Another masterpiece from one of the finest postwar Italian writers.
A young man flees to England, leaving his family in shambles behind him.
Michele is the only son of an Italian family. His parents are divorced, his sisters grown. It’s 1970, and Michele may or may not be involved in some sort of radical politics. He may or may not be the father of a newborn baby. In any case, he’s just taken off for England, leaving everyone else behind. In the latest installment of Ginzburg’s (Family Lexicon, 2017, etc.) oeuvre to appear in English, it is Michele’s absence that drives the novel and each of its self-involved characters—Michele’s mother, Adriana; his sister, Angelica; friend Osvaldo; and Mara, the young woman whose baby might be his. The novel is a swiftly moving blend of dialogue and letters. “I doubt you’ll come over for my birthday,” Adriana writes Michele, “because I don’t think you remembered it.” Adriana’s letters can be passive-aggressive and self-aggrandizing, but at the same time, Ginzburg has made her—and all the others—into a nuanced, sympathetic character. Some of the best scenes involve Mara, who, with baby in tow, is a flighty mess: perpetually broke, unemployed, and disorganized, she relies on the people around her to get her through. And she’s hilarious. “Your sister Angelica came to see me,” she writes to Michele. “She gave me money. Sixty thousand lire. I can’t do anything with sixty thousand lire, but it was a nice gesture.” As a whole, the novel speaks to Ginzburg’s remarkable range as a writer: She could and did write deeply moving works about the Second World War, which she survived, but she could also write comically. Beneath the currents of humor and wit is a subtle work of insight and feeling.
Another masterpiece from one of the finest postwar Italian writers.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2799-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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