The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

There is no shortage of historical fiction that examines the relationship between slaveowners and their slaves in the 18th century.  The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom, takes that theme and gives it a twist.  The novel is told by two narrators-Lavinia, an Irish indentured servant brought to the plantation as a small child, and Belle, the mulatto daughter of the owner, the Cap'n, who lives and works in the kitchen house.  Lavinia is raised with the slave children, but because she is white the Cap'n always had other plans for her.  Having lived in Ireland prior to coming to the plantation, Lavinia does not understand the complexities of the racial boundaries in 18th century America, and in her naivete she often unintentionally creates problems for her "family"-the black slaves that she lived with for most of her childhood.

When Lavinia becomes a teen, she is sent to live with the family of the captain's wife.  There, she is brought into the household as a young woman being groomed for a respectable marriage and the life of a white woman in plantation society.  Despite the kindness shown to her during this time, she longs to return home to her "family", never realizing how different their lives have become.  Through family tragedies, brutal abuse, and failed marriages, the characters of The Kitchen House demonstrate the corrosive nature of oppression and slavery on the men and women affected by it.

I read this novel with a sick sense of inevitability.  Having read many such stories in the past, I had more than enough background knowledge to know that things were not likely to turn out happily for the residents of Tall Oaks plantation.  But the unusual main characters and the seeming reasonableness of some of the white characters gave me a small hope that perhaps this time history would be different.  The fact is that in the end there was tragedy, but there was also hope and at least some peace for Lavinia, Belle, and the other slaves.  Grissom's treatment of the captain's wife, Miss Martha, and Lavinia herself, highlighted the similarities between the oppression of women and blacks in the antebellum south.  Miss Martha may have lived in the big house and been waited on by house slaves, but she had little more freedom than they when it came to making decisions about her life.  I think that Grissom did a good job in showing how the rigid social norms of the slave/slave-owner society negatively affected everyone in some way.  Sympathetic whites were forced to support and promote treatment of slaves that went against what reason and compassion would say was right; the oppressed minorities scrambled daily to forestall the anger and violence simmering just below the surface of the plantation; and other whites-especially white men tasked with "working" the slaves-became brutal and mean as a result of the culture of oppression that led to their unchecked power over others.

The book, while chock full of meaning, was also a page-turner. I had to keep reading to see if my sense of unease really did lead to the inevitable tragedy I imagined was coming..  I described it to some friends as soap opera in a historical context.  The misunderstandings and missed opportunities led to romantic entanglements right out of a Gothic romance.  But unlike historical romance books, which are basically love stories lightly dipped in history, the historical context of the relationships in this book are an integral part of the story.

The Soldier's Wife by Margaret Leroy

• ISBN-13: 9781401341701
• Publisher: Voice
• Publication date: June 2011
• Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pgs
• Source: Personal Library

• After reading the blurb at the back of this book, I knew I have to read it as the story is about the German Occupation in Guernsey during WWII, and also it revolves around the life of a woman whose husband has gone off to war and how she has fallen in love with a German captain. 

Vivienne de la Mare knew that life is not easy during the war times, especially when she has two young daughters and an ailing mother-in-law to take care of. Before the German soldiers invaded their town, she and her daughters are supposed to have left for London but Vivienne chicken out at the last minute after seeing so many people squeezed into the small ferry and that they had to travel under bad weather. Knowing that she has no choice but to stay, she grits her teeth and continues her life back at her countryside home. 

When a few German soldiers take up residence in the house next door to hers, she thought that as long as they remain low profile and discreet, then they would be safe but alas she never expect that she would fall in love with Gunther Lehmann, a German captain who is not only their enemy but also one who has a family like her too. 

Vivienne knew she is not supposed to love this man, but her relationship with her husband has already turned cold way before he has gone off to war. Plus, Vivienne feels connected with Gunther and she has never felt so lively with a man, at least not with her husband. So there begins their secret affair, and Vivienne now has to face another fear aside from the war - for being discovered by her family and the community. 

Life continues until a day her young daughter told her about a 'ghost' she met - a prisoner who has escaped from a Nazi work camp. Either feeling sorry for the prisoner or having guilty conscious for falling in love with the enemy, she decides to help the prisoner by giving him food and a place to stay, without the knowledge to anyone except her young daughter. It is at this time that she questions herself and wonder how much she could trust Gunther. 

Filled with intensity and emotions, The Soldier's Wife is one of the best fictions I read this year to date. Aside from the writing, the setting in Guernsey interest me as I don't think I have ever read a story set in that place before (yes, I should consider reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) and on top of that, both the plot and the characterisations are riveting and at times, I wasn't sure if I should feel angry or sympathy towards Vivienne. She isn't a strong heroine in my opinion (i.e.her indecisiveness) ; but the good thing is, she is a compassionate person. 

The scenes about her relationships between her two young daughters and her ailing mother-in-law are another highlight of this story. Through Vivienne's eyes, I understand how difficult it would be to be the only family member to take charge of the household. And finally, how would one justify her relationship with Gunther? It sounds wrong to fall in love with your enemy, but from another point, he is just an ordinary man, only with a wrong nationality. So what is Vivienne to do? I suppose you have to read this book yourself to find out, but I just want to say the ending ends well with me. 

Lord John and the Private Matter, Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is well-known for writing the Outlander series, a historical/fantasy/romance series about a Scottish nobleman and his time-traveling wife Claire.  Extensively researched, very detailed, the Outlander books are a fun, engaging romp through 18th century Scottish history.  Or at least, the first two are-those are the ones I've read.  At any rate, what the Outlander books are NOT are traditional mysteries.  But it turns out that Gabaldon has a knack for those as well, as she aptly demonstrates in the Lord John Grey series.

The first book in the series is Lord John and the Private Matter.  The main character is Lord John Grey, an important but not always present character in the Outlander books.  Goodreads has this summary of the plot:

The year is 1757. On a clear morning in mid-June, Lord John Grey emerges from London’s Beefsteak Club, his mind in turmoil. A nobleman and a high-ranking officer in His Majesty’s Army, Grey has just witnessed something shocking. But his efforts to avoid a scandal that might destroy his family are interrupted by something still more urgent: the Crown appoints him to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade in arms, who may have been a traitor.
Obliged to pursue two inquiries at once, Major Grey finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery and betrayal that touches every stratum of English society — and threatens all he holds dear. From the bawdy houses of London’s night-world to the stately drawing rooms of the nobility, and from the blood of a murdered corpse to the thundering seas ruled by the majestic fleet of the East India Company, Lord John pursues the elusive trails of a vanishing footman and a woman in green velvet, who may hold the key to everything — or nothing.

And lest you think that I am just feeling too lazy with my summer brain to actually write my own summary, I will tell you that I've spent the last 20 minutes composing and erasing prospective summaries-the plot is intricate and detailed, with many moving parts.  Gabaldon's Lord John reminds me of the William Monk books by Anne Perry, who also writes very well-researched historical mysteries.    But there is one major difference-Lord John Grey is gay.  Since the 18th century was not known for its acceptance of homosexuals, this adds tension to the whole story.  Gabaldon gives us a fascinating look at the gay culture of London in the mid-1700s, and weaves it seamlessly into the story so that it feels authentic rather than contrived.  Because Lord John is also a character from the Outlander series there are a few mentions of Jamie Fraser and Claire, but for the most part this is a stand-alone series that does not require that you read the very loooonnnnngggg Outlander books to enjoy.  In fact, if you enjoy Gabaldon's writing but think the Outlander books are too long, then this series is for you!

Her Name was Mary Sutter...

and sadly, I didn't really care.  My Name is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliveira, details the story of Mary Sutter, a wealthy midwife living in Albany, New York at the outbreak of the Civil War.  Her one dream is to become a surgeon, but she has been turned down by every medical school and doctor in Albany.  When the war starts, she sees her chance to get into the field of medicine by becoming part of Dorothea Dix's nurses corps.  She travels to Washington, DC and bullies herself into a position at the Union Hotel Hospital.  And then there's some family tragedy, and some arguments with the head doctor, and some gruesome descriptions of injuries and disease...and then I gave up.

Everything about this book makes it something I should enjoy.  The genre, the theme, the feminist message-all things that resonate with me as a reader and a woman.  However, I found myself unable to work up much caring about the characters or what was happening to them.  The story was slow moving, the characters all annoyed me at some point or another-and not in a good, "ooo, I love to hate them" sort of way-and the descriptions of the barbaric state of medicine during that time were more disgusting than instructive.  Ordinarily I enjoy reading about the political machinations that lead to major world events, but even the political insights into the disorganization and incompetence that resulted in a greater human toll than necessary couldn't keep me going.  I will admit I stopped about 220 pages in-even though that was 2/3 of the way through,  I have too many other things to read to spend any more time on a book that was clearly not doing anything for me, intellectually, spiritually, or from an entertainment stand-point.  I assume since this book was nominated for the Orange Prize** that other people must have enjoyed it more than me, so give it a try if it sounds good to you.  You can tell me how it ended.

**Apparently, it did not in fact get nominated for the Orange Prize-as Ms. Oliveira herself was kind enough to point out in a comment below.  Darn TBR piles and their lack of appropriate organization!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Good morning, fellow Monday Morning Readers!  It's been a long time since I have been able to participate in a weekly meme of any kind, so welcome to Book Addict Reviews any fellow bloggers who have not been here before!  I'm glad to be back!

This week, I finished When She Woke by Hillary Jordan.  Amazing speculative fiction a la The Handmaid's Tale about a woman's place in society and reproductive choice.

I am also reading The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson.  This young adult novel tells the story of a group of mixed race friends who start a website to sell t-shirts to people with latte-colored skin as a way to raise money for a summer vacation.  What starts as a joke about their shared experiences as people of mixed racial backgrounds becomes a social justice movement, leading to serious consequences for the girls when their school labels them terrorists.

I'm about to start My Name is Mary Sutter, a historical fiction novel about a woman fighting to be recognized for her medical skills in the mid-18th century.  I guess I must be on a feminist fiction kick right now, since the last few things I have read are falling in that theme.  Given the current state of political discourse about women in this country, I guess maybe that makes sense...

Finally, I am listening to The Grapes of Wrath on audiobook.  I'm glad that I decided to listen rather than read it, because I really feel like the narrator is doing a wonderful job with the character's voices and emotions.  It is the tale of the Joad family-chased off their land during the Depression by the landowners and their tractors, the family takes off west in a converted jalopy, hoping to find work and prosperity in the promised land of California.  Heartbreaking, infuriating, filled with moments of quiet grace, this American classic is a must read.

Have a wonderful reading week, everyone!

Fall of Giants, or How to Fit an Entire War in 1000 Pages

One of the reasons that I love historical fiction is that, when well researched and written, it allows me to learn something without actually have to read a history book.  I guarantee that reading the Little House books by Laura Ingals Wilder in elementary school taught me more about pioneer life than anything in my social studies book.  Same with Tudor England-almost anything I know about Henry VIII, his wives, and the various Thomases in his life is the result of the many, many fictional narratives I have read through the years.  It may not be "hard, academic" fact, but then is any history hard academic fact?  After all, it tends to be written by the victors, as they say.

Ken Follet is the master of the sweeping historical novel.  In Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, he showed us the world of 12th and 13th century England in detail both large and small.  World events intermingle with the day to day lives of the people to create a rich tapestry of story and feeling.  As such, I picked up the audiobook of Fall of Giants knowing that I was going to get a great story with interesting characters, and that I would learn an awful lot in the process. (Plus, it is 30 hours long-30 HOURS!  Talk about getting your money's worth for an audiobook)

Fall of Giants tells the story of World War I through the eyes of characters from various places in the social and political hierarchies.  There is Lord Fitzherbert, a wealthy aristocrat and his sister Maud, a feminist and suffragist.  There is Ethel, Fitzherbert's maid, and her brother Billy, who enters the coal mines at age 13.  In Russia we have Grigori and Lev Peshkov, brothers who are trying to escape the tyranny of the czar and find a better life in America.  There is the German Walter Von Ulrich, a friend of Fitz's from school, and Gus Dewar, an American working in Wilson's White House.  As the characters wend their way through events great and small, connections are made and people are drawn into situations both triumphant and tragic.

Follett obviously researched his little heart out for this book, which comes in at a staggering 985 pages.  As in his other books, he related important world events through the eyes of his major characters, of whom there are many.  And as usual, he created compelling personal stories for each character, heroes and villains alike.  He uses Earl Fitzherbert to show the conservatism and entrenched sense of privilege in the English noble class.  He uses Maud and Ethel to showcase the cause of first wave feminism and the suffrage movement.  Grigori and Lev live in a Russia that is cruel and repressive-and about to change the course of the world through the Bolshevik Revolution.  Gus Dewar represents the rising power of the United States in world affairs.  And Walter Von Ulrich is anything but a villain, though he is the "enemy"-he is handled with the most nuanced care by Follett, representing a younger, more progressive Germany fighting against the old guard in the cause of peace, even as he fights as a soldier on the front lines.

If that sounds like a lot to keep up with, it is.  And this is supposed to be just the first in a trilogy!  There is enough information in this book to make a trilogy of its own.  And that length is my only complaint.  I am not afraid of lengthy books-Under the Dome by Stephen King was one of my favorites last year-but the sheer amount of detail in this novel is at times slightly overwhelming.  While the personal stories of the characters are fairly easy to keep straight, I sometimes found my mind drifting through the the pages and pages of minute detail about specific battles and political machinations.  In fact, listening to it rather than reading it is likely the main reason I finished it.  I suspect that fatigue would have set in, and I would have put it aside to read something else, sure I would get back to it-which is something I rarely manage to do.  That said, I am glad that I stuck with it on my daily commute.  I fell in love with some of the characters as much as I despise others, and I am looking forward to seeing where their lives go, and where the fate of the world goes, in the next (I'm sure, hefty) installment.

Poison Spreads-The Book Thief

Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II.  And that is about all I know-neither of my grandfathers would talk about that time.  Perhaps that's why stories about World War II had always held a fascination for me.  In my teens, I read all of James Michener's books about his time in Japan.  I also discovered books like When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Number the Stars, and of course The Diary of Anne Frank.  I've watched countless documentaries and movies about the Holocaust.  And when I think about World War II, the images I have in my mind are of concentration camps and ovens.  But now I have a new vision to add to my understanding of the madness that was Hilter's Germany.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place during World War II, and tells the story of 10 year old Liesel.  Her mother is forced to place her children into foster care.  Liesel's brother dies on the train taking her to Munich, where she is given into the care of a couple on Himmler Street.  Through the tough love of her foster mother, and the sweet compassion of her foster father, she finds a way to cope with not only her brothers death but the quickly declining standard of living in Germany.  Things go along OK, until the dark night that a Jew shows up at their door looking for sanctuary.

Despite the tragedy and the devastation contained within the story, when I think of a word to describe this book I can only say beautiful.  This book is so heartbreakingly beautiful, I could almost weep just from the use of language.  But the story is so compelling that even if it weren't written so beautifully I would have had a hard time putting it down.  So often books about World War II focus solely on the fate of the Jews-and rightfully so.  There is nothing so important as ensuring that the world never experiences that level of genocide-or any genocide-again.  But the fact is that most of the German people were suffering as well, and this book shows so clearly how the poison of hatred and fear spreads, and how it takes an incredible strength not to give in to the despair.  Despite the constant threat of being found out, of starvation, of being killed by bombs, Liesel and her parents held on to their humanity and compassion.

I Still Don't Like Hemingway, But...

...if The Paris Wife is an accurate historical portrayal of his early literary life, then I feel like I can forgive some of his macho, sexist writing.

In case you lived under a literary rock for the last 12 months, The Paris Wife is the fictionalized story of Hadley Hemingway ne Richardson, who was Ernest Hemingway's first wife (out of four total).  Based on extensive research into the Hemingways' time in Paris, the novel starts in Chicago, where a young Hadley meets an even younger Ernest at a party.  Instantly drawn to each other, the two start an affair that eventually leads to marriage.  Despite the disapproval of both families, Ernest and Hadley set off for Paris, the happening scene for writers and artists in the very early 20th century.  Surrounded by such literary giants and Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, Ernest sets about the serious business of writing.  Hadley, left to her own devices most of the time, loses herself in his career.  Over time, their relationship cannot withstand the darkness in his own soul, or his affair with a young editor at Vogue.

I've managed to read one and a half Hemingway novels, and a few of his short stories.  The one I remember best is Hills Like White Elephants,  about a woman who wants to have a baby with her husband but he wants her to have an abortion so he doesn't have to change his rather selfish lifestyle.  Not exactly endearing.  I've always been put off by his very violent ideas about manhood, and his rather apparent disrespect for women.  Having read The Paris Wife, however, I am better able to put his ideas in not just a historical context, but a more personal, emotional one.

What I didn't know about him before reading this book was that he was injured in the first World War, and that he spent most of the rest of his life trying to stare down death, terrified by his own morality.  Constantly afraid of being seen as cowardly or weak, he actively sought out experiences, like the bullfights in Pamplona, to convince himself of his own strength.  His war experiences, coupled with his depressive nature and the history of mental illness in his family, suddenly I see his overly-macho definition of what it means to be a man in a new light.  And while I still don't like his fiction, and I still think that he was a philandering sexist, at least now I have a context to put it in.  I now have compassion where before was only contempt.

The Buddha in the Attic

The experience of immigrant groups in the United States is something that has interested me ever since I took a multicultural education class a few years ago.  I read some really moving testimonials from people of various immigrant groups (beginning with Italians and the Irish and moving on through Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican) describing their experiences (or the family stories passed down by their grandparents) and how their families never gave up on making it in America.

My own family immigration history is fairly recent.  My paternal grandparents came to America in the early 20th century from Quebec.  They settled in New England, in an area where there was already a community for them to join.  While my great-grandparents spoke Quebecois French almost exclusively, it did not take long for my grandmother and grandfather to learn English and assimilate into mainstream American culture.  My grandfather fought in World War II, and was proud to serve the nation he saw as his, even though he had only been in the US for half of his rather short life at that point.

We as a society have never been particularly welcoming to new arrivals, regardless of where they are from or what the words on the Statue of Liberty may imply about how inclusive we pretend we are.  The myth propagated is that as long as immigrants are willing to work-hard and respect American values we will accept them with open arms.  The reality is that every immigrant group has started out on the lowest rung of American society, doing the jobs that no one wants to do, being discriminated against in public services, and being used as a pawn by politicians who want to scare people with the image of being overrun by the "other". Perhaps the most egregious case of this phenomenon happened to the Japanese in America during World War II.  It is this immigrant experience that Julie Otsuka chronicles in her book The Buddha in the Attic.

Otsuka's book is written in the third person plural, from the perspective of women who were brought to the United States from Japan after World War I as wives to Japanese men they had never met.  This rather interesting literary device  is used to highlight the similarities of the immigrant experience for these women, even as it describes the variety of experiences that defined them as farm laborers, shop clerks, maids, and laundry workers.  This very short novel, spare in its language, presents a portrait of women who try to find some way to survive in a world that has turned upside down, taking them away from everything they know to a world where not even the man they are going to marry is familiar.  Through back-breaking, heartbreaking work, they bring children into the world, and watch them become more American than Japanese.  Despite their fear that their children are moving away from them, they are hopeful that their futures will be better-until World War II brings it all crashing down around them again.

Like Otsuka's first book, When the Emperor Was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic is filled with carefully chosen words, meant to evoke specific ideas and feelings without extraneous language.  While occasionally the long, collective paragraphs start to feel a bit listy, the book works because the snippets of women's stories that are elaborated upon are compelling enough to provide a frame for the rest.  By the end I felt overwhelmed by the struggles of these women-and once more furious and regretful that it is my country, whose ideals I revere, that interned so many of our own citizens out of racial fear and prejudice.

Nothing speaks as well to the way that communities changed after internment as the last portion of the book.  Suddenly, instead of the voices of the women, the narrator changes to a collective white American voice.  That voice describes how ignorant and/or arrogant white society was during World War II, when any injustice could be justified if it was for "national security" purposes (Sound familiar?  Patriot Act, anyone?).   What was startling was not just that people seemed to approve of their improper jailing of their neighbors, but that any negative reaction to it came from a selfish concern about who would pick their crops/clean their shirts/scrub their toilets.  As a reader, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the women who's lives I had been invited into, and perhaps that's the most startling thing-that an entire group of people can just be disappeared while the rest of us go about our lives.

What If?

This weekend during youth group at church, my youth played a game where everyone writes a question on a piece of paper, then we crumple them up into balls and have a "snowball" fight.  Everyone reads their question aloud and answers it.  Some of the questions are silly, but some of the questions really cause the person to think, and can start some great discussions.  Here is the question that struck me Sunday morning-"If you could kill someone with the power of your mind, and no one would know, would you do it?"

This question led to a discussion of Unitarian Universalist values, as the activity is supposed to ultimately do.  But it also led to a discussion of whether it is possible to change history.  If you add the ability to time travel to the ability to kill people with your mind, many of my youth said that maybe going back and killing Hitler as an infant would be an acceptable use of that power.  Because you already know what evil he created, and you would have a responsibility to stop it.  This exact idea is the central focus of Stephen King's latest tome, 11/22/63.


In the book, small town high school teacher named Jake Epping is floating through a rather drab existence.  Newly single, he spends his days teaching, grading papers, and eating his meals at a local diner.  One day the diner's owner and chief fry cook, A,l shares a secret with Jake-in the back of his store is an unexplained tear in the fabric of time.  Step through that tear and it takes you back to the same exact time on the same exact day in 1958.  No matter how long you stay or what you do while you are there, stepping through the tear resets any effect you may have had on the past.  Since Al discovered this mysterious tear, he's been travelling back and forth frequently.  His last trip lasted four years-because he had a mission, one that a lung cancer diagnosis is now forcing him to push on Jake.  His mission-to stop the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby stopping one of the most turbulent times in American history.  At least, that's this theory...

What follows is a loooooong history lesson about Lee Harvey Oswald.  Jake studies Oswald like a scientist, trying to discern what kind of man he was, what kind of husband he was, whether he did, in fact act alone...He follows his movements, and as a result we learn a lot about the man who shot Kennedy.

At 849 pages, this is one of King's doorstops of a book, but unlike Under the Dome, which I thought could be shortened by a hundred pages or so, I was riveted every moment of this one.  Maybe it's the historical fiction lover in me, but I actually liked the minute descriptions of Oswald's life, and King provides a personal storyline for Jake that is mildly predictable but very engaging.  Not horror by any means, this genre bending book-part historical fiction part science fiction-evokes the optimism of mid-20th Century America and the tension that builds as Jake gets closer to his goal.  And if he succeeds, will things really be better?  Consider this a novel of unintended consequences...

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

Like many young girls, I was given a copy of Little Women as a gift.  Lousia May Alcott's perfect roman a clef about growing up in genteel poverty during the Civil War has been universally adored by generations of young readers, and despite the drastic social changes that have taken place in the intervening years, Jo March's struggle for independence and freedom from the conventions of society still resonates with many young women struggling to find their way in a complex and often confusing world.

So it was with great excitement that I picked up a copy of The Lost Summer of Lousia May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees at a local discount store.  I had read glowing reviews of the book on many of the blogs that I follow, and I anticipated feeling just as taken with the fictionalized account of one youthful summer as all of those bloggers had been. While many authors over the years have used primary historical documents to write fictionalized accounts of the lives of real people, this book seemed to promise some kind of new insight into a hidden chapter of Miss Alcott's life.

The Lost Summer recounts the events of one summer when Louisa was 20.  She and her family go to stay in the house of a friend of their father's in Walpole, Massachusetts.  Her father Bronson Alcott, was a philosopher who was friends with many of the important intellectuals of the mid 1800s-Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau, and others.  Unfortunately for his family, he believed that working for money would sully his mind, and as a result the Alcott family lived off of the generosity of their friends and family, as well as whatever money the girls could bring in doing piecework or working as tutors and companions.  Louisa meets Joseph Singer, a young man trying to manage his father's shop during the older man's long illness.  There is an instant attraction between Joseph and Louisa, but he is already pledged to another girl, and she longs for the independence to write.  Despite never wanting to marry, Louisa feels herself falling in love with Singer, bonding as they do over Walt Whitman's recently released Leaves of Grass.

Reading the author's note, it becomes obvious that there is actually no historical evidence that Louisa had a love affair as a young girl the year her family lived in Walpole.  The entire affair is completely from the imagination of  McNees.  Which would have been fine, if the story of their love had been as gripping and tragic as some of those rhapsodizing bloggers seemed to find it.  My problem with it was that it didn't seem realistic at all.  They meet, make eyes at each other, read a few poems, and are suddenly consumed with an unquenchable love for each other.  Maybe it's a function of my age, but I just didn't buy the "love at first sight" thing.  Infatuation, yes.  Physical desire, sure.  But full-on, can't-live-without-you love?  Sorry, I just didn't get it.  As a result, while the book is very well written and I enjoyed McNees' descriptions of New England life in the 1850s, I can only say, "meh".

When the Emperor was Divine, by Julie Otsuka

When the Emperor was Divine is a little gem of a book.  A slim 160 pages, Otsuka's debut novel tells the story of a Japanese family forced into an internment camp in 1942.  Each of the five chapters is narrated by a different member of the family-the mother, who packs away the house and their old life after the relocation order came down; the daughter, who tells of the journey on the train to the Utah desert; the son, who describes life in the camp; and the father, who was arrested and held in a separate facility for the duration of the war and returns to his family a different man.  The characters are nameless, which I assume is a purposeful attempt to portray the family as representatives of the 127,000 Japanese Americans who were "relocated" during World War II. 

Otsuka's writing is spare, but conveys such emotion.  This family lived in an America where their neighbors turned against them, or, worse, pretended they no longer existed.  Their ties to the community where they lived and worked and went to school are suddenly severed, and it is apparent that everyone was too afraid of being seen as disloyal to stand up for anyone-themselves or their neighbors.  There were two parts of the novel that stood out for me.  The first was when the mother was packing up their house in order to evacuate.  From my place in the 21st century I knew there was a good chance that no matter what she did to safeguard her family's things, they would not be there when and if she returned.  But the most painful part was when she killed the family dog, because he was old and sick and there was no one to take care of him.  The second part that struck me was the son's description of his mother's slow slide into depression and hopelessness.  They say that children are adaptable, and in fact the boy never seemed to lose hope that they wold eventually go home.  But even his youthful innocence could not spare him from watching his mother wither and lose interest in the world and what would happen to them.

Finally, after more than three years of imprisonment, the internment camp inmates were given $25, put on buses, and taken back to their hometowns.  Many had no actual homes to return to, and no family or friends to help them.  The opportunistic lawyers and businessmen who promised to collect rents from the people living in their houses or running their businesses had disappeared, along with the money they had promised to keep safe.  No on apologized, or offered any compensation for their losses-but really, how can you compensate someone for their quality of life, for the loss of feeling safe and secure in your own home?  And their neighbors, out of shame or anger, shunned them, which must have felt like a different kind of imprisonment.  Otsuka does a wonderful job bringing her readers into this shameful era of American history.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

I was born in 1970.  So while my life overlaps briefly with the Viet Nam War, I have no real memory of it.  What I do remember is going to downtown Chicago with my granny, and later with my parents, and seeing the faces of the homeless vets that were begging on the streets.  Wild-eyed, or blank-stared, the memories of their faces color everything that I have heard, read, or seen about the war since.  And I have heard, read, and seen a lot.  Stories from the fathers of friends who fought in the war, lessons from school, movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon-from these sources I have cobbled together a picture of that hot, wet, chaotic, horrific place and time.

But I am not sure that I have truly felt that I had even the faintest understanding of what it might actually have been like.  Not, that is, until I read Tim O'Brien's stunning book The Things They Carried.  Neither entirely fact nor entirely fiction, O'Brien uses a series of short stories and vignettes to tell the tale of Alpha Company, a group of soldiers based, in part, on the real men that O'Brien served with during the war.  The stories meander from stateside to the jungles of Viet Nam, from childhood to middle age, detailing how each experience prepares or informs or explains the person that Tim was or is or may yet become.

I will admit to having some difficulty at first with the non-linear narrative, and with the fact that I was never sure what was true and what was made-up.  But the genius of this work is that you soon realize that it doesn't matter.  In fact, the way that the book is put together and the inability to tell fact from fiction ends up doing a better job describing what living through that experience was like than any straight forward telling could.  O'Brien and his fellow soldiers lived a reality that most of us will never experience, and can never truly comprehend, where time was skewed, day and night traded places, where extraordinary circumstances became ordinary, and where the ordinary world as most of us know it became a dream that you couldn't let yourself believe in.

My favorite section of the book (if favorite is even the right word) is the story of how O'Brien almost ran away to Canada rather than go to war.  Part of O'Brien's extreme talent is an ability to use words to paint not just a visual but an emotional picture for the reader, and I was able to feel how deeply terrified he was at the prospect of war.  I felt his ambivalence about running away, about choosing the possibility of death over the certainty of shame and embarrassment.  But the thing I found most stunning, and the line I would consider the most "controversial" of the whole piece, is this, "I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Viet Nam, where I was a soldier, and then home again.  I survived, but it's not a happy ending.  I was a coward. I went to war."
Given the hyper-patriotism of the US since 9-11, and our unquestioning assumption that every soldier is brave and heroic,  this simple statement stopped me dead in my tracks.  It felt almost sacrilegious.  Are we allowed to say that not going to war is more courageous than going?  What does that say about us as a society, that we are find ourselves so often in armed conflicts?  Is it bravery and strength, or is it because we don't want to be judged as wanting by the rest of the world?  What would happen if our young men and women, en masse, simply refused to go the next time we try to send them into harm's way?  Would it be courageous or cowardly?  Regardless of where any one of us comes down on that particular idea, what O'Brien's work has done is illustrate for those of us that weren't there that nothing is as simple and straightforward in war as those of us sitting at home watching it on our televisions thinks it is.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, or Why I'm Glad I Wasn't Born in 19th Century China

Sometimes I am in horrified awe at the things that people have done to make women more "desirable".  As oppressive as I find the ridiculously unrealistic American beauty ideal, it is downright feminist when compared to past and present practices from around the world.  And while I realize that this novel is probably supposed to be about the power of women to create community, but I couldn't get past the foot-binding.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is the story of Lily and Snow Flower, who meet at young girls in 18th century China.  They become laotong, or friends bonded for life, at age seven at the behest of a matchmaker in the hopes that their friendship will yield better marriages for both.  Because of their families' social status, the girls have their feet bound at the age of seven.  Foot binding was practiced by all but the poorest families in China, the goal being to stop the girls feet from growing.  The smaller the feet, the better the marriage.  Lily tells the story of her friendship with Snow Flower through all of the stages of life-childhood, adolescence, womanhood-through their use of nu shu, a special written language used only by women.

Lisa See does an excellent job using the story of Lily and Snow Flower to paint a vivid picture of Chinese culture, especially women's culture.  My 21st century brain was routinely appalled by how the women were treated. But nothing was as horrifying as the description of the foot binding process.  The girls toes were bent under their foot and bound there.  They were then forced to walk on them until they broke, and the foot slowly bent under until there was only the big toe left to balance on.  Perhaps the most disturbing part was the fact that it was generally their mothers who bound their feet.  As a mother myself, I can't imagine the social pressure that a person must be under to cause that kind of pain to your own child.

It also struck me reading this novel how many times in the history of the world people have created social rules that in fact work against not just their self-interest, but their actual survival.  Forced to flee their homes due to civil unrest, many of the women died trying to walk up a mountain on their "golden lilies", as their small bound feet were called.  Purposely keeping whole classes of people illiterate also seems counterproductive, to say the least.  And of course, determining a woman's value by her physical attributes...seems like we're still working on a few of those today.

World (Book) Without End

Like many people I watched the mini-series on Starz of Ken Follet's epic tale of love, intrigue and cathedral building Pillars of the Earth.  While I had not read the book, I was completely drawn into the mini-series, which featured a stellar cast and a pretty decent script.  Before embarking on a long drive to visit my parents in northern Michigan, I decided to download the audiobook of Follet's follow-up effort to Pillars of the Earth, called World Without End. Fifteen hours in the car and two months later, I have finally gotten to the end of the story.

World Without End follow the small English town of Kingsbridge, the same town featured in Pillars of the Earth.  World Without End advances the story a couple of hundred years-the tale begins in the early 14th century.  The cathedral that Tom and Jack Builder envisioned stands tall and proud, as do the monks that live and work there.  On a bright autumn day during the fleece fair, four children go exploring in the woods.  The stumble upon a knight, fighting for his life against two armed men.  One of the children manages to kill one of the men, and the knight is saved.  The knight has a secret, which he buries in the forest.  This sets off a chain of events that leads to love, murder, treachery, betrayal, a bridge, an awful lot of sex, and the tallest tower in England.

As historical fiction goes, Follet's work is first-class.  Given the enormous amount of detail about 14th century Follet is either really detailed in imagining his fictional settings or the book is meticulously researched.   I definitely know more about medieval town politics than I ever thought I would. 

Like many young girls, I decided after reading too many fairy tales that I wanted to live back in the days of kings and queens, courtly love, all that...yeah, not so much.  The amount of superstition, sexism, and classism in 14th century England made me want to punch something, hard.  I'm not unfamiliar with the lack of social justice back, back, back in the day, but I got sucked into Follett's characters and his fictional village such that every injustice left me frustrated and angry and swearing at various fictional people in my car.  In the end, everything turned out exactly as I would have wanted, but I suppose when  one book covers the better part of 50 years that's not as unbelievable as it sounds.  Frankly, it just confirms my firm belief that in the end, everyone gets what they deserve.

The 19th Wife, or Why Conjugal Subjugation is Bad

OK, I'll admit it-I have a morbid fascination with the idea of Mormon polygamy.  It's not quite risen to the point that I am watching Sister Wives on TLC, but it's close.  I've decided it's similar to the reason rubberneckers slow down at an accident scene, or people rush out to see the results of some natural disaster.  Somehow you just get sucked into the horror and drama of it all.  I also have a strange fascination with Mormonism in general.  As an atheist most religious belief stretches the bounds of my reason, but Mormonism in particular (along with Scientology) surprise me.  Most faith traditions at least have thousands of years of cultural weight behind them.  I have a hard time seeing how Mormonism started, however, given that it was only founded in the mid-1800s.  I mean, if Joseph Smith were a "prophet" today, and claimed that he spoke with the angel Moroni and that he found golden plates with the words of God on them, but then lost them again, the psychiatric community would call him schizophrenic.  I don't mean to sound disrespectful-I feel strongly that everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs.  I'm just making an observation. 

At any rate, after reading a book about the founding of Mormonism, I've wanted to read more about the early history of the church.  In his novel, The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff uses the real-life story of Ann Eliza Young, one of Brigham Young's many wives, as the frame for his modern day tale of polygamous cults and murder.  The books goes back and forth between "historical" documents written by Ann Eliza and her father, and the story of Jordan Scott, a young man excommunicated from a Mormon offshoot, the Firsts.  The Firsts are a polygamous cult, headed by a man called the Prophet.  The Firsts believe that the Mormon church was wrong to abolish the practice of "celestial marraige", as polygamy was called.  They have dedicated themselves to continuing what they see as God's true wish in their desert town of Mesadale.  Jordan's mother, the 19th wife of one of the elders, is accused of killing him in a fit of jealousy.  After swearing he would never return to Mesadale, he agrees to visit his mother in jail, and becomes convinced she did not commit the crime.  Working with his mother's lawyer and some other ex-Firsts, he investigates what really happened.

Ebershoff obviously did a lot of research in preparation of writing The 19th Wife.  Ann Eliza Young was a real person, and she did write a memoir of her time as a Mormon.  While Ebershoff is clear that the book is a fictional account, there is a lot of factual information.  I read several parts of the books with my laptop close by, so that I could check the factual nature of the story.  The Firsts are surely modeled after the Fundamentalist Church of Later-Day Saints, the polygamist cult headed by the notorious Warren Jeffs. Jordan's character and the other former Firsters in the book describe many of the conditions that The FLDS has been accused of.  Aside from the many wives of the men, there were accusations of welfare fraud, child abuse, child sexual abuse, rape, and the forcible marriage of underage girls to much older men.  While there are those that argue that plural marriage is a religious practice that should be respected when entered into by consenting adults, I think that we've seen enough evidence in a variety of cultures that in reality plural marriage mostly serves to concentrate power in the males of the group, and leave the women very little control over their lives.

The Winter Ghosts, Kate Mosse

Freddie Watson is a man stuck in time.  World War I, The Great War, the War to End All Wars, may have ended 10 years ago, but he is still grieving the loss of his brother, George, on the battlefield in France.  After being hospitalized for severe depression, Freddie still sees and hears his brother all the time.  Thinking a change in location might help, he is driving through the Pyrenees one night when a freak snowstorm forces him off the road.  He finds a small village hidden in the hills, where he finds a small guest house to take him in.  That night, he travels to a village feast and meets Fabrissa, a beautiful young woman with whom Freddie is instantly entranced.  The next day, when he tries to find her again, everyone in the village acts as though the feast, and Fabrissa, are imaginary.  Who was this woman?  Where was she?  When was she? Freddie finds peace and redemption in this intriguing ghost story.

Mosse does an excellent job of setting the stage for the events in this book.  The sense of place is very strong.  I felt the wind and the snow, I could picture vividly the small village, the woods, the cave.  Freddie himself is a well-developed character, Fabrissa less so...but then, the story isn't really about Fabrissa.  It is about acknowledging what has been lost, recognizing the injustice of death, and then moving forward.  Fabrissa and the others couldn't move forward until someone knew what had happened to them, and by leading the world to discover the cave where she died, Freddie finds his own peace as well.  This slim volume is an easy, enjoyable read.

Fighthing Fate in 18th Century Scotland

Fate and inevitability play a large role in Diana Gabaldon's book Dragonfly in Amber.  The second in a series about Claire Randall Fraser, a mid-20th century woman transported back to 18th century Scotland, Dragonfly in Amber picks up the story of Claire and her Sottish husband Jamie.  Claire knows that Jamie and thousands of other Highland Scots are to be slaughtered in the Battle of Culloden, fought on behalf of Bonnie Prince Charlie in a failed attempt to restore the Stuarts to the throne of England and Scotland.  She and Jamie race to try and stop the coming war, first in Paris where Prince Charles is waiting to return to Scotland, and again in Edinburgh.  But nothing, not even the foreknowledge of what will happen, can turn the tide of history in the Scots' favor.

Like her first novel, Outlander, this book is rich in historical detail, and intricate in plot.  In a previous post, I complained of how long it took me to read it, because that level of detail requires the reader to really slow down and take it all in.  It is full of political machinations, betrayals, unkept promises, and the hubris of the nobility.  Add to the complex plot the many details about life in 18th century France and Scotland, and the descriptions of the medical care that Claire gives in her role as a healer, and you have a fully formed world that draws you in.  The romance between Claire and Jamie is besides the point to me, other than as a catalyst for some of Claire's decisions regarding staying in Scotland or trying to stop duels...Claire herself is the reason that I kept reading.  And I am so grateful to Ms. Gabaldon that she set this series in a time period I know very little about.  While I love my Tudor and Elizabethan period pieces, I am happy to have knowledge of another era of UK history.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a novel of world war two as experienced by Henry, a Chinese-American boy, and Keiko, his Japanese-American first love.  IN 1942 Seatle, Henry and his family live in the Chinatown section of the International District.  Keiko and her family live in Nihonmachi, the Japanese section.  Henry's father, born in China, is a fierce Chinese nationalist, with a hatred of all things Japanese because of their invasion of China.  He tries to instill this hatred in Henry, but all Henry can see is how his obsession with the war in China keeps them from developing a real relationship.  Keiko is a second generation American who doesn't even speak Japanese.  Henry and Keiko meet and strike up their friendship as the only two Asian students at an elite prep school.  Because they are on scholarship, they are made to work in the kitchen, serving the white students their lunch.  Their shared "otherness" bonds them in a way that simple friendship can't describe.  Henry is devastated when the order comes from President Roosevelt to inter all Japanese-American or not-in camps well inland.  Henry promises to wait for Keiko, but his father, who mostly disowned Henry after discovering he had a Japanese friend, intercepts Henry's letters to Keiko, and her letters from the camp, and they grow apart.  In 1986, Henry, now in his 50s, finds himself drawn back to the Panama Hotel, where the discovery of items left behind by Japanese families on their way to internment camps brings his old feelings to the surface.

I'm feeling lukewarm about this book.  On the one hand, it brings a new perspective to the history of Japanese internment, with its focus on the interplay between Chinese and Japanese, and how Chinese American's had to identify themselves so as not to be mistaken for Japanese, since most Americans of the time (and probably still) couldn't or didn't care to understand the differences.  On the other hand, it felt like stories I had read before, most notably Snow Falling on Cedars, about a white boy falling in live with a Japanese girl, and the ways that the community responded to the internment of their neighbors.

That said, I was moved by the story, and horrified as always by the way that fear and false patriotism were used to justify the blatant racism of the era.  Since 9-11 I have watched in dismay the way that Muslims have been treated in some parts if the country, and I sometimes think it is only our shameful history of Japanese internment that has kept detention centers and mass deportation from becoming a reality.    I don't know whether this particular novel does much to add to that conversation that has not already been said, but it was an enjoyable read.

Tyger Tyger Burning Bright

I've always been a fan of historical fiction.  Honestly, I think that if history class was taught with high quality historical fiction people would remember more of it that "In fourteen hundred ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue" and "I can not tell a lie." At any rate, I'm glad to have discovered a new-to-me author of historical fiction, Tracey Chevalier.  In Burning Bright she paints a lively picture of life in England at the turn of the nineteenth century.  The story centers on Jem, a country boy brought to the city by the death of his brother and the lure of the circus, and Maggie, a poor city girl from a rather shady family hustling to make ends meet.  Two more different people are hard to imagine, but they strike up a friendship that feels completely believable.

After Jem's brother falls from a tree, breaking his neck, his family is left devastated.  His father, a chair-maker, come to London from the small town of Piddletrenthide (which is an actual place-I looked it up) after being offered a job by the owner of a traveling circus that came through on their way back to London for the season.  They move into the area of London known as Lambeth, and discover that their neighbor is none other than William Blake, poet and artist.  The year is 1792, and France is in the throes of a revolution.  This makes the monarchy in England very nervous, and there are soon bands of men roaming the city forcing people to sign loyalty oaths to king and country.  This provides a backdrop as Jem, his sister Maisie, Maggie, and the rest of their families struggle to maintain their moral footing.

While Blake is an important character in the arc of the novel, the most vivid characters are the ordinary people living in Lambeth.  Chevalier takes on issues of class, poverty, prostitution, the treatment of girls and women, and the political climate of the period in a way that I felt I was living in that place in that time myself.  Isn't that what we ask of historical fiction?  The parallels between the uber-patriotism of the Londoners during Blake's time and the unthinking, unquestioning patriotism that was a hallmark of the Bush era were not lost on me.  It seems that anytime the government feels threatened, dissent and free-speech are quashed, and a certain amount of unreasonableness ensues.  Like I said, maybe if history was taught using historical fiction we as a people would be less likely to repeat it.