Lovingkindness

Lovingkindness is a powerful little novel by Anne Roiphe. I had never heard of Roiphe until I found this book for a dollar at our local used book store. I picked it up because it looked really interesting-and it is!

This is the story of Annie, a feminist Mom who became a young widow and raised her daughter Andrea with all of her own feminist values. Annie, however, gets very lost, and roams the world trying out drugs and men and looking for something to make her happy. She finally thinks she finds it in a very conservative orthodox yeshiva in Israel where she now wears long skirts, learns to cook, studies Hebrew and is awaiting her arranged marriage.

This is a painful story of loss for both Annie and Andrea on many levels, but it is also a story about what it means to love, accept and let go. Roiphe is a wonderful writer and I found this book deeply moving.

The Invisible Mountain

The Invisible Mountain is an epic debut novel by Caroilina de Robertis. Although it is fiction, it is based on factual accounts of Uruguay's history. It is the family saga of three generations of Uruguayan women, spanning the 20th century. Pajarita, the grandmother, Eva, her daughter and Salome her grandaughter. These are all strong women living in difficult times in Uruguay, often in the midst of poverty and oppression, war, revolution and prison. But the spirit of all 3 women miraculously stays in tact through it all. The men, however, are not such strong characters, nor are they as likable.

The novel is reminiscent of a Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende novel. It is long, detailed family saga set in South America with much magic realism thrown in. I usually love this type of novel, and for a debut I found it to be extremely ambitious and well written. I can't say I loved it though. Maybe it was just my mood, but I found myself tired of reading of so much oppression at the hands of drunk, and abusive men. I know there are kind and decent men in Latin America, but this novel leaves you thinking they are very few and far between. It is the strength of the women that shines and I suppose that is the point.

There is, however, much to like about this book, and it is an impressive debut from a new author worth watching.

The Outside Boy

I loved The Outside Boy by Jeanne Cummins. This is a wonderful novel about Irish Travellers or Pavees, often referred to as Tinkers.  The book is about their nomadic culture that is rapidly coming to an end in Ireland. These are people who have lived this way for centuries, but are now on the fringes of society and looked down upon by settled "buffers."

The story is told by 11 year old Christy, a Pavee gypsy roaming with his father and aunt and grandparents from town to town, never settling for long in any one place. Christy is intelligent and curious, wildly free and enormously likeable. I wanted to be out on the open road in Ireland with him. I even started questioning living confined within four walls of a house all the time.

It is a search to discover who you are and where your place in the world is. An age old story, but refreshing and new in Jeanne Cummins deft hands. It is so beautifully written, it honors the long history of Irish storytelling. I loved every minute of this book. I didn't want it to end.

Just Kids

I absolutely loved this memoir-Just Kids by Patti Smith. It probably helps to start off as a big fan of Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe, but in the end I'm not sure if that even matters. I saw Patti Smith about 20 years ago, reading her poetry and playing her songs on just an acoustic guitar with no back up. She was hypnotic. Someone in the audience behind me kept yelling "Tell us about Mapplethorpe!" and I know she heard him because it was a small club, but she never acknowledged him, which I was happy about since he was really annoying. But here, in her new book, she has done just that-tell us about Mapplethorpe and herself-when they were just kids, living in New York and finding themselves and the artists they would become.

It was an amazing time to be a young artist in New York in the late sixties and early seventies. Living in the Chelsea hotel and surrounded by people like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Grace Slick, Sam Shepherd, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Bob Dylan, and many many others. For all the sex, drugs and rock and roll going on at the time, surprisingly the word that comes to my mind when I read this book was -'innocent.' That's how Patti Smith seems to me. No one can believe she's not either a junkie or a lesbian because of the way she looks and who she hangs out with. She is always hardworking, not involved in the drug and alcohol culture that brought so many of these artists down, and she and Mapplethorpe are deeply loyal to each other throughout their lives. I thought it was a beautiful and tender love story, and also an inside look at two artist's lives, emotions and experiences-and the willingness it takes to sacrifice all for your art-meaning many hungry nights when you must choose between art supplies or food or go without altogether.

Patti Smith won the National Book Award in Non-Fiction for this book. I watched her cry when she recieved her award-a lifelong dream of hers. She has experienced the loss of so many loved ones in her lifetime, yet she continues her work. I am grateful to her and inspired by her, and thankful that she shared her story with all of us. Her writing is lyrical and poetic and full of so many small details I felt transported back to that time in New York.

For fans of Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe this is a must read for sure. But even if you're not a fan, this is a book worth reading.

Note: This is strikingly similar to the historic novel Claude & Camille-A Novel of Monet, that I read just before this book. That was set during a very creative time in Paris in the 1860's and 70's-a hundred years earlier, and those artists were also poor and hungry and sacrificing everything for their art. I couldn't help but compare their similar circumstances having read them back to back. Even though they were very different times, nothing really changed for poor, unkown artists trying to make their way in the world and have their voices be heard. It is a life that takes nothing less than absolute, unwavering committment, and this doesn't seemed to have changed in the past century.

Claude & Camille - A Novel of Monet

The new novel Claude & Camille- A novel of Monet, by Stephanie Cowell is my favorite type of historical fiction. Cowell has taken us on a journey with Claude Monet during his early years as a struggling artist in Paris. Here he meets the lovely Camille Doncieux who comes from an upper class family, but decides to go against her family's wishes to live a poor, bohemian lifestyle with Monet and his friends.

This is such a creatively rich time in Paris during the 1860's and 70's with artists like Renior, Manet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Bazille, Degas and more struggling to make a living painting in a new style which would come to be known as Impressionism.

This novel is so beautifully written, I was transported-I could almost see the paintings being created, feel the cold rooms they were living in and taste the wine they drank in the cafes of Paris at the time. Although there is much that is tragic in this story, it is at heart a love story between a great artisit and his muse.

Stephanie Cowell is a wonderful writer. I highly recommend this novel. I am also looking forward to reading an earlier novel of hers called Marrying Mozart.

Good Things I Wish You

I love historical fiction, especially when it is based on strong women, so I was really looking forward to reading Good Things I Wish You by A. Manette Ansay. This is the story of Clara Schumann, wife of composer Robert Schumann, and her relationship with Johannes Brahms. Clara was a much more accomplished pianist than her husband and toured all over the world playing concerts in the 1850's, while raising eight children. However, after reading the book, I don't feel like I know much more about her than I did before I read it.

It is written in an interesting style, weaving a modern day romance in with that of the past relationship between Clara and Johannes. I liked the inclusion of photographs as well as actual correspondence between Clara, her husband and Brahms. This brought authenticity to the story, yet somehow it was still lacking depth. Nevertheless, it is a quick and interesting read.

A Thread of Sky

A Thread of Sky is a beautiful debut novel by Deanna Fei. This is the story of six very strong Chinese and Chinese/American women-three sisters, their mother, aunt and grandmother all travelling on a tour of China together to find a connection that has been lost between them. It is a different journey for each of them, yet they are all united in a way they never have been before. The sisters are each struggling with their own issues after the death of their father. They are struggling with cultural identity, what it means to be a strong and successful woman, and what it means to be a family, among other things.

Deanna Fei is a beautiful writer and I loved the journey this book took me on, both through China and  its history, and the journey into the inner worlds of each of these remarkable women. I look forward to what Fei has to offer us next. Highly recommended.

The Last Time I Saw You

I generally enjoy reading Elizabeth Berg's novels. Many are like reading a good issue of People magazine from cover to cover and being fully engrossed in the stories as I read, then forgetting them the second I finish the magazine. Her latest novel, The Last Time I Saw You, is much the same.

This is the story of a group of people reuniting at their 40th high school reunion. Some have led happy lives, others less so. I won't go into more details as I've already forgotten them.

One of her earlier novels I did enjoy reading was The Year of Pleasures. There is a time and place and mood for Berg's novels, and if you're in it, then they are just the thing.

Olive Kitteridge

I've gotta stop reading depressing books set in small towns on the seacoast of Maine. That pretty much sums up Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

To be fair, I will say that I enjoyed Strout's writing style- a novel set in stories, revolving around her main character, Olive Kitteridge. I think she is a talented writer and I enjoyed the format. However, the first story, Pharmacy, was my favorite and it went downhill from there. Henry, Olive's husband was my favorite character by far-the only one I ever really cared about. He got sick, then died early on, and I never really cared what happened to Olive. This is the main problem I had with this book.

The book offers slices of small town life and the complexity of feelings that each character experiences, but couldn't there have been a few characters that were a little bit happy? Too morose for my tastes.