An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Almeddine vs
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
Judge Kim Barton
I had a hard time choosing between these two books as neither one of them really jumped out at me as the clear winner. If I had to give them a star rating, I’d give each book a three. They were both beautifully written, but they each had flaws too. I liked them, but didn’t love them. In the end, I chose the book I’d be most likely to read a second time.
An Unnecessary Woman
I wanted to love this book, I really did. It started out well when Aaliyah, our 70-something year old protagonist, accidentally dyes her hair blue. She tells the reader about her collection of book translations that she’d done over the years, translations that no one has ever seen and that sit in her extra room. Then her estranged brother shows up with their mother telling Aaliyah she has to take the mother in, that he and his wife are done taking care of the aging women. The mother takes one look at Aaliyah and screams. The author sets the reader up for some big life-changing event.
And then…nothing happened for most of the book. The middle part dragged, with a few lovely vignettes, like Aaliyah and her niece washing her mother’s feet, in between her long digression about the books, authors, and philosophers she’d read. I found myself skimming, wanting to get past all that.
Her depictions of Beirut and of the war were beautifully done, but it wasn't enough for me to get past the boring middle.
A couple of weeks after I’d read the book, someone asked me about An Unnecessary Woman. I had to stop and think for a moment. What book was that? What happened? It did not leave a strong impression on me.
Shotgun Lovesongs
One thing both books have in common: home. For Aaliyah it’s Beirut and her beloved apartment. In Shotgun Lovesongs, home is a small Wisconsin town. But that’s all they have in common! Shotgun Lovesongs is also about friendship, particularly male friendship. The story, told from the point of view of each of the four friends begins and ends with the marriage of the foursome’s most famous friend, the musician who wrote the album Shotgun Lovesongs. Although rich and famous, Lee always comes back home to recuperate. He loves his small town and his friends who have stayed behind. Hank, the rancher who has never left has a wonderful wife and family.
All four men, and the one woman they have in common, tell their stories of friendship and life in a small town. At the end, a revealed secret threatens to ruin their friendships and tear the group apart. I enjoyed how the author weaved together their stories and also each person’s story as it lived in the past and the present. The scenes where the boys and then men sat on the mill tower and watched the sunrises and sunsets were beautifully done and very poignant. I also appreciate a good story about male friendship, something I don’t encounter in literature very often.
The one thing I didn't like about Shotgun Lovesongs was how each story was wrapped up neatly, and yet when something unexpected happened, it did not seem believable. The last quarter of the book lost it for me. I was unhappy with the way the author handled the reveal of the big secret. It didn't seem to fit the characters of the two men. The very last scene dragged on for much too long and then quickly became ridiculous.
Perhaps I engaged in Shotgun Lovesongs more easily than An Unnecessary Woman, because the characters were closer to me in age and I could relate to their lives. They had friends, loving families, and got out into the world to live. Aaliyah, living alone with no friends or family and subsisting on books was completely alien to me.
The Winner: Shotgun Lovesongs