Maximum Shelf: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Posted on December 26, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Maximum Shelf is the weekly Shelf Awareness feature focusing on an upcoming title we love and believe will be a great handselling opportunity for booksellers everywhere. The features are written by our editors and reviewers and the publisher has helped support the issue.

This review was published by Shelf Awareness on December 18, 2013.

invention of wings
The Invention of Wings opens in 1803, on Sarah Grimké’s 11th birthday. To mark the occasion, her mother gives her an unwanted birthday gift: the awkwardly beribboned 10-year-old Hetty Grimké–Sarah’s very own slave. Sarah is repulsed and tries to free Hetty that very night with a document she draws up herself, but it isn’t that easy for the child of one of Charleston, S.C.’s first families. The two girls grow into womanhood bound together but separated by the chasm of their very different circumstances.

Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees and co-author of Traveling with Pomegranates, chooses to tell this story in first person and to alternate between the voices of Hetty and Sarah–one of many masterful choices that make The Invention of Wings a remarkable read. The name “Hetty” was given by her owners; Hetty is called Handful by her mother, Charlotte, to whom she is devoted. One of the novel’s richest characters, Charlotte tells her daughter only parts of her own past: stories of Handful’s father, who never saw his daughter’s face, and of Charlotte’s own mother, who was brought to Charleston and slavery from Africa when she was a small girl. Charlotte teaches Handful to sew, to make very fine clothes and quilts. This artistry earns them both a relatively privileged place in the household and, importantly, provides a means of recording stories among slaves, for whom literacy was illegal. Charlotte sews her daughter a story quilt, appliqueing squares that tell of her life’s greatest events. This rich storytelling tradition is described in Handful’s passionate voice, which both contrasts with and matches Sarah’s, also passionate, as she experiences limitations of a different sort. An intelligent child encouraged by a father and brother to read books, she harbors dreams of becoming a barrister, which are inevitably dashed against Charleston’s expectations of a young lady. Her inclination to teach slave children to read is likewise reviled, although she succeeds in secret with Handful. Over the years, the two girls share confidences across a wary divide, but guilt and resentment present obstacles to their friendship.

When the girls are still very young, Charlotte extracts a promise from Sarah: that she will free Handful one day. This promise haunts Sarah, who will eventually journey north to escape her stifling family and the peculiar institution she despises. She meets a Quaker man, whose own peculiar religion at first repels her but comes to fascinate and draw her in; this new alliance shapes Sarah’s more independent adult life, and distances her from Handful, who necessarily remains in Charleston. Along with her indubitable younger sister, Nina, Sarah will finally become a renowned (and infamous) activist for abolition and women’s rights. Overcoming a speech impediment that is a literal portrayal of her difficulty articulating her desires, she will slowly, painfully create the independent existence she has always craved. Handful’s fate will, of course, be rather different.

The Invention of Wings is a novel based on fact: the Grimké sisters were real-life abolitionists, and are joined in the historical record by a number of other characters in this novel, including Denmark Vesey, a free black man executed for planning a slave uprising; Lucretia Mott, a Quaker activist for women’s rights and abolition; and Sarah Mapps Douglass, a free black activist and educator. Hetty Grimké, however, left tantalizingly scarce facts: she was given as a gift to Sarah, but disappears shortly thereafter from the historical record. And Charlotte is entirely Kidd’s creation, an intriguing and complex character who tempts the worst of slavery’s brutalities in her search for something better for herself and her family.

Sue Monk Kidd portrays the parallel lives of her two protagonists in sensitive and touching sketches. Readers of her earlier work will recognize strong, sympathetic characters and deft use of nuance. The heart-wrenching nature of Sarah and Handful’s stories lies in the complexity of their relationship: they tend toward friendship, but Sarah’s guilt and Handful’s natural resentment–as when Sarah claims to know how she feels–may prove too wide a gap to bridge. And slave traditions such as the story quilt add a layer of detail informed by Kidd’s extensive research, as well as an emotional depth for Handful and Charlotte.

The Invention of Wings ambitiously tackles a swath of issues, including feminism, abolition, religion, activism and relationships between races and genders. This subject matter might be heavy under another hand, but the historical record of Sarah Grimké’s remarkable life and Kidd’s strengths in narrative and in rendering relationships make for a story that is both thought-provoking and engrossing. Strong female characters, solid roots in history, and the compelling lives of two women the reader deeply cares about make The Invention of Wings a thoughtful, moving tale that ends on a hopeful note.

Rating: 7 squares.

The Invention of Wings was just chosen as Oprah’s new Book Club 2.0 pick. Kidd commented: “I’m thrilled and honored that Oprah Winfrey chose my novel as her new book club selection. After researching and writing The Invention of Wings for the past four years, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to launch the novel with Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.”

Come back tomorrow for my interview with Sue!

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book beginnings on Friday: Wake by Anna Hope

Posted on December 20, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Wake defines itself quickly (on the back cover as well as preceding the title page):

wake

Wake: 1) Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep. 2) Ritual for the dead. 3) Consequence or aftermath.

And I think that dictionary reference is a very fine, succinct explanation of this title for a novel about three English women struggling to deal with the repercussions of World War I, as they prepare to “celebrate” (or not) the two-year anniversary of Armistice Day. All three definitions will come into play.

Don’t worry, I still have the opening lines here for you:

Three soldiers emerge from their barracks in Arras, northern France: a colonel, a sergeant, and a private. It is somewhere close to the middle of the night and bitterly cold.

As I said of last week’s book beginning: lots of atmosphere.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (audio)

Posted on November 28, 2013 by pagesofjulia

orchardistI read about this novel… somewhere… some time ago, and had it loaded on my iPod along with many others. And then Christine Byl (author of Dirt Work) praised it mightily on her facebook page, and it moved to the top of my list.

I will by sharing the plot outline as I vaguely understood it when I started this book: an old man manages an orchard in the hills, alone, as he has for many years, when a pregnant girl appears at the edge of a field and seems to need his help. He helps her.

That’s all I knew going in, and I’m a little tempted to leave it at that for you, too. I’ll tell you a little more, but I do want to leave a lot for you to discover on your own reading.

The old man, Talmadge, has indeed managed his expansive orchard property in Washington state for some 40 years, ever since he was 17 and his 16-year-old sister disappeared into the woods one day without warning. He has one friend from town, Caroline Middey, and a few friends among a group of Indian horse wranglers who seasonally stop by to help him pick his fruit; but he is mostly alone. And then the girls show up – two of them – and begin by stealing some apples from him on market day. He sets them out plates of food at his cabin and wanders off to let them eat; when he returns, they have cleaned the cabin of every scrap of food. They are both visibly pregnant, and look about 13 years old.

Talmadge does his best to care for these girls, who are consistently portrayed, early in the novel, with the imagery of wild animals. They stare, they watch him carefully and warily, they flinch away; they don’t talk. Their loyalty is towards each other; they have no more ability to trust Talmadge than a stray dog that’s been beaten. They are strongly identified with the wild. And somehow, in my early understanding of this book, I had thought that the story began and ended with the pregnant girl (or as it turned out, girls), but I was wrong. This novel spans a number of years – about 25 of them. Early on, it appears that the action is in essence Talmadge’s recovery of a family, lost when his mother died and his sister disappeared and now replaced by these young women and their children. But no, it’s not that simple. That does seem to be the momentum, the effort of at least some of the characters in question, but the world that Coplin portrays is too much the real world for anything to come out that easily, or for anyone’s dreams to be fulfilled so fully.

I enjoyed very much the simple depiction of central Washington state in the early 1900’s. Coplin, like her characters, doesn’t use flowery speech, but communicates nonetheless the gnarled beauty of a landscape of hills, canyons, and fruit trees, and the careful loving care Talmadge puts into the details of his orchard: it’s an art, really. Her writing evokes the feeling that this is another time, only a little related to our world today. It’s a beautifully written story, and beautifully read as well by Mark Bramhall.

The pace of this story is careful and measured. Talmadge is a contemplative man; seeing as how he’s past middle age and employed at growing trees, it should not surprise us that he takes his time in all things, which Coplin reflects in the rhythms of her writing. Bramhall follows suit in his reading, which is lovely and sedate. In the first, say, third of the book, the reader feels some tension about the two pregnant girls and their immediate fate: there are presumably labors and deliveries to come, at a schedule that cannot be denied, which gives the pace a little push. But in the middle third things slow considerably, and if one is going to get impatient with this book, this is when it will happen; I got a little impatient myself at the slower middle bit. Come to think of it, the story is sectioned off rather like a person’s life, which it resembles in several ways. In its youth, the plot leans forward into the future; in middle age it slows somewhat; and it regains a sense of urgency in its old age, when it feels its death coming – or the death of its characters. So, on pacing I have some mild criticisms, which can be alleviated by being a little patient because you enjoy the story so much, or by being a more patient reader than I am.

An overarching theme is clearly family, or relationship. The characters in this novel almost without exception lack family in the traditional sense of blood relatives; they make their own families outside those bonds – or fail to, and also relate strongly to the earth. There is a fine passage near the end about a young woman losing track of her physical self while doing physical work, feeling closer to the dirt than to her own body. In fact, women doing physical work is a thread throughout, which I also appreciated. (And now that I think of it, is another clear connection to Dirt Work.)

Overall, The Orchardist is a moving story, beautifully written, sad and exquisite and with some fine statements on human nature, and an underlying statement on our diminishing relationship with the land. Fine narration by Bramhall. Caveat for pacing, but that’s a matter of preference.

Rating: 7 Rhode Island Greenings.

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book beginnings on Friday: The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

Posted on November 15, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I already had this book on my list (already had it loaded on my player, in fact), but then Christine Byl recommended it and it raced to the top of the figurative stack.

orchardist

The Orchardist is a novel set in late-1800’s Washington state, and it begins with a description of the title character:

His face was as pitted as the moon. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and thick without being stocky, though one could see how he would pass into stockiness; he had already taken on the barrel-chested sturdiness of an old man.

I knew almost nothing about this book going in, except that I had heard good things; and I will tell you even less at this point about what’s inside the covers. I think this story is most enjoyable when you start it blind. So I’ll just say that so far, I’m mesmerized by the descriptions, the character-building, and the remarkable, quiet reflection of humanity. Do check it out. (I’m very much enjoying Mark Bramhall’s narration, too.) Happy Friday, friends.

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Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler (audio)

Posted on October 2, 2013 by pagesofjulia

zThis is a fictionalization of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, wife to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The main events of their lives are fairly well-known: married in 1920, Fitzgerald was a professional writer who never saw the success in his own lifetime that his friend Hemingway did; the couple lived back-and-forth in France and the US; Zelda was “the first flapper” according to Scott; they were famously wild partiers, alcoholics, and rather nut jobs; Zelda was eventually institutionalized, and died in a mental hospital. They had one daughter. These main events are followed in the novel, which is told first-person by Zelda herself.

It started well. I really did love Zelda’s voice – as written by Fowler, and as read by Jenna Lamia. She’s spunky and irreverent, and likeable. She reminded me of Scarlett O’Hara from the very beginning, which is both a compliment and a caution: is she entirely original? I enjoyed what Fowler created in her fictionalized Zelda Fitzgerald, but I worried that she was overly informed by hindsight. Scott talks like he writes; Zelda speaks as if aware of her audience, aware of the legacy she’ll leave behind – which she wouldn’t have been, regardless of her faith in her husband, because his fame as we know it today came largely after both their deaths.

Ernest Hemingway likewise speaks in a caricatured version of one of his own heroes. This is a common technique when writing Hemingway into fiction: I recognize it from Midnight in Paris. I’m comfortable with people criticizing, even despising Hemingway; he’s my hero, but I certainly see his flaws. But I wish they wouldn’t make him into a cartoon, because that, I think, he wasn’t. He could be ridiculous, and he definitely overdid the machismo, but he was a complex human being, troubled, tortured, insecure, boastful and antagonistic; wouldn’t it be more fun, and more satisfying for a novelist, to write him as a full person than as a cartoon version of his own fiction? Ah well.

Expand this concept to apply to Scott Fitzgerald, too. I’m less qualified to speak about his life, having read much less about him than I have about Hemingway. However, I feel confident that neither Scott nor Zelda could have been as black-and-white as Fowler’s fictional characters are here. Scott Fitzgerald is a monster in this novel! Despicable, horrendous, a nightmare. I suspect that in life, he was, like Hemingway, capable of monstrosities, but also a full human being, with likeable bits alongside the flaws. Such a well-loved and artistically accomplished alcoholic would seem to have to be conflicted, ambiguous, and – importantly – multi-facted. Fowler’s characters lack facets. Similarly, though I have read still less about Zelda, my general understanding of her was that her dissipated party-girl period lasted well out of her early 20’s. The fictional Zelda we meet here becomes rather saintly after giving birth to her daughter. She is the squeaky-clean foil to Scott’s ogre; and I suspect that the one is as realistic as the other.

In contrast to this novel, I am simultaneously reading the yet-to-be-published The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia Laing. Z suffers by comparison; Laing’s (nonfiction) work is very well researched, beautifully written (although I’ll try not to turn this into a review of her book!), and, to my point here, respects the dueling forces for good and evil in her subjects, including F. Scott Fitzgerald. (And Hemingway.) Possibly I would have appreciated Z more if it were presented not as historical fiction but as alternate history, since I am increasingly concerned that it’s not true to the history of the Fitzgeralds as we know it. Even then, however, fully developed characters should have complexity rather than read as saints and devils, so my concern remains.

The net effect of having read this book in the end is that I feel the need to go read up on Zelda a little more thoroughly; I’ll be looking for a biography next. She always struck me peripherally as a colorful, conflicted character: just the kind I like, that is. I’m always most interested in those individuals who offer both sympathetic and distasteful qualities in the same package; they’re so engrossing that way. One of Fowler’s major flaws, then, would be in having omitted my favorite character feature: ambiguity.

I began by enjoying this book, and Zelda’s voice and personality. Much of the middle troubled me, as the black-and-whiteness of the characters emerged. Scott was such a terrible husband that I was just frustrated and angry with him; and while these can be useful emotions to evoke in your reader, Fowler didn’t take me anywhere interesting or cathartic or instructive with them. Zelda briefly considers leaving Scott (because she is, after all, a saint and a martyr) and then realizes she can’t afford to support herself as a single woman, so she decides to stay. Very cut and dried, you see. Towards the end, when the couple is separated by Zelda’s incarceration in various mental institutions, I liked it a little better again; maybe removing the hateful Scott cheered me. But then it was disappointing to end with Scott’s death – Zelda lived another 8 years! but those years are handled only in an epilogue. Why couldn’t she have continued to speak in her own voice until she died? Perhaps this novel should have been called Z: A Novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald told through the eyes of Zelda. Hmph.

In closing, clearly, my concerns were many. I credit Fowler for entertaining me (at least early and late) with a likeable Zelda in a spunky Southern drawl, well read by narrator Lamia. But I was dissatisfied with many aspects of the art of the novel as executed here. Subjects like the Fitzgeralds offered so much opportunity for nuance, and catharsis, and analysis, that was not undertaken. Complex characters were flattened into single dimensions. And my limited knowledge of their lives makes me hesitant, but I worry about the historical accuracy, and I wish more information were given to indicate where the fiction begins. Several letters from Zelda to Scott and other friends are quoted; are these real letters? I don’t know; and I’d like to know. Credit Fowler with inspiring some further reading; but this experience in itself was less than satisfying. I can’t recommend that you spend your time on this book. There are lots of books written about the Fitzgeralds; start elsewhere. Me, I’m considering Tennessee Williams’s play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel.

Rating: 4 fingers.

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book beginnings on Friday: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Posted on September 20, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I have been on quite a kick lately! Between the Hemingway-Fitzgerald-and-Faulkner class (final wrap-up here); The Other Typist; and The Great Gatsby movie (review to come), I am all wrapped up in the 1920’s these days.
z

Therefore, in the spirit of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, and because I am a Fitzgerald fan as well as a fan (who isn’t?) of the flamboyant flappers’ era, of course I had to get my hands on this new “novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.” I had a tip that I should do it on audio, since Zelda’s South twang is so charmingly performed. So here we are. The book begins with a short letter from Zelda to Scott, which I would like to think is real but a few sources say isn’t. Ah well.

December 20, 1940

Dear Scott,

The Love of the Last Tycoon is a great title for your novel. What does Max say?

I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ll brave an airplane ride and come to see you for New Year’s. Wire me the money, if you can. Won’t we be quite the pair?– you with your bad heart, me with my bad head. Together, though, we might have something worthwhile. I’ll bring you some of those cheese biscuits you always loved, and you can read me what you’ve written so far. I know it’s going to be a wonderful novel, Scott, your best one yet.

This is short so I can send it before the post office closes today. Write me soon.

Devotedly,

Z~

I find the beginning enjoyable, although I already have a few concerns. For one thing, I note a suspiciously strong feeling of deja vu: is this Scarlett O’Hara I see here, only having won her Ashley Wilkes this time around? She even puts on a green dress for the purposes of charming her beaux, although it’s possible this is a confirmed historical fact. (Not worth my research at this point in time.) And while there are some charming turns of phrase, there is also the reference to “eyes as green and expressive as the Irish Sea” – which, ostensibly coming from a 17-year-old lifetime resident of Montgomery, Alabama, doesn’t feel like quite the right choice of words. For now, though, I will suspend these quibbles and lose myself in Zelda’s gushings.

And what are you reading this week?

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The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell (audio)

Posted on September 17, 2013 by pagesofjulia

typistThis book reminds me very much of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, with similarities extending to the audio narration, as well. And considering how much I loved that book, and narration, this is a high compliment. They share a setting in New York City early in the 20th century (in this case, Prohibition era), a concentration on class differences, a slinky sensual tone, and an appreciation for the finer things in life. The final shared characteristic is a major plot twist late in the book, here subtly foreshadowed from early on. And that is where I struggle a little with this review: I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, because it makes the book. Read on safely; I’ll be careful.

Meet Rose Baker, our narrator. She was raised in a Catholic orphanage and now works as a typist in a precinct office of the New York Police Department. The book opens with a discussion of the controversy surrounding young women working as typists at all, let alone in the “rough” environs Rose inhabits: she frequently witnesses and transcribes the confessions of murderers and rapists (gasp). That opening passage helps establish the setting, along with a following reference to the Volstead Act (which prohibited alcohol in the United States).

And now, meet Odalie Lazare, the “other typist.” There were already two typists besides Rose at the precinct, but Odalie is a different sort. Glamorous, seductive, and strangely well-off for someone who would work as a police department typist, Rose is bewitched from the first. The two become “bosom friends,” and Rose becomes… devoted? obsessed? It all depends upon your definitions, of course.

Suzanne Rindell’s construction and development of Rose Baker as an unreliable narrator is delicious. We know Rose for a great many pages as a sober, morally upright young lady and professional; she describes Odalie’s entrance into her life with a sense of foreboding, but with no clue as to what has happened between them. And then there is the first, very brief, reference to Rose’s doctor. Later, there is another flashing reference to the “incident.” Thus, our sober and reliable narrator is undermined, but just so swiftly and for just a moment – did we even see it at all? And I’m left, as the reader, wondering about this incident and why Rose needs a doctor; and then I’m back in Rose’s story, seeing her as the responsible character again. It is a masterful building of tension and questions; I ate it up.

One of the many strengths of this story is in its strong sense of time and place. Prohibition New York is colorful; one can hear and smell and taste its flavors. I will have to leave it to another, older reader to speak to its authenticity, but I am certainly convinced. The writing style, and Gretchen Mol’s reading style, contribute to the feel of an earlier time; sentences are a little long and formal, in a way that just creates more atmosphere.

Rindell’s fine sense of pacing, the doling out of detail and prolepsis, is adept. It is not everyday that I am this drawn in and enchanted by a story; I couldn’t wait to hear what would happen next; I was guessing and second-guessing. As a thriller, The Other Typist evoked some of Tana French’s best work (as here).

Although I was captivated by the swirling mists of speakeasies and Odalie’s wily ways as the femme fatale, I think my favorite part of this experience was the buildup to the big reveal, and the mystery left therein. The Other Typist was a pleasurable rush and romp, and has left me wanting more of Suzanne Rindell’s magic. Reader Gretchen Mol was perfect and not to be missed: do find this one on audio if you can.

Rating: 8 champagne cocktails.

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Posted on September 3, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

typist

I have discovered an awesome new book on audio that I want you to know about. Set in 1920’s New York City, The Other Typist‘s first-person narrator is Rose Baker, an orphan employed as (yes) a typist at a precinct police department. She is entranced by a new hire named Odalie, who exerts a magnetic pull on everyone, it seems, but most especially Rose herself. Here’s your teaser:

She was never once rebuffed, and the man – I say man here generically, because there were several – invariably introduced himself and reached into his pocket to fish out a lighter and a replacement cigarette, while Odalie puffed on her pilfered prize and regarded the gentleman with a sly, delighted expression, as if to suggest nothing he could pull out of his pocket could sufficiently replace the unique and spectacular treasure she had just stolen.

I just love this line, read masterfully by Gretchen Mol, with its subtly suggestive reference to what a generic man might pull out of his pocket to impress Odalie. She, the other typist, is a classic, manipulative femme fatale; but then again, there are some unanswered questions to ask about our narrator Rose, too. And that’s the kind of set-up I like. Stay tuned…

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The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

Posted on August 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

forestloverWhat a lovely book. I recently read and enjoyed Scott Elliot’s Temple Grove enough that I attended to his “Note on Sources,” and requested several from my local library. This was one of those – aided by my enjoyment of Vreeland’s Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Clara and Mr. Tiffany.

Like those two of her books, this is historical fiction dealing with a female artist. [Also think of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With a Pearl Earring.] The three historical periods, geographic locations, and women in question are quite diverse, but there is a very clear thread connecting them all as female, artists, and historical; I appreciate that showing of diversity in her subjects and also of a singleminded interest. I am safely a Vreeland fan now. Fairly naturally, considering that they deal with female artists of earlier times, her books also address women’s struggle for independence.

Emily Carr, like the subject of Clara and Mr. Tiffany, is a real-life historical figure about whom we don’t know everything; this is a fictionalization of her life. She was born in British Columbia in 1871 to British parents. She showed an inclination for sketching and painting early on, which hobby was encouraged by her father at first, but he expected her to grow out of it in favor of more womanly pursuits (like marriage), and she didn’t. We meet Emily or “Millie” when she’s struggling to make ends meet and trying not to depend too much on the trust fund she shares with 4 sisters, teaching art for a living and befriending local Native Canadian Indians. The sisters mostly do not approve this association. Her favorite subjects are natural scenery and native people and their lifestyles; she travels to islands and outposts for these subjects; again, this is not appreciated by her family. She does enjoy some good female companionship, though: Sophie is an Indian woman and fellow artist (a basketmaker) who befriends her in broken English; Jessica is a less adept painter but rather saucy lady friend; Alice is her “good” and friendly sister; and after Emily musters the courage to travel to Paris to study the “new” art (see below), she meets fellow painter Fanny, a New Zealander and kindred soul.

To give you an idea of the Paris of Emily’s experience, as a moment in time, I share these lines.

“Van Gogh’s been in his grave for twenty years, Cezanne for four, yet art collectors still don’t buy them, and despise what’s new now.”

“What is new now?”

“Their offspring. Léger, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Modigliani, Derain, Rouault. Many directions.”

Momentous times, then!

Back in Canada, Emily ages as we watch her struggle with art and life. She wants desperately to represent the native people’s lives and art, and the powerful forest surrounding her. Or, as she comes to learn, she wants to more than represent or copy: she wants to communicate what these things make her feel. Her study in Paris under various teachers advances her practice, but still doesn’t get her there. We follow Emily through a series of lifestyles and decisions that form a crooked path but ultimately continue to move her toward a higher form of the art and communication she desires.

There is one man who begins to be a love interest for Emily; but as the title implies, she finds herself unable (for various reasons) to participate in physical, person-to-person, romantic or sexual love with this man. She is not the forest’s lover in a carnal sense – this book is not that weird. And Emily does continue to relate to people. Jessica and her sisters, and most importantly Sophie, retain a hold on her heart; and she forms a new (platonic) relationship with a damaged white man who understands Indians better than whites. But in a very real way, her relationship with the natural world is the most magnetic in her life.

I often observe that I like an author’s earlier (or lesser known) work better than the later. (I hope this is not just me being contrary. I don’t think I do it on purpose.) In this case, though, I think my favorite of her books is still her most recent, Clara and Mr. Tiffany. The earlier two I’ve read are both wonderful; but I sometimes felt this showed its earlier origins. It is occasionally less graceful. While she is mostly “on,” there are some awkward phrases, too. Observe these two single sentences, on two facing pages. I find one smoothly appealing, and the other a bit effortful.

Emily felt as if smelly white scum had eked out her pores.

versus

A breeze shifted the ends of foliage, like the tips of fingers moving.

Do you make the same observation I do? (Which one is which?)

Criticisms aside, though, this novel is far more graceful than not; and while I could pick apart lines like the one above, the sum of its parts is glorious. Vreeland’s greatest strengths are those I recognize from her other books. She understands art, and the artist’s struggle to get it just right. She addresses women’s issues compassionately as a natural part of the story of one woman in history. And unique to this work, the natural world and its beauty, value, power, importance, and scale play a deservingly large role.

Another success for Susan Vreeland.

Rating: 8 smears of viridian.

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The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees (audio)

Posted on May 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

louisaThis is a fictionalization of one season in the life of Louisa May Alcott, author most famously of Little Women. Louisa and her family are very like her famous fictional creations in many ways. The eldest daughter, Anna, clearly models for Meg of LW; then there’s Louisa/Jo, then Lizzie/Beth, and then Amy/May. Louisa’s mother Abba does go by Marmee, as in the book; the first glaring departure from Alcott’s novel in her real life is that her father, Bronson, is not away at war. Instead, Bronson was a transcendentalist scholar and friend to the likes of Thoreau and Emerson, disinclined to work for a living (being principally opposed, you see); he founded a Utopian commune in which his family lived for a time, and otherwise they scrimped, borrowed, and got by how they could. [I know this is confusing: I am writing a review of a fictional book, about a real-life woman, who wrote a fictional book, about her real-life family. So far, in these bare details I’ve named, I am referring to the real-life Alcotts as well as the Alcotts represented in Kelly O’Connor McNees’ novel.]

In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, McNees sets the six Alcotts in Walpole, New Hampshire, living for the summer in a home that belongs to relatives, because they are poor and hungry and have to go where they can. The premise is that Louisa May Alcott – in real-life a confirmed spinster – had a brief love affair that summer that informed the rest of her life. History yields no indication that such an affair took place, so this is where the fiction begins.

The plot is simple and uninteresting, certainly not the strength of this book. The family is new to Walpole; Anna has recently decided that she is interested in getting married (as any good girl of her era would be) and works to make herself presentable to the town’s young men. Louisa is, as ever, hot-headed, passionate, interested mostly in her writing, and does not intend to marry because it would disrupt her freedom (to write, and otherwise). She is firmly a feminist, and deeply interested in her father’s friends Emerson and Thoreau, and in a new book of poetry called Leaves of Grass by somebody named Walt Whitman. Lizzie is sickly and fussed over. May is obnoxiously free from the privation that the rest of the family feels; Marmee is rather frustrated with her lot in life; and Bronson is thoroughly exasperating in his refusal to get realistic and provide for his family. Anna meets a boy. And Louisa meets a boy, and in stock romance-novel style, finds him unbearable right up until she falls in love with him. They are thwarted.

The strengths of The Lost Summer are in its subjects: lovers of Little Women will be charmed by the fictional-real-life models for Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. The setting is rather charming, as well, and Joseph Singer (Louisa’s love interest) is likeable. But unlike the characters in Little Women, Anna, Louisa, Lizzie and May are underdeveloped. To be fair, it is a shorter book, and spans a much briefer time than its more famous model, so perhaps this should be excused. But I’m not really that forgiving, as I’ve seen masterful character development in mere pages (see: short story masters like Hemingway and de Maupassant). To be further fair, I’m not a fan of romance novels. (Maybe I should never have picked this book up?) That said, I was impatient with the plot line that had Louisa grumpy toward this man she simultaneously felt pulled towards – she went weak in the knees, etc., etc. – and then suddenly sick with love. It’s just too familiar, ho hum. And finally, too many of these characters were unlikeable (May, Bronson, even Marmee; Louisa for her bullheadedness; minor characters Margaret and Catherine, ugh!) for my tastes. I sort of felt that this story had misplaced its heroine.

Of some interest was the opportunity that McNees took to outline Louisa’s feminism and her limited options. I confess I did buy into the romance enough to wish that Joseph and Louisa could be together – could marry, or simply cohabitat – which latter option I realize is my modern-woman’s solution, and wasn’t really available to Louisa at all. Louisa talks and thinks through their options and what they would mean to her: how, for example, marriage would mean endless drudgery and housework for her, and the loss of her ability to write. This is a message that needed communicating, and I found it interesting and instructive to consider the limited options of a woman of this era. So a few points were regained here. However, these musings were only thinly veiled as dialogue or internal thoughts of the characters; I felt I could see McNees holding the strings.

For a quick, superficial, comfortable visit with the beloved Alcotts, come on in to Lost Summer; but if you’re looking for more, look elsewhere.

Audio edition was fine but unremarkable.

Rating: 4 oh-so-important ribbons.

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