Danger and Devastation in Japan – The Kizuna Coast by Sujata Massey

Even though this is the most recent in Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura mystery series, it is my first read, so I'll be going back to the first one and going forward from there. I love her other series set in 1920's Bombay, and this book was equally great, though so different: current-day Japan. Two very different settings and heroines...such versatile writing.

Rei is alarmed when she receives an anguished call from her former employer/mentor and friend, Mr. Ishida, just after he is injured in the tsunami that followed the massive 2011 Tōshuko earthquake, both of which killed and injured many, leaving huge amounts of devastation and causing dangerous damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant resulting in a radiation contamination zone. She decides to leave her home in Hawaii and her husband, Michael, to help her friend since he has no relatives or others he can call on. Michael, meanwhile, is called to Japan to assist in disaster recovery work.

Mr. Ishida became caught up in the tragic events when he left his antique business in Tokyo to go to an auction at another dealership in what became the earthquake zone. His young apprentice Mayumi, a young avant garde lacquer artist, was to care for his dog, Hachiko, but when Rei arrives at the antiques store, she finds the dog left inside and the young woman gone.

Rei takes Hachiko, and they travel as rescue volunteers to the site of the devastation. She locates Mr. Ichida who has had a head injury. She begins to search for Mayumi and other victims, with the assistance of Hachiko, and once he is sufficiently recovered, Mr. Ishida joins in.

Mayumi's family own a lacquer arts business, where she was training before they had a falling out. Mayumi had taken a number of rare and antique family pieces with her, and apparently was hoping to sell them to finance a program at an art school where she could learn the techniques she could use in producing her own designs. 

Now that Mayumi is missing, confusing circumstances begin to emerge and it is hard to tell who is trustworthy and who isn't. Rei is focused on finding Mayumi on behalf of Mr. Ishida, but even though she speaks and looks Japanese, she encounters both skepticism and criticism equal to her own concerns about the people who were closest to Mayumi. 

How will Rei solve the mystery and stay safe at the same time? The answers are only to be found by reading this intricate, stylish, and intriguing novel. 

The Mountains of Umbria – Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith

It's always a joy to find a "new" writer and learn that they have already published multiple books of interest. That's especially true for me when the books are set in Italy, my favorite country abroad, and in other atmospheric and appealing locations. 

Return to Valetto revolves around history professor Hugh Fisher, a widower with a grown daughter. His Anglo-Italian family, the Serafinos, are some of the last residents of Valetto, a dying village in Umbria. His grandmother, a centenarian, and his three elderly aunts reside in a large villa there with a small cottage on the property that he inherited on the death of his mother, who was the youngest sister.

There's a problem, however: a woman, Elisa, is "squatting" in the cottage, which she maintains was bequeathed to her family by Aldo, Hugh's grandfather, who left his family during World War II as a partisan fighting the Nazis in Italy's north and never returned. Elisa's mother was hidden as a child at the villa during the war, and later returned to her own village where Aldo, wounded in the war, was cared for by her family. In gratitude, he wrote a letter that explained his wishes, but the Serafinos doubt its authenticity.

When Hugh comes to Valetto for a visit, he is thrust into the middle of this conflict, and over the course of its resolution, uncovers the secrets of his family and the village, and its affect upon both over the decades since the war. 

The book is richly atmospheric, and engaging with vivid descriptions of the setting, the characters, and their stories, yet is deceptively subtle as it pulls the reader deep into their hearts and minds. 

I'll be looking for more novels by Dominic Smith on my next library visit. For readers looking for a comparative author, his style reminds me a bit of the work of Mark Helprin, another favorite writer whose historical novels include one set in Italy (A Soldier of the Great War), or of the rich atmospheric detail of Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Ginni. 

 

Eighteen Voices – A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light, edited by Eleanor Brown

A mixed bag of essays on Paris by women writers. Some were certainly more appealing (at least to me) than others. 

My picks, alphabetized by author:

Investigating Paris by Cara Black

Thirty-four Things You Should Know About Paris by Meg Waite Clayton

My Paris Dreams by M.J. Rose

The Passion of Routine by Jennifer L. Scott

Paris Alone by Maggie Shipstead was my favorite: The author writes about a time when she had received funding for residency in a Paris complex for artists and writers, where she could write her book, and she did, indeed, while spending nearly all of that time alone with her work and thoughts, something she was quite comfortable with and that I can completely understand. When speaking of social encounters at cocktail parties, trade events, and other events of the publishing life, she quotes another author, unnamed, who tells her, "You're a gregarious shy person," ... "You can do the sociable thing, but you don't draw power from it the way real extroverts do. It takes something out of you." The next time someone asks me if I am an introvert or an extrovert that is what I'll say – I'm a gregarious shy person.

Paris Is Your Mistress, by Ellen Sussman

A Myth, a Museum, and A Man by Susan Vreeland 

Generations of History – The Night Travelers by Armando Lucas Correa

This novel is about four generations of women and has multiple settings: Nazi Germany, Cuba during both the Batista and Castro regimes, New York, and the reunited Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and into the near present.

Ally is a beautiful young German poet in Berlin who has a relationship with Marcus, a Black German jazz musician, while Hitler and his Fascism is sweeping the country. Marcus eventually disappears and is presumed dead. Ally has given birth to a daughter, Lilith, a brilliant child whom she realizes she must hide away since the child is a Mischling – of two races – and forbidden and hated by the Nazis and their policy of racial purity. The two go out only by night where Lilith's darker skin tone and hair texture are not on display. 

Very painfully, Ally concludes she can only protect Lilith by sending her away, and the child joins the Herzogs, a Jewish couple on the ill-fated SS St. Louis on its way to Cuba, where they are some of the very small number allowed to enter that country, despite its promise to take in the ship's large number of Jewish refugees. The St. Louis will also be rejected by FDR's government, and returns to Germany, where its remaining passengers will be murdered in the concentration camps.

Lilith is raised by the Herzogs and eventually she and her closest friend, Martín, fall in love and marry. Martín is a Cuban air force  pilot and his family is close to the Batista government. The two have a daughter, Nadine, but Martín is killed when Castro takes over. Lilith, through contacts in the Catholic church, follows her mother Ally's path, and arranges for Nadine to be sent to Queens, New York where she is raised by a couple there – the man is a veteran of World War II, and his wife is a German immigrant he met while serving abroad. The wife hides a terrible secret.

Nadine inherits her mother's intelligence and becomes a scientist. She is multi-lingual and moves to Germany, where she marries Anton. They have a daughter, Luna, whose skin color echoes her grandmother's. As an adult, Luna, always a voracious reader and writer, convinces Nadine to explore her family history, something she has long avoided.

This is a complex story – part family saga, part historical epic, part study of the complexity of racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual preferences. It's beautifully written, and examines many difficult, challenging topics many authors, and readers, may choose to avoid, but there is much to learn here. 

I would also encourage readers not to skip the Author's Note following the end, which provides  background on some of the issues raised in the text, the first two paragraphs of the Acknowledgements, and the extensive Bibliography. This author truly did his homework... 

Back Then – Desperately Seeking Susan directed by Susan Seidelman

I am happy to say that the 1985 film "Desperately Seeking Susan", a modernist take on the classic screwball comedy, has lost none of its charm, grit, whimsy, or subtle feminist appeal. New York City, however, is very changed since then. One could argue that the cleaned-up city is a safer environment, and that may be true – certainly it's much more pleasant to ride on subways that are air conditioned in summer, heated in winter, and are nearly graffiti-free, despite the overblown handwringing over the far-reduced crime rate of today vs. what we dealt with back then – but you could drop me (in the guise of my younger self) into the East Village that I knew back then and I'd be a happy camper. Familiar aspects of the city that once was – pay phones on every block, personal ads in newspapers, and storage lockers in the Port Authority Bus Terminal are integral to the advancement of the plot but they are all gone now. I preferred that tougher but more individualistic city scene than the more homogenized place New York feels like today. 

The movie starred Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, and Aidan Quinn, with Robert Joy and John Turturro in smaller roles. It's fair to say that the movie helped make Madonna a household name.

Arquette's character is Roberta, a frustrated suburban housewife in New Jersey who follows the personal ads she reads in a newspaper, especially between Susan (Madonna), and her boyfriend, Jim (Robert Joy). Susan is constantly on the move, living a slightly less than completely honest existence, and Jim is a musician in a touring band. Roberta, seeing that Susan and Jim are planning to meet in downtown Manhattan at Battery Park, decides to travel into the city and observe their reunion. 

A series of unexpected events occur that lead to Roberta experiencing amnesia when she falls and hits her head, while Susan is trying to escape from a unscrupulous man who is pursuing her after she stole a pair of what turn out to be priceless antique earrings. When Roberta wakes up from her injury, she believes she is Susan. Meanwhile, Jim has asked his best buddy Dez (Aiden Quinn) to keep an eye on Susan while he is away with his band. Dez mistakes Roberta for Susan, and the twists and turns continue from there...

To avoid giving any more away, my advice to my readers is to locate a streaming service or DVD of the movie, and prepare to enjoy!

Ooh, la, la! Let's Eat Paris!: The Essential Guide to the World's Most Famous Food City by François Régis-Gaudry

I devoured this extraordinary guide to everything food-related (and more) in Paris. It is an incredibly enjoyable volume filled with everything you could ever possibly want to know about the city's food culture, restaurants (all levels and types), markets, the city's classic dishes, cheese, fruits and vegetables, bread and pastry, wine, and so much more.

It covers where to see and do all the things that would appeal to anyone who wants to experience Paris in all its culinary and cultural glory. There are maps, lists, timelines, insider information and how-to's. And yes, there are a number of signature recipes included.

This is not a guide to take with you as it is a big, heavy book and there is no Kindle or other digital version available as of this writing – read it before a trip, and take pictures of the most essential pages. Or if you are an armchair traveler, just read it for the fun of it and then go and eat, or cook, your favorite French dish, and follow it with a Paris-based movie or two. Suggestions from a very long list: Paris Blues (Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, and Diahann Carroll), Forget Paris (Billy Crystal, Debra Winger), Midnight in Paris (Owen Wilson), La Vie en Rose (Marion Cotillard), Before Sunset (Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke), Paris When It Sizzles (Audrey Hepburn, William Holden)...

Violence Against Girls and Women – When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McClain

Due to the subject nature (abducted/missing young girls and teens), this was a tough book to get through. There is some violence, a lot of emotional stress and accounts of emotional abuse, and the suspense of the dark plot details. The book is set in 1993, during the search for abducted and murdered Polly Klaas, a young girl from Petaluma, CA.

Anna Hart is a San Francisco detective, specializing in missing persons. After a personal tragedy, unrevealed till much later in the book, her husband insists on a separation. Anna heads to Mendocino, the small California town where she grew up with foster parents Eden and Hap, who were kind and nurturing to her after the very difficult past of her earlier childhood. She finds a small cabin in the woods to rent, and acquires a dog.

Anna becomes embroiled in the search for Cameron, a missing girl, one of a few concurrent cases in Northern California, including the Klaas case, which is receiving a lot of media attention, partly because actress Winona Ryder, who grew up in Petaluma, has taken a personal interest. 

Cameron, the adopted daughter of a former actress and her producer husband, is a beautiful but sad girl who is dealing with early trauma, much of which is unknown to her parents. During Anna's intensive detective work on the case, she uncovers much about Cameron's early childhood, and finds Cameron's protective older brother, Hector, from whom she was separated when she was adopted.

While searching for Cameron, Anna is confronted with her own unresolved, unreconciled personal tragedies, both her current situation, and the earlier ones that haunt her. She becomes reacquainted with Will, the sheriff and an old friend, and Caleb, another, whose twin sister Jenny disappeared during their high school days.

The multiple threads of Cameron's case, and that of another girl named Shannen, and Anna's inner search for resolution with her past coincide and collide throughout this novel, but it never descends into melodrama, as the situations described are all too common, and in the Klaas case, real. 

By the end, nearly all of the tensions and conflicts reach a conclusion, though author Paula McClain does leave one untied thread...which I found both surprising and disappointing.

This subject matter is very disturbing, and since we read and hear about similar cases every day, it's also an important, urgent topic, one that certainly should not be diminished or dismissed by some of our political structures, which seem, in some cases, to care less about the ongoing care and nurturing of children, than than they do about their so-called "pro-life" stance, which ends once birth takes place. Those politicians, who are limiting the rights of women and girls, and who refuse to provide adequate funding to local governments who need help combatting the type of crime addressed in this book, need to be voted out. Please think about that in this very important election year.

 

A Food Journey from Iran to Italy – Pomegranates & Artichokes by Saghar Setareh

This beautiful book will take the reader (and cook) on a journey around the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and through history. Many of the recipes are mouthwatering, the photographs by the author are both enticing and sensitive, and the commentary of her life journey from her Iranian homeland to a new life in Italy is both joyful and poignant.

Away and Back – The Train Home by Dan-ah Kim

Every so often I come across a picture book that's intended for children but touches me as an adult, and this is one of those stories. Set in Brooklyn, NY, along the route of the F train (not disclosed in the text, but I easily recognized it), it's the tender and poignant tale of Nari, a young girl in an immigrant family, who's feeling a bit frustrated by her crowded apartment home, and the city environment with all of its noise and tensions.

Her "escape" is on the elevated train that passes by her window. She imagines a ride to multiple destinations – flower gardens, woods, museums, under the ocean and up to the stars. Eventually, just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she realizes that there's "no place like home" and that her happy place is there with her family.

The illustrations are charming, and the text is just enough of a story to delight both young children, their parents, and grandparents.  

Early 20th Century Palestine in Transition – The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

The Parisian, or Al-Barisi in Arabic, is the nickname given to Midhat Kamal, a young Palestinian man who is sent to Montpellier, France by his wealthy merchant father to study medicine while World War I is upending the map of Europe and the Middle East. He lives in the home of a university professor, a widower, and his daughter Jeanette. Midhat is a sensitive and romantic man, something of a misfit, and after a falling out with the professor and Jeanette, with whom he has fallen in love, he moves on to Paris.

He returns to his home city of Nablus, north of Jerusalem, in 1919. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled most of the Mediterranean area and Middle East from its homeland in what is now modern Turkey, England and France had divided the territory so that via the British Mandate, England occupied and administered the territories of Palestine, while France's were Greater Syria, including Lebanon. Egypt and Sudan were a protectorate of England, and Iraq also fell under the British Mandate. France also had many countries under its rule in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc.)

Midhat was at odds, and having left his medical studies, he goes into his father's textile business, which consists of a store and workshop in Nablus, and a larger one in Cairo. His father lives in Cairo with his second wife and family, Midhat's mother having died when he was young. Midhat lives in the family home in Nablus with his grandmother, who is like a mother to him. Eventually he marries Fatima, the beautiful daughter of an aristocratic local family.

The politics of the time are extremely complex: as the years pass, Egypt becomes independent of England, and the Arab populations in Palestine revolt, particularly against the British. Rebellions and riots break out, especially as England encourages Jewish immigration from Europe, according to the Balfour Declaration. Though Jews (and Christians) had lived in Palestine for thousands of years (and in Egypt, Syria and throughout the Middle East), they had become a minority compared to the Moslem population. As time passes, tensions increase, with targets and violence on all sides. Through the 1920s and on into the 1930s, there is constant change and turmoil, and at the same time, conditions in Germany and beyond deteriorate as the Nazis take control with the election of Hitler and passage of the Nuremberg Laws, the first step in what will become the Holocaust, though that is largely beyond the scope or interest of this novel. In fact, there is very little mention of Jews, other than as figures to be detested or feared, though Samaritans (a Jewish-related, though separate religious group) reside and are business people in Nablus.

The novel explores the life of Midhat, his family and the culture of Palestine, particularly Nablus, against this backdrop, and how events both personal and political create impact. It is powerful reading, as the book presents a less well-known picture of Palestine and the Middle East. It is also both disturbing and distressing, and very complex.

With its scope, nuance, and vast cast of characters, it is like an old-fashioned novel that may bring to mind late 19th century authors like Henry James, Edith Wharton, certain mid-twentieth century American writers, or some of the classic British, Russian and French works. With its setting 80-100 years in the past, it can feel remote, yet at the same time, it's an ominous harbinger of the current Israel-Hamas war, and other conflicts in the area provoked by terrorist groups backed by Russia and its satellites.

The book has three parts, and I found the second the most interesting overall. I felt the author was struggling a little in the third section and editing could have improved it – and it is a long book of 551 pages. It is also puzzling that the author includes a list of the very lengthy set of characters, many of whom have very similar names, at the front of the book, and a chronology of the historical and political events that shape the action at the end. Why wasn't this chronology up front? That would have been very helpful. And, nowhere is there a guide to the many Arabic and French phrases that appear throughout the text – that would have been useful too, even though I was able to puzzle many of them out without resorting to a dictionary or the internet. A map, better than the one on the end papers, would also have been a good idea. These things bring the book, and my opinion, down overall.