Sometimes… the books I am most attached to are hardest to describe. This is one of them. Benny Oh’s father, Kenji, a jazz musician, dies when Benny is twelve. His mother Annabelle dropped out of college in library science to have Benny. And now, her heart is broken. Her job, clipping news articles for subscribers, first from print papers and later online is fast going obsolete. She is attached to a flock of crows that gather behind their house not far from the dumpster for a thrift store. Annabelle’s life gets overwhelmed by things she cannot part with just as things start to talk to Benny. Eventually, this lands him in a psychiatric ward and leads him to older friends. A young woman, The Aleph, is an artist who graduates out of the pediatric floor while he is there and turns up later. The B-Man, Slovaj, was a famous Slovenian poet but now is an old man, homeless, who rolls the street in a wheelchair, transporting bottles about and drinking far too much. He is a mentor/wise person to the Aleph and she takes care of him. Now, she starts to take care of Benny too.
The library is and has always been Benny’s place of peace. Books bring him happiness. And then, in a dreamy night, he meets his book. The one that narrates his life and he doesn’t always like that. Annabelle also finds her book, when it falls into her cart at the supermarket. “Tidy Magic” is by Aikon, a Zen Buddhist nun, who is trying to save her small temple. But Annabelle is not ready for Tidy Magic, as her hoarding and frozen state do not allow her to move on. Eventually, her kind landlady is hospitalized and her despicable son, always at odds with his mother, starts harassing Annabelle to clean up or face eviction. Benny, always close to Annabel, has always kept his space neat. Now, he is moving apart, skipping school, going to the library, disappearing and not always answering her frantic calls.
The characters in The Book of Form and Emptiness are all beautifully drawn with depth, complexity, sorrow and joy. Their relationships, some blood, some family of choice also are complex, informed by experience, perceptions of what is real and what is not, the mental health system, changes in and expectations of the outside world that jar. I was engaged every minute. The audio book was amazing. It was a sit in your car and listen for an extra half hour. This book has plenty of sorrow, but it is on the whole a feel good book about what it is like to get through really hard things, like agonizing grief, depression, feeling overwhelmed by everything, cleaning up both mentally and physically. It deserves every accolade.
They Called me Bookworm 