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The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
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review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
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review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Flight by Lynn Steger Strong
Whoah, these people! I'm talking in reference to characters in Lynn Steger Strong's marvellous novel Flight but I do mean people, since they're so real.
We're introduced to three siblings and their families joining together to celebrate the holiday season. The tradition is for them to meet at their mother Helen's house in Florida though this year, following her death, Martin and Tess, Kate and Josh, with their children are meeting at Henry and Alice's house in upstate New York.
This novel addresses collectivity as a theme. The siblings' mother had been the one to actively bring together the families, encouraging traditions with eating, festivities and capturing the emotions and shared experiences of the annual family event. We learn their stories through each of their intertwined viewpoints, offering overlapping opinions on events.
This is a quiet literary novel and I love it! Its network of privileged middle class people tell us how they live, how they interact, how they parent, how they cope with the intricacies of family life and its various challenges. The annual celebration offers explosions of memories from years past alongside planned events and manufactured festivity. The characters are very much caught up in their own lives.
When an overlap with a less fortunate family network occurs and the child of a young mother who Alice is caring for in her role as social worker goes missing, the other families are drawn to take stock of what's really happening in their lives.
Highly recommend this novel if you have strong family connections but know that every new relationship or life connection adds a slight shift to a family network.
Can't wait to discuss it with friends at Lidija Hilje's writers' bookclub.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I love the perception of circuses and all that they do and can represent. I feel a mix of emotions about the treatment of people and animals and I have one memory of attending a circus tent performance as a child. The excitement and anticipation and awe at all the magic was huge! I greatly enjoyed 'Water for Elephants' by Sara Gruen.
However, I was expecting so much more from this novel. I've read what has been said about the book and I understand it is considered Adult fiction, yet to me it really feels like YA fantasy. Erin Morgenstern's second novel 'The Starless Sea' is a YA love story.
There are intermittent single chapters which speak to the reader beyond the fourth wall, for example: 'With your ticket in hand, you follow a continuous line of patrons into the circus, watching the rhythmic motion of the black-and-white clock as you wait." There are some interesting characters and a love interest that develops. There is beautiful sensory imagery to describe the unique setting of this circus. It has some great components, yet the whole novel didn't meld together well enough to hold my attention.
If you like a labyrinth of a book with twists, mystical elements and unanswered questions, this might be for you.
The first line of this novel is cracking though! "The circus arrives without warning," as is the last, "You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream."
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Love and Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food and Love
What a beautiful glimpse of a novel. This is a short, tasty read and one to recommend to women of all ages who have ever enjoyed written correspondence or learning through letters.
Written during the pandemic, Kim Fay notes that she 'wanted to create a balm, a small antidote for the disorienting and uncertain times we were living through,' and 'a book that could be read and savored in one nourishing sitting.' Fay's communication between two female characters in 1960s America is exactly as she had hoped.
The novel opens with Mrs Imogen Fortier, a married columnist in Seattle, receiving a fan letter and a packet of saffron from Miss Joan Bergstrom, an educated aspiring young food writer , in L.A.
Friendship, Food and Love are the simple but effective themes of this quick read. Additional layers include the hidden memories of Immy's husband's experience of war, their shifting relationship, concern about the Cuban Missile Crisis and grief following the Kennedy assassination, culinary influences from foreign climes, literary indicators like a mention of Joan Didion, journalism and career prospects for women at the time.
There are many motifs and images which dot through the narrative, such as postcards of paintings like 'Young Girls at the Piano' in the Musee du Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Berlitz guidebook, Seattle's World Fair, magazines like NorthWest Home & Life and much more wonderful specificity, making the book authentic and real.
This is a novel to buy for your closest female family, your mother, your sister(s) and your best friend. It's the kind of novel I could have read aloud to my Grandmother or Nonna. They would have loved it. My own mother will be getting a copy for her birthday!
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Really good, actually by Monica Heisey
I got to about half way through this novel before I realised what it reminded me of, and why I felt uncomfortably embarrassed for its raw presentation of emotion mixed rather roughly with wit.
The book it reminds me of is: The Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend, which I read as a young teen and which dealt with adolescent issues as opposed to new adult troubles experienced by Maggie, the 20 something divorcee in Monica Heisey's novel. Heisey's novel is a cross between Townsend's teen diary novel and Bridget Jones, which I also didn't love.
I fear I am not the target reader for this novel! I did finish and had a few laughs at the quips shared by poor Maggie, yet I didn't love the character's self-obsessive musing. Ironically she seemed like a pretty normal, young girl suffering her own emotions, yet she trammelled herself out of her two-year marriage, simply by pushing away someone who she hadn't given the chance to understand her. There is a sad scene on a bus where Maggie finally sees Jon, her husband and their cat, who she even calls her 'little family' and she 'took a breath, stood and walked past them...' My final feeling is that she brought it on herself and willed the breakup to happen, confirmed by her unreliable narration. I'm not sure that's the way Monica Heisey wanted her readers to feel though? Maybe that's an old-fashioned point of view. I am now in my 40s!
The message that dwells with me is Jon's frustrated exhalation over the phone via the counsellor when he says, 'I don't know,' he said. "I guess I was mad. I don't know why you thought you could suggest we get divorced and then have me hold your hand through it too."
Melodramatic, self-centredness, not sure if this is what we're calling narcissism, but it made me sad for many young people nowadays, and so I can't say this novel was a great read for me.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Britt-Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman
I didn't enjoy this novel as much as I wanted to. I found many of the female protagonist's idiosyncrasies cliched. It's a basic storyline with some varied characters though the setting of a remote town (presumably in Sweden) paints a pitiful picture of place, with which I couldn't connect. I wouldn't ever want to go there!
Britt-Marie is a 63-year old woman who leaves her cheating husband after 40 years, cajoles an assistant at a job-seekers' agency to find her work and moves to a remote town called Borg, to clean a youth recreational centre. She has always hated football, yet ends up coaching a young team. She makes a life of her own. Her obsession with cleaning and baking soda forms a central thread.
The story hits some complications when the narrator makes it unclear whether she will return to her husband or remain to complete the commitment she has made to her young football team. There are also sad incidences later in the novel connected with the low social standing of many of the families in the community.
I watched a trailer for the film made of this novel and I'm certain it is a better format for this story. A lot of the training and encouragement for the young needy football players is missing from, only hinted at, in the novel's narrative. On screen, I can imagine the slow shifts in story and representation of characters is more powerful.
I'm not against the prospect of reading other novels by Fredrik Backman, yet this one didn't work for me.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
