for a while to come.

The Guest Room will be published in January 2016. I received my copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. I was not compensated for this review.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian (2014)

Emily Shepard is a homeless teenager in Burlington, Vermont who has been living in an igloo she made out of trash bags. Her parents both worked at a nuclear power plant, but months ago there was a meltdown that killed both of them and several other people. Even worse, her father is being blamed for the disaster. Emily can't go home because her house is in the Exclusion Zone, and she doesn't want anyone to know who she is, so she's been on the run ever since the accident. For a while she was staying with an Iraqi War vet who is also a drug dealer and worked as a prostitute for him. She has also been cutting herself. At one point she started taking care of a nine-year-old runaway foster kid named Cameron. And the whole time she can't stop thinking about her old house, and her dog Maggie, who she left behind to die.

Emily is narrating the story from a hospital of some sort, and she jumps around a little because of her state of mind. Her narration is just disjointed enough to illustrate her mental state without being confusing. She describes the panicked moments after the accident, and her fear of being questioned by police and ostracized as the daughter of those who caused the nuclear meltdown. Through everything the poetry of Emily Dickinson keeps her going. (And I learned from this novel that any Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme song. Who knew?) The tone, in parts, was rather apocalyptic because of the whole post-nuclear-disaster aspect, and of course I loved this since I'm always a sucker for catastrophe.

Though she has become streetwise, Emily was still naive in many ways. Hardened by her homelessness and desperation, she still managed to be quite empathetic. For instance, she did some unpleasant things to get Cameron a skateboard because she knew it would make him happy. She was smart and resourceful and determined, and I can't help but think that she will overcome any difficulty she ever faces. Bohjalian captured the voice of a teenaged girl very well, in part because of help from his daughter, who was nineteen at the time he was writing this novel (and who narrated the audio version.) This authenticity, and the general readability of the novel, gives it great crossover potential to a teen audience.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is a departure from Bohjalian's most recent books, which have been historical novels. Although I've enjoyed them a great deal, I'm very happy at his return to contemporary fiction. Many of his contemporary novels have some sort of social issue at the center, but they are never simplified or trite as "issue novels" tend to be. They are complex and realistic and feature characters who feel authentic. I know I will not be forgetting Emily Shepard anytime soon.

The Light in the Ruins

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian (2013)

1943. Outside of a small Italian village, the Rosati family goes about their daily lives as war rages on not far away. When two soldiers arrive wanting to see an ancient Etruscan tomb site nearby, their isolation from the war is suddenly, irrevocably shattered. 1955. Francesca Rosati has been murdered at her vanity, her heart ripped from her chest. Investigator Serafina Bettini is soon convinced the reason the Rosati family is targeted is somehow related to the war. As she delves into their history, it begins to converge with her own, awakening long-buried memories.

Moving back and forth between the two time periods, the story is filled with moral ambiguity and highlights the choices people are forced to make in times of war, and the sometimes catastrophic repercussions. Most notable is the relationship between the Italians and Germans, ostensibly allies but their relationship fraught with tension, including partisans fighting openly against German occupation. On a smaller scale, similar tensions formed in the Rosati family as eighteen-year-old Christina falls in love with a German soldier.

Cristina and Serafina are the primary characters, though not necessarily the most interesting ones to me. Serafina was terribly scarred from her time fighting with a band of partisans during the war, her disfigurements alluded to almost constantly, her story slowly revealed through the novel. Cristina's was a coming-of-age story, her loss of innocence fairly typical of war stories, but even darker because of her family's relationship with the Nazis. But the story that most interested me was that of Francesca Rosati, murdered in the opening pages of the novel. A Rosati only by marriage, she arguably lost more during the war than any of the other surviving family members. But what I liked most about her was that she was such an imperfect character in ways that made her seem more real than any other person in the book. Her personality grated, even before the wartime losses, and she was not a very well-liked person. However, it wasn't because of any real flaw in her character, more of an abrasive stand-offishness that only increased after the war. I felt bad for Francesca who was undeservedly punished more than anyone in the Rosati family and she wasn't even really one of them.

I had a tough time getting into this book at first, a combination of the languorous pacing and my resistance to reading more WWII-era literature. I just feel like I've read so many stories set in that period. But amazingly, authors keep finding unique stories to tell about that war (see also Code Name Verity.) About halfway through it picked up a lot and I became quite engrossed. This troubled relationship between the Italians and Germans is one I haven't seen explored much in fiction before, and telling it through the experiences of the Rosati family was mostly successful. The mystery of who is killing the Rosatis felt somehow less important than the story surrounding it, even though it was directly related. Although I didn't love it as much as last summer's The Sandcastle Girls, I found The Light in the Ruins ultimately a strong historical novel.

The Sandcastle Girls

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (2012)

Freshly graduated from Mount Holyoke, Elizabeth Endicott travels to Syria in 1915 to help distribute aid to Armenian genocide refugees. She meets a young Armenian engineer named Armen, who has already lost his wife and daughter, and they develop a close friendship. It is only as he leaves to join the British Army that they realize how strong their affections have grown.

In 2012 New York, Laura Petrosian has never thought much about her Armenian heritage, but then a friend calls claiming to have seen a photo of Laura's grandmother advertising an exhibit in Boston. She travels to view the exhibit and conduct a little research, and finds out much more than she bargained for.

The novel moves back and forth between time periods, following several characters. In addition to Elizabeth and Laura we get to know refugees Nevart and Hartoun, and follow Armen into the trenches.

Genocide does not make for a happy story. The amount of death, starvation and rape in this novel can be staggering at times, especially when you consider that it is based on history and it's a history that most people know little about. I knew there WAS an Armenian Genocide, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Bohjalian did a great deal of research (as an Armenian, this is a very personal novel for him) and I suspect it's not exaggerated. Still, there is room for romance. The heart of the story is the growing relationship between Elizabeth and Armen and how they are able to overcome loss and make a new life for themselves.

I may be influenced by all the rave reviews, or because this is his most recent book and it's fresh on my mind, but this may well be Bohjalian's finest work to date. The lush language and strong sense of place further elevate this beautifully told story about characters whose lives are painfully real. Fascinating and absorbing.

The Night Strangers

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian (2011)

I live in an old house and there is a part of the basement we refer to as "scary basement." It's separated from the main part of the basement, lower-ceilinged, and I joke that that's where the previous inhabitants used to hide the bodies. This no longer seems so funny.

In Chris Bohjalian's new novel, Chip Linton moves to Bethel, NH with his wife and twin daughters. In the basement of their big old house, Chip discovers a mysterious door fixed shut with 39 carriage bolts. Coincidentally, 39 is also the number of passengers who died when Chip was forced to land his plane on Lake Champlain just months before. It was the guilt and grief from that accident that drove Chip and his family to Bethel, but now in their new house he is more haunted than ever by the dead passengers.

Their eccentric new neighbors, who all seem to be named after herbs, seem strangely interested in the couple and especially their 10-year-old daughters, Hallie and Garnet. Although the herbalists ostensibly want to be friends, they begin to look a little sinister to the already-vulnerable family. Chip's strange visions become more real and more threatening than ever, as Emily and the twins are drawn further into the group of herbalists.

This is quite a departure for Bohjalian, but he pulls it off quite effectively. It begins with the creepy basement, but that becomes the least of the family's worries. Though the story starts off slowly, you begin to see things taking shape and as the suspense builds, the pace speeds up. I'm not a very fast reader but I flew through this book - admittedly, I didn't want to put it down but when I sat down to read, I read more pages than I would have expected.

The thing is, you really want everything to go well for this family. They've been through a lot, you've gotten to know them, and you want to protect them from harm. As a reader, of course, all you can do is watch them succumb to powerful forces and hope they have the strength to pull themselves out. The Night Strangers is a gripping novel that made me incredibly tense. I recommend reading it, but be sure to stock up on your anti-anxiety meds.

Secrets of Eden : a review

Chris Bohjalian's new novel is about a couple, George and Alice Hayward, who die in a murder-suicide. George was known to have been abusive to Alice and they had been separated for a while. One night a few months after he came back, while their teenage daughter Katie was out with a friend, George apparently strangled Alice and then shot himself in the head.

But it becomes more complicated. When Alice Hayward’s diary is found, it turns out that she was having an affair. Further, evidence from the scene of the crime raises questions about how George died. What at first seem so cut and dried is suddenly rather unclear.

The story was told through four different narrators: the Reverend Stephen Drew, who had baptized Alice on the last morning of her life; angel-obsessed author Heather Laurent, whose parents died in a similar way; investigator Catherine Benincasa; and daughter Katie Hayward. This use of different perspectives is what made the story so much more complex – the reader simply doesn’t know what to believe about whom. Of course, I had my favorites. I was rooting for Stephen Drew throughout the book, while I found Heather Laurent more than a little loony and annoying.

I really liked his twist on the domestic violence story. The ending was abrupt but, I think, appropriate. The book wasn’t earth-shattering but it was as compelling as Bohjalian’s stories always are. In this age of rushed deadlines and sloppy editing it’s really nice to have an author you can count on to consistently tell good stories well.