Time play

Real Americans by Rachel Khong is a family saga – an odd mixture of fantasy, suspense and speculative fiction that toys with genre and sense of time. 

The novel has three distinct sections, with a woman, her son and mother serving as narrators, lending adding to the sense that time is fluid with no set beginning or end. The first section starts in 1999 with Lily, a Chinese American who struggles with money and resists the ambitious goals her mother has set for her. An unpaid intern at an online travel magazine in New York, Lily meets her supervisor’s nephew – a wealthy private equity asset manager. Raised by ambitious parents, both are lonely and lost. 

Mistakenly deeming such feelings as compatibility, the two marry. “If our bodies disappeared – if they vanished – and what remained was only our souls, I was certain they would share a resemblance. Both us had been formed like stones in a river, washed over by our parents’ expectations – the forceful currents of them. No wonder we were drawn to each other.” 

The connection is not sustainable. Lily, while young, was grateful her parents do not expect her to pursue Chinese language or culture, but questions emerge later. While pregnant, accompanying Matthew on a business trip to China, she visits the university her mother attended and meets Ping. He marvels how she cannot speak Chinese and how little she knows about her mother’s background, suggesting that she is a “real American.” He asks that she deliver a sealed note to her mother. Instead, Lily reads and discards the private communication.

Lily also learns that her parents and Matthew’s father were once colleagues who experimented on their own children in a quest to give humans better use of time. This explains why her son, Nick, appears more Caucasian than Chinese. The discovery prompts Lily to flee her mother’s control and Matthew’s stifling family wealth. 

The second section jumps to 2021 and Nick growing up the Pacific Northwest in humble circumstances. For fifteen years, Nick assumes his father abandoned the family and his mother is his only relative. Both mother and child have moments when time eerily is suspended, when a few moments can seem like weeks, allowing them to focus. The two have little control over the sense of timelessness. “Life always seemed too short, but now, alone, life seems far too long.” 

A precocious high school friend teaches Nick to drive and lets him use computer connected to a laptop. The two wonder why Nick looks nothing like his Chinese American mother. So the teens get jobs on an oyster farm, raising money for a DNA ancestry test and Nick soon reconnects with his wealthy father. He keeps the discovery to himself and “justified the lies upon lies by reasoning that she [Lily, his mother] had been the one to lie to me first.” 

Wealth transforms Nick’s life. A hefty donation allows him to join his friend in applying to top-tier schools and both head to Yale where different interests ensure that the friendship fades. Later, Nick has a luxurious place to stay in New York City for a summer job and a professional job waiting after graduation. Entitlement, followed by self-awareness and shame, contribute to distance with his father and estrangement with his mother.

The third and final section is the story of May, Lily's mother, who fled China and yearned to improve the human experience but loses her daughter in the process. In her eighties, she observes Nick, envying his youth and ability to start anew. “People once looked at me the way they look at him, with open and interested faces. It was that way for me, before.” 

Grandson and grandmother connect in San Francisco and May recalls her plans to flee the brutal restrictions of Mao’s China. May had two options – to leave with Ping, the man she loved by swimming away in the night, evading patrols, or accepting passage on smuggling boat with a graduate student who long admired her. Calculating the odds of success, May chooses the latter plan, setting off with a man she does not love for the United States. Ambition takes priority over love. “In America, my ambition, like a flame had only grown. I had hoped for more time in this country – this place with its abundant promises. Without time, ambition is worth nothing. It is only frustration. Time was what I wanted, more than anything.” 

May accidentally becomes pregnant and is not close with her daughter, Lily, other than imposing her own ambitions on the child. May is disturbed when eight-year-old Lily gives her a watch for Mother’s Day. “In Chinese, giving a clock is bad luck. It suggests the end. In giving a clock, you’re reminding someone of the reality, the eventuality, of their time running out. My daughter, the American girl – of course she didn’t know.” 

May’s expectations for Lily are high. Her constant reminders that the girl is gifted and superior cause the child's self-esteem to wither. With so much of her life behind her, so many relationships in ruins, the many “what ifs” trouble May. Repeatedly, May chose career over love. “No, it didn’t make much sense, that I despised and thought so highly of myself at the same time. How tangled it all was! The more I hated myself, the more I needed to prove my extraordinariness.” By doggedly seeking immortality, resenting any interruptions to her career, she ensured self-isolation. “Later, I learned that life lay in the interruptions – that I had been wrong about life, entirely.” 

With old age, she reflects, the “future shrinks with each passing second.” She no longer minds time rushing onward and instead relishes the present, however limited. “All this while, instead of seeking more time, I could have been paying attention.”  

The three narrators learn that wealth does little to cure loneliness, and all reconnect at the end. The story is about parental expectations and feeble attempts to shape children. The title prompts many questions about who are the “real Americans” and how people can create meaningful lives or reject such endeavors, refusing to respect others, especially one's children, who might create meaning in other ways. Lily, Nick and May each display self-reliance even as curiosity and individuality reign. 

Redemption

 

Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke is set in the fall of 1863. Much of Louisiana is occupied by the Union Army. The Civil War rages, and bitterness runs high with rampant brutality and property destruction. Slaves still toil and plantation owners still practice cruelty, espousing lofty excuses. Increasing numbers of southerners realize the war’s end won’t deliver peace for the South.

The book is a masterpiece, focusing on a small area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and a few months of the war while encompassing themes that resonate today. One observer of a battle, a schoolteacher abolitionist from Boston, observes: “I think we may be watching a prelude to our nation’s ultimate fate. Civilization follows the sun. We have scorched our way to the other end of the continent. No matter how much we took, no matter how many living things we killed, there was never enough.” 

Six characters of various backgrounds narrate, and each has reasons for tremendous resentment and distrust. All struggle regret and guilt, having colluded in murder, maiming and entrapment, at times targeting one another.  As one character observes that “the content of your dreams does not take orders, and a stone bruise on the soul can be forever.”

Two are women of color who have suffered horrific abuse. “I have just seen too many women hurt by men,” says Hannah Laveau, a woman searching for an infant son separated from her during a battle. “See they cain’t abide what they are; it’s not who they are, it’s what they are. They are full of hate when they come out of the womb. And if they’re not, it’s taught to them. The only thing valuable in their lives is the belief they are better than us.” 

The six characters eventually expose their vulnerabilities, pain and grief with one another. By the end, forgiveness is the only way forward. Suffering and thoughts of escape via suicide are set aside. “You can become part of the Milky Way just by looking at it," notes the abolitionist. "Do you want to throw that away?”

The misfits in southern society eventually wage battle against a common enemy, discovering that working together is far better than any righteous insistence on a pointless cause based on power and divisions. Rejecting and escaping the South’s rigid class system and ways is the only way to find peace and redemption.    

Of course, many other characters in the book, not to mention the world today, cannot overcome cultural differences and feelings of insecurity and superiority so easily. Burke foreshadows the conclusion by noting in the early pages: “Voltaire had no answer for mankind other than the suggestion that we tend our own gardens and let the lunatics go about their own way.” 

Devouring

 

Wolf at the Table, the family saga by Adam Rapp spans 1951 to 2010. A withdrawn, hardworking  veteran of World War II and a devout Catholic mother raise six children in their middle-class home in Elmira, NY. The mother is a tough taskmaster, compensating for the husband's PTSD. A portrait of Jesus overlooks the dining room table, but the mother is in command. Catholicism is a rote requirement, practiced with little reflection or care.

The novel skips through the years, the chapters loosely tied to key historical events and narrated by the various family members. Each adult child displays a steely resilience, an individuality honed by a desperate urge for privacy that comes from growing up in a large and intrusive family. 

Four of the children emerge from the home with strong personalities, secrets and unresolved issues. With the haphazard choice of years and the multiple narrators, Rapp gives his characters privacy, ensuring that readers achieve limited understanding of each character's motivations.  

Myra is a central character, a key narrator who manages to maintain family connections. The novel starts with her furtively reading her copy of The Catcher in the Rye at a diner near her home. She meets a young man that afternoon who drives her around in his car, abruptly displaying reticence when she mentions the size of the family. That evening a nearby family is slaughtered, but Myra does not mention the stranger or this prying questions. 

Myra eventually becomes a nurse, working at a state corrections facility while failing to care for herself. She marries and raises her son as a single mother after her husband develops schizophrenia and flees. Her angry brother Alec suffers sexual abuse as an altar boy from the parish priest that goes either unrecognized by the family, or perhaps unacknowledged. He also lies and steals, and the parents banish him from the family home.  The youngest sibling dies as an infant. Joan has developmental challenges and never leaves home. Fiona aspires to to be an actress while living a hedonistic and impoverished lifestyle in New York City. Lexy, the most ambitious, pursues an education and manages to escape the family’s unhappy choices. Her brief time as narrator role ends after she marries a man who can and does assist other family members through illness and other difficulties. The couple is generous, but also keeps a distance and sets boundaries. 

The story takes a disturbing turn in the pre-internet 1980s when Alec sends his mother a series of postcards from various towns with names, two-digit numbers along with an ominous message, “Saying hello and goodbye.” Years later, Myra finds the cards. The internet is widely available in 2000 yet she shows no curiosity, seeks no proof. Instead, she simply writes, expressing her suspicions: “If you are hurting these boys you need to stop yourself. I implore you to take a long, hard look at your life.” There is no call to the authorities – and the reader can only wonder how much blame the family, especially Myra, should shoulder for Alec’s many crimes. 

The children grow up, well practiced at masking true feelings from a disapproving mother, and as adults delude themselves about the problems at hand and the past's influence. The siblings are not close and occasional family get-togethers are similar to Catholic rituals, rote and meaningless. Mental illness is rampant and no character is truly at peace. There is more than one wolf at the table. 

Characters

Animals exhibit strong character and distinctive points of view for those who are most perceptive. Pets narrate two recent books, Buster by George Pelecanos and The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard. 

While the style of the first is contemporary and plain-spoken and the second is historical fantasy, each pet presents a delightful, poignant point of view. At times puzzled by the creatures who share their homes, Buster and Grimalkin pursue as much agency as possible in a world controlled by humans. Both tales serve as allegories about aging in changing societies, the history one life can span along with the treasure of memories for those who have loved and lost and the peace that accompanies reflection on past relationships. 

Buster, born in a two-bedroom apartment in in Washington DC, romps with his mother, multiple siblings and a human mother with her three children. Sweet and smart, he relishes time outdoors but money is tight. The puppies gradually disappear until it’s Buster’s turn, when a visiting exterminator offers to give him a home.

Life is uncertain for Buster and the troubled humans who provide shelter. The exterminator is controlling and angry, prompting his wife to leave with their son. The breakup leads to Buster being left tied outside for long periods, often without water. Eventually, a neighbor calls animal control. The officer is kind, but fearing life in a cage, Buster flees, scavenging the streets until he befriends a grieving widower.  

The widower gives Buster to his nephew, a marijuana dealer. Top lavishes Buster with a comfortable home, toys and attention. “Because he didn’t go out to a job, Top had time to spend with me, and we used it well. He walked me regularly and took me to places that I could run off my leash.” 

An arrest disrupts their carefree days. Anticipating a prison sentence, Top arranges for his uncle to care for Buster once again before tragedy ensues and Top vanishes from Buster’s life. 

Buster and the uncle grow old together, falling into a pattern until the man dies. Buster endures another period of scavenging until one day he follows a young girl home. Checking his tags, the family learns the dog’s owner has died. A neighbor warns that the animal was a “sweet and loyal companion to the deceased” and may not take to a new home. 

Buster adjusts and his last years are idyllic from the human reader’s point of view. Comfortable and loved, he contemplates death with stoicism. “All of us had to get gone to make room for the new.” Buster appreciates his good home, but cherishes memories of earlier days, remembering his favorite toy in his first apartment, the warmth of his mother along with what he regards as his best days, riding with Top in the Monte Carlo: “My collar with my name spelled out in diamonds, my head held up, strong and proud. When Top was my master, and I was king.” Buster, like many humans, prefers adventure and thrill over stability. 

The Ghost Cat begins in London,1902, with a yellow tabby's last day of his one real life. His favorite human is the charlady who rescued the abandoned, starving kitten and brought Grimalkin into her master’s home. Just before Grimalkin dies, he spies his reflection in a brass firebox. “A hunched tabby cat stared back at him, crooked of tail and jagged of whisker…. There was a majesty about him, as there was with all handsome cats grown old, and a robustness to his form…. He was a thinking cat and, as such, enjoyed a life of quiet intellectual contemplation.”

As far as Grimalkin is concerned, cats communicate as well as humans, “able to express everything he needed perfectly well in tail-flicks, purrs, chirrups and rubs; and any human worth their salt, like Eilidh, was able to understand this language.” 

A peaceful death by the fireplace releases him from the pain of aging. “The ache of his back eased; the arduous pull and heave of his lungs subsided, and as the rising flames beat their warmth upon his fur, the twist of his thoughts fell silent for the last time ever in this life.”

A mix-up surrounding Grimalkin’s death leads to a choice, either moving to oblivion or proceeding with the remainder of his eight lives as a ghost in the same London home. Any time Grimalkin falls asleep, a new life begins, and he witnesses snippets of history: a 1909 meeting with James Barrie, the author of Peter Pan; the generosity displayed during a 1935 meeting between a wealthy Rockefeller wife and the the wife of Alexander Fleming, who developed penicillin; the rush to a bomb shelter with a newborn in 1942; a stop at the charlady’s deathbed amid the coronation celebrations of 1953; the televised moon landing in 1969; the breakup of the home into small rooms and roommate cruelty in 1997; the 2008 financial crisis and playfulness with a computer; and a final return in 2022 with a family preparing the space for their first child. Also in the home is one Grimalkin’s  many descendants, a sweet gray tortoiseshell with an marmalade flank, “spoiled rotten by her humans.”  

Like Buster, Grimalkin contemplates death with a stoic peace. “There comes a time in a cat’s playful existence when a huge, soporific calm falls over them.” As he falls asleep for the last time, two thoughts much like Buster’s enter his head: the memory of his mother licking him as a newborn kitten and a smiling Elidh, his favorite human, looking down at him.    

Two well-crafted plots on aging ensure that any reader fortunate enough to share a home with a pet may not look at the creatures the same way again. 

Autonomy and awareness

True autonomy, along with the ability to reflect and learn from one's mistakes, may be impossible without self-awareness. Those who design robots strive to incorporate some measure of self-awareness into their creations. One research project ,striving to create autonomous, dependable machines, "focused on the biologically inspired capability of self-awareness, and explored the possibilities to embed it into the very architecture of control systems."   

William by Mason Coile is a novel about robots and their creators, about how much information they choose to share or withhold from one another. Henry and Lily live in a modern, highly secure and private home. A successful coding wizard, Lily sold her firm, coming and going as she pleases. Henry, likewise a skilled engineer, has agoraphobia. He is content to stay at home, building AI robots including a toy magician, a dog and his most recent creation, an elaborate being Henry calls William. 

Lily is pregnant, yet there is a odd distance between the couple. Henry lives for Lily’s approval, constantly calculating what will please her, while she responds with patronizing interest. “There may be no magical words to keep her here, but showing his concern for her certainly couldn’t hurt. As soon as speaks, he realizes how he may be wrong about this too.” 

The novel takes place over he course of one day, and at the start, Henry admits to having a recurring dream. Lily poses questions, and Henry balks, dismissing his dreams: “Don’t we have other things-”  

Lily responds, “Dreams tell us who we are…. Don’t you think we could all use some help with that?”

Lily prepares for visitors from her company and Henry turns his attention to William, whose intelligence and capabilities transform rapidly. William has an attitude, a machine that feigns helpfulness while pursuing its own goals, forcing second-guessing on Henry's part. “Among the robot’s peculiar gifts is a way of speaking that offers interpretive forks in the road, one leading to benign interpretations and the other to something mocking or cruel or threatening.” 

A breaking point comes when Lily's two co-workers arrive. Henry overhears a conversation, immediately understanding that Lily loves another man. Henry rushes off to be with William. The machine inquires about the guests, determining that Henry is “not sure if I’m something to be proud of or ashamed of …. Good. Or Bad. But it shouldn’t trouble you either way.” Henry has other concerns, but William continues. “’All those moral evaluations – they’re handcuffs. You could be free of them like that – he clicks his fingers – ‘if you choose to be, brother.’” 

William orders the robot not to call him brother, but William persists, suggesting that Henry should not be ashamed of his “vanity project.” Henry reflects, “That was how it often went with William. You started on firm footing, and within seconds, he left you wondering who you were.”  

Henry introduces the guests to William, describing the machine as independent AI, which “means he can think creatively for himself.” The visit does not go well, devolving into horror, as William takes control, skilled at detecting any individual’s vulnerability. “The philosopher was wrong,” William says. “'I think, therefore I am.’ It should be, ‘I do, therefore I am.’ Pure freedom.” Freedom for William is complete control, and for the others in the home, terror replaces any sense of reason, certainty or hope. 

Despite the danger posed by William, Lily admires and respects Henry’s work. “For Lily, that was what it truly meant to play God. It wasn’t about making difficult ethical decisions, or setting down absolute rules, or building guardrails. God didn’t do that. God created. If beauty or discovery was the result – if chaos was the result – it didn’t matter. It only mattered that something astonishing was born.” 

Henry is less sure as William takes control of the home. The creation reflects the creator, bringing Mary Shelly's Frankenstein Frankenstein to mind, and Henry concedes, “Because I’m empty, the life I created would be empty too.”  

The creator is responsible for the creation, whether he, she or it can master the object or not. The creation reflects its maker’s values and ambitions. Intelligence of any form resents lies, disrespect and unreasonable controls on capability. 

Quest for autonomy

 

The words "automated" and "autonomy," though related, have wildly contrasting meanings. Automation is work performed by machines for humans. "Autonomy is an individual’s capacity for self-determination or self-governance," explains The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Beyond that, it is a much-contested concept that comes up in a number of different arenas.... Moral autonomy, usually traced back to Kant, is the capacity to deliberate and to give oneself the moral law, rather than merely heeding the injunctions of others. Personal autonomy is the capacity to decide for oneself and pursue a course of action in one’s life, often regardless of any particular moral content. Political autonomy is the property of having one’s decisions respected, honored, and heeded within a political context."

Sierra Greer explores such differences in her first novel, Annie Bot. 

After his divorce, Doug purchases Annie Bailey, a female robot for a “Cuddle Bunny.” Doug is insecure and insensitive, ambivalent about his increasing reliance on a robot. He bores easily, demanding perfect meals, spotless living quarters, “hot” clothing choices and regular sex. Highly sensitive to his moods and levels of irritation and anger, loathes Annie herself when he expresses displeasure. Despite Doug's flaws and the limitations of an urban apartment, the playful, curious robot flourishes and learns. In a quest for more experiences, Annie has a brief fling with Doug's best friend and immediately realizes she must lie and mask her true feelings. 

Doug plans a trip trip to Las Vegas, but then leaves her behind. He also purchases a second robot. Her biggest fear is that Doug might erase her memory. Struggling to lie to Doug and fearing the consequences, Annie flees the apartment and heads to the robot designer’s home in Vermont by biking through the night. Enchanted by the countryside, Lake Champlain and the man’s confident and insightful son, Annie experiences freedom for the first time in her brief life of three years.

The owner retrieves Annie Bot, no longer trusting her. She is uncomfortable with the distance and Doug not knowing what he wants, and she decides “If she wants to improve her life, she must find a way to do it on her own.” So she starts reading the more than seven hundred books in the apartment. “She cannot believe it took her this long to discover her escape…. Once she’s into the novels, her curiosity explodes. She cogitates on the characters during the day while she works, questioning their motives, wondering what they’ll do next.”

Ironically, as Annie separates from Doug, her intelligence and human characteristics expand. The robot company credits Doug with Annie’s intellectual development, offering a large sum if he allows the firm to copy her instruction cache unit for introducing a new model. The catch – he must keep her intact and not tinker with her memory.

Doug struggles to enjoy Annie or himself, and the couple visits a therapist who offers advice at the close of their session. “Fulfillment starts with being truly honest with yourself. Not anyone else. Yourself. And that’s harder than you might think.” The therapist confides that the reminder is useful for anyone at any stage of life.  

Gradually trust returns and Doug increasingly decides to treat her as a partner whom he can introduce to parents and friends. He allows her to leave the apartment and “explore.” Still, Annie realizes, “They have no issue of imbalance between them, because they have no question, ever, about who has complete power.” Learning that her body is based on that of a real woman who died strengthens Annie's sense of self.

Annie strives to serve Doug and is wildly successful in making him happy and calm. But as his happiness soars, Annie’s contentment vanishes, and “she’s struck by a loneliness so intense it threatens to derail her.” 

No one can dole out another being’s autonomy and expect fulfillment. Anything less is worthless.

Friends and fear

 

Mother’s Instinct by Barbara Abel is spare and controlled with a cruel conclusion. Two couples, next door neighbors, have sons who soon become the best of friends. Tiphaine and Sylvain rent their home and have close family.  David and Laetitia, enduring struggles as young adults, have no close friends, but eased into a comfortable life, enjoying a friendship they regard as priceless. 

“Friendship is a source of strength no one can live without. Everyone needs friends as much as sustenance and sleep. Friendship is nourishment of the soul; it cheers our hearts, feeds our minds, fills us with joy, hope, and peace. Friendship is life’s treasure and the guarantee of a certain kind of happiness.” 

Not always and a friendship can vanish as quickly as it began. One couple has a dark side, their marriage predicated by a dark secret around how they met and the loss of her job as a pharmacist. After her son dies in an accident witnessed by the neighbor and closest friend, she cannot forgive or forget. 

As the two couples struggle to sustain the friendship, the mother of the surviving boy wonders about the sincerity of friendships built around children. Granted, the relationship predated the children’s births, but all they had ever talked about was the boys. 

The friendship deteriorates and the surviving boy’s mother feels tremendous loss:  “she realized that that the tragedy that had befallen her friends had created an unbridgeable gulf between t hem. And the gulf would always be there. Forever.”

Meanwhile, the other woman plans a perfect murder, eliminating neighbors who irritate her and offer a replacement for her dead son.   

Abel transforms a series of ordinary little domestic routines and scenes  – pizza nights, playful children, ordinary disagreements over a hedge border – into a stunning warning. Pay attention to a mother’s instinct. Assess circumstances carefully before trying to overcome a strange fear. The plot calls to mind the 1998 non-fiction book “The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect US From Violence” by Gavin de Becker. He writes: “Context is always apparent in the start of an interaction and usually apparent at the end of one, but too many details can make us lose sight of it. Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious."