Comprised of vivid vignettes, Chasing the King of Hearts (Feminist Press, 2017), a novel based on a true story, speeds across time and borders. Izolda is a Jewish woman in Poland who hides her identity during the Holocaust and strives to free her husband from Auschwitz. She often contemplates levels of blondness—”straw” blond hair in Jews with naturally blond hair, the ash blond she chooses to dye her brown hair, the peroxide blond of other Jews attempting to hide their identity, which she looks down on. A Gentile woman giving her temporary shelter tells her not to put her handbag on the table, which she says makes her look like a Jew—and consequently Izolda questions each gesture, expression, and minute detail—is this Jewish? Is that? She decides being Jewish is “worse” than being Polish and resolves to hide her identity after the war is over. This element of the novel is what really stuck with me, giving me visceral insight into a phenomenon I have often thought about—the post-war assimilation of Jews into Christianity or at least some vague secular non-Jewish identity. (In my own family, my grandfather changed his name from Schwartz to Szilagyi for this reason, though the name change came after the war; I wrote about that here.)

The novel bills itself as a story of survival, and Izolda’s luck and timing is often remarkable. This theme, with glances into the future when she is an elderly grandmother (and in fact no longer hiding her identity) is one of the elements that kept me hopeful as I read material guaranteed to depress. I also appreciated the afterword from Mariusz Szczygiel about the genesis of the novel and the real life Izolda, plus the afterword from Boehm on the laconic, intuitive fairy tale nature of the novel, no doubt the main reason I was so aesthetically taken with the book. The vignettes are occasionally confusing in terms of minor character, where Izolda is going, what she is trading for what (tobacco? sheets? stockings?), but I think it’s supposed to be confusing and if you go with the flow as in a fairy tale, it’s not a major stumbling block. In all, it’s an urgent book that I recommend!

The physical object that is Teffi's Subtly Worded elicits in me a desire for extravagance. The texture of the cover, the deckled edge pages, the small purse-sized shape, the delectable bird pulling upon the woman's hat ribbon—it is all delicious. (I have confessed here to hugging bookcases before; I also hug books.) Content-wise, I was intrigued with what perspectives Teffi, a Russian who fled the Revolution for France and has been compared to Chekhov, might offer.It took me a few years to get through this collection, however. The prose is gorgeous, and I don't fully understand why I couldn't connect with these stories more. They seemed to lack a certain undercurrent. Perhaps they demand rereading. I did not enjoy Chekhov's "Gusev" initially; I only came around on that story when rereading.I decided to finally finish Subtly Worded this past New Year's Eve. Michael and I went to the Fireside Lounge at the Hotel Sorrento (which is one of my favorite places in Seattle; check out their monthly Silent Reading Party). Our waitress had a wholesome yet aristocratic look about her in a cream-colored silk blouse; it seemed somehow fitting to the world of Teffi. There was live jazz and a roaring fire. And a chanteuse with a melodica, which she defined as the love child of an accordion and harmonica. Michael read Hanna Krall's Chasing the King of Hearts, which he adored (another book to add to my WIT pile). My cocktail tasted like chocolate and pine-sap."And Time Was No More," my favorite story in Subtly Worded, is set in a cabin in the woods and moves with a dreamy end-of-life nostalgia. I wanted to copy out nearly every luscious paragraph. Here's one that sums up the theme and impressionistic atmosphere:

"Sunset, on the other hand, is always sad. It may be voluptuous and opulent, and as richly sated as an Assyrian king, but it is always sad, always solemn. It is the death of the day."

In the hotel lounge, a young woman strutted her newfound charms (plunging neckline, stilettos) beside her parents. Meanwhile, in Teffi: "At least once in your life you should hear a fox singing."The story turns quite philosophical. A mysterious hunter tells the narrator, "Just think of me as a composite character from your previous life." The philosophical conversation between hunter and narrator got to be a bit too much, but the conceit, this sort of last-day-on-earth mélange of memory, did stick with me. Plus who doesn't want to hear a fox singing?

The term "dumpster fire" has been used in reference to 2017 at least several million times. At one point in October, I considered taking some classes on how to cope with anxiety and insomnia that were organized specifically in response to our collective ongoing sense of doom. I didn't though—because I was overwhelmed! Ha.Despite everything, I need to celebrate 2017 on a personal level. Daughters of the Air, which I'd toiled over for years, finally came out, and people are reading it and telling me they are enjoying it! Michael and I celebrated the holiday season with candles and latkes and lights and dim sum and snow (!) and The Shape of Water (a beautiful love story!) and chocolate peanut butter pie and New Year's Eve back at the Hotel Sorrento's Fireside Lounge for reading (me, Teffi's Subtly Worded, him Hanna Krall's Chasing the King of Hearts, which I'm happily adding to my Women in Translation Month queue), writing, live jazz, people watching, and bubbles. What more could I ask for?The day after Shelf Awareness called Daughters "a striking debut from a writer to watch," The Seattle Review of Books included it among five Seattle novels that made Paul Constant's year:

Anca Szilágyi’s Daughters of the Air is a fantastic debut — a magical realist fairy tale set in gritty New York City. It’s the kind of book that leaves you utterly confounded at the end, as you try to remember all the twists and turns that you took along the way. It feels like an impossible book, somehow — a product of alchemy, a creation of unearthly talents.

Wow! The book hasn't been panned yet, but when it does, I'll hang on to these two reviews for dear life. I was also super happy to see Tara Atkinson's novella Boyfriends included in the end-of-year list; I gobbled it one sitting and highly recommend it.Yesterday afternoon, I was thrilled to see The Seattle Times reviewed Daughters too—my first review in a major American newspaper!

Anca L. Szilágyi’s intense debut novel, "Daughters of the Air," locates a deeply personal story against the surreal backdrop of [Argentina's Dirty War].

  [gallery ids="4953,4952" type="rectangular"]I'll be moseying up to a newsstand later today so I can rustle up the paper and feel the newsprint on my fingers.In other news...

• Every year, I strive to collect 100 rejections. (Why? See this wonderful Lit Hub article by Kim Liao.) In 2016, I made it to 106, plus eight acceptances. In 2017, I garnered 93 rejections and 16 acceptances. This is actually bad in terms of my other annual goal, which is to be rejected 90% of the time. I need to aim higher.
• There are just four spots left in my online Fiction II class at Hugo House, which begins on January 14. You can sign up here.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this longer-than-usual blog post! As a gift, here is a Goodreads giveaway for you. Already read Daughters? Leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or Powell's would help spread the word! You can do this regardless of how you obtained the book (other bookstores, my publisher, the library, and all that fun stuff).Onward!