Highbrow Magazine - Emily St. John Mandel https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/emily-st-john-mandel en A Look at the Best Books of 2020 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11146-look-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/28/2020 - 10:50</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2books_0.jpg?itok=b6cfsdqo"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2books_0.jpg?itok=b6cfsdqo" width="480" height="358" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong><em>In 2020, several worthy titles went inexplicably unmentioned by some major news publications. This list of outstanding works of fiction that follows is an attempt to redress the injustice. </em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>The Glass Hotel </em></strong><strong>by Emily St. John Mandel</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Emily St. John Mandel, author of the stunning 2014 novel, <em>Station Eleven, </em>followed that achievement with an even more striking work of fiction this year. <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10806-greed-destiny-and-death-sea-haunt-glass-hotel" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>The Glass Hotel</em></a><em> </em>revolves around two events: the collapse of a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme in 2008 and, years later, a woman falling (or being pushed) from the deck of a container ship at sea.</p> <p> </p> <p>In between swirl a variety of interconnected subplots and a host of living, breathing secondary characters. As with <em>Station Eleven</em>, the author is seemingly peerless at shuffling time sequences and points of view in ways that subtly enrich the text, while never disorienting the reader as to <em>where </em>and <em>what </em>is going on.</p> <p> </p> <p>Rich characterizations, fluid handling of both time and perspective, flashes of sharp humor, and near-flawless dialogue—that’s a lot to ask of any novel, and <em>The Glass Hotel</em> has it all.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1bestbooks2020.jpg" style="height:600px; width:401px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>The Secret Guests</em></strong><strong> by Benjamin Black</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>John Banville, <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10040-authors-whose-works-will-enrich-your-life" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">among my favorite writers</a>, is almost ridiculously prolific (he published two novels in 2020 alone). <em>The Secret Guests, </em>appearing early in 2020, was written under his pen name, Benjamin Black. The novel imagines what might have happened in 1940 when, fleeing the Luftwaffe bombing of London, Princess Elizabeth, aged 14, and Princess Margaret, aged 11, were relocated from Buckingham Palace to the estate of the Duke of Edenmore in Ireland.</p> <p> </p> <p>Added to this intriguing premise is a wonderful cast of characters, from a female MI5 operative and an Irish police officer charged with protecting their precious cargo, to the duke’s fractious household staff and some threatening Irish revolutionaries.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>The Secret Guests </em>is designed as what Graham Greene called an “entertainment.” In the masterful hands of Banville/Black, the novel is droll, suspenseful, and delightfully unrelated to world affairs during this plague year.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1daddybook.jpg" style="height:600px; width:400px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Daddy</em></strong><strong> by Emma Cline</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Emma Cline, author of the acclaimed novel, <em>The Girls</em>, followed up with an impressive collection of short fiction this year. In <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11014-daddy-emma-cline-delivers-moving-stories-human-foibles" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Daddy</em></a><em>, </em>we meet a host of characters (mostly men of a certain age) burdened with various resentments and a history of oblique misdeeds. They share a persistent loneliness, as well as the nagging feeling they may not be cut out for the task of life in any meaningful way. There’s charm in their ineptitude, although as the stories go on, things inevitably darken. Nearly every story ends on a perfect, ambiguous note.</p> <p> </p> <p>Apparently, every generation has to discover for itself just how badly men can behave. It’s not an inspirational message, but in <em>Daddy, </em>it’s delivered with impeccably rendered atmospherics, revealing internal monologues, and wry back-and-forth conversations. Each story is a gem and not to be missed.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth</em></strong><strong> by Daniel Mason</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Daniel Mason, best known for his novel, <em>The Winter Soldier, </em>published a remarkable collection of short fiction in 2020. The stories in <em>A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth </em>cover a wide array of historical settings. These range from England in 1820 (in the breathtaking opening story, “Death of a Pugilist, or the Famous Battle of Jacob Burke &amp; Blindman McGraw”) and “The Line Agent Pascal,” set in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, to the adventures of a 19<sup>th</sup> century female balloonist who discovers a “tear” in the firmament.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mason is uncannily good at inhabiting these and other characters from a long-distant past. He’s equally skilled at writing about nature (“It was a warm summer day, one of those particularly gilded morrows when the air swarms with the motes of pollen, and the scent of wet grass rises from the fields …”).</p> <p> </p> <p>The protagonists in <em>A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth </em>are strong-willed, independent men and women experiencing moments of transcendence, crippling loneliness, and newfound love.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2bestbooks2020.jpg" style="height:527px; width:328px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Varieties of Exile</em></strong><strong> by Mavis Gallant</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The biggest discovery of my reading year was the work of Canadian author Mavis Gallant, who died in 2014. A hundred or more of her short stories appeared in the <em>New Yorker </em>many years ago, and they feel as fresh and insightful as if they’d been written yesterday.</p> <p> </p> <p>Set in Montreal and later in Paris, where Gallant lived most of her life, the stories glitter with wit, hum with fascinating subtext, and abound in a kind of aristocratic luxury that’s no longer with us. Purely on a sentence-by-sentence level, she wrote some of the most beguiling prose imaginable: “The child was three months old but weedy for his age, with the face of an old man who has lost touch with his surroundings.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Gallant’s stories, collected in <em>Varieties of Exile </em>(2003) and <em>Paris Stories </em>(2002), are among the most outstanding examples of short fiction in the mid-20th century.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s<em> chief book critic, is author of </em>The Moon in Deep Winter, <em>and recently completed a new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash. </strong><em> </em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Source:</strong></p> <p><em>Painting, “The Reading,” by Vittorio Reggianini</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2020" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Best Books of 2020</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/glass-hotel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Glass Hotel</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/daddy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">daddy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/emma-cline" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">emma cline</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/emily-st-john-mandel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Emily St. John Mandel</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/secret-guests" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the secret guests</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/varieties-exile" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">varieties of exile</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mavis-gallant" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mavis gallant</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 28 Dec 2020 15:50:14 +0000 tara 10079 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11146-look-best-books#comments Greed, Destiny, and Death at Sea Haunt ‘The Glass Hotel’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10806-greed-destiny-and-death-sea-haunt-glass-hotel <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sat, 08/22/2020 - 08:03</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ocean.jpg?itok=_ycuLzA9"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ocean.jpg?itok=_ycuLzA9" width="480" height="276" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>The Glass Hotel</em></strong></p> <p><strong>By Emily St. John Mandel</strong></p> <p><strong>Knopf</strong></p> <p><strong>320 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Fans of Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 post-apocalyptic novel, <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5510-best-books" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Station Eleven</em></a><em>,</em> may be forgiven for wondering if she could top that achievement with her new novel, <em>The Glass Hotel.</em> With a sense of wonderment, it’s possible to report that, yes, she has.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Broadly speaking, <em>The Glass Hotel</em> revolves around two events:  the collapse of a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme in 2008 and, years later, a woman falling (or being pushed) from the deck of a container ship at sea. In between swirl a variety of interconnected subplots and a host of living, breathing secondary characters. And, as with <em>Station Eleven</em>, the author enjoys (and is seemingly peerless at) shuffling time and point of view in ways that subtly enrich the text, while never disorienting the reader as to <em>where </em>and <em>what </em>is going on.</p> <p> </p> <p>Vincent, the self-admitted “trophy wife” of financier Jonathan Alkaitis, is catapulted overnight from a subsistence existence into what she calls the “kingdom of money.” While having virtually everything she’s ever wanted, Vincent can’t shake uncomfortable feelings triggered by this “strange new life.” And before it all comes crashing down, she understands why she clings to everything wealth can buy:</p> <p> </p> <p>“What kept her in the kingdom was the previously unimaginable condition of not having to think about money, because that’s what money gives you: the freedom to stop thinking about money. If you’ve never been without, then you won’t understand the profundity of this, how absolutely it changes your life.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1mandelbook.jpg" style="height:500px; width:333px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Early on, there are indications that the surface gloss of Mandel’s prose might frustrate a reader starved for details (“They went out to the terrace, which had Italian pretensions”). But such concerns are quickly dismissed as the narrative unfolds in subtle and surprising ways.</p> <p> </p> <p>The author is particularly adept at generating sympathy for her characters, including Jonathan, the mastermind behind the grand financial scheme that ultimately bankrupts investors. Despite his conviction and a life sentence of 170 years, Jonathan doesn’t see himself as any sort of criminal genius:</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s possible to know you’re a criminal, a liar, a man of weak moral character, and yet <em>not </em>know it, in the sense of feeling that your punishment is somehow undeserved, that despite the cold facts you’re deserving of warmth and some kind of special treatment. You can know you’re guilty of an enormous crime, that you stole an immense amount of money from multiple people and that this caused destitution for some of them and suicide for others, you can know all this and yet still somehow feel you’ve been wronged when your judgment arrives.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Years later, as Jonathan descends into dementia, the reader comes to magically agree that, in spite of his terrible crimes, he <em>does </em>deserve “warmth and some kind of special treatment.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1money_kalhh_pixabay.jpg" style="height:600px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The novel’s fragmented structure can sometimes seem as if Mandel’s juggling too many storylines, then letting them fall and scatter where they may. But this, too, carries the ring of truth. We all lead fragmented lives and existence is never more vividly felt then in those moments when a person’s life changes forever.</p> <p> </p> <p>Rich characterizations, fluid handling of both time and perspective, flashes of great humor, and near-flawless dialogue—that’s a lot to ask of any novel, and <em>The Glass Hotel</em> has it all.</p> <p> </p> <p>About halfway through, I stopped taking notes and simply gave over to the reading experience. The feeling is much the same as reading <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10333-best-books" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>The Volunteer </em>by Salvatore Scibona</a> last year. It’s unlikely I’ll read a more elegant, engaging and immersive work of fiction in 2020.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic,</em> <em>is the author of a novel, </em>The Moon in Deep Winter.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Knopf</em></p> <p><em>--Kalhh (<a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/money-businessmen-silhouette-man-1078268/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pixabay</a>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://pixnio.com/people/female-women/sunset-sky-red-dress-water-woman-boat-water" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pixnio</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/emily-st-john-mandel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Emily St. John Mandel</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/glass-hotel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Glass Hotel</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-novels" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new novels</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american authors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ponzi-scheme" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ponzi scheme</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wealth" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">wealth</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sat, 22 Aug 2020 12:03:05 +0000 tara 9773 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10806-greed-destiny-and-death-sea-haunt-glass-hotel#comments