Artemis

Girl On The Moon

In Andy Weir’s last sci-fi bestseller, The Martian, an astronaut was mistakenly left behind on Mars, and finds ways to survive alone (Ridley Scott directed the movie with Matt Damon), as his colleagues figure out how to rescue him.

In his second novel Artemis set in 2080 (the not too distant future), Weir has created a colony on the moon, called Artemis, where the superrich go to live and vacation. In its gleaming underbelly are people like Jazz Bashara, a young woman of Saudi Arabian origin, who works as a porter and moonlights as a smuggler of contraband items forbidden to be brought to the moon.

Weir describes the working of the lunar settlement in minute—sometimes boringly so—details, and for all one knows when Earthlings finally do get to colonize the moon, they might actually live in a town like Artemis. The small population, policed by just one administrator and one cop, lives with lighter gravity, under sealed bubbles named after real-life moon-landing astronauts, depends on tourism as its main revenue source and uses a form of cryptocurrency called slug.

Jazz is the daughter of a devout Muslim welder, who is fed-up of her wayward lifestyle. So she lives by herself in a ‘coffin’ – a tiny space just enough to crawl in to sleep. She is smart, sassy, and would rather use her remarkable brain on her small criminal scams than to put it to better use; in fact, nothing annoys her more than people commenting on her potential.

She is offered a very lucrative assignment by billionaire Trond Landvik, to sabotage the harvesters of the Sanchez Corporation that supplies oxygen to Artemis, so that he can pick up the big contract for himself. Jazz is as unscrupulous as she is greedy, so she takes it up for a million slugs, and causes such a disaster that she almost wipes out the population of the town. She has to undo the damage then, with the help of her reluctant father, former boyfriend Dale and a tech wizard, Martin Svoboda, who is in love with her. 

Weir concentrates so much on Jazz’s antics that other characters are left half-baked; the dialogue is juvenile and the plot quite predictable, but when it comes to the science, Weir’s imagination is unbeatable.  And he has the ability to make all that jargon quite entertaining.

Artemis is on its way to the screen too, let’s hope they don’t get a white actress to play the brown-skinned Arab badass.

Artemis

By Andy Weir

Publisher: Crown

Pages: 320

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Only The Lonely 

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine  by by Gail Honeyman has won the 2018 Costa Debut Novel Award, is longlisted for other prizes and is quite deservedly on the best-seller lists. Discovered through a writing competition, the author made a dream debut in her forties, with a book that turned out to be so popular 

The bitter-sweet story of Eleanor falls under the category of novels that have labelled ‘Up Lit’ –because, no matter what the protagonist goes through, the end is uplifting.

Eleanor has mentally shut out the traumas of her past, and lives with kind contentment that comes with being self-sufficient and following a steady routine. She works at a low paid accounting job at a graphics firm, where she has no friends.  The scar on her face and her weirdness—she speaks like a schoolmarm-- makes her co-workers slightly uncomfortable, which results in their making fun of her, often when she is within earshot.

Her strongest feature is her self-awareness, so that even while she cooks up unrealistic dreams of dating a handsome rocker, also stockpiles pills for a possible suicide in the future.  She has conversations with a nasty mother who is away, possibly in prison.

Her loneliness and comforting schedule are broken, first by the cheerful new techie, Raymond, and then by their helping an old man, Sam, who has a heart attack in the street. Suddenly, she has a friend, and through Sam’s family, a kind of social life she had never been part of earlier.

The reasons for Eleanor’s isolation are gradually revealed, and her suffering was horrific enough to drive a lesser person to a mental breakdown. To protect herself from more pain, Eleanor built a shield around herself, but she does not know how to get out of it.

At first, Raymond annoys her—he is unkempt and communicates in the internet shorthand, like U for You, that Eleanor thinks is illiterate.  But then she realizes that he is her friend, and does not expect anything from her, except to be his “plus one” at the parties Sam’s family throw. He is alone too, and looking after an elderly and disabled mother.

Eleanor babe-in-the-woods manner is both funny and poignant.  At one point she comments on her favourite mug, “I purchased it in a charity shop some years ago, and it has a photograph of a moon-faced man. He is wearing a brown leather blouson. Along the top, in strange yellow font, it says ‘Top Gear’. I don’t profess to understand this mug. It holds the perfect amount of vodka, however, thereby obviating the need for frequent refills.”

What the reader discovers, with her, is that to balance out cruelty, there is also inexplicable kindness. Like Sam’s daughter Laura giving her a makeover with a “mate’s rate”, which brings out the beauty hidden by her scar and wild hair. But Raymond befriends her in spite of her off-putting appearance and attitude, and shows her what life can be like if only she opens the windows and lets the light in.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine  could be seen as modern-day fairytale in which the characters are ordinary, but also special in their own way.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine 

By Gail Honeyman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 336

An American Marriage

Cruel Joke Of Fate

Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage comes with Oprah Winfrey’s recommendation, which will undoubtedly help the wonderful novel get a wider readership.

The title sounds dull, but Jones has written a very moving book about a love triangle between three people, whose lives are devastated by a cruel twist of fate.

Roy is an ambitious black man, who rose to corporate success from an impoverished background; his unwed mother was offered love and a name for her child by the kind Roy Sr. Roy Jr. falls in love with and marries Celestial, a rich black woman and artist on her way to success. Celestial has a childhood friend, Andre, who was heartbroken when she married another man, but stood by her regardless.

The 18-month-old marriage is shattered when Roy is arrested for a rape he did not commit and sentenced to twelve years in prison. Because of the inherent racism in the system, Celestial’s testimony is not even taken seriously and neither is DNA analysis sought. Celestial’s Uncle Banks, a lawyer, pursues an appeal, but warns the two that it will take time and money.

For some time, Celestial visits and writes to Roy—their letters form a large section of the book-- but her despair slowly eats into her, and she turns to Andre for support.  Her career takes off, and Roy is saddened to note that she never mentions him; it is as if she is ashamed that her husband is incarcerated, even though she knows he is innocent.

Roy’s cellmate Walter (and there’s a surprise here) becomes his friend and protector, as he tries to keep his spirits up and wait for Banks’s efforts to come through. He does not know what to believe of the existence of his marriage when Celestial stops visiting, but does not initiate divorce proceedings. Then, five years later, he is suddenly released and now comes the dreadful price all three have to pay for their love, hope and patience.

Roy had his life wrecked by a racist justice system, and even though he is was wrongly convicted, no man comes out of the prison hellhole mentally or physically intact. Celestial had not been prepared for the emotional turmoil caused by the incident, and Andre makes up for losing her to Roy by being there for her, and for him like a true friend. But when Roy is released, he does not know what is expected of him.  Their story is full of anguish, but also unexpected love.  Celestial’s imperious father, who had not quite approved of Roy, pays his legal fees and chooses to stand by him, berating his daughter for letting down her husband.  

Roy meets a woman who unselfishly helps him heal. There can be no happy ending when a man has suffered such a senseless tragedy, but there is acceptance and recovery. A story about romance-separation-infidelity could have been banal, but Tayari Jones writes with empathy and without moral judgment, giving reader all three points of view to let them decide right and wrong. This is a book that will remain with the reader for a very long time.

An American Marriage

By Tayari Jones

Publisher: Algonquin

Pages: 306

2 By Michael Connelly

Case Of The Night Shift 

Michael Connelly has already created characters like LA cop Harry Bosch and his smart, brash half brother, Mickey Haller, better known as the Lincoln Lawyer (who had a movie made on him, starring Matthew McConaughey). In spite of all these books being bestsellers, the writer felt impelled to introduce a new character, a female one at that.

Detective Renée Ballard is young, smart, tough, and all kinds of terrific. The first book starring her is The Late Show, the police department’s name for the night shift, which nobody really wants to do. She was dumped there when she complained of sexual harassment by a superior and her partner, Ken Chastain, failed to back her up.  She carries this resentment to her new post, with her dull but loyal new partner John Jenkins, who would rather sit in his office and do paperwork than chase after criminals. But Ballard is straining at the leash, because officers on the graveyard shift have to jut write up reports and hand over cases to day cops on the beat. And she is too dedicated to the force to want to be a gloried clerk.

The book is set in Southern California, where homeless Ballard lives on the beach in a tent, paddling when she has the time and hanging out with her dog, Lola.  Ballard grew up in Hawaii, her father drowned, her mother disowned her, so the only living relative is her grandmother, Tutu.

Even though she is not meant to follow up on crimes, Ballard does not let go, whether it is a credit card theft that leads to a bigger scam, or the case of a cross-dresser who has been savagely beaten and left for dead. The same eventful night, there are five people killed in a nightclub shootout. So Ballard puts a lot on her plate in the breathtakingly fast paced book; she is also kidnapped and tortured, but she solves everything.

Connelly won’t let go of a heroine like that after just one book, so readers will definitely get more of Renee Ballard and hopefully she will head a movie franchise too.  Such a kickass female, who can fight as well as she can tongue lash, is made for showbiz.

Interestingly, Mumbai features in the book in credit card call centre sequences, with a man called Irfan Khan, and the coroner is an Indian woman called Jayalaithaa Panneerselvam—now where did Connelly find  names like that!

The Late Show

By Michael Connelly

Publisher: Little, Brown

Pages: 400

********************

Old Detective, New Tricks

Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch, the jazz-loving hero of twenty Michael Connelly books, does not retire when he officially retires from the LA police force. He is asked to help with cold cases, and he merrily sets up office in a disused jail cell in the San Fernando Police Department.

His thirty-year career is rocked when he is accused by death row prisoner, Preston Borders, rapist and murderer of three of having framed him back in 1988. Now, new evidence using advanced DNA techniques prove his innocence. If Borders’s lawyer, Lance Cronyn, can prove that, Bosch will be in deep trouble. He finds that even his former partner Lucia Soto is suspicious, though she is willing to do what she can to help him.

While he worries about this, he is also called on to help solve the double murder of a pharmacist José Esquivel Sr. and his son.  These murders are linked to a huge drugs racket, run by an East European syndicate, in which homeless old people are used as mules.  For the first time in his life, Bosch goes undercover to investigate and risks his life.

Bur importantly, he must clear his name and win again the respect of his daughter Maddie.  And who should come charging to help but Mickey Haller, whose investigative skills and courtroom theatrics make for an exciting climax.  This one is easily one of Connelly’s best.

Two Kinds Of Truth

By Michael Connelly

Publisher: Little, Brown

Pages: 400

********************

The Hate U Give

Racism Alert

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas may be aimed at a YA readership, but it attacks racism in the US like a sledgehammer, and has turned out to be one of the most popular and acclaimed books in recent months.

The young writer creates in 16-year-old Starr, a brave black girl, who sees by the end of the story, that for a black person in racist America, there is no choice but to fight.

 Starr’s parents, Maverick and Lisa, are bringing their children in a small town black ghetto called Garden Heights, but also trying to give them a way to a better life by sending them to an elite white school in an affluent white neighbourhood. All around her, Starr can see poverty and anger at the lack of opportunity for black kids, and their inevitable descent into crime. Teenaged boys and some girls get drawn into street gangs, and risk their lives by getting into the crosswires of cops and rival gangs.

 At the age of ten, Starr saw her best friend killed in a random gangland shooting. The trauma stays in her mind, and blows up again when she witnessed the killing of her childhood friend Khalil by a white cop. Starr and her siblings are taught never to get confrontational with the cops, to keep their hands up, and refrain from making sudden moves. Khalil makes the error of getting aggressive with a white policeman, who shoots him at point blank range without a qualm, claiming that he mistook a hairbrush for a gun.

 Starr has a white boyfriend Chris, one of her best friends is white, the other Chinese, and she never imagined that she would one day have to take a stand for people of her race. Her immediate instinct is to deny the existence of a small-time drug dealer in her life, but the injustice of the killing of an unarmed boy, and the attempt to discredit Khalil as a gangster makes her overcome her fear and agree to appear before a grand jury.  She also sees how the cops humiliate her father by forcing him to lie face down on the ground as they search him; it is their way of warning her against speaking out against one of their own.

The incident of ‘encounter’ killings of black men is so common that were it not for protests by black people, the media would probably not even notice. Starr’s uncle is a cop, and he witnesses helplessly as the incident ignites the Garden Heights community and riots break out. Starr unwittingly becomes the centre of the storm that lashes the town.

The book comes out of Thomas’s own experiences, and though there is rage as well as poignancy in the pages, there is also hope tinged with love. Chris is a wonderfully written character, a rich brat with amazing courage and empathy. Starr is surrounded by people who love her, not just her parents and grandmother but also her uncles, aunt, cousins, and a half-brother, Seven. Thomas is not blind or naïve enough to suggest that there is no crime or violence in the ghettos, but her book makes a case for understanding the underlying problems and trying to solve them.

Thomas’s descriptions are evocative, her ear for colloquial dialogue impeccable. The Hate U Give is an outstanding debut novel, powerful and haunting.

The Hate U Give

By Angie Thomas

Published By: Balzer + Bray

Pages: 444