Archive for the ‘love’ Tag
Zorrie is the title character in Laird Hunt’s novel about a woman whose life is defined by loss, love and the tenacity to keep moving forward.
Following the death of her parents, Zorrie lives with a joyless aunt until the age of 21 when she leaves her hometown in rural Indiana to find her place in the world. She’s undaunted traveling alone and sleeping under the stars. She gets to Illinois where she eventually finds employment at a radium factory painting the numbers on clock faces. The townspeople call the young women who work there “ghost girls” thanks to the radioactive material that makes them glow – something that is haunting. Although she makes enduring friendships with other young women, Zorri makes her way back to Indiana.
This is a terse novel with little embellishment, much like Zorri’s life. Despite this, the descriptions of the community, farms and hardscrabble existence of Zorri and her neighbors are vivid. She’s a no-nonsense, kind and hardworking person.
Soon after returning to Indiana, she marries Harold, the son of the older couple with a spare room to let. Hunt’s adroit narrative leaves the reader as surprised as Zorri by the depth of her relationship with Harold.
The depression, World War II and other events of the mid-20th century impact Zorri’s life in profound ways. Still, her resiliency and Hunt’s ability to highlight beauty among mundane daily routines make for an engaging novel. Zorri may not articulate appreciation for what she has, but it’s evident nonetheless.
Zorri
Almost-four bookmarks
Bloomsbury Books, 2021
161 pages
The best books are those you don’t want to pick up because once you do, you don’t want to put them down. It’s a conundrum. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is one such book. It’s a love story (on many levels) wrapped in science, specifically chemistry.
Elizabeth Zott is not a woman to be dismissed. Even after her post-graduate education is derailed due to sexual assault, she’s relentless in her pursuit of science.
Well ahead of her time in the late 1950s early ‘60s, she refuses to let her gender restrict her dreams, nor does she allow her good looks to dictate how’s she’s perceived. She’s exceptionally intelligent with a strong sense of self and a desire to be a chemist in the male-dominated scientific community.
She’s hired at a research lab where she meets Calvin Evans, a socially-awkward but distinguished scientist. A relationship based on mutual respect, desire and, ultimately, love flourishes despite the ill-will of their colleagues.
Garmus deftly illustrates the sexism and hypocrisy of the era. Yet, this is not a male-bashing narrative. When circumstances change, Elizabeth finds another way – round-about though it is – to pursue a career in chemistry: she hosts a television cooking show where she takes an unusual approach. Instead of identifying ingredients by their common names, she uses scientific terminology (ie., sodium chloride vs salt). Surprisingly, the program is a hit.
Humor and tragedy are incorporated in equal measures with several endearing characters the reader would love to spend more time with.
Lessons in Chemistry
Five Bookmarks
Doubleday, 2022
390 pages (includes acknowledgements)
Fight Night by Miriam Toews may sound like a mob meet up, which is true if you consider nine-year-old Swiv, her mother Mooshie and grandmother Elvira to be a gang. They do, indeed, fight. Not each other, but the past and world around them.
Swiv is clever and funny, but she’s just a kid – still in single digits. She’s been suspended from school (for fighting), so Elvira creates an innovative educational curriculum. This includes subjects, among others, such as letter writing, life sciences and “Ancient History,” about Elvira’s childhood.
Swiv and her grandmother are close. They spend their days together in close proximity where Swiv is largely a caregiver to the older woman. Still, Elvira is wise and joyful. She has a love of life that endears her to everyone she meets, much to Swiv’s dismay.
Mooshie is in the trimester of her pregnancy. She’s an actress with a Toronto theatre troupe and is portrayed as a woman on the edge. Swiv’s father is absent, something Elvira eventually explains to Swiv. Among the writing assignments for Swiv is to pen a letter to him keeping him up to date on her life. Mooshie and Elvira are also tasked with writing letters: theirs to the unborn child.
Toews portrays the small family as determined and prepared to face their demons. The deaths of Swiv’s aunt and grandfather by suicide nearly paralyzed Mooshie emotionally. This leaves Elvira to keep the family together, despite her failing health. Consequently, Swiv grows up far too fast.
Fight Night
Three-and-a-half Bookmarks
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021
251 pages
In a small French village in 1714, on the brink of being forced into marriage, Addie LaRue makes a pact with the devil: to live her life without limits with the caveat that she determines when she’ll finally relinquish her soul. The result is a story spanning centuries, with historic events referred to only in passing.
Instead, V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue highlights Addie’s evolution from a young woman alone who must fend for herself to her realization that no one remembers her from day to day, often hour to hour. Thus, she steals not only to survive, but to thrive – even if she isn’t particularly happy. She never ages, yet she’s lived 400 hundred.
Luc, aka Lucifer, checks in with Addie from time to time to see if she’s ready to finally surrender to him. She dreads these meetings; yet at times they’re also what save her (long) life since he’s the one who transports her from place to another.
Fast forward to New York City 2014 when she meets Henry, a bookseller, who remembers Addie the next day, the day after and many days to come. Thus begins a relationship that endures beyond the one-night stands she’d previously experienced.
Yet, there’s a twist. Henry’s story begins in 2013. (I’ll leave it at that rather than include any spoilers.)
Surprisingly, the narrative isn’t far- fetched. Rather, it’s an engaging love story, a story of regrets, loss and an acknowledgement of what it means to be alive.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Tom Doherty Associates Books, 2020
444 pages
Four and a-half Bookmarks
You‘d be forgiven for thinking A History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters is massive with each section retelling what’s already been shared in the Bible, scientific journals and cultural studies. Instead, Julian Barnes evokes humor and pathos as he draws from those chronicles while creating a narrative about survival.
The half chapter, between 9 and 10, entitled “Parenthesis” is about love.
An unlikely narrator in the first chapter shares its experience as a stowaway aboard Noah’s ark. In a vastly differing account from what’s taught in Sunday schools, Noah is portrayed as unintelligent and a drunk. Although references to the stowaway occur in a few subsequent chapters, its role as narrator ends once the ark reaches shore much, much longer than the 40 days told in popular versions.
Ships, passengers and violent seas – well, in some cases, just violence at sea – set the scene throughout the narrative, as does a trial, space travel and contemporary searches for the ark. Each section (chapter) can stand alone, but it’s important to remember the book’s theme, which is what the title implies.
Just as some history books often get bogged down in too much detail, Barnes falls in line with the genre. For example, the chapter appropriately entitled “The Wars on Religion,” about the trial of woodworm accused of blasphemy, while initially amusing, gets old fast.
Even the final chapter, “The Dream,” which provides an idea of heaven is too long, especially since even the narrator grows tired of it.
A History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters
Three-and-a-half bookmarks
Vintage International, 1989
307 pages
Give me a well-written book about food with recipes and I’m a happy reader. Cooking for Mr. Latte is Amanda Hesser’s account of how she met her husband, meals with family and friends and writing about food for The New York Times.
I’m no fan of the cover, but this is enjoyable. Hesser’s sense of humor is self-deprecating, but insightful. Her food knowledge is impressive and many of the recipes included at the end of the chapters are ones I want to try. Although some are more daunting than I’m willing to venture, most are enticing without being too challenging.
Mr. Latte is the name the author ascribes to her now husband. Their ideas about food are not at all on the same plate when they first meet. As the relationship grows, each makes concessions as their palates and dining encounters expand.
Hesser describes meals – those in restaurants and those at home – along with the role they have in creating and maintaining close friendships.
The courtship between the author and Mr. Latte is the main thread of the narrative with each chapter a vignette of her life as a writer, single female and foodie in New York City. Visits to her grandmother on the Chesapeake Bay illustrate the importance of family and the comfort of family meals. Her meeting with her future in-laws includes the combination of excitement and angst many can connect with. This isn’t quite a diary, but close. These aren’t private thoughts Hesser shares, but relatable experiences.
Cooking for Mr. Latte
Four Bookmarks
W.W. Norton & Co., 2003
336 pages (includes index)
A Long Petal of the Sea – the title of Isabel Allende’s new novel, refers to Pablo Neruda’s poem describing Chile. It’s an absorbing story about love, country and belonging.
When introduced, Roser is a young shepherd girl with an impressive ear for music. This provides opportunities far beyond expectations – including an education leading to a music scholarship at university in Barcelona. The Spanish Civil War is well underway.
Roser falls in love with the younger son of her music mentor, but it’s the older son, Victor, with whom she spends most of her life. From Spain, Roser and Victor arrive in France separately as refugees. They reconnect and, with the onset of World War II, realize they need to leave Europe and seek passage to Chile. Naruda led the charge getting Spanish refugees to his country. However, Roser and Victor must marry in order to travel together. What begins as a marriage of convenience slowly evolves into something much deeper.
As they settle into their new lives in Santiago, Roser pursues her music career and establishes a name for herself in South America. Victor continues his medical studies and becomes a doctor. He also has a brief liaison with the daughter of an upper class family.
Each chapter begins with a verse from a Naruda poem. The narrative moves through civil unrest in Chile, moments of professional success, parenting, another exile and love. Allende makes it clear, belonging is not just fitting into a place, but being with the right person.
A Long Petal of the Sea
Four Bookmarks
Ballantine Books, 2020
314 pages
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma is creatively written drawing on Nigerian folklore to tell a modern story of love, personal freedom and expectations.
Chinonso, a chicken farmer, meets Ndali, a young woman about to jump off a bridge. He convinces her not to leap, and they go their separate ways. His parents are deceased, his sister estranged. Ndali is in pharmacy school and is the daughter of a wealthy family. She tracks him down, they fall in love, and happily ever should come next.
Of course, her parents disapprove not just because he is a chicken farmer, but because he isn’t well-educated. He decides to pursue a college education knowing it will be a long process. An old friend arrives boasting of life in Cyprus where it’s easy to find a good-paying job and finish college in less time than in Nigeria. The friend makes the necessary arrangements; Chinonso sells his flock, his house, gives his friend money and leaves Ndali to become a better man.
Chinonso’s chi, inner spirit, narrates Chinonso’s story to the Igbo deities, of which there are several. Most paragraphs, directed to one or more in particular, are full of lengthy details foretelling of something ruinous to come motivated by Chinonso’s deep love for Ndali.
Chinonso believes in his decision; Ndali is less sure. His journey is a roller coaster of hope and despair, which the reader shares with Chinonso. This is far from uplifting, yet the narrative lingers long after the last page.
An Orchestra of Minorities
Four Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2019
448 pages
The Air You Breathe by Frances De Pontes Peebles gifts readers with an expansive, beautifully-written view of the ebbs and flows of deep friendships.
Dores, whose existence is shaped by her role as an orphan on a Brazilian sugar plantation, narrates the story. Her life changes when Graca, the spoiled, young daughter of the sugar cane baron, arrives. The two are opposites in every way. It is no surprise that their attraction is the impetus for their future endeavors.
Since there are no other children her age, Graca’s parents enlist Dores as playmate and study companion for their daughter. Despite spending much of her life up to this point working in the kitchen, Dores is a good student, much better than her friend. Yet, Garca possesses all of the advantages that will contribute to her success: beauty, a mesmerizing voice, a strong will and privilege.
The narrative begins with Dores looking back on her past, specifically the success of Graca, who becomes legendary Samba singer Sofia Salvador. The trajectory from rural Brazil to Rio de Janeiro to Hollywood is more than a rags-to-riches story. Each chapter begins, or ends depending on perspective, with the lyrics Dores has written and made famous by Sofia/Graca.
The characters are lively, the street scenes vibrant and the pulse of the 1930s and ‘40s sets the rhythm. The connection between the two women is full of joy and anguish, frustration and pride. Dores and Graca need each other, despite often wishing this was not the case.
The Air You Breathe
Five Bookmarks
Riverhead Books, 2018
449 pages
Circe by Madeline Miller is a who’s who of Greek mythology in the best way possible. This is a tale of desire through its various expressions, mortality/immortality and love in its many different forms.
Miller has fictionalized the life of Circe, the Greek goddess. It was she who transformed the beautiful nymph, Scylla, into the six-headed sea monster responsible for the deaths of numerous sailors in a narrow channel linking two seas.
Circe, the unfavored daughter of Helios the sun god and Perse, is exiled to the island of Aiaia. Despite her isolation, she comes in contact with others associated with the Odyssey. Before she meets Odysseus, however, Hermes, Jason, Medea and Daedalus are among those she encounters.
She is granted a brief respite from exile to assist her sister who gives birth to the Minotaur. Daedalus, father of Icarus, builds the labyrinth in which the half-man half-bull was confined. Circe and the mortal craftsman return to Aiaia. While this is a significant relationship, it is Odysseus who later claims Circe’s heart. This despite transforming his men into pigs and knowing his wife, Penelope, awaits his return.
In exile, Circe is only deprived of constant companionship. Otherwise, all of her needs are met. She discovers, through trial and error, the powers of the flora around her. Readers also learn the gods are ageless – to such an extent that Circe is hundreds of years old, with no physical evidence. Ultimately, this serves as a catalyst for her to attempt her greatest transformation ever.
Circe
Five Bookmarks
Little, Brown & Co., 2018
393 pages
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