Chasing Sylvia Beach by Cynthia Morris

When 23-year-old book store clerk Lily Heller gets off the airplane in Paris, she expects to arrive in the present day, but to her great surprise and puzzlement, she arrives in a pre-WWII 1937 Paris that’s much different from the city she knew in her study-abroad days. With no money and no clue how or why she got there, Lily attempts to find solace in the book store of her personal hero, expatriate Sylvia Beach. She begins to think she’ll never make it back to her life in 2010, but after befriending compassionate Frenchman Paul, flirty Nazi Heinrich, and mysterious old woman Louise, her fondness for, as well as her utter confusion and anxiety about, her circumstance grows. But Louise soon reveals to her that she has been chosen for a special mission: to steal an historic book from Sylvia Beach’s collection to keep it out of the Nazi’s hands. The fate of the world lays in Lily’s decision.

Time travel and literary illusions are two of my greatest weaknesses in fiction, and Chasing Sylvia Beach definitely satiated my hunger for an absorbing novel involving both. While it is a page-turner, one step up from an escapist vacation read, the complexities of the plot tie together cleverly in the end; it winds its way like a mystery, with a subtle romantic feel. The sepia tones in the cover design set the atmosphere for what’s inside somehow—it’s a novel that’s both historic and contemporary at the same time.

Though the story is told in third person, it’s easy to start feeling as though Lily is telling it in first person. Her character pulses with life, and although she is often mainstream and also intimidated by the prospect of success, her role models are great feminist figures and literary heroes. She forms a sort of friendship with Sylvia Beach, founder of the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, which leads her to begin to affirm her worth as both a woman and a writer; her identity at the age of 23 had not quite yet taken shape. In the decisions she must make—from pawning off her grandmother’s ring for money to getting closer to Paul while she is dating another man back in 2010—are rife with tough moral issues from which she must learn to let go. By the end of the story, she is confident in her abilities as a writer, though this may be less because of her encouragement from Sylvia and Paul and more because of her new found role in the gang of time-travelling bibliomaniacs.

Any daydreamer like Lily will surely gobble this story right up. It is not only a work of encouragement for young women but it also explores the supernatural forces at work in the act of reading and writing. The premise is intriguing, and the mystery continues to cling to the reader even after finishing the book: the prospect of the time-travellers carrying on for more adventures tickles the imagination. Cynthia Morris has crafted a spellbinding mystery/fantasy with Chasing Syvlia Beach. I sincerely hope a sequel is in the works. 

The King of Pain by Seth Kaufman

Both comic and tragic, both a series of stories within stories and a long, treacherous journey toward redemption, Kaufman’s novel is a gruesome yet sharply funny portrayal of numerous types of torture and the bliss of release.

Though he is thoroughly aware that most everyone hates him, Rick Salter doesn’t quite care. With his reality television show called “The King of Pain,” which makes entertainment of torturing contestants, pushing them to their limits until they have a mental break down, Rick actually feels as though his friends, family, and co-workers have the right to hate him. But when he wakes up pinned beneath his home entertainment system and realizes no one will be there to rescue him for at least two days when the cleaner arrives, his only hope of surviving without going crazy thinking about how perhaps no one would particularly want to save him if they could is a collection of short stories by a one Seth Kaufman lying next to him. A gift from his assistant before she resigned, and paired with a cryptic note saying the stories are “meant” for him, A History of Prisons distracts Rick from the pain for a while, though as he becomes more involved in the stories, the note just seems more ambiguous.

Rick’s narcissistic yet light-hearted tone in the face of his predicament will pull you in right away, but there are many layers to the story that make this novel un-put-down-able. First and foremost is Rick’s imprisonment beneath his symbolic entertainment system; his difficulty in facing the facts and deal with his situation says a lot about his character, and as he dives into the book he has no choice but to read, he dives into other prisoners’ lives.

The ten short stories pulled from the text of Rick’s two-day stint are, by possessing intricate themes and individually developed characters, complete in their own right. While reading these stories—each taking place in some sort of prison, all across the globe—readers may feel as though they are trapped under that wall unit with Rick, trying to push the life-threatening circumstance from their mind and getting wrapped up in each story. “The Gizless Days of Thomas Binder” is perhaps the most absorbing and thought-provoking.

The third plotline of the novel, told in flashbacks—Rick’s pondering while he’s trapped with nothing better to do—is the story of “The King of Pain” and its participants. The contestants are a quirky bunch, some putting up personae for the camera, some only there to prove a point, and all attention-seeking and humorous. Readers may find themselves viewing the flashbacks scenes as a guilty pleasure, as they would a reality show; however, since the characters are starved, branded, and mentally tortured, you are not just turning pages to find out who will win and who will crack but to learn how this deeply flawed protagonist, Rick, will realize his mistakes and atone them.

On the surface, this novel is a satire on reality TV creators and hosts, but beneath the surface it is more than even a warning of what could lie ahead in the TV genre; it is also a discourse on empathy and the discovery of bliss and freedom after being trapped in a stifling mindset for far too long. With scathing humor and a clever revelation of plot, The King of Pain will excite those who find reality shows irritating and will perhaps incite a change of heart in those who believe they enhance society more than they demean it. 

Eyes behind Belligerence by K.P. Kollenborn

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, over one hundred thousand Japanese-Americans were forced to leave their homes and were relocated to internment camps scattered across the American west. Centering on two families with differing loyalties, this historical novel traces the events and relationships of a community of Japanese-Americans in the context of WWII racism, from the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor through the three years they spent in the Manzanar internment camp, as well as the consequences they faced upon their release.

Both Goro “Russell” Hamaguchi and Jim Yoshimura must face decisions concerning who to trust, who to defend, and who to perceive as an enemy, and both their personalities and family backgrounds influence their choices to a great extent. Tight-knit and following strict, yet largely unsaid, rules, especially after his brother’s suicide, Jim’s family is less entwined in society than Russell’s; Russell, as a matter of fact, has adopted an American nickname, only called Goro by his immediate family. With more freedom than Jim, Russell is less focused on his studies and has a non-Japanese girlfriend, as well as American friends. While some characters, in particular both of the boys’ mothers, are often clichéd, their purposes are evident.

But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, both teenage boys encounter racism and gang violence from those who trusted them before the attack, and even by fellow Japanese-Americans who struggle with their identity. Because Jim is introverted, he sticks to the beliefs with which he was raised, focusing on the past, while Russell, who has been immersed in American culture his entire life, fights the prejudice that appeared seemingly overnight with all his conviction. At Manzanar, Jim and Russell find themselves focusing on the same aspects of their lives they did before their internment (girls, friends, family arguments) but with racism, violence, and unjust uprooting as a new background to their day-to-day problems.

While loyalty to America versus loyalty to Japan is the most apparent divider between the groups at the camp, it is, in the end, a matter of consequence. More important than taking sides during the war is discovering a personal identity in the face of oppression. Though Russell continues to assert his American loyalty and Jim questions the intentions of American society, it is not the choice of side one takes (American or Japanese) but it is the loyalty to one’s beliefs and the courage to forgive both sides fighting in the war that mark an individual as “good” or “bad.”

At 450 pages (with quite small font) Eyes behind Belligerence goes into great detail about the relationships between family, friends, and the community, though it can be slow and often engage clichéd dialogue. Frequent and unnecessary similes scatter the text, and grammatical errors occasionally distract. Because the setting of the novel—especially within the internment camp—is incredibly important, both physically and socially, the reader may often be left wanting in this regard. The length of the novel does not make it "epic;" it simply makes it long. It's the profundity of a novel that puts it into the category of epic, and this book is not quite there.

However, the beautifully developed characters, their incredible relationships, and their emotional bonds and histories transcend the downfalls in the mechanics of the writing, bringing to light a sense of community. The reader can easily point out the thematic intricacies of the story, which were certainly Kollenborn’s purpose in this thoroughly researched novel, but a more profound message has the potential to reveal itself if a tighter focus—particularly concerning setting and dialogue—enhanced the relationships between the characters.

Despite its flaws, Eyes behind Belligerence is an inspiring story of loyalty, not to a national identity but to the family and friends in the community, with whom one shares a bond of suffering.