Hardcover Review

Below is part of BookBrowse's review of The Nightingales of Troy.
Read the review in full here

 

The Nightingales of Troy
by Alice Fulton

Short Stories
Hardcover (Jul 2008), 256 pages.

Publisher: Norton
ISBN 9780393048872

BookBrowse Rating:
Critics' Consensus:

From the book jacket: In 1908, Mamie Garrahan faces childbirth aided by her arsenic-eating sister-in-law Kitty, a nun who grows opium poppies, and a doctor who prescribes Bayer Heroin. "In the twentieth century, I believe there are no saints left," Mamie remarks. But her daughters and granddaughter test this notion with far-reaching consequences. Kitty's arsenic reappears sixty years later in the hands of her distraught niece. A schoolgirl's passion for the Beatles and Melville-a passion both lonely and funny-shapes her life.


Review: Fans of Alice Fulton's poetry (bibliography) will find much to admire in The Nightingales of Troy. A similar lyricism, use of imagery, facts and curiosities abound, from Kitty painting veins on her face with French chalk and Prussian blue* to the scent of vintage perfumes. The details evoke a uniquely feminine culture. But for all the book's poetic merits, it also stands on its own as a selection of stories spanning the lives of seven memorable women.

Tempting as it is to read The Nightingales of Troy as a novel, it isn't meant to be. There is no device like the four sides of the mahjong table in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, no pivotal family event, memory or point-of-view linking everything together. The stories should not be read with the expectation of perfect symmetry  - some of the women's voices are heard only once, while others, like Charlotte, become essential players in several stories. Rather than relying on a single, over-arching narrative, the stories connect through their themes.

Some stories can be read as companion pieces. "Queen Wintergreen" touches on aging, as does "L'Air Du Temps". A nurse in the title story later becomes a patient. One story features birth, another, death. The most powerful of these pairings-"A Shadow Table" and "Centrally Isolated"-hammer one of the more heartbreaking points home: "you could get hurt while serving others."

You'll find a range of women within these domestic spheres. Dorothy, a mid-century woman, aspires to save towards a "Magic Chef range and Eureka vacuum cleaner, a husband and kids". She's a contrast to Mamie, her mother, who is portrayed as being a more level-headed, less conventional woman. In one scene, Mamie, now "FULLY DELIGHTED" (a charming, peculiar euphemism for being dilated) marches towards the bed where Kitty is sleeping. "See here, Clara Lazarus," she says, "It's time to rise from the dead. I need streetcar courtesy. I have to push this baby out." And she does, with every hope that her daughter will lead a different life.

This combination of frailty and steeliness, of service and independence, sainthood and aplomb, appears throughout the book. The differences between the more subdued women and their more take-charge counterparts provide rich material for social and psychological inquiries.

The expected, if familiar, outcome would have been to portray women earlier in the century as repressed, and the most modern, educated woman of them all, Ruth, as the liberated go-getter, but these women do not fit simple preconceptions. Ruth has her self-doubts, and even indulges in a little victimhood as she complains about the ruthlessness of her chosen profession. The surprising fact that it isn't a linear progression rings more true. Mavericks exist in any generation. It isn't always the current one that has the best to offer.

The world presented here is a dark one, punctuated as it is with madness, a drowning, hospitalization, unfulfilled desires, and an unhappy marriage, but realism is never used for the sake of preventing nostalgia, and never overwhelms. Moments of genuine humor are juxtaposed with seriousness. Though you may find yourself wishing the characters would emerge unscarred, happiness is not found in the avoidance of pain. It's found, wisely, in the midst of it-through the loyalty of sisterhood and through the honoring of the past as an ever-present force.

Alice Fulton's debut would appeal to any reader fascinated by the evolution of women's roles throughout the past, or to those who enjoy stories about love in its many guises. The stories succeed beautifully in drawing the world inhabited by these "Nightingales of Troy", who, like Florence Nightingale, minister to those around them.

*French chalk is a type of talc (hydrated magnesium silicate) used by tailors for marking cloth, by cleaners for removing grease from cloth, and as a dry lubricant in a number of applications including many bicycle repair kits. Prussian blue is a very dark blue, colorfast, non-toxic pigment, so named because it was first extensively used to dye the uniforms of the Prussian army. One of the first synthetic dyes, it was discovered accidentally in Berlin in 1704.

Reviewed by Karen Rigby

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of The Nightingales of Troy.
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Read-Alikes:
Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna
The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
The Whore's Child by Richard Russo
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

 

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The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Publication Date: Aug 2008

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From the Jacket: The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide - for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life - and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete - and her time on earth will be finished.

Reviews:
"Starred Review. Once launched into this intense tale of unconventional romance, few readers will want to put it down." - Publishers Weekly.

"Starred Review. A romance spanning centuries and continents finds a grotesque narrator redeemed by the love of a woman who claims they first met seven centuries earlier, in this deliriously ambitious debut novel." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Davidson's debut is storytelling at its finest, featuring a lively assortment of characters and events that combine in a gripping drama that will keep readers' attention through the very last page. An essential summer book; highly recommended" - Library Journal.

"I was blown away by Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle. It reminded me of Life of Pi, with its unanswered (and unanswerable) contradictions. A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive." - Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants.
 

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3 people will each win a hardcover copy of The Gargoyle.

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First Impressions

 

BookBrowse members have the opportunity to receive free review copies of books, usually some months before publication. Here are some of their first impressions of recently read books ....


Tethered: A Novel
by Amy Mackinnon

Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Publication Date: 08/12/2008
Novels, 272 pages

Number of reader reviews: 19
Readers' consensus:

"I really enjoyed this book. Once I started reading, I did not want to put it down. It's part drama, suspense, a bit of action, and quite entertaining. It comes with a flawed, yet independent leading lady, a tortured and devoted cop and all the characters are layered so that your first impression may not be your last." - Angela.

"I received this book, and finished it within 3 days, while working full time. I was hooked from the first sentence, and the writing was great." - Karen.

"One of the most amazing books I have ever read. Not a true mystery in the ordinary sense of the experience but a book I read from cover to cover in one sitting." - Patricia.

"I looked forward to reading this book each night. MacKinnon fashioned characters you cared about, and a page-turning plot. I especially liked the asides about the flowers and what each represents. This would make a good discussion book, both because of the ambiguity surrounding Trecie and because the subjects of undertaking and trichotillomania are so exotic." - Annie.

"Amy MacKinnon has written a mesmerizing story of pain, terror and, in the end, hope .... A wonderful book." - Marissa.

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Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: 08/10/2008
Novels, 286 pages

Number of reader reviews: 16
Readers' consensus:


"When I started this novel by Carolyn D. Wall, I thought to myself, "This is crazy, I can't read it". But I kept reading and it took only a few pages -- I was in love. I almost finished it in one sitting. Set in 1938 rural Kentucky, the narrator is Olivia Cross, a woman of strong character and a life full of hard work and incredible loss." - Beth.

"This book had me hooked from the very first pages. The hard-scrabble daily existence of the characters was captivating and engrossing. The economies that had to be made were many, and the detail of 1930's Kentucky were so precise that it was greatly absorbing." - Heather.
book lose your interest, and it seems to build toward the end so that it is really hard to put down. I would think this a very good choice for book group discussions!" - Susan.

""Sweeping Up Glass" definitely 'swept me up' from the very first page. It was a much different read than I expected. I thought it would be a traditional whodunit mystery, but instead, it turned out to be a literary saga, spanning 30 years or more of a young woman's life." - Linda.

"A wonderfully written book with rich, complex characters and a twisting and turning plot that made this mystery hard to put down. Carolyn D. Wall is definitely an author to watch." - Christi.

Note: Shortly after finalizing their publishing plans for this book, Poisoned Pen Press sold hardcover rights to Sweeping Up Glass in a number of countries including in the USA. In the USA, the book will be published by Bantam in Summer 2009. Poisoned Pen retained rights to publish a very limited edition of just 1,000 copies this month.

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The White Mary: A Novel
by Kira Salak

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Publication Date: 08/05/2008
Novels, 368 pages

Number of reader reviews: 17
Readers' consensus:

"From the moment I turned the cover to read the first page until I closed the book at the end, I was right there." - Lois.

"In Salak's dugout canoe take an inhospitable adventure into the jungles of Papua New Guinea in search of a man believed dead. But is he? Beautiful, hypnotic, mesmerizing, intoxicating. Raw in nature while elegant in spirit. Simple yet deeply profound. Meaningful reading. Salak will renew your sense of spirit." - Erika.

"This is a riveting, and sometimes harrowing, adventure tale which at times I found to bounce between a love story and a "nail biting thriller" .... It is obvious that Kira Salak as a reporter herself has lived through similar adventures and that is how she can capture the beauty of exotic places like Papa New Guinea at the same time as the violence of war zones and political upheaval. I can't recommend this book enough - I LOVED IT!" - Mary.

"Kira Salak has fashioned a powerful tale. I was glued to the pages as she took me through the jungle to Papua New Guinea introducing me to customs and people I never imagined. This is a beautiful descriptive novel with exceptional characterization packed with love and adventure. Hats off to a winner and a fine novelist!" - Janice.

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Holding My Breath: A Novel
by Sidura Ludwig

Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Publication Date: 08/05/2008
Novels, 272 pages

Number of reader reviews: 19
Readers' consensus:

"This is a wonderful first novel about a young girl who grows up in a close knit Jewish-Canadian family. Ludwig writes poignantly and beautifully in this first person narrative. This is a great read and one I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about family life. I look forward to reading future books of hers!" - Cam.

"Canadian writer Sidura Ludwig has done a wonderful job with her first novel. I loved that it was set in Winnipeg, Manitoba - a city I have visited several times and always enjoyed. This is not an action packed novel, but rather a character study of a family." - Beth.

"I can't believe this is a work of fiction. I felt like a member of Beth's family with the wonderful character descriptions in the novel. The family felt so real and you could tell that the author loved them with the amount of care she put into each character. I think any person that loves reading about family ties, strong women, or generation gaps in 1960's Canada would enjoy this book." - Talya.

"This captivating, multi-generational story offers a glimpse into family life (albeit dysfunctional) in Jewish Canada in the 1950's and 60's. The women in the story are tough and strong and their characters are extremely well developed. In particular the narrator, one of the daughters, Beth, feels very real-to-life. You feel like she could literally walk off the page as she recounts her family story, capturing moments both happy and sad. I was totally drawn into both the story as well as the depiction of a place and time foreign to me." - Sandy.

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First Impressions is just one of the many benefits of a BookBrowse membership. Since launching in August last year, every member who has requested a book has received at least one complimentary book, most received a book the first time they requested, and many have already received multiple copies.

Book Club Recommendation

 

Author Interview

Twan Eng Tan

Tan discusses his first novel, The Gift of Rain, which is set in Malaysia and spans the decades from the final days of the Chinese emperors to the dying era of the British Empire.
 
 Read the Interview
 Books by this author

 

 Book Club Chat

Lynda East joins us to chat about her book club that has been meeting in a Borders bookstore in Springfield, Pennsylvania since the late 1980s.

Paperback Review

Below is part of BookBrowse's review of De Niro's Game.
Read the review in full here


De Niro's Game
by Rawi Hage

Paperback (Aug 2008), 304 pages.

Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN 9780061470578

BookBrowse Rating:
Critics' Consensus:

Review: Plucked from the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts by Canadian publisher House of Anansi Press, and published in the US by Steerforth Press, De Niro's Game was a finalist for the 2006 Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for Fiction, and the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and McAusland First Book Prize.

Ten thousand bombs had landed on Beirut, that crowded city, and I was lying on a blue sofa covered with white sheets to protect it from dust and dirty feet.

De Niro's Game started as a short story based on an incident Hage remembers as a child growing up in Beirut, when he witnessed other children playing Russian roulette with real guns after watching The Deer Hunter. His short story grew into a compact novel, the sort of length that many of us could happily consume in an evening given a couple of hours to ourselves, but to read De Niro's Game in one sitting will leave most readers emotionally, even physically, drained.

Ten thousand bombs had split the winds, and my mother was still in the kitchen smoking her long, white cigarettes.

De Niro's Game opens during one of the low points in The Lebanese Republic's 15-year civil war - the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut, in which over 10,000 lost their lives. Readers who are familiar with this period in Lebanon's history will recognize some of the events and pick up references to others, but those looking to understand the roots of the conflict will not find answers in De Niro's Game - this is not a book about why things happen but about what it's like to be inextricably caught up in them. Hage does not tell, he shows - offering a from-the-ground critique of the conflict that killed at least 100,000, only to lie semi-dormant for a further fifteen years before erupting again last year.

Ten thousand cigarettes had touched my lips, and a million sips of Turkish coffee had poured down my red throat.

It is a viciously intense, poetically raw story, interspersed with moments of dark humor, about two young men - Bassam, the narrator, and his friend since childhood, George - known as De Niro, for his habit of playing Russian roulette like Robert De Niro's character in The Deer Hunter. Beirut is their playground and their prison, violence a fact of life. Some of their friends and family are dead; some have joined the fighting; some have fled the country altogether; others, like George and Bassam (a nominal Christian but practicing atheist) roam the street as thugs - "aimless, beggars and thieves, horny Arabs with curly hair and open shirts and Marlboro packs rolled in our sleeves, dropouts, ruthless nihilists with guns, bad breath and long American jeans" - looking for ways to make money through whatever means necessary - because money, and the luck to stay alive long enough to spend it on either getting ahead or getting out, are all that matter.

Ten thousand bombs had fallen and I was waiting for death to come and scoop its daily share from a bowl of limbs and blood.

The first two-thirds of De Niro's Game are set in Beirut, the third in France, to which George eventually escapes, leaving behind the mourning mothers, destroyed neighborhoods, dead children, massacres of refugees, the fighting and the bombs - but if the reader expects a happy ending in the City of Love, forget it. You can take the boy out of Beirut but you can't take Beirut out of the boy, especially when the boy is an illegal immigrant in whom violence is ingrained, and who, unknown to himself, has walked into a situation as potentially dangerous as the one he left behind.

A Short History of Lebanon

The area now known as Lebanon (map) was settled by the seafaring Phoenicians (also known as Caananites) around 3,500 BCE. They established city states such as Beirut, Tyre and Sidon. Over the next five millennia the area would come under the control of numerous empires including the Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman Empires. Throughout this period the area, like much of the Middle East, was not a defined country.  Following World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allied nations carved up the Middle East, redrawing the political map of the Arab world into mandated territories which they then reorganized into states .... continued.

 

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of De Niro's Game.
Read the review in full here

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Read-Alikes:
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
A Woman in Jerusalem by A B. Yehoshua
Beaufort by Ron Leshem
Palestineby Jimmy Carter
The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees
The Distance Between Us by Masha Hamilton
The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra