Books that “fall out of time” — and back in again
Tom Ricks, Yuan Yang, and Liu Cixin journey through our fractured world
We’re nearing a day when Americans at large may finally care about politics: the unseasonably early debate between President Biden and former president Trump. The CNN debate June 27 is being carried by other networks—even its cable TV competitors—and will be hard to miss for those who still use old-style linear TV.
But it’s also summer, when many people take time off, so I recommend three books I have read recently. They are new and old, fiction and nonfiction, from authors on three different continents! But all suit this moment. Each one takes you away to new and unexpected corners of the world—while also seeming to comment on the news.
In keeping with the theme of this Substack, each of the stories turns on our social divides—between rural and urban, between formally educated and less so, or between subcultures. In that way, each of them relates to another bit of summer reading, my short biography Lincoln, as told through his meetings with people who disagreed with him.
The books are:
Everyone Knows But You by Tom Ricks
Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Read on to see how they’re connected.
Everyone Knows But You is a thriller by Tom Ricks, who’s better known for nonfiction writing. FBI agent Ryan Tapia is assigned to work in a remote part of coastal Maine, a dead end for anyone in his profession. When a body washes up on federal land, Ryan is obliged to investigate. This draws him into the insular world (literally and figuratively) of an island populated by Maine fishermen who have worked their traps for generations.
This summer getaway draws the reader out to picturesque docks and onto the water. It’s also relevant to our moment—because as the title would suggest, the mystery compels Ryan to learn about a community of Americans who distrust authority, have their own beliefs and customs, and don’t expect outsiders to understand. Other Americans see their world without seeing; tourists pass through without knowing the community or even what’s in the “lobster-y” rolls they overpay for.
The FBI agent has come to Maine after a personal tragedy that left him unmoored and foggy in the head. This aspect of the story becomes even more compelling when you know the backstory of the author, who’s a friend. Ricks’ reporting on the U.S. military twice received the Pulitzer, and his books on the Iraq war received wide attention. But as he has written, he “fell out of time,” suffering long-term symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Part of his recovery involved moving to Maine.
A good thing about Tom’s writing in any genre is that you can hear him telling the story; you hear him talking. This is true in his nonfiction, his history, and his fiction.
The next two books take us farther afield—first to China, and then to Alpha Centauri: Private Revolutions and The Three-Body Problem.
Private Revolutions is by Yuan Yang—and as with Tom Ricks, her personal story lies just below the surface. Born in China in 1990, she spent some of her early years living away from her parents. Her grandparents took her in while her mother was working and her father was studying computer science in the UK. When Yuan was four, the whole family emigrated to the UK. Now in her mid-thirties, she is running for parliament as a candidate for the Labour Party, which is heavily favored to capture a majority in the election July 4.
In the years between her migration and her brand-new political career, Yang became a journalist for the Financial Times and returned to China. There, she gathered the material for her nonfiction book about four women very much like herself—millennials from families of modest backgrounds, who fought their way up as China’s economy rose. One of her characters, June, spent her early years in a village that was a three-hour walk from the nearest paved road. Eventually June found tech work in Beijing, having crossed some of the world’s great divides—between rural and urban, developed and undeveloped, educated and not. Now Yang’s four main characters approach the middle years of their lives, just in time for China’s economic slowdown and uncertain future.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin is a novel from 2014 that came to my attention this spring because of the Netflix series that’s based on the book and its sequels. While in China for NPR last spring, we proposed to interview the author; it didn’t work out, but I started reading the book, and after my return discovered that one of my kids was a devotee (and declined to discuss it until I finished, so as not to ruin the ending).
The story begins vividly, during China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s. We witness students and activists abusing a university professor. It’s populism! But it’s a peculiar form of top-down populism in which Mao Tse-tung, the charismatic leader of China’s Communist Revolution, has encouraged his followers to prove their devotion by tormenting the educated elites. The populists attack science, and scientific theory; they imagine that such theories contain hidden symbolism and conspiracies against their leader’s ideology. It’s a fictional but arresting passage, illuminating to read in 2024.
The story soon moves forward in time and space; and while I am reluctant to give away much, it’s well known that the humans in the book come to contemplate the approach of an alien invasion. The news unites the nations of the world in their common defense, but also divides the people of the world. Some scramble to turn this development to their advantage—while an influential few root for humanity’s destruction. In many cases the social background of a person influences the course they choose.
All three of these books take me away from the present, then return me with a fresh perspective.
Thanks for reading Differ We Must, a companion to my book of the same name. If your summer reading runs to history, my biography of Lincoln is on sale everywhere.
Thank you, Steve. Not to self promote; ok maybe a little: You might even like my book that is going up now here: https://marytabor.substack.com/s/who-by-fire-a-novel Take a gander. Anyway, excellent recs. ~ Mary