#7 The Guncle by Steven Rowley (2021) – 76ers I find grief to be one of the richest subjects for storytelling, whether that be books, movies, TV, music, etc. Everyone reacts to grief in different, sometimes unexpected ways, and it’s usually a lengthy process to deal with. Steven Rowley knows grief, and handles it well creatively. His first novel, Lily and the Octopus was all about grief… the grief of losing a friend, a beloved pet dog, and how her owner dealt with an impending terminal illness. It was beautiful and fantastic and kicked off his career strongly.
Now, with his third book, The Guncle Rowley has written a fun and funny novel about a gay, former TV star living a slightly solitary life in Palm Springs, who is called upon to take his young nephew and niece for the summer. But what it’s really all about is grief and coping with loss. ]Patrick, has lost his dearest friend Sara to cancer. Sara also happened to be married to Patrick’s brother, Greg, and mother to Maisie and Grant. When Greg checks himself into rehab after his wife dies, he entrusts Patrick with his children’s care, much to Patrick’s consternation. Reeling with his own grief about the loss of Sara, now he was expected to cope with her children’s grief as well? And as a single gay male, Patrick is unsure of his qualifications to do so. Then there’s another wrinkle… Patrick is still struggling with the grief he never properly dealt with after the death of his boyfriend in a car accident several years prior. Instead, he covers it up with snappy comebacks, fashionable caftans, and that solitary life. Until the summer he became “GUP” — gay Uncle Patrick.
Like I said, Rowley knows how to handle grief: with humor, with grace, and with sympathy. Patrick’s relationship with his niece and nephew unspools naturally and gracefully. The humor is fresh and not overdone, and the life Rowley paints of Patrick’s life in Palm Springs is recognizable but not cliche. If there’s one misstep at all, it was with the young, potential romantic interest, Emory, that pops up occasionally throughout the book that seemed more of a plot checkbox than a character that we needed. But it’s a minor quibble, and as a Guncle myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
#6 – Honor by Thrity Umrigar (2002) – Accomplished writer, Thrity Umrigar returns with a heart-wrenching, dramatic novel, Honor. Smita, A journalist covering hard-hitting, international, humanitarian stories returns to her home city of Mumbai after years of avoidance, when she she receives a call from a close colleague who needs her. To her surprise, her colleague doesn’t need her for emotional support or assistance after a difficult surgery, but summoned her to finish a story she was covering about Meena, a Hindu village woman, who married a Muslim man to tragic consequences. Meena’s brothers, old-fashioned and conservative are outraged that their sister has married a Muslim, and burn their home down with the two of them inside. Meena is horribly disfigured, nearly dying, and her husband is killed.
From the start, we sense that Smita is very reluctant to be home, and it soon becomes clear that something in her past, some traumatic event, sent her and her family to America, never expecting to return. This event links Smita and Meena in ways that the journalist never expected, and powers the momentum of this finely written, hard-hitting novel. The one stumble comes nearly at the end, when the introduction of an unnecessary, and poorly executed romance weakens the impact of the story. There was a much better path to Smita’s story resolution built into this powerful story that would have had a far great impact and resonated more strongly with the overall story, but it’s it’s a small complaint in the larger context of this powerful novel.
#9 Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album by Ken Caillat and Steven Steifeld (2012) – As we move into the Top 10, we’ve got a pair of musical books making the list. At #9, I continue my journey reading about the excessive hijinks of one of my favorite bands, Fleetwood Mac. Last year, my 
#10 The Healing Power of Singing: Raise Your Voice, Change Your Life by Emm Gryner (2021) – I’m not one for self-help books, nor did I think to myself, I need to read a book to help me with my singing voice, but I am an admirer of Emm Gryner the musician, so I thought it might be interesting to read her first book. It was more than interesting, it was entertaining, and illuminating, and has even gotten me singing again. Mainly around the house, but I’m ready for my next performance at the Chlotrudis Awards — an event that finds me singing with some other movie geeks every few years.
#11 – Memorial by Bryan Washington (2020) – Washington’s first full-length novel, was an interesting read. There were times throughout the book where I grew impatient and wasn’t sure I was enjoying it, but by the third and last section, it all came together for me, and I felt it was ultimately a successful and moving story. Benson is a black man, raised in a middle class, fractured family, who is involved in a relationship with Mike, a Japanese man whose parents are also divorced and carrying a lot of baggage. When Mike learns that his father is struggling in the last phases of terminal cancer, he invites his mother to come visit them in Houston, and the day she arrives, he leaves to return to Osaka to see his father from whom he has been estranged from for years. While Ben and Mitsuko begin an awkward dance getting to know one another under less than ideal circumstances in Houston, Mike is dealing with a similarly awkward reunion with his father. All of this while Ben and Mike’s relationship appears to be unraveling.
#10 – Sex with Strangers by Michael Lowenthal (2021) – To be honest, a short story collection with the title, Sex with Strangers, made me a little wary. I wasn’t really in the mood for a series of stories focusing on tawdry hook-ups, whether they might be sexy, or funny, or dark. Thankfully, and I should have known better, Michael Lowenthal uses sex… or perhaps more accurately, desire, as the starting point, or perhaps, the driving force behind the motivations or actions of the characters in this handful of stories, some written specifically for this collection, others collected from his career. In fact, there’s actually very little explicit sex in the book at all.
#13 – If I Knew Then: Finding Wisdom in Aging and Power in Failure by Jann Arden (2020) – Jann Arden is a Canadian pop star, and an accomplished writer, who has written a memoir, and collections of essays. She talks about aging, and how she is embracing her Crone as she enters that phase of her life. She talks about the difficult relationship she had with her father, who was an alcoholic. She discusses her own battles with alcohol and self-esteem. She talk about lots of difficult experience she had when she was younger, and how they have all contributed to the person she is today, her success, but more importantly, her failures. While Jann’s trademark humor is not as up front as in some of her other work, her conversational language makes it’s seem like you’re just having a chat with her. The book is filled with platitudes, but Jann makes them meaningful, and you can’t help but believe in her.
#12 – The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson (2019) – I know G. Willow Wilson from her work with comics; her creator-owned Invisible Kingdom, her Vertigo series, Air, and her Marvel superhero landmark series, Ms. Marvel. Recently learning of her prose work, I picked up her latest novel. This delightful fantasy tome takes place in the area that was to become Spain under the conquering Spanish monarchy. Fatima is a concubine in the royal court of the sultan of Granada. While she lives comfortably and has certain benefits form her station, she is essentially the sultan’s property. Her one true friend is Hassan, the palace mapmaker, who has two secrets that become a huge danger to his life when when an envoy for the Spanish monarchy comes to negotiate the terms of the sultan’s surrender to their new power. It turns out that this envoy, Luz, is part of the Spanish Inquisition, and Hassan’s penchant for lying with men, and more importantly, his unexplainable ability to draw maps that become reality target him for conversion or death.
#14 – Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne (2020) – Maryland-based author, Karen Osborne released her debut novel, Architects of Memory in 2020, part one of the proposed The Memory War Trilogy. Ash lost everything during the intergalactic war with the alien Vai. Now struggling with a terminal illness, the salvage pilot encounters something that could change the course of humanity, and must do everything she can first to understand it, then to keep it out of the hands of those whose best interests are perhaps not shared by many. Deft, gritty, hard sci fi, Architects of Memory does an imaginative job at creating a life form so alien to humanity that actions and motivations are nearly impossible to discern. I look forward to reading volume two, Engines of Oblivion, soon.