Note: Two books that experiment with narrative, both looking (on the surface) like something wildly different than novels…
How to Get Filthy Rich in Fast-Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid…This clever novel takes the form of a self-help business book, a popular hybrid usually written by some rich-guy/scam-artist that promises to make people rich through a combination of haphazard anecdotes and free-market philosophizing/psychology. It’s also written in the rarely-used second-person (“you will become rich, you will notice that this is not easy”) and it’s a novel that’s easier to admire than really get immersed in. The narrator is basically telling his story but at such a remove that we can’t really get into it. It’s a little too specific to be a (deservedly) scathing send-up of corrupt wealth in “fast-rising Asia” and a little too broad to be a great character study. Grade: B
We Live in Water by Jess Walter…This is a short story collection, not a novel, but the themes often ripple out throughout the different stories, and several of them are set in Walter’s hometown of Spokane and old Pacific Northwest stomping grounds. I loved these stories to varying degrees but my four personal favorites (a horoscope writer messes with the horoscope of his superstitious ex-girlfriend, a drug dealer tries to run a Greenpeace scam, a couple of soldiers go to Las Vegas to “save” one of them’s sister who might be an escort, and there’s even an entirely believable zombie tale that could easily serve as a standalone book) are perfect. Grade: A