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. 

 

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.

War and Art in Italy – The Last Masterpiece by Laura Morelli

A deep dive into World War II Italy, and the race between the Nazis and the Allies for the fate of the treasures of European art, particularly that of Florence, where, in my experience, there is something that stops the traveler in their tracks with practically every step.  

The author tells the story from the points of view of two fictitious women. Eva is a German photographer who is brought on to document the paintings, sculptures, and other works that the Nazis are removing from the museums and other locations, ostensibly to protect them, but in reality to eventually bring them to the "super museum" Hitler is planning for Linz, Austria. Her counterpart is Josie, an American, who has joined the WACs (Women's Army Corps), and because of her excellent stenography skills, becomes an assistant to the officers of the Monuments Men, who are trying to save the same works from falling into Nazi hands. 

Author Morelli is an art historian with a Yale Ph.D, who has written several historical novels set in the art world. This is the first I've read, but I will get to the others (eventually), as this one was so fascinating for a reader like me with a strong interest in art and art history, and a love for all things Italian. As I read, I thought of my trips to Italy, especially Florence, and how astonishing it is, and how grateful I am, that so many of the great works of art were saved, and that so much of the war's destruction has been restored. It is a profound to realize, while reading this book, how differently things could have turned out, had the Nazis triumphed – here that is concerning art, but of course there is so much to consider.

It is very evident how much research and knowledge went into this book, with its descriptions of the art and the physical environment throughout Italy, along with aspects of the conditions in Austria (as background for Eva's story).

Morelli also handled the characterizations very well, for both women, their families and personal relationships. Both primary characters evolved and grew due to their wartime experiences. The forays into the friendships and camaraderie that developed among the WACs, and the inner thoughts of each woman as they dealt with their own conflicts were sensitively portrayed. Her light touch on romance rounded out the novel, but was not its point – there was just enough.

I felt the chapters featuring Eva moved a little slowly at first – my only criticism. Because of her origins and beliefs, she was not immediately likable, or understandable, to me, but as I continued reading, I was able to understand and even feel sorry for her. As the book closed, I thought of what it would be like for her to be on that losing side, and return home, knowing that she had embraced and worked for a cause that she realized was both evil and immoral. That is a topic for another kind of book altogether...

No, No, No – Ceremony of the Innocent by Taylor Caldwell

Every day I receive a list of bargain e-books from Book Bub. Most are low-priced, and occasionally there's even a freebie. If I find a free book of interest available on Prime, I add it to my Kindle/iPad. I also get others from Edelweiss and other sources. Between those, and the ones on my shelves and in several full shopping bags, I don't think I'll ever have the time to read them all – especially since I keep finding new and enticing titles at the library. It's a dilemma that my book loving friends will understand.

Ceremony of the Innocent (the correct title) was one of those Book Bub books, and I read a little of it on its Prime page, and initially intrigued, I requested it from my library. I was somewhat shocked when I received it but I wanted to give it a chance: The cover art and copy of this mass market paperback version is lurid and repulsive, but so indicative of the 70s, when it was first published. Refusing to be put off, I decided to delve further into it. 

I was drawn at first into the sad story of the impoverished young Ellen Porter and her Aunt May, who raised her. The time is roughly the 1890s, and they live in a small Pennsylvania town, somewhere in the northeastern area of the state. Ellen is a tall, beautiful redheaded girl who looks older and more mature than her thirteen years; May is a seamstress who also works as a maid to try to make ends meet, she is probably barely forty but poverty has aged and broken her. Seeing no alternative, she forces Ellen to end her education and persuades her client and employer, the mayor's wife, to take Ellen on as a maid in training, saying she is already fourteen, though with her height and mature looks, Ellen might pass for fifteen or sixteen. 

The small town constantly gossips about Ellen and May. Some say she is May's illegitimate daughter, that with her flaming hair and mature body, she must be sexually active – a harlot. Of course she is none of that, and is rather just a poor disadvantaged girl who looks different from the pale blondes who are considered the town beauties. There seems to be no future for her other than a life of struggle and servitude.

One day, though, she meets Jeremy, the handsome, well-educated and successful son of her employers. She is overwhelmed, as is he. Their brief encounter will stay with both of them until they meet again, and he sweeps her off and marries her.

From this point forward, the book becomes a strange stew of their continued love story, politics, religion, and commentary on the America of the early decades of the twentieth century. I found the policies she eventually ascribed to Jeremy, who had been elected to Congress, and who had originally seemed so kind and passionate, to be distasteful and hateful, to say the least. She portrayed many of the leading progressive political figures of the time with a peculiar, distorted view, bordering on what felt like an underlying paranoia, or at the very least, a deep hate for working and middle class Americans, immigrants, and others. At the same time, she seemed to warn against excesses of greed, power and capitalism, while supporting both communism and fascism almost simultaneously.

All in all, in retrospect, the entire novel becomes as lurid and offensive as this edition's cover. Her prose is dense, melodramatic, and wandering, but I kept reading in the hope that somehow Ellen would overcome her struggles – let's just say she didn't. I can only wonder how this book became the "national bestseller" touted on the cover.

Pioneering Woman of Law – The Spinster, the Rebel, & the Governor by Charlene Bell Dietz

This book is both a find and an inspiration. It is the introduction to the imagined inner and community life, based on research through factual court and other records, of Margaret Brent, the woman whose extraordinary accomplishments in law, at a time when no woman could officially become an attorney, inspired the Margaret Brent Award of the American Bar Association, an honor received by women with accomplished and storied careers in the judicial arena. Brent is largely unknown except by those in the legal field, but once you read this historical novel, you will not soon forget her.

At thirty-six, Margaret Brent left her comfortable home and most of her family in England to start a new life in Maryland in the first half of the seventeenth century. Just the ocean voyage alone would have been daunting, but to come to a small colony of male landowners, some with wives, but many without, a number of servants (most of whom were working off their passage in an indentured arrangement), and the surrounding Native American communities, some hostile, some not, would have been too intimidating for most people, particularly single women.

Margaret and her sister Mary, and their brothers Fulke and Giles, immigrated to the colony of St. Mary's City, Maryland in 1638. They were just four of the children of a large family of Catholic landed gentry in Gloucestershire, England. There was great turmoil in England over religious issues, which began the previous century when Henry VIII abolished the authority of the Pope and made himself head of the Church of England. Both Catholics and Puritans, who were Protestants who objected to the practices of the Church of England, experienced prejudice and repression – hence the establishment of the Puritan colony in 1620 of what became Plymouth, Massachusetts – and families like the Brents, who, despite their wealth and prestige, were living fearfully, as their religious practices were outlawed. 

As single women, Margaret and Mary were able to become landowners in Maryland (if a woman married, her property became her husband's). One of the major themes of the book is Margaret's conflict between her desire for independence and the ownership of her property, versus her feelings for Leonard Calvert, the governor of the Maryland colony.

In addition, the novel presents how Margaret, both well-read and bold, and with a strong sense of justice, began to challenge the all-male government system of the colony, and advocate for those who had been wronged in various disputes. She made appearances before what was the court system of the time, and served as the attorney for those in need. She was also deeply involved in the financial affairs of the colony, and as executrix, managed the affairs of the estate of Leonard Calvert after his death. This too was extraordinary for a woman of her time. 

In the list of historical figures that opens the book, the author shares that Margaret presented over 125 cases to the governing body and that the title of "Attorney" appears in the official records of the time. This accomplishment led to a number of honors in her name in Maryland, and in Virginia, where she later moved.

As presented, Margaret's story and achievements are fascinating – no doubt she was an amazing woman in real life, as well as in fiction. The novel incorporates this historical material in an understandable and accessible writing style, and this woman of the 1600s feels very much alive, with a personality and accomplishments that would make her a powerful figure if she were with us today.

Early Americans at Odds, 1689 – Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman

A novel of American history from before the American Revolution, and before the time of the French and Indian War which made George Washington a future leader... The year was 1689 and King William's War had begun, a fight between the Protestant English colonists of what we know as New England, and the Catholic French colonists of what was referred to as New France. As you probably realize, the English eventually pushed the French back to beyond the Mississippi River, and north to Acadia (central Maine and beyond into what are now the provinces of Canada). South of New England, the Dutch were colonizing present-day New York, and northern New Jersey, and were also a threat to the English. The various Native American tribes were being impinged upon by all of the Europeans, and at various times, aligned with the different colonists in order to retain their lands and autonomy. As we know, they were not successful.

This was the era of pirates and highwaymen, witch trials, and violent punishments for small and large infractions. Women, of course, had no rights to own property, and in fact, were the property of their husbands.

Ruth Miner, a brilliant young woman of English background, was accused of witchcraft in her town, along with the murder of her parents, and had to flee in self-preservation or be put to death. Her only hope and friend was a young sailor, Owen, of French descent, with whom she had been raised, and now shared a mutual attraction. She stows away on his ship as it travels along the Connecticut coast to Stonington (located just south of Rhode Island), and finds refuge there.

A series of shocking and unfortunate events spin out, with Ruth experiencing violence, abuse, and heartbreak, though she makes a friend of a Pequot Indian she meets in the woods, and the Stonington couple who take her in. Owen moves in and out of her life in unexpected ways.

In the end, despite tremendous suffering and loss, Ruth endures.

This is a rich and beautifully written book by historian Leah Angstman, whose obvious efforts in research of the period gives this story authenticity, vividness, and no shortage of drama. Highly recommend.

No Country for Women Either: Heresy by Melissa Lenhardt

I was really looking forward to loving this book, but I was so disappointed. The concept was great – a small gang of women who come together as outlaws after the Civil War and commit robberies across Colorado. The women are a former slave, a titled woman from England, and an aspiring travel writer who is making her way in the West. The women must pretend to be men, live rough, and take care of each other and themselves. 

I was also anticipating enjoying the methods the author used – fictionalized materials stylized as interviews of the former slave decades later as part of the WPA Writer's Project, diaries, and "reproductions" of newspaper articles about the hold-ups. 

After about seventy pages or so, I felt completely bogged down by the format of mixed materials. Additionally, the book was literally difficult to read, with everything but the reproduction newspaper articles set in a light, thin sans serif typeface. I just can't understand what the book designer was thinking – there is a reason why this review is in a serif font – it's so much easier to read. 

I'm sorry to say that the book, that I waited weeks for as an interlibrary loan went back today. I tried, I really did, but with so many others on my list, I no longer feel compelled to keep reading something that doesn't grab me and make me want to keep reading. 

Babe Betrayed: The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Melanie Benjamin's fast-paced read relies on a smooth mix of historical detail, believable dialog and vivid description. The "Swans" were the writer and later, media personality, Truman Capote's coterie of New York society women who hung on his every word as he flattered and cultivated them at the best French restaurants and swank cocktail parties starting in the period of his early fame in the 1950s. The women included Pamela Churchill (later Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France during the Clinton Administration), Nancy "Slim" Keith, an often-married renowned beauty, and most importantly, the enigmatic Babe Paley, the wife of William Paley, the powerful businessman who founded and ran CBS.

The beautiful Babe Paley, who was always perfectly dressed, coiffed and groomed, became, over time, Truman Capote's closest friend, and the two were nearly inseparable for a time, despite her husband and his longtime lover and companion Jack Dunphy. While Babe appeared to have it all, her life was far from the perfection she presented to the world, and she confessed all of her unhappy secrets to Truman – later on, that would prove to be much to her chagrin.

Truman Capote achieved enormous success and celebrity as the writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's, (a novella that appeared in 1958 and was adapted into the classic film with Audrey Hepburn) but most notably, In Cold Blood, a crime novel based on a brutal true-life event, published in 1966. As an aside, I have to say that it was the most chilling and compelling book I can recall ever having ever read, going back to the early 1980s.

However, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Over time, per the many episodes described in Benjamin's book, Truman fell so far that he died in 1984 at just 59, due to his abuse of drugs and alcohol, segueing from the boyish beauty of his youth to the nearly unrecognizable caricature of himself I remember from TV's Hollywood Squares and the film Murder by Death in 1976.

As for Babe, she and her society companions were thinly disguised in Capote's "La Côte Basque 1965", published in Esquire magazine as the opening to his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. Capote used a mix of genuine and fake names but it was apparently obvious to those in the know about New York high society who the real players were, and he revealed many of the humiliating secrets Babe had entrusted to him. Capote quickly became a persona non grata and was abandoned by his former friends, Babe in particular.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a compelling novel that describes all this and much, much more, in great detail, with a bevy of all-caps names that will be familiar to many readers.

Later, Babe, a heavy smoker, developed lung cancer and died in 1978, aged just 63: a sad conclusion to the life of a woman who appeared, at least superficially, to have had everything.

Two women, two wars – The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

My last audiobook of 2018. 

Historical fiction that makes for very compelling listening. Two parallel stories converge and intersect. Two women who are somewhat unconventional for their time and place, both with personal obstacles, but who have strong drives to fulfill their goals connect.

One of two is Eve Gardiner, a British woman who first becomes a spy as part of the Alice Network (a real-life clandestine organization of women who spied for the British against the Germans) based in Lille, France during World War I. Eve is sent to join a group of women reporting to "Lili", the pseudonym for Louise De Bettignies, the group's leader, a non-fictional character. The spies are seeking information that will aid the British in extricating captured soldiers, and obtaining the secrets of French collaborators working with the Germans. Though she has a speech impediment, Eve also has language facility in French and German. Her spying is successful for a time, but eventually she is caught and punished.

Fast forward to post-World War II. Charlotte "Charlie" St. Clair is a wealthy but bored American college woman who has muddied her reputation while away at college. Her conservative parents whisk her off to Europe where she can have her "problem" solved at a clinic in Switzerland, but their first stop is 
London.

Charlie is obsessed with locating her older cousin Rose who was caught up in Occupied France. They lost contact and Charlie is committed to finding out what became of her.

The determined Charlie manages to make contact with the now alcoholic and embittered Eve, whom she believes will have insights on what happened to Rose, and from that point, their stories entwine...