The Human Condition

 In Happiness, the new novel from Aminetta Forna, the human condition is indeed explored. This elegant novel from Forna (The Memory of Love) opens with a chance encounter: Ghanaian psychiatrist Attila Asare and American urban wildlife biologist Jean Turane collide while walking across London's Waterloo Bridge. Normally dispatched to war zones for his expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder, Attila is in town to speak at a conference. Jean lives there and researches the city's foxes. After a second encounter on the bridge, Attila offers to buy Jean a drink at his hotel bar and reveals that he had a secondary reason to come to London: to locate the teenage son of a friend who might have been swept up by immigration officials. Jean volunteers to help and eventually organizes a search to find the young runaway. A diverse cast of supporting characters (many of whom are West African immigrants) and Forna's rich descriptions of London give the novel a strong sense of place. . With their professional expertise and contemplative personalities, the main characters offer wisdom on the nature of cruelty, the fear of the untamable, and the challenge of defining normality. ML

Triumph

Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time by Carissa Phelps is Carissa’s story and so much more.  By the time she was twelve she had run away from home, dropped out of school and found herself trapped in the brutal life on the streets.  After being in and out of juvenile hall the kindness of one of her teachers, as well as others, pushed her to transform herself into a graduate of UCLA with both a law and business degree.  Now she’s back on the streets helping other at-risk kids.  Her story is riveting not only because it shows you what happens to these battered and broken kids on the street but because it gives you hope that we can affect change for the better. SG