This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund must be read with a receptive mind – and open heart. It’s subtitled My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.
Wicklund candidly recounts her life as a single mother who embarks on a quest to become a medical doctor specializing in women’s reproductive health. This includes, but isn’t limited to, abortions.
As she establishes her career she reassures patients, and readers, about what’s involved in the process while stressing the fact that the decision is solely the woman’s. Myths are dispelled by detailing the procedure. Efforts are made through counseling patients to establish that this is the situation. Wicklund’s sensitivity to her patients is evident throughout the narrative.
Despite being the target of daily threats by anti-abortionists and the loss of time with her family, Wicklund is committed to providing a service in a caring, professional manner. She’s aware the decision to have an abortion is not easily, casually or haphazardly made. This is highlighted through the stories shared about many of the women (in some cases girls) Wicklund has supported through the years.
Although Wicklund shared the writing with Alan Kesselheim, it is clearly her story and voice that permeates the book. Frustration with government regulations, close-minded people, intimidation, the back-alley abortions that do put women’s lives (and reproductive health) in danger and numerous other obstacles drive Wicklund to help those in need.
Wicklund makes a strong case that the choice to abort is a discussion that should involve only a woman and her physician.
This Common Secret
Almost Four Bookmarks
Public Affairs, 2007
268 pages, includes Epilogue, Afterword, Acknowledgements and Appendix
In Stolen Ann-Helene Laestadius’ coming of age novel, Elsa is nine-years old when she witnesses the murder of her reindeer, part of the family’s herd. Threatened by the killer, Elsa remains silent, despite others’ suspicions regarding his identify.
It’s only one incident endured by the Sami in this far northern region of Sweden. Despite entreaties to authorities, nothing is done to quell tensions endured by the indigenous people whose livelihoods depend on the reindeers.
Ten years later, little has improved for Elsa’s family and the Sami community. Reindeer, which have cultural significance, are still tortured and slaughtered. When Elsa takes it upon herself to speak out, she and others are terrorized. Despite being haunted by her childhood memory and the overhanging threat, Elsa is a strong, intelligent woman with dreams of one day overseeing her own herd. This, however, is yet another battle in her male dominated world.
Disregard by the authorities, xenophobia, personal demons, Sami culture and familial relationships are all addressed. Laestadius is Sami and provides a unique perspective to all the above. She deftly describes the frigid, beautiful landscape as well as the joys and traumas shared by the Sami villagers. The disregard by non-Sami supported by an apathetic police force is heart breaking.
It’s not just the animals that are lost when they’re killed. In Elsa’s case she was also robbed of her childhood. For other characters, beyond what the herds mean as their occupations, their hopes and mental health are also at stake.
Stolen
Four bookmarks
Scribner, 2021
384 pages
In Sara Blaedel’s The Midnight Witness, set in Copenhagen, the strangled body of a young woman is found in a park. Before long, a journalist investigating drug trafficking is discovered dead in a hotel alley. Questions soon arise: Could these cases be related but how?
Detective Louise Rick is initially assigned to the young woman’s case; later, she’s transferred to the second murder.
Blaedel’s writing is engaging thanks to well-crafted characters. Louise is smart and despite her expertise she’s often diminished because she’s a woman; nonetheless, she has worked her way through the ranks to become a detective. Her best friend Camilla Lind, a journalist investigating the same murders, is set on establishing a connection.
The author provides enough detail about the women’s lives without it overshadowing the who-dun-its. Both are single, although Louise is in a long-term relationship with a man who’s been offered a job in Scotland wanting her to join him. She’s confronted with the personal vs professional battle many women face. Camilla is earnest in her journalistic role, but also is often not taken seriously due to her gender. She’s motivated to prove otherwise.
As they pursue the cases in their respective roles their bond is strained. The tension between the two is palpable. Even as Louise becomes increasingly frustrated with her friend’s involvement she can’t help being concerned for Camilla’s safety.
A third murder victim not only amps up the police efforts, but also raises suspicions about possible leaks among everyone involved in the investigation.
The Midnight Witness
Almost four bookmarks
Grand Central Publishing, 2018
284 pages
In Nick Herron’s Slow Horses, Slough House is where disgraced and shunned Great Britain’s MI5 agents are sent on the theory it’s where they can do no further harm.
Jackson Lamb is in charge of the has-beens who’ve been relegated to his watch for various security infringements. These include, among others, alcoholism; misplaced classified documents and misidentifying a terrorist in a training exercise. Besides being crude and disdainful, Lamb has his own reasons for being at Slough House.
Mostly, the disgraced agents do nothing but while away the hours. River Cartwright, whose task is to transcribe phone conversations, resents being among the misfits. He’s anxious to return to the spy game. He’s also the one accused of botching the training drill.
When a young man of Pakistani descent is abducted and his captors threaten to live broadcast his beheading, River sees an opportunity to restore his reputation.
A discredited journalist, an addition to the Slough House team and River’s family history contribute to the fast-paced narrative. At the risk of providing a spoiler, high level corruption is an evolving factor.
Different viewpoints are provided, as are brief histories of some of the other “slow horses.” That of the kidnap victim is compelling. He’s a British citizen with no ties to any radical groups. Yet, his racist abductors think otherwise.
Slow Horses is the first in a series by Herron, an award-winning crime writer. A television production of the same name closely follows the book, but lacks its character detail.
Slow horses
Four Bookmarks
Soho Crime, 2010
329 pages
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng starts slow; initially it’s too easy to put down, until, well, it isn’t.
Much has to do with the mystery surrounding the absence of 12-year-old Bird’s mother who his father refuses to acknowledge while insisting his son to do the same. They live in a not-too-distant dystopian world where fear and suspicion rule based on safeguarding America’s culture known as PACT.
It’s a time when children are removed from parents suspected of seditious thoughts and behaviors. Those of Chinese, and by default all Asians, are considered threats. Bird’s mother Margaret is Chinese American and a poet. Her work goes largely unnoticed until one day PACT protesters use a line from one of her poems for their cause: Our Missing Hearts. To protect her son, she leaves the family.
Despite his father’s pleas, Bird’s curiosity about his mother becomes a driving force. These efforts to find her are where the narrative revs up.
Margaret’s story catches the past up with the present. This includes her childhood in the neighborhood’s only Asian family, later surviving on the streets when the economy collapses (blamed on the Chinese), and meeting Bird’s father and becoming a mother.
It’s been years since Margaret has written poetry, but she embraces a new passion based on the protester’s slogan: she tries to meet and interview as many parents as possible whose children have been taken from them.
Ng’s writing is vivid and frightening in its depiction of how self-preservation is manipulated by fear.
Out Missing Hearts
Four Bookmarks
Penguin Press, 2022
335 pages (includes author’s notes and acknowledgements)
Danya Kukafka begins Notes on an Execution 12 hours before Ansel Packer is to die by lethal injection for the murder of three young girls. His final hours and minutes alternate with the stories of three women whose lives impacted his: Lavender, his mother; Hazel, a victim’s sister; and Saffy the resolute police investigator who pursued the cases.
It’s a foreboding narrative. There’s no doubt as to Ansel’s guilt, yet the author deftly – uncomfortably – describes the forces behind his actions.
Ansel’s mother was 17 when she gave birth; four years later she abandoned him and his infant brother after years of abuse by the boys’ father. When the children were picked up by social services, they were hungry and filthy. Ansel’s memory is of the constant cries of his brother, who he was led to believe died soon after.
In and out of foster care, Ansel’s behavior is odd from the start. He’s intelligent, a loner, yet knows how to charm when necessary. He’s 18 when he commits his first murder; two more follow shortly afterwards. Many years later, he’s a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife.
The writing is tense and the themes raise a lot of questions. Time is played out in years for Lavender, Hazel and Saffy evidenced in their aging and experiences. For Ansel, time passes in the present, although he does reflect on his past.
Kukafka builds suspense with a sense of irony while combining hope with despair – something deeply felt by those in Ansel’s life.
Notes on an Execution
Three-and-a-half bookmarks
William Morrow, 2021
306 pages
In a small, post-war French village, two young teenage girls, Agnes and Fabienne, are the main characters in Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose. Yes, it’s a strange title, more unusual than the story itself.
As an adult married woman living in the U.S., Agnes learns of Fabienne’s death whom she hasn’t seen in more than 10 years and reflects on their friendship.
Out of boredom, the girls played games relying on Fabienne’s imagination and rules. The two were opposites in personalities, with Agnes always willing to follow her friend’s directives.
Fabienne devises a plan for the two to write a book; she dictates and Agnes, who has better penmanship, puts it down on paper. They enlist the help of the old widowed postmaster, who ultimately fine tunes the book before contacting a publisher in Paris.
Thus the game takes on a new dimension with unsophisticated Agnes recognized as a child prodigy. This farm girl is scrutinized and celebrated as she goes beyond Paris eventually to a finishing school in England, unhappily leaving her friend behind.
Although Fabienne often called her friend an idiot or imbecile, Agnes is more than she appears. Agnes could have other friends, but chooses Fabienne. They fill an unspoken need in each other.
The novel’s essence is grounded in the meaning of friendship with an underlying thread of deceit, loss and discovery. The adult characters are one-dimensional in sharp contrast to the multilayered portrayal of the young girls.
As for the title, Agnes has geese.
The Book of Goose
Four Bookmarks
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2022
348 pages
In The Cape Doctor, E.J. Levy crafts a historical novel on the real life of a young
Irish girl who becomes a successful surgeon in the 1800s.
Much has been written, as evidenced in Levy’s acknowledgements about the
life of Margaret Anne Bulkley aka Dr. James Barry. Relying on facts about
him, Levy’s narrative portrays Margaret Brackley’s transformation to Dr.
Jonathan Perry as arduous and driven by necessity. Margaret’s family is
destitute; she can do little as a daughter.
The story moves from Cork, Ireland, to London; from Edinburgh to Cape
Town. As the settings change, so does Margaret. Thanks to a friend of her late
uncle, she is privately educated proving to be an excellent student. In order
to attend medical school, so that she may ultimately provide for her family,
she must live life as a man.
This, of course, is not without complications. Nonetheless, Perry earns a
medical degree, joins the army and is sent to Cape Town. This is where the
majority of the narrative occurs and the greatest threats to Perry’s true
identify arise.
Levy establishes intrigue through Perry’s friendship with Lord Somerton, the
Cape Town governor. Even as the doctor makes his name as a man of compassion
and skilled surgeon, rumors begin to surface the type of relationship shared by
the two men.
The fear of Perry’s exposure is engaging. Yet, the slow-moving pace isn’t captivating enough.
The Cape Doctor
Three Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Company, 2021
335 pages, includes acknowledgements
Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg is subtitled A Memoir on the Power of Friendships, which could be changed to A Memoir on Power Friendships.
Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent for NPR, first met Ruth Bader Ginsberg long before either had established their careers. As their stars rose, their relationship flourished. Yet, RBG’s isn’t the only name Totenberg drops recounting dinner parties and other social events.
Friendships with her NPR colleagues, in particular Susan Sontag and Cokie Roberts, have been previously celebrated in another memoir. Additionally, Totenberg counts several former Supreme Court justices, reporters, her sisters and many others among her friends.
Certainly, the most engaging narratives are those regarding RBG. Totenberg refers to her intelligence, kindness, quiet nature and love for her husband Martin who died in 2010. Earlier, Totenberg’s first husband died after a long illness. Both women provided support and comfort to the other. When the journalist remarried, the justice officiated.
Totenberg briefly shares her family background and her entrée into journalism: first in print media and later among the first of NPR’s staff. She remains a contributing journalist and has received numerous accolades for her work.
Each of the 17 chapter names includes the word friend or friendship. From love to fame, from hardships to lost, aspects of various significant connections significant in Totenberg’s life are recounted. Not only does the reader learn more about the author, but an added benefit is the opportunity to reflect on the importance, and variety, of friends in one’s own life.
Dinners With Ruth
Four Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, 2022
304 pages, includes notes, acknowledgements and index
Zorrie is the title character in Laird Hunt’s novel about a woman whose life is defined by loss, love and the tenacity to keep moving forward.
Following the death of her parents, Zorrie lives with a joyless aunt until the age of 21 when she leaves her hometown in rural Indiana to find her place in the world. She’s undaunted traveling alone and sleeping under the stars. She gets to Illinois where she eventually finds employment at a radium factory painting the numbers on clock faces. The townspeople call the young women who work there “ghost girls” thanks to the radioactive material that makes them glow – something that is haunting. Although she makes enduring friendships with other young women, Zorri makes her way back to Indiana.
This is a terse novel with little embellishment, much like Zorri’s life. Despite this, the descriptions of the community, farms and hardscrabble existence of Zorri and her neighbors are vivid. She’s a no-nonsense, kind and hardworking person.
Soon after returning to Indiana, she marries Harold, the son of the older couple with a spare room to let. Hunt’s adroit narrative leaves the reader as surprised as Zorri by the depth of her relationship with Harold.
The depression, World War II and other events of the mid-20th century impact Zorri’s life in profound ways. Still, her resiliency and Hunt’s ability to highlight beauty among mundane daily routines make for an engaging novel. Zorri may not articulate appreciation for what she has, but it’s evident nonetheless.
Zorri
Almost-four bookmarks
Bloomsbury Books, 2021
161 pages
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