Social Blunderer

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Wow! What a memoir. One of the most readable books I have read this year. Ypi writes with clarity and conciseness that is just a pleasure to behold. That isn’t to say that there are not beautiful sentences because there are. The passages describing the civil war are powerful and elegant.

Comparisons to Educated by Tara Westover are apt, but the book also reminded me of The Death of Stalin. The strange and oppressive rules that families living under a dictatorship must abide by. The often funny and farcical situations that arise in both social and professional settings as a result. The coded double-speak and fear of informers influences everything that happens in Ypi’s young life. They are also far too often deadly serious. The section about Lea complaining to neighbours about a lack of Hoxha portrait was nail-bitingly scary. Ypi’s parents hid their true feelings about the regime so well that she believed that they loved it.

Her parents are described with love. Their resilience and industriousness make them admirable, but they have flaws that are also laid bare. Ypi”s mother hates the state and to me came across as an almost Ayn Rand-ish free-market advocate, while her father is an idealist that that dithers. Having to navigate adolescence in a country that goes from dictatorship to democracy is a clever metaphor for the uncertainty of going from childhood to adulthood.

The book ends by asking more questions than it answers. It is a plea for political decisions to be made in a way that keeps in mind that they affect real people. I think the central question is can flawed people devise a way of living that makes us free?

Maybe the best memoir I have read this year and certainly one of the best books of 2021.

Buy the book via this link. They kick me some money!

Fizzing with humour Black Buck is full of dynamic prose. As a satire, it balances earnestness and cynicism almost flawlessly. I love a running gag and Buck being likened to different famous African Americans was cringe-inducingly delightful. Asksaripour’s writing in some ways oddly reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s socioeconomic commentary in the Discworld books. The satire here is firmly aimed at the people in power and the systems they operate in.

It is easy to see this book adapted to the big screen. If it was the 80’s/90’s it would be easy to see Buck being played by a young Eddie Murphy. The novel has vibes from Brewster’s Millions, Trading Places and more recent takedowns of big business such as The Big Short.

The book is not without its flaw. It only really picks up steam and get flying in the middle. The final chapters saw some key characters making decisions that felt less driven by any consistent emotional or logical rationale but rather by Asksaripour’s need to place character’s at certain locations.

Despite this, I had an exceedingly fun time reading Black Buck. Very Highly recommended.