WHO’S DELUSIONAL? THE INVISIBLE HUSBAND OF FRICK ISLAND

I’m a big fan of quirky books, the kind that look at the world with a slightly askew viewpoint and present oddball characters in somewhat bizarre plots. Sure, there’s a time and place for books that promise something and deliver exactly that thing, but I have a soft spot for books that surprise me, especially if they’re written with a lot of charm and feature characters you want to shake but also want to see succeed.  Such a book is The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, by Colleen Oakley.

At the heart of the book are two people, Piper Parrish and Anders Caldwell.  Piper is a resident of the small, isolated Frick Island, where the population is declining and the main industry, crab fishing, is declining even faster.  She’s happily married to Tom, a reluctant waterman who’s following in his father’s footsteps, and is a beloved character in a community with lots of odd characters.  Then one day her husband’s boat capsizes in a storm, and his body isn’t found. The people of the island know what that means, but Piper refuses to accept that her husband is dead. Instead, she returns to her job at the local inn and speaks of her husband as if he were there beside her, or going out on his boat, or meeting her for dinner.   And the people of the town, after an initial period of surprise, go along with her, greeting Tom as if they saw him and referring to him as if he were alive.

Enter Anders, an endearing character who has spent his young life wanting to be a great reporter. How can you not love someone whose hero is Clark Kent, not because Kent can turn into Superman, but because he’s such a great reporter?  Anders had hoped for a more brilliant career than the one he’s currently stuck in; he thought he would be writing for The New York Times by now instead of writing articles on local events for a small town newspaper.  True, he did start a podcast, but there are few people listening to it and the only one who regularly comments on it is his stepfather.  Not exactly the kind of success he’s been dreaming of.

He’s sent to remote Frick Island to report on their Cake Walk fundraiser, but he finds out about Piper and her invisible husband, and his curiosity is roused. He starts talking about the situation on his podcast, and, to his surprise, he starts getting more subscribers, and the numbers increase as he investigates and reports more about what he sees as the crazy situation there.

You have an idea of where this is going, and you’re partly right.  He’s keeping his podcast a secret from the people of the island (an easy thing to do when there’s virtually no computers and no wifi), and sooner or later Piper is going to find out about it and hear it, and she is not going to be happy, especially since she and Anders have been growing closer to each other as he spends more time on the island.

But that’s not the whole story, and along the way there are all sorts of interesting questions raised.  Why is everybody acting as if Tom is still alive?  Who is the mysterious person Piper is meeting and talking to?  Why did someone suggest that Tom’s death wasn’t an accident?  Who sent Anders the email that alerted him to what was really going on with the island?  Who burned Tom’s boat after his death?  What is all that stuff in Lady Judy’s attic and what is she doing with it?  What was actually going on between Tom and Piper the night before his disappearance?  

You root for these characters, all of them.  You want to see the island preserved from the ravages of climate change.  You want to see a happy ever after for Anders and Piper (come on, you know that’s where this story is going).  You want a resolution to the issue of Tom’s death and Piper’s realization of his death.  

What you get is a satisfying ending that brings everything together, and a memorable, funny, quirky book that’s an entertaining read all around.

THE GHOST OF NEW YORK YET TO COME: NEW YORK 2140

One of the greatest gifts of speculative fiction is the ability of its best authors to extrapolate from the present to imagine, and bring to life, what could result from the continuation of present trends.  Kim Stanley Robinson, an acclaimed science fiction author who has won just about every award possible in the field, has taken on the issue of global climate change in his latest book, New York 2140, and presents us with an eye-opening view of what could happen to New York City in the aftermath of catastrophic oceanic rise brought about by climate change.

In New York 2140, coastal areas all over the world have been inundated by rising ocean waters, and New York City is no longer just one island, but a multitude of islands separated by canals, with only the highest portions of skyscrapers above the water.  It’s still New York City, still a melting pot filled with energy and life, but it’s a very different kind of city now.

The way Robinson shows us the new world is by taking us through one skyscraper and the people who live in it: police officers, lawyers, market traders, coders, building superintendents, internet stars, orphans, readers.  He twines their lives together and, through these characters, looks at animal extinctions, immigration, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and other issues all too relevant today. The diversity of the characters and the complexity of their interactions makes it feel very much like a portrait of New York City, or of a New York City that could be in the plausible future.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come if the visions shown him are of what will be or what might be.  One could ask the same question of Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, and hope the answer will be the same, and that we can change before New York 2140 becomes a portrait of reality.