Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III

Published by W. W. Norton & Company on June 6, 2023

For fans of Siddhartha, Such Kindness is a modern retelling of a personal journey that allows a man to transcend suffering. The narrator achieves a kind of enlightenment by letting go of everything but love. Whether that’s possible is up to the reader (of either book) to decide.

Tom Lowe earned enough credits to acquire two bachelor’s degrees but never managed to graduate with one. That was fine. He was a skilled carpenter and earned a decent living remodeling houses. He was married to Ronnie and had a son named Drew. He wanted to give Ronnie everything but, by working so hard to pay for each day’s acquisitions, he failed to give her what she needed most.

Tom fell from a roof, fracturing his hips and pelvis. He let his insurance lapse shortly before the fall so he couldn’t cover his medical bills. Even before he fell, he was having trouble paying the mortgage. Dealing with excruciating pain, Tom became addicted to opioids, started feeling sorry for himself, and lost everything. Soon after the novel begins, Tom has no job, no car, no telephone, no regular contact with Drew. Even his laptop computer dies, cutting him off from the outside world.

Tom is not to blame for his misfortune. He didn’t ask to become disabled or addicted to pills. His wife could have honored their vows and been supportive instead of making the selfish decision to cheat on him with a man who isn’t disabled. At the same time, Tom knows he was a difficult husband, particularly after he got hooked on opioids. He was a bad father when he encouraged Drew to buy him more pills from a dealer. He’s perceptive enough to wonder whether he would have stayed with his wife if she had become an addict. Andre Dubus III paints Tom in a light that makes it possible for a reader to feel empathy with him while recognizing that his response to misfortune was not ideal.

Now Tom lives in a subsidized apartment near his former home in Cape Ann, a house he built with money he borrowed from a bank before he was subprimed into a foreclosure. He blames his lending officer, Mike Andrews, for talking him into an adjustable rate loan that was adjusted out of his ability to make payments. He blames his insurance company for not covering his medical bills after collecting premiums for years. He has three “revenge folders” on his laptop: banks, insurance, and Big Pharma.

Tom begins the novel with a scheme to steal Andrews’ credit card data, a plan concocted by his neighbor Trina. Trina has two kids from Hell, probably because she’s the mother from Hell. Tom needs money to pay traffic tickets and get his car out of impoundment. He doesn’t want to sell his tools — it would be like selling his penis — but he knows that turning to crime isn’t his best option. One of Tom’s redeeming features is his unwillingness to make money by hurting others, as does Trina’s friend Fitz, who makes money by stealing drugs from a hospital and selling them to addicts.

Tom and Trina’s friend Jamey later debate whether the ends justify the means (Jamey has been crapped on his whole life and feels he’s entitled to take something from credit card companies that can afford the loss). Tom quickly realizes he can’t be that kind of man, no matter how much he resents his banker. He doesn’t want Jamey to be that kind of man either.

The novel features several more conversations, as well as Tom’s introspective musings, about moral issues. Whether people who feel they are better than other people are just fooling themselves. Whether Tom’s reticence about interacting with the world makes him a taker rather than a giver. Whether parents are responsible for their adult children’s failings.

Before the novel’s midway point, after events seem to leave him with no hope at all, Tom has a multi-part epiphany. In part, regretting his disconnect from his adult son, he realizes that his feeling of uselessness as a father nearly killed his love of being a father — a feeling distinct from his love of his son, which never wavered. In part, he realizes that he’s become disconnected not just from his son, but from everything he cares about in the world. In part, he comes to realize that all the neighbors he’s been ignoring have value and that he doesn’t really listen to anyone. In part, he gives new thought to the old adage, “We have to play the hand God gave us.” In part, he comes to understand the need to let go of grievances and self-loathing.

And in large part, he realizes the importance of kindness — to strangers, even to himself. When he starts to notice them, he is surprised by and grateful for every random act of kindness he experiences — a nurse who helps him track down his son, a neighbor who shares a dessert, a beauty shop owner who lets him borrow her phone, a stranger who buys him a bagel. When a woman he barely knows wishes his son well, he is buoyed by the woman’s benevolence.

At times, his appreciation of kind acts seems almost feverish, an overreaction to abandoning the years in which he blamed other people “for the shitty hand I got dealt.” Because of those times, I was preparing myself to conclude that the story of Tom’s journey is just too hard to swallow, too divorced from reality. But by the novel's end, I couldn’t make myself be that cynical. I was sucked into Tom’s journey and ended the novel with nothing but admiration for someone who (believably or not) learns to transcend suffering.

As Tom begins to feel “broke but not so broken,” he gives extensive thought to the notion of happiness. His elderly neighbor tells him that it’s good to be happy, but we shouldn’t want to be happy every day. A physician’s assistant makes him believe that nothing can make someone happier than helping others. When a cop tells him that he should act his age, Tom wonders why others should expect him to want things he no longer regards as important — a job, an intact family, good health. Perhaps Tom is delusional as he thinks about Siddhartha and strives for the inner peace that (supposedly) comes from abandoning all desires, or perhaps he is on his way to Nirvana.

By the end of the novel, Tom is convinced that he can fix other people, make them understand his new perspective on life and use that perspective to find jobs, quit drugs, be better parents. It’s commendable that he wants to help and protect people, but he has clearly set for himself an impossible task. And yet, at the end, with his troubles arguably greater than they have ever been, Tom maintains a serenity that Siddhartha would recognize. It’s nice to imagine that such inner peace is a possibility. If it is, Such Kindness is a roadmap.

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The Siberia Job by Josh Haven

Published by Mysterious Press on June 6, 2023

The Siberia Job is less a crime novel than the story of business transactions undertaken in difficult circumstances. Because the story takes place in the Eastern European version of the Wild West — the transition from the fallen Soviet Union to unregulated capitalist markets — crime becomes integral to the plot.

While a work of fiction, the novel is based on real events. The story is wildly improbable but a forward suggests that the novel’s most improbable scenes are the closest to the truth. The forward also suggests that the rise of Russian oligarchs is associated with the “murder-y” methods that were used to acquire ownership of newly privatized companies.

When former Soviet companies privatized, their countries’ citizens were given vouchers that could be traded for shares of companies that were formerly owned by the government. Most people were happy to sell their vouchers for relatively small amounts of cash because cash is what they needed. When the day came to register the vouchers in meetings that were operated by the IMF, voucher owners received stock in the company in proportion to the percentage of total vouchers they registered.

One of the two protagonists, Petr Kovac, happens to meet John Mills in a London bar. Both men are young. Both have acquired some wealth and are looking to acquire more. Petr is a Czech national who bought up vouchers for Czech companies, used them to obtain stock, then sold the stock at a massive profit. John has experience with investment funds and is looking to start his own. He partners with Petr in a plan to purchase vouchers in Russia, using funds supplied by his investor contacts who buy into his new investment partnership.

The most profitable company they can acquire is a massive producer of oil and gas. The executives who run the company plan to acquire it for themselves. While those executives are trying to hold registration meetings on short notice in remote locations to deprive people of the chance to register their vouchers, John and Petr acquire inside information about the meetings. They travel to the area where the first meeting will be held, buy up all the vouchers they can find for American cash, and register the most vouchers at that meeting, much to the dismay of the company representatives who expected to be the only people registering vouchers.

Several more registration meetings are scheduled, sending John and Petr all around Russia in their quest to gather vouchers. They travel by train, bus, bush plane, and car — buying cars when necessary.  They rescue a cigarette girl who is about to be raped on a train ride, then hire her as a translator.

The three voucher buyers need to split up when three registration meetings are scheduled in distant locations on the same day. One of the men takes a dog sled to the most remote place where vouchers are being registered. The varied scenes of travel though the vast country are thoroughly engaging. This is as much a story of travel adventure as it is of crime and business.

The novel takes its subject seriously, but the story doesn’t lack humor. My favorite moment occurs when, to move a tank that is blocking the road to a small Siberian town where John needs to attend a voucher auction, John bribes the tank driver by arranging a lunch date in LA between the soldier and his favorite Playboy model.

The intriguing setup establishes the likable young characters and sets their adventure in motion. Neither Petr nor John are action heroes, although they find themselves being shot at and chased from time to time. They use their wits, contacts, and negotiating skills to avoid being murdered. The story’s roots in reality add intrigue, but Josh Haven scores a winner by telling the story with a light touch that suits the “truth is stranger than fiction” tone of the novel.

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The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry

Published by Atria Books on May 30, 2023

Spy novels are fundamentally about the betrayal of trust. The strategy of spying dictates that it is dangerous to trust. Yet spies must be trusted by their sources or the sources will not divulge valuable information. Determining the trustworthiness of sources and the information they provide is part of the espionage game. The Peacock and the Sparrow explores the difficulty of winning the game when spies base their assessment of trustworthiness on what politicians want to hear.

Shane Collins is an aging spy who has been posted to Bahrain. He is there in 2012, surrounded by rumors of the Arab Spring. Collins spends most of his time drinking, but he’s developed a source named Naqid. Collins trusts Naqid. The reader will wonder whether Collins is being played.

Collins’ head of station, Whitney Alden Mitchell, is the youngest station chief in CIA history. Mitchell has a strong sense of what his bosses want to hear. He specializes in giving them intelligence that makes them happy and assessing intelligence as unworthy of belief if his bosses won’t want to believe it.

Naqid is a member of “the opposition.” The opposition makes a nuisance of itself, throwing the occasional Molotov cocktail, as it protests the royals who govern Bahrain. There is good reason to protest the royals, as they have no regard for human rights. Yet the US supports them because the US perceives the enemy to be Iran and Bahrain is the enemy of that enemy. On the other hand, the opposition views westerners as infidels, despite Naqid’s apparent friendship with Collins.

A series of minor bombs near coffee shops frequented by Americans are blamed on the opposition. Mitchell has been told that the explosives were provided by Iran. Naqid tells Collins that the bombs were planted by the royals to win support from the Americans, including the lifting of sanctions so Bahrain can better respond to terrorist threats. Mitchell dismisses Naqid’s report because it isn’t what his bosses will want to hear. Could Naqid be telling the truth? Collins believes that what he’s saying makes a certain amount of sense.

The novel raises profound questions about whose side the US should take in the Middle East, or whether the US should be taking sides at all. Certainly, there’s truth in Naqid’s complaints that the ruling family suppresses dissenting voices and tortures prisoners, but the US is unreasonably tolerant of human rights violations that are committed by its allies. By the end of the story, it becomes clear that the opposition’s revolution will not be a favorable replacement for the ruling family. Sharia law is enforced overnight: assaults on liquor store owners, the imposition of strict dress codes, brothels burned, gay men shot, lawyers arrested. American expats who enjoyed cheap rent and cheaper sex are lining up to be evacuated. The CIA is shredding documents before the Embassy is overrun.

The plot follows Collins as he does some remarkably stupid things to assist Naqid, including dumping a dead body and picking up a package in Cambodia. Collins also continues a relationship with an artist named Almaisa after the CIA tells him she’s a security risk who needs to be kept at a distance. Why Collins makes such poor choices might be attributed to the fog of alcohol through which he perceives the world, although we don’t learn his true motivation for becoming the opposition’s courier until the novel’s end.

The Peacock and the Sparrow is unlike most spy novels in that the first-person narrator is not only unreliable but a poor excuse for a human being. Collins’ unreliability pertains to his inability to acknowledge his weaknesses. He drinks too much but denies his alcoholism. He justifies harmful acts by telling himself “I couldn’t have known.” He even asks himself, “What is knowledge?” Do we really know what we know? Collins indulges in philosophy to make his betrayals abstract and less important.

Collins’ first sexual encounter with Almaisa is pretty clearly a rape (he tears off her dress and apparently regards submission as consent) but, while he entertains a moment’s regret, he quickly convinces himself that he did nothing wrong. He meets women in brothels to confirm information he’s been given and, for no operational benefit, sleeps with them on the taxpayer’s dime. He punches Mitchell in the face, which clearly isn’t a wise career move. He tells himself he’s a good spy, but his tradecraft is lax (he doesn’t see a man who hits him on the head and robs him). He puts his hand on a gun that was used to shoot someone, one of several acts that potentially create incriminating evidence that could be used against him.

Collins’ paranoia seems to be sending him off the deep end. Is he being followed? Did someone break into his hotel room and search his luggage? Is Mitchell sleeping with Almaisa behind his back? All those things could be true, but they might be the alcohol-fueled imaginings of a mind that has lived too long in the darkness of espionage. The truth is not always clear, to either the reader or Collins, although most mysteries are resolved in the closing pages. A final twist sheds some light on who the novel’s greatest betrayer might be.

The novel builds tension as it nears its climax, particularly when Collins crosses borders and encounters checkpoints. Strong characterization is supported by observant prose and a grim but authentic sense of atmosphere in Bahrain and Cambodia. Collins isn’t likable but his messy life and dangerous liaisons are fascinating. The Peacock and the Sparrow is a skillful blend of history and fiction. It will certainly be among the best spy novels I’ll read this year.

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Happy Memorial Day!

Swamp by Johann G. Louis

First published in France in 2023; published in translation by Europe Comics on May 24, 2023

Swamp is a graphic novel. It tells the story of three kids during a summer in the Bayou in 1930. An afterword explains that it is a tribute to Southern gothic literature. Johann G. Lewis underplays the grotesque themes that characterize Southern gothic, although racism provides a grotesque undercurrent to the story. The setting includes an abandoned steamboat that is said to be haunted, but the story has no significant elements of the supernatural. To me, the story echoes Huckleberry Finn in its creation of an interracial friendship that defies cultural expectations.

Otis and Red are eleven. They live in the bayou. Neither child’s parents believe white and black kids should mix — not because they are racists, but because it isn’t safe. Yet the kids bond over their shared interests:  skipping school, playing pranks, swimming and fishing.

Otis and Red take an interest in a family that’s occupying a local mansion for the summer. The family consists of a 12-year-old Shelley, her governess, and her mother. Shelley has a heart condition and is not supposed to go outside, but hanging with Otis and Red proves to be more entertaining than sitting in the house all day. Shelley befriends them platonically and equally. This is a simpler time when kids aren’t distracted by gadgets or the pressure of becoming a sexual person.

Black adults are searching for a man who went missing but they won’t talk about his disappearance with Otis. Red’s mother does what she needs to do to pay the rent but Red doesn’t understand why strange men visit the house. A gang of men, protected by the Klansman Sheriff, are killing blacks and causing problems for everyone they dislike. Thugs are smashing the windows of the general store owner.

Red has a vague sense that things aren’t as they should be, but he is the embodiment of innocence. He thinks life is good. Soon enough, he’ll realize that life can be ugly. The reader won’t want Red to grow up, but the best to be hoped for is that he grows up to be a decent person.

The story’s ending is equally sad and hopeful. Nothing good lasts forever but change does not mean the world is ending. Red and Otis are on the verge of transitioning to an adulthood that will probably be difficult for them both, but they’re in no hurry to enter a world that they regard as needlessly complex.

The story makes a simple point, but its simplicity reflects its honesty.  There is nothing natural about racism. Kids don’t care about skin color. They care about being kids. They learn to hate from adults who sabotage the possibility of interracial friendships.

The art is also simple. Most daylight panels are a wash of pale green, reflecting the life of the swamp where much of the action unfolds. The art conveys the swamp’s spookiness with burls and knots that make trees seem human. The story’s sweetness is captured in both the art and the innocence of its child characters.

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