Time Period Fiction – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 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 The other four narratives are composed of devoted letters from Gabor to his parents; the unpublished memoirs of Suzanne, his wife; excerpts from a book by the libertine expatriate writer Lionel Maine; and finally, the memoirs of a benefactor of the arts,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:

Fiction:

Teen:

Nonfiction:

]]> 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:

]]> 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:

]]> 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
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> BLUE ASYLUM by Kathy Hepinstall /2014/blue-asylum-by-kathy-hepinstall/ Sun, 09 Feb 2014 19:26:45 +0000 /?p=25635 Book Quote:

“Iris Dunleavy?” asked Mary. “Is she the plantation wife? She dresses so well for a lunatic. She had the most colorful flounces on her skirt the other night.”

Book Review:

Review by Judi Clark  (FEB 9, 2014)

This is Kathy Hepinstall’s fourth novel… and I’ve read all four, so obviously I like this author. She writes a different book each time and thus one never knows what will be found upon picking up her latest, although one can be sure it will be both literary and lyrical, no matter the tone and subject.

Blue Asylum takes place during the Civil War years on Sanibel Island on the west coast of Florida.

A judge finds the main character, Iris Dunleavy, insane essentially for hating and embarrassing her husband, “Wives were not supposed to hate their husbands. It was not in the proper order of things.” Her rich husband pays extra for her to be cured at the institution with the best reputation, the SANIBEL ASYLUM FOR LUNATICS which is managed by British born psychiatrist Dr. Cowell, who stubbornly believes that Iris is insane because a judge declared it. But Iris insists that she is not insane, that she was merely escaping from a hateful husband and cruel man. As she reveals her horrific story bit by bit, we can see that while she may not be clinically insane, she may have been crazy mad considering the decisions/actions she undertook (and continues to undertake).

She befriends the doctor’s 14-year-old son Wendell and another patient, Ambrose, who is suffering from something that happened during the civil war. She longs to escape and eventually does but with devastating effects.

I liked many things about this book, but I didn’t “love it,” at least not as much as I did The Absence of Nectar and Prince of Lost Places. But I did enjoy it immensely even though it is a little heavy handed on the message, not unlike her debut (and Oprah book club choice)  The House of Gentle Men.  Then again, given headlines such as Todd Akin’s comment on legitimate rape, it may be that heavy handed feminist historical literature is still necessary.

Hepinstall captures the historical detail of well and it is very visual as she sets a mood and imagery that plays out well both as metaphor and setting:

“Dawn broke soft and clean on the island of shell and marl and current. It was a day like any other, one more day in a season when marking the days was difficult, since the balminess was resolute and the birds were attuned to the tides, the tides to the moon, and the moon to the lunatics, under their crazy spell, waxing and waning in the accordance with the fluctuations of their madness and the depth of passions. A group of terns had gathered at the edge of a calm sea, and a single raccoon, caught after a daylight, skittered out of the dune vegetation and into the forest, leaving behind a loggerhead nest full of ruined eggs, shells broken and half-formed turtles spilling out in the sand.”

Hepinstall considers this a love story… and it is, but not the happy kind. This novel is an excellent choice for book clubs.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 139 readers
PUBLISHER: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (April 9, 2013)
REVIEWER: Judi Clark
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Kathy Hepinstall really humorous blog
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> THE GHOST OF MARY CELESTE by Valerie Martin /2014/the-ghost-of-mary-celeste-by-valerie-martin/ /2014/the-ghost-of-mary-celeste-by-valerie-martin/#comments Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:08:53 +0000 /?p=25309 Book Quote:

“She felt she had been created by the demands of others, by their insatiable appetite for something beyond ordinary life. They craved a world without death and they had spotted her, in their hunger, like wolves alert to any poor sheep that might stray from the fold and stand gazing ignorantly up at the stars.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (JAN 30, 2014)

FACT: “The Mary Celeste,” (or “Marie Céleste” as it is fictionally referred to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others after him), was a British-built American-owned merchant brigantine famous for having been discovered on 5 December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, between the Azores and Portugal, unmanned and apparently abandoned, (the one lifeboat was missing, along with its 7 member crew, the captain, his wife and small daughter). The ship was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and its cargo and provisions were intact. The crew’s belongings including valuables were still in place. There was no sign of foul play. None of those on board was ever seen or heard from again and their disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time. There was nothing written in the ship’s log to account for the vanishing. ” (Wikipedia entry)

I was riveted from page one by this very realistic fictional account of the “The Mary Celeste.” The story and some of the book’s fascinating characters are quite eerie and mysterious. There are scenes, especially those at sea, which are terrifyingly lifelike. I could hardly put the book down. Many have speculated and written about the real life story of this ghost ship, including investigative journalists and authors, one of whom is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a character here. There are many theories about her disappearance but none have proved to be true and none have proved to be false, either. For the seafaring families of New England who captained and crewed the ship, the nautical mystery has haunted them for generations. No one, to this day, knows what happened to “The Mary Celeste,” and all who sailed on her.

The Ghost of the Mary Celeste opens with a vivid account of a shipwreck in which the captain and his wife, Marie, are lost overboard. Back in Massachusetts a thirteen year-old girl, a relative of the ill-fated couple, is convinced that she sees and hears the cries of her cousin Marie.

The reader is then introduced to the Briggs and Cobb families from Marion, Massachusetts. The two families are intimately connected in an intricate sort of way, which I won’t try to explain here. Let it suffice to say that the Briggs and Cobb children are cousins. The Briggs family has always made its livelihood from the sea, however by the time young Captain Benjamin Briggs marries his first cousin, Sarah, (Sallie), Cobb, his unfortunate family had already lost many members to the ocean. Benjamin plans to retire his captaincy after his marriage. However, he does decide to accept one more command and Sallie and their two year-old daughter Sophy accompany him on this last voyage. Their son, Arthur is left home with his paternal grandmother, “Mother Briggs.”

It is important to mention that Sallie has a younger sister, Hannah, with whom she is quite close. The fey Hannah “sees things.” She has strange dreams/nightmares and is quite fantastical. “As a child she always had her dreamy side. She talked to trees and made up stories. She wrote sweet poems about the dew being dropped from the drinking cups of fairies, or enchanted woods where elves had tea parties using mushrooms as tables.” However, with the loss of her beloved cousin Marie, 13 year-old Hannah sees and hears Marie calling to her. Her family disapproves of her “visions and fantasies.” Sallie rebukes her after one bout of almost hysterical lamentations that Marie is there and “wants to come inside.” Their father is concerned, naturally.

Late-19th-century spiritualism plays an important role here. Spiritualism, the belief that the dead communicate with the living, became a fad throughout America and Europe during the 1850s. Spiritualism was a cultural and religious phenomenon which swept through the sitting rooms and village halls of Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Basically dead people were all the rage. Sallie’s and Hannah’s father, in particular, is worried about his youngest daughter’s fervent beliefs and visions. “It’s this insalubrious craze with talking to spirits: it’s loose in the world.” He fears that, as she grew older, Hannah would become involved in this movement.

Author Valerie Martin employs multiple voices, styles and points of view. She takes the reader through time and place, in a variety of means, to tell her tale through a straightforward, third person narrative, and also through her characters, their conversations, diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, legal court findings, ship’s log, etc. We are introduced to a young Arthur Conan Doyle, who, intrigued by the entire incident of the ghost ship, writes a fictitious and “scurrilous story,” supposedly told to him by a crewman who said he survived the incident. The actual story, “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement,” was printed anonymously in the British journal Cornhill. The story sparked Doyle’s literary career. “He was thirty-five years-old. With scarcely a hint of what he might achieve, but driven by a furnace of ambition to strive in every field that opened before him. He made himself up.”

Doyle’s tale travels across the Atlantic to America where Violet Petra, a famous medium of extraordinary powers, reads it and threatens to sue Doyle for his lies about the Briggs family and the nautical mystery. And, Miss Petra, one of the famed spiritualists of her day, spiritual society’s darling, who is she? Has this inscrutable woman also invented herself?

Phoebe Grant, a journalist employed by the Philadelphia Sun is to investigate Violet Petra for fraud. The intelligent and business-like Miss Grant is a quick-witted skeptic who finds herself totally confounded upon meeting and speaking with the woman. They eventually become friends “of sorts.” She says this about Violet and her supporters,

“The spirits they peddled had no mystery; they were ghosts stripped of their otherness. In their cosmography, the dead were just like us and they were everywhere, waiting to give us yet more unsolicited advice.”

The books has several characters, the primary ones being Violet Petra, Mr. Doyle and Phoebe Grant, the ghost ship, and of course the sea. All the characters are eventually tied together by the “Mary Celeste.” The novel spans decades and the author fleshes out her characters and allows us to see how they grow and change.

I really enjoyed The Ghost of the Mary Celeste and am mystified by the mystery. Ms. Martin creates an extraordinary fiction from facts. This is a page-turner written with intelligence and originality. The author uses as much historical detail as possible and, in fact, at times the book reads more like a history than historical fiction. I was surprised by the ending. Although one has to use the imagination to figure out parts of the story, the finale is indeed unsuspected…at least by me. I am left with a head filled with questions. Kudos to Valerie Martin. I now want to read more of her books.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 25 readers
PUBLISHER: Nan A. Talese (January 28, 2014)
REVIEWER: Jana Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Valerie Martin
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Another New England unsolved mystery:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

Movies from books:

]]> /2014/the-ghost-of-mary-celeste-by-valerie-martin/feed/ 1 PALISADES PARK by Alan Brennert /2014/palisades-park-by-alan-brennert/ Sat, 25 Jan 2014 16:15:23 +0000 /?p=25311 Book Quote:

“The park slumbers through the long winter, weighed down by ice and snow, dreaming of spring…..as it drowses beneath its quilt of snow, it dreams of all the people who flocked to its midways: men, women and especially children, the joy the park brought them, the laughter that was like oxygen for the park, which breathed it in as it floated up from the Cyclone, the Funhouse, the Wild Mouse, the Carousel.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (JAN 25, 2014)

Palisades Park is no roller coaster ride of a novel, rather it is a well written love letter to a “cherished part of the author’s childhood.” (author’s quote). This is a fascinating historical fiction, written with love to a magical place and era long gone.

Located high atop the New Jersey Palisades’ cliffs, within the boroughs of Cliffside Park and Fort Lee, once stood the home of the famous Cyclone roller coaster, the Tunnel of Love and the world’s largest salt water pool. The place was called Palisades Amusement Park and even today, over thirty years after it closed its gates, the Park is still warmly remembered, with nostalgia, by many, many people. This novel strikes a particular chord with me as I was born and raised in Atlantic City, NJ, (way before the casinos marred the beauty of the town, and the majestic, beautifully designed hotels were torn down to make room for tacky casino architecture). I was a regular at Steel Pier and Million Dollar Pier and would ride the “rides” even when I was in college.

The protagonist of this tale is the Park itself, inhabiting 30 acres across the Hudson River from New York City. The glue holding the storyline together is a carnie family, the Stopkas. Eddie Stopka ran away from home in his teens, during the Great Depression and Prohibition. He rode the rails until he got a job at Palisades Park “sweeping up.” It was here where Eddie meets Adele Worth who works at a root beer concession. He is attracted to her because she is beautiful and he is also amused by her “pitch.” She would call, “Root beer, ice-cold root beer! Only legal beer in the Park! Not as much fun as malt, but just as delicious and twice as foamy! C’mon, lift a glass to Carrie Nation!!”

Adele’s father used to be a well known film director in Fort Lee, NJ. His company was called Worth While Pictures. Eventually the film industry relocates to Hollywood, thus ending his career in the movies. He remains bitter about this change for the rest of his life and drinks heavily as a result. Adele was just 6 months old when she “acted” in her first film, “Babes in Arms.” As a pre-teen she meets big stars like Douglas Fairbanks and silent film actress Blanche Sweet. The lovely Adele is crowned Miss Bergen County. She comes to work at Palisades hoping to be noticed by anyone who can help her get a job in the film industry. And why not? “Everyone” visits Palisades Park! She holds on to her dream of being a movie star all her life.

Eddie and Adele eventually marry and their children Antoinette, a tomboy, fantasizes about being a great diver, like the daredevil she sees at the park who jumps from a 90-foot tower into a water tank six feet deep. She insists, to her mother’s dismay, that she be called Toni and is definitely more into swimming and trying to climb the Palisades than in playing with dolls. Her younger brother Jack has a real knack for drawing and a love of action comic book characters. Eventually, when their parents buy a “joint,” (a carny concession), the children work there. This is their real home, more so than the house where they live in Edgewater, NJ.

In 1912, the park added a salt-water swimming pool. It is filled by pumping water from the saline Hudson River, 200 feet below. This pool, 400 by 600 feet in surface area, is billed as the largest salt-water wave pool in the nation. Behind the water falls are huge pontoons that rise up and down as they rotate, creating a one-foot wave in the pool. This pool  eventually plays a big role in Toni’s life.

The carnival “freaks” “Jolly Irene, the Fattest Woman In The World,” “Susi, The Elephant-Skinned Girl,” “Charles Phelan, Strong Man,” “Victor-Victoria – Half Man, Half Woman,” “Hoppe The Frog Boy,” etc., are not freaks to the children or their parents, they are just friends and colleagues on the midway. Here there is an aura of camaraderie. Vendors help each other through fire, sickness, poverty and loss. Annually the Rosenthal brothers, who own the park, add new rides. They also construct a 24-foot high, one million watt marquee advertising Palisades Park.

The park’s reputation and attendance continues to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s, largely due to saturation advertising and the continued success of the park’s music pavilion and the Caisson bar. In addition, behind the Palisade Park music stage lay the park’s worst-kept secret: a hole in the fence used by local children to sneak into the park without paying admission. Despite the fact that the Rosenthal brothers know all about this breach, it is purposely left unrepaired.

Palisades Park spans several decades, 1922-1971 (the closing of the park). We experience, through the author’s writing and impeccable research, the evolution of the Park. Some of the well-incorporated historical details include: The Great Depression, President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, the peacetime draft, big band music, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Mafia hits, racial discrimination, the Korean War, and the 1960’s, which brought a major change to American culture. The reader also learns about the Park’s history which runs parallel to world history. There were major events here which effected both the families who worked at Palisades and those who came to be entertained. A few devastating fires, the bane of amusement parks everywhere, resulted in extraordinary damage, including terrible injuries and, sometimes, death. The resulting loss of property caused those who owned concessions to rebuild or go to work elsewhere, traveling the carnie circuit.

Alan Brennert magically brings to life a way of life. The character of Palisades Park in all its moods, and the people, especially the engaging Stopkas, are vividly portrayed in this enjoyable novel.

My “however moment,” is this – although this is a very entertaining read, the characters are not complex at all. There is nothing in their life stories which has not been written about before. The novelty is the Park itself and the view of history which the author brings to the story. Yet I found myself satisfied, even through these shortcomings, because of other aspects, written about above, which makes this a hard to put down book.

I think the character of Park owner Irving Rosenthal sums things up when he says,

“A place like this – it’s like a living thing, the way people interact with it, how they think of it. For kids like you who grew up around here, it’s always been a part of your lives – it’s personal. Sell it to someone like Walt Disney, and it’s no longer the same park. I want it to be the same, to go one living after I’m gone. We’re at the top of our game now. Palisades has never been more popular, more famous. What’s wrong with wanting that to go on? Nobody wants summer to end.”

Palisades finally closed its doors on September 12, 1971 to make room for high rise condominiums but the memories live on.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 203 readers
PUBLISHER: St. Martin’s Griffin (October 29, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Alan Brennert
EXTRAS:

 
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

And this gator-themed fictional amusement park:

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]]> THE KEPT by James Scott /2014/the-kept-by-james-scott/ Sat, 18 Jan 2014 14:56:04 +0000 /?p=25103 Book Quote:

“The screen creaked behind her as Elspeth pushed open the front door. The house, usually heated to bursting on an early winter’s night, offered no respite from the cold. The kerosene lamp stood unlit in the middle of the kitchen table, the matches beside it. She removed her pack, and shook the snow from her hat and shoulders, stalling. She didn’t want to see what the light would offer.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn (JAN 18, 2014)

From the opening line of this striking debut novel, the mood and voice are both haunting and laced with shame.

“Elspeth Howell was a sinner.”

It is three years shy of the turn of the twentieth century, upstate New York, bitterly cold and snowy with grey, smudgy skies. Elspeth is trudging miles from the train station to her family’s isolated home, and she is carrying gifts for her five children and pious, Bible-quoting husband. She’s been gone for four months, not unusual for her midwifery practice. As she rises up the crest of the last hill, she sees her house:

“The small plateau seemed made for them, chiseled by God for their security, to hold them like a perfect secret.  She held her breath, hoping for some hint of life, and heard nothing but the far-off snap of a branch. Everything stood still. She could not make out the smoke from the chimney, and despite the late hour, no lamps shone in the windows. Elspeth began to run. She tripped, and her pack shoved her into the snow. Clawing with her hands, digging with her feet, she pushed herself upright and rushed toward home.”

Although the novel, stark and lean and elegantly written, progresses with a measured, lingering pace for most of the novel, it goes for the jugular at the outset. After a shocking tragedy that sets the premise for the rest of the story, the narrative continues languidly, but with terse prose, weaving in background information with current concerns. The momentum slows considerably, yet the writing keeps you absorbed, as the author delves into the deep-seated corners of character. Elspeth has morally wretched obsessions and impulses that underlie the events of this bleak and troubled tale. Guilt, shame, retribution, sacrifice, and the lengths we go to protect our family are mined with lyrical and somber mercy. Or is it merciless?

I’d rather not go further in describing this searing, harrowing story. As Elspeth and her twelve-year-old son, Caleb, journey by foot to search and avenge, the reader is immersed in the sense that the hunters are also the hunted. Scott’s descriptions are masterful, his extended metaphors gnawing and scorching. This is fine literature; if you don’t mind a slower-paced story, but one saturated in full characterizations, you will ride the suspense till the final, melancholy pages. I continue to contemplate this enigmatic story, its sense of deliverance like a ghost that trembles through the pages.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 74 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper (January 7, 2014)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: James Scott
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson /2014/life-after-life-by-kate-atkinson/ Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:45:28 +0000 /?p=23545 Book Quote:

“Don’t you wonder sometimes,” Ursula said. “If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in— I don’t know, say, a Quaker household— surely things would be different.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shultman (JAN 8, 2014)

Kate Atkinson’s first novel, Scenes at the Museum, began with two words: “I exist!” This one says, “I exist! I exist again! And again!” Life After Life is a marvel. It’s one of the most inventive novels I’ve ever read, rich with details, beautifully crafted, and filled with metaphysical questions about the nature of time, reality, and the ability of one person to make a dramatic difference based on one small twist of fate. In short, it’s amazing.

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd arrives early, a cord wrapped around her neck, already dead. Scratch that. On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd arrives early, lets out a lusty wail, and makes a safe transition into this world. Ursula Todd will die many times in this mesmerizing and compelling novel and in many different ways. But each time, she will gain some innate foresight to help her avoid the traps that have occurred before.

It’s not as if writing about living again and making other choices hasn’t been done before by contemporary writers. Lionel Shriver writes about parallel lives in Post-Birthday World; Stephen King delves right into it in 11-23-63 and so on. What makes this novel extraordinary is that this novel is a layered and nuance exploration on the very nature of time and reality. As Ursula’s doctor says to her,

“Time is a construct, in reality everything flows, no past or present, only the now.”

In Ms. Atkinson’s world, one character – Ursula – can be the embodiment of many different people, often as a result of one small alteration. Look – here is Ursula, a fiercely protective mother. But look again – now she is a mistress, an alcoholic, even a killer. Each Ursula rings authentic. And each life could just as easily have happened.

This is a unique and highly exciting way of storytelling, spanning the monumental history of two world wars and complicated family dynamics. Ursula’s memory is like a “cascade of echoes” as Ms. Atkinson returns again and again to a core question: “What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind?”

As the choices and consequences grow, the scenes often turn on small details. What book is Ursula reading – a French classic or a Pitman shorthand manual? What is her reaction to a lost dog that crosses her path? In other books, details like these could be easily glanced over; in Life After Life, they become crucial. Everything can turn on the drop of a dime – a simple push or an impromptu decision.

“She had been here before. She had never been here before…There was always something just out of sight, just around the corner, something she could never chase down – something that was chasing her down.”

At one point, Ursula briskly states, “No point in thinking. You just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.” But what if we DID have more than one? Ay, there’s the question…

AMAZON READER RATING: from 1,444 readers
PUBLISHER: Reagan Arthur Books (April 2, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shultman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Kate Atkinson
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Detective Jackson Brodie series:

]]> ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS by Nancy Kricorian /2014/all-the-light-there-was-by-nancy-kricorian/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 13:00:26 +0000 /?p=23576 Book Quote:

“My mother said briskly, “After you take everything upstairs, Missak, you return the cart to Donabedian as soon as possible. Maral, put the spices in the jars, and the sugar on the top shelf. The rest goes wherever you and Auntie Shakeh find space.”

That was how our war began. It didn’t start with blaring newspaper headlines announcing a pending invasion, nor was it signaled by the drone of warplanes overhead. Our war commenced that afternoon when my mother stockpiled groceries so that, no matter what this new war might bring, her family would have something to eat.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (JAN 7, 2014)

The setting is World War II Paris — when the Germans begin their occupation of the city, the protagonist of this story is just turning sixteen. Maral Pegorian and her older brother, Missak, are part of an Armenian family displaced to France after the Armenian genocide. They are stateless refugees and have made the suburb of Belleville in Paris, their home. Maral’s father is a cobbler and owns a small shoe shop hoping to one day pass on his skills to his son.

Missak, on the other hand, has different plans. He is a skilled artist and wants to work as an apprentice at the local print shop while spending most of his time secretly helping the French resistance. As a girl from a fairly conservative family, Maral can’t do much to help her brother, even if she sometimes wishes she could. “Was this to be my lot? Stuck in an apartment knitting or sewing or cooking while waiting for the men to come back from some adventure? It made me want to take the kitchen plates and throw them out the window just to hear them smash into a thousand pieces on the cobblestones below,” she laments.

Easily the smartest in the family, Maral goes through school even with the war progressing all around her, and towards the end of the story, graduates with an offer of admission to one of France’s most prestigious universities.

The Pegorian family’s fate is not unique to Paris or even to Armenians. Their neighbors, the Kacherians (also Armenian) are scraping the barrel to get by as are the many mixed families (including Jewish folks) in the neighborhood. Food is hard to come by — it’s mostly bulgur and turnips that the Pegorians manage to finagle with their ration card. There’s hardly any butter or meat to be had and even onions can be a rare delicacy. Despite the evident sufferings of the citizens during the Occupation, the children somehow manage to be themselves. Maral, in fact, falls in love with Zaven, one of the Kacherian sons, and Missak’s best friend. The two meet surreptitiously and pledge themselves to each other. Yet the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition.

Zaven and his older brother, Barkev, are swept up by the force of history and spend time in a German camp which changes them forever. The war crimes they witness leave permanent scars on their psyches — and ripples from these will eventually touch everyone they know including Maral.

History plays out in more than one way in this touching novel by Nancy Kricorian. With the weight of the Armenian genocide on their shoulders, the Armenian families in All The Light There Was, only want to lie low and not be subject to more tragedies. Maral’s parents have witnessed the horrors of the massacre personally and understandably it defines their life perspective in many subtle ways. When a Jewish family next door is rounded up by the Germans, the Pegorians hide the youngest girl in that family in their own apartment until the child is ready to be shipped to her aunt in Nice.

The Armenians in Maral’s generation might be removed from the immediate horrors of the Armenian genocide but they use the lessons learned from it to know that survival depends on many complicated factors. They are not ready to judge when they see their fellow brethren wear the American or the German uniform in the war.

In the end this story is a coming-of-age tale about Maral, a girl of promise at the novel’s start but who gradually gets worn down as the story moves along. “This is the story of how we lived the war, and how I found my husband,” Maral says at the beginning. The path toward finding her husband is not necessarily the most optimal but of course this is wartime and everyone’s lives are shaped by it. For someone who was fairly strong-willed at the beginning, it is a little frustrating, if understandable, to see Maral give up her education and instead fall into what comes more easily.

All The Light There Was is told through Maral’s voice and her perspective. In one sense, since she doesn’t do much except to bear witness to events that happen around her, this point of view feels limiting at times. The lens is never trained away from Maral and it occasionally gets claustrophobic. Yet it is precisely because the story is told through Maral’s voice, that the reader gets to feel what life was like for everyday citizens in occupied Paris. You realize that even during the worst wars, life can plod along — and even shine through — with grace. The beautiful cover art in this book drives home the point gracefully. Maral and her boyfriend are up front, lost in each other, while the rest of Paris goes on around them. You realize that while teenagers are often self-centered anyway, in times of war, this can be an essential mechanism to get through its many tribulations.

Ultimately the story ends with a ray of hope. “This world is made of dark and light, my girl, and in the darkest times you have to believe the sun will come again, even if you yourself don’t live to see it,” Maral’s father once tells her. As the reader turns the last page, you hope that the sun will indeed come again and shine down on the young and vibrant Armenians.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 57 readers
PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (March 12, 2013)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Nancy Kricorian
EXTRAS: Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Armenian history:

More occupied Paris:

Bibliography:

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