I was intrigued by the description of this book when I first read about it in Bookmarks magazine. I chose it for a read for our February book club and it was met with a somewhat lukewarm reception - that is until people read it.
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos was one of the best books that I have read in the last few years. It has a bit of everything one could want in a book - history, mystery, art, and some interesting relationships. Taking place on 3 continents and in 3 eras of history, the novel weaves its tale through the painting, "At the Edge of a Wood." Smith gives the reader a detailed description of the painting before the narrative begins and he relates the story of Sara and her family. Barent, her husband is a painter in 17th century Holland. They have a young daughter and live what seems to be a bucolic life. And then, suddenly Kathrijn, their daughter dies of the plague and their world is turned upside down.
Fast forward to 1957 and the apartment of Rachel and Marty DeGroot, a wealthy couple hosting a charity dinner after which Marty discovers that the painting "At the Edge of a Wood" that has hung above their bed has been replaced by a meticulously crafted forgery. The forger is a young graduate student, Ellie Shipley, whose specialty is women painters of the Dutch Golden age. DeGroot becomes obsessed with finding the original painting that has been in his family for 350 years and eventually he becomes acquainted with Ellie. As the story builds to a climax, after another 40 years, the original and forgery are side by side in an Australian art gallery where Ellie has held a prominent position.
Concurrently, the reader learns of the hardships of Sara and her quest to be admitted to the Guild of St. Luke, the painters union in Holland. She is a strong woman and has had to overcome the hardship of both personal and monetary loss. Her story parallels the struggle of Ellie and so many women who were never really given the credit for their talents or intellect.
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is an incredibly fulfilling read. It is full of twists and turns, wonderful character development, and themes. Smith deftly handles time and place from 1631 to 2000, from Holland to New York City, and Australian as he focuses on a painter, an art enthusiast, and a forger. This is not to be missed if a reader yearns to read a book that he or she does not want to end.
Nearly a year after I started Poland by James Michener, the book has been finished. I began the book in anticipation of our trip to Poland in June of 2016. The tome was over 650 pages and really needed a very extended period of free time to be able to read it in a timely fashion. That is something that just doesn't happen in my life. Between book club books and client work, I had to read the book in piecemeal style. I have always enjoyed Michener's books, but this one was tedious and I probably would have not finished it if I weren't so stubborn about reading to the end of a book that I have started.
The novel centers around the story of three families of Buk, Bukowski and Lubonski from the very early history of the land around 1240 through the present time - that when Michener wrote it - 1983. They represent 3 social groups from peasant to noble to magnate. It begins in 1981 with a meeting of the minister of agriculture and the leaders of the farmers. It is during the Communist rule and centers around the possibility of forming a union. It is reminiscent of the beginning of the Solidarity movement. From that introduction to the families the reader is taken back to the time of the invasion of the Mongols into Poland.
It would take nearly as many pages to describe all the action of Poland as the length of the book itself. One of the most ponderous effects of the novel was the superabundance of names. It was difficult to keep them all straight. I did find that the pace of the novel picked up as we got to the 1800s. The story of the Golden Freedom, the partitioning of Poland, the rise of the Nazis and the horror of the Holocaust were much more accessible than earlier chapter. To this reader the in depth description of battles, armies, and armor is tedious and "skip-worthy." However, Michener does weave certain themes through the book. Poland has always been a liberal player in the history of eastern Europe and has been the target of numerous Russian invasions. Yet, through it all, the Poles have managed to survive and as we are witnessing today, almost thriving. Warsaw is a growing and vibrant world capital today, proving Michener's points.
For anyone with the time and interest in this country, this is would be a great read. It begs to be read in less time than a year, but it did give insight and perspective into the history of a beautiful country that is a gem for anyone to visit.
Elizabeth Strout, the award winning author of Olive Kitteridge, brings a new persona to the world of contemplative literature. The reader is introduced to Lucy Barton as she relates the story of her stay of nine weeks in a hospital in New York City. She is suffering from malaise after an appendectomy. Lucy has two daughters and a husband who is horribly "hospital phobic."
Midway through her hospital stay her mother arrives from Illinois at the request of Lucy's husband. During her brief 5 day stay with her daughter from whom she has been estranged, stories are exchanged about the family, neighbors, and other acquaintances. The time her mother spends with her affords the reader an window into Lucy's life and, most especially, her relationship with her mother. Lucy is from a very poor and underprivileged background. Her family, consisting of her parents and brother and sister, live in an uncle's garage until the uncle died and they could move into the house. Abusive actions were not uncommon in the household that was void of books and television, and Lucy managed to leave and really not look back.
Being set in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic shows how Lucy is compassionate and caring. We see her grief at the death of a friend and at breakup of her marriage. She struggles to find meaning in all phases of her life. But most of all, it's the relationship with her mother that is the crux of the story. Lucy has no recollection of her mother ever kissing her, nor has she ever heard her say "I love you." It is painful, but rings true, because that can be life.
The novel is really a book within a book and to describe its intricacies would be difficult as well as simplistic. The writing is profound. What is not written, the silences are just as powerful. My Name is Lucy Barton is a novel of darkness and light - just like the light of the Chrysler Building that shines through Lucy's hospital window. Strout achieves literary success not with plot twists, but with characters that tug at your heart and emotions. Don't miss this small but powerful and poignant book.
I was a bit skeptical when our book club chose a book about kale for its December read. I am not fond of kale, probably dating back to the summer when our CSA in Watertown only had kale to distribute because of a horrible growing season. The book was available in the Kindle edition for a mere $1.99, so why not?
bonjour kale is a memoir, a collection of recipes, and a travelogue of Paris. Kristen Beddard, a native Pittsburgher, after college settles in New York City where she meets her husband, Phillip. Soon after they marry they move to Paris for his job. She is a "trailing spouse" and for the greater part of a year feels isolated and like a fish out of water. She describes their quest for an apartment, her many attempts to learn the language, and trying to make friends, as well as trying to fit into the culture.
But the most disconcerting matter of the move was the absence of kale in the Parisian markets. Kristen's background was rooted in healthy foods and eating. One of the mainstays of her diet was kale and it didn't exist in France. And so began the Kale Project. It was her attempt to introduce the vegetable into the cuisine of the French. One of the issues she discovered was lack of a French word for the greens. In her quest she really couldn't even ask for it and have the market proprietors understand her. As she eventually allies herself with some farmers, the memoir details her mission to bring kale from farm to table. She ends each chapter with a recipe or two, which I can say that I will not try. I admire her tenacity in this undertaking, but I still can't bring myself to cook this green.
This was an easy, fun, and interesting read. I enjoyed the smattering of French words, the descriptions of the markets, and the references to Pittsburgh. If anyone really likes kale, you would absolutely love this book.
Diane Rehm certainly needs no introduction to NPR listeners. She had hosted a radio show since 1979 on WAMU. Her shows are political, social, and powerful. In 2014 John, her husband of 54 years, passed away after starving himself to death. It was a passing of his choice to end his suffering from Parkinson's disease.
On My Own recounts the year following John's death as Rehm tries to come to terms with having watched her husband suffer and her widowhood. The memoir is touching and poignant. You can almost hear her raspy voice telling her story. She describes how difficult it is to face the holidays without him and the loneliness of their condo. She confronts her guilt in not being able to take care of John in the final stages of his illness, as well as being able to help him carry out his wishes to die. Her comfort comes from Maxie, her dog.
But more than anything On My Own, is a treatise that speaks loudly for death with dignity. She compares John's prolonged suffering with other friends, Roger Mudd's wife and best friend Janet Dixon, who died suddenly. She writes“I rage at a system that would not allow John to be
helped toward his own death. He was of
rational mind, with no hope of recovery, knowing full well that the only
way ahead was a slow downward slide, moving toward more incapacity and
even greater indignity."
Rehm indicates in her book that she will retire after the presidential election. It is almost certain that she will be using her voice to speak out for the right to die. On My Own is a short easy read, but it really is not easy to read. She will speak 14 November 2016 at the Pittsburgh Ten Literary Nights Lectures and it will be interesting to see what she will say about her book, life with John, and life after The Diane Rehm Show.
What a cast of characters Siddons has created in this novel. Although they are few, they are remarkable and polarizing as to whether you like them or despise them.
Cat Compton lost her parents when she was a five year old girl and was raised by her grandparents in a small college hill town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She finishes, college, marries a professor, Joe Gaillard, at the college and has a daughter, who is born blind. The trauma of the death of her parents and the uncertainty of the "outside" world contributes to her agoraphobia. She has such a difficult time coming down from the mountain, that she undergoes a very rigorous course of psychotherapy. When one of Joe's former students announces that he will be married in Italy, it is a chance for Cat to muster up some courage and accompany her husband to Rome for the wedding.
Joe, like so many of us, arrives at his destination without luggage. He scrambles for some clothing before he and Cat are off to a pre-wedding party at the palatial home of Ada and Sam Forrest. There are the young couple Colin and Maria and the wild Yolanda, a TV personality. Sam is a famous painter and Ada will do whatever she needs to do to push his career, including pushing him to begin painting Cat.
After a couple of medical emergencies as they traverse Italy from Rome to Venice to Tuscany, energies, emotions, and hormones become unleashed. Is all that happens attributed to the change in Cat, the machinations of Ada, the vulnerability of Joe, the licentious actions of Sam, or the unrestrained influence of Yolanda? When they reach Sienna, the plot thickens as the portrait of Cat is unveiled.
I really wanted to like this book. It was very favorably reviewed. It was well written, a wonderful travelogue through Italy. However, I did find the characters, although well developed, a bit unappealing. I wanted to shake them and say what are you doing? The novel is a quick read and perfect for a diversion from the spy, mystery books I usually like. Siddons attempts to fill her characters with all that is part of human nature and, as Yolanda succinctly puts it, "Americans behave badly in Italy."
The underground railroad was an incredible attempt in our nation's history to help those, who were oppressed and subjugated to horrendous persecution, by providing a secret route of safe homes to freedom. It has been a fascinating subject to me since my elementary school days and then to my college years when historic markers seemed to abound with the sites associated with abolition of slavery. It was even rumored that the Rocky Spring Church, in which graveyard Sarah Wilson was buried, was a station on the railroad.
Fast forward a couple of hundred years and Colson Whitehead has taken the The Underground Railroad to a new dimension. With homage paid to Gulliver's Travels and 100 Years of Solitude, Whitehead creates a system of tracks, trains, and tunnels that transport slaves to freedom. The reader must suspend the historical notion for the magic realism that details the coming and going of locomotives and trains that can be accessed through trap doors.
Cora lives on the Randall plantation in Georgia. Her mother was a runaway slave and abandoned her when she was young. As a witness to and victim of the owner's brutality, she agrees to an escape plan with Caesar, a young man who gains her trust. The ensuing journey north takes her to diverse stations and states. From a surrealistic environment of "freedom" in South Carolina to hiding in an attic, ala Anne Frank, in North Carolina, the reader routes for her to make it to the north and real freedom. All the while she is chased by the wicked slave catcher, Ridgeway whose intensity in pursuit rivals that of Javret from Les Miserables.
Throughout the novel Whitehead moves beyond the narrative to the unstated comparison of man's journey for freedom and the savage cruelty experienced on the way- the Nazis and the police brutality that the world has witnessed in the last years. It is a shocking and complacency shaking work that begs to be reread for the sheer poetry of Whitehead's words. On 24 October 2016, it was, indeed, a thrill to hear Colson Whitehead read from and discuss this book and his inspiration for writing it.
Very few books resonate with a reader for a long time after the back cover is closed. Patti Smith's M Train is one of those incredible books. As talented a song writer and poet, Smith has a penchant for longer prose also. I cannot wait to hear her speak in October.
The memoir seems to be in reality a means for her to pay homage to her late husband Fred Smith as well as cathartic means to move on with her life. She lost her husband in 1994 suddenly. Barely a month after that her brother died of a stroke. Those events in her life inspire her writing, which is lyrical and poignant. In an almost stream of consciousness style she remembers the distant past, the recent past, and her present situation.
Much of the book details the trips that Smith has taken, some on a whim and some with a decided purpose, but most revolving around her favorite writers. She and Fred travel to French Guiana to visit prison ruins that Genet spoke about. The trip was marred/highlighted by being taken into police custody when a body was found in the trunk of the taxi in which they were riding.
She visits the home of Freda Kahlo and Diego Rivera to fulfill a dream that took hold when she was a young girl and given a book on the works of Kahlo. Her trips also include pilgrimages to the graves of Brecht, Plath, Rimbaud, Genet. Her reverence for them is real and she is moved by being so close to the final resting places of their creative genius. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, her favorite book by Haruki Murakami inspires her travel to Japan for a writing hiatus. The ease with which Smith quotes authors and books, most esoteric works, boggles the mind of the less informed reader. I was in awe.
She writes in cafes around the world. They are an important part of her life and writing. Her favorite one in New York closes when the owner decides to relocate to Rockaway Beach. It is there she buys a deteriorating bungalow right before Sandy hits the beach. Her prose is interspersed with black and white photos taken with an old Polaroid camera - Virginia Wolfe's walking stick and the table where Goethe and Schiller wrote among many others.
I eagerly anticipate reading Patti Smith's first memoir, Just Kids, in which she writes of her younger years, arrival in New York and her loving friendship with Robert Maplethorpe. I have admired Maplethorpe's work for a long time and will be anxious to read of his artistic brilliance.
So many passages in the book necessitated a re-reading simply because they were just so beautiful and you needed them to become absorbed as part of you. It would take pages to fully describe this book. M Train is so memorable and closes with this elegiac passage:
“And then I walked out, straight through the twilight, treading the
beaten earth. There were no dust clouds, no signs of anyone, but I paid
no mind. I was my own lucky hand of solitaire. The desert landscape
unchanging: a long, unwinding scroll that I would one day amuse myself
by filling. I'm going to remember everything and then I'm going to write
it all down. An aria to a coat. A requiem for a café. That's what I was
thinking, in my dream, looking down at my hands.”
Sometimes you just need to read a book that is light, charming, and delightful. These were fitting adjectives to describe The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, Patrick's debut novel.
As the novel begins, Arthur, a widower for a year, decides to begin cleaning out his deceased wife's closet. In the process he discovers, in the toe of a boot a gold charm bracelet. Arthur can't ever remember Miriam wearing it. There are 8 charms on the bracelet and he is curious as to their significance. The first charm that intrigues Arthur is a small tiger that happens to have a phone number on the back. Reaching down for the courage to call the number, he finally musters it and places the call to all places, India. There he reaches a Rajesh Mehra whose nanny was Miriam. And so Arthur's journey begins.
He follows leads for all the charms that take him to Paris, London, a manor outside Bath and a college in Scarborough. The charms reveal a part of Miriam's life of which Arthur was not aware. He begins to wonder whether he really knew his wife. Was she happy with him? Did she really love him. The charms also lead Arthur to really change his life. He has been a virtual recluse since his wife's death, but on a quest for knowledge brings him out in the world. He is befriended by a neighbor, Bernadette, who brings him pies and encourages him to leave his house. She is a catalyst for his being able to start to get on with his life.
In a secondary plot line is Arthur's relationship with his children. Lucy, who has emotional problems of her own, and Dan, the son who moved to Australia, are, for the most part, absent from his life. They did not even come to their mother's funeral. As Arthur tries to rekindle a relationship with them, he again learns more about his wife and himself. The ending is quite poignant and I will admit to a bit of a sniffle.
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper reminds me a lot of 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson. A series of items left to the protagonist to a different place that has meaning to that person. As Ginny and Arthur try to piece together that meaning they discover more about themselves as well as their benefactor. Patrick's book is a fun read. There is humor, a bit of sadness, some suspense, and a dark revelation. It's a fast read and a good end of the summer pool or beach book.
It really is true that belonging to book club can expand your reading vista. Whether browsing or searching, I probably would never have chosen this debut novel by William Kowalski. There were even some of us who tried to hide the title as we were reading. Eddie's Bastard is a saga of a family, the Manns, and, as such, the reader is privy to all those ups and downs and secrets that are a part of family history.
A baby is left in a basket on the doorstep of an farmhouse in 1970. An older man discovers the little boy and by looking at the infant's eyes, knows immediately that the child is a member of his family. He names the boy William Amos Mann, or Billy for short. A a genealogist, it would have been helpful to have a pedigree chart for all the family members whose stories are drawn into the novel. Central to the story, also, is the grandfather, Thomas Mann, Jr.'s, diary from World War II and his being shot down by a Japanese pilot. But then there is the introduction of another Mann who fought in the Civil War. At times it becomes confusing and takes a bit of perseverance.
Billy is home-schooled by his grandfather and the two lead a virtually eremitical life, living on fried bologna sandwiches. (This actually created a craving and a trip to the grocery store to get the fixin's for the same.) Thomas was an alcoholic and Billy learned to cope with being very much on his own as he grew up.
Billy's world expands to include other towns people in the small town of Mannsville, not too far from Buffalo and Erie. There is the Annie Simpson whom he loves, but who has a horrific secret that she keeps, Elsie, the prostitute who shows Billy the ways of the world, and Dr. Connor, who knows everything about everyone in the town. It is through the characters that Billy's life is shaped.
Although I found the book a bit slow in the beginning, I began to appreciate the writing, situations, and the character development. It was hilarious when the ostrich adventure recurs, and sad when the Simpsons were center stage. Throughout it all, it is really the story of a young boy and then young man who is on a quest to discover who he really is and from where he comes. This search drives him to the very end of the novel and leads the reader to think that there will be something more to Billy's life story. And there is, the sequel, Somewhere South of Here. A good and satisfying read.
