Reminiscing Books

I never finished the book. I just couldn't get into it. But it did arrive on time.

What a beautifully written, touching first novel! Ms. Dean's gift of moving back and forth, from past to present (and occasionally blending the two) was so effective in illustrating Marina's descent into Alzheimer's. As one who is currently experiencing the natural decline of an elderly father, I found comfort and some degree of understanding in the author's treatment of Marina's way of living in the past and experiencing confusion in the present. The vivid descriptions of Russian life during the siege of Leningrad and the priceless treasures in the Hermitage reminded me of why I love art history. Altogether, an extremely satisfying read...I look forward to the author's next work!

I could not put this book down. It is beautifully written, and you end up caring so much for the characters. Well researched, well thought out, well written.......what a find. I hope Dean writes more.

This inspiring story of remarkable endurance proved to be one of the most pleasurable reads for me this year. "The Madonnas of Leningrad" is a poignant tale of one woman's harrowing experiences during the 900-day Siege of Leningrad in WWII, alternating with events in her present-day life.

In 1941, Marina Krasnova is a young museum guide at the magnificent Hermitage Museum. Anticipating German attack, the museum staff work night and day to pack the priceless masterpieces to be transported to safety. When the bombings begin, the staff and their families seek refuge in the cellars of the museum, and not long after, starvation, disease, and desperation reduce their numbers. To escape the suffering of their daily lives, Marina and her friend, Anya, build in their minds a "memory palace," burning into their memories each room and the artworks that formerly graced them. As she walks from room to room, Marina sees past the empty gilt frames and sees again the grandeur of each painting-- the Rembrandts, the Da Vincis, the Carravagios, and hundreds more. To Marina, they were all part of her life and what sustained her in the darkest days. Amidst the bombings, she continues to hope that she will once again see her beloved Dmitri, the soldier she has fallen in love with and the father of the child she is carrying.

In the present day, Marina, now Mrs. Buriakov and in her 80s, is ravaged by Alzheimer's. Her memories of her children and recent events are in tatters, but memories of her Leningrad days are as vivid as always. As her faculties continue to degenerate, her mind takes her back to the days of the siege--back to her "memory palace" and the extraordinary paintings and events that defined her life. Her husband and children grow increasingly concerned, and when she disappears one day, it becomes the catalyst for her daughter, Elena's, search for her own identity and meaning in life, as well as a deeper understanding of her mother.

As expected, there is a wealth of art woven within, but one doesn't need to be an aficionado to appreciate the story. The numerous descriptions of the artworks facilitate our understanding of Marina and we identify with her desperate need to hang on to something, no matter that it's intangible, to survive. These masterpieces symbolize hope--that their return to the Hermitage someday is also the return of peace to Marina's Leningrad. The story does not merely contrast the younger Marina (when her mind saves her) and the older Marina (when her mind fails her). More importantly, it illustrates the power of the mind and spirit to provide courage and hope in even the bleakest of circumstances. It's a moving story written concisely yet descriptively, though not overdone, and particularly evocative in the chapters that deal with wartime hardships. Ms. Dean's debut was definitely worth this reader's effort and the few hours spent with her "madonnas" have been a delight.

Marina Buriakov is an 82-year old woman who is slowly losing her battle with Alzheimer's. During a trip to Drake Island for her graddaughter Katie's wedding, Marina often finds herself reminiscing about the past - a past she and husband Dmitri have chosen not to share with their two children, Andrei and Elena (Helen).

During World War II, Marina, a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, worked to save the Soviet Union's priceless artifacts. However, she, like millions of other residents of the city, experienced the horrors of starvation, air raids, and death as the Germans bombed everything they could find. By creating a "memory palace" - a way of organizing her thoughts, Marina is able to remember the Hermitage in its pre-war glory.

The story frequently jumps between the present and the past, and is told through the frustration of Marina's jumbled mind. While it is a beautiful read, it can be a bit confusing at times deciphering between dreams and reality. And, while the story itself is one of heartbreak and hope, it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would.

"The Madonnas of Leningrad" is a great book, but not one that riveted my attention like other World War II novels. Definitely spend a day with it, and then decide for yourself.

I found the premise of this book to be fascinating and full of potential. Unfortunately, it features a disappointing and somewhat cliched plot development with an overly cutsie writing style.

I could not develop a connection to or emapthy for any of the characters, could not figure out where the story was going as it dragged on for 200 plus pages, and found the ending to be a dis-jointed segment unto itself. The book reads like a screen play for a sappy made-for-TV movie. I read it for my book club, and found myself surrounded by a room full of "amazing", "5 stars", "deep, creative". All I could think was...."I guess that's whay they call it chick lit". I had high hopes for this novel; what followed was a dumbed-down fleshing out of its premise.

I entered this novel hoping for the great read promised. Spilling Clarence delivers. Ms. Ursu's writing is full of nuance and resonance. What appears to be a simple turn of phrasing is deftly intertwined in one or more characters' past or present. An unfolding joy.

I really wanted to like this book.I tried hard to follow the ins and outs of it, but it was confusing going from present to the past with out any indication of which was which. great premise but this author did not pull it off.
The best part of the book is the thought that this could really happen in today's world. It makes one wonder that if it did happen, would the town be told.
I've seen others compare it to Time Traveler's Wife. i do not agree, you always knew where you were with that book.
this book is original and kooky and quirky but the author tried too hard IMHO.

Spilling Clarence is one of those books I bought first for myself, adored, and bought again and again to give to people I love. Ursu's prose is as deep and moving as the memories she creates for her characters. A poignant and satisfying read!

If you liked Time Travelers Wife, you will love this.

Ursu's use of language is moving and fun. I was laughing in one scene then moved to near tears just 5 pages later.

It's a true gem of a novel.

All in all I thought this was an excellent novel. The first three quarters are an idyllic story of a boy's first love in late 19th century Brazil. The last part is how the marriage fell apart due to suspicions of adultery.

In regards to the debate on whether Capitu cheated, I must say that at first I was unsure also. The thing that swayed me into thinking that yes, she did cheat, was the part where Bentinho's mother was indifferent to his child. If you remember, Bentinho was confused by this since the child was her only grandson. I think she was indifferent because something led her to intuit that the child was not her son's. (Thus his mother knew Capitu was unfaithful long before he did. She never told him, but she knew). Add to this the circumstantial evidence that Bentinho pieced together on his own, and I have to say that in the end, he got it right. Capitu cheated on him.

Every Brazilian knows that Machado de Assis is among the top 5 writers in the world and now the world will discover the genius of this Brazilian who is already for us a universal genius! He is even better than Flaubert and Zola and we recommend all his books!

Luiz

After a slow start and a rather meek continuation, the last third of the book is dazzling, with jealousy running amok: 'wishing to know what might be in my wife's head'.

A woman promises God that if she has a son, he will become a priest. But the adolescent has absolutely no call to become a padre. On the contrary, he falls in love with a beauty.
In order to escape from the holy vow, the Church agrees in a most jesuitic way that if a substitute is found, the promise will be fulfilled.
The subsequent marriage turns out not to be the paradise hoped for.

This book contains some mild criticism of the Church with its paternosters and Ave Marias as penances for committed sins. The pact with God is treated as a commercial note: 'The Creditor (God) was a multimillionnaire; He was not dependent upon payment in order to eat, and consented to postponements without even increasing the rate of interest.'
'Jehovah is a Rothschild, only much more human: he does not make moratoriums, he pardons the debt in full, provided the debtor truly wished to mend his ways'.

The sex is also very innocent ('silk garters') compared to today's eccentricities.

The confession of the main character is not without some acrid self-mockery: 'The Church has established in the confessional the most authorative of legal services and in confession the most trustworthy of instruments for the adjustment of moral accounts between man and God. But my incorrigible timidity closed this sure door to me. How a man changes! Today I go so far as to publish it.'

The overall picture of Brazil at the end of the 19th century is appalling: poverty, leprosy, slavery, the all importance of the catholic Church. But for the author, this state of affairs is in no way exceptional.

This book is a worth-while read.

In my review about Machado de Assis I made a mistake. He's probably the most important writer in the 19th century and not 18th. Sorry about that.

I didn`t like that book very much because it is very bad to understand the story, it uses a formal language. But, the story is very nice and intersting.

Although I am 33 years old I found this book a great read......The author uses humor very wisely and makes very good points......It was interesting to read about some of the things that I currently take for granted (easily putting on my pants while maintaining my balance!), but that will change when I reach an older age.......Very good read!

Celebrating age 60, what a delightful concept! I'm 52 so I'm boning up now, and this book about a few steps along the way in the aging process was fun to read, and informative too, although I won't go into gorey details here! I would have given it 5 stars but she spends too much time for my tastes going on and on about her little baby grandson, Gene. That doesn't thrill me when it's someone next to me at a dinner party, and it didn't thrill me here. Other than that, I really enjoyed and would definitely recommend this book.

The books came in a box with little packing - as a result, the books moved around within the box, and were mixed up with bent pages. More padding would have kept them nicely set.

This book is smart, sassy, and amusing, just like "Bridget Jones". (Do the British have a monopoly on this sort of writing?) Being of a similar age, I found the author covered many of the requisite topics and in many cases did so with good insights. However...the main character, aka the heroine, seems to have no visible means of support, and to do absolutely nothing, more like an 80 year old than a 60 year old. Nothing, that is, but socialize with her friends and take care of her grandchild. Although the author covers serious subjects, her conclusion, that all can be solved by the birth of a grandchild to 'fall in love with' and the possibility of a romantic relationship with an attractive man, was a real copout. It conjured up visions of those dreadful ladies with their 'Ask me about my grandchild!' bumper stickers, and the love-hungry vulnerable widow in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone."

I enjoyed this 'diary' of getting older. In a society that values youth, Ironside focuses on what's really important in life. She points the way to a quality retirement, taking a cue from Volatire, to plant a garden of friends - or to recognize what's been right in front of us all along - in a laugh-out-loud acount of being 60's in the new century.

Though others may say this book was just "another" book with the same old story line, I found it to be so wonderfully written and rich in detail and imagery that I truly felt that I was THERE and participating in parts of this book. I am and always have been a reader of many different genres but this book truly touched me in the wisdom that the author was hoping to pass onto his readers (I would think anyways). I am going to pick this book as our book clubs next book as I want to share it with others. Enjoy the book and the insights in it.

While I enjoyed this gentle story about a boy at the beginning of this life making a connection with a man at the end of his journey, there was really nothing compelling or "new" about the plot.

The book followed a predictable plot line and ended as expected.

What came in the middle were some good lessons, but I feel the author could have done so much more with the two main characters.

A light, quick read with nothing much to "think about" after the last page has been turned.

Beautifully written. Warm and compassionate. It makes the reader reflect on their own life, the choices they have made, the paths they have taken. If you liked this book, I would also recommend "Tending Roses" by Lisa Wingate.

In Mobile Bay, high school senior Josh Bell and his mother struggle everyday just to survive. His father rarely sends money and just about never sees Josh. Since he cannot depend on his dad, to supplement their meager income, Josh delivers the meals his mother cooks to senior citizens as part of the meals on wheels program. Stuck in a dismal present, Josh makes no plans for what he sees is an even more desolate future.

When Josh delivers a meal to arthritic cripple William Davis, everything soon seems different to the teen. The elderly man hires Josh to help him record his memories of stories that always provide a moral ending. As the relationship between the lost student and the ailing octogenarian cements into more of a grandfather-son kinship, both gain as each finds a reason to live.

A PARTING GIFT is a powerful relationship drama that focuses on the theme intelligence without compassion and wisdom is stupidity. The story line is not loaded with action, but provides an uplifting realistic dialogue between the two key characters. Readers will enjoy that bond though Josh seems more like a responsible adult than a troubled teen. Fans of second chance at living message tales will want to read this inspirational book.

Harriet Klausner

I'm not going to "tell" you the story like every one else wants to do - the back cover tells you the reason for the story and what it is about.

I'd like to let you know why reading this book is worth more than watching the dumb tube or listening to all the replays of "Arms Wide Open" by Creed on the radio.

Have you ever lived? Ever had a day where the memories stay with you forever, and you can always bring the memory back to your mind and help you through a present situation? Ever had a person that took the time out of their life to tell your punk-self about life and people, and how they did things when they were young? Need to talk to someone - someone you think would know the answer to a question you have - only to remember that the person died a year ago - or years ago?

If you haven't had ONE thing happen to you that makes you reflect on others, life, your family, God, then go get the TV out of the trash - you're already DEAD and no one can help you.

For the rest of the people reading this review - if you read "A Parting Gift" then you get to add another memory of a "good time" or of "time well spent." And maybe you'll even want to go see where the book was based.

I was raised in Pensacola Florida, which is not far from the East Shore of Mobile Bay. I have visited the area - and to those who have never been - psst! there are still some places where you will not hear radios, or see houses, or even see and hear jet skis.

Go read this book, and you'll briefly stop numbing yourself to the world and the noise.

- and stop buying cable tv - go use the money to buy books - or take yourself or your kids to the Gulf and go fishing, swimming, and boating (don't get the boat with the engine!).

I enjoyed this book for the historic content but found a few of the characters less than believable and thought the book just needed "something." I just wanted more from it somehow. The characters that were well-done were enjoyable, however, and I did like the descriptions and the language.

This tender but sad story touches on the loneliness of an elderly man, guilt over his family's past, his lost relationship with his son and former wife, and the expectations he puts on a friendship based on a relic from his past. More than anything it expresses just how fleeting relationships are in this life and how important it is to have something onto which to hold in times of uncertainty.

Told beautifully through Tristan's relationships with two young women (one a former student) in his present life and flashbacks to his life as a child in Nazi Europe (the Netherlands and Germany), this story is presented in such as way as to expose the vulnerability of one elderly man and leave the reader feeling just a bit sadder for having read this touching novel.

This is a simple story portraying very complex emotions. I wouldn't describe this as a story that I "couldn't put down" but rather one that I would "go back to" because it is one that stays in your heart. The writing style is truly fine-tuned and the flashbacks into the past are so well done.

The explanation of the line carved in the bottom of the sewing desk "When the Jews are gone, we will be the next ones", is so well done. Things are never as they seem.

This is a wonderful example of how each of us cannot escape our history, but we have choices: we either have to let it overcome us or come to terms with it.

This book was recommended to me by a friend -- an author and bookseller -- and I feel it is one of the best gifts he's ever given me.

Told with grace, wit and intelligence, the plot of the book -- the skeleton on which the events are hung -- is not as important as the way in which the author tells it. There is a grandeur, a measured unfolding which wraps you in the characters' lives. There is real sympathy for the different human viewpoints which come from our varied experiences, and the reader is gradually allowed to share in the breadth of the characters.

It's a lovely, loving and very artfully told journey.

"The Deadwood Beetle" by Mylene Dressler, G. K. Hall & Co., 2001, Large Type Book.

At first, this book appears to be about a little Dutch boy who survived the Holocaust, and, years later spies his mother's sewing table in an antiques store. The store owner, Cora Lowenstein, translates the child's inscription, on the bottom of the table, without knowing that it was Tristan Martens, himself, who carved it there years ago. Her version in English is "When the Jews are gone, we will be the next ones", which she interprets as in the same fashion as the famous quote from Pastor Niemoeller, (1892-1984).

It seems, however, that was not the meaning of the carved words: Tristan Martens (who now had to be in his late sixties or early seventies) knew it was from his Dutch father, who was a Nazi. Tristan was not a victim of the holocaust; instead, his family was waiting for their turn in power, after the Jews were gone. Angry Dutch citizens had looted his mother's table from their Dutch home when The Netherlands was liberated. He feels guilty for most of his life. This central theme of guilt is always a background plot as Tristan begins to see Cora Lowenstein in a romantic light. The guilt theme is intertwined, somewhat, with entomology, as he deals with his last graduate student, who, in turn, is dealing with a unique form of insect out in Arizona. Tristan Martens tells the student's parents how he happened to be an immigrant (as they were) and some of the story of his life directly after the World War.

Except for flashbacks to his life in The Netherlands, the book is set mainly in winter-time New York City, with some trips to a nursing home in nearby Connecticut. I think that the author, Dressler, has done a good job in capturing the flavor of subways and travel in New York. She has written an intriguing book.

The cozy cover art on THE FOREVER YEAR literally glowed to me; it grabbed my eyes and commanded, "BUY ME!!"

"Yeah, sure," I thought, "The cover's luscious; it's got the homey icons that surge the most vulnerable kind of hope, that the story will live up to the artistic promise of joint coffee mugs and a vase of flowers on a kitchen table by a window..."

The paperback felt too good in my hands; I was actually afraid to read the reviews and synopsis. I replaced the book on the supermarket shelf (that was before I discovered Amazon's wish list and the ease of electronic shopping carts). On a few different occasions, I again picked up the book, gathering faith, before I dropped the paperback into my shopping cart, almost a month later.

I had finally worked through my auto pilot's too-good-to-be-true warning, "A guy writing a sensitive story? He'll probably be one of those Pulitzer Prize gurus who twists readers hearts into wanting to exit through an invisible, clouded sunset, deciding never return to the emptiness, the hopeless horror of Earth."

After finishing the book, I set it down with a gentle reluctance, saturated with awe, admiration, and appreciation that a book could live up to the siren's call of a sensationally soulful cover. I see now why THE FOREVER YEAR is marketed by Amazon as comparing to the novels of top-of-the-line female authors, including Delinsky's FLIRTING WITH PETE.

Anthony is a true male, no doubts about that; yet his writing softens raw realism with a healing grace, exposing with crystal clarity and compassion the visceral levels of life and intimacy in the present day emotional labyrinth. The generation gaps (there are at least two) between Jesse Sienna and his dad, Mickey, are delightfully portrayed through generously disbursed treats of hilarious, heart warming, on target dialogue between this superbly sarcastic father and son. I laughed out loud so often I was getting tired having to stop reading to explain to my husband what was so funny.

I fell in love with father and son, though Mickey was definitely wiser than the loveably strutting, yet genuinely sensitive Jesse, who thought he was so beyond his father in relationship sophistication. Anthony portrays the dichotomous psychological set of these males with the skill of a psychiatrist wielding the talent of a seasoned wordsmith, who has lived lifetimes beyond textbooks and writing seminars. Moreover, Anthony is such a natural artist, his drama, description, and dialogue flow effortlessly. The reader doesn't notice how skillful the execution of the novel is until he's finished reading it and has enjoyed a few weeks of the story rambling pleasantly through leisure thoughts.

Anthony doesn't develop characters, he traps real people into books. If anyone ever hypothesized that authors are creative, mind-over-matter, Beings-in-training, Anthony would stack the evidence with his ability to paint reality on paper, better yet, a reality worth living.

This book had several gifts for me, even beyond the experience of reading an entertaining work of escape fiction with rare cathartic depth. In a sense, all these gifts coalesce for me into this fact:

The existence of this novel exposed to me that TOR, the publisher of THE FOREVER YEAR, is expanding with the market, actively opening its doors to serious, accomplished writers offering the type of polished manuscripts which will feed the evolving needs of the reading public, manuscripts exactly like the collection I've been sitting on for two decades.

With Regards & Best Wishes,
Linda G. Shelnutt

For anyone who has ever doubted a father's love for his son, a son's love for his father ... and the influence a good woman can have on both of them, this book is for you. A "secret" from the father's past changes all their lives ... in unusual ways.

I truly marveled at the way this author switched back and forth from third person to first with such ease and clarity, creating a smooth, pleasurable read from start to finish. Ronald Anthony's voice has the "feel" of some of Joe Coomer's best work; warm, nostalgic, and completely "authentic".

A feel-good book you will find hard to put down, once you start reading.

Jesse, youngest son of widower Mickey Sienna, 83, asks his father to move in with him instead of to the assisted-living facility preferred by his siblings. Father and son quickly acclimate to each other's idiosyncrasies, but Jesse's healthy twenty-first-century relationship with his girlfriend, Marina, completely befuddles Mickey. To him, Marina is a rare woman whom Jesse should treasure, but Jesse, still smarting from numerous failed relationships, is not ready to commit. Trying to show Jesse how disastrous it would be for him to lose Marina, Mickey reveals the secret of his first and greatest love. In a series of emotionally draining chapters stretching out over several weeks, Mickey confides his love for Gina, an intelligent, passionate woman to whom he was engaged before her untimely death over 50 years earlier. Jesse realizes how foolish he has been, telling Marina his father was right when he called him a moron. Compelling characters quickly engage the reader in a heartfelt, if somewhat predictable, tale of romance lost and found.

The Forever Year is a wonderful tale of learning about life from the eyes of experience. Jesse Sienna finds this out when his 83-year old father moves in with him. Jesse, the youngest and unplanned child of Mickey, never had quite the same relationship with his father as his three siblings. He has also had his experiences with love that has left him convinced that each love is doomed to die, thus making him resistant to fully commit to anyone. Thankfully for him, he has met Marina, a beautiful school teacher that has also lost faith in love. Together, they decide to have a relationship based on one day at a time.

When Mickey meets Marina, he becomes fond of her. She reminds him of a lady from his youth, Gina, that up to now none of his children have heard of. Mickey is not fond of that fact that his son is unwilling to commit to Marina and starts to tell him of his own love with Gina before he met Jesse and his siblings' mother. He tells the story to him in little bits over a series of weeks. In the end, Mickey's love affair of 50 years previous is the guiding light in Jesse's own love with Marina.

The author has done an excellent job in going back and forth between first and third person in the story. It reflects two tales in one as Jesse tells the story from his eyes mixed with the author telling the story from beyond Jesse's point of view. A noteworthy novel from this promising new author.

I don't spend much time reading novels, but some time away at my parent's house lead me back to the glorious world of fiction. I almost didn't read this one because I thought, "oh, man, I am not in the mood for a romance novel" but this book read as a romance novel plus a lot more.

I really enjoyed the author's voice as he explored and "lived in" the life of Jesse and Mickey. His tone was realistic - and I heard some of myself in his thoughts and phrasings. Jesse was especially multi-dimensional.

Also, the exploration of family was excellent - again, especially from Jesse's perspective.

It also reminded me there are many stories within our family tree that are not "open" that would fascinate us - and remind us of the uniqueness of these people with whom we share our blood lines.

There are some of the usual "romance-novel" aspects of this book as well, but for the most part I found it deliciously, perfectly unconventionally conventional.

Let me start by saying that Nicholas Sparks is my absolute favorite author. I have read every one of his novels immediately upon their release. Since he usually only publishes one novel per year, I usually spend the rest of the year trying to find another novel to satisfy me as much (or close to as much) as Sparks' books do - - I think I've found this in Ronald Anthony!

I stumbled upon this book by accident, after reading some reviews here on Amazon. After seeing more than one compare this to a Sparks novel, I headed down to my local book store, and immediately picked up a copy to see for myself. I am so glad I did, and can now add Anthony to my list of favorite "new" authors.

Written with so much emotion, I can't imagine anyone reading this book without feeling something.

Three stories are actually told - one of the relationship between an aging father and his youngest son, one of the father's long ago love affair with a woman he just never got over and one of the son's current relationship with a wonderful woman.

Even after marrying another woman and producing four (now grown) children, Mickey never got over the love of his life. Jesse (Mickey's son), is now in a not-so-serious relationship with the beautiful, mesmorizing Marina. Jesse & Marina decide to take their relationship slowly and don't have any plans for a "future." Both have been badly hurt by previous relationships, and rather than run the risk of suffering through that pain again, they both decide to take their relationship one day a time, without any expectations from the other about what direction their relationship is headed. It is this attitude that causes Mickey to share the story of his lost love with Gina - a love story that took place more than 50 years earlier.

All three stories are equally touching and moving, and cannot be read without some type of emotion. As love evolves among all the main characters (Mickey & Gina, Jesse & Marina, Mickey & Jesse), I found myself thinking about the many "loves" in my life. It's very hard not to get emotionally attached to this story as readers of all ages and genders - in all types of relationships - can easily identify with the characters and the choices they make, mistakes that are made, and chances that have been lost. While this is a "love story", it's not simply the story between a man and woman that is told. Fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends, mothers and sons, even between two best friends - all of these relationships are covered within this story.

The story flows nicely from chapter to chapter - some chapters are told from the point of view of Mickey, while others are told by Jesse. It's not confusing, however, and readers can easily follow along. I also liked how the story was not very predictable - readers are left guessing what happens right up until the very end - I hate it when a story is so predictable, you're just waiting to get to the part that you already KNOW is going to happen! This isn't the case with this book. While I'm sure readers will figure out part of the story - you won't know the full story until you've read the very least page. There's the perfect amount of light humor involved - I loved how Jesse & Mickey endearingly referred to each other as "Moron" throughout the story!! Instead of envisioning a cranky old man in his early 80s, readers are left with the image of a spunky, fun-loving, light-hearted Mickey. Readers can also see how both Mickey & Jesse grow through the book - each opening the their eyes & hearts to thoughts and feelings that neither one ever thought they'd ever experience. Both father & son learn from each other - both, from their mistakes & accomplishments - and its fun to see each of them evolve through the story; i.e., Jesse loves organic food, gormet coffee, "turkey burgers" - Mickey is set in his ways and just wants a simple cup of coffee and bacon. By the end of the story, both have tried & done things neither would have imagined at the beginning of the book.

I'm so glad I found this book, and decided to give it a try. It was truly a emotional read, one that will be difficult to top in the near future - the new Nicholas Sparks book isn't due to be released until Sept, but at least I had THE FOREVER YEAR to occupy at least some of my reading time til then.

I can't wait to read the next novel from Ronald Anthony - I hope all of his books stay with this theme. If so, he definitely has a dedicated fan in me!

I would have said this is engaging, nicely done historical fiction; however, it turns out there is no Cypress Parish, and it is not clear from the afterword whether the diversion of flooding victimized some other parish. It is good social history, and there are many good characters, but they are not deeply drawn.

For a really well written novel with an engaging teenage protagonist, set in a small Canadian town during the 1930's, I would recommend "The Other Side of the Bridge" by Mary Lawson.

In Elise Blackwell's second novel, The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish, she tells a compelling story of the 1927 flood in Louisiana. Louis Proby, the main character, now living in New Orleans, is 95, and looks back on his life when he was 17 years old awaiting the first flooding of New Orleans.

This is a tale of sacrifice and heroism with a delicate balance of history and fiction as it portrays a family in the mid 1920's. Many characters seem authentic and come alive as Louis narrates his account. He remembers Cypress Parish was destroyed because the city fathers said dynamiting the levees was necessary to save New Orleans. Louis always knew the truth that his own father had played an important role in the decision which allowed Cypress Parish to go under pointlessly.

Proby lives through a complex time in history. Louis writes detailed descriptions of seedy clubs in Crescent City (New Orleans), of bootlegging, of levee construction, of Carville leper colony and the philosophy of Pliny the Elder. Louis falls in love with a French girl by the name of Nanette Lancon, but loses his heart as she wanders away from him.

This book delicately balances history with fiction and shows how politics destroyed a city and changed an entire way of life in Cypress Parish.

This powerful story is of a young man and events which lured him from boyhood to manhood. He learns the truth about his father and how he was one of the driving forces which helped save New Orleans. Because of Blackwell's upbringing in Louisiana, she brings life to the South, accuracy to people, and reality to places. She thoroughly researched the era, used familial records and historical events, to accurately weave these materials into her book. A grim subject matter embraces the reader with a feeling of pleasantness because of Elise's elegant prose.

Readers will appreciate the life experiences in the 1920's as Louis Proby awaits his flood. This book is highly recommended especially after the disaster in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina and the failing levees.

Clark Isaacs
Reviewer

Set in the 1920's, this was an interesting read with a unique combination of events: the impending flood and the "political" response to it mixed together with family dynamics and a touch of Hansen's Disease. I especially like the "memoir" feel of the book although it is fiction. The short chapters also lend themselves to the mixture of events. I consider this a "good read" - short, quick, and interesting.

My reading group read is reading this second novel from this up and coming Southern Author, Elise Blackwell. I truly enjoyed the characters and immersion into the culture of 1927 Southern Louisiana. Not being from the south, this novel did not apologize for the culture, but presented it as was and the story came to life through the characters as they each made decisions based on their social position, economic and family interests. It is a truly enjoyable read and a book I would recommend to others who want some insight into a part of American life that is not urban but truly shows that all of us - regardless of where we live in this nation - are more alike than different. What I found most insightful was that the decisions in the communities where we live are made by a few and through compromise and are often not motivated by seeking the greater good, especially for the poor. A haunting novel that does truly speak to parallels between a 1927 flood event and Hurricane Katrina.

In this stunning novel, Elise Blackwell beautifully interweaves natural history, human history, and the events surrounding the 1927 Mississippi River flood. Louis Proby is a boy of 17 during that spring, and he learns a great deal about what it means to be a man. His teachers include an artist who loses himself in the natural world and a man of wealth and power who takes Louis into the back rooms of New Orleans where a group of men with a great financial stake in that great city decide to blow up the levees and flood "Cypress" Parish in order to save New Orleans. The human cost of the flood is in here, but above all this is the story of the good and bad in people, and how difficult it can be for a young person to figure out which is which, all of it told with the colors and rhythms of the Mississippi escaping its banks. I would highly recommend this fine novel.

This old woman is dictating a tape to some child she hasn't seen in 30 years about twenty photographs from her own childhood. Does that sound interesting to you? This is not a wise and charming old lady either. She is a sour, resentment filled, small-minded woman and each one of these photographs triggers passionate anger about little slights and sins of her parents from 70 years ago. We finally get through all of the tedious detail about the first photograph. Next chapter: Number two. No, he isn't really going to do this is he? Skip ahead a few chapters: Number seven. Oh, yes he is. I just cannot understand it. This is Jonathan Coe of "The Rotters' Club" and "The Closed Circle." These two books work together to create an intricate and nuanced look at how events shaped the present political and cultural scene. This is Jonathan Coe of "The Windshaw Legacy," a satire so unique and creative it defies any summary. And here he is plodding through this amateurish exposition. The whole point is so that this woman can reveal something to the child that she either already knows or almost certainly does not want to know. But that doesn't happen until the eighteenth photograph and you can be pretty certain that this young woman would have stopped listening by that point.

The really odd thing is that by the end of the book, no one has located this young woman and nothing else really happens. The woman's niece who is the executrix of her estate and her two daughters listen to the tape. In the middle of this one of the girls goes and gives a flute concert and that goes well, but then in the end, one of the girls breaks up with her boyfriend. We haven't met the boyfriend and we know very little about this girl, so this is not stirring news for the reader. It really seems as if half of the manuscript for this novel got lost at the printer. Surely Coe was planning on doing something more with this material. As it is, however, there is simply nothing there.

The Rain Before It Falls is a poetic exploration of mothers and daughters, and even grandmothers as it beautifully charts the progress of one Shropshire family from the War years through to the present day through a series of photographs. Upon her death at the age of seventy-three of her great-aunt Rosamund, the middle-aged Gil learns of the existence of a series of photos and four cassette jewel cases of tapes who Rosamund had apparently gifted to a girl named Imogen who Gil had met only once, more than twenty years ago.

Rosamund had left no children. Her longtime companion - a woman called Ruth - had died some years earlier, and her sister Sylvia was also dead and none of them had left any indication to the whereabouts of Imogen. Helped by her two daughters, Catharine and Elizabeth, Gil frantically tries to investigate, while also wondering what could possibly have motivated her enigmatic aunt to arrange such a strange and eccentric request.

If Gil is, by some chance, unable to locate the mysterious Imogen, Rosamund had requested that Ros listen to the tapes herself. So when an investigation into the location of Imogen comes to a dead-end, and with her thoughts drifting randomly, floating and un-tethered, Ros gathers Catharine and Elizabeth together to listen, all three women unwilling to turn their back on Rosamund's appeal.

What begins as the ramblings of an old woman speaking into a microphone alone in the sitting room of her bungalow in Shropshire, soon becomes touching story of a lifelong friendship of two cousins who were once so close that they could have been sisters and who endured decades together, both coming to be embroiled in unrequited live and failed marriages, and both enduring their fair share of hardship and pain.

Although the first photo is Rosamund as a child, living on the suburbs of Birmingham, it is the second photograph of a picnic and a family group taken at Wardon Farm in 1941, the home of her aunt and uncle, that becomes the core of the novel and where Rosamund meets the eleven-year-old Beatrix. Quickly becoming allies and sisters, and partners in crime, a caravan at the Farm becomes a place where they can both retreat and hide and to plot an escape attempt to run away together to Birmingham.

It is this act of rebellion that firmly cements Rosamund and Beatrix's friendship, the bond between them lasting throughout most their adult lives even as Rosamund becomes a sort of substitute mother to Beatrix's wayward and unloved daughter, Thea and later as she frantically tries to adopt Imogen, Thea's damaged off-spring. In the process, Rosamund's life steadily unfolds against a backdrop of a brutally repressive England of the 1950's and a prejudice that is so often subtle and unspoken, but unmistakably there, time and again over the years.

Rosalind is clearly captivated with Beatrix; she's Rosalind's best friend constantly orbiting her life in various ways over the years. Always the self-effacing stalwart, Rosalind is forced to into a confrontation with Beatrix and her bad marriages, and accident that nearly cripples her, and her neglect and mistreatment Thea. It's not surprising that Thea grows up feeling unwanted and worthless and incapable of emotion.

The novel is filled with the collateral damage of all the unsuitable relationships and bad choices that Beatrix, and later, Thea, makes. Even when Rosalind finds the person of her dreams, Beatrix cannot help but try and sabotage it. Much of the drama in the last half of the story revolves Thea, unaware of the twists and turns her narrative is about to take, a fragile sense of security underpinning everything she does, her life always on the verge of splintering forever into fragments.

In prose that reflects a sort of graceful abstractedness and also a steely English reserve, Coe brings to the forefront Rosalind's shadowy and nebulous emotions that are tempered with regret or jealousy. Rosamund readily admits that in making these tapes she's driven by the desire to give Imogen a sense of her own history, a sense of where she came from and of the forces that had made her.

Moving from Birmingham, to Shropshire and its surrounds, to swinging London in the sixties and the seventies, and then even onto Toronto Canada, The Rain Before it Falls is all about the nature of memory and how the patterns of existence can ultimately shape how we see and how we relate to each other. Gil finally recognizes this when she finally connects the events of Rosalind's life with family dog that inexplicably runs away - first Beatrix in pursuit, then Imogen, mother and granddaughter racing against the odds, almost fifty years apart.

Rosalind's photographs do remain at the novel's core, her descriptions of them indeed quite exquisite: the blazing gold fields of Shropshire; a boat on the Serpentine in Hyde Park; the gaunt and somber silhouettes of Warden Farm standing out blackly in the moonlight. In the end, this is an exact and perfectly tempered book, and serves as not just a testament to one family's struggles throughout the decades, but also a testimony to the sometimes-troubling intricacies of the human condition. Mike Leonard May 08.

I picked up Jonathan Coe's eighth novel, The Rain Before It Falls, because I was intrigued by the title. I had never heard of the London-based author before. Now I can't wait to get my hands on his other works.

The Rain Before It Falls opens with the death of Gill's Aunt Rosamond. Seems kind of morbid at first, especially when her doctor finds her in her chair with a record player going and a tape machine nearby. Niece Gill's instructions are to find Imogen and give the four tapes to her. If Gill cannot locate the child, who must be about 30 years old by now, she can listen to the tapes.

Gill vaguely recalls Imogen, a blind child of seven or eight at Aunt Rosamond's fiftieth birthday party. She has no idea of the girl/woman's last name nor where she might be living. With the help of her two daughters and Rosamond's solicitor, Gill tries to locate Imogen. The search is summarized quickly in the first twenty pages, leaving readers to wonder what track the novel could take. Between pages twenty-one and twenty-seven, readers get a quick overview of Gill's relationship with her aunt, her husband, and her daughters. Then on page twenty-eight the real story begins. Gill and her daughters decide to listen to the tapes in hope of locating Imogen.

Rosamond has carefully chosen twenty photographs that will explain Imogen's life. As the child is blind, Rosamond describes the people, places, and things in each of the photographs, all the while giving Imogen her family history. The format reminded me of both Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why.

By the fourth picture and accompanying lengthy description, I was beginning to get a little bored. The fifth picture picked up the storyline (for me) and from there until the end of the novel, I was hooked. In the rest of the novel, there are some verifications of subjects/events/happenings that have been skillfully foreshadowed. And as the novel draws closer and closer to its climax, there are some major bombshells and twists that left me gasping out loud (something I haven't experienced since Jonathan Hull's Losing Julia).

Simply put, ya gotta read this book!

Armchair Interviews agrees.

This book should be made into a film. And I found it far easier to read than "Atonement," which was too wordy and dense for me (and I'm a Henry James fan). First of all, I was surprised to read here that some critics didn't like the device of using photographs to tell the story to a blind girl. To me, that was one of the best things about the writing, ingenious and entertaining. I couldn't wait to hear what the next image would be - and yet I didn't want to leave the tale from the last one. Also, I enjoyed the dark and perverse interactions of the protagonists. The main character, the one telling the story, reveals her own dark side toward the end, but I don't want to spoil it for future readers. It's a fascinating tale, one of the best books I've read in a long time, but it does leave one with a peculiar, "unfinished" feeling, though the "facts" appear to have been laid out and brought to a "satisfying" conclusion. Still - as a writer myself - I found the theme of life's being a giant mystery actually more satisfying than a pat ending. Strange, strange book - and yet it also tapped into my own life's story in ways I won't go into here. I wonder if other readers felt the same way.

I think this is a wonderfully written novel that will have a difficult time receiving a wide readership because it's one of the most depressing novels I've read since Madame Bovary. Dysfunctional mothers, suicide, love and friendships rejected, death, poverty, abuse, and unhappiness at every turn of the page.

And yet, Coe's writing made me reread passages several times and even want to steal certain turns of phrase for my own blog!

I did read some of the reviews of this book from London newspapers on my library's databases, and some did not like the author's use of the 20 photographs that Rosamond describes to her blind friend Imogen in the attempt to help Imogen "see" and thus understand her history. It seems that it is 50% that, but ends up, of course, being another half Rosamond's effort to review her own life and justify the choices she made along the way.

And just as Rosamond and Imogen have a little discussion about what the rain is "before it falls", and Imogen, with the innocence of a child answers that it isn't real, so too is life before it is lived. You can sit at the end of life and with 20-20 hindsight perhaps expect to determine if you did the right things, but it is just hindsight.

So, the irony is that even when we come to the end and can see the past, Rosamund is still uncertain in many instances if she did the right things at the right times. Gosh, all that to say I really liked the use of the photographs as a plot construction tool. I found myself tuning in to looking at the scenes as if I were responsible for a stage construction.

If you enjoy "literary fiction" and don't mind a downpour of emotional content, this novel won't be just another blur of a read. The characters and the setting are quite unforgettable.

This debut novel by Lawrence Kaplan has a clever, fresh premise and such well drawn characters that as the people of different ethnicities,upbringing and young potentials meet and intersect from chapter to chapter, there is a sense of an interesting and satisfying conclusion to come. The author does not disappoint and the ending,as a great puzzle comes together,is brilliant and perfect. This historical fiction is an important lesson in history, a searching lesson in ethics, and a fresh look at the deceit behind the abandonment of the European Jews. As Kaplan,s characters rub shoulders with the real personalities and politicians of pre-war America, the temper of the times becomes vibrant and real. This is a must read. I enjoyed this book more than many of the bestsellers that stay on the top ten booklists for months. reviewer I.H. Lewis,M.D.

Haunted by mother-in-law Irene Lederer's unsettling true story of an Allied aerial mission that flew over Auschwitz in August of 1944 on its way to bomb the I.G. Farben synthetic oil and rubber plant less than five miles away, Lawrence Kaplan set out to find answers to a nagging question: Why didn't Allies bomb the camp's gas chambers or railways when they had the chance? House of Ghosts is the result of this inquiry, an historically bent hardboiled thriller based off the premise that one of those pilots had the gumption to stop the slaughter.

When we first meet ex-cop Joe Henderson with all his personal demons in tow, there is some question as to whether or not this beer-guzzling pill-popping grizzly bear of a curmudgeon has the supreme guts to take on neighbor Preston Swedge's whole houseful of WWII ghosts, but Henderson is quick to charm as the plot jumps into step and speedily embarks on an entertaining crusade for truth that culminates in a revelatory ending.

Kaplan has done his homework, too. House of Ghosts is, at the same time, an illuminating inquiry into less frequently discussed events of WWII and the Holocaust, one that raises questions about the geopolitics of a modern-day world that more than half a century later still bears idle witness to feverish acts of genocide backed by aggressive dictatorships.

HOUSE OF GHOSTS by LAWRENCE KAPLAN

Anyone with interest in the history immediately preceding the Second World War and a liking for the magic of a good old mystery should read this book.

The historical drama surrounding the lives of certain races of people and a bit of the pity the story creates along with a mystery that takes place in different eras makes for one of those prosaic you won't be able to put it down type of read.

The novel travels in time from the year 2000 in the suburban Town of Westfield, NJ to the 1930s in tough Brooklyn, NY and the intelligentsia of the University in Princeton, NJ, with sidings to the Auschwitz concentration camps in Poland, to Chicago for the ramblings of a mad priest, Father Coughlin, to the piers in Havana for the ship the St Louis, laden with its doomed cargo of Jewish passengers and to the Japanese internments of California.

Believe me, you won't want to put it down.

FB
Scotch Plains, NJ

This book is amazing. The characters are wonderful and the way they all fit together is surprising and very well written. I highly recommend this book to everyone!

If you love detective stories, this is the book for you. "House Of Ghosts" is where Raymond Chandler meets Herman Wouk's "Winds of War."
Yeah, Detective Joe Henderson may be a new character to you, but he's the modern incarnation of Philip Marlowe. Hard boiled, hard drinking, hard loving, cynical and offering wry observations of life in the age of Gap and Starbucks.

Author Larry Kaplan takes the reader on a masterful dance between the present day, and the darkest hours of World War II as his detective protagonist, Joe Henderson, experiences personal redemption while seeking to bring justice and closure to the heroic actions of Paul Rothstein who defied Allied authorities in his attempt to bomb Auschwitz from his B-17 Flying Fortress.

To me, this book is summed up as "booze, broads, and a Jew named Rothstein."

The tale begins in August of 2000: Preston Swedge, an alcoholic recluse and World War II veteran, has died in Westfield, New Jersey. At his estate sale, a retired local police officer, Joe Henderson, discovers yellowed documents of 1944 bombing raids into Poland and a 1944 diary describing a rogue attempt by a Jewish-American pilot with the fortitude of a Maccabean zealot and the patriotism of an American freedom fighter to defy his commanders and drop his bombs on Auschwitz's killing complex where nearly 300,000 captives were about to be murdered. Henderson's curiosity launches him on a crusade for the truth and a shocking revelation when he tracks down the last living witness who can solve the mystery of why the raid never happened.

Epic in its breadth, the novel sweeps you effortlessly from contemporary Westfield, New Jersey to the Princeton University of 1939, and on to the aerial battle above Italy and Poland in 1944. Along the way you'll meet up with notables such as Charles Lindbergh, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and General Fulgencio Batista of Cuba.

It's been a long time since a fresh voice has brought such excitement to detective fiction. Do yourself a favor and pick up "House Of Ghosts." I bet you won't put it down!