Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Hiking in Italy’s Piedmont region got off to a mucky start. We spent a rainy day stomping and sliding along trails surrounded by grape-heavy vineyards. Still, the vistas were breathtaking with rolling hills terraced with rows upon rows of grapevines. We were soaked to the bone with so much mud on our boots it felt like walking in high heels on uneven surfaces.
After arriving at our first night’s stay in the hamlet of Vergne, we’d clocked about 10 miles. Arrangements had been made for our bags to be delivered to Ca’ San Ponzio where we had a room for the night. Despite fatigue and a desperate desire/need for a hot shower, this 12-room agriturismo immediately charmed us.
This was the home of owners Luciano and Maurizio’s grandparents; as children they often visited. The brothers renovated the L-shaped building while maintaining its traditional architectural features.
Our warm, spacious room was only part of the charm. A large stone fireplace was the focal point of the inviting living room (lobby doesn’t do it justice). The large dining area – with an impressive breakfast buffet was available in the morning — was another common room for relaxing available, but it was the wine cellar that captivated most guests.
Along with an impressive number and varieties of wine, were bottles, glasses, corkscrews and a stack of Post-it notes. Guests were to help themselves, but needed to jot down their room number and what they’d taken: glass or bottle. This was an honor system everyone happily followed. (With payment for what was drunk made at checkout.)
Bonus: the weather was in our favor the next day.
Ca’ San Ponzio
Five Glasses of wine (this is the rating, not what we drank)
Via Rittane 7, Frazione Vergne, 12060 Barolo, Italy
Home | Cà San Ponzio
The title alone gives away that this is a mystery with trust issues. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston follows Evelyn “Evie” Porter on a secret assignment to get romantically involved with Ryan Sumner.
It’s soon evident that Evie isn’t who she says she is; parts of her backstory are interspersed with the mysteries at hand: who is Ryan, why is it necessary to know him, and more, importantly, who is the elusive, enigmatic “Mr. Smith”?
It’s no spoiler to reveal Evie, is aka Lucca Marino, who explains that Smith is the person who clandestinely hires her and pays her handsomely to get the dirt on people. Consequently, Evie moves from location to location, mostly in the South, with different identities, looks and ways of ingratiating herself into her targets’ lives.
The problem Evie encounters with Ryan is that she finds herself actually falling in love with him. Yet, she knows there’s a lot he’s hiding from her. Of course, everyone has their secrets but in this case, there are a lot to keep track of!
Evie, a smart, engaging character, and Devon, the assistant she’s secretly hired to help her unbeknownst to Smith, make for a strong team. The relationship between Evie and Ryan is credible and one the reader actually roots for.
Elston incorporates a number of plot twists to keep the reader guessing and it mostly works. However, there are so many threads to untangle it often gets a little messy; this serves to break the tension rather than enhance it.
First Lie Wins
Viking, 2024
Three-and-a-half Bookmarks
340 pages
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is part mystery and historical fiction inspired by the experiences and diary of Martha Ballard, the novel’s narrator, who relates her story as the town midwife and life in rural late-1700s Maine.
When a body is found and recovered from the frozen Kennebec River, Martha is immediately suspicious of the cause of death. The victim is one of two men accused of committing rape; the other is a judge and respected citizen.
Despite numerous obstacles, including being a woman whose opinions are quickly dismissed by the men who oversee the social norms of the day, Martha is determined to fight for the preacher’s wife who was raped.
Martha is happily married and a mother, most of her children are in their teens and early 20s. She takes her role, as not just a midwife but medical care provider for the town and surrounding area, seriously and professionally – even after a Harvard-educated physician arrives and questions her knowledge and abilities.
The harsh elements of the wintry landscape and the hardscrabble life the townspeople endure are vividly described. Martha’s efforts to prove the rape victim told the truth while also trying to determine how one of the accused died results in an engaging work.
This is a portrayal of a strong, intelligent woman ahead of her time in her recognition of the sexism women faced. Martha’s story is one of life in a rural community impacted by the season, gossip and mores of the times.
The Frozen River
Four Bookmarks
Doubleday 2023
432 pages, includes author’s notes and acknowledgements
James is Percival Everett’s retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from James’ (Jim’s) perspective.
After learning he’s to be sold and forced to leave his family, James runs away. Jim is the name he’s been given by his white owner; his peers know him by his more formal name. Huck fakes his own death to avoid further beatings by his father and discovers Jim in hiding. The two make their way down the Mississippi River, each with different goals in mind.
There’s a reward for James’s capture, and he worries he’s suspected of Huck’s “death.”
While this has Twain’s classic as its foundation, the architecture is all Everett’s. James speaks in the vernacular associated with slaves when spoken to by slave owners and other white people. However, among each other, slaves converse in perfect English, that’s not only grammatically correct but rich in vocabulary. James also knows how to read, as do many in his circle.
Occasionally, he slips in a word that Huck doesn’t know but quickly makes its clear he’s misspoken, when, in fact, James hasn’t.
The book is full of irony, humor and sadness. In their travels they encounter kindness, brutality and fear. At one point the pair is briefly separated and James fares well, including, ironically, being recruited by a minstrel group and is befriended by another black man who passes for white.
Like its predecessor, this is an adventure story but more profoundly addresses still existing racial inequities and social injustice.
James
Four bookmarks
Doubleday, 2024
303 pages
The Silence of the Choir is, in fact, loud and clear. This timely, multi-voiced novel by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr addresses the plight of African refugees and their impact on a small Sicilian town.
The men, called “ragazzi” by the townspeople, have fled their respective countries for numerous reasons, including war and poverty. Few share the same language, but all endured subhuman conditions to reach Europe – at great cost physically and monetarily.
Not surprisingly, reaction to their arrival varies: some locals are eager to help, others are convinced they will take jobs and do harm. Few are indifferent.
The story is told from numerous perspectives including several refugees, the town physician, a priest, a reclusive poet, the mayor, the woman determined to help them attain asylum and a man equally resolute to send them back to where they came from.
Jogoy, is a former refugee working as an interpreter. Some of the ragazzi trust him, many don’t. Still, it’s his skill with languages that’s secured his place, but his past remains a burden that’s always close to the surface. The narrative is sporadically interrupted with his story, complete with a different font and chapter titles. His could easily be that of others in exile.
Though this is a poignant, contemporary and significant topic, the author injects moments of humor and joy with the agony of uncertainty the ragazzi and locals experience. There are also elements of mystery, romance and an array of often painful approaches dealing with the situation.
The Silence of the Choir
Four-and-a-half bookmarks
Europa Editions, 2024
391 pages
Raquel Toro is a first-generation university student in her third year at an Ivy League school studying art history. She’s never heard of Anita de Monte but the two share several commonalities though they’re a generation apart in Xochitl Gonzalez’s novel Anita de Monte Laughs Last.
Anita was an up and coming artist in the mid-1980s before she’s found dead. Her husband, Jack, is a well-known, successful sculptor who, although professes his undying love, manipulates his wife to suit his moods/needs.
Jump ahead to the late 1990s, Raquel is certain she wants to do her senior thesis on Jack, with neither awareness of his deceased wife, nor knowledge of how she died. Although Raquel doesn’t realize it, readers will quickly see similar behaviors between Jack and Nick, the graduating art student from a wealthy family, with whom she becomes romantically involved.
There is passion in both relationships, but there are also strings attached. As she researches Jack’s work, Raquel identifies a period in which he produced little, if any, art. This is roughly the same time of Anita’s death, which is noted as either a fall from or push out of a high-story New York City window in the novel’s early pages. A subsequent trial following her death is also new to Raquel.
The engaging storyline is driven by chapters narrated by Anita, Raquel and occasionally Jack. Those revealing Anita’s side of the story require accepting the perspective from someone who’s dead, but very much alive in the spirit world.
Anita De Monte Laughs Last
Three and three-quarter bookmarks
Flatiron Books, 2024
341 pages
When things go wrong for Dickie Barnes in The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, they occur in seemingly slow motion yet the ensuing chaos is still surprising. What catches readers off guard is the number of lies the characters tell not only to one another but also to themselves.
The plot, told in the present and past, follows Dickie; his wife Imelda; daughter Cass; son PJ; and older brother Frankie. Dickie is in a downward spiral. His once-successful car business is falling apart and his family isn’t doing so well either. Reverting to their histories is significant: at which point did things go amiss?
Frankie, the small town’s popular football star, and Imelda were engaged. Dickie was always in his older brother’s shadow and left for Dublin to study at university to one day take over their father’s car business.
The author blends humor and pathos. How Dickie and Imelda came to be married and the bee sting (the title source) that forced her to wear her veil throughout the day of their wedding are major elements; as is the impact of their unraveling marriage on their children. These are main threads of this lengthy book– which at times is long-winded and other times impossible to put down.
Without revealing the ending, it’s necessary to note it is one of the most cinematic, edge-of-your-seat conclusions. It’s fraught with danger, fear and love … just like the rest of the book. However, it takes a long time to reach this point.
The Bee Sting
Four Bookmarks
Paul Murray
645 pages
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023
No Ordinary Assignment is Jane Ferguson’s memoir about her career as a war correspondent, primarily in the Middle East.
Ferguson grew up in Northern Ireland where conflict was a constant, so it’s little surprise that later she often put herself on the front lines that led, for example, to Arab Spring, the fall of Kabul and much more. This was initially as a freelance journalist and eventually on staff of Al Jazeera English and PBS.
The work meant leaving her home base, which through the years included Sana, Yemen; Dubai; Kabul; New York City; and others on a moment’s notice. The result tested relationships but allowed Ferguson to prove her abilities at getting the story.
Her experiences were fraught with danger; she was often the first reporter on the scene and usually the only female. She frequently embedded with military forces and was smuggled into several war zones.
Ferguson shares her love of Kabul and the heartbreak of its downfall, not just for herself but the Afghans who were forced to leave – she was among the last Western journalists to evacuate Afghanistan.
At times self-deprecating, Ferguson’s account of becoming an award-winning journalist is compelling, if, albeit, at times repetitive. Not to denigrate her exploits, but it’s difficult to keep track of so many close calls in the face of peril.
It’s evident she sacrificed a lot to pursue her goals. Certainly, she warrants admiration for her tenacity and desire to inform the public about world events that have impactful consequences.
No Ordinary Assignment
Three-and-a-half bookmarks
Mariner Books, 2023
320 pages
In Open Throat, a feral mountain lion roams the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles (“ellay”). He’s hungry, but has his limits as to what prey he’ll pursue. He even protects a homeless camp, unbeknownst to its inhabitants.
Author Harry Hoke’s novel addresses climate change, homelessness and humankind’s encroachment on nature. Almost poetic in form, the lion narrates the story as he watches hikers and eavesdrops on their conversations. Some words he overhears often enough that they become part of his narrative: scarcity becomes scare city.
The lion witnesses the start of a manmade fire, something erroneously blamed on the homeless camp. The heat and smoke force the lion into a residential neighborhood where he finds shelter in the basement of a house he overheard someone say was owned by “slaughter.”
He’s soon discovered by the owner’s teenage daughter who calls him “hecat” and he refers to her “little slaughter.” (All quotation marks are mine, not the author’s).
There’s no punctuation no capitalization except for the personal pronoun I. Excluding the italicized statements from little slaughter, who treats him in as a pet and support animal, everything is from the lion’s perspective. When she takes him to Disneyland, suspending disbelief is challenged!
From 2012 to 2022, a puma known in the Los Angeles area as P-22 roamed Griffith Park. His presence was well known making him a celebrity of sorts. The only concern for Hoke’s predator comes from little slaughter; otherwise, interest in his wellbeing is, reasonably, overshadowed by fear.
Open Throat
Three bookmarks
MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023
160 pages
Until August Gabriel Garcia Marquez‘s posthumously-published novel lets readers revel in something new by the renowned author who died in 2014.
The novel’s background is interesting. Its bones were first published in The New Yorker in 1999. The Editors Notes at the book’s conclusion indicate the short story was to be part of something larger featuring the same main character. Garcia Marquez finished the work, but it had yet to be fully edited before his death and he felt the work should be destroyed. His sons decided otherwise: “In an act of betrayal, we decided to put his readers’ pleasure ahead of all other considerations,” they wrote in the preface.
Every August, Anna Magdalena Bach travels by herself to a nearby island to place flowers at her mother’s gravesite. It was her mother’s final wish to be buried there, although Anna never knew why.
Yet, the flowers are not the only reason she goes every August for one day and catches the return ferry to the mainland the next day. She also takes a lover for that one night. Each year, it’s a different man. Up until the first time, she had never previously been unfaithful.
Through the years, the island becomes more popular among tourists, which affect her visits. And, of course, Anna gets older. Readers learn about her reading habits, her preferred drink, how her family has changed and more. It’s all succinctly described in 107 pages rich with humor, tension and intelligence – complete with a surprising revelation.
Until August
Four Bookmarks
Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
129 pages, includes Editor’s Notes and Facsimiles of the Original Manuscript
The Blue Page Special 