Review: Notes On An Execution: A Novel by Danya Kukafka

 Dear Lit Loves,

Greetings!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!  For the last week I made a clear departure from reading memoirs to reading a book that would most likely be classified as mystery/thriller.  The book's title, Notes On An Execution:  A Novel, by Danya Kukafka initially grabbed my attention.  When I read the book's summary that is when I thought, maybe I should just see if or how this book about a serial killer is or is not different from similar books I have read.  So the book is told not totally focused on the serial killer, rather we learn his story through the eyes of three distinct women he encountered throughout the course of his life.  And the book's timeline is depicted over the hours leading up to the serial killer's execution.  Highly Intriguing.

First, the author introduces you to Lavender who is the mother of the serial killer, Ansel.  We see Lavender as a teenage mother ill-equipped to handle a marriage much less motherhood.  She is living locked away in a farmhouse where she and her abusive husband reside.  Her husband is downright despicable as he locks cabinets and the refrigerator full of food when he is not at the house.  He may leave Lavender one can of beans to survive on as she tries to raise four year old Ansel and his four month old brother.  Eventually, Lavender convinces her husband to take her for a drive deliberately leaving the kids at the farmhouse.  While stopped at a convenience store, she locks herself in a supply closet and calls the police to tell them the 2 kids need to be rescued from the farmhouse.  She then boards a bus hoping to land anywhere but the hellish circumstances from which she has escaped.

Next we meet Saffron also known as Saffy who is a child sharing a foster home with Ansel.  She is suspicious of Ansel from the beginning as she discovers Ansel has left her a gift on the top of her twin bed.  It's so disgusting that she removes the sheets from her bed along with the gift and quickly deposits all of it in the trash.  Saffy will later grow up to become a police chief and the homicide investigator who ultimately captures and helps convict Ansel for the deaths of four women.

Hazel happens to be the twin sister of Jenny, the college gal that Ansel married.  Hazel and Jenny look almost identical and although Hazel grew up quite jealous of Jenny and her extrovert nature, she later realizes that her sister has married a man (Ansel) who makes her sister's life quite miserable enough that eventually, Jenny calls Hazel to help her escape her life with Ansel.  

Also along this journey, we meet Blue Harrison who is the daughter of Ansel's brother, Ellis, who was adopted quickly after the two boys were discovered by the police in the farmhouse.  Blue's father dies of cancer and she and her mom are left to manage the restaurant her father and mother started.  Eventually, Blue and her mother will meet Ansel.  Eventually though crime always leaves a footprint and Saffron will warn Blue and her mother to stay away from Ansel as she is quickly unfurling evidence that Ansel has killed three girls already.

The book analyzes how one criminal act has a ripple effect on the lives of many people and not just the person who has been murdered.  More people are victims of one criminal act other than just the person who paid the ultimate price with his/her life.  It is almost like watching a series of dominoes fall as you begin to see how many people in particular, women, have their lives upended because of one serial killer.  This novel will make you question if a person is all bad, all good, or a speck of gray matter combining both good and evil.  Also, I thought about whether people who commit heinous acts ever regret what they have done?  Can they ever really make amends to all the people whose lives have been adversely and ominously impacted by a criminal act?  And is the ultimate apology that the criminal and in this case serial killer, must pay the price by being put to death?  Will that bring a victim's family peace?  And also, when a beloved family member dies at the hands of a serial killer, is that person still alive through their spirit?  And finally the ultimate question:  if a serial killer repents at the end of his life, does God or a greater power forgive him?  

Needless to say, this was a deeply emotional book.  It is written quite poetically which helps give the reader an insight into the three women whose lives have been impacted negatively by Ansel making the choice to become a serial killer.  This book does not glorify the serial killer.  This book makes you witness the destruction the serial killer has on the lives of so many others and not just the people that he killed.  This book motivated me to keep turning the pages.  I wanted to know what happened next and what would be the next "big issue" the book would make me ponder.   A book that is a difficult but necessary read.

Best,

Grace (Amy)

Review: Klara And The Sun: A Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

 Dear Lit Loves,

Greetings!  Happy Spring!  Happy post Covid!  Hallelujah, I can get back to attending my book club meetings in April.  During the first of March, I decided to begin reading my book club's assigned discussion novel titled Klara And The Sun:  A Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.  If you know me well, this is a book way beyond my tastes in terms of literature.  This is a novel set in the future and told by a robot who is sitting on a showroom floor waiting for someone to buy her so that she can become their "Artificial Friend".   Riiiggghhhttt.  My first thought was, "You've got to be kidding."   

The author, Kazuo Ishiguro, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize so even though the book sounded completely too sci-fi for me, I decided to give it a thorough read.  The book examines how artificial intelligence is used to replicate the human form in mind, body, and spirit.  The robot, Klara, finally meets her "person" in the form of Josie, a fairly young girl who lives with her mom mostly by themselves.  Josie's mom, Mrs. Arthur, has already lost a daughter and evaluates how well robot Klara interacts with her daughter and also how well Klara can mimic her daughter.  Josie's best friend and neighbor, Rick lives next door with his mom who is mostly socially isolated.  Josie's mom wishes for her daughter to be "lifted" into the upper ranks of society so she insists her daughter attend classes via her tablet and attend "Interactive" meetings with other people her age who have parents wishing for them to be "lifted."    The author never really states what it means to be "lifted", but from my reading of the book, I interpreted it to mean people who are intellectually advanced technologically but are seriously lacking in emotional and social intelligence.  Robot Klara appears to have a better ability to read people and their emotions and behaviors than any of the other characters.

When robot Klara learns Josie has some form of chronic illness, she tries to harness the sun's energy to heal Josie because she observed the sun heal a beggar and his dog from her spot on a store's showroom floor.  The problem comes when Klara realizes that Josie's mom actually bought Klara in case she needed a replacement daughter for Josie.  Josie's friend Rick is a loner and essentially self-educated.  He does his own drone research and actually builds model bird drones.  He is not inclined toward being "lifted" until later in the book.  And the book invites you to speculate if he eventually chooses to go to college because his mom asked a favor of someone on the university board or if he decided to attend college of his own free will.  

Robot Klara asks the sun to heal Josie and intuits that the sun does not like all the pollution in this futuristic world.  Klara is inclined to go break a machine that she knows is causing pollution in order to please the sun so that the sun will heal Josie.  Josie's dad assists Klara in this task, but Klara realizes there is more than one machine polluting this future world and she has only been able to break one of the pollution producing machines by sacrificing a part of herself in the process.  

In the end, Josie is healed, robot Klara first winds up in a storage closet, and Rick attends college and he and Josie go their separate ways.  Sadly, Klara eventually finds herself sitting in a junk yard because she has served her original purpose.  And because robot Klara sacrificed a critical part of herself to help heal Josie, she loses much of her abilities.  Klara then becomes a part of the pollution.  The other robot in the store who was staged near Klara has also been discarded in the junk yard.  The book asks you if artificial intelligence is truly worth it?  Can it do what a human can do and do it better?  Will artificial intelligence eventually just be replaced with another tech advancement that leads to more tech devices contributing to world pollution?  Can technology truly replace a human being?  (Personally, this Generation Xer thinks not, but if you ask an individual from Generation Z, you might get an entirely different answer).  

This was a fascinating read so I am glad I took a chance on reading the book.  It does make you think about the future, how much influence technology will play in years to come, if humans can be replaced by artificial intelligence, and how much are we willing to sacrifice for the ones we love?  I think the book also invites the question of in the future will people who are not "lifted" or intellectually gifted be excluded from society?  It is kind of like someone who does not use the internet today.  Are they really missing out on an essential part of life or were we as a society better off without the internet due to its often gross misuse?  Can you really live without the internet and a cell phone?

This is a book that asks you to consider how much technology plays a role in your life and how much good does technology bring to society?  Has technology made us better human beings?  Personally, I don't think the world can ever replace a human being nor do I think it would be wise to do so.  What do you think?

Till my next review,

Grace (Amy)