Slim volumes, big stories?

A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi by Aman Sethi (2012)

If you read Katherine Boo's 2012 award winning book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers , then you read the better-researched more meaty version of Sethi's book, A Free Man.

He attempts to do what Boo already did and falls short.  You meet a cast of destitute characters working, doping, drinking and sleeping on the streets of Delhi.  Consumed by tuberculosis, the lifespan is short for the homeless and it's an equally sad story as Beautiful Forevers, but less coherent with no thread woven throughout.  Because it is brief and disjointed, you aren't so invested in what happens.


Schroeder: A Novel by Amity Gaige (2013)

What happens when you love your child and because of an impending divorce, you believe the end of your relationship with your child is imminent?  Desperation intervenes where good sense used to reside.  You take off during visitation and...

But wait, that's not the entire problem.  You aren't exactly who you said you were.  Your wife doesn't know you by your real name, you have a history you tried to leave behind and the law isn't interested in  excuses.

Actually, you go by the name Kennedy.  All American, adopted when you came as a German immigrant years ago.  You made a life here, married have a daughter but did not live happily ever after.  Now, your story is being poured out in one long flashback as an apology to your wife from the correctional facility after the law caught up with you.  So we aren't wondering 'if' when we read this, but 'how?'  And since the book's moniker isn't Kennedy there are a number of 'hows' we ask throughout this short novel.

I read, therefore I am,
the lowercase b