A Family Odyssey – Kantika by Elizabeth Graver

This is a beautiful, moving work of fiction that is primarily based on the life of the author Elizabeth Graver's grandmother, Rebecca Cohen Baruch Levy (born in 1902), and other family members. Graver incorporated family stories and photographs, but created a narrative that incorporates what she has conceived of their inner lives and intimate experiences. 

The Cohens were Sephardic Jews who left Spain as a result of the Inquisition and settled in Constantinople, Turkey. For several hundred years, under the Ottomans, they prospered financially, living a refined upper class lifestyle, and practiced their religion. After World War I, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the development of modern Turkey (which was declared a republic in 1923), their fortunes declined, and the relatively secure position of Jews changed. The Cohens lost their money and business (partly due to Rebecca's father's poor business practices and gambling), and they eventually were forced to move away from what had become Istanbul, and resettle in Barcelona, Spain, living in much reduced circumstances.

The rise of Fascism and other right-wing movements in Spain leading to the Spanish Civil War made life dangerous for Jews. Rebecca, whose first marriage was a failure and who became a widow with two sons upon the death of her husband, traveled to Cuba to meet Sam, a widower, and potential second husband. Sam and Rebecca married and traveled to Queens, New York, where they joined his mother and disabled daughter. Her sons eventually joined them and they had children together. 

The novel recounts all this in rich detail and we share in the author's description of how she imagines Rebecca's thoughts and feelings, through the following decades of her life with Sam, the tragedies of World War II, the loss of family members, and especially the challenge of caring for and encouraging Luna, Sam's daughter. 

It is a remarkable story, painful in many places, but ultimately triumphant. Rebecca must have been a truly extraordinary person and a true "woman of valor". 

This is the fifth of the eight novels I plan to read for the 2024 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and certainly one of my two favorites thus far. I hope to complete the final three by the mid-May deadline. 

The Grandeur that Was Rome: Eternal by Lisa Scottoline

For Lisa Scottoline's sweeping, superb first historical novel, after many successful and entertaining suspense thrillers/mysteries, she has chosen the subject of Rome under Mussolini prior to and during World War II, focusing on the plight of the Roman Jews and the rise of violent Fascism.

Rome has been home to a Jewish community for time immemorial, and in the pre-war years, many families enjoyed a comfortable life, positions in the professions and the universities. Roman Jews, at least the family she portrays in this novel, saw themselves as an assimilated part of society and as citizens of Rome and Italy, equal to their Christian friends and neighbors.

When Mussolini came to power after World War I, in fact, many Jews embraced him as their leader and joined the Fascist party, which sounds shocking now, in light of what occurred later.

Scottoline's novel follows three school friends, Elisabetta, a beautiful young Catholic girl growing into womanhood, Sandro, a brilliant Jewish mathematician and son of a lawyer and doctor, and Marco, a handsome cyclist whose father runs a popular bar/restaurant, and whose oldest brother is a priest. The boys have been best friends since early childhood and Elisabetta rounds out their trio.

Relationships become complicated when the trio reaches their teen years and both boys fall for Elisabetta, who is drawn to them each for different reasons. The advent of the war and the developments in politics, as anti-Jewish laws are enacted, change everything for Rome and for the three and their families.

When Mussolini joins forces with Hitler and the Nazis invade, things quickly move from bad to worse. Day by day, the noose around Jewish families and the Jewish community is tightened. Jews must leave their homes and professions and are forced into the Ghetto. There is first disbelief, and gradually, greater and greater suffering for the Jews and Italians as a whole. Scottoline has done a remarkable job of breaking down the day-by-day events and conveying the mounting tension and horrific conditions that lead to murders, violent beatings, and a round-up of nearly the entire Jewish population of Rome.

These are all historical facts, but the specifics will be new for many readers, as they were to me. The war destroyed much of the fabric of Roman society, just as it destroyed historic buildings with the bombings. It took decades for the city to revive after so much suffering, but the Jewish community of Italy will never be what it once was, after the deportations and emigration to Israel and the United States. So tragic what we do to each other.

Scottoline's novel is well-paced,  meticulously researched and a fascinating read. I hope she will follow up – perhaps with a novel set in Venice? To be determined...