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Sometimes, there’s nothing to do but to do it.
Often, I read two, or three, or whatever number of books simultaneously or one after the other that all have a super similar thing involved. My friend and sometimes reading competitor Kira (we don’t do that anymore, too stressful, don’t recommend) has come up with a LOT of good puns in her time, but naming this phenomenon “page-a-vu” is one of her best.
This week, I accidentally read two books that are set in, and deeply feature, Australia. And, weirdly, one took place several decades before the other, and surrounding events within that one had aftereffects in the other! In the words of my fictional pal Bertie Wooster (sorry, I’m reading a P.G. Wodehouse book and cannot not talk like this): “That is—I mean to say—what?”
Anyway, I could find no way to link the third book here to Australia, but it does have a lot of the same stalwart, get-to-work energy, while bringing something that the others in this issue don’t have: screamingly funny humor that is absolutely parched with dryness. Like an Australian plain? (Yesssss 💅)
Who might like EELS? Your friends, probably! Forward this to them and remind them that subscriptions are free and now come with a helpful archive!
What else have I recommended? If you’re a subscriber, I’ll grant you access to the handy EELS Recommendations Archive spreadsheet, where you’ll find lots of information that will help you find your next read.
🖌️ The Sun Walks Down
Fiona McFarlane, 2023
First of all, the cover for this book is something else! It’s hard to tell from the above group of pixels on your screen, but it’s like this burned metallic gold that deepens into red. Everyone in this story, which follows all sorts of people trying to find a six-year-old boy who got lost in the bush during a dust storm, at one point or another describes the sun and/or the sky. A menace, a savior, an angry god, something to be feared, something to be painted, something to flee from, something wild. See, now I’m in a sun daze just from talking about it.
I read an interview with McFarlane about what she was aiming to do with this novel, and in sum, she wanted to describe how one place can be experienced in so many different ways. It’s the latter half of the 19th century, and white people are determined to make Australia work for them despite, basically, every possible sign that they should probably pack it in and stop trying to colonize everything. They did, but then sort of did it again later, which leads us to…A Town Like Alice! ⬇️
Recommended to: Those who can handle a slow burn. I wasn’t sure I liked this at first—I worried it fell into the realm of “sentence fiction,” which is another term my friend Kira came up with to describe those books that have beautiful sentences but not much else. But I found myself looking forward to picking it up every night. The thing that it wanted to do was done very well.
🦘 A Town Like Alice
Nevil Shute, 1950
Jean Paget! You are the coolest fictional character! (She’s based on a real person the author met who had actually been through and achieved similar stuff, which absolutely blows my mind.) Told through the lens of her affectionate fatherly lawyer, Jean is absolutely the master of scratching out an existence wherever the heck she goes, whether that’s occupied Malay or the outback.
My friend Abby recommended this to me as a soothing book, and even though nothing in this story is easy for anyone, she was right. The tone is so practical and spare, and the results of their efforts are so good. it’s not soothing in a P.G. Wodehouse way (“Hullo! What! What!”), it’s soothing in a way that will inspire you to create Richard Scarry’s Busytown out of nothing but dust and heat waves.
Recommended to: Those who like knowing how things work, and those who know something about wallabies, because let me tell you, wallabies abound in these books.
🍳 Excellent Women
Barbara Pym, 1952
A short, scathing novel about a woman named Mildred, who patiently sighs as she makes her solitary egg for lunch. There’s lots of “coming home from the store with a string bag holding tinned meat” and “stepping over rubble left from the Blitz” and just trying to get by and get on with it, as everyone around her insists on being as dramatic as possible.
Gosh, this is funny. I love roll-up-your-sleeves and stiff-upper-lip-and-all-that British stuff, obviously, and the extent to which that vibe is satirized makes it the other side of A Town Like Alice’s coin. Probably Pym liked that book, but probably she just wanted everyone to leave women alone—or at the very least truly admire them for the virtues you pretend to admire them for. Excellent women don’t have to be Jean Superhero Paget. They can just be Mildred Making Her Egg Lathbury.
Fun fact: “Excellent women” is borrowed from Jane Austen, and this is truly a book that would celebrate Charlotte Lucas in the way she deserves.
Recommended to: Those who are able to appreciate literally the driest humor you will ever read.
And now, a bonus recommendation
📖 Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World — Vicky Myron and Bret Witter, 2008
I’m putting this here because my mom has recommended it to me approximately infinity times. Oddly, it page-a-vued itself into this theme this week, because there’s a lot in here about small towns, how they survive, and rolling-up-the-sleeves midwestern work ethic.
Listen, I am not a cat person, and this is a good not great book, but I couldn’t put it down. And also I cried a lot? I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I should have learned when I also thought I was humoring my mom by reading Outlander and then ended up forcing it into people’s lives for months. OK, years.
Clarifying note: This book is the complete opposite of Outlander, but I kind of had small anxiety attacks during both.
That was the eighteenth EELS! I would be just so grateful if you’d share widely with your networks! As always, send any and all questions, feedback, and shouted book recommendations by hitting reply.
📚 Susan
A subtle Pirates of the Caribbean reference will never not get a chuckle out of me! - your loving but very slow, way-behind newsletter reader and friend