Lit Preview: Lucy by the Sea

Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea is my first foray into literature taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s likely I’ve avoided it for a reason (my industry was shutdown) as the memories of what was so completely unknown are still very fresh. We’ve met our titular Lucy before and, as in Strout’s other novels, we are simply privy to this chapter of her life. 

Lucy by the Sea is more than the description (divorced couple forced into each other’s lives by the pandemic) will lead you to believe. As with Oh William, Strout’s companion to Lucy by the Sea published in 2021, Lucy does not so much leap off the page as she does infiltrate your conscience. Lucy navigates the fear and uncertainty typical in any life, especially one in which an unexpected and untimely loss has occurred, but that was heightened by the pandemic and all that came along with it. 

As we’ve come to expect, Strout’s writing remains as sharp as ever. Descriptions of settings and people are realistic but never flashy. Her word choose is precise; it never feels as though there are too many of them.

What does life have in store for Lucy? We can only hope that Strout has the answer and that she’ll let us in on it soon. 

The Kitch Lit Series: For Butter or Worse

Erin La Rosa’s For Butter or Worse is a cute, if predictable, entry in the kitch lit genre. Chef Nina Lyon finds herself where she never could have imagined: successful restaurants and a gig on a Food Network-esque cooking competition show have made her a household name. But her nemesis and fellow cooking show judge Leo (of mass-market restaurant fame) gets under her skin. 

When both find themselves off the show, Nina’s publicist suggests they enter into a mutual arrangement in which Nina and Leo keep up the pretense that they are dating. The fake dating trope is a well worn entry in the romance world. The begrudging chemistry between Nina and Leo is palpable, and the story plays out - no spoilers - as you might expect. La Rosa imbues Nina and Leo with the standard qualities but brings depth by trading points of view each chapter and letting the audience into each of their minds. That technique leaves room for the reader to exclaim in disgust, ‘you are both getting it all wrong, just be honest about your feelings!” as all good romance novels do. 

Cooking and kitchen puns abound and I pride myself on having enough background knowledge to understand them without the help of the google machine. La Rosa has a keen eye for building tension, even if, at times, it feels as though it goes on a little too long. You cannot help but root for happily ever after. Or, beautifully baked after all. 

Lit Preview: Oh William!

Oh William! is strangely, unexplainably compelling. No spoilers here, nothing really happens. But Strout expertly paints a point in time portrait of the titular William – seen through the eyes of his ex-wife, Lucy, while simultaneously painting a portrait of Lucy herself – through Lucy’s own thoughts, judgments and decisions. I couldn’t put it down. This from someone who, while reading the final chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, put the book down to go to sleep.

Oh William!, though not a plot-driven novel, is ostensibly about William, with Lucy’s accompaniment, finding out and learning more about a family secret. A secret of whose existence William was not aware of until just now, well into the final third of his life. But Oh William is about so much more: the choices and emotions that pepper each and every day. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Finding pieces of ourselves in everyone around us.

Perhaps Oh William's ordinariness is what makes it so compelling. Oh William! does not purport to be anything other than what it is: a glimpse into Lucy’s life. No effort to persuade or teach. Oh William! simply is. Strout’s plain prose does not feel lacking, rather, it feels real. Most people do not go through life with a thesaurus by their side and Strout earns respect for leaning into sparse prose rather than embellishing with unnecessary flourishes.

Oh William! is not a splashy, knock your socks off, plot twist on every page sort of book, but it is brilliant nonetheless. Strout continues to perform at the top of her game.

The Kitch Lit Series: Lit Preview Edition

Sarah Schmitt’s Where There’s a Whisk is a cute young adult romance set against the backdrop of a TV cooking competition. Teenager Peyton Sinclair has a passion for baking and finds herself with a chance to show off her skills on Top Teen Chef. Competing may be her ticket out of her small town, whose lack of opportunity threatens to hold her back and looms over her every decision. Peyton heads to New York City where the city and her fellow competitors help her grow and change in ways she could never have dreamed.

Peyton’s fellow competitors Malik, Lola, Paulie, Adam, Hakulani, Dani and Inaaya come from all walks of life and, though there is a lack of character development across the board, particularly when it comes to Peyton’s competition, it is hard to hold that against the book. Where There’s a Whisk does not set out to be an expansive character study. Rather, it is a teen romance and Schmitt provides an adequate level of nuance. New York City became a character all its’ own and I relished the opportunity to live vicariously through Peyton, exploring the city for the first time. 

As a Top Chef junkie, the behind the scenes glimpses of production city and the organization, logistics and responsibilities of the PA’s is fascinating are fascinating. The producer’s involvement is barely shy of outright manipulation and one must wonder about the validity and fairness in all cooking competition shows. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the book did make me question the integrity of Top Chef, one of my all time favorite shows. 

All in all, Where There’s a Whisk is sugary sweet romance. Definitely worth a taste! Look for it this fall!

Lit Preview: Surf, Sun and Sand

Surf, sun and sand: Malibu in a nutshell.  But that sunshine may blind us to the complexities of Malibu’s residents. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Malibu Rising dives into the lives of the Riva children, who are Malibu residents and happen to be the children of rock star Mick Riva. While they know who their father is, none has a significant relationship with him. Mick was a stereotypical rock star: an absent womanizer their entire young lives. But the four Riva kids are thick as thieves:  eldest child Nina is responsible, often to her own detriment; Jay the good looking championship surfer; Hud the introspective photographer; and Kit, the youngest, is still searching for her place in the world. 

Malibu Rising unfolds over the course of one day, the day of the famed Riva beach bash. As the hours tick by, the party escalates and emotions come to a head.  Alternating focus between the four Riva siblings by the hour is a clever device and Jenkins Reid inserts flashbacks to flesh out the characters. She provides context for the Riva kids’ current state by including the story of their father and mother in the flashbacks. Whether past or present, the moments the siblings sped together are the most fun and, at times, the most heartbreaking. By the end if the party, and with a visit from several unexpected guests, the Riva house ends up on fire.

Taylor Jenkins Reid writes humbly. No unnecessary flourishes that some writers employ, seemingly just to show us that they can. Rather, Jenkins Reid is straightforward and her pitch is perfect. One of the best passages of the book describes the Riva kids’ first experiment with surfing. The waves, sun, sand and freedom are so perfectly described that you can practically feel the sand between yours toes, the exhilaration of standing on a board for the first time and your skin reddening from the rays. Several chapters fly by before you realize how breezy a read it is. But just like Malibu's surf, sun and sand, Jenkins Reid’s simplicity in form belies the emotional complexity that she builds within the Riva offspring. Malibu Rising is a fun read. With an engaging plot and relatable characters, Jenkins Reid proves again she is a writer to watch.

The Kitch Lit Series: Top Chef Adjacent

The Season 18 Top Chef premiere is only a couple days away. So it is fitting that I found myself reading a couple of books that are Top Chef adjacent.

The first, Apron Anxiety, is a chronicle of Alyssa Shelasky’s “messy affairs in and out of the kitchen.” Shelasky, a New York City-based gossip and celebrity journalist changes her life and her outlook of it when she discovers a dormant passion for cooking. Apron Anxiety spends time before, during and after her relationship with Top Chef contestant Spike Mendelsohn. Note that Mendelsohn was named only as “Chef” in the book and I used all my willpower to wait until the end to utilize the Google machine to uncover his identity. While the relationship had ups and downs, through it she found cooking and, perhaps more importantly, purpose. While reading about Shelasky’s exploits is fun, the relationship she develops with herself and those around her through food and cooking are much more meaningful.

After devouring Apron Anxiety, I jumped into Padma Lakshmi’s memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate. I knew very little about Lakshmi before reading the book: former model, TV host, spent a stint married to Salman Rushdie. Lakshmi is, not surprisingly, a much more complex individual than those three points allow. Hers has been a life spent around the world, discovering and searching. Lakshmi’s writing style is easy and clean. At times, the book feels heavy, Lakshmi having experienced more than her share of heartache, a celebrity romp this is not.  As a Top Chef junkie, I longed for more behind the scenes detail but there’s really very little insight into the show itself, for that is not the objective of the book. Although, the snippets do make very clear that hosting Top Chef is much harder than it looks. Love, Loss, and What We Ate is the the honest retelling of how the experiences of her life have shaped her into the person she is today. 

Recipes are sprinkled throughout each book, giving us the opportunity to share some of their experiences. Apron Anxiety was published nearly ten years ago and Love, Loss, and What We Ate is now nearly five years old, leaving the reader with the distinct knowledge that there is more to the story. What happened next?

Lit Preview: The Journey, Not the Destination

Nico has a hard edge but, like so many teenagers, her edge comes from a place of unease and vulnerability. She has yet to find her place within her family or at school, let alone in the world. As a result, Nico is searching and finds solace in skipping school and reckless behavior. Nico’s universal and relatable struggle to find herself – with a hefty side of sarcasm – coupled with Lee Matthew Goldberg’s concise plotting make Runaway Train a pleasure to catch. 

As Runaway Train opens, Nico is reeling from the sudden death of her seventeen year old sister, Kristen. As you may have guessed, her death was sudden and completely unexpected. Nico and her parents, not on the best of terms before Kristen’s death, now find themselves almost entirely at odds, despite the fact that they are wading through grief together. Nico, convinced that her fate will be the same as her sister’s, sets off on a road trip to get away from her parents and complete all the items on her bucket list. At the top of the list: visiting Kurt Cobain’s Seattle residence. Grunge is Nico’s musical genre of choice, Cobain her savior – especially in the wake of the tragedy. On her drive from LA to Seattle, Nico climbs mountains, meets new people and even takes a turn at the mic herself. By the time she makes her way back home, Nico gets a whole lot more out of the trip than she expected.

Nico’s story of redemption rising from the ashes of self-destruction is engaging, if a bit predictable. Goldberg has brilliantly chosen to set the plot over a brief, fixed period of time. There is some exposition, but the bulk of the story is set over the course of Nico’s road trip – about two weeks. Nico spends time in each chapter with new people and experiences new things. Timing constraints are bolstered by precision in character development. Goldberg’s focus is Nico and Nico only. It’s a constraint that intensifies the weight of Nico’s situation and allows us to forgive the fact that some of the other characters fall shy of fully formed. Nico is simultaneously immature and wise beyond her years, having experienced a loss that no child should have to endure. Her destructive actions against the backdrop of her insecurities illustrate her struggle to find balance, peace and her identity. It is impossible not to root for her.

The description of Runaway Train includes the following, “Runaway Train is a wild journey of a bygone era…” How unbelievable that the 1990's are now considered a bygone era. I realize that reveals my age. However, the premise of the book relies on the fact that Nico is on her journey alone. That is, her decision to suddenly disconnect from her life mirrors the disconnect she has felt all along, a premise that does not exist in our constantly connected culture. I suppose that makes Runaway Train bildungsroman with a touch of historical fiction. Filled with humor and heart, Runaway Train is hard to put down. Get your Runaway Train ticket when the book is released on April 29th.