The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015) Grove Press (Pulitzer Prize 2016)

There is no honor among thieves or revolutionaries.  The main character, a captain, a spy for the Viet Cong, is airlifted from Saigon along with the General and his family who provided a home in Saigon and a career.  Having been educated in the U.S., he is considered an invaluable aide to the General.  He even consults on a movie about the war and returns to the U.S. again, as a hero for the lost cause.  At least until it is suspected that the captain has designs on the General’s daughter.  Then he is expected to go back to Viet Nam and die, trying to fight against the communists (his allies).  But things do not work as anyone expects.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) Harper (Pulitzer 2023)

David Copperfield in the Appalachians.  The story even starts with a similar line; “First, I got myself born.”  Only here we are in the current century with the current problems that have affected our society.  Our hero, the title character, lives with his drug addicted mother, until the government decides it would be in his best interest to live in foster care, meaning people who are only interested in the monthly check from the government and the free labor that comes with it.  Things go from bad to worse until he hits the jackpot with the local hero football coach.  But fate won’t by stopped by the cornucopia of temptations and tragedies of the twenty-first century.  And all Demon wants to do is see the ocean.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) Harper

David Copperfield in the Appalachians.  The story even starts with a similar line; “First, I got myself born.”  Only here we are in the current century with the current problems that have affected our society.  Our hero, the title character, lives with his drug addicted mother, until the government decides it would be in his best interest to live in foster care, meaning people who are only interested in the monthly check from the government and the free labor that comes with it.  Things go from bad to worse until he hits the jackpot with the local hero football coach.  But fate won’t by stopped by the cornucopia of temptations and tragedies of the twenty-first century.  And all Demon wants to do is see the ocean.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020) Harper

A marvelous, fantastic book.  I could tell ten percent into it that it deserved the Pulitzer.  Ms. Erdrich has a complete mastery of storytelling and language.  Her subject matter, though placed in the 1950’s is as relevant today as it was then.  Her characters show us perspectives of how the government has gone back on its word to Native Americans time and again.  She has certainly thrashed them like a field.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 

The life of Cora, a runaway slave living in Georgia– who rails against the man who has become her ‘owner’ in the 1840s.  Her mother ran away and left her behind as a child (near the end of the book we learn that she was on her way back to get her child but was bitten by a cotton-mouth and died in the swamp).  This is a bitter memory for Cora, who took over her mother’s little plot of ground as a garden.  When a new slave, a big man, took over her cabin and ruined her garden to build a house for his dog, Cora busted-up the doghouse and hurt the dog and its owner.  This got her branded as crazy by the other slaves.  But a new man secretly plots with her to run away.  When they leave, they find their way to the underground railroad.  On the way slave hunters try to capture them.  Cora kills one, fighting for her life.  On the railroad, they get a choice to stop in South Carolina or go on.  This is a different kind of life where negros are educated and given health care.  Only it turns out to be insidious.  Because the doctors are studying eugenics and want to operate on the women, so they won’t have children.  One day, slave hunters come to town looking for Cora and her man.  Cora escapes back to the underground railway station.  Her man never arrives.  She catches the next train, run by a boy who was told the stations were closed.  He drops her off at the end of the line, it is blocked by a cave-in after that.  The station master does not expect her and things have gotten bad in his town.  He takes her home and hides her in the attic.  No one in the town is allowed to have slaves.  But this is not a town of tolerance.  On the way to the town, she saw a seemingly endless row of trees with former slaves hanging from the branches.  She lives in the attic for months.  Each week she watches as a runaway slave is brought to the town square, denounced, and sometimes the white family that harbored the slave is also put on a platform, ridiculed and then all hanged.  Cora has no escape.  One night the town constabulary knocks on the door and drags Cora, the station master and his wife out.  But Cora is not hanged.  The slave hunters came to town looking for her.  They have a commission in Tennessee to return a slave.  On the way, the hunter gets tired of hearing that slave sing, off-key, and kills him.  They switch direction toward Georgia to return Cora and are hijacked.  Cora is freed and runs with two new black men who tell her they are not slaves.  They take her to a farm in Indiana where the owner is black and quite a few runaway slaves.  Life on the farm is good.  Cora discovers the owner has a library and spends a good amount of her time there when she isn’t helping on the farm.  But life is not idyllic.  There are people on the farm who resent the runaways from sharing in what they have built.  One man contacts the slave hunters, thinking they will come and remove the runaways peacefully.  It results in a massacre.  Cora is captured, but the slave hunter wants to see where the underground station is so he can report it and have it destroyed.  But on the way down the ladder, he insists on holding on to Cora.  She falls, pulling him with her.  She lands on top and he dies.  She uses a handcart and pumps her way to another station.  Where she comes out seems to be in the middle of nowhere.  A small wagon train passes here and the last wagon is driven by an old black man who offers her a ride to the west.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010) Knopf 

Pulitzer prize winner - slices of life in the world of record music

 Maus I a Survivor's Tale - My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (1991) Pantheon Books (1/14)

The Special Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel about his father and his experiences in World War II going from a successful garment salesman, then evading capture and then into Aushwitz

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2012) Random House 

A North Korean orphan's life under the oppressive regime – winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Late Wife by Claudia Emerson (2005) Louisiana State University Press 

Emerson explores the life she shared with a husband until the marriage failed, then the freedom of solitude during her recovery from that set of emotions, then the unexpected joy found with a new husband who was a widower.