(In fact, this book often caused me to burst into song in public places.) Books that make you this passionate - much like people you fall greatly in love with - don’t come around all that often over the course of a lifetime. ![]() But this novel is the recherche exception in which I felt compelled to return and sing my praises from the rafters. I’m very busy editing my audio drama and I’m mostly retired from my previous life of literary journalism. These days, I don’t often take on the public role of hardcore advocate. In fact, this was the rare book that inspired me to learn “Follow the Drinking Gourd” on my guitar (a clip of which is included among the many YouTube clips below). As someone who has always been a somewhat quiet music buff, the book’s fixation on musicals, old folk songs, and nursery rhymes caused me to chatter my teeth like Roger Rabbit and jump out from my hiding place, often breaking into song. To offer readers some additional incentive to follow the many rabbit holes of knowledge contained within this mighty book, I’ve decided to assemble a concordance of all the lyrics within the book that are italicized within the ♫ symbols. I found the unnamed woman taking on the role of an old friend and, not more than a hundred pages in, I began timing my reading jags to match a coffee chat or a drinks session. Not only did this truly great novel completely capture my attention and imagination, but it did one thing that books of this size rarely do: it slowed me down as a reader. It may be the best contemporary novel I have read in the last three years! The book is so nimble in the way it conveys one woman’s consciousness, but it does this without the central stylistic device becoming a gimmick. This book is such an incredible achievement that it isn’t just my favorite work of fiction published in the last year. ![]() Ellmann somehow manages to encapsulate a broad swath of emotions and concern for the American clime without ever straying from the inherent positivism of her narrator. The woman in question - who is delightfully charming, subtly thoughtful, often very funny, and struggling to make ends meet and deal with troubled family members just like the rest of us - spends much of her time baking pies and thinking about old movies and climate change and Henry Rathbone’s mental decline and, well, damn near everything! She is both real enough to acknowledge her great love for her husband Leo yet eccentric enough to tell us about a spitball with the words I ❤ YOU that was lodged in her ear for years.
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