Reader’s Notebook, 1/15/26

I started 2026 with two books that were recommended from a couple sources I trust. With mixed results.

American Sky – James Grady
This novel landed on the best non-fiction list of Steve Donoghue, a poster of tremendous and voluminous year end lists. Thus I was really excited to get to it, described as a muscular, coming-of-age story. It left me wanting.

The story follows Luc, a young man growing up in Montana, from roughly 1963 to 1970. As he grows, the world around him changes dramatically, from the JFK assassination to the beginning of the Vietnam War to the emerging counter culture. Grady, in great detail, takes Luc through his junior high, high school, and college years. Dates, jobs, family life, school, the things his friends and community are going through.

It was most fascinating to see how while 1960s Montana was very conservative, there was also a freedom that came with people looking the other way for things they might not approve of but felt wasn’t their business. As one example, there was an abortion clinic on Main Street, an open secret no one spent too much time worrying about because folks understood it filled an uncomfortable need. Imagine that occurring today in Montana!

Anyway, the sweep of history and how it affected people roughly my parents’ ages was compelling. But I grew tiresome with the repetition of events in Luc’s life as he aged. I think there was a very different and more compelling way to tell his story that Grady missed.

The Ten Year Affair – Erin Somers
I pulled this from a different Best Of list. It wasn’t especially original but did have a properly sensual energy throughout.

Two young parents – Cora and Sam – meet at a baby play group session. There’s immediate chemistry between them. That connection eventually teeters on the edge of becoming Something, but for various reasons is not acted upon. As their families become more intertwined, Cora has a recurring fantasy that they are carrying out an affair. She imagines all the details, down to the meals they have together, the conversations they share, and the location they use to carry out their extracurriculars. Eventually the lines between reality and fantasy are crossed and the affair is consummated. Strangely, a part of Cora is disappointed when the hotel they choose isn’t as glamorous as the one in her mental fantasy. While no one’s life is truly ruined by the fling, the end result is somewhat predictable.

Basically a story that has been written many times, but now for millennials. Congrats to them! It was interesting to read as someone older than the characters, looking back on that same period of my life. Not necessarily for the sex stuff – as far as I know the play groups I was a part of weren’t launching points for affairs – but as a reminder of how hard marriage is, how hard parenting is, how hard it is to find a career that both satisfies and pays the bills, how hard it can be to forge friendships once you leave school. And how hard it is to do all of that at the same time, the toll of one aspect of your life affecting all the others. Being an adult is tough!

There are shelves full of books about infidelity, so Somers didn’t break any new ground here. She just stretched out the Will They, Won’t They element longer than most. Which almost made it disappointing when Cora and Sam did cave. But a novel like this really wouldn’t work without the payoff, for lack of a better word, of them finally deciding it was worth putting their marriages in jeopardy and finally acting on the temptation that had been lingering there so long.