Category: Fiction

Remember THIS POST?  Well readers I finally finished A Paris Apartment, a novel based on the life of Marthe de Florian and her forgotten apartment crammed with antiques and a famous portrait.

I admire any first time author who has the courage and fortitude to keep writing and get a novel (any novel) published, so it is with mixed feelings that I must tell you I tried to look at this debut from several different viewpoints, but there is no getting around my disappointment.

Perhaps I had unrealistically high expectations – what a great story could be told — the unopened apartment, the story behind the painting, Marthe and the time of the Belle Epoque*.  Then contrast that with the modern-day story of the antiques experts who must have been agog at the opportunity to research the priceless antiques and delve into Marthe’s journals.

The actual Marthe started out as a bartender at the famous Les Folies Bergères, became an elegant courtesan known for having famous lovers, including a few prime ministers, a French president and the artist Boldini.  Marthe left the apartment to her granddaughter, Madame de Florian, who shuttered the apartment and fled Paris at the start of WWII.

So, as you know from the previous post, I was seriously excited to open this book and settle in for a good read.

The chapters alternate between Marthe de Florian’s story told through fictionalized diary entries and April Vogt, a current-day American furniture expert from Sotheby’s who is called to Paris to help prepare the contents of the apartment for auction.

Marthe’s storyline was at times fascinating and the author (thankfully) took much from her actual life — how she created her name, her elegant persona and how she dug herself out of a brothel into high class society during the Bell Epoque.  In contrast, the modern day story of April Vogt reads like poorly written chic-lit. I found my self slogging through April’s chapters and only somewhat enjoying Marthe’s.

There is some magical writing – the description of the famous chandelier at Les Folies Bergères is wonderful.  The Paris setting(s) are beautifully and deliciously described.  However, Ms. Gable stumbles in re-telling Marthe’s story, her diary entries seemed staged and she lets modern day language creep in.  Sadly April is completely one-dimensional, so much so that this reader ended up disliking her character and her storyline was so predictable that I found myself imagining other outcomes.  The novel borders on the raunchy and is written with such tactlessness that I cringed for the real Marthe de Florian.  I found the ending almost ridiculous and in need of major editing – or perhaps, even completely deleted

Sigh — The Paris Apartment gets many 4 and 5 star reviews on both Goodreads and Amazon, so I am in the minority here.  (Perhaps you’ll like this novel – go and seek it out if it interests you.)

Unfortunately, I wanted more — more richness, more depth, better writing – not this breezy and shallow version of what in reality must have been a fascinating story. The discovery of the forgotten apartment and its contents, the true life story of Marthe de Florian  — they deserve a more intelligent telling

 

*Belle Epoque (Beautiful Era) was a period in the European history that is conventionally dated as starting in 1871 and ending when WWI began in 1914.

 

While I’m hunkered down reading THIS, I’ll quickly take a break to tell you about a very important little book.  Address Unknown was thrust upon me by one of my favorite bookstore customers – an older Jewish man — insisting it was a vastly important classic.  I looked down at the slim volume in my hands and wondered at his statement – how could this be a classic?  That night not only did I devour it, I immediately turned back to the beginning and read it again.  In the years since, it has a honored place on my bookshelf (right next to 84, Charing Cross Road) and I often pull it down to read it yet again and marvel at the author’s achievement within.

You may think I’ve lost it over here at Book Barmy, as this book is merely 54 pages long (eight of them blank), made up entirely of letters, and it comes with a New York Times hyperbolic blurb “This modern story is perfection itself.  It is the most effective indictment of Nazism to appear in fiction.”

Address Unknown was first published in 1938 in Story magazine as a warning for Americans of the true nature of the Nazi menace, Reader’s Digest later reprinted the story and it went into its first world-wide book printing in 1939 — but was banned in Germany.

The book’s afterword, written by Taylor’s son, reveals that the idea for the story came from a small news article:  American students visiting Germany wrote home about the Nazi atrocities.  Fraternity brothers back in the U.S. thought it would be funny to send them letters making fun of Hitler, and the visiting students wrote back, “Stop it. We’re in danger. These people don’t fool around. You could murder [someone] by writing letters like this”.  Thus emerged the idea of  the “letter as a weapon”.  Kressmann Taylor wanted to write about the truth of what was happening in Nazi Germany — a truth most Americans, including Charles Lindbergh, would not accept, mired in American isolationism.

The letters in Address Unknown span only 16 months and begin in 1932 as a fairly routine correspondence between art gallery owners – one having returned to Germany with his family — the other still in San Francisco holding down the gallery business.  They are close friends, their families grew up together and there is much warmth in their early letters.  But then the letters turn chilling and then downright menacing.  What is most impressive about the construction of this storyline (other than its epistolary structure) is the weight of the time passing between the letters. These long silences say as much as the letters.  The ending still makes me sit back and wonder whether what I am feeling is valid or disgusting. How often does that happen? This is the writing craft at its finest.

When Katherine Kressmann Taylor first submitted the story to her editor, he deemed it “too strong to appear under the name of a woman,” and published the work under the name Kressmann Taylor, dropping her first name. She used this name professionally for the rest of her life.  Address Unknown was largely forgotten until 1995, when the book was republished to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps.  At that time Kressmann was 91 and she happily spent her remaining years signing copies and giving interviews until her death at 93.

Address Unknown is readily available at your library or local independent bookstore.

 

Lately I’ve been reading nothing but Kindle books and needed to feel a real book in my hands.  I searched my shelves and found this little volume tucked behind another row of other books.  (Oh come on, you do it too, double shelve your books for maximum space.)  Anyway, I’d forgotten I had this book, had never read it and apparently purchased it back in 1988 when it was first published in paperback. “Well what ya know?” I muttered to myself.

You see, Ann Patchett single-handedly brought The All Of It back from obscurity and into a new 2011 reprinting.  She hand sells this title to customers at her bookstore, Parnassus Books and she raved about it during a NPR interview several years ago. I also remembered a writer friend, who doesn’t read much contemporary fiction had sung the praises of this small novella.

So I sat down to read, two hours later I closed the book and gazed about in a daze.  I had been gone, transported  by Ms. Haien’s magical writing.  And, oh what writing — long sentences that flow flawlessly and dialogue so realistic you actually seem to hear the characters conversations.

Set in Ireland during early 1900’s, Father DeClan is at the bedside of a dying parishioner who is only able to make a partial confession before he dies.  So it is left to his widow Enda to tell him “the all of it”.

“I appreciate, Enda, that it’ll be no easier for you to tell than for me to hear”, replies Father DeClan.

“You’ll need to be patient Father,” she qualified.

“I will of course, Enda”

And so it begins — and it’s a complex and beautiful story as Father DeClan’s religious beliefs face off with the hard realities of Enda’s tale of survival.  At times both subtle and harsh, The All of It lays bare the complexity of choices made and the consequences of chances taken.

Enda’s tale of hardship and struggle is juxtaposed with Father DeClan salmon fishing on an Irish river bank during a cold and drenching rainstorm.  These fishing scenes add another layer of nuance – is it meant to be a metaphor?  You will have to decide for yourself, but I found the fishing descriptions allegorical as the Father struggles to fish in an unkind river while trying to understand Enda’s sin.

The characters are complex in this largely dialogue-driven narrative — even the dead husband comes alive during his full life.  The Father’s struggles to re-arrange his beliefs, Enda’s lack of shame in her actions — all revealed through dialogue.

The ending is somewhat unresolved, which left me creating possibilities for an ending…mulling it over long after I finished reading. I urge you to find this book at your local bookstore or library and settle down with this short novella, revel in Ms. Haien’s writing and make up your own ending.

 

Small Blessings follows the intertwined lives of academics and their family members in a small Southern college town. 

The above synopsis almost made me pass on this novel – sounded slightly mundane and I’m not a fan of academia novels.

Then, one Saturday morning,  I heard Ms. Woodroof interviewed on NPR (she is a staff writer for NPR) and I warmed to her voice, attitude and that she’s a debut novelist at 67 years of age.  (Approaching said decade myself, I seek any and all such bright, uplifting statistics, if you please)

I remembered I had Small Blessings on my Kindle and turned the first pages that evening — still convinced it would be a predictable read.

Yes, at first this is your average story:  In a small, sleepy college town Tom Putnam, an English professor with a mentally troubled wife, is flatly going about his life when suddenly there is Rose, a lovely new employee of the campus bookstore. Tom and his wife are charmed by Rose and make plans for dinner.

Still thinking oh yes, a Lifetime movie plot is about to unwind, I carried on and wham! The story suddenly twists and turns.  The characters become wholly unpredictable…and I found myself turning the pages and falling headlong into Ms. Woodroof’s atmospheric story.

Without giving away too much, Tom’s poor wife dies in an auto accident during the first few chapters, his mother-in-law, Agnes (my favorite character) becomes his ally.  Tom falls a little bit more in love with Rose each day.  At the same time, a past affair brings him Henry, a 10-year old boy, who may (or may not) be his son.  Stir all this up with oddball (often drunk) supporting characters, a Southern town that knows everyone’s secrets, some melodrama and you’re in for a journey.

The campus atmosphere is beautifully rendered in an insulated Southern setting, but Ms. Woodroof also slyly lampoons the institution’s pretenses.  The front lawns of the faculty housing are beautifully maintained for showing off to prospective students and parents, while the back yards grow weedy dependent on the faculty to tend – which they don’t.

I had my quibbles with Small Blessings. I found Tom Putnam to be almost catatonic in his passiveness, perhaps as an academic, he lives in his head – but at times I found it very irritating – especially in his marriage to Marjory:    “Conscience was such a delicate balancing act.  There was what he knew was right, what he ought to think was right, and what he wanted to do, all to be considered.  It was the ultimate moral chess match, and it was the only game that mismatched married people got to play.”

The mental illness and death of Tom’s wife, Marjory are treated with a light, almost cavalier hand – as in this from Agnes, her mother:   “Marjory is, I really do think, better off dead.  I don’t know what dead is, of course, but it’s got to be more fun than my daughter’s life was.”  and this later quote  “the best thing she ever did in life was to give up on it.  And that’s a bleak as a life can get.”

In the end, I found this an unpredictably candid and real storyline.  Small Blessings teeters on the edge of soap-opera stereotype, but then surprises the reader with realism. The characters are flawed but ultimately loved.  This is a story full of tragic events but it overflows with optimism.  One of my favorite quotes:  “When the going gets tough, the tough suck it up,” Agnes said. “The rest get run over.”

The outline of this novel screams “make me a TV movie!”, but if it is optioned, I hope they capture the story’s quirks and messiness.

Review copy provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Days Until Christmas

Christmas Stories – Everyman’s Pocket Classics

I picked this up years ago at the library book sale – attracted by the pretty cover and because I’m fond of the Everyman’s editions, so handsomely done and always with sewn-in ribbon bookmarks (I’m such a sucker for those).  These small volumes always have this quote on their frontpiece:

Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side.

They really “get” bibliophiles and our most needs to always have a book by our side.

Christmas Stories is a treasury of short fiction by great writers of the past two centuries—including Dickens and Tolstoy to John Updike and Alice Munro. As a literary subject, Christmas has inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fanciful flights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression is represented in this wonderfully engaging anthology.

Admittedly, until this year I had only read a the first few stories – all Christmas classics, O’Henry, Dickens and Willa Cather’s delightful The Burglar’s Christmas (I never miss a chance to re-read that one) but last night I delved into the back of this collection and read two short stories that left me really quite depressed.  One by Richard Ford about a dispirited dysfunctional family on a ski vacation and then Alice Munro uses two workers to deliver a character study as they dismember turkeys at a slaughterhouse Ugh.  I had to make a cup of sleepytime tea just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

So, I’m putting this charming looking book on trial, and will read a few more to determine its fate as a coveted member of my Christmas Books Collection.

 

A Literary Christmas – An Anthology from The British Library

From the fly leaf:  A Literary Christmas is a seasonal compendium that collects poems, short stories, and prose by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’s Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, the selections featured here are representative of times old and new. Readers will enjoy a convivial Christmas Day with Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Nancy Mitford; venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Charles Dickens’s ever-popular Mr. Pickwick; and warm up by the fire with the seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde.

This awful cover is proof that I shouldn’t be lured by a pretty one (see above) — this is a joyful collection of stories, poems, carols, essays and illustrations.  The editors cleverly organized the book in such categories as  “Before Christmas”, “Snow and Ice” and “Christmas Fare”.  

Look, here’s Samuel Pepys Christmas Day diary entry from 1662 and a treatise on a doctor-prescribed diet just before Christmas by P.G. Wodehouse.  An except from Cider with Rosie (an English coming of age classic) and Washington Irving’s description of a grand Christmas dinner.  Something for everyone in this lovely book.

Here’s a sample of some of the illustrations within (click to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

So the sage advice of don’t judge a book by its cover stands true.

BUSTED Uh Oh –both volumes include Trollope Christmas stories –despite my claims from this post.  However, we shall speak no further on this subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Days Until Christmas

The newest additions to my Christmas library – purchased for myself at The Booksmith, one of my favorite San Francisco independent bookstores. This store has intriguing events, one of which I have yet to attend  — their six times a year $25 open bar & book swap (tempting, oh so tempting – Melinda you in?).

I know quite a shock, me buying more books — but let’s change the subject…shall we?

I don’t own either of these story collections (see? I needed these) and while I know I’ll enjoy Louise May Alcott, I’ve always had trouble reading Trollope.  Maybe this small volume will get me over the Trollope hurdle and onto his other works.  My grandfather’s book collection includes Barchester Towers and it’s such a lovely edition I would so like to get past the first chapter.  Maybe now I will. (Can we say rationalization?)

These are sublime little volumes — beautifully designed—with foil-stamped jackets, decorative endpapers, and vintage nameplates.

They’re part of Penguin’s Christmas Classics series, they’ll publish only a few each year…here’s this year’s list.

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Christmas at Thompson Hall: And Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope
• A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories by Louisa May Alcott
• The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol
• The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann

 

I’m proud I limited myself to only two from the list.  I came very close to also owning the Nutcracker, but I pulled my errant hand back just in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 Days Until Christmas

A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire by Charles Dickens

From the frontpiece:

Published in its entirety for the first time since 1852, this shining collection of Christmas tales was originally selected by Charles Dickens for his periodical “Household Words”. Each story varies in theme and tone, with scenes of romance, theft, justice, and heart-warming family reunions set alongside haunting tales and chilling ghost stories, while topics addressed range from the meaning of Christmas to disability and race. Contributing authors include Elizabeth Gaskell, Edmund Saul Dixon, Edmund Oliver, and of course Dickens himself, making this a brilliant example of Victorian storytelling and an insightful reflection on the holiday season during the 19th century.

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Dickens was editor of Household Words – a very popular Victorian periodical, with sales at the time in the six figures (wow!).  Dickens often commissioned his favorite authors to impersonate an event and write short story installments from different perspectives. In these stories (published as a 1852 Christmas supplement issue) Dickens had each of the authors take on an imaginary role in an extended Victorian family and its servants.  Utilizing these various voices from very different classes, the tales are presented in the age old tradition of round-robin style before a roaring fire – sometimes the characters even address one another (which I found delightful).

I will say this is no Hallmark card and these tales are often quite un-Christmasy — from an accidental murder, to ghosts and the mistreatment of a maid.  But this being Dickens – there is always uplift and hope within each tale and the storyline, despite being written by different authors, compels the reader to the next narrator.

Because this is the Victorian period (and the often pedantic Dickens), the writing can be a rough road for a modern reader.  As in this example from the beginning of Dickens first story entry:

He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire…

I promise you’ll eventually get in the cadence of the writing but it does take some concentration and perseverance.   It is well worth the effort.  This is a wonderful view into the Victorian era – where life was hard but hope and charity were steadfast.

8 Days Until Christmas

 

By now you know of my fondness for epistolary novels and when it involves Christmas letters – well, all the more enticing.  I’ve read this book almost every year since I received it as a gift from my friend Jane.  Turns out my copy (left) is a first edition and the cover was changed with subsequent editions (right).

Lee Smith is a Southern writer, most famous for Fair and Tender Ladies (add that one to your list) who writes compelling family sagas without slobbering or being sticky sweet.

This novella tells the life stories of several generations of women through their family letters at Christmas.  The women write of their struggles to cope with the hardships each generation is given–a husband off in WWII, a damaged Viet Nam veteran, divorce, loss of a parent, a child leaving home and the fate of being handed a life you can’t fathom but try to accept.

Not your typical “feel good” Christmas story – this is real life, messy and unforgiving, but still filled with love and family ties.  And it includes recipes – each woman shares what she has tried cooking and writes out how she prepared the dish.  The dishes range in time period, a simple custard during WWII to the novelty of processed food in the sixties, and then a back-to-the-earth vegetarian recipe.   Nicely, the talk of food in the letters set the tone without overpowering the story — when the Southern grandmother takes her first bite of a bagel, she exclaims “Whoever thinks this is good has never had a biscuit!”.

The ending leaves a big question making me wonder if Ms. Lee had plans to continue the saga – but sadly there have been no sequels.

Excerpted  from the back cover:

Dear Friends,

Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.

I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday–Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.

With warmest greetings, Lee Smith

The book is a lovely quiet holiday read, and it holds its standing as one of my favorite Christmas books to re-read each season, to remind me of what I hold dear about the holidays, the embracing of loved ones, good cheer and charity.

I read like the wind — two books over the weekend.  Admittedly, they were quite short books, but I seem to have reclaimed my reading mojo.

Both current French fiction with wry Gallic style and observations. (Sorry to admit, I read them translated to English – my French is nowhere near “reading novels” proficient)

 The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain

Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him.

Daniel’s thrill at being in such close proximity to the most powerful man in the land persists even after the presidential party has gone, which is when he discovers that Mitterrand’s black felt hat has been left behind.

After a few moments’ soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow … different.

A french fairy tale of sorts, set during the Mitterrand years (1980s) tells of a hat lost, found and lost again and its magical powers of transformation.  This is a fast-paced and whimsical story chock full of French perspective.

Voila – here is President Mitterrand’s hat accidentally left behind for a hapless accountant to snitch and wear out of the restaurant.  The hat brings the new wearer confidence and recognition and when he leaves it behind on a train, it is found and worn by a woman needing courage and hope.   The hat brings each new finder just what they need to change their lives. Somewhat improbably, all the characters connect in the latter half of the book, and the epilogue cunningly ties everything together and back to the President.

Layered over and under this simple tale is Monsieur Laurain’s fully observed French society of the 1980’s.  You are there — when France was still Starbucks free and regular workers could afford a lunch of oysters and crisp white wine.  Decades-old class distinctions were just starting to crumble and new political views were taking hold.  Neighborhood bistros have not yet evolved into swanky restaurants and an answering machine is new technology.

There are inside observations that will be obvious to the native French but have to be teased out if you’re like me, an unaware American.  Who knew that the pronunciation of Mitterrand’s name was code for a French person’s political views?  Or that such serious consideration is given to a choice of perfume for both French women and men?

This novel reminded me of an O’Henry or Evelyn Waugh story but with a delightful French twist.  At only 200 pages this book goes quickly – and perfect for that picky Francophile on your gift list.

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My Wish List by Gregoire Delacourt

If you won the lottery, would you trade your life for the life of your dreams?

Jocelyne lives in a small town in France where she runs a fabric shop, has been married to the same man for twenty-one years, and has raised two children. She is beginning to wonder what happened to all those dreams she had when she was seventeen. Could her life have been different?

Then she wins the lottery—and suddenly finds the world at her fingertips. But she chooses not to tell anyone, not even her husband—not just yet. Without cashing the check, she begins to make a list of all the things she could do with the money. But does Jocelyne really want her life to change?

This is a sad but thoughtful novella and the author writes with cynicism and sentimentality.  A study of contrasts all wrapped up in a winning-the-lottery dream.

Jocelyne is ordinary – really ordinary, but she has hopes, wishes and desires.  She is married to a materialistic man, her grown children are a disappointment and her closest friends are silly twins who, unlike Jocelyne, are young, thin and desired.  Out of character one day, Jocelyne buys a lottery ticket and somehow predicts to herself that she will win.  Thus begin the lists – her lists of things she needs.

When she does actually win the lottery, she hides the win from everyone, doesn’t tell a soul, except her father who is in a nursing home and has a six minute memory span.  Her conversations with her father about the money and what she should do, are alternately hysterical and heartbreaking.

Jocelyne fears the change and impact of such riches (18.5 million Euros).  She knows her husband wants a flat screen TV, a sports car, and a fancy watch, while Jocelyne’s list includes a new shower curtain and a better reading lamp.  As the novel progresses, her lists evolve to include going to a spa and a Chanel bag.  She kindly starts to include things her husband would want such as every James Bond Film on DVD.

Jocelyne carries on with her life, she works in a fabric shop and has a very successful crafting blog, but her hidden lottery check is never far from her mind. Soon her lists start to include such sad items as To be told I’m beautiful…and To be envied, at last.

OK, so you think you get it – the lottery win is a metaphor for life and how things of value can’t be bought.  But here’s where Monsieur Delacourt doesn’t take the easy road, he lets Jocelyne want her things as badly as her desires.  Such as this passage:

“Because our needs are our little daily dreams.  The little things to be done that project us into tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the future;  trivial things that we plan to buy next week allowing us to think that next week we’ll still be alive.  It’s the need for a nonslip bath mat that keeps us going.”

Jocelyne is the only fully developed character, I couldn’t warm to any of the others, but she is enough to pull the novel along.  The novel is told entirely in the present tense, which is a typical for modern-day French novels, and I’m happy the translator didn’t try to adapt the style for English-readers. Here’s a quote from the book that is insight into this  author’s unusual writing style:

“I love words.  I love long sentences, sighs that go on forever.  I love it when words sometimes hide what they’re saying, or say it in a new way.”

I think M. Delacourt gets a few things wrong.  Jocelyne’s husband is named Jocelyn which the author introduces slyly, (and it’s important later in the book) but I found it distracting. This male author has Jocelyne (the wife — see, confusing!) viewing her naked overweight body in the mirror and thinking it beautiful.  I doubt any overweight woman would do that – maybe French women, but not this American women – perhaps I lack such evolved confidence, but it felt female-false. There is a betrayal and an strangely abrupt bittersweet ending, which I won’t spoil here.

At only 163 pages, this novella packs the import of a much longer novel, I find myself thinking about it still.

Note:  The original French title was List of My Desires – which I think would have been a better English title as well.

My Wish List was provided by Penguin via NetGalley