A harrowing tale of sacrifice, survival and identity, Nanda Reddy’s A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl presents an unvarnished look at how the American Dream can morph into a nightmare for immigrants.
A harrowing tale of sacrifice, survival and identity, Nanda Reddy’s A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl presents an unvarnished look at how the American Dream can morph into a nightmare for immigrants.
You won’t forget Jinwoo Chong’s big-hearted, beautifully written I Leave It Up to You, about a son returning to his fractious but loving family following a two-year coma.
You won’t forget Jinwoo Chong’s big-hearted, beautifully written I Leave It Up to You, about a son returning to his fractious but loving family following a two-year coma.
A heartfelt coming-of-age story about a son leaving college to help on his father’s farm, Nathaniel Ian Miller’s Red Dog Farm is note-perfect in its evocative depiction of life in rural Iceland.
A heartfelt coming-of-age story about a son leaving college to help on his father’s farm, Nathaniel Ian Miller’s Red Dog Farm is note-perfect in its evocative depiction of life in rural Iceland.
You might call this a fairy tale for angst-ridden intellectuals but you’d be wrong. True, Stephen Griffin does come across as something of a Cinderella rescued from the ashes of despair by a Princess Charming; and there’s a fairy godmother of sorts, too. Set in Ireland, the story offers just the lightest whisper of literal magic. Still, no fairy tale carries the built-in challenges Williams takes on here, for instance a cast that comprises the gentlest, most vulnerable array of characters to hit the page since Bambi. And no fairy tale uses language so achingly perceptive and so wise, with insights often slightly off-kilter, approaching from unexpected directions. Niall Williams’s second novel (after Four Letters of Love, which elicited ecstatic reviews) performs a magic of its own by breathing life into three people Philip, Stephen, and Gabriella.
Philip Griffin blames himself for his wife’s and daughter’s accidental deaths. His son, Stephen, now 32, tall and silent and intense, is a history teacher living in a small damp cottage on the Irish coast. Raised by his father, he has learned from him the fine skills of walking in empty rooms and being aware of the ghosts. When Philip, who always anticipated affliction, detects that Stephen has fallen in love, he expects the worst. Reluctantly, he prays to live rather than die, so that he can help Stephen through the disaster, for he loved Stephen as a wall loves a garden. And Gabriella Castoldi, the Venetian violinist Stephen loves, is no barrel of laughs herself, with an expectancy of grief that overshadows her life and all those she meets.
This review cannot do justice to Williams’s portrayal of how love can finally turn lifelong winter into spring. ¦ Maude McDaniel is a freelance writer in Cumberland, Maryland.
You might call this a fairy tale for angst-ridden intellectuals but you'd be wrong. True, Stephen Griffin does come across as something of a Cinderella rescued from the ashes of despair by a Princess Charming; and there's a fairy godmother of sorts, too. Set in…
Thirty-six-year-old Patty Murphy has waited patiently for her husband and children. Unfortunately her patience has not paid off. Patty is essentially a homemaker disguised as an unmarried real estate salesperson, a distinction she would not deny. As the narrator of Elizabeth Berg’s latest novel, Until the Real Thing Comes Along, Patty makes these points perfectly clear within the first few pages.
She readily admits that she has, in her two years at Rodman Real Estate, managed to sell one house (which happened to sell for $3.2 million). Despite her less-than-ambitious career, she enjoys the real estate business; her desire to be a wife and mother, however, overshadows any joy that she receives from showing houses. As Patty’s story unravels, the reader/confidante is taken through a maze of scenarios and reflections that center around a fictitious husband and a multitude of make-believe children.
Patty has known since the sixth grade who would make the perfect husband and father: Ethan Allen Gaines. She and Ethan are very close, and have even been engaged. Their engagement was broken when Ethan confessed that he is homosexual. The good news is, they have remained good friends, though the relationship is often frustrated by Patty’s lingering love and blind hope that Ethan is simply going through a phase.
Two things that both Patty and Ethan desire are the right man and many children. And since neither have any prospects in either area, they decide to have a child themselves. Though Patty’s pregnancy does not match the daydreams that had danced in her head for 36 years, she is happy with their decision . . . right? Factored into the Patty Murphy equation are an elderly couple whose days are numbered, a love her/hate her beautiful best friend, and two worried parents. And while Patty’s encounters with each character are amusing, there is an underlying, inexplicable sadness that tends to permeate each relationship. This sadness culminates when Patty discovers that her mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Amid these trials of life, Patty begins to focus on what the real thing actually is. A self-proclaimed runner-up in the pageant of life, Patty realizes that perhaps the real thing includes loving someone or something despite itself. Because of itself, actually. A warm-hearted story that gently offers insight rather than answers, Until the Real Thing Comes Along would especially appeal to those who have survived loss and crisis.
Thirty-six-year-old Patty Murphy has waited patiently for her husband and children. Unfortunately her patience has not paid off. Patty is essentially a homemaker disguised as an unmarried real estate salesperson, a distinction she would not deny. As the narrator of Elizabeth Berg's latest novel, Until…
Bill Flanagan’s first novel, A&R, is an engaging morality play set in the coarse and colorful pop music scene of New York City, with wild side trips to Rio and the Caribbean. The term
A&R stands for artists and repertoire, i.e., recording artists and the songs they sing. The record company executives who work in
A&R operate as liaisons between the talented but temperamental individuals who create music and the huge corporations that pay the bills. A&R is at the uneasy nexus of art and commerce, and conflict is rife as big egos battle for fame, fortune, and power.
The story centers on the people employed by or under contract to Worldwide Records, an international behemoth representative of the multinational companies that control today’s popular music. Good A&R guy Jim Cantone joins Worldwide and begins his careful ascent up the corporate ladder, always watching his back and hoping he can preserve a measure of personal integrity as he fights for music he believes in. By the end of the book, Cantone has survived a palace coup and is pulling down half a million a year in compensation. Whether he has maintained any of the nobler traits he started with is doubtful, but at least he retains a capacity for sincere regret.
Most of the other corporate players are beyond redemption. The central battle involves the overthrow of Worldwide’s libertine founder, Bill DeGaul, a legendary music man, by his sociopathic next-in-command, J.B. Booth. DeGaul loses his empire, but he accepts his fate, retires to the islands, and, when last seen, has achieved something close to peace of mind.
The author has written extensively on the music business for various publications and is employed by VH-1, a video music channel. He certainly writes from an informed perspective, and his observations are a valuable addition to our understanding of the ways popular music is created and marketed. Readers will enjoy attempting to identify the real life inspirations for Flanagan’s vivid characters. A&R is especially recommended as a cautionary tale for aspiring musicians and music industry careerists.
Dan Tyler is a songwriter and author of the novel Music City Confidential.
Bill Flanagan's first novel, A&R, is an engaging morality play set in the coarse and colorful pop music scene of New York City, with wild side trips to Rio and the Caribbean. The term A&R stands for artists and repertoire, i.e., recording artists and…
An Irish tale A recent novel by Walter Keady, author of Celibates and Other Lovers, is certainly worth investigating. Keady grew up in Ireland, and his story of Irish Mary McGreevy (MacMurray ∧ Beck, $24, 1878448838) resonates with authentic details of place, people, and language. Readers will add quite a saucy repertoire of 1950’s Irish slang to their vocabulary.
When Mary McGreevy abandons her convent to run the family farm, the village is scandalized. Village wags soon have even more to talk about when the former nun purposely becomes pregnant and will not name the father. The ensuing brou-ha-ha is explored with warmth, compassionate humor, and piercing insight.
An Irish tale A recent novel by Walter Keady, author of Celibates and Other Lovers, is certainly worth investigating. Keady grew up in Ireland, and his story of Irish Mary McGreevy (MacMurray ∧ Beck, $24, 1878448838) resonates with authentic details of place, people, and language.…
A central symbol in this short novel is a work of art produced by a Georgia slave. Drawn with ink on a large white linen bedsheet, it consists of a tiny perfect square at the center, surrounded by concentric squares rendered freehand. Because each square is larger, each is more imperfect, until at the outermost edges the shapes are no longer squares but vast chaotic wanderings. To narrator Mike Reed, the drawing portrays the silly, helpless tendency of fundamental things to get way off course and turn into nonsense. The perfect square of Mike’s life is the accidental death of his wife and small daughter four years ago. Since then, as it has grown away from this center, his life has become increasingly aimless.
More precisely, he has been numb, paralyzed, virtually dead, treading water in an academic position he has little commitment to. However, in the weeks covered by his narration more happens to him than he has experienced in years, until at last he is seeking a final liberating aberration, which will enable him to break free of the old pattern. He is, therefore, almost consciously looking for trouble. He finds this trouble and perhaps the ghost of his daughter mainly in Flower Cannon, a 26-year-old student (Mike is 53), who is performance artist, painter, cellist, and stripper.
He finds his liberation or does he? at a religious service to which Flower leads him. Let’s just say that even after what happens at the service, he still acts on a deeply felt need to move into the unforeseen. Readers who like an insightful and articulate companion will enjoy traveling with Mike Reed. He knows, for instance, that his grief reaction is not simple. As to language, how can one not enjoy a companion who describes a group of men around a casino gambling table as proud of their clichŽs yet full of helpless poetry and the atmosphere of a state-run educational institution as vapors of low-lying cynicism, occasional genius, and small polite terror ? The author behind the narrator, Denis Johnson, is an award-winning poet and novelist whose 1992 short story collection, Jesus’ Son, was recently adapted as a feature film.
Don Smith is a senior trainer for the Great Books Foundation.
A central symbol in this short novel is a work of art produced by a Georgia slave. Drawn with ink on a large white linen bedsheet, it consists of a tiny perfect square at the center, surrounded by concentric squares rendered freehand. Because each square…
You won’t find the women in Faith Sullivan’s new novel wringing their hands and moaning What’s a woman to do? Sullivan turns that phrase on its edge and renders it a call for action in the title of her latest novel, What a Woman Must Do.
But life doesn’t always neatly dictate where duty lies. Kate, Harriet, and Bess, Sullivan’s trio of related main characters, struggle inwardly with their personal dilemmas. Each knows her actions will affect the others, and their choices, though individual and honest, are not made easily.
Bess, the youngest, has been raised by her aunts and yearns for adventure beyond the streets of Harvester, Minnesota. But just before she is to leave for college, Bess risks her future by falling for a local married man. Harriet is the middle-aged cousin who wants desperately to have a home of her own, and though it may mean losing her beloved Bess’s approval, she goes to the Dakota dance hall to kick up her heels with a widowed farmer. And then there’s the aging but spirited Kate, fighting with ghosts from the past and reproaching herself for things she should have done as a woman despite her fears and the conventions of her youth.
Though separated by generational differences, each cares deeply for the other, for regaining and maintaining their family’s respectability, and for the men they come to love. But it is Kate’s fervent longing for the farm she has lost, her love for the land she once lived with so intimately, that becomes the narrative’s overriding passion and its idyllic backdrop. Heaven will be a farm, she tells herself. And we will own it outright. Sullivan uses a condensed time frame a mere three days and like a play, the story moves swiftly through its web of conflicts to its crisis. A variety of techniques flesh out the characters and bring the past into relevancy with the present; flashbacks, dreams, and Kate’s ability to conjure her beloved farm to the point where she is not simply imagining, but there, give us insight into the characters’ motivations.
If you are looking for an intriguing tale of love and relationships mixed with distinctive female characters and a dash of family scandal, get Faith Sullivan’s new book and find out What a Woman Must Do.
Linda Stankard writes from Cookeville, Tennessee.
You won't find the women in Faith Sullivan's new novel wringing their hands and moaning What's a woman to do? Sullivan turns that phrase on its edge and renders it a call for action in the title of her latest novel, What a Woman Must…
Filled with romance, intrigue, revenge, and salvation, Lake News, the latest novel by best-selling author Barbara Delinsky, is a gripping tale sure to please her legions of loyal fans and earn her quite a few new ones.
Lily Blake is a quiet young woman leading a quiet life in Boston. She teaches music appreciation at a private academy, but her real love in life is playing piano and singing the old favorites at the Essex, an exclusive dining club which boasts among its members the newly installed Cardinal Fran Rossetti. Having known the cleric all her adult life, Lily considers the Cardinal one of her closest friends and advisors. But when Terry Sullivan, a devious newspaper reporter with a secret agenda, accuses her of having an affair with her dear friend, Lily becomes a pariah overnight.
Lily finds herself unable to return to her Boston apartment, where reporters are permanently camped out. Embarrassed by the false revelations, friends, neighbors, and employers begin to shun Lily, and she soon realizes she has no alternative but to escape to her hometown of Lake Henry. Vulnerable and wary, she makes the trip home. Once there, she must dodge sneaky reporters and confront old demons in the face of a cold and unloving mother and a town still whispering gossip about her youthful indiscretions.
John Kipling, the editor of the Lake News, knows all about the emotional trauma Lily Blake is going through. He used to be one of those rumor-mongering reporters in the big city himself, until one day it just got to be too much and he too retreated homeward, with trust issues and family problems of his own. But John knows just what to do to help Lily exact her revenge on the reporter who ruined her life and, in the process, gets a little redemption himself. He just didn’t plan on falling in love with Lily along the way.
Lake News has just enough mystery to keep readers on the edges of their seats, and just enough romance to make them all sigh.
Sharon Galligar Chance is senior book reviewer at the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Filled with romance, intrigue, revenge, and salvation, Lake News, the latest novel by best-selling author Barbara Delinsky, is a gripping tale sure to please her legions of loyal fans and earn her quite a few new ones.
By now, Karen Joy Fowler’s husband knows what to expect when his wife starts writing a book, like the bestselling The Jane Austen Book Club or the Booker Prize finalist We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. She will lament, “Oh, it’s never been so hard,” and he will remind her: “You did say that last time. And the time before that, you know.”
“Is it possible that every book is harder than the one before?” Fowler wonders, speaking from her home in Santa Cruz, California. “Or do you just not remember? I don’t have an answer to that question.”
As she does in her writing, Fowler laces her conversations with curiosity, humor and reflection. You can practically hear her good-natured wheels turning as she discusses her latest novel, Booth, an immersive, behind-the-scenes account of the years leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, by way of an investigation into the family of assassin John Wilkes Booth. The Booths were a famous theatrical family celebrated for their Shakespearian performances, especially father Junius and brother Edwin, whose 1893 funeral was described as one of “the most remarkable ever held in New York City” by the New York Times.
“As much as I am trying to argue that he is not the most interesting person in this family, I know that the narrative tension in the book is all because of John Wilkes Booth.”
Despite such a wealth of source material, and despite her husband’s reassurances, writing this book was particularly difficult for Fowler. Her despair over gun violence in the United States prompted her to choose this topic, but she didn’t want to focus on the assassin. Instead, she was interested in exploring the culpability and guilt of the Booth parents and siblings. How to achieve this delicate balance, “from the words, to the conception, to the way the book was organized,” was something Fowler “grappled with on nearly every page.”
Now she passes that same conundrum along to her readers. “I would not have written this book if John Wilkes had not killed Abraham Lincoln,” she says. “As much as I am trying to argue that he is not the most interesting person in this family, I know that the narrative tension in the book is all because of John Wilkes Booth.”
Even the book’s title is problematic. “It actually should be Booths—plural,” Fowler says, “but that’s just so hard to say. I knew that at least in America, if you saw a book entitled Booth, you would think this is a book about John Wilkes Booth. Which is exactly what I didn’t want you thinking!”
This is one of the primary reasons why the novel doesn’t depict Lincoln’s shooting in real time. “I didn’t want to imagine what John Wilkes Booth was thinking [in that moment]. First of all, I can’t—my imagination doesn’t stretch that far. But it’s still very painful to see that turning point in our history, to wonder what might have been.”
One passage in the novel, in fact, enumerates the many close calls with death John Wilkes had throughout his life, even before he carried out his tragic deed. “It was something that really struck me when I did the research,” Fowler explains. “[His death] would have been devastating for his family, but so much better for everyone else.”
The Booth clan has long fascinated Fowler, and she has featured various family members in three short stories, including “Standing Room Only,” which is about time travelers who journey to witness Lincoln’s death. A science fiction fan, Fowler was frustrated by the many stories she read in which time travelers seem to go undetected by those they encounter. “I thought, obviously not, it won’t be that way at all,” she says. “They’ll just be like tourists everywhere. I live in a tourist town, and I can spot the tourists. And then I went from that to thinking, well, there will be destination holidays, and one of them, unfortunately, will be the Lincoln assassination.”
Research, she muses, “is probably the closest we will come to time travel,” and from the start of creating Booth, she had mountains to sift through. A godsend came in the form of biographer Terry Alford, author of Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, which Fowler calls “magnificent,” and the forthcoming In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits. Alford’s biography features unique details, so Fowler reached out to ask a few questions. “He’s been researching this family for 30 years, and he sent me piles of research that would’ve taken me months and months to find on my own, if ever,” she says. “It was just mind-bogglingly generous.”
John Wilkes Booth was born in 1838, the ninth of 10 children. In 1822, his parents, Junius and Mary Ann Booth, emigrated from England to Bel Air, Maryland, where they bought 150 acres and moved a small log cabin onto the property. Junius, an alcoholic who was at times mentally unstable, was often away on tour, leaving his wife—with the help of enslaved men and women—to tend to farming and maintaining the home. The family faced poverty, hunger and disease; four of the 10 children died. Fowler portrays these ordeals with startling immediacy, especially from the perspective of young Rosalie, who watches “the household collapse into madness” and communes with the ghosts of her dead siblings.
Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth
“I’ve had dreams about the place,” Fowler says. “In my dreams, the barn is there, and the slave cabins are there. It’s clearly a metaphor for doing research. The property [in my dreams] was beautiful, but I had a sense of menace, that something was very wrong and that it was a dangerous place to be.”
Junius eventually had a larger home, named Tudor Hall, built on the property. It’s now a museum on a fairly small lot surrounded by other houses. “There’s a lovely group of people who maintain it,” Fowler says. “It seems the ghosts have been purged.”
The name Tudor Hall is something of a touchstone, since Fowler’s love of historical fiction was inspired by Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell and the court of King Henry VIII. “I blame Hilary Mantel for the fact that [Booth] is in present tense,” Fowler says. “Wolf Hall was so powerful that somehow Hilary Mantel has persuaded me that this is how you write a historical novel.”
Indeed, readers will feel as though they’re watching events transpire in real time, with different sections told from the perspectives of not only Rosalie but also brother Edwin and sister Asia. Information about Edwin was plentiful due to his acting career, but Asia also left behind a valuable resource. In 1874, she wrote a secret memoir about her infamous brother, though it wasn’t published until 1938, long after her death. Fowler calls Asia “an incredible woman, but hard to like. . . . I would probably have wanted to make her more likable if her own words hadn’t condemned her in certain ways.” (For instance, although Asia disapproved of John Wilkes’ crime, she blamed Lincoln for going to the theater that night.) Photographs of Asia, however, continue to bewilder the author. “Nobody talks about Asia Booth without mentioning what a beauty she was,” Fowler says, “and you look at the pictures, and you just think, what are they talking about?”
Rosalie, in contrast, remains a cipher, with few details available. She never married and had some sort of “infirmity,” widely commented on but never specified. “Every time Rosalie’s name comes up, you hear, ‘What an invalid she is, poor Rose,’” Fowler laments. But these gaps in Rosalie’s history proved useful. “There was a little more freedom to imagine who she might be. She’s pretty much made up, although the things that happened to her are not. I cannot tell you how delighted I was to discover that she had a romance with a lion tamer!”
“I blame Hilary Mantel for the fact that [Booth] is in present tense.”
Although Fowler says she is always on the hunt for such “small details that I hope will bring the world more to life,” she also keeps a bigger picture in mind. When she first began to write Booth, she was primarily focused on issues of gun violence, but the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump caused a shift in the story’s significance. “I wasn’t really thinking about the Civil War, the ongoing legacy of white supremacy and the various ways in which that war has just never ended in this country,” Fowler says. “And yet, as I wrote, those things seemed more evident to me than the fact that John Wilkes Booth had a gun.”
By the time of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Fowler had completed her manuscript. “To watch the Confederate flag being carried into the Capitol was just terrifying and heart-wrenching, having just immersed myself in what that flag meant,” she says. “I couldn’t turn the television off. I sat and watched the footage in real time, and just couldn’t believe it.”
There’s a similar sense of horror in Fowler’s visceral descriptions of how various Booth family members react to the news of John Wilkes’ horrific act: “Edwin’s first thought is not a thought, more like a blow to the head, a sense of falling, the crashing of the sea in his ears. His second thought is that he believes it. He wishes he didn’t.”
There were several post-assassination details that Fowler had to omit from the novel—such as the fact that Ford’s Theatre collapsed during Edwin’s funeral, killing 22 people. “Maybe there needs to be a second book,” she says. “Something short—a slender, poetic novel dealing with their later lives.”
After all, Fowler says, “History is full of fabulous stories.” Fabulous, provocative, challenging and necessary—such is the story of Booth.
Photos of Karen Joy Fowler by Nathan Quintanilla
In her eighth novel, Karen Joy Fowler offers a wholly original perspective on American history through the story of John Wilkes Booth’s family.
Cheaters is a 368-page Jerry Springer moment. Both of Dickey’s main characters, Chante and Stephan, are poster children for dysfunctional people. Stephan is a self-described player although his game is a bit off. In fact, he gets caught at his own game and finds out what the wrath of a woman scorned can be. Chante, on the other hand, finds herself in between being dumped and being the other woman. Needless to say, these two misfits meet, feign disinterest, and fall rapidly into fledgling, drama-packed romance. The secondary characters are particularly intriguing. Dawn is an unsupportive wife. Darnell is her misunderstood husband and a struggling writer. Tammy is a creative spirit who captures Darnell’s imagination. What will happen? Will Darnell and Tammy cheat? Why? Why not? Readers will want to find out. Dickey’s best attribute is his ability to effortlessly capture the language of the Hip Hop generation. For example, after visiting a museum with Stephan, Chante says, We checked out Rhapsodies in Black, a phat [superb] showcase of art from the Harlem Renaissance. It’s this almost perfect intonation in this case, the right balance between colloquial and proper speech that makes Cheaters feel and sound real. Also, unlike many of his contemporaries, Dickey doesn’t rely on cheap tricks like placing Chante in designer clothing to signal her social status. Instead, we get class-based tension between Chante and her friend Karen, which allows for a richer narrative.
While Dickey opens interesting doors, readers are not always pulled through them a slight frustration. Issues such as class and cast are mentioned but not aptly dealt with. Still, Mr. Dickey didn’t set out to formally address such serious issues. Instead, Cheaters reads like a beach book it’s fun, full of raunchy behavior and great one-liners. One hopes real people don’t be have so badly. But, this reviewer will admit, it’s enjoyable to read about characters who do. Jerry Springer would gladly pay these characters to be on his show.
Crystal Williams is a poet in Ithaca, New York.
Cheaters is a 368-page Jerry Springer moment. Both of Dickey's main characters, Chante and Stephan, are poster children for dysfunctional people. Stephan is a self-described player although his game is a bit off. In fact, he gets caught at his own game and finds out…
Sea of Poppies takes place in 1838, when the opium trade between British-ruled India and China was in full swing. Opium factories employed hundreds, and farmers were obliged to clear their fields for opium production. Ships that once carried slaves were refitted to carry opium, as well as indentured servants, to other parts of the Empire. Meanwhile, China was determined to stop the trade that turned thousands into addicts. At the center of this saga is the Ibis, an immense ship with a British captain, an American second mate, Indian troops and a crew of Lascars—a term that was used to identify sailors originating from the Pacific Rim. The ship has docked in Calcutta awaiting the arrival of men and women traveling to Mauritius as indentured migrants. The range of characters is as diverse as their lingo, social standing and skin color, yet accomplished novelist Amitav Ghosh suggests the differences are illusory. Clothed in a sari, the orphaned daughter of a French botanist is able to blend in among the migrant workers; the biracial second mate realizes that passing as white can work to his advantage; and a Bengali accountant filled with the spirit of a deceased holy woman begins to experience a shift in gender. Most powerfully, a rich, pampered rajah, charged with bankruptcy, is jailed aboard the Ibis with a derelict opium addict. Though brought low in the utter filth of his shared cell, he is still able to make a treasured human connection.
Ghosh revels in the unique vocabulary of his British, American, French, Indian and Lascar characters, providing a Babel of colloquial phrases and obscure naval terms. Readers can use the glossary at the end of the book, but it’s easy enough to catch the tone of the dialogue, where at least the gist is clear. Sea of Poppies is the first in a planned trilogy, which may be why the action in the last quarter of the book steps up to a feverish pace. You can almost hear the narrative gears grinding as Ghosh maneuvers everyone into place to create a cliffhanger ending. But this doesn’t take away from the rollicking energy and heart of a very engaging novel.
Lauren Bufferd writes from Nashville.
This review refers to the Oct. 2008 hardcover edition.
Sea of Poppies takes place in 1838, when the opium trade between British-ruled India and China was in full swing. Opium factories employed hundreds, and farmers were obliged to clear their fields for opium production. Ships that once carried slaves were refitted to carry opium,…
Merry Christmas, y’all When holiday madness limits the time you have to indulge in fine literature, don’t fret. Southern Christmas: Literary Classics of the Holidays, edited by Judy Long and Thomas Payton, is a compilation of 28 short works from some of America’s finest authors. A mix of fiction, poetry, and memoir of the Yuletide, this anthology, spanning 150 years of writing, reveals the diversity of experience and perspective among Southerners. Some of the talent contributing to the picturesque descriptions include Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, and Alex Haley. Each provides vivid characters and slice-of-life narratives that prove the best gifts come in little packages. Even Scrooge would have to smile at Merry Christmas You-All, poet Ogden Nash’s playful wink to those Christmas card artists who apparently don’t understand that the joyful season need not have snow. His last line could be this collection’s final word: So cross the Mason-Dixon Line and be my Christmas Valentine.
Merry Christmas, y'all When holiday madness limits the time you have to indulge in fine literature, don't fret. Southern Christmas: Literary Classics of the Holidays, edited by Judy Long and Thomas Payton, is a compilation of 28 short works from some of America's finest authors.…
Letters from Yellowstone By Diane Smith Viking, $23.95 ISBN 0670886319 Review by Carolyn Porter Constructed as a series of letters and set in the majestic surroundings of the American West with its big open sky of opportunity, Letters from Yellowstone tells the story of a young medical student, Alexandria Bartram. Mistakenly assumed to be a boy by the professor in charge of a scientific expedition, she sets off for Mammoth Hot Springs, Montana, to aid the expedition and follow her passion for botany. Once the scientists learn to accept a feminine presence in camp, Alex begins to form relationships and connections with people and nature that further her self-worth and individuality.
Yet this is not simply the trite tale of a girl striking off on a journey who, in the process, grows up. It is a coming of age novel, but since it is told from many perspectives, a unique voice emerges to show what it means to be human, to grow up. At first Alex is overcome by the beauty of the landscape. She observes upon first viewing Yellowstone, It is as though I have traveled back in time, to the very edge of the universe, where the earth, still in its most primordial stage, sputters and bubbles and spews out the very origins of life. This childlike wonder soon turns to respect for the amazing splendor of this natural world, respect for the soul of man, and in turn respect for whatever force Alex believes created it all.
Colorful characters pepper this first novel. Professor Howard Merriam, a gentle, flustered man with spectacles; Joseph, a Crow Indian; the misogynistic driver; Dr. Rutherford and his pet raven; wise Mrs. Eversman, the birdwatcher all add spice to Alex’s adventure. She learns something from each of them, and above all learns to be open-minded to all perspectives of life.
Smith concludes with a rather existential theme: People should follow their own unique purpose in life, whatever that may be according to their world view. We must each take charge of our own beliefs, yet always accept the opinions of others. In the end, Alex remarks, I am beginning to see that I need to learn how to recognize what is good and kind and true in each individual’s view of the world. And with this realization, she is grown-up.
Letters from Yellowstone By Diane Smith Viking, $23.95 ISBN 0670886319 Review by Carolyn Porter Constructed as a series of letters and set in the majestic surroundings of the American West with its big open sky of opportunity, Letters from Yellowstone tells the story of a…
Veteran novelist Howard Fast shows his versatility as a storyteller with his latest work, Redemption, which combines several popular genres into a no-frills entertainment that will undoubtedly please his many fans.
The novel opens with New York detectives searching the Wall Street offices of murdered broker William Sedgewick Hopper, shot once through the back of the head as he was about to sign a $1,000,000 check. There are many clues in the case which soon reveal that Hopper was quite corrupt and ruthless in his financial practices. He was a much-hated man under the growing scrutiny of the law.
A month earlier, Ike Goldman, a 78-year-old retired law professor from Columbia University, comes to the rescue of a much younger woman, Elizabeth Hopper, as she is about to take a suicidal plunge from one of New York City’s most celebrated bridges. Something clicks reluctantly between this distraught young woman and the compassionate senior. It is to Fast’s credit that this May-December relationship is handled with a simple, tasteful restraint, rather than the usual dirty-old-man leering approach. He makes their emotional union seem as natural as breathing, without the slightest hint of lewdness or vulgarity.
Despite the warning of several friends, Goldman opens his life to Liz, as he calls her, deeply touched by this vibrant woman who has reached out to him. She, in turn, is won over by his generosity and compassion for her troubled life. He gives to her without asking anything in return. While sex is an important glue in most relationships, it is the shared spiritual, emotional awakening that both people experience that strengthens their bond.
All of that is shattered with the murder of her husband, the infamous Mr. Hopper, who she later confesses beat and abused her viciously. With his trademark clean, uncluttered prose, Fast saves his best work for the courtroom drama that unfolds in the latter part of the book. If there is a defect, it is that this portion of the story is somewhat rushed, not giving the reader the full benefit of the suspense generated here. That is heightened when Liz’s defense team suffers a few setbacks during the proceedings, offering every indication things will end badly for the woman.
Regardless of the occasional abruptly ended scene or slight stiffness in some of the dialogue, Redemption continues the lengthy career of Howard Fast with great distinction. It is the perfect book for a relaxing afternoon at the beach, deftly entertaining but never challenging or too demanding.
Robert Fleming is a journalist in New York City.
Veteran novelist Howard Fast shows his versatility as a storyteller with his latest work, Redemption, which combines several popular genres into a no-frills entertainment that will undoubtedly please his many fans.
The novel opens with New York detectives searching the Wall Street…
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