Historically, summer has been a season for slowing down, planning for the next academic year and even getting a little time away from the office. Of course, we all know by now this has not been a typical summer. If yours has been like mine, you know work has done anything but slow down and plans for the next academic year continue to be adjusted as the virus persists. Time away from the office mostly entails taking the dog on long walks and the occasional weekend hike. While my social life may be “suffering” from all this physical distancing at home, I have had plenty of time to work through my summer reading list. With everything going on in our world right now, I found myself rethinking the books I might normally pull off the shelf — I wanted to engage with material that is in conversation with our time. I found books by past literary greats that spoke with surprising clarity and discernment about our duel pandemics of racism and novel coronavirus. From my bookshelf to yours, here are just a few books on my summer reading list.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me,”
“Invisible Man” is a classic American novel about the Black experience and was recently recommended in The Seattle Times by UW Professor Emeritus Charles Johnson — who incidentally won the National Book Award for fiction in 1990 for the classic “Middle Passage.” I first read “Invisible Man” in high school, but as a white, middle-class male, the novel really did not resonate. I am guessing I might not have been the only white high schooler to feel this way. If this was your experience, I would highly recommend revisiting this work. Ellison’s prose is as relevant today as they were in the 1940s. He chronicles the life of a young, nameless Black man as he attempts to navigate racism, intolerance and cultural blindness in the deep South and New York City.
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis’ Pulitzer Prize winning work speaks with an uncanny clarity during a global pandemic almost a century after its publication. The novel follows young Martin Arrowsmith as he struggles to decide whether to embark on a career in research or as a clinical physician. The parallels between the challenges Arrowsmith and his colleagues face (resistance to wearing masks, anti-vaccination, the use of unproven remedies), and those raised by the current pandemic almost a century later are both eerie and confounding.
Interestingly, although Lewis won the Pultizer Prize for “Arrowsmith,” he refused the prize winnings in part because he felt he should have been honored for a previous novel: “Main Street.”
Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu
UW professor of English (and sometimes golfing partner) Shawn Wong recommended this book during a campus lecture on the classic Japanese-American novel “No No Boy” which I attended with my wife Tina just before the COVID-19 shutdown. Recently republished by the University of Washington Press, “Eat a Bowl of Tea” is praised as the first novel to authentically portray everyday life in an American Chinatown circa mid-20th century New York City. Chu’s novel spotlights the consequences for many Chinese men in the U.S. who were separated from their wives and families due to the 1924 Chinese Exclusion Act and Immigration Act. The story explores intergenerational conflict, gender relations and life in a highly isolated environment through the story of a newlywed couple navigating their tight-knit community’s expectations.
Honorable Mention
When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss
Confession: I read this one earlier in the year, but it was such a fascinating read I’m recommending it for your summer reading list anyway. If you are a professional football fan of a certain age, you might feel that you know plenty about Vince Lombardi. I certainly did. But Maraniss’s work made me rethink much of what I thought I knew about this football legend. He turned out to be a lot more nuanced and frankly ahead of his time than the “old school” stereotype portrayed in sports media. Even if you aren’t a football fan, this is one of the best biographies I’ve read and the definitive take on the life of the man for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named.