Tidal Waters

Tidal Waters / Velia Vidal
trans. from the Spanish by Annie McDermott
Edingurgh: Charco Press, 2024, c2023.
113 p.

This was an odd one, a short read that says it's fictional, but has so many elements of the story that correspond to the author's life that it's hard to know how to categorize it. 

The main character in this book is named Velia, she moves back to the black community on Colombia's Pacific Coast that she grew up in to start a reading program for children (just like the author). The book is epistolary, told in a series of letters to a friend in the literary world, back in the capital. 

I thought this was interesting, with details about a community I didn't know anything about. I enjoyed the discussion of reading and working with families; much of that felt familiar to me, as a librarian. But I didn't fall for this the way so many other readers have. I didn't really connect to "Velia" as the character. There was a lot in the letters about her affairs and sexual life, which I wasn't as interested in reading as her more intellectual ponderings. And I'm not sure where the story was going, as it doesn't have much plot, it's more a thoughtful examination of a life and its development. 

I appreciated the focus on literature as a way to experience and engage with life, and the work that her organization Motete was doing. Not sure if this would be better placed as a creative memoir, though. 

In any case, much of interest here even if I didn't really love it as a whole. 

 

Queen of the Tambourine

 

The Queen of the Tambourine / Jane Gardam 
London: Europa, 2007, c1991.
256 p.

I've meant to read this for ages! And I found a nice Europa edition recently, so I dug right in. This is an epistolary novel, one of my favourite techniques. In this story, Eliza Peabody begins writing letters to her neighbour Joan, who has suddenly left her husband and grown children to travel the continent alone. None of these letters are ever answered. 

Eliza reveals herself in these letters; she's bossy and opinionated, and we realize that the neighbours often avoid her for it. She just doesn't fit in. She's isolated in the suburbs and very unhappy. Then her diplomat husband Henry leaves her. And this is the moment that tips her over the edge. As the letters continue, she becomes more and more unbalanced, until we aren't sure if what she's saying is true or something she's imagined. Are the people she talks about even real? Does she really have two dogs? And what is she going to do about it all? 

People in her community seem concerned about her, they try to talk to her but her understanding of things is not always on the level. The book spirals down, but then up again. The reader's journey alongside Eliza can be confusing - I lost the plot a few times - but by the end it's been made much clearer. This is fragmentary at times, and a bit frenzied. But Eliza is a great character, acerbic and observant, and there are some very funny bits. Her descriptions of the neighbours and other locals are not tempered by social niceties, and her one-liners can be hilarious. 

While I didn't absolutely love it, there were touching parts as well as humour, and you can tell that Gardam is in full control of her narrative. It's a powerful look at women's lives as they age and try to find their place. Here's another woman who has no children or husband, but unlike my last read, Eliza doesn't despair. She may lose touch with reality for a while, but she is firmly ensconsced in a community and comes out the other side alright. I'll remember her acid commentary for a while. 

Business As Usual, by Jane Oliver

Business As Usual / Jane Oliver & Ann Stafford
Handheld Press, 2020, c1933.
242 p.

Now here's a store novel that is not twee or earnest; it's funny and mostly realistic, with mentions of working conditions of regular women, and the perils that face single women in the 30s. 

This is an epistolary novel, a story told in letters by our heroine Hilary Fane to a variety of her friends and family, with cute drawings appended to many. It faintly reminds me of Daddy-Long-Legs in its style, except that there is no creepy love story between schoolgirl and sugar daddy in this one. 

Hilary has her BA and is engaged to up-and-coming doctor Basil. They won't be able to marry for a year, so she's decided that rather than moon about at home waiting for him, she's going to see if she can support herself for the year and get a feel for 'real life'. She goes to London, and can't seem to get a position as easily as she thought she would. With her savings diminishing quickly, she considers giving up, but then lucks into a position in the lending library records department at Everyman's (a department store heavily reminiscent of Selfridges). 

Despite her being so self-deprecating in her letters, she quickly moves from clerk to sales associate on the floor (as she baldly states, BAs or Titles are the key to the better roles). She's not great at sales due to her lack of math skills, so ends up in the front end of the lending library where she goes gung-ho with reorganizing and streamlining processes, much to the (not unexpected) ire of long-time employees. But Hilary has an in - she's also begun to write notes and memorandum back and forth to Everyman's head manager, who likes her gusto (and most likely her youth and beauty as well). Basil's letters, in comparison, show him off more and more as a pompous social climber, heartless and self-involved. 

There is quite a bit of humour in this, as Hilary writes to Basil and her family about her living conditions, work drama, the sudden appearance in the Lending Library of her eccentric rich aunt (causing quite a stir), and so forth. But there is also some quite serious commentary, on the poor scrimping typists she first works with, who are all much older than she is and sharing rooms to get by even so. And with no outlook for anything different. There is a woman of her own age working there, too, who is having a romance with one of the male employees out front; but she gets into trouble and he immediately drops her. Hilary tries to help, appealing to Basil for assistance in finding a nursing home which will remove the trouble (he of course is appalled). Although Hilary herself has nothing to worry about in the future department, she has empathy for those she sees around her, beginning to understand the way other women have to move in the world. 

I really like store novels, and also love epistolary novels, and this one was very satisfying in both respects. It's really about a working life, and the letters are varied and amusing, while actually feeling like letters (and notes, and memoranda). I'd definitely recommend this one if you enjoy those things as well, along with a splash of social realism and romanticism - those things sitting beside one another surprisingly well in this novel.

The Lost Manuscript

The Lost Manuscript / Cathy Bonidan
NY: St. Martins, 2021, c2019.
274 p.

This is a title that I heard of thanks to WIT Month in a previous year. I thought it sounded charming, and it's in epistolary format, which is something I really love. So I found it via my library and gave it a go. 

Unfortunately, I wanted to like it much more than I ended up doing. It is told in a series of letters back and forth between a widening group of writers. Anna-Lise Briard finds an old manuscript in a hotel side table, and reads it; it touches her so much she tries to find out who left it there, and then trace that line back to who might have written it. 

Letters fly back and forth across France and into England as people are introduced to each other through their connection to the manuscript. Anne-Lise seems like a nosy person with a lot of time on her hands, despite working for a publisher full-time. Her actions drive the story, though, and without her busybody interventions there would be no book ;) 

Anyhow, I liked the idea, and some of the letters were amusing - the differing tones in letters between new acquaintances and old friends was nicely done. The epistolary format was used effectively, with the different ways in which people write to one another used appropriately to develop the story. 

There was a romantic arc between Anna-Lise's friend Maggy and an English character, but it was kind of ho-hum -- and that was my problem with this book in the end. I did find the plot to be a little weak and overly sentimental. By the end I didn't really care who wrote the manuscript or why, and felt like it was very unlikely to have changed the life of everyone who had ever laid eyes on it. So if you're in the mood for something really light with loads of sentiment this might hit the spot, but it just didn't gel for me at this moment. 

Fraulein Schmidt & Mr. Anstruther

 

Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther / Elizabeth von Arnim
London: Virago, 2006, c1907.
392 p.

Now this is an epistolary novel that really works! It is absolutely dependent on the fact that it is a set of letters, and in this case, one sided letters. We only see the missives to Mr. Anstruther from Fraulein Schmidt - we are left to guess the other bits from her responses. I found it very successful. 

It begins with Rose-Marie writing an ecstatic letter to Roger -- he was boarding with her teacher father for a year to study in Germany, and told her of his feelings for her just before going back to England. The letters are charming and funny and romantic, but get shorter and a little less expansive as she waits to hear back. 

Her letters cool down slowly, especially when Roger, now Mr. Anstruther, writes to let her know that he is going to become engaged to a British girl -- not his choice of course but he must follow the requests of his father and his career prospects. But they can remain friends and correspondents. 

Rose-Marie manages this admirably, changing her position to one of "older sister", as she tells him, someone concerned with his well-being but able to criticize and advise as well. And we see through her letters that she grows, and becomes more able to state things clearly, and to be realistic about her life and prospects. Until Mr. Anstruther desires to become Roger once more, and puts Fraulein Schmidt into an awkward position...

Elizabeth von Arnim's writing is sharp and clear, and in this novel particularly I thought she had the voice of a practical young woman down. As in most of her work, the conflict between being German and English is part of the story, and she's able to point out some of the absurdities in both cultures. I recently read an academic study of comedy in her novels, and it surmised that the humour is such that it requires a sympathetic reader, one who can sense the irony and situational wryness -- I think many bookish women readers will be the right ones for this story, and will 'get it'. 

I loved Rose-Marie's voice and her independence. She's a clever letter writer - I'd love for her to write to me. I'm not sure what I think of the ending, it could mean a couple of different things if you extrapolate and imagine. Von Arnim's intent and direction of the narrative probably mean one thing but I wondered if the story could possibly play out another way past the final pages. I couldn't help hoping that Rose-Marie would get everything that she wanted. This was an amusing book, but with emotional heft, and a wonderful main character. One of my favourite Von Arnim books. 

The City and the House

The City & The House / Natalia Ginzburg
trans. from the Italian by Dick Davis
NY: Arcade, 2019, c1984.
312 p.

I read Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon last year, and was quite taken with it. So when I saw this book I snapped it up without even realizing that it is an epistolary novel, one of my favourite forms.

There are a group of friends writing to one another here; Guiseppe is moving to America to live with his brother, it's not like he really wants to go but he doesn't want to stay either. So the book begins with goodbyes. 

And throughout the letters there are continual goodbyes -- to homes, relationships, friendships, understandings -- there is loss and disaffection permeating these blunt and honest letters. The circle of friends is centred around Lucrezia and Piero, who own Le Margherite, a rambling country house outside Rome where they go to spend weekends in the freewheeling atmosphere of a house overrun with Lucrezia's badly behaved children, and to talk and eat and interact. Even the furniture becomes vital to them. 

Guiseppe's leaving is the first crack in this circle, which then begins to crumble. Le Margherite is sold, and the friends are set adrift, losing their connections, shifting allegiances and leaving the circle altogether. They write to one another furiously, terrible sad things happen, and there is no reconciliation or return to the past. 

This is simultaneously enthralling and very sad. The style, all those letters, works beautifully to tell this story. But because it is only letters there are also those loose ends that are never fully described or explored -- you don't do that in a letter. Thus it felt like there was space around and behind what we are reading; what is going on in the time that the character isn't writing? And how do the characters truly feel about some of the dreadful things that overtake them?

This evokes a certain time in Rome, and you get a sense of these characters going about their lives from the intimacy of their voices in their letters. The sadness, the attempts to save face or put the best spin on things, the honesty when despairing, the manner in which new ways of living absorb the characters and create new distance between them. 

I was absorbed in this one, waiting to hear from one character or another, hoping to hear that things were making a turn for the better. It's a gem, with strong characterizations and pithy writing, and an atmosphere all of its own. 

The Jewish Husband

The Jewish Husband / Lia Levi;

trans. from the Italian by Antony Shugaar

NY: Europa, 2009, c2001.

209 p.

This was a really interesting read; I didn't know anything about it going in, which perhaps added to the experience. 

It's an epistolary novel, a series of letters from an older man living in Tel Aviv, to someone...we only find out who about halfway through. Dino Carpi, now David Katz, is slowly telling his life story, methodically and step by step. He's explaining how he's ended up where he is to someone who might not be inclined to listen. 

As a young man in Mussolini's Italy, Dino (son of hoteliers) falls in love with a beautiful rich girl, Sonia Gentile (really her name). Their love is strong and determined, even in the face of her family's disapproval. They finally manage to get married, in a Pauline marriage, one which allows for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic, and they have one son. 

But fascism is growing, and Sonia's family are great supporters of Mussolini. As race laws are passed and Jews forbidden from owning property, running businesses, working in education, and more, and more, Dino loses his professorial job, his parents must quickly give the hotel over to a trusted employee, and life becomes more and more precarious. 

Then the Gentile family comes up with the perfect solution to keep Sonia and little Michele safe and privileged -- too bad it requires the erasure of Dino's existence. 

The creeping growth of indignities and oppression in Fascist Italy is not something I've read much about. This novel gives a picture of daily life in 'normal' times when prejudice against Jews is just an everyday occurrence; then traces the barely noticeable steps as prejudice grows and becomes more normalized, then becomes outright legal oppression. I think this is a valuable lesson right now; pay attention, because something that might be seen as a tiny one-off can lead to much more. 

It's a quiet, steady novel, perhaps due to its format as a series of letters. It feels formal, with the emotional impact of some of the events muted as they are told baldly, factually rather than in the heat of the moment. But in some ways I found this more striking. It has all happened, there is no recourse, there are only explanations to be given and forgiveness and understanding to be asked for. 

There are no outsize characters in this one, no outrageous eccentrics or villains or even heroes. Just real people struggling along with their regular life in very troubled times.

I was impressed, and pleased once again with Europa's choice to translate this and publish it in such a well-designed form. I really liked it.

Meet Me At The Museum

Meet Me At The Museum / Anne Youngson
New York: Flatiron Books, c2018.
272 p.

This is a charming epistolary novel, recommended for those who enjoy books like The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. It's told entirely in letters, and successfully: the letters sound like letters, and while the voice in both of them is a little too similar in times, it still made for a satisfactory read. 

I don't think I adored it as much as the majority of Goodreads reviewers did; it was a tiny bit slow moving for me, and the big 'event' near the end was telegraphed in flashing lights, and was a little predictable.

But, the conclusion was not as predictable. In fact, it was realistic, mature and really filled with promise and a peaceful sense of possibility. I really appreciated the author not taking the easy route and adding some complexity and realism to what is still a happy ending. 

This story is a series of letters between Tina Hopgood, a farm wife and grandmother who writes to Professor Glob - the author of a book on Tollund Man that she and her classmates read years before, as children. Prof. Glob is long gone, but the new man in his place, Anders Larsen, replies to Tina. This begins a correspondence, first about Tollund Man and Professor Glob and so forth, but fairly quickly turning into more of a personal exchange as they experience a meeting of the minds.

They tell each other their stories of family, of their search for the meaning of their lives, of their hopes for the future. They also talk about Tina's longing to visit the Tollund Man, something she and her best friend Bella had always meant to do together; it was Bella's death that pushed her to write her first letter. 

It's a cerebral, quiet book, with much pondering over the past - discussions of memory and responsibility and how to live - and if you love the epistolary format and clever people exchanging civilized, literate thoughts you will most probably love this book too. 

I enjoyed it, finding it very well written, with a lot to recommend it. It had some nice metaphors, like the cover image suggests -- at one point Tina says that life is like picking raspberries; you think you've got them all, but you get the end of a row and turn around and see all the ones you've missed along the way. Small observations like this one spark throughout the book, and make it a thoughtful and engaging reading experience. 

Write For Rights with Amnesty International

I spent part of my weekend with our local Amnesty group, participating in the annual Write For Rights Day. Amnesty International chooses 10 cases to focus on for this event each year, and groups hold public events across the world encouraging people to write letters in support of the cases. Our words matter!

Our local group has been doing this for 5 years, and every year it grows -- this year there were over 75 participants and 497 letters written. It's a really great event.

I've been helping out for the past two years doing a bit of Craftivism. This year I ran the craft table where we were created postcards for two of the individuals featured, and a banner of support for another. Handmade items give people the opportunity to really get their shared humanity across, and to encourage the feel of hands reaching out to one another. It's also a colourful and cheerful way to encourage those people who are facing political pressures, and to engage people here and now at events like this -- it's even easy for children to join in.

And of course, I got some letter writing in as well.

If you weren't at a Write for Rights event in your neighbourhood, you can still check out the dedicated page at Amnesty Canada for these 10 cases: they still need more letters sent on their behalf (if you're not in Canada like I am, just check the Write for Rights page for your country for the correct addresses for you to use). The focus this year was on ten women's human rights defenders, so do check them out and if you are so inclined - send out a letter.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Anita Loos; illustrated by Ralph Barton.
New York: Penguin, 1998, c1925.
123 p.

Finally read this classic: it's a fictional diary of a working girl whose plans are to catch that gentleman, eventually! 

For some reason I always thought this was a much later book - probably because of the movie featuring Marilyn Monroe - but it was published in 1925, in the heyday of flappers and It Girls and excessive wealth being splashed around everywhere. It really reeks of the Twenties! 

In the intro, it notes that this was the first American novel to make fun of sex; while I'm not sure about the claim, it certainly does make light of all the gentlemen that the diarist Lorelei and her best frenemy Dorothy encounter. 

It's written as if it were Lorelei's actual diary, with spelling and grammatical errors intact. It gets her voice and perspective across very convincingly, with quite a number of little throwaway lines changing the reader's perception of what's happening. Loos had great comic timing. 

This is a short novel, but very entertaining, full of events, travel, shenanigans and so on. Lorelei is a little dippy and self-deceiving about her aims, but friend Dorothy is no-nonsense, acerbic, straightforward, and a great foil to Lorelei. All the most venal and commercial instincts that Lorelei has in regards to her gentlemen she attributes to Dorothy. They are a pair of gold-diggers out for themselves, but their complete self-absorption reflects a sense of this era and its effects on these young women. Their search for financial security is flightier, sexier and funnier (and more successful) than, say, Lily Bart's in The House of Mirth twenty years earlier, but the same dependence on men's money for women's security is the central theme. 

If you haven't read this one, but have seen the movie, well.... the book is better. Give it a read if you need something utterly amusing. 

Molly Make-Believe

Molly Make-Believe / Eleanor Hallowell Abbott   
New York: Century Co., c1910.
211 p.
read via Open Library

This charming novel from 1910 is also slightly epistolary - while the story itself is told in regular narrative, letters are included, and letter-writing makes up the plot. 

Carl Stanton is a youngish Boston businessman who has recently become engaged to the beautiful, cold Cornelia. She is going to Florida with her mother for the winter season, but Carl can not go along - he is suffering from a lengthy attack of rheumatism and is currently invalided. His is a sentimental nature; he begs Cornelia for long, intimate letters while she is away. She, however, promises only to write on Sundays, more than that would be excessive. 

And she keeps that promise. She writes short, impersonal notes and even postcards, while Carl suffers pain, boredom and loneliness in his rooms all alone. She does enclose something in her first letter which she thinks might interest him: a circular from the Serial Letter Co, a company promising to write letters to you from imaginary people, for a fee. Carl signs up for the love letter program, hoping both for some entertainment and to have a model to show Cornelia when she returns. 

But, predictably, the charming, fun-loving, flirtatious love letters (and gifts) begin to  beguile Carl, and he becomes desperate to know who "Mollie Make-Believe" really is. Without realizing it, he is falling in love with the spirit of these letters. The false note in this novel comes as he is discussing his situation with a doctor friend, and they realize that for all they know, the letter writer could be an old spinster making some money, a man, or even - gasp - a black woman! How terrible that would be. If it were indeed one of these the story could have been much more current and sharper than it is. 

But of course, it is really a young and pretty unmarried white girl who has seen Carl at social functions before, and is equally smitten with him. She hides her identity from him even as her feelings grow to match his, though she's unaware of his side of things. 

In the end, Carl recovers enough to break things off with Cornelia and go in search of his own Mollie. Unfortunately, the scanned copy at Open Library, which I read, and which is the only one I can find anywhere, is missing the final two page spread. 

There is enough at the end to know what happens, but oh my, to lose the conclusion! I'll be searching out a paper copy just to read the last page. It's a period piece, for sure, but a mostly light and entertaining one. The letters from Mollie are charming, there is some humour and pathos involved, and we all know that the right love match is going to win out.  

I enjoyed the letter writing concept quite a lot; it sounds like a fine idea to me! Here is a page of Mollie Make Believe's brochure, outlining the kinds of letters on offer - I think it is delightful. If you also enjoy letters and the charm of early 20th century romantic fiction, this is one that's not drowned in purple prose, rather, is readable and amusing. 

The Visits of Elizabeth

The Visits of Elizabeth / Elinor Glyn (1900)
read via Open Library

Elinor Glyn, known for her racy erotic (for the early 1900s) novels, and for her coining of the term "It" for sex appeal, wrote many novels and spent time working in Hollywood. But, I am more interested in the fact that she was the sister of Lady Duff Gordon, Lucile of London, a fashion designer -- and that they had a Canadian mother and spent some of their formative years in Guelph, Ontario. 

In any case, I thought it was high time to read one of her novels so have started with her first, The Visits of Elizabeth, published in 1900. This has extra appeal for me as it is an epistolary novel, a favourite style of mine -- it's told in one-sided letters from the young, disingenous Elizabeth to her mother, as she travels from relative to relative to visit great homes and meet important people (the reader can see that her mother is trying to marry her off to someone rich, even if Elizabeth seems too naive to understand this immediately).

Elizabeth makes unintended double entendres that scandalize some people and entertain others, and never sees the significance of her remarks or of many that others make to or around her. And when she is kissed early on by a handsome Earl who mistakes her candour for knowledge of the world, he receives a slap and a frosty reception for much of the rest of the book.

This naiveté in the face of the upper class circles she's moving in is at first quite funny. The joke does carry on rather, though, and a reader begins to think that Elizabeth really might be starting to clue in by the end of the book. However, the upbringing of an innocent girl at the turn of the century might explain a lot -- and add in Elinor Glyn's racy humour and it makes sense. 

Elizabeth goes first to friends and family in England, then makes a jaunt to France - this part isn't quite as sparkling, but it was intriguing to see how French rich families interacted in their great homes as opposed to the English ones that I know much better from all my reading of Victorian, Edwardian and mid-century writing! 

She does meet a number of eligible men, though it's clear which one is likely to be successful pretty early on. And her innocent reportage allows for many foibles of both young and old to be exposed in a way that isn't too cruelly satiric or tiresome for the reader, rather it's almost always amusing (and sometimes poignant). 

Elinor Glyn

If you'd like to encounter Elinor Glyn in a story that isn't yet as overheated as some of her later, most popular reads are said to be, this is a light, frothy, satisfyingly predictable story that I found amusing and charming. Long live letters! 

Waking Gods

Waking Gods / Sylvain Neuvel
New York: Del Rey, c2017.
324 p.

A decade after the events of Sleeping Giants, scientist Rose Franklin and Themis operators Vincent & Kara are still together, called into action when another giant robot suddenly appears in a park in central London. 

Now working for EDC (Earth Defense Corps), they are still just as eager to avoid causing any human deaths as they were 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the British government disregards their advice and precipitates a crisis with millions dead worldwide. 

Finding out who the robots are and why they've come, and what their purpose is, fills this book. All the voices from the last book are here; Rose, Vincent & Kara, as well as our anonymous narrator, with a few new ones, including a young girl in Puerto Rico with psychic visions - who turns out to be an important character indeed. 

The book is told in the same fashion as the first one, in reports, interviews, files and so on, It gives the same urgency and presence as the first, though feels a bit different here as they are facing a "disaster movie" kind of scenario, while in the first book it was more about scientific discovery itself. I found the disaster bits somewhat distressing, especially near the end -- the orgy of deaths in these kinds of tales is always disturbing. 

But this was still a solid second book in a very fresh and vibrant new series that takes on hard science with the same eagerness as human relationships. Definitely worth reading. And, though I haven't tried it myself, I hear that the audio versions of both books are excellent productions as well if you prefer that format.

Jaguar's Children

The Jaguar's Children / John Vaillant
Toronto: Knopf, c2015.
280 p.

Vaillant, better known for his award-winning nonfiction like The Tiger or The Golden Spruce, turned to fiction with this debut novel. And it is a stunner. 

Hector has decided to illegally cross the border into the US (this is obviously set a few years ago when that would still be a desirable destination). He gathers up enough money to pay the 'coyotes' to take him across with a group of other desperate wishful immigrants. The coyotes, though, are usually gang-related and not entirely trustworthy.

Hector climbs into a water tanker with a group of others, and the hole is welded shut after them. This is a brilliant subterfuge, as no-one could fit into the tanker's opening, thus making it highly unlikely to be suspect. But it also makes for a terrifying trip, especially once the truck stops in the desert, abandoned by their drivers. 

It's a difficult read, as Hector finds an American name on his friend Cesar's phone, and begins sending messages calling for help. The book is structured as a modern epistolary novel; rather than letters, this is made up of one-way phone messages, but with the same effect. 

Vaillant is able to compress a long backstory into a cohesive narrative, one that compels attention and highlights the many reasons why someone might feel desperate enough to attempt this border crossing. He shows a variety of personalities in the group Hector is travelling with, and enlarges upon the vivid culture of Oaxaca - both its strengths and the reasons people might want to leave it. I felt that it powerfully humanized the immigrants who are often demonized instead, giving them a full existence and demanding understanding and empathy from the reader. 

While it's a bit of a terrifying and breathless reading experience, I also think it's a very strong novel. The writing suits the story, and it moves along very quickly, with the reader rushing to find out the conclusion. But at the same time, there is a focus on developing the characters and their lives and longings. It's a striking combination. 

Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants / Sylvain Neuvel
New York: Del Rey, c2016.
304 p.

Young Rose Franklin falls through a hole in the forest floor as she rides her bike home. She's found nestled in the palm of a giant metal hand. What is it? How did it get there? Who is responsible for its long-buried presence? These questions haunt the novel.

Seventeen years later, Rose Franklin is now an accomplished physicist (her name perhaps a nod to scientist Rosalind Franklin, denied her Nobel for the discovery of the structure of DNA?). Rose is part of the search to discover from whom, when, and how these giant metal body parts arrived on earth. When all the parts are found and assembled, they form a body, a robot of sorts which Rose's team then has to figure out. Is it a weapon? A vessel or a ship? A sentinel of peace? Nobody really knows... yet.

The story is told through the formats of interviews, memos, letters and so on -- a modern epistolary novel that is fast moving, inventive and quite cinematic (it has already been optioned for film). It's the first of a projected trilogy, but it doesn't leave the reader hanging. The conclusion is harrowing, exciting, thrillerish, and completes the storyline that has been uncertain in this novel, even while leaving space for a sequel.

It's a mix of science fiction, apocalyptic tale and a political thriller. It's like X-Files with scientists running the show, aided & restricted by the military. It is also about the bigger question: if there is something out there, something far more advanced than humanity, what do they want from us? And where does it leave us, and all our human cultural past?

Part two, Waking Gods, should be published next year, and will hopefully continue exploring these more philosophical questions along with the entertaining action and suspense. This was a very quick read, but one that I thought was rather clever and had a fresh narrative style.

God is an Astronaut

God Is An Astronaut / Alyson Foster
New York: Bloomsbury, c2014
289 p.

I recently wrote a review of this novel for our local paper, the Stratford Gazette. You can find my thoughts below.

But for my blog readers, I also want to add that this book is a fine example of a modern epistolary novel. It's told in one-way emails, from Jess to her absent colleague Arthur (someone who is closer to her than we first realize). This one-way device adds some mystery and poignancy to the story, and I think as a technique it fits in quite well with Jess' character. Feeling alone and unlistened to, Jess would naturally write emails to someone who is -- or was -- there for her emotionally. Even though we see everything through Jess' eyes, all of the characters have a presence, though of course mostly in how they relate to her.

I enjoyed this one as a quieter read, with a focus on the internal shift that Jess is experiencing.


This review first appeared in the Stratford Gazette on Thursday, September 4th.

Jess Frobisher is all about plants; her husband Liam is all about space. Somehow they’ve always met in the middle – until now. Jess is a botany professor at a small college, and as the story opens she is madly digging up her yard to put in an enormous greenhouse. This greenhouse is fated to fail; just as in her wider life, growth and fecundity is stagnating. Liam, on the other hand, is in the midst of a maelstrom. His space tourism company, Spaceco, is being beseiged with press after their latest shuttle exploded after takeoff with four celebrity tourists onboard.

Jess wants to help, but Liam's propensity for secrets and emotional distance puts her at a major disadvantage. She is so thirsty for emotional connection that she talks to a reporter who has made overtures of friendship. This, as you might imagine, has vast repercussions on both Spaceco's crisis and on her marriage.

As this crisis continues, Liam jumps at an offer from a husband-and-wife filmmaking team to create a documentary about Spaceco and the families behind it. He’s hoping that it will result in some good PR spin. But being put in the spotlight (literally) changes the way the story unfolds for Jess and Liam.

The story is told in a series of emails that Jess sends to her colleague Arthur, who has gone on sabbatical to study trees in Manitoba. Yes, he is near Winnipeg, and there is some Canadian content here, including a discussion of the relative merits of Tim Hortons' doughnuts (or 'donuts' if you will). The format of the book – we see only Jess's one sided emails -- gives us a slowly expanding sense of the truth of all her relationships and of the major events that she is relating. As the emails get longer, and the story deepens, we see that sometimes our true desires are hidden even from ourselves, until they are suddenly there in black and white.

It’s an engaging read, set just far enough into the future that space tourism is a reality, but also very grounded in our everyday normality. Jess writes her way through a dramatic midlife crisis, and makes her way through to the other side, taking readers along for the ride. Readers who enjoy getting to know their characters well will want to pick up this book.


Further Reading:

Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzger has a similar setup with an emotionally distant, space-focused husband and increasingly anxious/unsettled wife. It also focuses on character and relationship.

If you enjoyed the format, and the theme of a woman in an uncertain midlife marriage, try Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon next, a story told in emails, facebook updates, texts and more.

A Woman of Independent Means

A Woman of Independent Means / Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
New York: Viking Penguin, 1995, c1978.
256 p.

This is an epistolary novel that I'd first heard of thanks to Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot, a few years ago now. But I found a copy at a library sale this week so finally got a chance to read it.

It tells the life story of Bess Steed through her letters, from 1899 when she's in 4th grade, until her death in her 70s. The letters are written to various people, so they reveal different aspects of Bess -- her voice and her subject matter changes with each correspondent. She comes across as restless, bossy, self-interested, a large character who is trying to stretch the boundaries of the social expectations which constrain her, but is also not willing to totally throw them over -- society means too much to her.

Bess has three children with her first husband, her childhood sweetheart. She is intensely involved in their lives, leading to estrangement when they are grown, which fortunately isn't total; they do return to relationship. But Bess is a very strong personality, and her opinions aren't always comfortable ones. She likes to travel and explore, but at the same time she is bound by her decision to marry again, a decision she feels is forced upon her by her children's longing for a father and the persistence of her suitor, Sam Garner, an unimaginative engineer who lacks her travel gene, at least for anywhere outside the USA.

At the beginning of the book, Bess feels as if her life is charmed; in one early letter she describes how her night train rushed through a forest fire, without being harmed, and she is like that, travelling untouched through tragedy. But this doesn't last long -- she loses her first husband to the Spanish Flu after WWI, she loses others and has various tragedies following on. It began to feel a wee bit contrived, especially as Bess doesn't seem to change very much through all of this.

I did find that this book captured my interest -- the years that Bess lives through are years of enormous change, socially, politically, technologically. She is avid to know what is happening and changing, and stays informed and interested in life until the end. But she is also complex and despite being so vital, she has blind spots of selfishness and privilege that are unchecked. I don't think she'd be a very comfortable person to be around for long!

The epistolary format worked well for this story, as the focus is entirely on Bess. She reveals the changing nature of her inner thoughts through her writing, saying to her daughter at one point that "only in a letter do I dare express my feelings openly." She is someone who is compelled to write things down, which explains the wealth of letters. Of course, people did write many more letters in the past, and the number of letters gathered into this story would not be unusual to find in many lives of an earlier era. The changing tone of the letters and telegrams, depending on whom they were written to, also adds depth to Bess' character.

However, the intent of the book, in the foreword to my edition, was stated as describing how a woman could be independent within a domestic setting. The author decided in the 1970s that she wanted to write a novel called "Letters from a Runaway Wife"; ironically, her husband told her that runaway wives were a passing fad and that she should write about "a woman who didn't have to leave home to be independent", like her grandmother. The author thought about this and decided he was right (quelle surprise) thus wrote this book.

I don't think that this intent is carried out very effectively. It is as if Hailey is at war between her original impulse and the one she feels obliged to carry out on her husband's instruction. Bess is indeed a woman who doesn't leave home, if by that it is meant that she remains a wife. But her second marriage is one that she takes on partly out of duty and compromise; it's not a satisfying partnership. She doesn't stop travelling alone to Europe, or stop having passionate interest in other men. There are at least two, perhaps three, affairs in the story, revealed obliquely. Bess likes men, she doesn't like being tied down or restricted in her independent choice of actions. As she says:

It seems unreasonable to expect—or indeed even to want—to share every experience in life with the same person.... Why does society restrict a man and a woman to only one such pledge per lifetime? I hope I will never break any promise once made, but if I were free and clear at this moment, I would never again promise my exclusive devotion to anyone.

That doesn't sound to me like someone happily independent in a domestic setting. So while I found this book very readable, I felt that Bess' character was restrained both by her social setting and era, and by the author herself. I'd love to see this redone with the author free to write whatever she truly wanted to in the first place.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading about Bess and the numerous pithy things she comes out with in her letters. If you are are interested in a glimpse of the 20th century through the eyes of a strong willed woman ahead of her time, do give this a try. As an epistolary novel it succeeds in its structure, and there is much to enjoy in it despite the feeling I had that it didn't go quite far enough.

I'll close with a couple of favourite excerpts:

How wise we would be to multiply all our pleasures in life through the simple act of reflection, allowing memory to serve as the mirror in which the original moment can be recreated at will. I feel with Wordsworth that an event “recollected in tranquillity” has an intensity it often lacks in the present. My stay in Europe is at an end but I expect to make the trip many times in memory, unencumbered by children and baggage.

We all have the power -- at least for a moment -- to shape our environment, and how wrong of us to ignore this privilege just because it is fleeting. We must accept the fact that nothing we create belongs to us forever and let the act of creation be its own reward. 

But do not count on others to convince you your life matters. All of us are finally alone with only a single opinion to sustain us -- our own.

Address Unknown: a rediscovered classic

Address Unknown / Kathrine Kressman Taylor
Washington Square Press, 2001, c1938.
64 p.

I picked up this book in a recent used book store shopping trip; it was a tiny volume slid onto the shelf and I'm just lucky that this title was one I'd lately put on my "to-read" list, so it caught my eye, squished in there.

It was first published in 1938 as a short story, in Story magazine. It was a huge phenomenon then, and I can see why, even as I read it now. It was sparked by Taylor's curiosity as to the effect that Nazism had on otherwise nice, normal Germans; how did it take hold?

The story is told through the exchange of letters between two business partners, Max Eisenstein and Martin Schulse, who are art dealers in San Francisco. As the story begins, in 1932, Martin has just moved his family back to Germany, where they are very well to do compared with those who've been living in a depressed economy since the end of WWI. At first, Martin mentions some hesitation about this new leader of theirs, Adolf Hitler; although he seems to have a lot of energy Martin hopes that it will lead Germans in the right direction. But his letters quickly change tenor.

His old friend Max, a Jewish American, becomes more and more alarmed at the change. Max also has a sister, Griselle, who is an actress in Europe, and who had a brief romance with the married Martin in the past. Things come to a head when Griselle takes a job in Berlin, against Max's advice, and then one of her letters is returned to him, marked "Address Unknown". In a panic he appeals to Martin to investigate, not being able to believe that Martin has been wholly changed. Things get pretty ugly from there.

Within these 64 pages, Taylor is able to illuminate the atmosphere in a newly Nazi state -- the paranoia, the conformity, the pure hatred and self-interest that prevails. The story is relentless, with Taylor not backing away from the horrific realities of Jewish-German life at this time.

It was a shocking read, a perfectly constructed story, an unblinking condemnation of Nazism, and a must read in every sense of the word. I don't know what I was expecting, but this is a powerful story, one that makes clear how much everyone knew about what was going on in Germany by the early 30's. It's one I can't stop thinking about.

Letters to Anyone and Everyone

Letters to Anyone and Everyone / Toon Tellegen
Boxer Books, 2010, c1996.
156 p.

And now for a break from all the mystery reading...I picked up this little book on a recommendation from Stefanie at So Many Books, who thought it was charming. I must agree! This was a delightful, funny, lovely book. I read it via Interlibrary Loan, but know that I'm going to have to buy myself a copy soon, so I can reread all these tiny epistolary stories over and over.

It's a collection of children's stories by Dutch author Toon Tellegen (who is new to me). They feature Ant, Squirrel, Elephant, Bear, Sparrow, and occasionally Snail or Carp or Crow, among others. These animals are always sending letters back and forth, letters who wear hats and scarves and trudge between homes, or fly through the air. The stories are odd and quirky in the way of childhood games, or dreams, with everything being sentient, and strange happenings taken for granted.

Between Elephant swinging on lampshades or falling out of trees, or Squirrel writing a letter to the letter, or Cricket making things real by writing them down, there are numerous moments of laughter and charm. Some of the stories made me laugh a lot, some were rather melancholy. Each of them was worth rereading more than once. I regretted that I had to return this one; it's one to keep and dip into regularly.

The small "pocket" size of the book and the accompanying tiny illustrations by Jessica Ahlberg make this a perfect package. All these elements work together to create a wonderful reading experience, one I highly recommend. It's perfect for those who like charming children's stories, or epistolary fiction, or just discovering things that are slightly different.

This book, and a second, are examples of the few Tellegen books translated into English. Do search them out; they are a delight. You might also want to pop on over to Boxer Books and watch the brief interview with Tellegen and Ahlberg, and enjoy him reading excerpts from his book!

Happy Handwriting Day!

I love handwriting, and fine pens, and stationery, and sending and receiving letters, as is probably evident by my own epistolary reading and the Postal Reading Challenge!

But today is Handwriting Day, and I want to celebrate the joys of handwriting as well. It's wonderful to see someone's handwriting in a letter; I feel like it's as individual as their voice. And I don't want to lose that, with the disappearance of cursive instruction in schools, and the tendency we all have these days to communicate online (says the woman writing a blog...) Nonetheless, I still handwrite a lot, in letters, notes, my journal, and when I attempt to create fiction/poetry or anything of that sort. I love trying out new pens and new calligraphic techniques -- learning the shapes of various alphabets is enjoyable and relaxing for me. Did you know that the very word "calligraphy" comes from Greek, from kallos "beauty" and graphẽ "writing"? That's a lovely thought.

Over at So Many Books, Stefanie has shared a wonderful post full of fabulous Handwriting Day links -- you must check it out. And if you're interested primarily in letters, don't forget to sign up for A Month of Letters, a really entertaining project created by writer Mary Robinette Kowal. It runs for the full month of February, and it is free to join up. If you want to get a letter from me during LetterMo, just pop over to my Postable account and leave your details.

Also, if you like sending quirky mail, check out this very cool project that somebody shared with me on Twitter recently: the P.O. Box Clock. Send in a postcard and have it added to the clock!

Hope you all have had an enjoyable cursive-filled -- not curse filled -- day.