Dancing to "Almendra" by Mayra Montero

Dancing to "Almendra" by Mayra Montero

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alternating stories of a young journalist investigating the organized crime activity in gambling in 1950's Havana and the confessions of his girlfriend, a one-armed former circus performer.  Strange and bloody tale and I found it hard to care about the characters, although the Cuban atmosphere was authentic and rich.  You could almost hear the danzon music.

View all my reviews

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers was a bit of a slog for me.  While the characters were interesting, the information provided seemed too thin to merit a book.  The author based it on a villa in the South of Italy but then we moved to England, to France, to Vita & Violet, to an Italian friend, disparate characters, places,  and the book's focus and especially its passion suffered.

"With his oblique anecdotes about Salman Rushdie, and a footnoted reference to one of his wife Margaret Drabble’s novels, Holroyd, too, sometimes gives us his literary-social milieu instead of real emotional involvement" Laura Marsh writes in the online New Review piece below http://www.tnr.com/book/review/michae... and perhaps that is what is missing from the book.  I could not connect.


View all my reviews

Absolution by Patrick Flanery

Absolution by Patrick Flanery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Dostoevsky says that everyone remembers things he would only confide to his friends, and other things he would only reveal to himself...But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself."  In Absolution a first novel about memory and guilt and censorship, the author has produced a stunning, compelling tale of an aging South African author, Clare, and her biographer, Sam, told in multiple points of view.    Absolution brought the country and its tragic past to life as much as anything I've read by  classic authors such asCOETZEE JOHN M. and Nadine Gordimer.  The characters were well-drawn and the plot moved forward sometimes at rapid pace as I flipped ahead, unable to await the resolution of an incident, the clues to a possible future.  The writing is very good and Clare's voice rings true.  I closed the book with satisfaction that reading this book was time well spent and sparked my interest in learning more about the country and people of South Africa (rueing a missed travel opportunity a few years ago).  The author looms large on my radar for future works.  He is a writer to watch.


View all my reviews

Leviathan by Paul Auster

Leviathan by Paul Auster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

For me the tale did not merit the lengthy narrative, the book within the book seemed contrived and interfered with the tension.  I felt it was too much blathering and was in need of editing.  Perhaps it's a case of not being able to latch on to either of the main male characters as sympathetic or interesting.  The female protagonists started out as more captivating particularly since I'd seen museum exhibits of Sophie Calle and immediately recognized her in Maria but they were reduced to pretty much sexual objects as the tale continued.  Is the narrator Peter Aaron the novelist Paul Auster and is it important to the story?  The book talks a great deal about identity and stories and whether Aaron's recreation of Sachs' life is true and how far does truth go when told by another in a memoir.  Did Sachs really die in Wisconsin?  Is Aaron a reliable reporter of his friend's motivations and life?  Is Auster?  Do I need to read Hobbes Leviathan to find out?  Other Auster books I liked better were Moon Palace, City of Glass.
Favorite quote:  Books are born out of ignorance and if they go on living after they are written, it's only to the degree that they cannot be understood. (Auster. Leviathan, p. 40)


View all my reviews

Left Handed Dreams: none by Francesca Duranti

Left Handed Dreams by Francesca Duranti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unusual first-person, philosophical book about an Italian professor now living and cooking (tasty-sounding recipes) in New York City who examines her life and particularly her dreams in terms of being retrained to be right-handed when she was a child in Italy and how that affected her.  While I found it fairly compelling and thoughtful, there is very little action.  The book was translated by the author.


View all my reviews

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

** spoiler alert ** The Sense of an Ending was a beautifully written, compelling tale whose main character, Tony Webster, is an unreliable narrator, always a challenge to the reader. I have a problem recommending the book because I had difficulties with the plot which seemed unbelievable. The denouement was a surprise to me and I did not feel the key characters, the mother and Adrian, fit into this scenario. Did the woman flip off her marriage and daughter as casually as she did the broken egg? Was this our clue? And would this same woman have chosen the path she did with the child? Or remembered Tony in her will? Would the Adrian who went to the trouble of writing Tony that he was seeing his ex-girlfriend slip into a relationship with her mother? For any of this to offer a ring of truth, I would need a lot more information.

I appreciated Tony's comments on aging, life and memory. His goals of stereotypically English "peacebleness" countered his determination and email stalking of Veronica who remains a cipher. I too closed the book with a feeling of dissatisfaction.


View all my reviews

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan  Dee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Thousand Pardons is a beautifully written and engrossing story about marriage, divorce, celebrity and public relations with their companion wrinkles and tragedies and the ever present need for forgiveness.  The characters are not particularly affecting, perhaps too removed from the reader as well as from each other, but their stories are and Dee presents them with skill and insight .  The section involving the two men marooned together in the house was amusing and truthful.  The ending leaves me in doubt as to this family making the changes necessary to sustain their new lives. The teenage daughter is insufferable.  The husband is a cipher.  The celebrity actor and the wife were most appealing and their stories sustained my interest in the book.  I did read it quickly and eagerly.  If you are looking for a runaway read, I  recommend A Thousand Pardons for the writing and its modern story line.  If you are a fan of character development and psychological insight, perhaps you might prefer  Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic or Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins or Jean Thompson's The Year We Left Home.


View all my reviews