Sometimes you get two people together who share a sinister obsession with turning all of their non-work hobbies into work. And then sometimes those people feel a sudden urge to resist deadlines and reinvest in pleasure reading and go MIA for a few months. Trove is now a more sporadic, and more joyous, newsletter. Don’t worry, we’ll still be out here recommending devastatingly dark books to read on a hammock.
Emma & Cristina
A River Dies of Thirst by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Catherine Cobham (2009) | poetry,
Archipelago Books
In his last work to be published before his death in 2009, celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish reflects on the Arab world through poetry and diary entries in the summer of 2006 as Israel attacked both Gaza and Lebanon. The first poem of the book begins with “On the seashore is a girl, and the girl has a family, and the family has a house.” A few lines later, there is no one left standing on the shore; airstrikes have taken everyone around her, including her father, and will soon take out her house. These poems bring you directly inside the violence, but also zoom out as Darwish ponders what it means to live in exile, and to write amidst so much loss. A man sits in front of the television and recognizes himself as he watches his death along with his fellow countrymen. Mosquitos evoke warplanes. Wolves bite moonbeams and echoes are preserved in jars. A quiet, searing book for those in need of a reminder that language can never be occupied. —ER
Seven Years by Peter Stamm, translated by Michael Hofmann (2011) | fiction,
Other Press
Translator and writer Michelle Bailat-Jones described Seven Years as “an unpretentious meditation on the subtle tenacity of unhappiness.” The realistic exploration of the complexity and banality of relationships is a trademark of any Peter Stamm novel. Seven Years alternates between past and present as Alex, a married German architect, documents the decline of his professional life and the affair that ruined his marriage. Sonia, his wife and business partner, is beautiful, talented, and everything a man might envision for his perfect wife. But a stagnant love life and a heavy case of the seven-year itch leads Alex back to his college fling, Ivona, a woman with no remarkable traits, even described as physically repulsive throughout the novel. What seems like an easy resolution ruptures into a cautionary tale of deception with an explosive plot twist that leaves you questioning each character’s motives. Stamm is a true master of turning the mundane into a dream-state and making a seemingly simple plot into a compulsive read. For those who like romantic struggles, highbrow page-turners, and horribly conflicted characters. —CR
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (1911) | fiction,
Scribner
Ethan Frome, languishing away in his remote New England farm town of Starkfield, experiences something akin to feeling alive when his sickly wife’s cousin Mattie Silver comes to stay and help take care of her. There is no build-up or explanation for Ethan’s obsession with Mattie. We simply walk into it, privy to it, almost like intruders, voyeurs, painfully aware that his wife Zenobia also sees what’s playing out in her home. But the apex of this book comes when Zenobia leaves town for the night to seek out a doctor, and Mattie and Ethan share a tense, scintillating, but ultimately uneventful night together, while the cat Puss seemingly plots against them. The tiniest gestures change the entire mood of the night, and emotions seesaw torturously back and forth. For Wharton knows that obsession is just as much about the still, quiet moments as it is about the borderline absurd declarations. She also knows that when a forbidden lust starts to burn, it can only end in tragedy. For those who like Marguerite Duras, Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, simmering tension, and reading winter books in summer. —ER
Vanishing Twins: A Marriage by Leah Dieterich (2018) | hybrid memoir
,
Soft Skull
Twin flames is a term used to describe a coupling where the soul has been split into two body forms, similar to soulmates, but ascending to a higher level of intuitive connection. While not medically connected to vanishing twin syndrome, a condition in which one of a set of twins or multiple embryos dies in utero, both conditions require absorbing oneself into someone else. Vanishing Twins is Leah Dieterich’s search for her missing half, an intimate closeness that she defines as twinning. From her obsession with dance partnerships at an early age, to her sexual exploration with women, she finally feels she’s reached the ultimate coupledom in her monogamous marriage to her college boyfriend Eric. However, when individual desire and evolving selfhood begins to put a strain on their bond, Dieterich wonders, “Once you find someone to finish your sentences, do you stop finishing them for yourself?” A lucid exploration of the pursuit of love and artistic ambition, Vanishing Twins asks the reader how we can cultivate a creative life without limiting ourselves to a singular identity. For those who like auto-theory, Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, and the belief in mirrored souls. —CR
French Perfume by Amir Tag Elsir, translated by William M. Hutchins (2015) | fiction,
ANTIBOOKCLUB
Ali Jarjar’s life takes a turn when he finds out an illustrious French woman named Katia will soon be arriving in his small village. Katia comes to represent hope for this impoverished, forgotten town. Her renown will osmose through the village; her mere presence will bring about the much-needed money to fix up and develop their buildings and streets. Maybe she will fall in love with one of them and save him from his own ruin. The anticipation of Katia’s arrival, the task of securing her accommodations and welcoming her to his home town, is a delirious distraction from Ali’s languishing day to day. But as the possibility of her visit starts to seem less and less likely, Ali’s delusions spiral deeper. He prints out a photo of her and places it at his kitchen table so he can dine with her; he paints his house, and everything inside it, blue—her favorite color. He takes wedding vows and parades “her” around town as his wife. What begins as absurd, even comical, will inevitably end in catastrophe, as Sudanese writer and doctor Amir Tag Elsir lays bare the accumulation of ills our modern society has left in its wake. For those who like Two Lines Press, ingenious plot lines, and dark comedies. —ER