[Table of Contents]
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2006]
[Nov
2005]
THE OUTLANDER
Gil Adamson, Ecco, 2008, $25.95/C$29.95,
hb, 400pp, 9780061491252 / Bloomsbury, 2008, £10.99, pb, 400pp,
9780747596851
This captivating story opens with a 19-year-old widow running for
her life through the woods of western Canada, sometime in the early
20th century. “The widow,” as she is called throughout
most of the book, is Mary Boulton, who killed her husband and is
being sought by his twin brothers, who are big, burly, and mean men
set on revenge.
Her full story is revealed over the course of the novel
through her encounters with other outlaws and social and political
misfits. A shy child whose mother died from a drawn-out illness,
Mary yearns to be loved but is ignored by her grieving father and
pious grandmother. When John Boulton appears at a party, clearly
seeking a wife, she is drawn to him as a fellow outsider; with only
this in common they are married, and she moves with him to his shac
k
deep in the forest. John is abusive and a liar, furthering Mary’s
sense of being unloved. She feels she is slowly going mad, and
indeed it is impossible to tell at times what is really happening
and what is a hallucination.
Adamson successfully uses this technique to reveal much of
Mary’s inner self and back story, combining background on the
stifling and absurd treatment of women at the time with the reality
and dangers of backwoods life. When Mary stops running, she finds
herself in a tiny mining town with more than its share of misfits,
from the minister to the apothecary to the occasional visitor. Here,
finally, her story can turn to one of growth and redemption rather
than instinct and fear.
In her first novel, Adamson has created a marvelously
readable tale with memorable characters and an inspiring final
narrative twist, all of which makes me look forward to her future
work. -- Helene Williams
The Journey
H. G. Adler (trans. Peter Filkins),
Random House, 2008, $26.00/C$30.00, hb, 320pp, 9781400066735
In the introduction of The Journey the translator
writes, “Neither Germany nor the world was ready for novels about
the Holocaust in the 1950s.” This book, the work of H.G. Adler, a
German Jew writer, philosopher, and poet, is the translation of one
of only four novels written by survivors of the Holocaust. It was
not published in Germany until 1961. Based on his personal
experiences in the “slave community” of Theresienstadt and in
Auschwitz, the novel tells the heartbreaking story of the Lustig
family: Leopold, a hardworking doctor; his kind-hearted wife,
Caroline; their children, Zerlina and Paul; and Caroline’s sister,
Ida. The novel opens when they are told that they must leave their
home to work in the fictitious slave community of Ruhenthal. Adler
writes: “No one asked you, it was decided already. You were rounded
up and not one kind word was spoken… Yet the tight-lipped grins
remain unforgettable.”
Delving beyond the particular hardships of this family, Adler
also describes life in the little towns around Ruhenthal and the
progressive breakdown of the society at large when in the hands of a
totalitarian state. Civility and justice are destroyed first.
Denial is pervasive, in and out of the camps. With their wills
broken, the condemned cling to the hope that “only the stupid ones
are beaten,” that “only the bad ones are shot.” The people in the
towns regard them as “loafers… led by a military honor guard.” Adler
makes you squirm in disgust and discomfort, when he switches tenses,
narrative voices, pointing fingers at the readers, addressing us as
victims or as executioners, and throwing Kafkaesque twists of
metamorphosis and madness. After Auschwitz, the introduction
reminds us, critics believed that literature was no longer
possible. Adler believed that it was not only possible, but
necessary. Writing this astounding novel, Adler amply proved his
point. -- Adelaida Lower
THE BLACK TOWER
Louis Bayard, Morrow, 2008,
$24.95/C$26.95, hb, 368pp, 9780061173509
In 1818, a street beggar follows Hector Carpentier to his
home in the Latin Quarter, only to transform himself into Vidocq,
Paris’s master detective. What does Vidocq want with Hector, whose
life with his drab mother, a trio of loutish student lodgers, and an
elderly boarder is a model of law-abiding obscurity? The answer puts
Vidocq and the reluctant Hector on the trail of a lost prince—Marie
Antoinette’s young son Louis-Charles, supposed to have died in
captivity during the Revolution. Along the way, Hector will learn
some startling truths about his family and acquaintances—and about
himself—all while trying to evade the men who suddenly want him
dead.
This was my first go at reading a novel by Bayard, and won’t
be my last. Bayard’s writing is exceptionally good: clever yet
unpretentious, with wonderful turns of phrase that made me go back
and re-read passages for the sheer enjoyment of it. The characters
drawn from real life (including Vidocq himself) are vivid, as are
fictitious ones like Hector (the narrator) and his motley
companions. Even the minor characters are sharply rendered. Best of
all, perhaps, is the manner in which Bayard portrays the plight of
young Louis-Charles, with a self-assured combination of anger,
compassion, and wit that is moving yet never maudlin.
Thanks to these qualities, readers of historical fiction,
literary fiction, and mystery should all thoroughly enjoy this
novel. -- Susan Higginbotham
THE SIN EATERS
Andrew Beahrs, Toby, 2008,
$24.95/C$24.95/£14.99, hb, 238pp, 9781592642366
Set in Jacobean England, The Sin Eaters follows the
path of the herbalist Sarah, runaway wife Mary, and outcast Bill
away from Monkshead and the murderous hold of Sam Ridley, a land
clearing master, and toward the coastal city of Northam, their place
of reckoning and possible flight to the New World.
Haunted Sarah sets the plot in motion when she claims revenge
on Ridley for his exacting punishment on her as a scold. She flees
with donkey, cow and provisions and soon finds fellow sufferer Bill,
stripped naked and abused after being tricked into becoming a sin
eater—a pariah who consumes food offerings placed overnight on
corpses. Sarah devises a way to convince him that his body is once
again his own and not a receptacle of the sins of others.
As the two travel toward the sea, they take on Mary, a
gentlewoman who has been gambled away to a clockmaker. Mary helps
them find refuge on her mother’s estate. But Ridley finds them there
and bides his time as he plans to exact his revenge. Mary runs off
with a member of the household. Sarah’s knowledge of herbs enables
escape, and she and Bill reach Northam, but the enraged Ridley finds
them at the shoreline between worlds.
In language that is dense, intimate, and beautiful, Andrew
Beahrs’s richly imagined novel travels though meadow, forest,
plague-flagged town, and ruined monastery. It is peopled by
characters brimming with life. Sarah, attempting to live her
remaining years touched by grace and wonder, is unforgettable.
Highly recommended. -- Eileen Charbonneau
GUERNICA
Dave Boling, Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $26.00,
hb, 384pp, 9781596915633 / Picador, Feb. 2009, 12.99, hb, 384pp,
9780330460651
In April 1937, the small Spanish town of Guernica, the center
of Basque culture and tradition in Spain, was destroyed by German
bombers as a prelude to World War II, a total war devised by the
German Luftwaffe. Strongman Justo Ansotegui and his two brothers,
along with Miguel Navarro and his brother Dodo, emerge as central
characters as the Spanish Civil War forces itself upon their
community. Justo’s wife and their daughter, Miren, both charismatic
and graceful dancers, add elements of both love and compassion to
this story of war and tragedy. A blind girl, Alaia Aldecoa,
befriends Miren and demonstrates her independence and will to
survive during this terrible time.
In his debut novel, Dave Boling does an excellent job in
drawing out the characters’ personalities. He cleverly fictionalizes
historical events by mixing in living people such as Franco,
Picasso, and German flying ace Baron von Richthofen. As you read
this marvelous story, you can feel the emotion and joy of the Basque
culture as it spreads through the community via its music and
religion, the sadness and despair after the attack on Guernica, and
the characters’ fortitude as they try to recover after losing their
loved ones and then attempt to rebuild their town and their lives. I
highly recommend this exceptional novel about one of the world’s
great tragedies. -- Jeff Westerhoff
THE SEAMSTRESS
Frances De Pontes Peebles, Harper, 2008,
$25.95/C$27.95, hb, 646pp, 9780060738877 / Bloomsbury, 2009, £12.99,
pb, 656pp, 9780747596868
Orphaned at a young age, sisters Emilia and Luzia dos Santos
are raised by their Aunt Sofia, a seamstress in the town of
Taquaritinga do Norte in Brazil. A childhood fall from a tree causes
a severe injury to Luzia’s arm, locking the joint at the elbow.
Neighborhood children taunt Luzia by calling her Victrola, after the
bent arm of the record player. The accident, combined with the
mistreatment, causes Luzia to become more introverted—a contrast to
her sunny, often flippant sister, who adores celebrity magazines and
has a crush on her sewing teacher. When a group of cangaceiros—bandits
living in the scrubland in the wilds of Pernambuco state—raid
Taquaritinga, their leader, The Hawk, senses that Luzia is a kindred
spirit. When The Hawk offers Luzia the opportunity to leave with the
cangaceiros, she accepts, knowing that there is little for her in
Taquaritinga.
After Luzia leaves, Emilia meets Degas Coelho, a young law
student with a secret to hide. He offers to marry her and take her
to Recife, providing the glamorous life she has always dreamed
about. Emilia finds that big-city life is more difficult than she
had expected, and Degas’s secret life becomes more difficult
to
hide. As Luzia and The Hawk become increasingly notorious for their
violent criminal activities, Emilia wonders if her own secret—that
her sister is the cangaceira known as The Seamstress—will be
revealed, destroying the life that she has carefully constructed.
In The Seamstress, Peebles brings the history and
culture of a part of the world rarely visited in English-language
historical fiction. The pace of social, political, and technological
change in Brazil during the early 20th century was rapid,
and Emilia and Luzia’s story traces two women’s journey through
these revolutionary times. The alternating viewpoints allow readers
to follow both sisters’ journeys, both physical and emotional, and
make the parallels between their very different lives even more
intriguing. This accomplished first novel is highly recommended for
all readers of historical fiction. --
Nanette Donohue
SEAL WOMAN
Solveig Eggerz, Ghost Road Press, 2008,
$19.95, pb, 283pp,
9780979625534
Berlin, 1947. The Icelandic Agricultural Association
advertises for “strong women who can cook and do farm work,” and
artist Charlotte, who has watched her life and her city crumble
around her, agrees to work at a farm called Dark Castle.
Seal Woman
is, at its core, about the stories we tell ourselves about
ourselves, and our lives. What is real, and what is myth? After
almost incomprehensible pain and loss, how does one go on?
Impressionistic and mythic in the Iceland-based sections, and
all too real and present in the Berlin-based sections, the
settings–both time and place–are beautifully rendered. The
characters, particularly the protagonist Charlotte, are very real
and every bit as frustrating and messy as real people. I caught
myself more than once thinking I was reading the biography of a
mid-20th century war survivor.
But as fascinating as the story and the characters are, the
writing itself is gorgeous; many passages are so lovely, I wanted to
underline them and commit them to memory so I’d never forget their
lyric beauty. Overall, this is a challenging book on many levels,
but very rewarding. A fantastic story, beautifully written; highly
recommended. -- Julie K. Rose
THE
PLAGUE OF DOVES
Louise Erdrich, Harper, 2008,
$25.95/C$27.95, hb, 320pp, 978006051512 / HarperPerennial, 2008,
£7.99, pb, 356pp, 9780007270767
The Plague of Doves
begins in the early 1900s as a group of adventurers head onto the
prairie to found a town. Although most starve or freeze, some
survive, and the town of Pluto is born. (Passenger pigeons, feasting
on the newly planted wheat fields, are the “plague” of the title.)
The Ojibwa are remnants of a wilder time, too, serving as convenient
scapegoats for the gruesome murder of an isolated farm family. Three
generations, on the reservation and off, will be affected by this
crime and the lynching which follows.
Although the mystery is solved in the final pages, the book
initially appears to be a collection of interwoven family stories,
each wit
h a marvelously realized narrator. We meet wily, witty Mooshum, and his granddaughter, Evelina, an intelligent and
passionate young woman who is determined to escape the reservation.
There is the Peace family: beautiful Maggie, mad Billy, Shamengwa
the violinist, and the delinquent Corwin. We learn how reservation
and town are linked inextricably by marriage, adultery, and history.
The characters are exquisitely drawn, and the language is an almost
magical wedding of poetry to prose. Although The Plague of Doves
is a literary novel, it pulses with the warm blood of daily life.
There is even, despite high tragedy, a good helping of
laugh-out-loud humor. Beautiful and highly recommended! --
Juliet Waldron
Broken Wing
Judith James, Medallion, 2008,
$7.95/C$8.95, pb, 432pp, 9781933836447
When I think of what constitutes a superior historical
romance, I think of real characters connecting on many levels with a
believable setting that pulls me into the story and sweeps me along
into another place and time. Judith James’s novel Broken Wing
is such a tale; I was hooked from the first pages and found myself
sighing with satisfaction at the end.
In this novel set in France and England in 1800, Lady Sarah
Monroe and her brother Lord Huntington have retrieved their youngest
brother from a French brothel five years after his kidnapping. It
is due to the care of prostitute Gabriel St. Croix that young Jamie
escaped a dastardly fate, and the siblings’ gratitude is so
heartfelt that they invite Gabriel to come to England with them.
Once home, Gabriel and Sarah begin to feel an attraction that is
both inappropriate and undeniable. After giving in to their
feelings, the lovers are soon separated as Gabriel leaves to
privateer to earn his fortune; fate intervenes and tragedy ensues.
Broken Wing
is both well-written and compelling, and I found the pages flying by
as I wrapped myself in the tale of the numb Gabriel being brought to
life by the vivacious Sarah. Despite my misgivings over the cliché
of Sarah, a countess, wearing men’s breeches, I found there was much
to love about this story of two star-crossed lovers finding one
another in many ways. Superior reading indeed. --
Tamela McCann
ANGEL OF
BROOKLYN
Janette Jenkins, Chatto and Windus, 2008,
£16.99, hb, 327pp, 9780701181932
Jonathan Crane returns to his small home village on the cusp
of the First World War with a beautiful wife, Beatrice. Her
mysterious and exotic childhood in Normal, Illinois, sets her apart
from the village wives and, when the men depart for war, her sense
of desperation and isolation increase.
Her blond hair, smart clothes and accent make the local women
wary of her, in spite of her continuing friendly overtures. Her life
story interests and repels them, but the one story she will never
tell is of how she became the Angel of Brooklyn. But secrets aren’t
possible in a close-knit community, and when the truth is revealed
the women unite against Beatrice; tragedy is the only possible
outcome.
In Beatrice Crane, Janette Jenkins has created a heroine as
colourful and alien as a bird of paradise. A creature used to
warmth, noise and chatter left alone in the cold and drear of the
English north is unlikely to thrive, and that sense of doom haunts
the pages of the novel.
This is a fine love story in which the visceral horrors of
the war are almost incidental to the mental horrors faced by
Beatrice as she tries and fails to gain acceptance. The final
dramatic climax is truly shocking, being both totally unexpected and
yet absolutely inevitable. A fantastic and compelling read.
-- Sara Wilson
THE SIEGE
Ismail Kadare (trans. David Bellos),
Canongate, 2008, £16.99, hb, 314pp, 9781847670304
The Ottoman Empire during the 15th century lays siege to a
Christian fortress on a plain surrounded by the mountains of
Albania. The Siege tells the story of the weeks and months
that follow: the events that unfold within the camp of brightly
coloured banners and hastily constructed minarets as tens of
thousands of men begin to fill the plain below the citadel. One
character in the novel says, ‘You cannot call a country conquered
until you conquer its heaven.’ This novel describes how the citadel
refused to be conquered, the elation and despair of the battlefield,
the constant shifting strategies of war, and the predicament of
those whose lives are held in the balance.
The story is told through the personal narrative of one of
the defenders and partly through the eyes of an Ottoman chronicler,
Mevla Celebi. ‘Great massacres always give birth to great books.
You will give birth to writing a thundering chronicle redolent with
pitch and blood.’
This gripping narrative of war is also a meditation on human
relations, human folly, ambiguities of power, and the meaning of
history. The thoughts and sufferings of 15th-century
warriors are barely distinguishable from those in our own time.
The vividly portrayed characters are unforgettable. The
technician blunders. The astrologer makes mistakes and is sent below
ground. The poet who wanted to see the action suffers for his
foolhardy adventure. The harem of women who are attached to the
Ottoman Pasha endure and wait. Images leap through writing that is
direct and enigmatic, and above all, flawless, beautiful and
unpretentious. David Bellos’s translation of The Siege is
outstanding.
This novel is a masterpiece. It is worth noting that in 2005,
Ismail Kadare was the first Man Booker International Prize winner.
-- Carol McGrath
THE
RIGHT HAND OF THE SUN
Anita Mason, John Murray, 2008, £16.99, hb,
501pp, 9780719520225
What is the most dramatic and extraordinary adventure ever
recorded? My vote must go to Cortes’s conquest of Mexico in 1521,
when 500 Spaniards overthrew a vast and opulent empire, hitherto
unknown to Europeans and alien to anything they had ever
encountered: the stuff of science fiction rather than history.
The story has not lacked chroniclers, starting with Cortes
himself and including Prescott’s magisterial ‘The Conquest of
Mexico’ (1843) and the eyewitness account of Bernal Diaz (1580,
Penguin translation 1963). No novelist could fail with such a
story, but what is there new for a modern novelist to say, or in
what new way can the story be told?
Anita Mason tells it from the viewpoints of several different
participants, all in the Spanish camp, including Cortes and his
interpreter/mistress, Marina. I found this rather confusing, and
understandably Mason cannot match Diaz, who was a footsoldier in
that terrible campaign. Her originality lies in developing the side
story of Geronimo, a sailor who was shipwrecked in Mexico ten years
before the Conquest and lived there as a slave until he was ransomed
by Cortes for a bag of glass beads. The story of his captivity is
imaginatively recreated and gives us a narrator who can understand
and sympathise with both the European and Indian cultures. This is
an exceptionally good book, the best modern novel on the Conquest of
Mexico. You will enjoy this even if you already know the main story,
and if you don’t I hope it encourages you to go on and read Diaz. --
Edward James
SASHENKA
Simon Montefiore, Bantam, 2008, £12.99, hb,
533pp, 9780593056370 / Simon & Schuster, 2008, $27.00, hb, 544pp,
9781416595540
Sashenka Zeitlin is the daughter of a Jewish banker living in
St Petersburg. In the winter of 1916, revolution is in the air, and
the beautiful, headstrong sixteen-year-old Sashenka is seduced by
the ideals of the Bolsheviks. As Comrade Snowfox she plays a
dangerous game of double cross and survives a spell of interrogation
at the hands of Captain Sagan.
Twenty years on, Sashenka is happily married to a senior
party official with two children; working as a magazine editor, she
enjoys the comfortable lifestyle she despised as a teenager. In
Stalin’s Russia this is a dangerous time for those who speak out of
turn but, as Stalin’s favourite, Sashenka feels that she and her
family are safe. When she recklessly embarks on an illicit
love
affair, she cannot begin to imagine the repercussions that her
actions will have for the next two generations of her family.
In Sashenka Simon Montefiore has brought to life an
unforgettable character, one who enchants and inspires. Hers is an
intensely moving story that combines history with a totally
absorbing plot. It was during ten years of researching twentieth
century Russian history that Montefiore found the inspiration for
this exceptional novel of love and endurance of the spirit that
rises above man’s inhumanity to man.
-- Ann
Oughton
A
MERCY
Toni Morrison, Knopf, 2008,
$23.95/C$27.95, hb, 176pp, 9780307264237 / Chatto & Windus, 2008,
£15.99, hb, 170pp, 9780701180454
A Mercy
takes place in the late 1680s and follows Florens, a young black
slave girl suddenly alone and relying on herself for the first
time. Following the death of Sir, she has been entrusted with an
important mission: fetch the blacksmith, long gone from Sir’s
Virginia plantation, where he had designed an elaborate wrought iron
gate and proved himself a healer. He is a free black man and the
only person the others believe can save the Mistress and, in doing
so, preserve their lives on the plantation. Florens loves him, but
she desperately desires to be needed and loved. Yes, she will find
the blacksmith, but will she bring him back?
The novel illuminates much more about Florens and about those
who have also been gathered onto the plantation they’ve come to
regard as home. The full story grows throughout in a narrative
revealed by various cha
racters: Florens, Jacob (“Sir”), Rebekka
(“Mistress”), and Florens’s fellow slaves, Lina and Sorrow. Their
voices disclose their unique perspectives and clarify motivations
often misconstrued by the others.
For instance, from Florens we learn she was given freely to
Sir by a mother who preferred to keep her son. From Jacob we learn
that he took Florens reluctantly to settle a debt, finally deciding
that Rebekka would appreciate a little girl about the place after
losing her own. But from Mistress Rebekka we learn that Florens
wasn’t an addition she welcomed at all.
Toni Morrison’s A Mercy is told in a beautiful yet
devastatingly honest way. Each narrative voice is distinct, adding
enormous depth to the whole right down to the last voice with its
final poignant message. It is an outstanding novel. --
Janette King
A Manuscript
of ashes
Antonio Muñoz Molina (trans. Edith
Grossman), Harcourt, 2008, $25.00, hb, 320pp, 9780151014101
Resolving to flee the tumult of the university in the late
1960s, Minaya, a young student, decides to leave Madrid and write
his doctoral dissertation on Jacinto Solana, a Republican poet who
was killed by the Civil Guard after the Spanish Civil War. It so
happens that Solana was a friend of his uncle Manuel and that the
poet lived in his uncle’s country estate some time before his death.
Minaya travels to Mágina, a small town in the south. Although his
uncle assures him there is nothing left of Solana’s work, Minaya,
with the help of Inés, a young maid, soon discovers that this is not
true. His research into Solana’s last days leads him to the poet’s
masterpiece, Beatus Ille, and to another unfortunate event
that also took place in his uncle’s house—the death of Mariana Rios,
the beautiful model who married his uncle, was loved by Solana, and
was accidentally shot the day after her wedding.
First published in 1986 under the evocative title Beatus
Ille, this was an early novel of Antonio Muñoz Molina,
the renowned author of Sepharad and a member of the Royal
Spanish Academy since 1995. Muñoz Molina’s
style calls to mind a musical fugue, the writer going back to a
word, or a sentence, or a scene, repeating it with a slight
variation that gives it an entirely different character.
Introspective, moody, structurally adventurous, symmetrical in
theme, A Manuscript of Ashes is an unusual detective story, a
novel about unfulfilled desire, uncompleted flights, and lost
manuscripts. Muñoz Molina delves as well into the creative impulse,
the need to write and rewrite. Readers might be startled by his long
paragraphs, meandering points of view, and voices that mingled, but,
no doubt, they will also be absolutely dazzled.
-- Adelaida Lower
INDIGNATION
Philip Roth, Houghton Mifflin, 2008,
$26.00/C30, hb, 234pp, 9780547054841 / Jonathan Cape, 2008, £16.99,
hb, 256pp, 9780224085137
Up until the last thirty pages, this book reads like a
wonderfully funny and bittersweet coming of age novel, though there
are hints along the way that it is something more. Marcus Messner,
a young man from Newark, New Jersey, goes off to college in
Winesburg, Ohio. The love of his father, a kosher butcher, has
become smothering. Perhaps because it is 1950, with memories of
World War II still fresh and the Korean War underway, the father
sees the world as horribly dangerous. He insists on keeping close
tabs on his son and will not allow him to develop as an independent
human being. Therefore Marcus, who might otherwise have been
content attending a local college, leaves home. Entering a
conservative, largely Protestant milieu, he suffers culture shock.
He clashes with the college’s dean of men, who insists he try to fit
in more and not just study but have a social life. In fact, Marcus
is already in the midst of a romance. A young woman has introduced
him to sex and rocked his world. Olivia, whose psychological demons
have led her to attempt suicide, is clearly not the sort of girl his
parents hoped he would meet at college. Despite this, Roth leads us
to believe that all will be well with Marcus, if the dean and his
father just get off his back. A diligent student who plans on a
legal career, his future seems assured. Then an unexpected chain of
events intervenes.
Philip Roth excels in breathing life into a time, place, and
cast of characters. In this moving work, among his best, he manages
to encompass both comedy and gut-wrenching grief. --
Phyllis T. Smith
WARRIOR OF ROME, PART ONE: Fire in the East
Harry Sidebottom, Michael Joseph, 2008,
£12.99, hb, 414pp, 9780718153298
Fire in the East
is part one of Dr Harry Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome series
and his first novel. He is a leading authority on ancient warfare,
and the impressive appendix contains the historical details which
are required reading in tandem with the unfolding story.
In the third century AD, the Roman Empire is in turmoil as
civil war tears Italy apart and emperor follows emperor in rapid
succession. Out of the darkness comes a barbarian, Ballista, prince
of his tribe and diplomatic hostage. Seventeen years pass and in 255
AD the Persian Sassanid Empire attacks Rome’s eastern territories,
sweeping all before them. Ballista, now a citizen and sometime
imperial favourite, is newly appointed to the post of Dux Ripae. In
charge of the defences along the banks of the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates and all the land between, he is empowered to hold this
very edge of Empire.
The novel is a master class in ancient warfare. Vast amounts
of actual historical information are expended and one wonders how
much is left for the remainder of the series. The story is skilfully
constructed, harrowing at times with an imaginative scope. The
clarity of observation of the minutiae of war and period detail
reveals the author’s command of his subject. His characters, mostly
male, are well defined and realistic and illuminate the different
nationalities and passions prevalent in the empire at that time.
Women play little part: the wife left behind and the feisty but
tempting brigand’s daughter.
This is a riveting book, the dominating feature being a city
under siege. Dr Sidebottom generously acknowledges the debt owed to
past historical novelists who have influenced him. The reader feels
confident in the historical accuracy, but whether Warrior of Rome
will become the mighty series that is envisaged remains in the gift
of historical fiction fans. -- Gwen Sly
EARLY BRIGHT
Ami Silber, Toby, 2008,
$24.95/C$24.95/£14.99, hb, 345pp, 9781592642410
It’s a rare feat of literary prowess not only to create an
unappealing character who is completely sympathetic, but also for a
woman to write a believable man in the first person. Silber achieves
both of these extraordinary results in Early Bright.
In post-World War II Los Angeles, the anti-hero Louis
Greenberg is a very talented jazz pianist who makes his living as a
con artist, preying on the vulnerabilities of war widows and mothers
who have lost their sons. Furthermore, he avoided going to war by
stealing someone else’s 4-F papers, and as a result gained the
censure of his father in New York—a fact that pursues him
relentlessly as he tries to redeem himself through his music.
As a Jew, Greenberg is an outsider—even more so because the
music he plays is most at home in the black jazz clubs in a very
segregated world. Yet he has friends and people who believe in him,
not the least of whom is a beautiful black woman with whom he has a
passionate relationship.
Silber writes magnificently about music, about the feeling of
performing jazz. She immerses us in the sordid, shallow world of the
movie industry and reveals without sentiment and without cliché the
racism that underlies life during this time. Most of all, the
ultimate tragedy of Greenberg’s life hits the reader like a punch in
the gut.
Early Bright beguiles with its
mastery of language and drama and is highly recommended. --
Susanne Dunlap
EQUATOR
Miguel Sousa Tavares (trans. Peter Bush),
Bloomsbury, 2008, £16.99, hb, 374pp, 9780747581741
Luis Bernardo Valenca is a 37-year-old gentleman who owns a
small shipping company. He lives a comfortable life, mixing with
Lisbon’s high society and writing about politics in his spare time.
However, his pampered and protected lifestyle is turned upside down
when he is asked by King Dom Carlos to become governor of the tiny
island of Sao Tome e Principe situated off the coast of equatorial
West Africa. The English believe that slavery, although illegal, is
still being practised on the island and are sending a diplomatic
envoy to check out the situation.
The storyline is one of conflict, both physical and mental.
Tavares struggles to persuade the plantation owners and overseers to
improve the working conditions of the Angolan labourers who are
slaves in all but name. At the same time he must also deal with his
own emotional and moral challenges, including his passionate love
affair with the wife of the British envoy.
Beautifully written, the descriptions of the island are vivid
while the characters, with all their flaws and strengths, are
strongly portrayed. This is an enjoyable read that will remain on my
bookshelf to be read again. Recommended. --
Mike Ashworth
THE TOSS OF A
LEMON
Padma Viswanathan, Harcourt, 2008,
$26.00/£16.99, hb, 640pp, 9780151015337
This phenomenal novel, set in India, follows the life of
Sivakami from early childhood through old age, spanning the years
1896 through the 1950s. Following Brahmin tradition, Sivakami is
married at age ten. When she is thirteen and comes of age, she is
escorted to her husband’s home. By the time she is eighteen, she has
given birth to two children and is widowed. The strictures for
widowhood are incredibly stringent, but the remainder of Sivakami’s
life is completely governed by them. Through this epic novel, we
follow not only Sivakami’s life, but that of her two unusual
children: Thangam, the daughter who sheds gold dust, and Vairum, a
difficult young boy who becomes a financial success. The novel is
rich in details about rituals of Brahmin life; it is also rich in
its characterization of Sivakami’s many family members and near
neighbors. Janaki, one of Thangam’s children, provides a point of
focus, as does Muchami, who oversaw properties owned by Sivakami’s
husband. He stays on to work for Sivakami and provides a view
outside of her household, one denied to Sivakami herself.
Critical events in Indian history during this time are
reflected through the prism of the caste, although cracks begin to
appear in the unanimity of reactions. It is Vairum who discards many
of the traditions that his mother believes to be unquestionable, and
who shifts the ground under her. While we recognize that Sivakami is
extraordinarily conservative, such is our empathy for her that we
want her view of the world protected.
This novel was inspired by stories told by the author’s
grandmother. Padma Viswanathan has transformed them into a
captivating novel, one I wanted to continue long beyond its 600-plus
pages. I recommend it most highly.
-- Trudi E. Jacobson
Veil of Lies
Jeri
Westerson, Minotaur, 2008, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780312379773
Poor Crispin Guest! In Jeri Westerson’s debut novel, set in
14th-century London and described as “a medieval noir,” Crispin is
slapped, backhanded, tied up and tossed in the Thames to drown,
arrested, and slapped again. The good news is Crispin is one of the
most engaging characters I’ve come across in a long time. A wealthy
knight imprisoned for treason against Richard II, stripped of his
title and possessions but spared with his life, Crispin now inhabits
the gritty backstreets of London and abhors every minute of it. To
survive, he has set himself up as “The Tracker,” solving crimes for
sixpence a day and expenses. His latest investigation centers on
his search for a missing relic which, in turn, leads to a series of
murders involving “the Italians” and a beautiful young woman who is
not quite what she seems.
Westerson’s depiction of medieval London is honest, and
Crispin’s loathing of it real. For the most part heroic and
steadfast, Crispin is also cynical and disillusioned, a man whose
main focus is his hope that one day he will again live the
comfortable life he once knew at court. This, naturally, wreaks
havoc in his romance with the woman he loves but who falls well
below his former social status.
To say Veil of Lies is a remarkable novel doesn’t do
the book justice. Just when the plot seems set on a fixed course,
the author deftly arranges another neat surprise and keeps the pages
turning. The story is fresh, and engaging characters abound, with
nary a medieval monk or nun in sight. How can you not like a fellow
who asks himself, “What am I now? The Tracker. What the hell is
that?” My only complaint is now I have to wait a year, probably,
for the next title in the series. --
Alana White
