Facing History – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.24 LOVERS AT THE CHAMELEON CLUB, PARIS 1932 by Francine Prose /2014/lovers-at-the-chameleon-club-paris-1932-by-francine-prose/ Tue, 22 Apr 2014 13:05:02 +0000 /?p=25629 Book Quote:

“Dear parents,

Last night I visited a club in Montparnasse where the men dress as women and the women as men. Papa would have loved it. And Mama’s face would have crinkled in that special smile she has for Papa’s passion for everything French.

The place is called the Chameleon Club. It’s a few steps down from the street. You need a password to get in. The password is: Police! Open up! The customers find it amusing.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (APR 22, 2014)

Early on in Francine Prose’s richly imagined and intricately constructed tour de force, Yvonne – the proprietress of the Parisian Chameleon Club –tells a story about her pet lizard, Darius. “One night I was working out front. My friend, a German admiral whose name you would know, let himself into my office and put my darling Darius on my paisley shawl. He died, exhausted by the strain of turning all those colors.”

History – and the people who compose it – is itself a chameleon, subject to multiple interpretations. Ms. Prose seems less interested in exploring “what is the truth” and more intrigued with the question, “Is there truth?”

The title derives from a photograph that defined the career of the fictional photographer, Gabor Tsenyl: two female lovers lean towards each other at the Chameleon Club table. His is one of five narratives that punctuate the novel. The showcase narrative – written as a biography by the grand-niece of one of the participants – focuses on Lou Villars, a one-time Olympic hopeful and scandalous cross-dresser who crosses over to the dark side and becomes a Nazi collaborator. The other four narratives are composed of devoted letters from Gabor to his parents; the unpublished memoirs of Suzanne, his wife; excerpts from a book by the libertine expatriate writer Lionel Maine; and finally, the memoirs of a benefactor of the arts, Baroness Lily de Rossignol. Each narrative plays off the others and provides subtle suggestions that the other narratives may not be entirely accurate.

What is the truth of this intoxicating time, when artists of all kinds gravitated to the Paris scene and when war with Germany was an increasingly sober possibility? Francine Prose suggests that the truth is fluid. Reportedly, Lou Villars was inspired by a real person named Violette Morris. There are more than a few hints of Peggy Guggenheim in Lily de Rossignol and Lionel Maine bears a resemblance to Henry Miller. How much is fact and how much is fiction?

And once the reader gets over that hurdle, how much of what is revealed by the fictional characters is distorted through their own lens? How much of that is truth and how much is perception? Can we ever know the real person who lurks behind the mask? As Francine Prose writes, “The self who touches and is touched in the dark ,between the sheets, is not the same self who gets up in the morning and goes out to buy coffee and croissants.

I’ve said little about plot and that’s deliberate: the unfolding of the plot is for each reader to discover himself or herself. I will say this: the writing is exquisite and in my opinion, elevates an already talented contemporary writer to entirely new levels. The ending is breathtaking in its audacity. The setting – Paris in the late 1920s – is mesmerizing. The themes touch on universal matters: getting in touch with our authentic selves, crossing society-imposed gender barriers, understanding the fluidness of morality, searching for love and approval in dangerous places, making sacrifices for art, and discovering that history is not immutable, but changes depending on who tells it.

I read Lovers at the Chameleon Club directly after another very disparate book: Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird. Interestingly, both tackle the meaning of truth from very different yet unique angles. This is a stunning book and I enthusiastically recommend it.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 13 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper (April 22, 2014)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Francine Prose
EXTRAS: Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

More 1920s Paris:

Bibliography:

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]]> BURIAL RITES by Hannah Kent /2014/burial-rites-by-hannah-kent/ Thu, 10 Apr 2014 12:55:58 +0000 /?p=25743 Book Quote:

“I hope they will leave some men behind, to make sure she doesn’t kill us in our sleep.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (APR 10, 2014)

Twenty-eight-year-old Australian author Hannah Kent spent time in Iceland while in high school, chosen because she wanted to see snow for the first time. She fell in love with this island country south of the Arctic Circle, and returned several times to do extensive research on Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be beheaded in Iceland, in 1829. Kent imagined the interior psychological states of various characters, especially the enigmatically alluring Agnes, and has successfully penned a suspenseful fiction tale that transcends the outcome. It reveals a complex love triangle and double murder, and a provocative examination of the religious and social mores of the time. Knowing the fate of Agnes prior to reading the novel won’t change the reader’s absorption of the novel. The strong themes hinge on the backstory and viewpoints that are woven in and reveal characters that go through a change of perception as the circumstances of the crime come to light.

Each chapter begins with official or private correspondence or testimony, which reflects the judicial process and established standards of the time, which was then under Danish rule. The title refers to whether the dead are fit to be buried on consecrated ground. Agnes is sent to northwest Iceland, to stay with the district officer, his wife, and two daughters, pending her execution. The family members are outraged at first, some more than others. The farmers in the area are also hostile to her. Over time, as her story unfolds, I became emotionally engaged with Agnes, and touched by the young cleric, Toti, Agnes’ appointed spiritual advisor.

Kent is a poetic writer, whose descriptions of a grim, harsh, bleak landscape and a socially rigid terrain are told with a striking beauty.

“Now we are riding across Iceland’s north, across this black island washing in its waters, sulking in its ocean. Chasing our shadows across the mountain.”

“They have strapped me to the saddle like a corpse being taken to the burial ground.”

“…waiting for the ground to unfreeze before they can pocket me in the earth like a stone.”

The restrained savagery and cruel irony reflects in those that persecute Agnes and accept the official story of her acts as gospel. The gradual overtures of Toti and certain members of the family were organically developed, allowing for tension and intimacy in equal measure. The slight stumbling block for me was accepting Agnes’ relationship with her lover, Natan, one of the men she is convicted of killing. I understand that very smart women can often make poor choices in men; however, Agnes was depicted as a self-contained woman. I had a difficult time accepting her bottomless apology for Nathan’s consummate cruelty and selfish barbarity.

Despite my tenuous acceptance of Agnes’ love for Natan, I did register the isolated, punishing terrain of 19th century Iceland, especially in the winter months, when loneliness was crushing, and reaching out for companionship a pressing need. The landscape came alive as a character, and Kent folded in an Icelandic Burial Hymn and bits and pieces of the Nordic sagas and myths, such as “I was worst to the one I loved best.” Poet-Rosa, who also loved Natan as passionately as Agnes, writes a bitter poem to her. (Interestingly, I have just read the first 80 pages of the Laxness novel of Icelandic sheep farmers, Independent People, in which a character named poet-Rosa is described.)

This is an impressive debut novel, easily read in a few sittings. The point-of-view shifts back and forth from third to first skillfully. By the end of the novel, I was able to answer the question of whether a condemned life can have meaning, and whether the person who is condemned can change the perceptions of others –for the better. I will be looking out for Kent’s next novel.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 699 readers
PUBLISHER: Back Bay Books (April 1, 2014)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Hannah Kent
EXTRAS: Interview and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> RAISING STEAM by Terry Pratchett /2014/raising-steam-by-terry-pratchett/ Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:11:27 +0000 /?p=26043 Book Quote:

“… the man to whom you refer is a master of every martial art ever conceived. In fact he conceived of most of them himself and is the only known master of the de’ja’ fu*. He can throw a punch into the air and it will follow you home and smack you in the face when you open your own front door. He is known as Lu-Tze, a name that strikes fear in those who don’t know how to pronounce it, let alone spell it.

* A discipline where the hands move in time as well as in space, the exponent twisting space behind his own back whilst doing so.”

Book Review:

Review by Bill Brody  (APR 5, 2014)

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett is a book in his marvellous Discworld series. As in all the books of this series, Sir Pratchett spins an immensely readable yarn centered on the impact of an idea, an invention or the like into Discworld society. The ideas he’s tackled include the introduction of paper money; the post office; telegraph; deity, religion, and the corruptible priesthood; warfare rooted in ages-old history; terrorism; and in Raising Steam, the introduction of the steam locomotive. His characters are satirical and humorous, often takes on historical and literary icons, from Machiavelli’s Prince to LoTze to Don Giovanni. Discworld is unlike our own on the surface, but seen through Pratchett’s satirical lens, the reader finds hilarious commentary on our own world and its foibles. His impressive social intelligence and wicked sense of humor make for an engaging read.

Raising Steam is about the invention of the steam engine and the attendant implications in Discworld society. The inventor is Dick Simnel, a young man, clearly modelled on a Scots engineer, impenetrable accent and all, who employs a rational and disciplined process to create Discworld’s first steam powered locomotive. Dick goes to the capital to seek funding from Harry King (king of night soil and other smelly endeavors), a wealthy entrepreneur with a history of getting things done, legality be damned. The whole prospect of change engages the interest of Lord Vetiari, a professional assassin and machiavellian lord of the country. Vetinari is a tyrant, but he requires that all the different species (dwarves, trolls, goblins and so forth) of his country be treated alike as sapient creatures. Lord Vetanari engages Moist von Lipwig, his manager of the Post Office, the Mint, and the State Bank to manage the new enterprise. Moist von Lipwig was chosen by Vetanari because his gift for larceny makes him uniquely capable of managing it in others. Lipwig is managed by Vetanari by threat of torture and because he really enjoys living on the larcenous edge under impossible demands. Moist is the central character to this story.

The train becomes a successful enterprise. A cabal of dwarf rebels is trying to bar the entry of dwarves into the larger society. They want to literally derail the train as it makes its first trip to the land that is home to the vampires, one of whom is Vetinari’s lady love. The dwarf cabal sound suspiciously like fundamentalist religious terrorists in our world. Dick is continually improving on his beloved steam engine, Iron Girder. Moist resolves one impossible demand from Vertinari after another with wit, subterfuge and beguiling dishonesty.

There are goblins (a smell that is unbelieveable, but you stop noticing after a while, and they are marvellously good at coding and decoding as well a very handy with all sorts of metalwork) , dwarves (only a dwarf can tell the difference between a male and a female and they both have long beards) , trolls (one of whom is a lawyer, and others are on the police force), werewolves (one of whom is on the police force as a gesture to diversity), vampires, golems and more. All these creatures of fantasy are intensely human, filled with human flaws and foibles with surprising depths of warmth, loyalty and sometimes cruelty and evil.

As with all the Discworld series, the premise entails taking an idea to its logical and absurd conclusions in the setting of a fantasy world that reflects on our own. Raising Steam takes on the Industrial Revolution and does an admirable job of it. Pratchett is a true master. He writes with elan and great skill. His ideas are gut-busting funny and trenchant satire on our world. He is an antidote to prissy and snobbish “art” writing. The work is intelligent, and totally readable. One small quibble; I wish the author had focused on a more limited cast of characters in this novel, rather than bring in so many from the richly imagined Discworld. Regardless of this, I strongly urge you to read him and then go out and read some more.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 191 readers
PUBLISHER: Doubleday (March 18, 2014)
REVIEWER: Bill Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Terry Pratchett
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

The Disc World Series:

Other Books:

For Young Adults:

The Tiffany Aching Series- For Young Adults:

More Young Adults;

For Children:

Johnny Maxwell books:

Collaborations:

]]> BEAUTIFUL RUINS by Jess Walter /2014/beautiful-ruins-by-jess-walter/ Sun, 16 Mar 2014 14:05:04 +0000 /?p=23895 Book Quote:

“After she disappeared inside the hotel, Pasquale entertained the unwieldy thought that he’d somehow summoned her, that after years of living in this place, after months of grief and loneliness and waiting for Americans, he’d created this woman from old bits of cinema and books, from the lost artifacts and ruins of his dreams, from his epic, enduring solitude.“

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (MAR 16, 2014)

After looking up various images of the 1963 movie Cleopatra, the film that critically bombed but was lit up by the scandal of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, I saw a coastline of Italy that looked exactly like the cover of this book. It is a most felicitous cover that captures the mood and time that this novel begins, in 1962. A parochial innkeeper, Pasquali Tursi, lives in a rocky coastline village called Porto Vergogna (Port of Shame), a place the size of a thumb between two mountains, and referred to as “the whore’s crack.”

One day, Pasquali is stunned by the vision of a young, striking, blonde American actress, Dee Moray and baffled as to why she is staying at his inn. He learns that she is sick, and waiting for the famous publicity agent, Michael Deane, to take her to Switzerland for treatment. She stays at the ramshackle inn for a few days. Walter depicts their friendship with exquisite wistfulness and beauty. Her Italian and his English are as rocky as the cliffs surrounding the village, but a meeting of the souls eclipses language. On an outing together, they climb the cliffs high above the Ligurian Sea so that Pasquali can show Dee five frescoes painted on the wall inside a machine-gun pillbox bunker left over from World War II. At this scene, I almost wept. These frescoes become the most poignant visual metaphor of the book.

Alvis Bender, an American writer with writer’s block, traumatized from his experience in the war, stays at the inn annually, and has left his one devastating chapter in the drawer in Dee’s room. It is an astonishing chapter, one of the highlights of the novel. It is a treat to witness the variety of stories that make up Walter’s one larger story.

The novel alternates non-linearly from 1962 to contemporary time in Hollywood, Calfornia, where Claire Silver, a scholar of film archives, works for the now legendary film producer Michael Deane. Claire is on the cusp of quitting her job and leaving her boyfriend, and is suffering from several regrets. She is braced for another insipid film pitch when she receives a surprising visitor.

In this pensive, reflective, aesthetically pleasing, and geographically stunning story, we meet a disparate cast of characters that are ultimately linked. There’s also a washed-up rock musician, a frustrated screenwriter, and a cameo appearance by a certain alcoholic son of a Welsh coal miner–a brief but rollicking insertion of a true-to-life legend that is so spectacular and credible, it almost outshines the rest of the book. But the rest of the novel is exquisite, so that the scenes in repose combine with eye-popping chapters, and give the book a sublime balance.

The story has an undulating, timeless presence. Patience is rewarded, as it ascends toward its peak with a languid pace. The outcome may be a little too neat for some readers, but it is a minor flaw that is incidental to the mature and subtle elegance rendered on every page. As time passes, it continues to echo with its alluring characters, resonating themes, and delicate visual beauty and symmetry.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 1,407 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jess Walter
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Other:

 

]]> REDEMPTION MOUNTAIN by Gerry FitzGerald /2014/redemption-mountain-by-gerry-fitzgerald/ Wed, 12 Mar 2014 13:44:57 +0000 /?p=25939 Book Quote:

“There’s a lot of heartache in these mountains, that’s what my grandma Alice always says.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie (MAR 12, 2014)

The setting for Redemption Mountain is located in Red Bone, West Virginia, in the Appalachian region of the Southern United States. Ranked by median income, it is the poorest state in the union except for Mississippi. The major resource in West Virginia’s economy is coal and the state is a top coal-producer in this country, second only to Wyoming.

From the beginning, in 1863, the state of West Virginia mined coal. While it has been blessed with a vast assortment of natural resources, coal is found in 53 of 55 counties, it is a mixed blessing. The downside of this blessing is about the the environment, the land, the people who mine it, and the unfortunate miners’ families who watch their loved ones leave for work never to see them again.

Why the statistics? This novel’s storyline, is based on the poverty of West Virginia miners and state residents as related to coal mining. West Virginia has been treated like a colony by big business. Mining disasters have rocked the state many times over. The controversial practice of Mountain Top Removal or Strip Mining plagues West Virginia, ripping off the tops of mountains to uncover the buried coal seams, leaving behind worthless acres of land. Advocates of mountaintop removal point out that once the areas are reclaimed, the technique provides premium flat land suitable for many uses in an extremely mountainous region. They also maintain that the new growth on reclaimed mountaintop mined areas is better able to support populations of game animals. And, of course, mining coal provides jobs. On the other hand, critics contend that mountaintop removal is a disastrous practice that benefits a small number of corporations at the expense of local communities and the environment.

Natty Oakes, a woman in her late twenties, lives in Redbone, McDowell County, West Virginia. Her grandfather, her mother and her uncle live on their farm at the top of Oak’s Hollow on “Redemption Mountain.” Natty is the mother of two children, 12-year-old Boyd, “The Pie Man,” who was born with Down Syndrome, and his younger sister Cat. Natty is married to Buck Oakes, a former high school football hero who got her pregnant in their senior year, a pregnancy which resulted in marriage and the birth of “The Pie Man.” Buck, perpetually unemployed for lack of jobs, is an angry, abusive man who takes out his failures in life on those around him, especially his wife, who works, (sometimes for no fee), as a home health aide to retired miners. She also runs the children’s library and coaches the local soccer team.

Charlie Burden, an attractive man in his late 40’s, is a partner in a New York City engineering firm, Dietrich Delahunt & Mackey, that has designed and is supervising the construction of a gigantic state-of-the art, clean coal-burning electricity generating plant in McDowell County, West Virginia. Charlie lives in a posh Westchester community, (think Bill & Hillary Clinton), with his wife Ellen, who spends much of her time involved in the activities of their country club. The couple have a son, a successful stockbroker, and a daughter who is attending university. The marriage is strained, primarily because Charlie and Ellen have developed different values over the years. She wants to move into a larger, 5 bedroom, pricier property even though the children are gone from home. Charlie is tired of his work with the firm. He resigns from the country club, it no longer suits him to spend time there. He longs to return to the field and do some hands-on engineering. “Why does my job get more and more boring and my career feel so unfulfilling as I get wealthier and more successful?” When the opportunity presents itself, Charlie grabs it…although it is not the job in China, supervising a huge construction project, that he wants. He thinks that if he takes on the generating plant project in West Virginia and is successful, he will eventually be assigned to China where Ellen has refused to go, nor does she plan to visit him in West Virginia.

Burden is uncomfortable after spending a night in the sterile company-owned condo in Bluefield, WV, just outside of Red Bone. When he decides to move to the town he has the opportunity to acquaint himself with the Red Bone locals. He meets Natty and her son “Pie Man,” his first friend. Natty is a runner like him and coach of “The Bones,” an under-14 soccer team. His next door neighbor is Pullman (Hank) Hankinson, a retired teacher and the man who plays cribbage with him. Hank also educates Charlie in the ways of Corporate America and how it has effected West Virginia. “The big companies come here, they make a deal in Charleston, and they take the coal, the timber and the gas, and they get rich. And the people get poorer and the land gets tore up, and the water gets fouled, and it’s OK, ’cause there ain’t hardly anybody left in the coal counties, and besides, they’re all just old and poor and uneducated and don’t matter to no one.”

Charlie finds himself happier and, oddly, more at home here than he is back in New York. His decision to leave the Bluefield condo for the tiny apartment in Red Bone impacts many lives, including his own.

This is a novel of the turmoil Big Business can bring as various elements opposed to Burden and his mentor, senior partner Lucien Mackey, try to take over the firm. It is a novel of political corruption and powerful Charleston law firms run by bogus “good ole boys” who know how to make things happen – like obtaining a permit for a mountaintop removal coal mine to fuel the new electrical plant and buying farms of local residents who are in the way of “progress.” And it is a novel of poor but resilient people, good people, whose lives can be shattered in an instant if Big Business has its way.

I am fascinated by the historical aspects of Redemption Mountain. The sad story of the Appalachian miners, their families, the environment, dirty politicians and Big Business is, unfortunately, a black mark on our country’s past and present.

Apart from the seriousness of greed and Corporate America in this poorest of regions in the United States, Redemption Mountain has its moments of humor and humanity. The characters, who make their homes in Red Bone, are extremely likable, just as the characters from Corporate America are detestable. This simplicity in character development is a weakness in the novel. There are the “good guys,” and the “bad guys,” with few shades of gray. The storyline is somewhat predictable…although there are a few big surprises….surprises which make the novel more complex and interesting.

Overall, I enjoyed Redemption Mountain and find it to be a good and interesting read. I learned a lot about coal mining, Strip Mining, and how destructive it can be to the land and the people who dwell there.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 41 readers
PUBLISHER: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (June 25, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Gerry FitzGerald
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> FALLING TO EARTH by Kate Southwood /2014/falling-to-earth-by-kate-southwood/ Wed, 05 Mar 2014 12:45:03 +0000 /?p=24995 Book Quote:

“The children are frozen, too frightened to move closer to one of the women. The sound they heard while still in the house has advanced, roaring its way above them. There is a crash against the storm door, and they all scream, ducking with their arms held over their heads. Ellis drops his candle and, in the weak light left from the candle Mae is still holding, she sees his terrified face. Ruby is crying. Lavinia has Little Homer’s face pressed into the front of her dress as if she can shield him by blocking his sight. Mae reaches out her arms and Ruby and Ellis come to her immediately. She blows out her candle and drops it so she can hold both children tight against her. In the darkness, Lavinia cries, “Dear Lord! Oh, dear Lord!” Then the roaring moves on, like a train careering over their heads. The sound recedes and, eventually, even the wind seems to subside. When there is no longer any sound except rain on the cellar doors, the children hold utterly still, waiting to see what will come next.“

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (MAR 5, 2014)

Falling to Earth is the kind of novel that makes me want to grab the very next person I see and urgently say, ”You MUST read this.” I read this rabidly with increasing awe and respect that Kate Southwood had the chops to create a debut novel with this degree of psychological insight, restrained power, and heartbreaking beauty.

The story centers on a tragedy of unimaginable proportions – a tornado hits the small Illinois town of March in 1925, causing devastation and grievous loss in the homes of every single resident of the town.

Except one.

That one is Paul Graves, a man of dignity and integrity, who lives with his wife Mae, his three young children and his mother, Lavinia. Incredibly, nothing in Paul’s life is touched – not his family, not his home, and not his thriving lumber business…which, in fact, is even more in demand as townsfolk order coffins for the burials of their loved ones.

As the townspeople are forced to bear up under nearly unbearable grief, their envy of Paul’s “unfair” providence reaches a fever pitch and they begin to turn on him – and against him – in droves. Paul, meanwhile, labors under extreme survivor’s guilt as Mae increasingly falls into a dark depression.

Kate Southwood writes,

“A tornado is a ravenous thing, untroubled by the distinction in tearing one man apart and gently setting another down a little distance away. It is resolute and makes its unheeding progress until, bloated and replete, it dissipates. A tornado is a dead thing and cannot acknowledge blame.. If a tornado smashes your house or takes your child, it does no good to blame it…Even after you’ve yanked up another house in the place the old one stood and planted flowers in the dirt where you laid your child, your fury remains as well your desire to lay blame.”

A parable of sorts, this magnificent novel strives to answer questions that have haunted humankind since early times: how do we comprehend the forces of nature and our own fates? How do we manage the extreme hostility and envy that result from nature’s unfairness? How do we break the cycles of revenge, vengeance, retribution and reprisal? These questions transcend this book and can easily be asked of modern tragedies – Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy, for example.

The themes are universal: love and loss, family, jealousy and suspicion, guilt and survival. I will not spoil the ending but I will say this – it is masterly and seamlessly brought together all the themes of the book and literally let me gasping.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 44 readers
PUBLISHER: Europa Editions (March 5, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Kate Southwood
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another tornado-based story:

Bibliography:

]]> LONG MAN by Amy Greene /2014/long-man-by-amy-greene/ Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:31:48 +0000 /?p=25107 Book Quote:

“You can’t stand against a flood, Annie Clyde.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (FEB 25, 2014)

“You can’t stand against a flood, Annie Clyde.” Oh, yes she can. Or at least die trying. A descendant of the native Cherokees, Annie Clyde Dodson has deep-rooted connections to the land of Yuneetah, Tennessee. Long Man, the river that courses through, is tempestuous and moody but the farmers here have learned to corral its powers to make their living off the land. The Tennessee Valley Authority though, has other plans. A dam has been built upstream and in a matter of a few days, Yuneetah will be under water. Annie Clyde is one of the last holdouts. She just can’t up and leave the land which she wanted her daughter, Gracie, to know and love. And as much as her husband has plans to find factory work up north in Michigan, Annie can’t stomach the thought of a stark existence away from the natural surroundings she loves.

As Long Man opens with a setting in the immediate post-Depression era, the town is just a couple of days away from being flooded by the dam’s waters. To make things worse, a steady, heavy rain has been falling and the water levels everywhere rise slowly. Along with Annie and her daughter, Gracie, there’s Annie’s aunt, Silver Ledford, who makes her meager home on top of a high cliff overlooking the valley. Tensions are running high enough as it is; practically everyone has left town with a relocation package but Annie has just managed to show yet another TVA man, Sam Washburn, the door. She does not want to move. To make matters worse — much worse — Gracie, Annie’s daughter, disappears. Could it be the town’s bad boy, Amos, who has taken her? Or is it the equally menacing flood waters that are to blame?

Using the child’s disappearance as a driver for the story, Amy Greene movingly explores the complicated relationships between the town’s various players and also their deep and abiding respect for the land. The hardscrabble countryside comes gloriously alive in her telling and it is the most arresting aspect of Long Man.

The story itself is slow to unwind and lurches forward precariously, often coming to almost a complete halt as Greene outlines relationships and events through a series of flashbacks. While these back-and-forth movements can feel jerky and disorienting, the pace picks up eventually — it is interesting to note that the tension builds slowly along with the rising floodwaters. It’s almost as if Greene were working consciously to have the book’s tempo increase gradually with the drama of the plotline.

While farming itself can be a challenge (one which Greene points out well), Long Man occasionally lapses into too much starry-eyed worship of the vocation’s faithfuls. The romantic visions that Annie Clyde has seem overwrought at times: “She didn’t understand the power company’s reasoning. She didn’t need electric lights when she could see by the sun and moon. She had the spring and the earth to keep her food from spoiling…if a person didn’t come to depend on material things, it wouldn’t hurt to lose them.”

Where Long Man does succeed, is in showing how even the fiercest of people have weak spots that can be chipped away at and weathered over time. The ties that bind can take various shapes and forms and lend themselves to fluidity. Not many can hold their ground when it comes to a rising and powerful flood — whether that change takes the form of raging waters or technical progress. As Greene writes: “The dam would stand in memory, but not of their individual lives. Only of a moment in history.” Even that, you soon realize, is more than what most of us can hope for.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0 from 12 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (February 25, 2014)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Amy Greene
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Another dam story:

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]]> A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED by Dara Horn /2014/a-guide-for-the-perplexed-by-dara-horn/ Tue, 18 Feb 2014 13:40:53 +0000 /?p=24116 Book Quote:

“What happens to days that disappear? The light fades, the gates begin to close, and all that a day once held— a glance, a fight, a taste of bread, a handful of braided hair, thousands of worries and triumphs and regrets— all of it slips between those closing gates, vanishing into a dark and silent room. When Josephine Ashkenazi first invented Genizah, all she wanted to to do was open those gates.

At least, that was how it started.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate (FEB 18, 2014)

The idea for writing a modern version of the biblical story of Joseph came apparently from the author’s husband. It is a brilliant one, even more brilliantly executed. First, because she uses it for resonance rather than prediction; you recognize the biblical parallels after they have occurred, but you never know when she is going to depart from the Genesis version, so her novel remains surprising to the end. Second, because the Egyptian setting grounds the book in aspects of Jewish history that are perhaps less well-known, but obviously relevant to the eternal geopolitical situation in the Middle East. And third, because the Torah reference provides the perfect opening to explore many issues in Jewish teaching and philosophy, most notably those concerning divine providence, accident, and free will. The title of her novel, actually, is borrowed from a treatise on these very questions written in Cairo by the twelfth century doctor and philosopher Maimonides. The result, in Horn’s hands, is a richly layered novel that is humane, exciting, informative, and thought-provoking, all at the same time.

Josephine (Josie) Ashkenazi is a software developer and CEO of a company called Genizah, which enables its customers to record, index, cross-reference, and recall even the most trivial aspects of their lives, linking them to everything around them in both historical and geographical dimensions. She is asked to go to Egypt as consultant on a vast new library in Alexandria, and accepts the challenge, leaving behind her Israeli-born husband Itamar, her six-year-old daughter Tali, and her elder sister Judith, who has a subsidiary position with the firm. I must admit that there was something a little science-fictiony about the premise (or magical realist, if you will); although the ideas are all conceivable, it requires some suspension of disbelief to accept the degree to which they had been developed. But two things happen to anchor the book almost immediately. The first is that the action suddenly shifts back to 1896 in Cambridge, England, where two formidable Scottish sisters confront the University Reader in Rabbinics, Solomon Schechter, with a fragment of manuscript they have recently brought back from Cairo. Despite the slightly comic tone of this episode, it is also feels entirely true, and indeed one discovers that Schechter was a real person. And when Josie goes to Egypt, she falls victim to a more contemporary reality: she is kidnapped and held for ransom. The suspension of disbelief quality never goes away completely from Josie’s story, but from now on her role as CEO fades behind those as absent wife, missing mother, and beaten woman.

Genizah, the name of Josie’s firm, is the Hebrew word for the store-room in a synagogue where Torah scrolls and similar documents were placed after they had become unusable, for the name of God could not be erased. The real Schechter unearthed in the Genizah of a Cairo synagogue a chaotic hoard of documents, secular as well as sacred, a discovery which made his name. Among them were letters from Maimonides and a draft of his Guide for the Perplexed. This opens the door to scenes in Cairo of the 12th century, to interweave with those in the 19th and 21st. It also introduces some of the philosophical themes of the book.

Horn is a Jewish writer (and winner of two National Jewish Book Awards), not just because she writes about Jewish characters and subjects, but because she shares the Jewish fascination with philosophical debate. There is a chapter, for instance, in which Maimonides outlines five theories of divine providence, ranging from total predestination to utter chance, and another in which he classifies three different kinds of evil. Other readers might consider these dry diversions, but they fascinated me both as ideas and for how they linked to the moral implications of the story of Josie and her family at home. They formed a serious core to the novel that amply balanced its more fantastic aspects. And indeed balance is all; the more I look, the more I see parallels and linkages that bind this complex novel together. Perhaps some of its characters could be developed a little further, but as a theme-based novel it could hardly be bettered.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 68 readers
PUBLISHER: W. W. Norton & Company (September 9, 2013)
REVIEWER: Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Dara Horn
EXTRAS:
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]]> THE SWAN GONDOLA by Timothy Schaffert /2014/the-swan-gondola-by-timothy-schaffert/ Fri, 14 Feb 2014 13:08:16 +0000 /?p=25693 Book Quote:

“I then realized that the cathedral is a monument to our grief. It is a shrine for all our dead, constructed of the wreckage of the lives that have fallen down around us.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perksie  (FEB 14, 2014)

Swan Gondola literally starts off with a bang! Two elderly sisters, Emmaline and Hester, known by most in their small county, as the “Old Sisters Egan,” are sitting in their Nebraska farm kitchen drinking coffee. The day has been a peaceful one. Suddenly the house begins to shiver and shake and they are enveloped in noise, a loud BANG!! Books fall from their shelves, china dishes and cups fall to the floor, breaking, chimney bricks drop into the hearth, their caged canaries stop singing and the two sisters are left stunned, shocked. Hester, the tough one, lifts her rifle and opens the door, not knowing what to expect. She and petite, romantic Emmaline, are immediately enveloped in silk. Silk is everywhere. They have witnessed so much in their lives on the farm that nothing really surprises them anymore. The silk comes from a ruined hot air balloon which has apparently crashed into their roof. “Escaped the circus?” Hester wonders. The two immediately search for the pilot, who could be hurt or, even worse, dead. They do find the man alive, flat on his back on the ground, his left leg in a terrible bend. Emmaline’s and Hester’s discovery of the balloon’s pilot will change their lives forever as he relates his strange, mesmerizing and sorry tale.

Obviously in pain, the man snaps his fingers weakly and a card slips from his sleeve which reads, “B. ‘Ferret’ Skerritt, Omaha, Nebraska.” And on the back “This slight of hand you just witnessed is only a hint of my wizardry.” From his inside pocket a postcard falls. Written by Ferret, it gives the reader an example of his unrequited love for his beloved, Mrs. Cecily Wakefield of Omaha. Their’s is a star-crossed love…dramatic, romantic and heartbreaking.

Thus we meet our protagonist whose name is really Bartholomew Skerritt. He is an orphan, (now 25 years-old), left at the door of a Catholic orphanage when he was an infant. Sister Patience told him, “All orphans are born of whores.” There was a note that his mother had tucked into his little suit. “She had addressed the baby as Mr. Bartholomew Skerritt and written: ‘Your last name is your daddy’s last name, (I’m damned sure of it, don’t let anybody tell you different), and your first name was the longest first name I’ve ever seen written down. I can’t give you nothing much but I can give you a name with lots of letters in it. Sincerely, the mother you never knew.'” Reflecting back on his childhood, Ferret says: “Childhood is too awful a thing to make happen to somebody.”

When he was a boy he met librarian, Mr. Crowe. Crowe’s real vocation is that of a ventriloquist. He took a shine to Bartholomew and taught him about the world of books, and more importantly to the boy’s future, how to excel as a ventriloquist.

Ferret has become a petty thief and con-man who currently works as a ventriloquist and a magician at a vaudeville theater, (before the Fair). He usually follows the carny circuit with his unique dummy, Oscar. It is at the Empress Opera House where he meets and immediately falls in love with the mysterious Cecily, an actress with an unknown history. “I heard her name before I saw her, backstage.”

The narrative takes place in the Sisters Egan’s farmhouse while he is recovering. The ever practical Hester, who acts as the community’s amateur veterinarian, has patched him up and put his leg in a cast. It is at the farmhouse where he relates his tale. The author effectively uses letters from Ferret to Cecily, and from Cecily to him, to further the storyline, which weaves back and forth in time from Autumn 1898 to the winter of 1899.

This story-within-a-story begins in the spring of 1898, at the opening of the Omaha World’s Fair. Omaha, Nebraska, is still a noisy, dirty frontier city whose nickname was the “Gateway to the West.” The author writes, “The Omaha World’s Fair, as depicted in  The Swan Gondola,  is a fictional approximation of the “Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition.” The author’s version of the Omaha World’s Fair was held from June 1 to November 1 of 1898. Its goal was to showcase the development of the entire West, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. Over 2.6 million people came to Omaha to view the 4,062 exhibits during the four months of the Fair. President William McKinley was among the dignitaries who attended. McKinley, in a cameo role here, is immersed in the Spanish-American War, yet still makes time to attend.

Already known as the “New White City,” this fair tries to one-up the fair at Chicago, originally called the “White CIty.” Chicago’s fair took place in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World in 1492. The Omaha Fair is much different from Chicago’s, as there is very little “white” about it. Behind the scenes at the Fair, another story takes place, a sleazier story: that of the “rousties,” those workers who put the fair together and take it down; ZigZag the clown, Rosie the anarchist and friend to Ferriet as well as August, another close friend of our protagonist. August is an eccentric Native American homosexual who has a crush on Ferrit. Also among the fair’s “players” are the ragtime player, the nervous lion tamer, the waltzing dwarves, can-can dancers, hootchy kootchy showgirls, etc. They are all looking to make a buck from the “gillies,” (civilians), legally or illegally. This “carny-like” background really enriches The Swan Gondola.  The author has said in an interview, “As for the genre of carnival fiction – perhaps its appeal rests in the hodgepodge of it all. Our concept of an American carnival brings to mind childhood delights, but also an element of the seedy, the deceptive, and the decidedly adult. A carnival is a bit of a fever dream – it’s all cotton candy and sex, on a dirt lot.”

“The Swan Gondola” is situated on a lagoon on the midway. It is at the gondola that Ferret and Cecily meet and conduct their romance, at least initially. Ferret is obsessed with Cecily from the first moment he sees her. His obsession drives the narrative.

The Swan Gondola is a novel that grabbed me from page one until the very end. The characters are well fleshed-out and complex and the writing is tight – no unnecessary filler. Readers will be ensnared by the offbeat personalities and carried along by the unexpected plot developments. Timothy Schaffert clearly did a tremendous amount of research for this book. It seems that the author is a huge fan of L. Frank Baum’s “Wizard of Oz,” as demonstrated in this tale. A riveting piece of historical fiction from page one to the very end. I highly recommend this novel. It is original and entertaining and gives one a good look at the goings-on at a fair, a carny show or a circus.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 26 readers
PUBLISHER: Riverhead Hardcover (February 6, 2014)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perksie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Timothy Schaffert
EXTRAS: Swan Gondola Nostalgia
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]]> THIRTY GIRLS by Susan Minot /2014/thirty-girls-by-susan-minot/ Tue, 11 Feb 2014 13:10:04 +0000 /?p=23633 Book Quote:

“I woke this morning and remembered something I thought forgotten, a time they caught a man on a bicycle and cut off his foot. If you are on a bicycle the rebels think you may be delivering news. The man’s wife came out and they told her to eat that foot.

You don’t forget such things, even if they are not appearing. They are just in the back of your mind, waiting.

Sometimes I want to hit myself with stones.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (FEB 11, 2014)

Thirty Girls by Susan Minot is a powerful novel that is based on a true story. It takes place in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan and is the story of the abduction of over one hundred girls from a convent school in Uganda. A nun by the name of Giulia travels to the site of the abductors, who call themselves the LRA, and negotiates for the release of all but thirty of the girls. Thus, the title of the book.

The novel opens as an American journalist named Jane finds herself in Nairobi. She is there to do a piece on the abduction of Ugandan children by the LRA. So far, about 10,000 children have been abducted over seventeen years and many of them have been killed. Some of the girls have escaped and returned home only to find out that their families no longer want them. Many of them have borne children through rape by LRA members. Others have contracted AIDS. Jane and her friends start on a trek to Uganda to interview the abductees who have escaped and made it home.

Jane is a lost soul. She has written a book previously that many have read. The novel does not mention what the book is about or when it was written. It just appears that many people in Nairobi have read it. She is looking to find herself but does not know where to look. Mostly, she tries being around other people and finds herself in relationships where she enjoys the sex. Currently, she is in a relationship with Harry who is 22 years old. Jane is thirty-seven. Little by little, she is convincing herself that she is in love with Harry though they have known each other for only a very short time, barely three weeks by the end of the novel.

The chapters are interspersed with Jane’s story and that of Esther’s. Esther is one of the girls who was kidnapped by the LRA from her convent school in Uganda. She is pregnant by her LRA “husband” and is not sure how she will feel about her child. While she is in captivity, her mother dies of cancer and her father is incapacitated by an accident. She tries her best to make it through each day but it is a horrific experience and some days she is not sure she can do another day. “Some days were worse that others. You walked past children sleeping on the ground then saw they were not sleeping, they were dead.”

Jane manages to interview Esther and is working on doing an article about the thirty girls. However, she finds herself thinking more of Harry than of her work. “Thoughts of Harry came in the day like reveries, then she would stop the thoughts. How could she be thinking so lightly of love, here in a place where people’s lips were cut off and girls were snatched out of their beds?”

The LRA is like a cult, headed by a man named Kony. Kony has multiple personality disorder, perhaps seizures and runs the LRA through magical thinking. The LRA has no real political purpose. It seeks out weak prey, then kidnaps them. Kony has this idea that by impregnating the girls, he will grow a family. The boys turn into rebels themselves. “Some children believed what they told us. Some of us became rebels. When you were given a gun you started to kill and after a while you would look at yourself and say, I am a rebel now.” The LRA reminded me of the Manson clan, only larger.

The novel is very well written and is the strongest piece of writing that I have read by Susan Minot. It is difficult to read in places because of the violence but it rang very true to life. I highly recommend it.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 13 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (February 11, 2014)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Susan Minot
EXTRAS: Excerpt
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