Tag Archives: novels set in America

#BookReview ‘Vinegar Girl’ by Anne Tyler #Shakespeare #contemporary

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I love Anne Tyler’s writing. It is so simple and under-stated. She lets you slip so easily into the head and the world of her characters. This is her re-working of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Generally I dislike these artificial re-writes, but I made an exception for Tyler. After this, I may try some of the others. Anne Tyler Kate is a pre-school teaching assistant and housekeeper for her distracted scientist father and teenage sister. She is dissatisfied with her life, can never seem to get things right, but doesn’t know how to change things. Admonished by her headmistress for being too frank with her young charges, she is not in the best of moods when her father introduces her to his lab assistant, Pytor. He seems a lumbering foreigner and Kate does not understand her father’s eagerness that they meet. Pytor has a problem, his work visa is about to expire and he must leave the country. Kate’s father is frantic, he simply cannot lose his irreplaceable assistant or his research project into autoimmune disorders will fail when it is so near success. What happens next is predictable except Tyler turns Shakespeare’s tale of Katherina and Petruchio into a modern tale about tolerance and freedom, without the overtones of ‘man tames untameable woman’.

Read my reviews of these other books by Anne Tyler:-
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD
CLOCK DANCE
FRENCH BRAID
LADDER OF YEARS
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

And read the #FirstPara of:-
DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT 
BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWN UPS 

If you like this, try:-
‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley
‘Housekeeping’ by Marilynne Robinson
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout

And if you’d like to share THIS post, try:
#BookReview VINEGAR GIRL by Anne Tyler via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2bj

#BookReview ‘Early Warning’ by Jane Smiley #historical #familylife

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Early Warning opens with a funeral, Frank Langdon, the patriarch. A funeral is a great introduction to the characters, a reminder of Some Luck, the first part of the Last Hundred Years trilogy by Jane Smiley.Jane SmileyThis, the second instalment of the life of Frank and Rosanna Langdon’s family, focuses on their children and grandchildren. And it is a sprawling family.  Not just who they are but WHO they are, their relationships, their quirks, their oddities.
Smiley is an excellent observer of human behaviour, she reminds me of Jane Austen’s interpretation of family connections, secrets, tensions and disguised emotions. And it is all written in such an unassuming, subtle way. The death of a parent is a landmark in anyone’s life, a reminder of mortality, and in this book we see the maturing of the five Langdon children – ambitious, tricksy Frank; farmer Joe; home-maker Lilian; academic Henry; and youngest Claire. Smiley has a way of writing these characters from birth to maturity, through changing times, the social and political upheavals of Sixties and Seventies America, without losing the essence of personality. And what a cast it is to handle. Not once did I lose the thread of who was who, except with the appearance towards the end of a character called Charlie. I examined the family tree at the front of the book, no Charlie. The mystery is answered at the end, and sets up part three of the trilogy, Golden Age.
Frank and Andy’s troubled marriage produces troubled children: Janet who becomes entwined in a dodgy religious sect, argumentative twins Michael and Ritchie. Joe has to manage not only the family farm but also the additional land inherited by his wife. The Cold War affects grain prices and he considers whether to borrow money to plant seed when the crop may not earn enough to fulfil the loan. Lillian and Arthur’s son Tim goes off to Vietnam, meanwhile Arthur continues to cope with the emotional stress of his Government intelligence job and what comes with it, the prior knowledge of horrible secrets, dirty tricks and bribes. Henry confronts his sexuality, but will he tell his conservative family? Claire, the youngest, marries a doctor who wants to control her life, and that of their sons, in a protective instinct which becomes overwhelming.
It is impossible to summarize a plot which strides the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Civil Rights movement and AIDS, but Smiley handles the transition – with one year for each chapter – with ease.
This is a big book [over 700 pages] but few big books are this easy and pleasurable to read. Jane Smiley has already won the Pulitzer, with this trilogy she enters the territory of ‘greatest living’ American author.

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Jane Smiley:-
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
A THOUSAND ACRES
SOME LUCK #1LASTHUNDREDYEARS
GOLDEN AGE #3LASTHUNDREDYEARS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Town Called Solace’ by Mary Lawson
‘A Spool of Blue Thread’ by Anne Tyler
‘Gilead’ by Marilynne Robinson

And if you’d like to share a link to THIS post, try:
#BookReview EARLY WARNING by Jane Smiley http://wp.me/p5gEM4-217 via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 87… ‘Time Will Darken It’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, Austin King had said yes when he knew that he ought to have said no, and now at five o’clock of a July afternoon he saw the grinning face of trouble everywhere he turned. The house was full of strangers from Mississippi; within an hour, friends and neighbours invited to an evening party would begin ringing the doorbell; and his wife (whom he loved) was not speaking to him.” William MaxwellFrom ‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell

Here’s my review of TIME WILL DARKEN IT.

Sample the #FirstPara of THE CHATEAU.

And read my reviews of these other novels by William Maxwell:-
BRIGHT CENTER OF HEAVEN
THE FOLDED LEAF
THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Such a Long Journey’ by Rohinton Mistry 
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon 
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara TIME WILL DARKEN IT by William Maxwell http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Vh via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell #historical #classic

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Two families, the one from the South visits the one in the North. America before the Great War, class divides, manners, family duty, the race question and, beneath the politeness, love is turbulent. This is the world of Time Will Darken It. I don’t know why I have never discovered William Maxwell before now, but I will certainly seek out his other books. William Maxwell Draperville, Illinois, is the setting for this observation of manners which at times reminded me of Austen. Draperville is based on Maxwell’s own hometown of Lincoln, Illinois. In 1912, the Potter family from Mississippi visit the family of their foster son. Austin King, lawyer in Draperville, struggles to live up to the reputation of his father Judge King. The interaction and resulting effects of the King and Potter families over four weeks and three days, is detailed in a way reminiscent of Austen. And the detail is fascinating. The interaction between the generations, the expectations of the men and women, norms of behaviour and what happens when those norms are broken. This pre-war period teeters on the verge of war, and all the changes that will soon be brought about.
This is a wise book about relationships and how one’s own self-perspective, and that of your parents, changes over time and with experience. “…the history of one’s parents has to be pieced together from fragments, their motives and character guessed at, and the truth about them remains deeply buried, like a boulder that projects one small surface above the level of smooth lawn, and when you come to dig around it, proves to be too large ever to move, though each year’s frost forces it up a little higher.”

Try my reviews of these other novels by William Maxwell:-
BRIGHT CENTER OF HEAVEN
THE FOLDED LEAF
THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS

And read the first paragraphs of TIME WILL DARKEN IT and THE CHATEAU.

If you like this, try:-
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
‘Summertime’ by Vanessa Lafaye

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview TIME WILL DARKEN IT by William Maxwell via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1I1

#BookReview ‘A Spool of Blue Thread’ by Anne Tyler #contemporary

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What do you think of when you think of novelist Anne Tyler? For me, it is The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. It is quite a list. So I enjoyed the anticipation of reading her latest, A Spool of Blue Thread. What do I expect? Family, no-one writes about family like she does. Anne Tyler I became wrapped in the story of Abby and Red Whitshank and their four children Denny, Stem, Jeanie and Amanda. Abby was the character that fascinated me, we see her first as a mother in 1994 when Red takes a strange phone call from Denny who is living who knows where. They don’t know whether to believe Denny, whether to worry about him, Abby tries to empathize, Red says there is such a thing as being ‘too understanding’. And so the Whitshank story slowly unfolds like a dropped spool of blue thread running across the floor. We hear the story of Red’s father, Junior, a carpenter, who built the house Abby and Red now live in, we hear about Linnie Mae, Red’s mother and her love affair with Junie. The history of this family is in their bones, and in the bones of the house where they live. But Abby and Red are getting old now, and managing in this large house is becoming fraught with incident.
Anne Tyler dissects the structure of the family, how they become who they are, how the memories and misunderstandings from childhood and adolescence filter through to adulthood and shape mature viewpoints. And how all of this affects the Whitshanks’ relationships with each other, and the outside world.

Read my reviews of these other books by Anne Tyler:-
CLOCK DANCE
FRENCH BRAID
LADDER OF YEARS
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
VINEGAR GIRL

And read the #FirstPara of:-
DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT 
BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWN UPS 

If you like this, try:-
‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley
‘Housekeeping’ by Marilynne Robinson
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD by Anne Tyler via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1xH

#BookReview ‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley #historical #familylife

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It is 1920, the eve of Walter Langdon’s 25th birthday and he is walking the fields of his Iowa farm. The first two pages of Some Luck by Jane Smiley are a wonderful description of him watching a pair of owls nesting in a big elm tree. And so starts the first book in the ‘Last Hundred Years’ trilogy about the Langdon family. Chapter-by-chapter it tells of the family’s life, their farm, the ups and downs of daily life, births and deaths, and always the land.  Jane SmileyAt first it feels as if not much is happening. Smiley is so good at the detail: of Walter farming, Rosanna doing the laundry, babies being born, growing into toddlers and then pupils walking the track to the tiny school where they are taught with their neighbours in one classroom, all ages together. Steadily the chapters, and years, march on. The eldest child Frankie goes away to college and then to war, becoming a sniper in Africa and Europe. His younger brother Joe shows no inclination to leave the farm. Lillian, ‘God’s own gift’, the beautiful daughter, meets a man and goes to Washington DC. And so more babies arrive into the Langdon’s household, and the family’s life expands from Iowa as this next generation lives in a world
I came to this book fresh after reading A Thousand Acres and eager for more. Reading Jane Smiley is a little like reading a novel by Colm Tóibín. Both writers excel at the detail, building the story slowly, like layers of frost thickening on a window in winter which starts off looking cloudy and finishes as an intricate design. As a reader, I trust both authors to deliver in the end. Will I be reading the next two books in the trilogy? Definitely. Some Luck is a book to be read over a quiet winter weekend, hunkered down on the sofa with an endless supply of mugs of hot chocolate. Don’t read it in short snatches, it deserves more than that and it will get beneath

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Jane Smiley:-
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
A THOUSAND ACRES
EARLY WARNING #2LASTHUNDREDYEARS
GOLDEN AGE #3LASTHUNDREDYEARS

If you like this, try:-
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #1LIFECLASS
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SOME LUCK by Jane Smiley http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1m7 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley #contemporary #family

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This is one of those books that I should have read years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t, and I wish I had. the latest book by Jane Smiley, Some Luck, is the first of a new trilogy and is currently sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read. But first, I felt I should read that book I wish I’d read years ago: A Thousand Acres. You know: the one that won the Pulitzer, the one that mirrors King Lear, etc etc. Jane SmileyThe setting is Iowa, remote farmland. The first page took me straight to that wonderful description of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s description of Kansas, more remote farmland. ‘The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’.’
Smiley had my attention straight away. I was soon immersed in the detail of the Cook family’s daily life on their Iowa farm ‘out there’: the drainage of the land, spreading manure, moisture levels, the hogs, the purchase of a new tractor, yields, profit and loss. Overlaid over the groundwork of farming are the daily lives of the family members: Larry, the aging father, and the two daughters, Rose and Ginny and their husbands, who stayed on the farm. A peripheral character is Caroline, the third daughter, the one who got away, now a lawyer, who visits her father but doesn’t interact much with her sisters. Both farming sisters are used to tragedy: Rose is recovering from breast cancer, Ginny has suffered five miscarriages. But they get on with life, because that’s the pragmatic approach to life they were taught.
Then two things happen and everything changes. Out of the blue, Larry says he is leaving the thousand acre farm to Rose and Ginny, nothing to Caroline. And the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had gone to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, returns. From this point, the family slowly unravels as the traumatic past stories are told alongside the unfolding modern-day traumas, set against the empty Iowa horizon and a neighbourhood where there are no secrets.
I couldn’t put this book down although it is in no way a page-turning thriller. It’s all about the characters: I wanted to know what happened to them in the past as children that turned them into the adults they are now. Is family everything? Will they stay together and keep the thousand acres together? There is a new generation of Cook children, Rose has two daughters. Will the thousand acres be preserved for them to inherit, or will they escape the empty landscape of rural Iowa as Caroline did?

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Jane Smiley:-
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
SOME LUCK #1LASTHUNDREDYEARS
EARLY WARNING #2LASTHUNDREDYEARS
GOLDEN AGE #3LASTHUNDREDYEARS

If you like this, try:-
‘Housekeeping’ by Marilynne Robinson
‘Love is Blind’ by William Boyd
‘Poor Caroline’ by Winifred Holtby

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A THOUSAND ACRES by Jane Smiley via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1kk

#BookReview ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt #contemporaryfiction

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I knew it from the first page, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is the rare sort of book that you want to go on forever and when you finish it you want to start reading all over again for the first time. It is a book I will keep and re-read and re-read. Donna Tartt Three main reasons why I loved it. I liked Theo, it is his story and Tartt lets him tell it all the way through. No other viewpoint. It is about art and antiques, or specifically one painting and the effect it has on Theo’s life. The possession of it, the responsibility, the guilt, the value. The meaning of the painting itself, the tiny bird shackled by a chain at its ankle. And the painter, Carel Fabritius, student of Rembrandt, died too young in the Delft gunpowder explosion of 1654 when he was 32. And lastly, it’s one of those wide-ranging American novels – New York to Las Vegas to Amsterdam – that the Americans seem to do so well and the English are rubbish at [if you can think of a modern English novel that does do it, please let me know because I’d love to read it]. Tartt says she carries a notebook everywhere and is always jotting down ideas and facts. It shows. Each page is crammed with information. I have to admit early on I was wondering if 13-year old Theo would really remember details of a painter called Egbert van de Poel, but it is the adult Theo telling the child’s story so I cut her some slack.
It is about art, fate, the things life throws at us, love and friendship. It takes in alcoholism, drug addiction, art fraud, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, unrequited love. At the heart of it is a mystery. As Theo’s feckless father, who gambles according to astrology, says: “sometimes you have to lose to win.” And it is chock full with popular references, from Boris referring to reading the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ books to Pippa’s Hunter wellies.
Of the peripheral characters, I loved Hobie, loved Boris. Pippa remains enigmatic to the end. Tartt’s characters are alive, her places are real. She makes you smell the dust. I’ve been to Las Vegas and have ventured beyond the Strip, but not to the outer edges where the desert reclaims the streets and where the teenage Theo and Boris meet. And I’ve been to New York, walked the streets Theo walks, been to the Met [thank goodness, un-bombed], and been to Amsterdam too with its circular canals. And that brings me to the first chapter, and the ending. I was so intrigued by that first chapter, why is Theo in the hotel room, anxiously scanning the Dutch television news. What has he done? What I imagined it to be… I was wrong, but I had to read almost to the end before I realised I was wrong. That’s really good going for a book that is 771 pages long. There is anticipation, numerous twists in the tale, and there is a little over-intellectualising [often the over-serious way of ‘the big American novel’] but nothing that stopped me reading on. For me, the book went on slightly too long, past its natural finishing point. I would have stopped at the end of the chapter where Theo and Hobie meet post-Christmas, post-Amsterdam.
It is a literary success, and a page-turner. A deserved winner of the Pulitzer, for me.

Read the #FirstPara of THE SECRET HISTORY also by Donna Tartt.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘Purity’ by Jonathan Franzen
‘A Spool of Blue Thread’ by Anne Tyler

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1cm via @SandraDanby