bookpagedev

by Eliza Borné

Mary Bayliss Pettigrew and her older brother Leo are “cut from the same cloth—six of one and half a dozen of the other.” They are growing up during the Great Depression in rural Alabama, but the 11- and 16-year-old are up to their usual shenanigans, playing tricks on neighbors and sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night.

Everything changes after Bayliss’s 12th birthday. In a tragic accident, Leo is killed. Bayliss miraculously survives, although her reality is grim. She wakes up in the hospital to find life without Leo, guilt and the nagging feeling that she has been spared for a special purpose from God. It’s a heavy burden for any 12-year-old girl, and Bayliss deals with the weight in an unusual way: she decides to become a nun. What ensues is alternately heartbreaking and funny, since we know that Bayliss is better suited for wearing overalls than a habit (the better for “traipsing through the jungles of Africa,” which is what she really longs to do).

Sandra Forrester, who is also the author of the Beatrice Bailey Magical Adventure series, is adept at portraying life after a tragedy—when supper must be made, the clothes washed, sadness confronted. It is a strange and confusing time, and Forrester characterizes each member of the healing Pettigrew family with depth and realistic imperfection. There is Bayliss’ dad, who is kind but fearful; her sister Kathleen, who possesses quiet strength; grandmother Tommie Dora, who is firm but filled with goodness. Each personality becomes richer and more likeable as the novel progresses.

Just when we think that the Pettigrews have faced enough hardship, there is a twist. The family takes in two orphan girls: precious five-year-old Isabel and steely eight-year-old Gwen. Bayliss reacts to this development with anger—she may be on the road to piety, but she refuses to replace her brother. Then, something cracks. Readers young and old will sympathize as Bayliss struggles with doubt and redemption.

Though it portrays pain, Forrester’s novel is enlivened by Bayliss’ snappy narration and the amusing, colloquial retorts by her family members. The Pettigrews will be an inspiration to any person who has dealt with loss.

Eliza Borné writes from Nashville.

Business & Finance

Business & Finance

Girls getting ahead

Review by bookpagedev

by Stephanie Swilley

Today’s modern woman has come a long way she no longer has to sound or act like a man to get ahead in the workplace but females still occupy only eight percent of the top-level jobs in major companies, according to Fortune magazine. Unconscious behaviors are keeping women from breaking the glass ceiling, says Lois Frankel, a corporate coach for hundreds of women and men. Her new book, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office (Warner, $19.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0446531324), is a must-have for all women with CEO aspirations. Frankel shows women how to "quit bein’ a girl" by exposing 101 mistakes that sabotage their careers. She breaks down the behaviors into seven categories, including How You Sound, How You Look and How You Play the Game. Some of the mistakes are not revolutionary (speaking softly, needing to be liked, having the wrong hairstyle, etc.) but each one is illustrated with real-world examples and coaching tips that have worked for Frankel’s clients. Women are urged to start with a quick self-assessment test, then focus on the two areas that need the most improvement. Frankel is direct and honest yet supportive as she zeroes in on the unconscious girl behaviors that keep women from reaching the top.

Girls just starting out on their quest for success should pick up Wildly Sophisticated (Perigee, $15.95, 272 pages, ISBN 0399529470), by Nicole Williams. The hip author who created the "Drinks After Work" networking phenomenon recommends that gals pinpoint their passion, choose a great boss and learn to deal with relationships of all kinds (she even covers how to date at work). The funny "Career Confessions" from real women are a special treat in a book best enjoyed while wearing Manolos and sipping a Cosmo.

Being your own boss Entrepreneurs Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio have written the insightful book they wished they could have read when starting their own PR agency in 2000. The Girl’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business (HarperResource, $21.95, 256 pages, ISBN 0060521570) will hold your hand through every stage of starting a successful business.

The authors address the unique challenges that women face (finding female role models, balancing family and work, being a boss without being a bitch), and the "scary stuff" like insurance, incorporation and technology. Fortunately these savvy business owners don’t advise doing it all on your own, and their tips on hiring a lawyer, accountant and bookkeeper are essential.

The authors’ enthusiasm is infectious and they give a list of chick flicks (Baby Boom, Sliding Doors) and CDs (Aretha Franklin, Madonna) to provide more inspiration. The Q&As with other female entrepreneurs offer another been-there-learn-from-me perspective.

For more seasoned advice, turn to four business pros who founded Eight Wings Enterprises LLC, an angel investment company. After watching ambitious women suffer start-up pitfalls time and again, they decided to put their knowledge on paper. The result is The Old Girls’ Network (Basic, $24.95, 224 pages, ISBN 073820806X), a wise book that shows women how to create an elevator pitch and warns against the five things never to say to an investor. The real gold mine is the appendix "tool kit" which is full of detailed templates, quizzes and references.

Good Business Eschewing rambling preliminaries, Roger Lowenstein jumps right into the spellbinding story of the bubble that burst in Origins of the Crash. The author of Buffett and When Genius Failed vividly explains the rise and fall of the 1990s stock market in plain, easy to understand language (finally, someone explains why stock options are evil!). But Lowenstein delivers more than just a history recitation. He delves into the culture that helped shape these events to explain how the myriad attempts at corporate governance failed so spectacularly. Looking ahead, Lowenstein predicts more bubbles and crashes, saying that "Wall Street may be incapable of reform." This fascinating analysis may reveal more about the future than Wall Street would like to admit.

Today's modern woman has come a long way she no longer has to sound or act like a man to get ahead in the workplace but females still occupy only eight percent of the top-level jobs in major companies, according to Fortune magazine. Unconscious…

Religion & Spirituality

Religion & Spirituality

Odd case of war and remembrance

Review by bookpagedev

by Alison Hood

Two-year-old James Leininger was a happy, contented toddler with doting parents. Andrea and Bruce Leininger had just settled themselves and their son into a new home in Louisiana, and life was peaceful—until late one night when they were jolted from sleep by James’s bloodcurdling screams. Rushing to his room, Andrea saw her son in the grip of a terrifying nightmare, “kicking frantically at his covers and screaming bloody murder.” For two months this scenario would repeat until finally, one night, as James’ weary parents again witnessed him “kicking and clawing . . . like he was trying to kick his way out of a coffin,” they heard him scream “Airplane crash! Plane on fire! Little man can’t get out!”

The Leiningers’ truly eerie tale of their son’s night terrors is chronicled in Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot, a strange story that makes a plausible case for the existence of past lives. While there have been many books, from silly to sensational, written about reincarnation and past-life memories, the Leiningers’ account is a straightforward, no-nonsense one. Bruce Leininger’s initial reaction to his son’s uncanny knowledge of and fascination with old airplanes—and the boy’s chilling assertion that he himself was the “little man” in the burning plane—was “bullshit!” But the nightmares would not go away, and the Leiningers methodically, with the help of the Internet, began an intensive investigation that led them to the ship Natoma Bay and the association of military men who had fought alongside fighter pilot James Huston.

From the first clues from young James about his past-life name, his memories of the crash and his war buddies, the Japanese planes and the Natoma, the Leiningers systematically verified and put the pieces together, with the help of Huston’s fellow (surviving) shipmates and family, into an undeniable catalog of facts that rocked their solid Christian beliefs. Soul Survivor presents strong evidence for reincarnation and demonstrates how the knowledge that life might be infinite can help to heal the fear and pain of human mortality.

Alison Hood is currently enjoying this lifetime as a writer living in California.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Young artist paints himself into a corner

Review by bookpagedev

by Dean Schneider

Eleven-year-old Matisse Jones thinks his family is a bunch of “goofy loons.” Take his father, for example. He creates huge portable smokers and barbecue pits complete with shock absorbers and wide-load flags, and he wheels them through town to pool parties, soccer games and funerals, sometimes losing control of his pigs on wheels. To Matisse, his father is “just one big advertisement for someone whose brains are all gone.” Matisse’s mother is art-obsessed, his sister purple-obsessed, and his two-year-old brother is a two-year-old brother, enough said.

However, everyone thinks Matisse is a genius. He has the gift of copying masterpieces exactly, and with the new show coming to the local art museum, where his mother is in charge of security, Matisse will have lots of inspiration for his copies. Coincidentally, this show will be a major exhibition of Matisse’s namesake: Henri Matisse. But when Matisse copies "Portrait of Pierre" and swaps his painting with the original on the wall of the museum, things turn out less amusing than Matisse expected. The museum installs a new high-tech security system, and Matisse has no opportunity to get the original back on the wall without giving away his criminal deeds.

So, he is stuck with the original. Coming from an artistic family, he knows the value of art, the importance of preserving it, and the big trouble he is in. "Portrait of Pierre" has close calls with a feather duster, humidity, water balloons and a militant security guard Matisse calls Guardzilla, as Matisse tries to protect the painting and extricate himself from his dire situation.

Matisse’s series of improbable events becomes a journey of self-discovery, in which he finds important truths about his family, himself and where his true gifts lie. Through this humorous tale, readers will learn about a portion of the art world, and they may just decide to research the work of the great Henri Matisse and his son Pierre, an influential art dealer in New York City. Though Pierre died in 1989, Bragg resurrects him for this novel so she can weave in all of the high-tech security devices that so effectively thwart Matisse Jones’ machinations. Matisse on the Loose is an amusing romp in the world of art.

Dean Schneider teaches middle school English in Nashville.

Business & Finance

Business & Finance

Girls getting ahead

Review by bookpagedev

by Stephanie Swilley

Today’s modern woman has come a long way she no longer has to sound or act like a man to get ahead in the workplace but females still occupy only eight percent of the top-level jobs in major companies, according to Fortune magazine. Unconscious behaviors are keeping women from breaking the glass ceiling, says Lois Frankel, a corporate coach for hundreds of women and men. Her new book, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office (Warner, $19.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0446531324), is a must-have for all women with CEO aspirations. Frankel shows women how to “quit bein’ a girl” by exposing 101 mistakes that sabotage their careers. She breaks down the behaviors into seven categories, including How You Sound, How You Look and How You Play the Game. Some of the mistakes are not revolutionary (speaking softly, needing to be liked, having the wrong hairstyle, etc.) but each one is illustrated with real-world examples and coaching tips that have worked for Frankel’s clients. Women are urged to start with a quick self-assessment test, then focus on the two areas that need the most improvement. Frankel is direct and honest yet supportive as she zeroes in on the unconscious girl behaviors that keep women from reaching the top.

Girls just starting out on their quest for success should pick up Wildly Sophisticated (Perigee, $15.95, 272 pages, ISBN 0399529470), by Nicole Williams. The hip author who created the “Drinks After Work” networking phenomenon recommends that gals pinpoint their passion, choose a great boss and learn to deal with relationships of all kinds (she even covers how to date at work). The funny “Career Confessions” from real women are a special treat in a book best enjoyed while wearing Manolos and sipping a Cosmo.

The authors address the unique challenges that women face (finding female role models, balancing family and work, being a boss without being a bitch), and the “scary stuff” like insurance, incorporation and technology. Fortunately these savvy business owners don’t advise doing it all on your own, and their tips on hiring a lawyer, accountant and bookkeeper are essential.

The authors’ enthusiasm is infectious and they give a list of chick flicks (Baby Boom, Sliding Doors) and CDs (Aretha Franklin, Madonna) to provide more inspiration. The Q&andAs with other female entrepreneurs offer another been-there-learn-from-me perspective.

For more seasoned advice, turn to four business pros who founded Eight Wings Enterprises LLC, an angel investment company. After watching ambitious women suffer start-up pitfalls time and again, they decided to put their knowledge on paper. The result is The Old Girls’ Network, a wise book that shows women how to create an elevator pitch and warns against the five things never to say to an investor. The real gold mine is the appendix “tool kit” which is full of detailed templates, quizzes and references.

Good Business Eschewing rambling preliminaries, Roger Lowenstein jumps right into the spellbinding story of the bubble that burst in Origins of the Crash (The Penguin Press, $24.95, 259 pages, ISBN 1594200033). The author of Buffett and When Genius Failed vividly explains the rise and fall of the 1990s stock market in plain, easy to understand language (finally, someone explains why stock options are evil!). But Lowenstein delivers more than just a history recitation. He delves into the culture that helped shape these events to explain how the myriad attempts at corporate governance failed so spectacularly. Looking ahead, Lowenstein predicts more bubbles and crashes, saying that “Wall Street may be incapable of reform.” This fascinating analysis may reveal more about the future than Wall Street would like to admit.

Memoir

Memoir

Surviving the crash

Review by bookpagedev

by John T. Slania

The pace of Down Around Midnight builds quickly, as author Robert Sabbag describes being a passenger on a small commercial airliner that crashes in the woods on Cape Cod. He writes of the incredible force he experiences as the plane hits the trees, ripping his seat from the fuselage and propelling him forward onto the deck of the cabin. He shares his view of remote darkness, the strong smell of leaking jet fuel and the eerie silence after the plane skids to a halt in the foggy woods. He relates the stinging physical pain and the heart-pounding fear as he and the other survivors struggle to escape, alarmed that they might catch fire along with the fuel-soaked aircraft. The sights, sounds, smells and other sensations of the crash are the hook of Down Around Midnight. What follows is Sabbag’s personal journey of recovery—both physical and emotional—and his quest, 28 years after the crash, to talk to fellow survivors.

Remarkably, the June 17, 1979, crash of Air New England Flight 248 claimed only one life: the pilot’s. Nine passengers and the co-pilot lived, and Sabbag uses his training as a journalist to track down some of them almost three decades later. He finds the young woman who braved the dark woods to find help, the medical student who pulled passengers from the wreckage and the Harvard quarterback who tended to the severely injured co-pilot. Their memories of the crash and their reflections on their psychological recovery make for a fascinating examination of how people cope with the aftermath of a traumatic experience.

The only disappointment is that Sabbag, by choice, doesn’t pursue interviews with some survivors, including the co-pilot and three sisters seriously injured in the crash. He also passes on an interview with the pilot’s wife. One can sympathize with Sabbag’s decision based on his sensitivities as a fellow survivor. But as a journalist, he fails to seek all sides of the story; as a result, Down Around Midnight doesn’t close with the same flourish as its energetic beginning. Still, this survivor’s tale should hold the attention of both the seasoned air traveler and the reluctant voyager who has a fear of flying.

John T. Slania is a journalism professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

Business & Finance

Business & Finance

Girls getting ahead

Review by bookpagedev

by Stephanie Swilley

Today’s modern woman has come a long way she no longer has to sound or act like a man to get ahead in the workplace but females still occupy only eight percent of the top-level jobs in major companies, according to Fortune magazine. Unconscious behaviors are keeping women from breaking the glass ceiling, says Lois Frankel, a corporate coach for hundreds of women and men. Her new book, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, is a must-have for all women with CEO aspirations. Frankel shows women how to "quit bein’ a girl" by exposing 101 mistakes that sabotage their careers. She breaks down the behaviors into seven categories, including How You Sound, How You Look and How You Play the Game. Some of the mistakes are not revolutionary (speaking softly, needing to be liked, having the wrong hairstyle, etc.) but each one is illustrated with real-world examples and coaching tips that have worked for Frankel’s clients. Women are urged to start with a quick self-assessment test, then focus on the two areas that need the most improvement. Frankel is direct and honest yet supportive as she zeroes in on the unconscious girl behaviors that keep women from reaching the top.

Good Business Eschewing rambling preliminaries, Roger Lowenstein jumps right into the spellbinding story of the bubble that burst in Origins of the Crash (The Penguin Press, $24.95, 259 pages, ISBN 1594200033). The author of Buffett and When Genius Failed vividly explains the rise and fall of the 1990s stock market in plain, easy to understand language (finally, someone explains why stock options are evil!). But Lowenstein delivers more than just a history recitation. He delves into the culture that helped shape these events to explain how the myriad attempts at corporate governance failed so spectacularly. Looking ahead, Lowenstein predicts more bubbles and crashes, saying that "Wall Street may be incapable of reform." This fascinating analysis may reveal more about the future than Wall Street would like to admit.

Nonfiction, Pop Culture

Nonfiction Pop Culture

Object lessons

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda M. Castellitto

“A world drowning in objects,” the title of the introduction to Deyan Sudjic’s The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects, is an apt description of the things-filled lives so many of us lead. It’s timely, too: rather than reveling in our objects, he explains, we’re feeling overwhelmed by them. How did it get this way? What makes one object more desirable than another? Sudjic, director of the Design Museum in London, intelligently and thoroughly explores the emotional and thought processes behind our appreciation of and craving for beautifully designed objects. In doing so, he provides a history of the people and innovations that have been instrumental in shaping our tastes and environment.

He turns his curator’s eye on everything from cars to computers to banknotes, and offers analyses of the evolution of objects’ roles as status indicators. For example, thanks to the advent of high-end computers, iPhones, BlackBerries and the like, the fountain pen is not as attractive a status object as it once was—but the watch is. Why? Because it’s jewelry, which has a “long history of addressing the emotional and tactile interaction between people and things.” Sudjic also examines how designer archetypes (the chair, lamp, certain types of architecture, etc.) frequently are re-imagined and addresses the role of fashion in design and vice versa.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is his explication of design vs. art, where he writes of the “taint of utility.” Or: art is art because it is useless, whereas design solves a problem and/or performs a function . . . but price “can have the effect of making a useful object useless” because something might be too pricey to use in everyday life. The Language of Things is filled with such moments of clarity, including Sudjic’s warning that, although design offers us a way of understanding the world, “We find ourselves seduced into constantly searching for the fleeting high of a new possession, a new purchase, and a fascination with the new.” An excellent point—and one of many in this insightful book, which is, of course, nicely designed.

Linda M. Castellitto is surrounded by designers in North Carolina.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

There’s no place like home

Review by bookpagedev

by Andrea Tarr

Ten-year-old Allie, who is growing up during the Great Depression, is quite content living in a two-family home in New Haven, Connecticut. Her parents want more space, however, and one day her father announces major news: they are moving to a rented one-family home in Stamford. While this may seem like a positive development, Allie has reservations about leaving her best friend, Ruthie, and worries that she will have no friends and that she may not be accepted in her new school.

Swept off her feet by the magical name of her new street, Strawberry Hill, Allie’s fears nearly vanish. She begins to acclimate to her new home, neighborhood and school, though she views Stamford as vastly different from New Haven. Faced with new challenges, Allie must sort out the true meaning of friendship. She grows to appreciate her family and comes to learn a few perplexing, though valuable, lessons on her journey toward self-discovery.

Teacher and author Mary Ann Hoberman has been writing books for children for more than 50 years, though Strawberry Hill marks her first foray into fiction. Currently serving as the Children’s Poet Laureate, Hoberman wrote the rhyming text in the picture book A House is A House for Me, which was a 1984 National Book Award winner. Distinct picture book offerings, such as One of Each and Seven Silly Eaters, as well as memorable poetry collections, such as The Llama Who Had no Pajama, have enlightened and entertained countless readers. Hoberman’s latest offering, Strawberry Hill, is a delightful and endearing autobiographical coming-of-age narrative.

Hoberman’s sweet look at the loss of innocence combined with the small steps we take toward maturity has a charm all its own. Join Allie on her trek to make Strawberry Hill feel like home.

Freelance writer Andrea Tarr is a librarian at Corona Public Library in California.

Fiction

Fiction

All in the family

Review by bookpagedev

by Karen Ann Cullotta

Readers will savor the bittersweet taste of first love with a twist of darkness in Tess Callahan’s debut novel. After all, these tortured souls are kissing cousins—literally. While not related by blood, April and Oliver share the same beloved grandmother and grew up climbing trees and skinning knees together.

The story begins when tragedy strikes this fractured family, tossing April and Oliver together again after years of estrangement. A former musical child prodigy, Oliver has abandoned the piano and enrolled in law school, arriving back in New York with an ethereal blonde, Bernadette. True to her name, Oliver’s fiancée is saint-like, the antithesis of her wild child nemesis, the irrepressible April.

While the juxtaposition of the vodka-swilling, mini-skirt clad bartender (April) with the wholesome, schoolteacher ingénue (Bernadette) could become cliché in the hands of a less talented writer, Callahan’s immense gift for storytelling is brimming with truth. Through twists and turns, the young women forge a tenuous friendship that is doomed to fail, but is noble in its intentions, nonetheless.

The plot is poised on a complex love triangle, but when April’s attraction to bad boys takes a dangerous, violent turn, she is rescued by the engaged couple, whose wedding plans are unfolding alongside a funeral and the specter of domestic violence. Battered, bruised and broken, April is on a fast track to nowhere, unmoored by a seemingly never-ending string of tragedies in her life. And Oliver, while outwardly successful, is equally fragile, possessed by the twin demons of desire and dread.

There are no easy answers for April and Oliver, nor for the novel’s peripheral yet equally poignant characters like Nana, the fiery family matriarch; Al, the womanizing, but good-hearted sportswriter; and even T.J., April’s tormented ex-boyfriend. Some secrets should never be shared, and in the end, it is Callahan’s grace and restraint that is sure to win her legions of readers, beguiled by her prose and yearning for her next book.

Karen Ann Cullotta writes from Chicago.

American History, History

History American History

A new perspective on Ellis Island

Review by bookpagedev

by Martin Brady

Journalist and historian Vincent J. Cannato’s American Passage: The History of Ellis Island is about an uncertain chapter in America’s past, one most people might automatically deem unfair or at least depressing. But, as the saying goes: it is what it is. When put into its proper context, as Cannato sure-handedly does, Ellis Island’s desultory existence emerges as a functional, if flawed, reality of its time, when millions of immigrants sought wholesale entry into the U.S.

The huddled masses yearning to be free certainly figure into Cannato’s narrative, but they’re only the pawns in the game. We don’t get to them for a while anyway, as the author first offers an overview of New York Harbor’s island system, plus background on what was formerly known as Gibbet Island, used as a place for hanging pirates in the early 19th century and later as a munitions depot. Immigration was handled loosely back then, but as the influx of Europeans to the Land of Liberty increased heading toward the 20th century, so did point-of-entry corruption and exploitation, not to mention Anglo-Saxon xenophobia and nativist fears about diseased, lunatic, criminal and poverty-stricken aliens infiltrating the shores. (On the other hand, big business was licking its chops at the prospect of cheap labor. Sound familiar?)

Indeed, 12 million immigrants washed through Ellis Island’s portals from 1892 to 1924, and Cannato trenchantly outlines the political, administrative and public policy ideas behind its operation, while also introducing readers to a host of government officials heretofore little-known, such as longtime Ellis Island commissioner William Williams, who was a stickler when it came to “tightening the sieve that would strain out larger numbers of undesirable immigrants.” There are sad stories about Ellis Island, some recounted here. Some folks were sent back from whence they came, some died in detention, sometimes families were split up. But much of the anecdotal reportage only seems to reinforce with some logic the notion that, faced with an onslaught of potential new citizens, any government might want to rightfully process them systematically. (And by the way, Cannato says Ellis Island officials did not change people’s names; they hardly had time enough to deal with all the human bodies and the appropriate settlement issues. Most immigrants who changed their names did so later on of their own accord or at the urging of relatives or friends.)

After World War I, and with immigration on the decline, the U.S. turned to the so-called consulate system for screening newcomers, which rendered Ellis Island generally irrelevant, though it continued to function through the years as a detention center, including during World War II and the Cold War. In the 1950s, it went up for sale. Finding no takers at the government’s asking price, and after a few more decades of federal indecision, it finally was remade into a museum in 1990, now attracting two million visitors a year.

Rather than tug at heartstrings about the great melting pot experience, American Passage focuses instead on delivering a well-written and thoroughly researched text about the workings of a uniquely historical bureaucracy, the development and reform of early immigration law, the sociopolitical impulses that fueled a teeming era—and a strange little island whose place in our history is now only a faraway memory.

Martin Brady writes from Nashville.

Fiction, Short Stories

Fiction Short Stories

Stories of migration and struggle

Review by bookpagedev

by Lauren Bufferd

With two prize-winning novels behind her, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has become a formidable voice in contemporary West African literature. She is a true storyteller with a gift for language and a literary style that is almost imperceptible; it is only after reading at a breathless pace that we become aware of Adichie’s subtle craftsmanship.

Most of the 12 stories in The Thing Around Your Neck focus on men and women who travel between Africa and the United States. Nigeria is the place where most of Adichie’s characters live, leave and long to return, while the U.S. is a place of promise, new beginnings and ultimate disappointments.

The title story depicts a Nigerian girl who immigrates to the U.S. and quickly finds herself suffering from a suffocating sense of loneliness. Even after she falls in love with an American, she feels the pull of her homeland, and a death in the family threatens the fragile sense of place she has established. In “Imitation,” a wife and mother finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she hears that her husband has brought his girlfriend to live in their Lagos home. Both stories suggest that there is no sense of permanence for an immigrant.

The majority of Adichie’s subjects are young women who must reach beyond their social class at moments of crisis. In “A Private Moment,” a Christian medical student seeks shelter with a poor Muslim woman during a religious riot and offers her medical assistance. In “The Arranged Marriage,” an assimilated husband forbids his sheltered wife, newly arrived from Lagos, to make familiar dishes from home.

If there is a fault in this collection, it is that some of the immigration stories seem a little too formulaic. The more successful stories are the ones where the fixed points of the immigration narrative are abandoned and the action flows in a more unexpected way. In “The Headstrong Historian,” Adichie pays homage to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, putting a provocative spin on one of Africa’s most celebrated novels about the influences of colonialism. Adichie has been called the literary daughter of Achebe and this fine collection shows how a daughter can continue the legacy of the father.

Lauren Bufferd writes from Nashville.

Fiction, Historical Fiction

Fiction Historical Fiction

A window into Catherine de Medici’s world

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda White

Jeanne Kalogridis, author of The Borgia Bride and I, Mona Lisa, has again taken a famous historical woman and breathed life into her. This time it is Catherine de Medici of the powerhouse D’Medici family of Florence, Italy. Her story spans generations, and takes us from her earliest memories to elderly widowhood.

Catherine de Medici was Duchess of Urbino, heir to the rule of Florence. When her family fell from power, she was imprisoned as a child and held for three years by Republican factions. Catherine was valuable as niece to the Pope, and was married off to the young French prince. She became queen and eventually gave birth to kings.

Meanwhile, though, her dreams are disturbed by visions of tides of blood and those whom she loves calling for help. She does not know what to do, so calls on astrology to guide her, as she had done when she was young. Historically, she was well known for her reliance and knowledge of the “black arts”—astrology and talismans. Among many highlights, The Devil’s Queen portrays a meeting with the famed prophet Nostradamus.

Catherine is regarded as one of the most gifted rulers in France’s history, even though she never officially ruled as Queen, but as regent for her young sons. Her story is one of passion, intrigue and history by inches. And Kalogridis tells it with gripping detail, from the passionate love scenes to the gory executions. We come to know Catherine and journey with her through the twists and turns of royal life.

The narrative pulls readers along as quickly as the years go by—Kalogridis is skillful at weaving complicated political treachery into the personal story of a deeply committed mother. Rounded out with epic battles, affairs and glorious descriptions of royal fashions, this transporting tale may keep readers up late into the night.

Linda White is a writer and publicist living in St. Paul, Minnesota.

RELATED CONTENT

Page through the "Grimoire" of Catherine de Medici, a companion work to The Devil’s Queen.

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Finding hope after a tragedy

Girls getting ahead

Odd case of war and remembrance

Young artist paints himself into a corner

Girls getting ahead

Surviving the crash

Girls getting ahead

Object lessons

There’s no place like home

All in the family

A new perspective on Ellis Island

Stories of migration and struggle

A window into Catherine de Medici’s world

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