For now, 2021 feels only like the year that my mom died. Eventually, it will also feel like the year my daughter, named for her unmet grandmother, was born.
Maybe because my mom died when I was six months pregnant, her “passing” seemed a lot like labor. New York State does not have humane right to die laws. Though she had had pancreatic cancer for two and a half years and had run out of options and quality of life, there was nothing for her to do but suffer. In one of her last efforts, she asked the nurse what was taking so long, as if she were waiting for a check. At the very end, she was giving birth to death without a good epidural. All this reminded me of my early days with ZZ, the grandchild she had met, when I was exhausted and engorged, shocked and disgusted that one of the most primary of human experiences could be so miserable.
To me, the end of pregnancy and a newborn and the end of terminal cancer and death are two pairs that are not so much opposite, which would imply some kind of correlation, but equally intense but radically different experiences. While my mom was sick, even very sick, we could talk on the phone. Three days before she died, I told her my daughter would be named after her. But my mom never saw her namesake, not even in a photo. After all, there’s no texting the dead.
Though my mom cannot use a phone, she left behind one, along with a robust collection of coats and striped shirts, and more art than is possible to hang in all of her descendants’ homes. The latter bit is a lot: there’s a nude self-portrait of her pregnant with me, which is beautiful, but too much, at least for now.
Along with being an artist, she was also a reader. When I visited New York, I could always take something from my mom’s bookshelf and not have to return it, which is how it is with moms, or how it was with mine. As my mom hoarded her art—there are hundreds of pencil drawings of my brother and me as little kids—I hoard my books. After I die, maybe of pancreatic cancer, which my mom’s dad also died from, I wonder how many books my kids will look through to discover what postcard or concert ticket had kept my place. Eventually, they will probably be overwhelmed with the debris of the life I left behind and anyway, they can always look at this list.
Here are the books I read in 2021:
If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha
A Promised Land, Barack Obama (L, DNF)
Commonwealth, Ann Patchett®
I totally fell into this book, but no sentence or character has stayed with me. I wonder if that matters. Is there any other metric beyond engagement?
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (DNF)
Writers & Lovers, Lily King®
A complete delight, but a book narrated by an aspiring writer mourning a dead mom who rides a bike around an East Coast city might not have expanded any empathy muscles for me.
Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu®
The screenplay structure seems like a gimmick, but Yu makes good on it. He also includes asides on legislated racism toward Chinese Americans that gives a historical perspective to the recent attacks on Asian Americans.
Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener®
A very LOLz book on modern internet capitalism; would make a great gift for the daughter of family friends who desperately want their child to return home from San Francisco.
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (DNF)
George Saunders can be for everyone else. It’s ok that’s he not for me.
Being Mortal, Atul Gawande®
My mom, an upbeat person, recommended this book while she was going through a hard time. Then she got on an antidepressant (it worked!) and said this book was a downer. Whatever your chemical balance, this book covers dark territory, but not thinking about your mortality won’t save you from it. Very few people have an elegant death, but this book gave me a way to talk to my mom about her ideal one.
A Burning, Megha Majumdar (DNF)
I Hate Running, Brendan Leonard
When in French, Lauren Collins
Ask a Korean Dude, Kim Hyung-geu
Self-Portrait, Celia Paul
If you’re in the market for a memoir by a muse of a famous European artist, check out Françoise Gilot’s Life With Picasso.
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
Wild, Cheryl Strayed (RR)®
Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri®
A friend said that Lahiri switching to Italian is akin to Dylan going electric. I don’t know enough about Dylan to really dig into that metaphor, but Lahiri’s style is definitely different in translation. Her observational powers remain sharp in any language.
The Friend, Sigrid Nunez
The Vacationers, Emma Straub (DNF)
Catch the Rabbit, Lana Bastašić
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
Let Me Be Frank With You, Richard Ford®
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (DNF)
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Death’s Duel, John Donne
Seize the Day, Saul Bellow (RR)
American Marriage, Tayari Jones®
The Round House, Louise Erdrich
The Mothers, Brit Bennett
The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Alison Bechdel®
Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen®
What’s the controversy, beyond Marion’s weight? If you’re into family melodrama, Franzen is as good as it gets.
Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
The Pastoral Symphony, Andé Gide
Key:
® Raronauer recommend
RR Raronauer reread
DNF Didn’t finish (No greater victory than quitting a book)
L Listened
Previously read: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006