Excellent first book about the ravages of dementia, about Maud (mid 80s) with short-term memory loss (What am I doing? Where am I going?) with retention of long-term memory (disappearance of an elder sister after WWII). The exasperation of her daughter and other care-givers is vivid.
Author: AJ
The Great Man – Kate Christensen
On one level, this is a great book about art in NY. But at its core, this is about relationships – the three women who were intimately involved in the life of a painter who has just died: his sister, wife and long-time lover. The story revolves around the different viewpoints of these three strong women, mostly from when they are old (70s-80s).
Valmiki’s Daughter – Shani Mootoo
A great story set in Trinidad; complex family relationships, partly because of secrets and half-truths. The story is largely about identity (sexual, cultural/racial), with a spectacular description of desire.
A Tale For The Time Being – Ruth Ozeki
This is a brilliant story. A woman in the BC Gulf Islands (Ruth) finds a diary washed ashore, written by a 15 year-old (Nao) in Japan in which her relationship with her 104 year-old great-grandmother is described. Story is a mystery with some magical elements, with Zen philosophy and some quantum mechanics to describe time and place (a little like 1Q84). A fascinating question is asked: How does reading a story impact the ending?
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
This is the back-story to Rochester’s mad wife in Jane Eyre, a woman trapped in England after a life in the Caribbean. Rochester is revealed as first immature, then manipulative, greedy and deceitful so that his wife Antoinette is driven into madness. The author Rhys’ story is also fascinating.
The Lost Garden – Helen Humphreys
Helen Humphreys also wrote Nocturne which I recommended last month. Humphreys is a poet, so this is a short novel (set in 1941 England) with exquisitely chosen words. A lost garden is a metaphor for life and more specifically for love: longing, faith and loss. A beautiful book.
Museum Of Extraordinary Things – Alice Hoffman
One of the best features of this book is the setting: New York and more specifically Coney Island in Brooklyn in 1911. The “museum” is really an exhibit of freaks of nature, both living and dead, most faked/manipulated. The Professor character is wonderfully wicked, but love wins out. Part of the story is a mystery, to add to the flavour.
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin.
A beautiful story about books, a grumpy bookstore owner, and a publisher’s rep – what’s not too love! And there is an adoptive child as well. The story is unabashedly sentimental and both funny and sad – a real pleasure to read.
The Girl Who Was Saturday Night – Heather O’Neill
Wonderful storytelling of the remarkable relationship between two siblings, Nouschka and Nicolas, who have grown up without parental love: a physically absent mother and an emotionally absent father. O’Neill captures the francophone world on Montreal in 1995, leading up to the separation vote. The sibling relationship is amazingly close but they are moving in different directions: Nouschka is going forward and Nicolas is stuck in the present/past. Wonderful writing, especially the metaphors!
What David Read 