I’m a bit behind on writing book reviews, so in an effort to catch up, I’m doing a post mentioning a couple of books and one collection of essays. Let’s start with the collection of essays.
Intimations by Zadie Smith
Hot off the press, Zadie Smith’s Intimations was published in July 2020. It is a series of reflections on the coronavirus and the rising unrest related to the killing of George Floyd in late May 2020. Smith writes from the vantage point of someone who is in New York City in March and April as the city transitions to lockdown and normal life is upended. She also reflects on being one of the many New Yorkers who flees the city for the outlying suburbs before eventually returning to her native London in the summer.
While the media provides a constant deluge of pandemic coverage, Smith’s essays were some of the first pieces I’ve read that have attempted to step back and reflect on the surreal nature of the past several months. She touches on themes of race, economic inequality, money, and what the overall purpose of writing is. This is a quick read that can be done in one to two sittings. All proceeds from the book will go to the Equal Justice Initiative and the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for New York.
Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for fiction – pretty incredible. He won in 2017 for his novel The Underground Railroad and most recently in 2020 for Nickel Boys. I have not read The Underground Railroad yet, but I picked up Nickel Boys in July as it was listed on many reading lists following the killing of George Floyd. The book tells the story of a reform school in Florida during the 1960s and is based on the horrific true story of the Dozier School for Boys. Over the last decade, investigative journalists at the St. Petersburg Times and researchers from the University of South Florida have brought to light dozens of unmarked graves on the school grounds and at least 81 boys are known to have died while at the institution. For more information on the actual story of the Dozier School, I would recommend this 2012 article from NPR and a more recent Washington Post story.
Drawing on this gruesome history, Whitehead tells the tale of a black teenage boy sent to Nickel Academy for a crime he did not commit. I won’t give any more details away, but needless to say, it’s a deeply sad and infuriating account of a story that is still unfolding as investigations continue on the grounds of Dozier. In July, I read that there are plans to create a memorial on the Dozier School grounds.
Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener
January 2020 now seems like ancient history, but that was the month when Anna Wiener’s memoir Uncanny Valley hit bookstore shelves. As with most of my reading, I owe the book recommendation to my wife who first heard about this book on the podcast Nerdette. This nonfiction book is Wiener’s account of her early to late twenties journey from the world of New York publishing to the tech scene of Silicon Valley. In the span of a few years, Wiener goes from being an underpaid publishing assistant to making a couple hundred thousand from her employee stock options when Microsoft buys her employer Github. As she takes the reader on this journey, she recounts the ridiculous and often dark side of a Silicon Valley mostly run by smart, privileged white dudes in the age bracket of 25 to 35. As she moves between firms, Wiener often finds herself to be one of the few female employees. Her gender compounded with her “non-technical” background (i.e., she doesn’t code) means that she is summarily tasked with procuring snacks and other office tasks that the boys can’t be bothered with.
The book has highs and lows but is ultimately very well written and manages to talk about a world of immense privilege in an approachable manner that is not offputting. At the start, Wiener acknowledges that while in publishing she is ‘broke not poor.’ Her salary hovers just above the poverty line, but financial help from her parents means she can pursue a publishing career. The privilege check in the beginning of the narrative feels necessary but well done (at least from my own privileged vantage point).
The main thing I took issue with was the continued references to her liberal arts school friends throughout the book. We don’t get much clarity on who these friends are; presumably, they are writers, artists, and other creatives who are just as smart (if not smarter) than the Silicon Valley types but have not faired as well financially. This is an interesting but undeveloped point that Wiener dances around but doesn’t fully dive into. I was left wondering who these cool friends are who are supposedly more deserving of glory and riches.
Despite that one critique, I did really like the book, especially having worked at startups myself. The adulation poured on the Valley certainly warrants a critical eye, and Wiener’s voice seems all the more relevant at the present moment as the nation grapples with how social media platforms should be moderated. As one of the early content supervisors on Github, Wiener has an insider perspective on just how challenging it is to construct rules around hate speech and build algorithmic checks into platforms. When we reflect back on this moment in the years to come,, Wiener’s book will be a key primary document to understand Silicon Valley.
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
A Burning is the debut novel of author Megha Majumdar. Originally from Kolkata, India, Majumdar is a writer working at Catapult in New York City. In the opening pages of the book, we learn that there has been a terrorist attack on a train, and a young girl named Jivan is brought in as a suspected accomplice. As the novel unfolds, we hear from the voices of several characters as the investigation around the crime deepens. We flashback into the past to explore Jivan’s early life, and the trials her Muslim family has undergone over the years.
I initially had a hard time sinking into the book. It was perhaps the initial jumping between various characters’ perspectives; however, once I had the character lineup set in my head, the novel progressed quickly. The last hundred pages were particularly gripping as you see each of the characters’ fates start to crystalize.
One of my favorite aspects of Majumdar’s writing was her ability to bring to life the streets of India. When she described the monsoon rains, I could vividly imagine trudging through the mud of washed-out roads and trying desperately to dry myself for hours after. She describes the stark differences between urban and rural India and the broad range of economic livelihoods found in the country. Majumdar offers us the vantage point of the most outcast all the way up to the most powerful political officials. I won’t reveal anymore, but I will end with a recommendation to take a read of A Burning. The political moment in India shares many similarities with that in the US, and this novel does an excellent job exploring it.
Jeff Cangialosi 