Short Takes, August 2026
- Raji Writes
- 14 hours ago
- 6 min read
Read about the runaway bestseller The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Megha Majumdar's unflinching novel A Guardian and A Thief, The Odyssey and its many incarnations, and Spiderman!
Books
The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.
I heard of this book by word of mouth, from several readers. In the words of Ann Patchett, “The only thing that sells a book is one person reads it and tells two others to read it. And that’s what she’s getting.” Evans’ debut novel has become a bestseller. How 'The Correspondent' Became This Year's Breakout Hit Novel. I found it astonishingly beautiful and riveting.
It is an epistolary novel, i.e. written in the form of letters, to and from Sybil van Antwerp, a woman in her 70’s. Through those letters, to Rosalie, her best friend and former sister-in-law, to Harry Lundy, a neurodivergent child whom she befriends, to her brother Felix and her children Bruce and Fiona, to fellow lawyers, we learn of Sybil’s professional life, her childhood, her married life, her relationship with her (grown) children. She also corresponds with writers Joan Didion, with whom she shares unimaginable loss, and Ann Patchett.
I read it in one sitting, on a San Francisco to Singapore flight, and it made the flight seem a lot shorter than the 16 hours it actually was. (Well, it also helped that there was an empty seat next to mine, and I was able to spread out quite a bit.)
The joy and comfort of deep friendships with wordless understanding, the travails of aging, the reckoning with past choices, the endless revisiting of specific events, the paralyzing losses, the what-ifs -- all of these and more, in a story told with skill and heart, made me love this book. So much so that I immediately wanted to speak with others who have read it (still pending), and even contemplated joining a book club discussion of which there are no doubt several.
Another Evans kept me company through my reading: from the aircraft's offerings, I had jazz pianist Bill Evans’ “You Must Believe in Spring” as a soundtrack on loop—also very, very beautiful.
A Guardian and A Thief, by Megha Majumdar.
Majumdar followed up her outstanding debut novel The Burning, with another short and brilliant novel. It had somehow escaped me previously that Oprah had selected it for her 2025 book club.
In a dytopian Kolkata where food is not to be found, the heat has reached unbearable levels, and fending for oneself and one’s loved ones is a free for all. In this stark backdrop, the paths of two families intersect. Longtime residents of Kolkata, Ma, Dadu and little Mishti are planning their departure to Michigan on climate visas to join Mishti’s father, Baba.
Boomba, barely twenty years of age, has left his parents and little brother Robi in their village to try and make a living in Kolkata. One hard knock after another harden his perspective and his resolve to provide for his family one way or another, to bring them over from their dire village life.
A generous billionaire lives in the hexagon on a nearby island. She is reviled for all she has amassed and enjoys as Kolkata residents struggle with shortages, heat and the travails of daily life, and yet, her handouts are sought by all for survival.
I started reading this novel and at one point had a terrible feeling that it was going to end very badly. Before setting it aside to take a break from it for a few days, uncharacteristically, I flipped to the end. (I know, I know.) A few days later, I picked it up again, and finished it the same day. It is a slim book but dense with occurrences over seven days.
Even with such concision, the characters are well-developed; we lament with them when they reach forks in their roads, share their hopes for a good outcome. Mishti, the little girl, is unforgettable with her boundless energy, her innocence, her craving for flower-flower (which is what she calls cauliflower), her childish pronouncements and her zest for life.
While the characters' motives for their actions are generally quite clear, I found myself scratching my head about Ma's telephone conversations with Baba in Michigan, in which she simply didn't tell him about all that was going on with them in Kolkata just days before Ma, Dadu and Mishti were to leave for America.
In a world depleted of basic human necessities: food, water, temperatures at which the body can survive, where every day is a struggle, what can we expect in the way of ethics, morality? Can blame be laid at the feet of those who have nothing, for choices they make to survive? Majumdar's book tackles these questions with compassion.
Films.
The Odyssey
(directed by Christopher Nolan, based on Homer's epic, starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hollan, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Jon Bernthal)
Yes, I watched it in an IMAX theater in San Diego, and yes, it was an amazing, immersive experience. Overall, I liked it, all 3 hours of it.
Tom Holland as Telemachus, Charlize Theron as Calypso, and John Leguizamo as the blind swineherd Eumaeus were my favorites. Matt Damon did an impressive job as Odysseus, but I wasn’t moved by Anne Hathaway’s Penelope.
Yes, this is a brooding Odysseus, torn by all the horrible things he did during his conquests, apparently no longer taken with the glory and spoils that were no doubt the drivers for the same horrible acts.
Funny story: I dropped in Warwick’s, the spectacular bookstore in La Jolla, San Diego, and had the rare pleasure of wandering about for a couple of hours.
I was speaking with one of the staff near the Classics section, and commented that they didn’t seem to have any copies of The Odyssey—not Fagles nor the newer Emily Wilson translation, let alone, Fitzgerald, Lattimore, etc. “Sold out completely,” she exclaimed, adding that the demand is so great that someone she knew put a hold on it at her local library, only to discover that she was 700th in line! How amusing and delightful that a movie has caused a centuries-old epic to become a bestseller.
Another story: on a road trip to Southern California, the Offspring and I had the opportunity to visit the Universal Citywalk, where they had (gasp) the Trojan horse that was used in the film, as well as the costumes worn by the major actors, inside glass cases.
In the theater, as we were wandering around, the Offspring, ever-vigilant, glanced at the folks coming in to see the show, and yelped, "Ohmygod, that's Tyriq Withers!"
Predictably, I responded with a furrowed brow and "Who??" And learned that he is a television actor. And we wandered on, celebrity sighting behind us. Only in Los Angeles. City of Angels, City of Stars, City after my own heart.
The Odyssey fever is contagious: after watching the Nolan film, and curious about other depictions, I stumbled upon a 2024 film, The Return starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope. It focuses on Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, his slaughter of Penelope’s suitors, and fraught reunion with his wife and son. As expected, exceptional acting, which made me (perhaps unfairly) downgrade my rating of Nolan’s film.
More versions to watch include the 1954 Kirk Douglas version (Ulysses) with Silvana Mangano as both Penelope and Circe, and the 1997 miniseries (The Odyssey) with Armand Assante, Greta Sachhi, Isabella Rosellini, Vanessa Williams, et al.
Spiderman, Brand New Day
(directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Bernthal, and Florence Pugh)
Right on the heels of The Odyssey, here's another film with Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal!
That Tom Holland, he sure can act, and is such a terrific Spiderman. Jon Bernthal was Menelaus, King of Sparta in The Odyssey, and here he is Frank Castle, the Punisher, delightful to watch and listen to.
After the major bummer that was the ending of No Way Home where Spiderman had to erase the memories of his love Zendaya and his best friend Ned Leeds, this one, Brand New Day, is exactly that, with hope overcoming despair. Enormously entertaining, but the trope of the only Asian in the film being the overweight best friend must not go unnoted.
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