Author Archive
What’s better than pasta? Possibly reading a dating memoir by an Italian American that includes pasta recipes?
Well, that was my hope when I grabbed I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci. Living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan in publishing (Spy, Harper’s), Melucci chronicles her love life a la Sex and the City, substituting cooking for shopping. She feels “a new boyfriend is a tantalizing opportunity to show off the thing I’m most confident about: my cooking.” For each troubled relationship, she cooks up a storm. Her cooking improves, but it’s hard to believe she learned anything in the man-selection department.
Kit is the first guy in her book. An acquaintance from her past, Kit sends her a note on the same day that she moves into her first apartment. The timing was so perfect. They hit it off immediately; they both worked in the publishing world, met interesting people and were invited to parties all over New York, which was perfect for Kit’s drinking problem. Not even her Spaghetti Carbonara (pg. 22) wins him over as gradually his drinking becomes more important than being with Giulia.
Number two is Ethan. They were perfect for each other. They loved each other’s company, had plenty in common, and he looked exactly like the man she was looking for. But it took “nine months and about twenty-seven meals to win him,” if finally sleeping together is winning. They stayed together for 3 years, but despite the Seder she cooked for him, the trips to Rome and to Venice, and the Risotto with Intricately Layered Hearts (pg. 78), Ethan would not commit. Bye bye #2.
Mitch is next. An older man, 20 years her senior, Mitch had a crush on Giulia since first seeing her. Despite their age difference there was an intense physical attraction, but his insecurities showed up and soon after the Frugal Frittata (pg. 130), he broke up with her via email.
Marcus. He wasn’t impressed by her Spaghettini in a White Truffle Oil Peignoir (pg. 164), and split to go back to his other girlfriend.
Lachlan. Meets her in the street right after she buys a new apartment. She can’t resist his Scottish accent and he almost immediately moves in. He’s passionate about her food, but his love for her Bucatini Amatriciana (pg. 217) can’t hide the fact that he’s a freeloader who travels around the world mooching off his friends while he’s writing his book. He even gets Giulia to use her publishing connections to not only get him an agent but a $110,000 contract. They last for a while mainly because she can’t admit that nothing is working. But when he returns from weeks of leeching off friends in Italy, she finally dumps him.
Uch. By the time I got to Mitch, I was bored; Marcus, annoyed, and Lachlan, completely vexed. Why did I finish? Was it the recipes? Not really. While I appreciate simple recipes, a lot of them had the same ingredients - parmigiano, a pinch of hot red pepper flakes and olive oil. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but none of them seemed that special. I guess, romantic that I am, I wanted to see who she ended up with. It looks like she ended up with herself, and fulfilling her dream of writing a book.
But isn’t that a wedding ring in her author photo?
August 3rd, 2010
Lisa - Central
I have no idea how I am going to review this book. Frederick Reiken’s Day for Night is so fantastically written, intricately complex, and incredibly sophisicated - I know I’m not going to do it justice. You’ll just have to believe me that this is a terrific book. Though I know it’s not for a lot of people, if you’re the least bit tempted, try it. Reiken is one of the most talented writers I’ve read.
So, where to start. Set in Florida, New Jersey, Utah and Israel, the novel is a series of 10 chapters, each narrated by a different character. Somehow Reiken weaves together the stories of seemingly unconnected people all with a thread of a link to a Polish man who was thought to be killed in a mass murder of 500 Jewish intellectuals as the Nazis advanced through Poland and Lithuania. We never really know if Jonah Rabinowitz was killed during this incident. But before he was killed, he acquired visas so that his daughter Beverly and his wife Hanna got out, through Japan of all places, to the United States.
Beverly narrates the first chapter. She is a lovely and mysterious pediatrician on a Florida vacation with her boyfriend, David and his son, Jordan. On their last day there, they hook up with a guide, Tim, who takes them swimming with manatees. Tim invites Bev to hear his band and introduces her to Dee, a young woman with a fabulous voice and a horribly troubled past. Jordan one summer joins his biologist father (who is suffering from leukemia) on a research trip studying coral reefs, where they meet Julia and her daughter Dara. Julia is Dee’s aunt. Tim and Dee fly together to Utah to see Dillon, who was in a horrendous motorcycle accident in Israel and whose parents brought him home. Dee and Dillon’s parents were members of a violent cult. Dee manages in Florida, but Dillon had escaped to Israel where he worked on a nature preserve. Where he met Vicki. She moved to Israel to escape the recently acquired, mold-infested home that made her desperately ill and ruined her veterinary career. Amnon is an Israeli soldier who, for most of the year, works on the preserve until he is accused of murdering a Palestinian and someone shoots and almost kills him for revenge.
Okay, you get the picture. There are several more characters with their own chapters, each of them linked somehow. What is remarkable about Reiken is that despite these disparate characters and far-reaching tales, he knits together a perfect story of the connection (Donna Seaman makes the six degrees connection) between people’s lives. Though each chapter begins with a new voice and a new tale, you are immediately pulled in to that person’s story. I found myself wanting to race to the end to find out how he was going to pull it all together, at the same time I wanted to read slowly to relish his language, his depth of knowledge of Israeli animals and manatees and coral reefs, his glorious images (manatees resting on a sunken carousel……) and his fascinating, complex characters. Fabulous.
June 18th, 2010
Lisa - Central
I heard about Stacy Horn from my friend and yours, Citizen Reader. But instead of reading Horn’s books, I went to her blog. I was smitten right away, especially since I ‘heart’ NY - where Horn lives. She posts photos she has taken during her everyday walks around the city, plus her cats, the pigeons she feeds and other cool stuff. The photos caught my eye but her writing got me coming back for more. Basically she blogs little bits about her life - lots about those cats, her singing with the Grace Church Choral Society, and lately, her job with the Census Bureau. Now that I’m just SO familiar with her life, I figured it was time to read one of her books. Having lost a few people in my life lately, I picked up Waiting for my Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoir.
From the get-go, Horn admits she’s having a midlife crisis. She’s forty-something, single, living with her two diabetic cats, addicted to TV, and her business, Echo, an online community, is failing and no one will buy it. She cannot be more than 12 hours away from her cats, since she has to administer so many medications to them. Plus she’s obsessed with death, so much so that she:
- She volunteers time weeding and cleaning a cemetery.
- She sort of believes her friend who says there’s a ghost in her apartment.
- She interviews the elderly to get their take on life and death.
But my favorite side of Horn is the time she spends poring over records in city archives (she still talks about this on her blog), investigating the identity of her ghost, and wading through the contents of someone’s ancient basement. She seems tireless in her dogged pursuit of the mystery of someone’s identity, the core of their lives, fulfilling the need she has to honor that person’s time on earth, even though they may have been dead for many years.
Her book is blog-like, with scattershot, short “chapters” on cats, death, work and music. She’s going somewhere here, taking you with her in her acceptance of growing older, ever closer to growing up, getting older, dying. However, through it all, you know she doesn’t want to die (eek, neither do I!). I couldn’t put it down; it felt like being inside the mind of a friend who’s funny, introspective, kinda wierd but in a good way, and going through the same search for the meaning of life that you are. Stacy doesn’t solve the mystery of life (dang!). But she does seem to find her own peace with the gift of the possibility of what life has to offer. And she brings you along with her.
The library has all of her books, and I’ll probably read them. I’m just afraid I might not like them as much, since they’re not about her. But in her newest, Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, she takes on a favorite subject. It’s waiting for me in my ‘To Be Read’ pile. Can’t wait.
May 27th, 2010
Lisa - Central
As mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been reading a few first novels lately. My latest two are by young women who’ve written very compelling stories. I couldn’t put either of them down.
In Love or Something Like It by television writer Deirdre Shaw, Lacey Brennan is a newspaper reporter in New York City in her late 20s. She and her twin brother Sam were raised by their father after their mother left them. Lacey meets and falls in love with Toby, a stand-up comedian, and follows him to Hollywood when he gets a job writing for television. California treats them pretty well; life is so rosy, they decide to get married. And then everything falls apart, starting with the wedding. Sam never shows and their honeymoon in Paris is ruined by the stomach flu. Back home, Toby, in quick succession loses his job, doubts his readiness for marriage, and sets up camp on the couch with his television and a marijuana pipe. Lacey, trying to save the marriage, gets her own job as a production assistant on a sitcom, and signs Toby and her up for counseling. The latter doesn’t work and Toby leaves. Lacey makes several questionable choices and for a year lives in a cloud. But her decision to move back to New York and live like a tourist until then opens her up to good things happening.
This is a well-written, insightful novel with a fun insider’s look at the television world in L.A. Shaw captured the pathos of a failing marriage and the time and emotional energy it takes to recover and move on.
Another debut novel, April and Oliver by Tess Callahan is an emotional tale about the titular soul mates. April and Buddy’s father owned a bar on Long Island, where April has worked since she was 14. She never went to college and can’t see her life beyond the bar. April has been seeing T.J., a scary, violent, manipulative man, who she has recently had served with a restraining order. When Buddy dies in an icy accident in her car, April blames herself and is overcome with grief. Oliver, April’s childhood companion, returns to New York for the funeral bringing his fiance, Bernadette, with him. A musical prodigy, Oliver turned down Juillard and instead went to Stanford; he’s returning to New York to study law. April and Oliver, though their fathers were unrelated stepbrothers, believed they were cousins, so they had always resisted their mutual attraction. But Bernadette notices the chemistry right away, and tries carefully to navigate around it. Frequently thrown together for family functions, Oliver cannot help but feel compelled to help April. Her grief and her self-destructive behavior keep him very concerned and involved. He is drawn to her against his will, and badgers her to reveal the sexual abuse he had suspected she endured as a young girl.
The story feels combustible. Is T.J. going to kill April? Will April and Oliver consummate their passion? Will Bernadette call off the engagement? Callahan has written a smoky tale of love and longing where the electricity between the main characters is palpable. Though April’s poor choices and self-destructive behavior get a bit tiring, and there may be a tad bit too much smoldering, the suspense in the novel captures you until the very end.
Two very different novels - great beginnings for two writers to watch.
April 28th, 2010
Lisa - Central
Like Mary, I really enjoy Elinor Lipman. My first experience reading her books was The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, a thoroughly enjoyable novel about a socially inept, workaholic surgical intern at a Boston hospital and the conniving loudmouth Ray Russo who pursues her. Lipman peoples her novels with clever, witty and fun people, and keeps the laughs coming.
In The Family Man, we have an entirely different story, though the same fun and laughs. Lawyer Henry Archer, the man of the title, is in fact a gay man who got divorced from his mistake of a wife after she cheated on him. Denise, the ex, has just lost her 3rd husband (Henry was the 2nd), and against his better judgment, Henry sends her a card. She immediately tries to insinuate herself into his life; she needs a lawyer desperately as her pre-nup agreement has left her with absolutely nothing. But Henry is loathe to re-friend or represent Denise. She took Thalia, her daughter who Henry adopted, away from him when she remarried and he always regretted not fighting for her.
But a chance look at a photo on Denise’s mantel reveals that Thalia is the coat check girl at the salon he frequents. He immediately makes up for lost time with Thalia who, since she is feuding with Denise, has no problem with reacquainting herself with her father. Turns out she needs a lawyer as well. A budding actress, she has just been approached by the handlers of Leif Dumont, an actor typecast as the creepy upstairs neighbor in a horror soap opera. In an attempt to change his image, the handlers are looking for a gorgeous ingenue to pretend to be dating him - they hope to get him on the gossip sheets and prove that he’s not only dateable but now Paris Hilton famous. Thalia and Henry work out a contract that would not only get her some exposure, but a year contract with Leif’s handlers.
Hilarity ensues. Secrets sworn to in the contract are revealed. Leif is a terrible actor and can’t even pull off being in love. Thalia, a great actress, is incapable of doing what the handlers want her to do. Henry can’t help but get involved obliquely in Denise’s travails. Denise ruins (with purple paint) her Fifth Ave apartment, kind of reverse real estate staging, so no one will want to buy it. And our Henry falls in love.
This is very, very fun, with quick and witty dialogue, Upper West Side New York fantasy lifestyles, and juicy, gossipy situations wrapped up in a happy ending for all.
March 11th, 2010
Lisa - Central
I am often in the market for an author I haven’t read before and to find one I sometimes troll the debut author lists in some of the journals. That’s how I came across Asta in the Wings by Jan Elizabeth Watson.
It starts in Maine, in the 1970s, where 7-year-old Asta and her 9-year-old brother Orion live with their mother, Loretta, in an isolated house in the country. Loretta seems delightful at first; she acts out movies with the children, regales them with family stories, shares her Big Movie Book with them. The kids don’t go to school, and do their lessons at home. But it doesn’t take long to realize that something is pretty wrong in the household.
Asta narrates the story. As she describes her daily life, you gradually come to realize that Loretta’s crazy. Asta and Orion believe everything Loretta tells them so they never venture outside in order to protect themselves from the plague out there and the dead bodies piled up on the side of the road. Loretta locks them in the house when she goes to work and they entertain themselves with TV, their games, and for meals, choose from unlabeled cans of food. They are used to, and like, the feeling of hunger as it is a sign that their bodies are keeping them healthy. But Asta’s optimism doesn’t hide from the reader the fact that Orion is getting very ill, maybe even starving.
Then one night, Loretta doesn’t come home. The next morning the kids leave the house, in their mother’s boots and coats as they don’t have their own, to look for her. They know so very little of the outside world, it’s amazing they manage. Asta helps herself to some sweets in a store they come across and gets kicked out. Eventually they get on a school bus, where a sympathetic driver figures out what’s going on and gets the police involved.
It turns out mom was in a car accident in blizzard the night before. Her delusional behavior is immediately apparent and she is hospitalized. The kids become famous, called “Isolates” in the news. Orion stops talking. They end up in separate households - Asta with her Aunt Bernadine, who she never met, and Orion with a kindly opthamologist and his wife. Though her situation isn’t perfect, and she misses Orion plenty, Asta manages. She pretty quickly integrates herself into her new world.
Asta is a great little character, though Watson might have given her a voice a bit older than a 7-year-old. It’s an unusual story, with an underlying tension that keeps you thinking something bad is going to happen. I found myself quite taken with the book, and always eager to pick it up again. A talented new author.
March 6th, 2010
Lisa - Central
Yay! Another great surprise of a book. I took this one with me on a weekend away, and it was just the thing I needed.
Janet Burroway’s Bridge of Sand starts out with Dana Ullman burying her Pennsylvania state senator husband on 9/11. Though ready to divorce him when they found out he was dying, she stayed with him and nursed him until the end. The coincidence of him dying so close to 9/11 (she could see the flames of United 93 on the way to the funeral) was an emotional punch, and she falls into a serious funk. Adding to her woes she learns her husband left her in debt, so she sells her house and takes what is left to head west.
But she heads to Georgia first. While packing up, she came across a photo of her grandmother who had lived there. Dana had spent 2 years with her as a teenager and worked at the local grocery store. At this point in her life, she needs to connect with something from her past. When she arrives she discovers the house is gone, replaced by a shopping mall. So she looks for people she knew back when, and the only one around is Cassius. He worked at the store, and Dana never even spoke with him; but for some reason, he agrees to meet her at the beach.
And the sparks fly. They spend a passionate few days with each other, falling deeply in love. But Cassius has to go back to work and never returns. And his ex-wife and mother of his daughter (to whom he’s devoted) sends a letter threatening to beat the *** out of Dana’s white ***, and Dana flees to Pelican Bay, Florida, where Cassius had hinted about a cabin where she could stay with his aunt Solly. Will Cassius follow her there?
Dana finds Solly, who turns out to be a white man almost-living with Trudy (the aunt). Dana rents out the cabin behind Solly’s convenience store and stays because she wants to wait for Cassius. Soon she becomes enmeshed in the small fishing community. Pelican Bay is split in two by a ’sink;’ the whites live on one side, the blacks the other. Not much, and everything, happens here. The characters are many and varied. There’s Adena, a single mom real estate agent and a master manipulator, related to Solly by marriage. Bernadette, her daughter, sullen and goth-like, who sort-of works at the store. Herbie, local handyman, in love with Bernadette. And inscrutable Trudy lets it be known that she will not be sharing any of her family’s secrets, let alone her relationship with Solly. Solly has a stroke and it’s left to Dana to run the store while he’s away. But when Solly dies and leaves the store to Dana, it is clear to her that he wanted her to decide who to give it to. Adena, dollar signs in her eyes, wants to sell to investors. Trudy just needs a place to live. Mysteries and machinations are slowly revealed. But, more importantly, does Cassius ever come?
Burroway captures the feel of the Florida panhandle and transported me away from single digit temps to the humid, drippy tropics. We get a different awareness of race as Dana’s ingrained attitudes rub up against the reality of Cassius, who easily points out the subleties us whites don’t get. And Dana is especially appealing; she is someone who is torn many times by life’s cruelties, but she maintains an openness to life and to this new world she happened onto. There is much much more to this book than I was able to include here. Each of Burroway’s words is important; I found myself rereading many sentences to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I loved this well-rendered tale of a unique locale and evolving community, of a loving and compassionate woman and the trials she encounters.
February 1st, 2010
Lisa - Central
I’ve loved Joanna Trollope since I first read The Men and the Girls way back in the early 90s. And though she’s a descendant of Anthony Trollope - I’ve not read him - yet. Joanna Trollope always writes entertainingly about some complex family problems. She looks at the social mores surrounding the various issues that arise with divorce and blended families, working mothers or even what it’s like to be a rector’s wife. With a British twist, of course.
I just finished reading her newest, Friday Nights. I can’t say it’s her best, but it was still fun to read. It’s set in London and centers around Eleanor, who was a successful hospital administrator all her life. She’s retired now and is finding that she never developed the social side of her life and is lonely. From her ground floor flat she watches as two mothers separately stroll their babies by day after day. On a whim, she invites them to her house for tea, and soon ends up with a Friday night women’s group. They watch over and take care of each other.
Paula is a single mom, the result of an affair with a married man. Lindsay became a widow before the birth of her son. She brings along her sister, Jules, a budding DJ wild child. Neighbor Blaise joins, and invites her business partner, Karen, a mother of many who can barely manage her family with her unemployed artist house-husband. They cruise along merrily as a group. Then Paula meets charming Jackson. He seems the perfect man, but, boy does he mess up this cozy group. In a meddle-y, get up in everyone’s business sort-of way. And when he goes, everyone’s changed for the better.
A quick and fun read.
January 8th, 2010
Lisa - Central
I don’t usually like historical novels, but I just finished reading one I could NOT put down. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton, a runaway bestseller in England (published there as The Shifting Fog), and a debut novel written by an Australian author, kept me up WAY past my bedtime.
Vaguely reminiscent of Atonement by Ian McEwan, Riverton is set in England between the World Wars and focuses on an aristocratic family. The story is narrated by Grace Bradley, now 98, who was a house servant at the mansion from the age of 14. Prompted by interviews she’s giving to Ursula, an American who is producing a movie about the family, Grace decides to reveal a secret she’s held her entire life. In 1924, Grace was witness to a scandalous suicide that took place during a lavish party at the estate. Though she doesn’t tell Ursula, she tapes her story for her grandson Marcus who is suffering a heartbreak.
Sent to Riverton by her mother who once worked there, Grace soon loves her position as it brings her into close contact with the nephew and nieces of Lord Ashbury, the owner of the mansion. Just about her age, David, Hannah and Emmeline occupy themselves chiefly with The Game, a fantasy amusement they record in books similar to the tiny books the Bronte siblings wrote. An only child of a distant mother, Grace is enchanted by them. But soon WWI changes everything. David, against his father’s wishes, follows his friend Robert to war. In short time David, along with Lord Ashbury and his son, are killed in France. Albert, Grace’s favorite fellow servant, returns shell shocked. The family is devastated.
As a result of Lord Asbury’s death, Hannah’s father Frederick inherits Riverton, and the family moves in. An automobile pioneer, he soon loses his shirt to American bankers as the transition from autos to war planes back to autos ruins him. And Hannah, manipulated into believing that marriage to someone with money would provide her with freedom to adventure, marries the American banker’s son, ripping her family apart. Hannah takes Grace to London with her, promoting her to a personal maid, and soon relying on her for everything.
Robert resurfaces in Hannah’s life after several years of her boring, passion-less marriage. Once she learns he’s an up and coming poet, her curiousity about her brother’s old friend is piqued and soon his artistic, restless soul is just the thing she’s looking for. They begin a torrid affair and fantasize and plot an escape; but an erroneous assumption about Grace on Hannah’s part results in a tragic mistake.
I won’t reveal more about this book. It is so rich in plot details, from Grace’s tender feelings for Albert, the mystery of her parentage, Hannah’s longing for independence, her romantic love affair, Emmeline’s wild ways, Grace’s eventual future career, even Ursula’s background, that it keeps you turning the pages. Grace is one of those characters you can’t help but love. Morton creates a suspenseful, almost gothic atmosphere in her story. Be prepared for a few sleepless nights.
January 4th, 2010
Lisa - Central
It’s a rare author who can make a political book read like fiction. Ron Suskind did. In his book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, he deals with tons of politics. Like how the Bush Administration lied to get us into the Iraq War. Like the current and scary threat of terrorists obtaining nuclear materials and constructing a bomb to use somewhere in the US. Suskind writes in depth on these two topics. But he weaves around and through them the tales of individuals who are, in their day to day life, proving in some way that Muslims and Western world can find a way to live together. And it reads like a captivating novel.
Take Usman Khosa. An idealistic Pakistani educated in a Connecticut college and working at an economic consulting firm, Usman is working towards the American dream in Washington DC. Then he gets arrested because of a misunderstanding involving the President’s motorcade and is interrogated for a full day. His faith in democracy is shaken - has he been racially profiled? When he visits to Pakistan for his sister’s wedding and finds that she has taken on the veil of fundamentalist Islam, he struggles to understand both her vision of her world as a faithful Muslim and his own place in the world, somewhere between his sisters and ours.
Then there’s Candace Gorman. She’s a lawyer representing Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi, interned at Guantanamo as an enemy combatant. She’s discovered that the evidence against him was first ruled to be too scant to hold him in the prison, only to be reclassified a month later, without additional evidence, as an EC. He’s dying untreated in Guantanamo, from what sounds like liver disease, while Candace tries her hardest to inch her way through our justice system.
Mohammad Ibrahim Frotan is an Afghani high school exchange student who makes his way to a family in Denver. He eventually befriends a fellow student who makes his transition to the US less lonely. Only to find out that she has a child - an offense that would have gotten her stoned to death in Afghanistan.
The section on Wendy Chamberlin made the most impact on me. The head of the Middle East Institute, she also worked as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In contemplating the success of the Marshall Plan she feels it was one thing the US did well - it was “the right thing to do, and when you do the right thing, you don’t ask for anything in return. You do it because it’s right, and because you can.” She wants us to work “People to people. Great waves of us - just regular people…building clinics or digging wells…carrying computers. Something, something big. America’s good at doing things. Let’s do that, something we’re good at. And ask nothing in return.” Isn’t that how most of us see us as Americans? Doing just that?
Suskind uncovers and reports on some scary stuff. He found evidence that the Bush adminstration planned to have a former Iraqi Intelligence chief forge a letter that ‘proved’ Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda. He reports in depth on Rolf Mowatt-Larssen’s attempts to monitor the global black market on nuclear materials in an effort to prevent a terrorist nuclear attack. (Okay, I admit I got a little bogged down in the thick political stuff. ) But with his tapestry of personal accounts, Suskind keeps circling back to the theme of ‘hearts and minds.’ If we can only know each other’s hearts and minds then we will be able to bridge the differences between us.
December 30th, 2009
Lisa - Central
If I were studying literature, I would have read Toni Morrison’s A Mercy at least one more time to mine all the kernels that most definitely are buried in her small, powerful story. If you’ve ever read Morrison, you know what I’m talking about. Her language is gorgeous, poetic, sparse and dense. There is much to uncover in each paragraph. I read it only once, so I know I’ve missed a lot. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate* this novel.
The story is a collage of the experiences of four women, all abandoned or orphaned, in Pre-Revolutionary America. These women also have in common that they are “owned” in some way by Jacob Vaark, a trader who acquired each of them in a different fashion. Fortunately for the women, Jacob is a decent man.
Lina, an Indian woman, was bought by Jacob after her tribe was decimated by smallpox, and manages the household. Rebekka, he marries; her family fled religious intolerance in England. Sorrow was found alone in a shipwreck. And Florens, poor Florens, was the daughter of a slave whose Portuguese owner owed Jacob a huge debt. In a Sophie’s Choice trade off, her mother begs Jacob to take Florens when her owner offers Florens’ brother in trade. (She knows Florens would soon be raped by the owner.) So Jacob has these four women; they’re not really slaves, more like servants, and they live in a sort of harmony with each other, working side by side and making allowances for each one’s idiosyncracies.
But then Jacob dies. He worked himself hard chasing the early American dream, accumulating enough money to build himself an estate much like the Portuguese’s. And then he dies of smallpox before he could move in. Soon Rebekka has the disease. Ensuing events upset the harmony of the household.
Morrison takes on so much in this novel: the role of women in a patriarchal society, slavery and racial understanding in its inception in America, social roles in a society and country in its infancy. It’s not an easy read either. Each character has her/his own chapter, and for the first few pages of each, I wasn’t sure who is doing the talking. I had to re-read many paragraphs to figure out what was going on. But at the end of it all, I couldn’t help feel that I had read a rich extraordinary story.
*Enjoy is just not the right word for a TM novel.
December 23rd, 2009
Lisa - Central
How can you really like a character in a novel, but not really enjoy the book? I found myself with that dilemma while reading Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell. I loved the main character/narrator of the story, but had a lot of trouble with the book itself.
Agnes Shanklin is a not very pretty woman raised in Ohio by her disapproving, domineering mother to doubt everything about herself. Her favorite saying to Agnes was ‘you don’t like that.’ She forced Agnes to go to Oberlin College with her sister to get herself a career as a teacher (she wanted to do settlement work). Her brother and sister did manage to escape - Ernest joined the service, and Lillie married a missionary - but the farthest Agnes got was Cleveland, where she taught in elementary school. Her biggest act of resistance was to adopt a deformed dachshund named Rosie.
Then the Great Influenza hits. Agnes loses her entire family but inherits so much money she becomes independently wealthy. After she emerges from her grief and disposes of her relatives’ estates, she decides to go to Egypt. Lillie had been there with her missionary husband and two children - all gone - and had written many letters regaling Agnes with tales of the places and people she encountered - including ‘Neddy’ Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia to you and me. Agnes takes Rosie and boards a ship to discover the area Lillie loved.
And this is where it all falls apart for me. Almost as soon as she arrives, Agnes bumps into Lawrence, and she gets invited to join in peripherally with the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference - which is attended by Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell, among others. The conference is where the current disastrous boundaries of the countries we now know as Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Palestine and Syria are to be determined and with that the ownership of the all-important oil rights. Russell finds it necessary to instruct the reader on the politics of the region (which I doubtless needed, but did I want it?) through the conversations Agnes has with Lawrence, Churchill and others. While interesting, it felt too lecture-y and the conversations were stilted and bogged down the story.
In the midst of all of this, Agnes also meets Karl Weilbacher, a German spy who had been trailing Lawrence during WWI. A handsome, charming man who loved dachshunds, Karl was upfront with Agnes about being a spy and being married. Agnes, acting on her own for the first time in her life, does not care about either. She is happy to share what information she overhears with Karl, and becomes his mistress.
So, the lecturing, the insertion of a fictional character in the action of real events, and the lackluster but frankly bizarre (I won’t spoil it) ending ruined the book for me. I would have much preferred if Agnes went on her travels and discovered Egypt as a country of interesting local people and mysterious history on her own. While I enjoy learning about history in historical novels, I don’t appreciate an Introductory History Course with my fiction. Having said that, I loved Agnes. She just had a way about her that I enjoyed. So, a mixed bag for me but if you don’t mind too much history with your fiction, this may work better for you.
November 30th, 2009
Lisa - Central
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What’s better than pasta? Possibly reading a dating memoir by an Italian American that includes pasta recipes?