In one word: fun. Juliette Fay's tale of early Hollywood is a fun read, full of fictional characters whose personalities mesh and who bring out the best of the golden age of film...even when starring in escapades drawn from some of Hollywood's darker moments.
Irene Van Beck and Millie Martin met in a seedy burlesque show and planned their escape - from a moving train, no less - before burlesque could completely chew them up and spit them out. Troupe comedian Henry Weiss gambles on jumping after them and the trio of friends make their way to Hollywood together where Irene begins writing and Millie and Henry find work as extras. All is not peaches and cream, of course; any good story must have its sources of conflict, and this is no different, with Millie, Irene, and Henry gradually unfurling compelling backstories that ultimately bind them together in more ways than they could have anticipated when they made the literal leap.
There's no shortage of tales of Hollywood out there, but City of Flickering Light stands apart to me because of what it is not. It's not a fictionalized account of an actual person (i.e., The Girls in the Picture and Frances Marion or Louise Brooks in The Chaperone or even Loretta Young). As Fay writes in her author's note, she drew inspiration from actual events in Hollywood circa 1921 (such as the use of morphine on sets after accidents, or the accusations against Fatty Arbuckle, or, most effectively for Fay's story, the still-unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor), but the lack of real characters allows Fay greater leeway with her story than those other early-Hollywood offerings that rely on the comings and goings of actual people.
And, although, it's a small thing, the quotes that open each of the 47 chapters added zeitgeist to the book.
Five stars.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Friday, January 3, 2020
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World
Suzy Hansen's Notes on a Foreign Country is a clear-eyed look at U.S. foreign policy (particularly in the Middle East) from the perspective of an expat American being enlightened about her country's misdeeds while fulfilling a fellowship in Turkey.
Honestly, while I was initially shocked by Hansen's naivete (which she acknowledges, and even refers to as ignorance, early and often, and which given that, when she departed for Istanbul she did so with an Ivy League education and several years of NYC work experience, only speaks to the larger issue of ignorance of international affairs in this country), she quickly gets to the heart of the matter in terms of the U.S.'s near-continuous and out-sized presence in the Middle East in the past 70-odd years. She builds the case that the U.S. has created an empire quietly and without the awareness of most Americans, and that, as she demonstrates time and time again, U.S. decisions directly impact the lives of those in other countries on a regular basis. (Case in point: today's headlines regarding the assassination of an Iranian general by the U.S.).
Hansen explores U.S-Turkish relations most closely, as that is where she now lives and has the greatest experience and knowledge, but she does a more-than-passable job is exploring similar imbalances between the U.S. and Afghanistan, Greece, Pakistan, and Latin American countries. Think coups. Lots of coups. Vietnam. The School of the Americas. Cuba and the Philippines. Hansen catalogues them all here, the questionable and the clearly wrong.
Because of the nature of U.S. imperialism, as compared to the old European empires, Hansen builds the case that the U.S. empire is equally if not more insidious and damaging than those older empires, which were openly acknowledged, and whose ties, for better or for worse, were formalized. (Those who haven't read it should follow Hansen's work with James Bradley's primer on the founding of the U.S. empire, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War or Julia Flynn Siler's Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure.)
Notes on a Foreign Country is a timely reminder of the precarious power exercised by the U.S. It is an indictment of U.S. foreign policy from time immemorial, but it is also an indictment of the generalized ignorance that has allowed this policy to continue unabated.
4-and-a-half stars.
Honestly, while I was initially shocked by Hansen's naivete (which she acknowledges, and even refers to as ignorance, early and often, and which given that, when she departed for Istanbul she did so with an Ivy League education and several years of NYC work experience, only speaks to the larger issue of ignorance of international affairs in this country), she quickly gets to the heart of the matter in terms of the U.S.'s near-continuous and out-sized presence in the Middle East in the past 70-odd years. She builds the case that the U.S. has created an empire quietly and without the awareness of most Americans, and that, as she demonstrates time and time again, U.S. decisions directly impact the lives of those in other countries on a regular basis. (Case in point: today's headlines regarding the assassination of an Iranian general by the U.S.).
Hansen explores U.S-Turkish relations most closely, as that is where she now lives and has the greatest experience and knowledge, but she does a more-than-passable job is exploring similar imbalances between the U.S. and Afghanistan, Greece, Pakistan, and Latin American countries. Think coups. Lots of coups. Vietnam. The School of the Americas. Cuba and the Philippines. Hansen catalogues them all here, the questionable and the clearly wrong.
Because of the nature of U.S. imperialism, as compared to the old European empires, Hansen builds the case that the U.S. empire is equally if not more insidious and damaging than those older empires, which were openly acknowledged, and whose ties, for better or for worse, were formalized. (Those who haven't read it should follow Hansen's work with James Bradley's primer on the founding of the U.S. empire, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War or Julia Flynn Siler's Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure.)
Notes on a Foreign Country is a timely reminder of the precarious power exercised by the U.S. It is an indictment of U.S. foreign policy from time immemorial, but it is also an indictment of the generalized ignorance that has allowed this policy to continue unabated.
4-and-a-half stars.
Monday, December 30, 2019
A Place for Us
It's fitting that the year's last book should also be one of the best. Fatima Farheen Mirza's A Place for Us is a provocative, heartrending read that opens with a family wedding: eldest daughter Hadia is getting married - a love match, not arranged - and has invited her estranged younger brother to be present for her big day.
From that opening, Mirza's story spins backward in time, to Hadia's parents own wedding - arranged - and the lives they forged in California, far from their beginnings half-a-world away. The family's story, the births of Hadia, younger daughter Huda, and son Amar, unfold gradually, in snapshots recalled from the perspective of different family members. A Place for Us is the story of family life, notably, of the thousand little hurts that accumulate, the sibling rivalries, offhand comments, sideways glances whose damage is greater than a single, great betrayal.
This particular iteration of a story as old as time explores the immigrant experience and the experience of being Muslim in America in the years after September 11, but the framework is the shared experience of belonging to a family in which the members do not always understand one another, and the cumulative damage such misunderstandings can wreak over time. What makes Mirza's work so impressively powerful is that for much of the book, nothing really happens. This isn't a book about which one can easily write a complete synopsis; relatively early I even debated putting it down, so unassuming and ordinary was the plot. It's only as the book reaches its conclusion that it all becomes clear, and my admiration for what Mirza accomplished here, complete.
Five stars.
From that opening, Mirza's story spins backward in time, to Hadia's parents own wedding - arranged - and the lives they forged in California, far from their beginnings half-a-world away. The family's story, the births of Hadia, younger daughter Huda, and son Amar, unfold gradually, in snapshots recalled from the perspective of different family members. A Place for Us is the story of family life, notably, of the thousand little hurts that accumulate, the sibling rivalries, offhand comments, sideways glances whose damage is greater than a single, great betrayal.
This particular iteration of a story as old as time explores the immigrant experience and the experience of being Muslim in America in the years after September 11, but the framework is the shared experience of belonging to a family in which the members do not always understand one another, and the cumulative damage such misunderstandings can wreak over time. What makes Mirza's work so impressively powerful is that for much of the book, nothing really happens. This isn't a book about which one can easily write a complete synopsis; relatively early I even debated putting it down, so unassuming and ordinary was the plot. It's only as the book reaches its conclusion that it all becomes clear, and my admiration for what Mirza accomplished here, complete.
Five stars.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
I loved this book. After plenty of mediocre reads and then the heaviness of Gone to Soldiers, Eleanor Oliphant was a welcome change.
Written with a unique voice that reminded me of Ove (or more recently, Britt-Marie) in all the best ways, and with plenty of hilarity, this has been one of my favorite books all year.
Eleanor Oliphant is...different. She struggles in social settings (such as the office, or making a purchase in a shop) and has her life plotted out precisely, from her Wednesday evening chats with her (institutionalized) Mummy to knowing exactly how much vodka to sip through the weekend so that she is never completely drunk nor completely sober. Of course, the reader learns rather early that Eleanor's life has considered of hardships and harder knocks, doled out at regular intervals, so such oddities help her cope.
Two events turn her life upside down, though. First, she has met the love of her life, a musician she saw at a gig, and whose name she learned on the internet, whom she must woo and marry. She also meets Raymond, the new IT guy in whose presence she is when Sammy, an elderly man falls on his way home and she and Raymond rescue. In rescuing and then befriending Sammy, Eleanor begins to see beyond her narrow routines and current life experience into what life is like for others...and could be for her.
Five stars.
Written with a unique voice that reminded me of Ove (or more recently, Britt-Marie) in all the best ways, and with plenty of hilarity, this has been one of my favorite books all year.
Eleanor Oliphant is...different. She struggles in social settings (such as the office, or making a purchase in a shop) and has her life plotted out precisely, from her Wednesday evening chats with her (institutionalized) Mummy to knowing exactly how much vodka to sip through the weekend so that she is never completely drunk nor completely sober. Of course, the reader learns rather early that Eleanor's life has considered of hardships and harder knocks, doled out at regular intervals, so such oddities help her cope.
Two events turn her life upside down, though. First, she has met the love of her life, a musician she saw at a gig, and whose name she learned on the internet, whom she must woo and marry. She also meets Raymond, the new IT guy in whose presence she is when Sammy, an elderly man falls on his way home and she and Raymond rescue. In rescuing and then befriending Sammy, Eleanor begins to see beyond her narrow routines and current life experience into what life is like for others...and could be for her.
Five stars.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
A Death of No Importance
It's 1910 and Jane Prescott is an accomplished lady's maid whose service to one of New York's most influential matrons positions her for service to the new-money Benchley family upon the stately Mrs. Armslow's death. Compared to Mrs. Armslow - related by birth or marriage to the finest families of the city - the Benchley's are quite the comedown.
They value Jane for her understanding of high society, an understanding they do not yet possess and which becomes all the more necessary (and apparent) when the youngest Benchley daughter, Charlotte, causes outrage and scandal by becoming engaged to Norrie Newsome, scion of the mining family. The Newsomes, while one of the "finest families" are also beset by their own scandals, from the mining disaster that killed so many children in Pennsylvania to Mr. Newsome's remarriage to his daughter's schoolmate. All of which is to say: there's plenty to unravel when Norrie is viciously murdered at his family's Christmas party, just as his engagement to Charlotte Benchley was to become official.
As Jane learns more of the murder, she discovers that she alone may be able to solve it.
Author Mariah Fredericks mystery is well-written and captivating. From the inclusion of anarchists to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, she's included significant historical events that make this more than a simple, puff piece, and increased my interest. I also appreciated the twists; just when I thought I knew what would happen (and I'm not speaking only of the murder mystery here), she added plot twists to keep the reader on her toes and decrease the predictability and formulaic turns that such mysteries can often take.
Four stars.
They value Jane for her understanding of high society, an understanding they do not yet possess and which becomes all the more necessary (and apparent) when the youngest Benchley daughter, Charlotte, causes outrage and scandal by becoming engaged to Norrie Newsome, scion of the mining family. The Newsomes, while one of the "finest families" are also beset by their own scandals, from the mining disaster that killed so many children in Pennsylvania to Mr. Newsome's remarriage to his daughter's schoolmate. All of which is to say: there's plenty to unravel when Norrie is viciously murdered at his family's Christmas party, just as his engagement to Charlotte Benchley was to become official.
As Jane learns more of the murder, she discovers that she alone may be able to solve it.
Author Mariah Fredericks mystery is well-written and captivating. From the inclusion of anarchists to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, she's included significant historical events that make this more than a simple, puff piece, and increased my interest. I also appreciated the twists; just when I thought I knew what would happen (and I'm not speaking only of the murder mystery here), she added plot twists to keep the reader on her toes and decrease the predictability and formulaic turns that such mysteries can often take.
Four stars.
Friday, December 20, 2019
Gone to Soldiers
I won't go as far as the LA Times, which declared Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers "the most thorough and most captivating, most engrossing novel ever written about World War II," but certainly this epic novel is heroic in scope and well worth the time it takes to read the 750+ pages.
Piercy has created an entire cast of characters - ten separate narrators - and has given each of them a unique voice, compelling story, and impressive cast of supporting characters, in additional to intricately and believably linking together many of their stories, often in ways such that the characters themselves may not even realize they are linked to one another. In other words, like life.
Most, but not all, of the narrators are Jewish, some living comfortably in the U.S. while struggling to come to terms with what is happening to their relatives in Europe, others struggling daily under the heal of the Gestapo, watching in horror as friends, neighbors, family disappear, wondering when they themselves will be rounded up and departed.
From the jungle-covered islands of the Pacific, to the horrors of Auschwitz, to the factories filled with women churning out planes and tanks, and the halls of bureaucracy and secrecy in London and DC, Piercy explores the war from all angles. The final product is a carefully-crafted, thought-provoking work, admirable for what the author has done, as well as what she has written.
Five stars.
Piercy has created an entire cast of characters - ten separate narrators - and has given each of them a unique voice, compelling story, and impressive cast of supporting characters, in additional to intricately and believably linking together many of their stories, often in ways such that the characters themselves may not even realize they are linked to one another. In other words, like life.
Most, but not all, of the narrators are Jewish, some living comfortably in the U.S. while struggling to come to terms with what is happening to their relatives in Europe, others struggling daily under the heal of the Gestapo, watching in horror as friends, neighbors, family disappear, wondering when they themselves will be rounded up and departed.
From the jungle-covered islands of the Pacific, to the horrors of Auschwitz, to the factories filled with women churning out planes and tanks, and the halls of bureaucracy and secrecy in London and DC, Piercy explores the war from all angles. The final product is a carefully-crafted, thought-provoking work, admirable for what the author has done, as well as what she has written.
Five stars.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Wind, Sand, and Stars
Every good French major knows the story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, vanished war hero, pilot, and author of Le Petit Prince. I was excited, then, when I read a piece about a lesser known work of his, Wind, Sand and Stars, winner of the National Book Award, no less.
Unfortunately, although the writing itself flowed beautifully, but the stories were dull and after weeks of slogging through a handful of pages at a time, I gave up the ghost.
One star.
Unfortunately, although the writing itself flowed beautifully, but the stories were dull and after weeks of slogging through a handful of pages at a time, I gave up the ghost.
One star.
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