Plow or In The Hollows, a novel by Saz Keukan

 

The only way out of a rut is to dig your own path. (p. 46)

The intensity begins on the very first page. We are instantly immersed into the despair of Patrick, who is overcome by the demands of his job. Once overweight he is now almost gaunt, and his hair stands up in tufts, interrupted by red lesions, on his scalp. It is easy to see that he is close to breaking down, mentally and emotionally.

Is a casino the best place for such a man to gather with his buddies? Maybe. Maybe he can recoup the fifty thousand he owes his former employer, from whom he has let a leave of absence segue into a full separation. Maybe we will lose even the five hundred he has given himself permission to gamble.

The novel is fraught with tension, a burning need to keep reading toward the resolution. It is made even more so by the writing which resembles a stream of consciousness. There is no wasted punctuation; quotation marks would only get in the way of this tale steamrolling toward destruction. Or, one hopes, redemption.

The cadre emerged from the broken dreams and there was a table before them a gleaming siren amidst the numbing dulling fog and a dealer with pointed features and a sharp chin and an aquiline nose and wicked eyes beckoned them to his empty table a vessel of not-so-safe voyage before the turbulent casino currents. (p. 77) 

The cadre: Patrick, Nikolai, James, Rob, Jim, and Grant. Old buddies meeting for a wild time in Vegas. They gamble. They drink. They snort. They eat a little. They drink. And, drink. It made my head dizzy reading about their weekend of utter abandon. Will such recklessness bring the hoped for fulfillment? Or, will they leave in despair?

When they go their separate ways at the airport, Patrick’s life is revealed with more clarity. He phones his estranged twin sister, Henrietta; their conversation addresses some of the battles they have each faced, bringing greater clarity to themselves. To us, as readers.

I read feverishly on, as if I myself was the one who had been betting, drinking, winning, and losing. I wanted Patrick to find redemption. I wanted him to fill the hollows with something of substance.

I am caught by this passage near the conclusion of the novel:

There’s a great debate. Choosing salvation in a higher power or oneself. I don’t know what the answer is. I guess it’s gotta be both. (p. 157)

Patrick. Don’t you know that salvation cannot be found in both? It’s an either/or situation, not and/both. But, that is only my opinion. 

The path that Patrick takes, the choices that he makes up to the very conclusion of this novel, make it a fascinating look into despair and hope. While experiencing his life vicariously, we examine our own, and come away enriched from the experience. 

Thank you to the author, Saz Keukan, for sharing Plow or In The Hollows with me. I enjoyed reading it, and thinking about it, and learning about a way of life I could only experience from a peripheral view such as this novel gave me. Find him on Substack here.

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

 

I am the daughter of a third generation cattleman. My father, his father, and his grandfather, all worked in the Chicago Union Stockyards before it closed in July, 1971. I grew up with stories of the men who handled the livestock told every night at our dinner table. 

They were not the men of today. They were rough and bold and brave and strong. They had to withstand the bullying handed out daily by man and beast alike. If any one of them  would have worked his hair into a bun, or put on eyeliner, I cringe to think what would have become of him. 

When Liveright sent me The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry, in celebration of its 60th Anniversary, I eagerly consented to read and review it. For Lonesome Dove remains one of my favorite books of all time.

The Last Picture Show is not Lonesome Dove.

Of course it would be foolish to assume such a thing; how can a band of cowboys as found in Lonesome

Dove be recreated? Why, in fact, would they be? Especially as the focus of The Last Picture Show is on a small, western town, not on adventure.

In The Last Picture Show we begin with two teenagers. Sonny and Duane are upperclassmen, bored with the antics of the freshman, and eager to find love. Or, at least intimacy. We have the wife of the high school coach, who is lonely and desperate enough to crave the attentions of Sonny. We have a town outside of Wichita, named Thalia, which must be one of the loneliest, dustiest towns about which I have ever read. It has a pool hall. A diner. A school of no academic merit that I could see. And people who are living lives of quiet desperation.

I began reading with a sense of nostalgia, as Sonny wakes up on the first Saturday after the last football game he will ever play, and I continued on eager to uncover the characters’ lives through their interactions. Take, for example, when Jacy’s mother, Lois, comes into her daughter’s bedroom at night with this piece of advice:

The only really important thing I came in to tell you was that life is very monotonous. Things happen the same way over and over again. I think it’s more monotonous in this part of the country than it is in other places, but I don’t really know that - it may be monotonous everywhere. I’m sick of it. Everything gets old if you do it often enough. I don’t particularly care who you marry, but if you want to find out about monotony real quick just marry Duane. p. 44

It speaks much more of Lois’ life than it does about the fear for her daughter’s.  

Jacy, apparently, has no fear at all. She is the prettiest girl in Thalia, and the richest; she has a reputation to build up and hold on to, which will permit neither modesty or honesty.

It took a rich fast crowd to go swimming naked, and Jacy always prided herself on belonging to the fastest crowd there was, moral or immoral. Indeed, for a rich, pretty girl like herself the most immoral things imaginable would be to belong to the slow crowd. That would be wasting opportunities, and nothing was more immoral than waste. p. 74 

Well, we come it immorality in short order after Jacy goes swimming and the boys decide to chase down a blind heifer in its pen. I had to lay down the novel, unable to read further.

But, perhaps I have gleaned the gist of what McMurtry was portraying: a small town in the West inhabited by imperfect, foolish, and ultimately, lonely people. It doesn’t matter that the setting of The Last Picture Show was sixty years ago. The town he has shown is surely a picture of the American town that was, and continues on today, in many ways, just as it did then. Are we able, in any community, to move beyond our frail humanity?

The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel (“…thanks to you I am not what I seem.”)

No one ever warned us that life would be long…No one told us, either, that the hardest thing would not be breaking up, but decay. The disintegration of relationships, people, tastes, bodies, desire. Until you reach a sort of morass where you no longer know what it is you love. Or hate. 

Such are the thoughts one might have on a train, reviewing one’s life because you find yourself sitting next to the person you once loved. 

Cécile Duffaut. Philippe Leduc. Twenty seven years ago they were in London together. Now they sit next to each other on the 6:41 train, headed to the Gare L’Est in Paris, not knowing if the other remembers who he, or she, is.

(Photo credit here.)

The reader is thrust between what is going through Claire’s mind to Philippe’s; we want to know what the terrible thing that happened in London involved. And, once we do, we want to know if they can find forgiveness for each other. Or, themselves.

What do other people do to forget?

Ah, now there’s a question. I often have thought that I am the only one with a reel of regret replaying itself on repeat in my memory. Apparently, Philippe asks himself the same question as it will not let him go.

It’s  not a long book. Nor does it have a cover which is in any way, in my opinion, attractive. What it does have is a tension which may occur to many of us, when, given the time and opportunity we ask ourselves, “What could have changed?” 

Today, Claire knows: don’t be impressed by anyone, but treat them as equals; do something about your wardrobe; come to terms with your past.

When we do, we often can turn what wounded us most into an impetus for forgiveness. 

( Thanks to New Vessel Press for sending me this book which I read especially for Paris in July 2026, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace. Find links to other reviews for the event here.)

 

Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac for Paris in July 2026

“My heart is big enough to hold all your troubles.” 

Thus speaks Old Goriot, un père extraordinaire. No amount of money is too small for his daughters; no sacrifice is too great. This vermicelli maker has worked hard to amass enough money to marry his daughters well. But, surely it is a fool who thinks that money can offer either satisfaction or security.

His two daughters, Delphine and Anastasie, have each married vile men who forbid them to see their father. He’s good enough to provide them money, of course, but not good enough to come to their homes. And so Goriot lives in a lodging-house of the most modest nature, in a room with wallpaper peeling from the damp. 

One of seven lodgers at Maison Vauquer is Eugène Rastignac, who has come to Paris at the great financial sacrifice of his family in the country. Eugène is supposedly a law student in Paris, but he is a much more serious student of Paris’ society in the early 1800s than he is of law. By the end of the novel, his education is almost complete. 

Throughout his novel, Balzac brings us to the awareness of the emptiness of riches, and the pain of love’s deceit. As Old Goriot lies dying, having given everything he has for his daughters’ luxuries, he asks Eugène, “Did you see my girls? They’re coming here directly, they will rush here as soon as they know that I am ill; they always took such good care of me in the Rue de la Jussienne!” He lives a life of hope which is at first admirable, but by the end of the novel has become pitiable.

There are other relationships depicted in this book, dalliances and affairs, but none are as significant to me as that of Father Goriot and his daughters. It is a heart wrenching read, so well summarized by this sentiment from Eugène near its conclusion:

There is a God! Oh! yes, there is a God! and he has made a better world for us, or this earth is blank and meaningless.

He knows that there is no fulfillment to be found in Paris, in a world which he had once wished to gain. Now he faces Society, with the words, “It’s war between us now!” I am comforted that he, at least, has learned this after the death of Old Goriot.

(Find links to other posts for Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace, here.)

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (an unpopular opinion)

If there’s anything redemptive about this book, and believe me, it isn’t the writing, it’s that Caro Claire Burke is able to point out the illusions under which our society now lives.

Let me go back, for a minute, to the annoying writing. First we’re in a contrived setting perfectly marketed for Instagram. Then, we’re in Natalie’s youth, wearing prairie dresses and long braided hair. Then we’re back in Instagram heaven, followed by her days as a college student at Harvard, and suddenly…bam! Where are we, exactly? Natalie doesn’t know. She doesn’t even know the children who call her Mama. The narrative is so disjointed it feels awkward and surreal.

Natalie herself is unreliable. She proclaims to be a Christian, yet scattered throughout the mental dialogue she discloses are untold passages like these, found within the first 28 pages:

…that stupid little bitch.

Sorry, Lord. Sorry, sorry, sorry. 

and

Jesus fucking Christ, it’s cold.

Then: Sorry, Lord. 

I’m all for forgiveness for a profane mouth. But, at some point, this “Sorry, Lord,” loses its sincerity. 

The further I read, the more distraught I became. Her husband will find no job; they go to live with his parents. He spends his days practicing yoga and watching porn. He eventually sleeps with the woman who films Natalie’s content. Content, you know, carefully staged to present a facade of what life is like on the farm. Where it ought to be natural and wholesome, if not downright dirty and difficult.

Is there nothing of value in this book which is being applauded on too many feeds, news articles, and bestseller lists? Is this what our society is able to relate to, and even call a good book: a cheating, lazy husband; a college where education is not valued; a home where nurture is an illusion created for content; a scornful slant on faith? 

I am baffled by its popularity, and I am disgusted I read as much as I did.

Anticipating Paris in July 2026

 

I have been compiling some titles for Paris in July this Summer, so eager to begin, in fact, that I have already read two of them. I have published my thoughts on Your Promise by Camille Laurens, sent to me by Other Press, here. I have scheduled the post for Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac to be published on July 1. 

So, you see a mix of contemporary fiction, as well as classics. I’m highlighting them here in case you feel drawn to any yourself; in case you are looking to compile a list for yourself. They are as follows:

Your Promise by Camille Laurens, winner of the Prix Femina (sent to me by Other Press)

“An ingenious legal thriller in the vein of Anatomy of a Fall, this gripping story of a writer’s toxic relationship exposes the gap between who we are and who we seem to be.”

Madame Chrystanthème by Pierre Loti, (sent to me by Espresso Publishing Company)

“Madame Chrysanthème was one of the most widely read French novels of its era. From it descended a short story, a Broadway play, and finally Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. This is its first new English translation in over a century.”

The 6:41 to Paris by John Philippe Blondel (sent to me by New Vessel Press)

“This is a psychological thriller about past romance. With all its pain and promise.”

Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac:

“ Honoré de Balzac’s great theme was money, and in his best-loved novel, Old Goriot, he explored its uses and abuses with the particularity of a poet.”

Jacqueline in Paris by Ann Mah:

“From the bestselling author of The Lost Vintage, a rare and dazzling portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier’s college year abroad in postwar Paris, an intimate and electrifying story of love and betrayal, and the coming-of-age of an American icon – before the world knew her as Jackie.”

The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola:

“Part of Emile Zola’s multigenerational Rougon-Macquart saga, The Belly of Paris is the story of Florent Quenu, a wrongly accused man who escapes imprisonment on Devil’s Island. Returning to his native Paris, Florent finds a city he barely recognizes, with its working classes displaced to make way for broad boulevards and bourgeois flats. Living with his brother’s family in the newly rebuilt Les Halles market, Florent is soon caught up in a dangerous maelstrom of food and politics. Amid intrigue among the market’s sellers–the fishmonger, the charcutière, the fruit girl, and the cheese vendor–and the glorious culinary bounty of their labors, we see the dramatic difference between “fat and thin” (the rich and the poor) and how the widening gulf between them strains a city to the breaking point. 

Are you planning to read for Paris in July 2026? It is always one of the highlights of my reading year; I hope I have enticed you with some of these French titles.

Six in Six: Six Categories, Six Books

 

My friend Emma, at Words and Peace, is hosting Six in Six. For this meme, we take the opportunity to look back at the books we’ve read in the first six months of the year, choosing six books in six categories. (A list of examples for the categories is listed in her post.) And so here we go…

Six of my favorite books listed for the International Booker Prize this year:

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje 

The Wax Child by Olga Ravn

The Deserters by Matthias Enard

The Witch by Marie NDaiye

The Duke by Matteo Melchiori

Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur

Six books by Robert B. Parker, whose Spenser books I never tire of, and often reread when I need something on the lighter side:

Crimson Joy 

The Widening Gyre

Valediction 

A Catskill Eagle

Pale Kings and Princes

Playmates

Six fulfilling books newly published by beloved authors:

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

On The Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle

The Keeper by Tana French

Land by Maggie O’Farrell

Guilt by Keigo Higashino

Sisters In Yellow by Meiko Kawakami

Six Japanese books:

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan

Sputnik Sweetheart  by Haruki Murakami 

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Sisters in Yellow by Meiko Kawakami

Bookstore Girls by Kei Aono

Six books from the Wade Center authors at Wheaton College:

The Fellowship of The Ring by J. R. R.Tolkien

The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

Preparing for Easter by C. S. Lewis

Six books that disappointed me (although all are either bestsellers or nominated for the International Booker Prize):

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Sorry For Your Loss by Georgia McVeigh

She Who Remains by Rene Karabash

On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shang-zi

We Are Green and Trembling by Gabrielle Camara Cabezon

Well, who wants to end on a disappointing note? Certainly not I! So, let me say that I really enjoyed looking over what I’ve read and organizing the titles into categories. It was a worthy endeavor, Emma, and I thank you for continuing to host this tradition.

Your Promise by Camille Laurens (He takes a deep breath. “I’d like you to promise you’ll never write about me.”)

(photo credit of the mimosa tree here)

“Claire,” I want to say, “don’t his two previous relationships present a warning?” For as her relationship with Gilles builds, she seems to ignore that has he left both his wife, Élizabeth, and his subsequent lover, Violetta.

But, love is not necessarily based on reason. As their passion deepens, and with it her dependence, Claire stands on very precarious ground. Gilles is nothing if not persuasive. He even makes her promise that she will never write about him, although she is an author.

He is a puppet master. No, really: he performs with puppets in the theater. He controls their strings. The puppets he manipulates are not always makes of wood. Some are made of ice. They have to be managed very skillfully, or the joints will crack and break; during the performance, the puppet slowly melts.

Oh, Claire. As she tells her story the suspense builds, and eventually we are uncertain if she has lost her mind, or if Gilles is that masterful a puppeteer. I mean, lover. He persuades her to sell her house in Paris in order for them to buy a little place in Hyères with a mimosa tree in the front yard. She can stay in his apartment when she needs to be in Paris for her writing, or her social life. It will be wonderful! Not long after they move in the mimosa tree, which people come from all around to see, dies. What a terribly significant event this turns out to be.

All along there is an undercurrent of psychological tension. We know that something terrible has happened, as we listen to Claire tell her story through her own narrative, her relationship with Gilles, her friends, and even her lawyer. It is revealed through translucent layers, each building upon something quite dark.

The author, Camille Laurens, calls into question the definition of love. Can women ever receive that which we hope for, from our fathers, husbands, or lovers? Or, as she maintains, are we all fearful of abandonment? (I thought that was such a personal fear, but perhaps not.) Your Promise will reside in my mind for a very long time, as I contemplate the ability to keep a promise. Or, why, we even make them to one another in the first place.

They seem so very difficult to keep.

Camille Laurens is an award-winning French novelist and essayist. She received the Prix Femina, one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes in 2000 for Dans ces bras-là, which was published in the United States as In His Arms in 2004. Her previous books include Who You Think I Am (2017), Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (2018), and Girl (2022). She lived in Paris.

Thanks to Other Press for sending me this incredible novel to read and review. It is a precursor to the books I’ll read for Paris in July 2026.

Bookstore Girls by Kei Aono (translated by Haydn Trowell)

Ebooks weren’t real books - they were just data. A completely different thing. A bookstore wasn’t simply a place where books were sold - it was a place where customers, publishers and booksellers met, where conversations happened sometimes even clashes. That was how you ended up with something new. It was a place where people connected through books - that was what a bookstore was, and that was why she loved them. (p. 307)

Bookstore Girls is such a satisfying book to read for those of us who love books. Bookstores. And, Japan. In fact, you don’t even need to admire Japan to appreciate this book, which is an ode to books, and readers, everywhere.

Photo credit here.

Japanese bookstores, such as the one pictured above, offer a haven like no other. Yet, Kei Aono gives an insight into the business that may not be widely known. She draws the connections between publishers and booksellers, sales managers and he public, authors and editors. Each provides a vital element to the success of a bookstore.

Through characters which at first, to me, seemed like they jumped out of a soap opera (overly dramatic and shallow), we are given the story of all that goes on behind the scenes. From the petty jealousies, to the romantic liaisons, from competition to advancement, we see the machinations of the book business first hand. By the end of the novel, I have arrived at a new appreciation for its two main characters, Riko and Ali, who have overcome their differences to work toward a mutual goal. 

And, as a blogger, I share in Riki’s early self-reflection:

She wasn’t a literary critic, she didn’t read systemically or in large volumes - ten books a month was her best…There was no way she could compete with professionals, academics, critics and translators often visited the store - what would they think of a clumsy, self-important recommendation tag?  (p. 137)

Yet, maybe, just maybe, we can have a positive influence on advancing the literature we love into the hands of those readers who may appreciate it as well.

Thanks to Pegasus Books for the opportunity to read and review Bookstore Girls, which won the Grand Prize in the “Book I want made into a movie” category at the Shizuoka Bookstore Awards. It has since been adapted for television, and it will be published in the United States on June 2, 2026. 

The Deserters by Mathias Enard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell (International Booker Prize 2026) “…the trace of violence is never easily erased.”

 

“…he’d like to tear the war out of him like a dead scab - the rifle is still on his knees, though, the memories inside him…” (p. 108)

I kept looking for a connection between the bedraggled soldier coming out of the bush, covered in slime and filth and dried blood, to the story of Paul, and Maja, and their daughter, Irina. 

I think the best connection is the bond they share in suffering the effects of war.

We don’t know the war from which the soldier deserted; I can’t help but wonder if it was WWII which had so much effect on Paul. But, does it matter which war? They’re all horrifying. And Mathias Enard makes mention of so many: WWII, the attack on the Towers in New York City, Russian invading Ukraine, and even now we find ourselves involved with Iran.

Paul Heudeber, director of the Mathematics Institute of the Academy of Sciences in GDR, is a politician, a mathematician, a communist, the lover of Maja, and the father of Irina. Maja is a politically active woman from the West, and their daughter narrates their story for us.

It is particularly poignant how she speaks of the love between her parents. Though never married, they never stopped loving each other.

“You are my malady - my passion has the malady of infinity, my love can only be written with your name. There is no other way to designate love but to say your name. Come back to me soon.” ~Paul, in a letter to Maja (p. 42)

They are not the only couple in the novel, however. The deserting soldier has found a woman, walking with a wounded donkey and several packs of her belongings. Her hair is shorn, her fear is great, with reason, we learn later on. Together they make it to the Black Rock, to what they hope will be utter escape and freedom. 

I think one of the points Enard is so eloquently making is that there is no escape. There is no freedom, in a world which always seems so capable of producing a new war. A new way of wounding one another. We can only hope, and search out peace, as the soldier tries to do.

“…after the border will I be returned to myself, will my wounds be erased, I’ll look for a place to heal, a place to get cured, a place of oblivion.” (p. 133)

May he find it. May all our wounds be erased. 

The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken (International Booker Prize 2026)

 

“We knew so little about the Devil in those days, now everyone knows so much about him.” (p. 42)

The Wax Child has been growing on me, holding me in a power all its own. At first, I thought, “Okay, witches. The seventeenth century. How is this relevant, and who cares?”

(I knew it was a mistake to read The Remembered Soldier first.)

But, now I keep thinking of The Wax Child. Indeed, it has woven a spell over me, just as the incantations of the women themselves were spoken periodically throughout the book. Here are a few:

“Take a swallow bird. Take her heart and roast it on a  stick. Take then the swallow’s tongue and place it under your own. Eat then the swallow’s heart. Carry with you thereafter the swallow’s tongue, and whenever someone is angry with you place the swallow’s tongue underneath your own and speak to the person who is angry and her anger toward you will at once be stilled.” p. 26

“Cast some blood of a jar into the fire, so that it makes a smell, then all the girls of the house will piss themselves. Or  give them blood from a bat and those who have mixed with men will play piss themselves.” p. 61

“Take the water from the eye of a stallion that has not yet been led to a mate, and with it wet your own eyes, then all can be seen that would otherwise be unseeable, and this three mornings in succession.” p. 76

Jomfru Christenze Axelsdattar Kruckow, a noblewoman, has fashioned a doll made of wax. It is this doll, who cannot open her lips, or move her mouth, which tells us the tale of Christenze, Maren, Apelone, and Dorte. They do unspeakable, unchristian things. They meet in secret, and their very existence seems to threaten the men around them. They ultimately meet their demise at the hand of these men; all but Christenze are tied to a ladder and burned alive. Christenze herself is beheaded.

“Since they (the women) are weak, they find a secret and easy manner of vindicating themselves by witchcraft. Where there are many women, there are many witches.”  (p. 73)

Ah, now I see the point. Judging by appearances, judging out of fear, judgment of any kind cannot be made blanketly, with any amount of accuracy. Ravn calls into question men who judge falsely, creating what is termed feminist fiction. But, I think it is a more widely applicable problem in our society.

The mood she has created, blending her imagination with fact, is commendable. The novel reads as a poem, and a disturbingly horrific one at that.

(Thank you to New Directions for sending me a copy for review.)