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 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. 

 

A Mind Adrift – Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey

This book was the first chosen to be read for a newly-formed book club. Had I not been reading it for that purpose, I would not have stayed with it, as I found it both painful and depressing.

Maud, a woman in her early 80s, living in a working-class English town, is moving ever deeper into dementia. Her memory is muddled and she is often confused. She frequently repeats herself, or seems to speak out of context about unrelated details, and asks the same questions over and over, of her daughter, Helen, her granddaughter Katy, and the various "carers" who come to her home on a regular basis.

Maud does not know, or doesn't remember, what has happened to her best friend Elizabeth, and is worried that she is injured, hurt, or the victim of a crime. She goes to Elizabeth's home, repeatedly calls the police about her, and even takes out a missing person ad in the local newspaper, aggravating Peter, Elizabeth's hostile son. She asks Helen about Elizabeth in nearly every conversation. 

I found it shocking that Maud was living alone, even with frequent visits from her daughter, and with her "carers" who make her lunch, and do other things around her home. There are notes and signs put up around the house as reminders, but Maud doesn't grasp their meaning, or remember them. To help herself, she writes her own notes, which she stuffs in her pockets, but then forgets that they are there or what they mean.

Helen, who seems overwhelmed by her circumstances, has clearly not realized or doesn't want to accept that Maud's condition has deteriorated to the point that she should not be alone at all. Eventually this is rectified but handled very gracelessly – Helen sells Maud's house without her truly grasping what is happening, then moves her into her home.

There is another person missing in this story: Sukey (a nickname for Susan), Maud's beloved older sister, who disappeared shortly after World War II when Maud was just a young teenager. Her whereabouts were never resolved. Given that Maud's family lived throughout the bombings of World War II, and the deprivations that followed, it seems likely to me that some of Maud's difficulties are also the long-term result of PTSD – when Sukey did not reappear, Maud was sick in bed for a long time with what seems to have been a physical condition brought on by depression. There are also references to circumstances later, when as a wife and mother, Maud seemed unable to cope.

Having grown up in a family where there were both mental illness and memory loss in those close to me, I found this book quite horrifying. I felt tremendous sympathy for Maud, and for Helen, who was not finding her mother the help she needed, despite what seemed to be her best effort. It felt like a statement to me of what is missing in healthcare for the elderly and the mentally ill, in both the British setting of the book, and in what I have observed in this country. In that way, the novel was very effective, but I can't recommend it for anyone who is deeply disturbed by those issues. 

Hollywood Dreams – Stars Over Sunset Boulevard by Susan Meissner

Like all of Meissner's fiction, this novel was well-researched and offered some fascinating insights into the Hollywood of the late 1930s and onward. 

The author explores the friendship between two very different women, Violet, a transplant from Alabama, and Audrey, a native Californian. The two women meet at work at Selznick International Studios, where they work in the secretarial pool as filming for "Gone With The Wind" is about to begin. Audrey owns a small bungalow bequeathed to her by her Aunt Jo, and Violet becomes her roommate. Audrey has a very close friend, Burt, who is in love with her, though she does not have the same feelings for him.

Audrey is a little older, and has aspirations to act in the movies, but her big break has failed to come. Violet left home to escape the rigid society of her upper middle class environment, and a broken romance. Both women (of course) have their secrets, which they eventually share and which lead to a situation many friendships could not sustain, which will become the later focus of the plot.

In a moment of poor judgment and after drinking a few too many cocktails at a party they attend with Burt, they "acquire" a hat that is part of the wardrobe of Scarlett O'Hara in the movie. As Burt works in the costume department and is responsible for the items kept there, he gets into trouble for the incident and nearly loses his job. The hat will take on great significance as time passes.

Many things occur in this triangular friendship, and alignments change. Violet falls in love with Burt, and he with her. They marry, while remaining friends with Audrey. World War II intervenes and time continues to pass as the lives of the friends evolve. Where this will all lead is the crux of the story...which has some somewhat unlikely elements that I will leave to other readers to discover.

What seems unfortunate to me is the device author Meissner used to introduce readers to the action – the infamous hat has made an appearance in a vintage clothing store and the store owner, recognizing its significance wants to return it to its owner. This felt contrived to me, at least as it was used in the book, and less than believable. If it had been handled differently, it would have been more effective and much more appealing. The jacket copy describes this as a "journey more enchanting than any classic movie" but this aspect is just not convincing. Otherwise, there is a lot to like about this book in terms of atmosphere and detail.

Vanished Worlds: The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

This novel follows two timelines: Englishwoman Claire Pendleton comes to the British colony of Hong Kong in 1953 with her new husband, and finds work giving piano lessons to the daughter of a wealthy Chinese couple and falls into a love affair, and in 1942, when Englishman Will Truesdale and Trudy Liang, a Eurasian socialite, the daughter of a Portuguese mother and Chinese father, find the Japanese invasion of the island upending their relationship and everything around them.

Claire has never before traveled far from life with her mother in the pedestrian London suburb of Croydon, and Hong Kong is an exotic and confusing adventure, and she soon gets caught up in its expatriate life and society, with all of its class- and race-conscious unwritten rules. She is bound by her past life and its narrow views, yet she wants to take chances and break free. 

Will and Trudy have a far different sort of existence, but even though Trudy comes from great wealth, and is extraordinarily beautiful, she can't escape the stigma of her Eurasian background, which influences every aspect of her life. Will, as an Englishman, moves between her world and the club-like English expatriate society, where as a white man of the ruling government, he has far more latitude.

The paralleling plots unfold and eventually intersect, but not before the horrors of World War II and its aftermath settle themselves on the very complex, brittle and rigid world of this society.

While much of the description of the setting at both times can be beautiful, the author does not subdue the horrific conditions of the war and its effects, both on the physical environment and on human behavior, which reaches new lows, much as it did in Europe. It is very clear that people are the same everywhere, good and bad, no matter what they look like or where they come from.

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...

Parrots, Pugs, and Pixie Dust – A Book about Fashion Designer Judith Leiber by Deborah Blumenthal

A charming picture book for older children (and adults) about the life and work of Judith Leiber, who was truly the mistress of the handbag, or as she was also known, the Queen of Minaudières. Her exquisitely detailed crystal-covered evening bags came in every conceivable shape from animals to food to icons, and were carried by First Ladies, movie stars, opera divas and many others.

While Leiber lived a long life, she had known the poverty and tragedies that came with being Jewish in World War II Hungary. At the end of the war, however, she met a young American serviceman and the two married. She joined him on his return to the United States and they lived a long life together, dying at home just hours apart, after a marriage that lasted 72 years.

Examples of Leiber's handbags can be found today in museum collections around the world – or you can buy one, if you can afford it. Meanwhile, you can enjoy this delightful book and inspire a child with Leiber's story.

Shanghai Secrets – The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning

Many of us living in the United States, whether we are of European (Ashkenazic) Jewish background, or not, are only dimly aware at best of the Jewish community that formed in Shanghai, China as World War II began. And, even if we know a bit about that, we probably know even less about Jewish emigration to Australia.

Here is a vivid and beautifully-crafted novel that brings that all into focus. A professional-class Jewish family flees their home in Vienna immediately after Kristallnicht and travels to Shanghai to find refuge. Their young daughter, Romy, horrified by the murders and losses she has witnessed, gradually becomes enthralled with her new milieu, but memories of her past are never far away.

Paralleling Romy's story is the contemporary one of her granddaughter, Alexandra. Alexandra has traveled to Melbourne from her job as a successful commodities trader and dealmaker in London to spend time with her elderly grandparents as her grandfather, Wilhelm, spends his last days. She is unusually close to her grandparents because they raised her after her parents were killed in an accident when she was a child, but Alexandra, who was told her mother was adopted from China, has many unanswered questions about her heritage. The research she has done so far has led to dead ends, and she hesitates to question her grandmother too closely while she is mourning.

When an opportunity to work in Shanghai opens up, it is a chance for Alexandra to move on from an unsuccessful romantic relationship in London, and to quietly go forward with the family research that is so important to her.

The stories of these two generations of women are enmeshed in a finely constructed, wonderfully descriptive narrative that carefully unmasks the secrets Romy and Wilhelm felt they needed to keep, and brings the closure Alexandra is seeking. And, for the reader, there is a great deal to learn and understand. Australian author Kirsty Manning has written a wonderful book, and I am hoping to find and read her debut novel, The Midsummer Garden, which has not been released here. There is another book coming in 2020, so far called The Lost Jewels – looking forward to that.

The Good and the Evil – The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

"Where there is life, there is hope." This quote, attributed to the playwright Publius Terentius Afer, known as Terence, was an African slave who was brought to Rome in the second century BCE by the Senator Terentius Lucanus. It is so fitting a summary of this remarkable novel.

The lyrical Alice Hoffman evokes the darkest days of the Holocaust, in her novel about Ava, a golem (in Jewish folklore, a clay creature brought to life through sacred magic) created in secret by Ettie, a rabbi's teenaged daughter, for the responsibility of protecting a young girl in her escape from Berlin to Paris. With payment from the mother Hanni to watch over her daughter Lea, Ettie and her sister Marta join the two on a dangerous train ride out of Germany.

Hoffman is a master of both magical realism and the historical novel, and they have never come together more convincingly or beautifully than they do here. Hoffman does not spare the reader from the horrors of the roundups, murders, rapes and tortures that are committed by the Nazis and their French collaborators, but she also evokes the humanity of love, compassion, kindness and generosity that were the hallmarks of the Resistance fighters, both French and Jewish, and those that assisted them.

Ava is the most extraordinary character, a quasi woman of clay, who has superhuman strength, understands the speech of birds and forest animals, and learns complex tasks almost instantaneously. Her evolution is the center of the novel, but there are other very interesting characters.

Lea grows from a petulant, sullen and frightened girl of twelve, who exposed to the enormous trials of the war, then becomes a sensitive young woman who is adult before her time. Julien, the spoiled, immature teenaged son of the distant cousins who take her and Ava in when they reach Paris, evolves into a resourceful young man who follows his older brother into a Jewish Resistance group. And then there is Marianne, a young woman from the distant countryside, the maid in Julien's parents' household, who returns home and becomes a leader in spiriting Jews and others in hiding over the border into Switzerland. Marianne is, of course, the name for the symbol of the common people of France, evoking the principles of liberty, egality and fraternity. Hoffman picked a most appropriate name for her.

There is an amazing amount to absorb in The World That We Knew, and being openminded to the idea that good can conquer evil, and that there are things in this world that may be beyond what we normally comprehend, are vital for a full appreciation. On the other hand, reading, or listening to this work, will hopefully allow some minds to suspend their cynicism and disbelief.

I was delighted to see that the reader of the audio book version is the acclaimed actress Judith Light, who has given a remarkable reading, voicing not just the characters, but delivering the French and German place and personal names with care, and occasional snippets of Hebrew prayers with gravity.

I Will Never Forget – We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet

A unique and extraordinary insight into life in England particularly during World War II, but also before and beyond, and how individual lives are transformed with lasting impact by the massive events of history.

We Must Be Brave is beautifully structured. It can almost be divided into three sections: roughly a fifth (or perhaps a quarter), set before the war, a much larger portion, perhaps three fifths, devoted to the war years, and then a final fifth that covers the aftermath and resolves the issues and questions previously raised.

This is the story of Ellen Parr, who in 1940 is a young married woman in the vicinity of coastal Southampton, coping with the demands and deprivations of life during the war, and her relationship with Pamela, a young child who had become motherless in a bombing raid and then joins Ellen's household. That statement of the circumstances gives a simple view of the premise, but there are many complexities involved. Ellen had been living contentedly within a marriage blanc with her much older husband, Selwyn, who was seriously wounded and traumatized during The Great War. Ellen brought the scars of her own past struggles into the marriage, but the two of them had found peace. She was comfortable with the idea of their not having a family together, but once Pamela came on the scene, everything changed, as Ellen became fiercely devoted and maternal towards her.

Pamela had lived with her mother, and did not know the actual circumstances of her parents' relationship. A story her mother had told her about the loss of her father was untrue. After the events that killed her mother, Pamela had been found alone on a bus by the authorities, and no one knew who she was or who she belonged to.

When Ellen brought Pamela home, Selwyn was wary. The Parrs were already lodging other displaced children and feeding and caring for them was challenging, given the war shortages. As time went on, and Ellen and Pamela formed their bond, he warned her about becoming too attached. Surely some relative would eventually step forward to claim Pamela, and he felt morally compelled to try to reunite her with her true family. Three years passed, Ellen and Pamela's relationship deepened, and then it happened – Pamela's father, a wounded military officer, who had been searching for her all along, came for her. Pamela is sent away to live in Ireland with her father's sister and the rest of her "true" family.

From that point, their lives diverge. Both must cope with this trauma, and as the war ends, and time passes and things change, Pamela grows up and Ellen endures. Both find their way, but neither forgets.

The novel is a testament to resilience of the human spirit. While their three years together were a pivot point in both Ellen's and Pamela's lives, and their separation brought pain they would feel forever, they found satisfaction in the following decades of their lives, and when the unlikely twists and turns of life finally reunites them, there is a satisfying and encouraging conclusion.

96 Years of a Life Well-led: The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg

Not many books are written from the perspective of a 96-year-old woman, and it was refreshing to understand what it is like to look back across a lifetime of memories, happiness and disappointment.

Doris lives in Stockholm, and is alone except for her grandniece Jenny, who lives in San Francisco. They maintain contact weekly via Skype, and that relationship is the lifeline for a woman who while mentally strong, and relatively healthy for her age, has a lonely existence, except for the aides who come to help her dress, maintain her apartment, and bring her meals.

When Doris was a young girl, she received a red address book as a gift from her father, and has kept it ever since, recording the names of all those she knew. As her friends and family members died, she crossed out their names and wrote "dead".  As she reviews the names in the address book, the novel recounts the experiences of her past, and her interesting life included years in Paris as a fashion model, a great love and deep friendships, privations and loss during World War II, a period of time in New York, and her return to Stockholm.

Alone in her apartment, she has written her memoirs so that her beloved great niece will know the story of Doris's life, and the history of her own. This is unbeknownst to Jenny until Doris becomes seriously ill and Jenny travels to Sweden to be with her.

This is a gentle and touching story that left me feeling satisfied, peaceful and hopeful, and is a reminder that no one, no matter how old, is any less important or is any less complex, than those with many decades ahead.

Note: this book was translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies.

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...