A Hen in the EELS house
A Hen in the EELS house
I begged Susan to let me write her newsletter for a week and she kindly allowed it
Susan here. I’m on vacation, so the following EELS was written by my dear friend and voracious reader Sudie Simmons. Enjoy!
I love a mystery, but I hate being able to guess the ending. Whether a short story, a book, a movie, or a person acting in an inexplicable fashion, I want to be surprised by the denouement. (I tried to use a fancy word at the end of that sentence, to surprise you!)
But one thing I don’t mind? Being able to see exactly what’s going to happen and still, somehow, being shocked. These three books fulfilled that craving, leaving me unexpectedly surprised, a little heartbroken, and yearning for more. (Luckily, a side-theme here is: the authors have all written other books that are just as miraculous.)
💚French Exit
Patrick deWitt, 2018
🚨Suicide
Featuring an aging Upper East Side widow in financial free fall, her son in a perpetual state of arrested development, and a cat named Small Frank, French Exit is full of deft humor and unexpected lightness in the face of not insignificant familial strife. Additionally, there is a seance. I have now read this book thrice, and my heart stops each time.
The trigger warning is very real, but deWitt handles it with incredible tenderness.
Recommended to: Anyone looking to be simultaneously swept up and brought back down to earth; anyone who wants to believe in ghosts
🎻The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman, 2020
The first book of the eponymous series, The Thursday Murder Club introduces us to a group of four mystery-obsessed, septuagenarian friends living in a retirement community. When a developer with designs to tear down the cemetery next to the community is found dead, the friends join forces to solve the mystery — only to discover a new twist at each turn.
Osman’s ability to maintain several simultaneous plot lines side by side is a rare joy. Combined with the spot-on pacing of the short chapters and the genuinely beautiful character development, it’s an emotional explosion of an ending at once logical, subtle, and shocking that had yours truly in tears.
Recommended to: Anyone looking for a cozy mystery series with a heftier-than-typical helping of character development; anyone desperate to have a conversation with an elderly lady who used to be in MI5
🚪The Marriage Portrait
Maggie O’Farrell, 2022
🚨Domestic abuse
The latest book from Maggie O’Farrell (of Hamnet fame), The Marriage Portrait is a fictional but thoroughly researched telling of the life of Lucrezia de’Medici. Perhaps a historical figure whose cause of death was not, exactly, confirmed is the ideal subject for a tome of historical fiction. We meet Lucrezia just before she marries, from which point her life spirals out of control. By the end, I felt like I was Lucrezia, split in two.
Recommended to: Anyone who has historically disliked historical fiction
That was the twelfth EELS! Written by Sudie, expertly edited by Gabriela. Send any and all questions, feedback, and shouted book recommendations by hitting reply.