What else would I do for her? Or, what would I not do for her? I knew then – but how can I be sure that was the moment, there was so much more to come? – we were on our way down. I closed my eyes against the stomach-clutching descent. – from In the Time of the Feast of Flowers, page 68 -

Abby Newman is a teenager growing up in a small Florida town in the mid-1970s. She comes from a good family. She is smart. She has her whole future in front of her. But, then there is Dana, Abby’s best friend, a girl who lives life on the edge of disaster and tests the boundaries of good behavior. Dana comes from a home which includes a series of questionable step-fathers and a permissive mother. As Abby and Dana’s friendship grows ever closer, they begin to break in to local homes, slipping through windows in the dark of night, rummaging through other peoples’ hidden lives, and taking small items as souvenirs. Abby’s relationship with Dana becomes more than a friendship – she falls in love with this wild girl who dares to break the rules, and the two teens become secret lovers. As their world begins to spin out of control, the dark secrets of their lives will teach both of them lessons about betrayal, loyalty and the consequences of impulsive decisions made in a split second.

Tina Egnoski’s award winning novella, In the Time of the Feast of Flowers, is a sensitive coming-of-age story. Egnoski writes with authority not only about life in a small town, but about a generation growing up during the socially progressive years of the 1970s. Feminism took on a prominent role in the decade of the 70s, and Egnoski’s novella explores issues of sexual exploration and women’s rights through the eyes of two female characters. Abby’s struggle with her sexuality – gay or not gay? – and her crush on an English teacher, provide much of the internal conflict in the book.

Another strong theme is that of searching for one’s identity and the feeling of moving away from one’s parents and becoming more autonomous. Abby, who has been raised to follow the rules and who is expected to go on to college and a profession, finds her time with Dana thrilling and empowering.

How do I describe the heightened thrill of standing in an empty house, adrenaline pumping in my chest and at my temples? Both invincible and invisible, I left behind my cautious self and became, even if for only a few minutes, someone else, as if by turning the doorknob and stepping inside – zip, flash, bang – I was confident and stealthy, in charge. – from In the Time of the Feast of Flowers, page 27 -

Egnoski’s writing is poetic and her characters ring true. The complex relationship between Dana and Abby drives the plot, and although I was not completely surprised by the turn of events toward the end, there was enough tension to keep me turning the pages. Ultimately, despite some personal tragedy for the characters, the novella delivers a hopeful message that we can survive our deepest mistakes and move forward into a satisfying future.

I graduated from High School in 1978, and related to many of the references in this book. Egnoski includes the music, dress, attitudes and technology of a time that helped form the woman I became, making this a novella which felt meaningful to me on a personal level. Readers who enjoy novellas, coming-of-age stories and books which explore complex themes, will find In the Time of the Feast of Flowers an intriguing read.

In the Time of the Feast of Flowers won the 2010 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize.

Recommended.

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FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher/author for review on my blog.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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Some were naked and carrying their clothes; others half-naked, or more or less dressed, in school uniforms, grey, blue, fawn, jacketed, or jerseyed. There were badges, mottoes even, stripes of color in stockings and pullovers. Their heads clustered above the trunks in the green shade; heads brown, fair, black, chestnut, sandy, mouse-colored, heads muttering, whispering, heads full of eyes that watched Ralph and speculated. Something was being done. – from Lord of the Flies, page 13 -

A plane crashes on a deserted island, leaving in its wake children – the only survivors. These children are British school boys, civilized kids with manners and well-versed in respect for authority. There are very small children – the “littluns” who don’t seem to understand the enormity of what has happened. And there are older kids, boys who quickly recognize the need for a leader, a chief of sorts. A new society is forming, and before long survival demands a return to one’s baser instincts.

Lord of the Flies is a classic. Penned in 1954 by Nobel Laureate William Golding, it is a novel which asks deep moral questions and examines what happens when the civilized world is stripped away and individuals are left to create their own society.

Two main characters emerge early on. Ralph is a sandy-haired boy who is quickly chosen to be the “chief” and who focuses on building shelter and maintaining a fire to attract rescue. He holds “assemblies,” where participants are called to participate with a blow from a conch and are designed to maintain order. Jack is a charismatic boy, the leader of a choir of boys, who quickly establishes himself as the hunter, tracking down the wild pigs on the island with a sharpened stick as a spear. Before long, Jack and Ralph are in a competition for leadership with Ralph being the voice of reason, and Jack appealing to the more savage aspects of the boys’ personalities.

Another character, Piggy, emerges as the philosopher and the scapegoat. Piggy is obese, bespectacled, afflicted with asthma, and a bit of a know-it-all. Despite his wisdom (or maybe because of it), he is bullied.

There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. – from Lord of the Flies, page 60 -

There is also a fourth character, Simon, who plays an important role in the novel. Simon is a loner, but he is also reasonable and practical and gifted with an insight which the others lack. When talk of a beast begins, it is Simon who refuses to acknowledge a physical beast and instead recognizes that the beast is the fear within them.

These four characters – Jack, Ralph, Simon and Piggy – take center stage in a novel about the disintegration of morals and the descent into savagery.

I first read this novel in high school…and my memory of it is inexact. Of course, I remembered Piggy for his victimization, but in terms of theme, my memory was lacking. During this re-read, the story returned to me and I found it so much more compelling from my adult point of view. Classic literature is defined as something which stands the test of time…and there is no doubt that The Lord of the Flies meets that definition with its memorable characters, shocking twists of plot and ruminations on what it means to be human. Written in the 1950s, it could easily have been penned today.

Lord of the Flies is a novel which will generate great discussion in book groups and in the classroom. It is not an “enjoyable” read, and yet it is an engaging one. There is a good deal of violence in this slim book and I found myself anxious as the plot unfurls and it becomes obvious that things are going very, very wrong.

This is a classic, dysptopian-type novel about good vs. evil, but it also forces the reader to look within and to examine his or her role as part of a larger society.

Highly recommended.

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FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

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If you stretch a spring long enough, far enough, the metal will fail and the spring will snap. The same with a human body. The same with a human heart. The same, even, with a country. – from Running the Rift, page 231 -

There are many horrific events in the historical record. The Rwandan Genocide which occurred in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 people (or close to 20% of the country’s population) is, perhaps, one of the most tragic. The violence took place over a 100 day period, although there were small outbreaks of violence in the years leading up to the tragedy – episodes which pointed to a build up of rage and misunderstanding between two ethnic groups: the Hutu and the Tutsi. The long-standing tension between these two groups escalated in part due to agitation by political and military leaders. The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians occurred while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing.

It is this heartbreaking episode of genocide which informs Naomi Benaron’s affecting novel Running the Rift. Benaron opens her story in 1984, ten years before the tragedy, with a young Tutsi boy named Jean Patrick and his family. Jean Patrick loves to run and he has dreams of going on to college despite the difficulty which the Tutsi people face in attending secondary schools. As the chapters unfurl, the years slip past and Jean Patrick comes of age. He is a dreamer, an extraordinary athlete, and a young man with a generous heart. He loves his tight-knit family and clings to the memory of his father. Eventually he finds himself training to become an Olympic runner. He falls in love with a beautiful Hutu woman named Bea who is smart, fiery, and on the path to becoming an activist on the heels of her journalist father. But behind the hope which Jean Patrick holds in his heart, is an uncertain future. There are ominous signs that all is not right in Rwanda. There is the rumble of civil war. There is the hatred toward the Tutsi people being fanned by an outspoken Hutu militaristic government. And, eventually, the day will come when everything Jean Patrick holds dear, including his life, will become threatened.

Running the Rift is a heartbreaking, character-driven novel about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror and loss. Benaron builds her story slowly, taking time to develop the characters and unveil their simple lives against the backdrop of the stunning Rwandan countryside. Jean Patrick lives and breathes on the page, as does his counterpart, Bea. The reader begins to care deeply about these characters and worry for them seeps in as the novel progresses.

I turned the final hundred pages of Running the Rift with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes because at its heart, this book is about individuals. It is not about an historical event. It is about the people, the families, the individual lives which were destroyed or forever changed during those fateful days in 1994. It is unimaginable. It is horrifying.

I remember when the Rwandan Genocide happened. I was living in California and I remember the news footage of people laying slaughtered in the streets. I remember asking myself how this could happen and why no one stopped it. What Benaron’s novel does so exquisitely is to get beneath the headlines and examine the daily lives of the people living in Rwanda in the years leading up to the tragedy. She uncovers the tensions and the complexities of a country in flux and how misunderstandings between ethnic groups can grow into something so hate-filled that neighbors and friends can turn on each other.

Benaron explores themes of forgiveness and redemption in her novel which I found hopeful. The author has worked with Rwandan genocide survivors and visited Rwanda where she has an adopted son, so her insight into the aftermath of the genocide feels authentic.

Running the Rift won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction and it is well deserving of this literary award which recognizes “fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships.” This is a novel which is sublimely crafted and highly recommended.

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FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher as part of BOOK CLUB. Follow the discussion here.

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I received an email today letting me know that my application to become a book giver for World Book Night on April 23, 2012 was accepted and I was one of those chosen to give books away!!!

Dear World Book Night book giver,

 Yes, you read that right: World Book Night book giver! Has a nice ring to it, yes? And you’re one of them, or will be on April 23! Thank you!!!!!!!

It is not too late for YOU to also apply…the deadline has been extended to Monday, Feb. 6 at midnight and all you need to do is go here to send in your application.

Have you applied but didn’t get an email like I got? Check your spam folder…because it looks like no book lovers will be denied:

…everyone who applied with any care or thoughtfulness will get their box of books come April 23. Everyone take a deep breath. We’ll find a way, and we plan to have extra boxes stationed all over America. No book lover will be denied.

So, I hope you’ll join me this April in giving out free books to people and celebrating this wonderful thing called reading!!

You take your fragile secret out of the darkness and expose it to the light. You lay it on the ground, where anyone can tread on it. - from The Invisible Ones -

Ray is a private detective who is working through his own personal demons after separating from his wife. He doesn’t like missing person cases so it is with some reluctance that he listens to a Romany man tell him about his missing daughter, a girl gone six years now. Despite his reticence, Ray finds himself pulled into the case and promising to find out what happened to Rose Janko all those years ago after she wed a Gypsy named Ivo.

JJ is Ivo’s nephew, a fourteen year old boy without a father who has grown curious about his family’s secrets. He loves his cousin Christo, Ivo’s son, who is suffering from a mysterious family disease. JJ wants nothing more than to find a cure for Christo and uncover the identity of the father he has never met.

As Ray and JJ get closer to understanding what is hidden beneath the surface of the Janko family, things get more dangerous, and what appears to be the truth ends up being something entirely different from what they expect.

Set in Northern England in the mid-1980s, Stef Penney’s second novel takes the reader on a convoluted journey to uncover a mystery. Rich in detail about the nomadic life of the Romany people, The Invisible Ones is an intriguing and well-written book. There are two narrative threads which intertwine. JJ’s point of view is that of an insider, while Ray (although part-Gypsy himself) is clearly viewed as an outsider. In large part, the novel deals with the idea of identity and how the cultural, familial, and individual roles we play come together to form the complete person.

Strange, isn’t it, how you can think of yourself as one thing for ninety-five percent of your waking life, and then an encounter with something or someone jerks you into remembering you’re something else, that other five percent that’s always been there, but slumbering, keeping its head down. – from The Invisible Ones -

Penney has a way of constructing her novels to provide tension. This novel had me guessing right up until the end when Penney inserts a twist I did not see coming. Despite some moments of implausibility, the plot of this novel held up in the end.

Readers who enjoy suspense mysteries embedded in family sagas will enjoy The Invisible Ones.

Recommended.

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FTC Disclosure: This book was sent to me by the publisher for review on my blog.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it. When I was a kid I couldn’t see any of these ridges. It was only after Swamplandia!’s fall that time folded into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. If you’re short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell. – from Swamplandia!, page 7 -

It has been a year since Hilola Bigtree died from ovarian cancer leaving behind her three children – Ava, Osceola (“Ossie”), and Kiwi – and “The Chief,” her husband. Swamplandia!, with their mother at its center, is the family business and the only life the Bigtree children have ever known. Wrestling alligators, selling “museum” trinkets, and entertaining the tourists who arrive on the ferry is what they have always done. But, now things have changed. Their mother’s loss has not only left them achingly alone, but has also left Swamplandia! without a star act. And there is a new game in town by the name of World of Darkness, a garish theme park of twisted rides inside a whale’s digestive tract and pools filled with ruby colored water. Kiwi, nearly seventeen and longing for a college education, runs away from Swamplandia! to become an employee at World of Darkness. Chief Bigtree mysteriously disappears on one of his vague “business trips,” and Ossie, just turned sixteen, seems lost in a world of ghosts and an old dredge boat. Ava, age thirteen, is left to her own devices and resolves to save Swamplandia! and her family before time runs out.

Karen Russell’s Orange Prize nominated debut novel is filled with quirky characters, rambling plot lines, and gorgeous descriptions of the Florida swamps. It is also a darkly constructed story about the individual nature of grief and loss. Each character in Swamplandia! is devastated by the loss of Hilola – a woman whose death-defying act of swimming with the alligators (called “Seths”) opens the novel. It seems that death is all around this family – from the monstrous Seths, to the World of Darkness where tourists are called “Lost Souls,” to Ossie’s flirtation with a dead teenage dredgeman, to Ava’s fantasy of visiting the Underworld and finding her mother. Each character is traveling their own path through grief.

Chief Bigtree, the dad, is oddly disconnected from the reality of his failing business. He seems unaware that his children are falling apart. His reaction to the loss of his wife can only be called denial. Perhaps Ava understands this best of all when she observes:

You could become a fossil in your lifetime, I’d discovered. I’d seen the eerie correspondence between the living Seths in our Pit and their taxidermied brothers in our museum. The Chief could achieve an ossified quality, too, with his headdress skeletally flattened against the sofa back, drunk and asleep. – from Swamplandia!, page 238 -

Kiwi flees the family, and runs from the memory of his mother whose image he keeps taped to the inside of his closet door. He leaves behind the safety of Swamplandia! and enters society where his differences stand out and he struggles to fit in with his peers. Now seventeen years old, he is no longer a child whose eyes are closed to the stark reality of his parents’ world and as he navigates through his grief, he uncovers family secrets and a rage he hardly knew existed.

Ossie escapes reality by slipping into a world of ghosts and fantasy. On the cusp of womanhood, she begins a relationship with the ghost of a dredge boat, slipping out of the house at all hours and spending her time calling up spirits with the help of a mysterious book.

She set off across the muck as briskly as a mainland woman who is late for her ferry. Her footprints filled with groundwater and as I watched a dozen tiny lakes opened between us. Rain blew in from the east while out west the sun burned through a V in the trees, bright and gluey-gold as marmalade. – from Swamplandia!, page 127 -

But is is Ava, narrator of much of the novel, who is the saddest in her grief. She believes her mother has trained her to become the next amazing alligator wrestler. Ava tries to hold her family together, and when that fails, she dreams up a way to save Swamplandia! which includes applying to compete in an alligator wrestling competition, and hand raising a rare red alligator. Ava’s memories of her mother are clear and poignant, and cloaked in a child’s reflections.

Our mother, in several beautiful ways, may have been a little crazy. For example: who dries their clothing with a hurricane coming? Like Ossie, Mom got distracted easily. It was seventy-thirty odds whether she would remember a conversation with you. Her moods could do sudden plummets, and she’d have to “take a rest” in the house, but she’d always emerge from these spells with a smile for us. Until she got sick, I can’t remember our mother ever missing a show. – from Swamplandia!, page 43 -

Swamplandia! is, at its heart, about the love that binds a family together in the face of devastating loss. The strength of the novel is in its characters who are memorable and feel very real. Russell also excels at description of the flora and fauna of the Florida swamps. Where the novel struggles is in the plot which tends to drag until the latter third of book. Russell alternates between Ava’s first person narration and Kiwi’s third person point of view – a technique which tended to break up momentum in the plot. It felt, at times, like Russell could not decide whose story she really wanted to tell. Ava’s voice is, overwhelmingly, the strongest and could have carried the novel alone.

Despite its occasional humor, Swamplandia! is a dark novel which resonates with danger. Reality is often fragile and just out of reach. Not everything is as it seems. It is this haunting quality which carries the reader through the final pages of the book to an ending that stretches believability. In fact, the end of the novel did not endear me to it. Russell quickly wraps up the book and pins a little bow on it, something I found frustrating after some plot twists which took my breath away.

I did not love this book, but I found it interesting. Russell is a talented author whose child characters pulled on my heartstrings, but whose meandering plot kept me from fulling engaging in their story.

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• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I bought this book.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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There are plenty of reasons to bemoan the changes in blogging – the pressures to review books, the controversy over monetizing or not, lack of transparency, author backlashes, and demands to track stats and increase traffic. So, it was with a great deal of gratitude and not a little pride to see book bloggers get a boost from author Beth Kephart in her article (posted yesterday to Publishing Perspectives), The Value Rubric: Do Book Bloggers Really Matter? Beth shares her own personal story of how bloggers impacted the sale of two of her books and asserts “I have again born witness to the power of book bloggers.”

It got me thinking about the value of what we book bloggers do. Do we make a difference? Does what we say on our blogs positively impact the sale of books? Do more people read because we promote literacy? It is not something that is easy to measure by the numbers – and yet, I think, the perception is that bloggers do make a difference. How else to explain the wooing of bloggers by publishers and authors alike?

I also started thinking about why I blog. It is easy to get burned out, to find myself discouraged or overwhelmed. It is hard to set boundaries and find my comfort level between review books sent to me and my own personal library. There have been moments when I have pounded my fist and declared, “No more. I can’t take one more review book.” But then I do because I love what I do here on my blog. I love finding a book I can get behind – one that sweeps me away, breaks my heart, takes me to someplace I have not been before. And I love sharing those kinds of books with other readers.

Two years running now, my reading has consisted of more than 75% of new-to-me authors. That is in large part due to blogging – not only because new writers’ books are being pushed into my hands by publicists, but because I am discovering new voices from reading other people’s blogs and being involved with this vibrant community of readers. Last year I rated an astonishing 25% of the books I read as five stars. Nine out of the fourteen books which made my Best of 2011 list came as review books (either ARCs or finished copies offered up for review) – more than 50%. Would I have read these books if not for blogging? Probably not. Before I began blogging, my reading consisted mostly of books from the best seller lists or those which garnered top spots on the bookstore shelves. Most of the books I was blown away by in 2011 were not on those shelves or lists.

The bottom line is that I can credit blogging with introducing me to the best books out there. I depend on my blogger friends for recommendations…and I have made connections with industry professionals and authors who I never would have met if it were not for my blog.

I don’t see myself as a marketer of books. The truth is, when I write a review or gush about a book I loved, or host a giveaway, my intent is not to sell the book, but to share my love for it. If at the end of the day, that results in improving sales, all the better because sales mean that more people are reading, and in this day and age where independent bookstores are going out of business and the news stories tell of  how reading has declined…sales are a positive indication that reading is not dead after all.

All this ruminating has led me to the conclusion that for all its challenges, book blogging does have a measurable, positive impact – not only for authors like Kephart who has forged an alliance with book bloggers which has expanded the reach of her wonderful books, but for bloggers and readers too. When I open my Google Reader and begin browsing through the hundreds of amazing book blogs there, I find myself inspired, intellectually stimulated, and eager to pick up my next book. Book bloggers help authors (and by extension, publishers), but we also enrich our own lives through this endeavor – clearly this is a win-win for everyone.

What do YOU think? How much impact has blogging had on YOUR life?

Read more about SOPA here.

Add your name to the protest – let Congress hear your voice.

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King day and I thought it would be appropriate to talk about some of the best books I have read about the African-American experience. First, take a few minutes to listen, once again, to the historic “I Have A Dream” speech:

Here are the novels I recommend which revolve around African-American history:

Sweetsmoke by David Fuller

Sweetsmoke is a rich atmospheric novel of the South during the Civil War. Entwined in the story are the frequent injustices and crimes against enslaved blacks including beatings, hobblings and the theft of children who are torn from their mothers’ breasts to be sold into slavery. Fuller writes gripping dialogue and offers the reader characters who are complex and memorable. The reader’s heart will ache for Marriah, grow cold toward Ellen, and pound with fear for Cassius as the pages to this novel seem to turn themselves.

(Read my full review)

Someone Knows My Name (aka The Book of Negroes) by Lawrence Hill

Hill gives a voice to the thousands of blacks who were enslaved in the latter part of the eighteenth century and in this way, the novel becomes more than just an historical document, but instead becomes a personal story of one woman’s courage and determination. Hill’s novel is really a family saga immersed in an historical time period.

(Read my full review)

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lee doesn’t restrict herself to merely telling a story. She includes astounding insight into the roots of racism and the idea that one man’s courage to stand up against inequality may be all that’s needed to begin to shatter the beliefs that sustain hatred.

(Read my full review)

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

The Long Song is a brilliant novel narrated by an unforgettable character. July is, perhaps, one of the most memorable female voices I have read in a long, long time. Bittersweet, funny, often devastating…this is a novel which drew me in immediately and held me in its grip to the final page. Andrea Levy writes with an honesty and insight into the human condition that takes one’s breath away.

(Read my full review)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The year is 1962. The place is Jackson, Mississippi. The issue is civil rights. Kathryn Stockett’s best selling debut novel, The Help, is narrated in the unforgettable voices of three women caught up in history and courageous enough to believe things can change simply by sharing their stories.

(Read my full review)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851, it outraged people in the American South and was criticized by slavery supporters. The novel was declared ‘utterly false’ by Southern novelist William Gilmore; others referred to it as criminal and slanderous. A bookseller in Mobile, Alabama was driven from town for selling the novel and Stowe received threatening letters, including a package containing a slave’s severed ear.

(Read my full review)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.

So begins The Color Purple, a novel set in the deep south and told in the voice of a young black girl named Celie. Alice Walker brings Celie to life through her letters to God. Celie’s words tell of unspeakable horrors – her rape at the hands of her stepfather, her marriage to an older man who beats her, the loss of almost everyone dear to her. But, then her husband’s lover arrives and teaches Celie what it means to be courageous in the face of pain, and most importantly what it means to love and be loved.

The Color Purple is a splendid novel full of pain and joy, tears and laughter, love and hate. It is an American Classic that should be mandatory reading for all of us.

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

Although a large part of the novel is dedicated to the Holocaust, the book also examines the Civil Rights movement and racism within the United States, and again looks at the individual stories which made up the larger historical picture.

(Read my full review)

Are there any books you would add to this list?

All of us, every one of us, has had a moment when a window opened, when we caught a glimpse of the open, sunlit world beyond, but all of us, on this bus, have had that window close and remain closed. – from Translator Translated -

The Artist of Disappearance is a collection of novellas which are all set in India and have the similar themes of identity, searching for meaning in one’s life and how place can define who we become.

The Museum of Final Journeys, the first novella in the book, introduces the idea that memory is fragile and unreliable. Another theme in the story is the delicate balance of the natural world in a modernized society. In this story, a young man arrives in a dusty, desolate town where he has been posted to complete his training for a government position. He laments the long, dull days and the slovenly conditions of his new home. Then, one afternoon, a clerk arrives to make an appeal – he is the curator of sorts of an unusual museum but he can no longer afford to keep it running and wishes for the government to take it over. Intrigued, the narrator agrees to visit the museum. What he finds is astonishing and surprising – a treasure trove of objects, the unusual story of a family, and a creature whose life depends on the benevolence of her caretakers. Years later, his memory of the event is fragmented and frail like a mirage – perhaps as a way to resolve the guilt he feels for his lack of action.

The second story in the collection, Translator Translated, centers around Prema, an Indian woman who unexpectedly runs into an old high school friend and gets the opportunity to realize her dream of translating fiction. In this novella, Desai explores the different cultures of India and the loss of little known languages, as well as the role language plays in our identity. Prema loves the language of Oriya which is her mother’s tongue, but it is a language which very few people speak or understand. When Prema begins translating a book from Oriya into English she finds herself struggling to connect the two halves of her own life which includes the inter-caste marriage of her parents. As Prema works, she finds it harder and harder to be faithful in her translation of the author’s work.

Wasn’t this what the Impressionist painters had done in those early adventurous days, breaking up flat surfaces to refract light into many scattered molecules, and so reconstruct the surface and make it stir to life? – from Translator Translated -

As the novella unfolds, Prema becomes more lost to herself as she converts her mother tongue into the colonial language of English. Translator Translated is a beautiful meditation on the loss of culture and identity in a modern world.

The final story of this collection is, perhaps, my favorite. The Artist of Disappearance centers around Ravi, an odd man who is isolated from society and lives in the burned out shell of his family’s home. Ravi has always been different from others. He is especially connected to nature.

Outdoors was the life to which he chose to belong – the life of the crickets springing out of the grass, the birds wheeling hundreds of feet below in the valley or soaring upwards above the mountains, and the animals invisible in the undergrowth, giving themselves away by an occasional rustle or eruption of cries or flurried calls; plants following their own green compulsions and purposes, almost imperceptibly, and the rocks and stones, seemingly inert but mysteriously part of the constant change and movement of the earth. – from The Artist of Disappearance -

Ravi’s story is about nurturing that part of ourselves which is connected to the earth. In the towns around Ravi’s home, bulldozers are destroying the land and mining has stripped the earth of living creatures. But, high in the mountains, Ravi constructs a beautiful glade made from stones and trees, flowers and berries. Ravi is completely disconnected from society while being wholly connected to the physical space he calls home.

As a whole, Desai’s collection is nearly dreamlike in quality. Her characters have unfulfilled dreams and are disillusioned with their lives. Each character is presented with opportunities to enrich themselves and then find they stumble because of their human imperfection.

Anita Desai writes beautifully. She captures the beauty of India, but also does not hesitate to reveal its faults and complexities. I thoroughly enjoyed this slim volume of stories whose characters struggle and search for meaning in their lives.

Highly recommended for readers who love literary fiction.

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FTC Disclosure: I received this book through Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program.

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