It may seem like a cop-out to praise all three of these very different books, but they take wildly divergent paths to being equally terrific…
Barkskins by Annie Proulx…A big, bold, ambitious book that practically has “Great Novel” stamped on the book cover. It’s about two “barkskins” (tree cutters) who settle in New France and their descendants all the way to the (almost) modern age, and their various far-flung adventures back to Europe, Asia, and even 2013. A globe-spanning, generations narrative that hopes to tell no less than the story of environmental destruction and human greed itself is a lot to take on, and even at 700 pages, Proulx has to skim a little bit over some lesser generation’s backstories, but it’s worth the effort. What works best—to me—is the original New France (what was once most of Canada and the American Midwest) setting that sets it apart from other “Epic” novels, and a more straightforward tone than the David-Mitchell-esque quirkiness that has begun to swallow up novels of this sort. Still, the major problem with books of this nature is that you know the narrative is going to basically reset with each new generation, and it can be hard to make the narrative compelling before a feeling of redux sets in. Phillip Meyer’s “The Son” was my favorite book of 2013 because it managed to grab you so thoroughly you never noticed this problem, but I can’t quite say the same for the perhaps slightly-more reserved “Barkskins.” Grade: A-
The Girls by Emma Cline…If “Barkskins” relies mostly on a fresh, continent-hopping setting and grandscale narrative, the intimate and California-dependent “The Girls” is a feat of prose before anything else. It’s a fictionalized take on the Manson murders, with a young girl falling in with a seductive crowd of femme fatales all gravitating around this man of late-60’s mystery. It’s fiendishly clever to center a coming-of-age tale (at times, the book is almost a Judy Blume work gone nihilistic) around the Manson murders, as if the event marked America’s transition into adulthood, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that is a little burnt-out on this period. What Cline does best is turn a phrase so well you might find yourself re-reading the descriptive paragraphs—you know, the parts you might normally skip—just to soak in every knowing wink of foreshadowed dread or realistic knowledge of female friendships. Grade: A-
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley…If “Barkskins” wins over your head, and “Girls” takes over your eyes, then “Lily” captures your heart. [Deep down, it’s probably my favorite of the three.] It’s about a very single gay man whose most successful long-term relationship is with his prized dachshund Lily, and the battle that sets in when “The Octopus” (Lily’s brain tumor) arrives. As someone who had a dachshund for a decade—sniff, sniff, long live childhood pets!—it probably helped my enjoyment of this book, but if you’ve ever loved any pet it should work just as well. Sure, at times the main character seems almost over-the-top in his dramatizations, but this is a book that’s trying to melt you, and it would take a heart of stone not to be reached. And inside its purplest passages is a gentle, nudging critique of people who project all their hopes, fears, quirks, and lonely nights onto pets to avoid messier human entanglements. The fact that “Lily” works just as well as the other two narratives—armed with mostly one man, one dog, and one imaginary octopus—is a testament to Rowley’s debut skills. Grade: A-