Hidden

It is a story of one day in the life of the six astronauts who are orbiting earth in the station, sixteen times every Earth day.  We watch them eat, sleep, clean up, and perform their many scientific experiments (the mice, gravity free, learn to fly). We, with them, look out the windows at the continually changing earth landscape. We also look in the other direction and see “billions upon billions of stars,” a number that is hard to imagine.

Harvey does a good job of combining the repetitiveness of the astronauts’ situation with the splendor all around them. “…the earth reels away in a mass of moonglow…the creamy light off the ocean so exquisite…the bright energetic black of space slams their senses.”

She calls herself a nature writer and her language describing what is seen is gorgeous.   I would also call her a travel writer; you can’t get much farther away. She philosophizes over the impact politics has on geography; she thinks about human nature and its continuing want for more; like all the astronauts she sees the fragility and unity of earth.

There is little plot except that which intrudes from earth.  A typhoon develops which they are asked to monitor; messages come from home which trigger memories; earth launches a spaceship to the moon.

This quiet, contemplative story is more slow-moving than I like. Nevertheless, it is important for us to know that the international space station is up there and to hear about the views from space. The book touches on important ideas, won a Booker prize, and is unusual enough to be worth taking a look at.

Artie Dam is a husband and father, a gifted schoolteacher, a man liked and respected by his peers, a competent sailor. His life is happy, but he is not.  Despite having achieved all that is expected, he is researching different ways to die. When nature obliges and he almost drowns, he learns that death isn’t what he wants, but life isn’t either. Then something additional happens, another profound jolt that further shakes his foundations.

How Artie lives the rest of his life with this new secret is the story.  He obsesses over the question of free will. There is anxiety. For the first time in his life, he attempts something illegal. There are also quiet joys; he finds a new friend, someone he can confide in. His relationship with his son becomes warm and close.  He receives unexpected kindness and returns it when he can; there is ample opportunity with his teenage students.

Strout gives us an Everyman in Artie. He is an ordinary person living a “fine” life with no hint on the surface of the struggles endured.  He is aging and worries about the state of the world. (Has anyone getting old ever thought the world was changing for the better?)

I like Elizabeth Strout because of her characters.  They’re the normal folks we meet every day who have the most extraordinary stories. I want them for my friends.

In Telling Tales, Ann Cleeves gives a detailed portrait of Emma the best friend, her new husband, and her parents and brother.  We get to know the fathers both of the murdered girl and the woman convicted of her murder.  Two of the police from the previous investigation, now retired, live nearby.  Characters speak in their own voices, and we learn their connections and secrets.  When Emma’s brother is killed, it is no longer a story about the past.

The strong parts of this mystery are the well-developed characters and atmosphere of north England. Also, this is a Vera novel, the DCI familiar to many from the tv series. Cleeves offers several possible murderers as we get to know these flawed, troubled people.  Another good mystery by a talented author.