by Bryn Greenwood
I saw some good review of this book and thought it sounded interesting and it was. It is a strange story but well told
The story is about a young woman Zee, who is struggling physically and financially. She was injured in a motorcycle crash and is still in pain and paying for her medical bills. At the time of her accident she had just told her boyfriend she was pregnant. He is unhappy about it and dumps her. She storms off on a motorcycle and ends up getting in an accident. She is on pain killers and THC for her pain.
Zee is burdened with trying to support her 600 pound hoarder mother who likes her other sister better and doesn't appreciate anything she does for her. She is living with and trying to support her sister and the sister's young son. To make some extra money she transports and sells drugs. She feels her life is a total ongoing disaster and she isn't far from wrong.
Zee's father was a criminal who went to prison for some bank robberies and died while in prison. Her mother never recovered from the loss of her husband. This started her on the hoarding behaviour. Zee's sister volunteers at a local prison.
One day the sister doesn't come home, Zee looks after the nephew, whom she loves dearly, as best she can. Then the news comes that there has been a riot at the prison, two very dangerous prisoners escaped and have taken two volunteers hostage, one of who is Zee's sister.
The police arrive at Zee's mother's place with a search warrant. They suspect the sister may not be a hostage but a willing participant. They search the house dumping a lot of stuff outside and leaving it there. I cannot imagine that police would actually do that. Zee tried to calm her mother who ends up going to the hospital.
While these things are happening we find out that there is a young man who has been stalking Zee. Gentry is a young autistic man who is fascinated with knights and chivalry and sees himself as Zee's protector and guardian. Zee evenutally meets him and gets his help with some things. She also meets is natural and adopted family. The natural family use and abuse him, the adopted family seem to love him but perhaps overprotect him. Gentry takes her into the country where he is actually working on building a castle and where he and some other friends gather to joust.
Zee with the help of an uncle who was a partner in crime with her father, manage to locate where the escaped prisoners and her sister are hiding out. She, Gentry, some of Gentry's friends and her cousin work on a plan to go and rescue the sister. They get to the remote location but things go badly. The sister, as was suspected, actually loves one of the escapees and won't leave him even after he is killed.
Gentry is injured and one of his friends is killed. Gentry ends up going to jail for being part of the melee. Zee denies being at the fracus. Gentry's family are furious with her for getting Gentry and her friend involved with the disaster.
Zee feels bad but she feels she has to look after her mother and fight to have some access to her nephew (his paternal grandparents get custody as both their son and now daughter-in-law are now in jail).
It seems very sad that poor innocent Gentry and his friend have to pay the price for this misadventure but it seems he is prepared to accept this punishment as part of his knightly loyalty to Zee.
Zee's uncle has given her some money he had from the bank robberies he did with her father. Zee uses this money to help her mother, set up a trust fund for her nephew, and pay the mortgage on the land Gentry was buying and building his castle on.
It was a strange story but interesting and well written.
Monday, 23 September 2019
A Better Man
by Louise Penny
I was eagerly awaiting this new book by Louise Penny. However, I have to say I was quite disappointed by the story.
As the story starts Armand Gamache has been investigated for a police investigation and gun battle in the last book. He is being pilloried by his superiors and the Premiere. They are trying to get him to resign by removing him from his position and offering him the demotion job of Head of Homicide (which he held years before). This is is a big comedown from his position of Head of the Surete. To their surprise and frustration he accepts. He will take over from his son-in-law who is leaving for France for a non-police position.
A major rainfall and potential flooding event is about to fall on Quebec. Gamache makes some suggestions about how to mitigate the flood by cutting channels in fields. His superiors and government officials do not appreciate his input.
So this is the main reason why I did not enjoy this story, the whole pick on Gamache theme. In addition do his dealings with his superiors and the provincial officials someone is posting on Facebook/Instagram that he is a failure and botched the previous job. There is a lot of chatter against him as a result of this.
One of the police officers that Gamache had previously wooed to homicide announces that her goddaughter is missing and asks for her disappearance to be investigated. Even though it is not homicide's role and she has only been gone for a short time Gamache and the officer start investigating. The woman was married to a pottery and was the victim of domestic abuse. They meet a policeman who had responded to calls to the property. He seems more than casually interested in the woman. The woman's husband is suspected as he is an abuser and an alcoholic with a quick temper but so far they cannot pin anything on him. The young officer tries to get some information by posing as an art gallery interested in his work. Her sleuthing turns up the fact that the husband and the woman who is doing his social media might be more than just work colleagues.
While they are investigating Quebec is flooding, including at 3 Pines.
While all this is going on there is a side story about the 3 Pines artist Clare. She had received some substantial acclaim previously but recently produced some miniatures which have received a lot of criticism. She is having trouble dealing with the criticism. Then a young internet 'influencer" about art comes to 3 pines, meets her and sees her work. This person also pans her miniatures. People who have bought her art now wish to get their money back. She is devastated.
That is all there is to this story. I don't know what point it had in the book other than to parallel Gamache's being trashed on the Internet.
While they are investigating the damage caused by the flooding the missing woman's body is discovered in the river near 3 pines. Her car is found on a bridge nearby.
Things get worse for Gamache as footage of other firefights he was in are shown and the parts that are shown online are not complimentary to him (but they do not show the entire story).
It seems that the poet Ruth might have put up this footage to try to salvage his reputation but she denies doing it. It eventually turns out it was one of Gamache's superiors who did it. I am not clear as to why she did it, Gamache had helped her get her job.
In the end they find out that the police officer who originally brought up the missing woman actually was the one who killed her accidentally. The officer was angry at the woman for taking advantage of her father, asking for money. The officer is in love with the woman's father but he seems to have rebuffed her for his daughter.
I usually really enjoy the characters, the quirkiness, the not quite up to police procedure behaviour of Gamache but this time I found all the conspiracy stuff against him hard to take and hard to understand. This was probably my least or second least favourite of all her books.
I will be interested in seeing how Gamache fares without his side-kick son-in-law. As all of Gamache's children and their families are now in France it makes you wonder why he and his wife bother to stay in Quebec. It seem he cannot let go of his passion to right wrongs.
I was eagerly awaiting this new book by Louise Penny. However, I have to say I was quite disappointed by the story.
As the story starts Armand Gamache has been investigated for a police investigation and gun battle in the last book. He is being pilloried by his superiors and the Premiere. They are trying to get him to resign by removing him from his position and offering him the demotion job of Head of Homicide (which he held years before). This is is a big comedown from his position of Head of the Surete. To their surprise and frustration he accepts. He will take over from his son-in-law who is leaving for France for a non-police position.
A major rainfall and potential flooding event is about to fall on Quebec. Gamache makes some suggestions about how to mitigate the flood by cutting channels in fields. His superiors and government officials do not appreciate his input.
So this is the main reason why I did not enjoy this story, the whole pick on Gamache theme. In addition do his dealings with his superiors and the provincial officials someone is posting on Facebook/Instagram that he is a failure and botched the previous job. There is a lot of chatter against him as a result of this.
One of the police officers that Gamache had previously wooed to homicide announces that her goddaughter is missing and asks for her disappearance to be investigated. Even though it is not homicide's role and she has only been gone for a short time Gamache and the officer start investigating. The woman was married to a pottery and was the victim of domestic abuse. They meet a policeman who had responded to calls to the property. He seems more than casually interested in the woman. The woman's husband is suspected as he is an abuser and an alcoholic with a quick temper but so far they cannot pin anything on him. The young officer tries to get some information by posing as an art gallery interested in his work. Her sleuthing turns up the fact that the husband and the woman who is doing his social media might be more than just work colleagues.
While they are investigating Quebec is flooding, including at 3 Pines.
While all this is going on there is a side story about the 3 Pines artist Clare. She had received some substantial acclaim previously but recently produced some miniatures which have received a lot of criticism. She is having trouble dealing with the criticism. Then a young internet 'influencer" about art comes to 3 pines, meets her and sees her work. This person also pans her miniatures. People who have bought her art now wish to get their money back. She is devastated.
That is all there is to this story. I don't know what point it had in the book other than to parallel Gamache's being trashed on the Internet.
While they are investigating the damage caused by the flooding the missing woman's body is discovered in the river near 3 pines. Her car is found on a bridge nearby.
Things get worse for Gamache as footage of other firefights he was in are shown and the parts that are shown online are not complimentary to him (but they do not show the entire story).
It seems that the poet Ruth might have put up this footage to try to salvage his reputation but she denies doing it. It eventually turns out it was one of Gamache's superiors who did it. I am not clear as to why she did it, Gamache had helped her get her job.
In the end they find out that the police officer who originally brought up the missing woman actually was the one who killed her accidentally. The officer was angry at the woman for taking advantage of her father, asking for money. The officer is in love with the woman's father but he seems to have rebuffed her for his daughter.
I usually really enjoy the characters, the quirkiness, the not quite up to police procedure behaviour of Gamache but this time I found all the conspiracy stuff against him hard to take and hard to understand. This was probably my least or second least favourite of all her books.
I will be interested in seeing how Gamache fares without his side-kick son-in-law. As all of Gamache's children and their families are now in France it makes you wonder why he and his wife bother to stay in Quebec. It seem he cannot let go of his passion to right wrongs.
Lampedusa
by Steven Price
This story is set in Sicily. It is set in approximately 1950. It is about Guiseppe Lampedusa, the last Prince of Lampedusa.
I didn't realize that Sicily had a nobility class.
Guiseppe is nearing death, he has emphysema. He has some respect in society by virtue of this hereditary title but most of the family lands have been sold or were destroyed in the war. He and his wife are struggling financially. He and his wife have no children and he feels the family story and his legacy will die with him. He and his wife adopted the adult son of another family to pass on the family title but there will be little estate to pass on to him Guiseppe decides to write a novel loosely based on family history.
As part of the family estate the family own the island of Lampedusa but it appears to be abandoned and in the past was rumoured to house monsters. Guiseppe has some young men around him who come to visit him so he can lecture them about world literature. He enjoys doing this.
One day he and some of the young men head off to one of the family's properties, an estate that became a monastery when two of his relatives became devout and became a priest and nun. One or both of these people were sainted. When they visit the monastery they find it is all in ruins. Guiseppe had hoped it might be in decent shape so he could sell it to someone to run as a B and B.
When Guiseppe discovers how serious his illness is he is hesitant to tell his wife because he doesn't want to worry her. When he does tell her several months later she is furious at him for not telling her sooner. She stops talking to him. They really seemed to love each other so I found this reaction of hers puzzling.
Once Guiseppe's book is written he elicits the help of a cousin who is a poet to help convince a publisher to publish it. His book is rejected. It is not clear but I suspect the cousin did nothing to champion his cause, perhaps being jealous of him having success.
After he dies Guiseppe's adopted son gets the book published and it becomes a best-seller. Guiseppe will not know it but he has indeed secured his place in history, at least literary history, with the book.
From my description this may not have seemed to interesting but I really enjoyed the book. I loved the authors language and the characters.
This story is set in Sicily. It is set in approximately 1950. It is about Guiseppe Lampedusa, the last Prince of Lampedusa.
I didn't realize that Sicily had a nobility class.
Guiseppe is nearing death, he has emphysema. He has some respect in society by virtue of this hereditary title but most of the family lands have been sold or were destroyed in the war. He and his wife are struggling financially. He and his wife have no children and he feels the family story and his legacy will die with him. He and his wife adopted the adult son of another family to pass on the family title but there will be little estate to pass on to him Guiseppe decides to write a novel loosely based on family history.
As part of the family estate the family own the island of Lampedusa but it appears to be abandoned and in the past was rumoured to house monsters. Guiseppe has some young men around him who come to visit him so he can lecture them about world literature. He enjoys doing this.
One day he and some of the young men head off to one of the family's properties, an estate that became a monastery when two of his relatives became devout and became a priest and nun. One or both of these people were sainted. When they visit the monastery they find it is all in ruins. Guiseppe had hoped it might be in decent shape so he could sell it to someone to run as a B and B.
When Guiseppe discovers how serious his illness is he is hesitant to tell his wife because he doesn't want to worry her. When he does tell her several months later she is furious at him for not telling her sooner. She stops talking to him. They really seemed to love each other so I found this reaction of hers puzzling.
Once Guiseppe's book is written he elicits the help of a cousin who is a poet to help convince a publisher to publish it. His book is rejected. It is not clear but I suspect the cousin did nothing to champion his cause, perhaps being jealous of him having success.
After he dies Guiseppe's adopted son gets the book published and it becomes a best-seller. Guiseppe will not know it but he has indeed secured his place in history, at least literary history, with the book.
From my description this may not have seemed to interesting but I really enjoyed the book. I loved the authors language and the characters.
Sunday, 25 August 2019
In a House of Lies
by Ian Rankin
This is one of my favourite mystery writers and he did not disappoint with this one.
A body is discovered, with handcuffs around its ankles, in an area that has long been searched.
It turns out the dead person disappeared several years ago. As soon as John Rebus hears the news he is quite sure he knows who the person is. It was a case he worked on years ago. He is retired but keeps trying to insert himself into the investigation along with Siobhan Clarke and Malcom Fox (who is working on the edge of the case, reviewing what was done in the original investigation). Fox is finding out that the police were not necessarily doing everything by the book, they were covering for officers with drinking problems and others having affairs on work time. Some dirt could come out about Rebus.
Siobhan is having her own problems, she recently came under review and is still stinging from that.
And Siobhan is getting harassing phone calls.
As the story develops it turns out that two crooked cops who are trying to tarnish Rebus, Shioban and Fox, had some involvement with the circumstances leading up to this murder. Rebus makes it his mission to reveal their deeds and success
While he is trying to keep involved with this case Rebus is also trying to investigate the case of a young man who is in prison for murdering his girlfriend. The boy does not wish to admit the truth to protect his sister.
These books always have interesting characters, lots of tension and great plots.
Very interesting read.
This is one of my favourite mystery writers and he did not disappoint with this one.
A body is discovered, with handcuffs around its ankles, in an area that has long been searched.
It turns out the dead person disappeared several years ago. As soon as John Rebus hears the news he is quite sure he knows who the person is. It was a case he worked on years ago. He is retired but keeps trying to insert himself into the investigation along with Siobhan Clarke and Malcom Fox (who is working on the edge of the case, reviewing what was done in the original investigation). Fox is finding out that the police were not necessarily doing everything by the book, they were covering for officers with drinking problems and others having affairs on work time. Some dirt could come out about Rebus.
Siobhan is having her own problems, she recently came under review and is still stinging from that.
And Siobhan is getting harassing phone calls.
As the story develops it turns out that two crooked cops who are trying to tarnish Rebus, Shioban and Fox, had some involvement with the circumstances leading up to this murder. Rebus makes it his mission to reveal their deeds and success
While he is trying to keep involved with this case Rebus is also trying to investigate the case of a young man who is in prison for murdering his girlfriend. The boy does not wish to admit the truth to protect his sister.
These books always have interesting characters, lots of tension and great plots.
Very interesting read.
Monday, 19 August 2019
Big Sky
by Kate Atkinson
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
Thursday, 18 July 2019
The Sun is Also a Star
by Nicola Yoon
This YA book is about two teenagers in New York City and a day in their life. A young Korean man who is being pushed to be a doctor by his parents and who is bullied by his older brother who got kicked out of Harvard, meets a Jamaican girl who is scheduled to be deported that day because her father got caught for DUI and the police discovered he and his family are illegal aliens.
Like the father in Paris by the Book, this father had dreams which have been thwarted. He wants to be a successful actor but feels perhaps that having a family has hampered his success. The young woman, his daughter, wants to stay in the U.S. and go to University so while her family is packing she makes more attempt to get their removal order overturned.
The boy notices the girl as she is walking down the street. He is supposed to be taking a cash deposit to his father at the family's store, getting a haircut and preparing for an interview for admission to Yale. Instead he starts following the girl and falling head over heels in love with her. When he saves her from stepping off the curb and getting hit by a car they meet. He tries to convince her to love him by asking her various questions from a website. She says she only believes in science.
As the day goes on they become friendly and affectionate. The girl sees a lawyer who tells her that he thinks he can get a judge to overturn her removal order. Coincidentally it appears this lawyer was hit by the driver who almost hit the young girl. The shock the lawyer received has made him realize he is in love with his secretary. So instead of going to the judge he has sex with his secretary. He later lies and tells the girl that the judge would not agree to the change.
He had planned to fire the secretary. However when the Korean boy shows up at his office for his Yale interview and tells him how much he loves the girl and wants her to stay, the lawyer decides he must leave his wife for the secretary.
This means the two teens who have now fallen in love will not be able to stay together. The boy accompanies her to the airport. They keep in touch for a while but gradually drop contact. The author had done a great job of building up the passion between the two kids from a one sided infatuation to mutual affection. The girl kept trying to keep him away but he gradually won her over. The innocence of the boy was well presented and the hard-nosed realism of the girl too.
The author does have an alternate ending where a decade later the two of them are on an airplane (together??).
The book makes one think about all the people we encounter as we go about our day. We don't really notice them, pay attention to them and their stories.
The story was interesting. Each chapter was only two or three pages long, each written from the perspective of the boy or girl or other characters in the story. It was an interesting way to develop the story. Of course all the many coincidence in the book were contrived and one expected that things would work out so they could stay together.... but it didn't happen... that is life, nothing that easy ever really works out. It was a cute story. It is being made into a movie. It will be interesting to see how they translate the approach taken in the book into a movie script.
This YA book is about two teenagers in New York City and a day in their life. A young Korean man who is being pushed to be a doctor by his parents and who is bullied by his older brother who got kicked out of Harvard, meets a Jamaican girl who is scheduled to be deported that day because her father got caught for DUI and the police discovered he and his family are illegal aliens.
Like the father in Paris by the Book, this father had dreams which have been thwarted. He wants to be a successful actor but feels perhaps that having a family has hampered his success. The young woman, his daughter, wants to stay in the U.S. and go to University so while her family is packing she makes more attempt to get their removal order overturned.
The boy notices the girl as she is walking down the street. He is supposed to be taking a cash deposit to his father at the family's store, getting a haircut and preparing for an interview for admission to Yale. Instead he starts following the girl and falling head over heels in love with her. When he saves her from stepping off the curb and getting hit by a car they meet. He tries to convince her to love him by asking her various questions from a website. She says she only believes in science.
As the day goes on they become friendly and affectionate. The girl sees a lawyer who tells her that he thinks he can get a judge to overturn her removal order. Coincidentally it appears this lawyer was hit by the driver who almost hit the young girl. The shock the lawyer received has made him realize he is in love with his secretary. So instead of going to the judge he has sex with his secretary. He later lies and tells the girl that the judge would not agree to the change.
He had planned to fire the secretary. However when the Korean boy shows up at his office for his Yale interview and tells him how much he loves the girl and wants her to stay, the lawyer decides he must leave his wife for the secretary.
This means the two teens who have now fallen in love will not be able to stay together. The boy accompanies her to the airport. They keep in touch for a while but gradually drop contact. The author had done a great job of building up the passion between the two kids from a one sided infatuation to mutual affection. The girl kept trying to keep him away but he gradually won her over. The innocence of the boy was well presented and the hard-nosed realism of the girl too.
The author does have an alternate ending where a decade later the two of them are on an airplane (together??).
The book makes one think about all the people we encounter as we go about our day. We don't really notice them, pay attention to them and their stories.
The story was interesting. Each chapter was only two or three pages long, each written from the perspective of the boy or girl or other characters in the story. It was an interesting way to develop the story. Of course all the many coincidence in the book were contrived and one expected that things would work out so they could stay together.... but it didn't happen... that is life, nothing that easy ever really works out. It was a cute story. It is being made into a movie. It will be interesting to see how they translate the approach taken in the book into a movie script.
Paris by the Book
by Liam Callanan
This book is by the author of the popular book The Cloud Atlas.
Some of the reviews of this book describe it as a romance set in the romantic, evocative city of Paris. This is too simplistic a reading of the book. Some praise it as about a woman finding herself. Rather, I think it is a tribute to a woman trying to cope and a childish man who doesn't want to grow up.
The book is about a family, two parents and their daughters, but it is largely about the parents.
The parents meet when the mother steals a book from a bookstore. She is a film studies student fascinated by the film the Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse, which is set in Paris. The father is a fan of the Madeline books of Ludwig Bemelmans, also set in Paris. Both would like to get to Paris but finances don't permit.
The couple marry and the man continues to pursue his career as an author. The woman gives up her film aspirations and becomes a speechwriter for a local college. The husband is not as successful as he would like to be and is very moody. He often leaves to go off to do writing. His wife does her best to keep the family together. One day the husband disappears and does not return. His wife while searching the house finds a clue in a box of cereal. She discovers that her husband bought tickets to Paris. She thinks that must be where he has gone. She rents out their house and sets off to Paris.
While in Paris she gets a cheque, royalties for a story/book her husband wrote. She decides to stay in Paris, enrolls her girls in school and makes arrangement to purchase an English language bookstore in Paris with the money they received.
A family friend tells her that police believe her husband died when he took a boat out onto a lake and encourages her to take steps to get him declared legally dead. The woman and her daughter refuse to believe his is dead. Particularly since strange things happen, for e.g. she finds one of his books in the bookstore with the words "I'm sorry" written in it, and her daughters think they have seen him at times in Paris.
Near the end of the book the husband does show up. He tells her he didn't really intend to disappear, he was just in a bad state and didn't want to be hospitalized and drugged. He tells her he has been watching them in Paris and didn't reconnect because they all seemed happy. Little did he know how sad all of them were, missing him, not knowing what had happened to him.
I have to say I found the husband's behaviour frustrating and hard to understand. I can understand that he got depressed and needed to leave for a while. It seems he just wanted his wife to be as playful, adoring and unquestioning as she was when they first married. However, while he seems stuck in his fantasy to be an acclaimed author, she has been worn down by the burden and the reality of running the family and dealing with him and his moods. In an interview the man said he doesn't believe in writers block, but this is what appears to have happened to him.
While he claims to love his kids how could he just walk away and leave them in limbo? He says he watched them and they seemed happy without him... I think that is just and excuse for his self-absorption and irresponsibility. Just as many people fantasize about Paris and its romantic appeal, I think the man and his wife both have childish obsessions with the city, at least when they first meet.
When the husband shows up in Paris he admits he did go back to see his family after his disappearance but by then his wife had found the clue about the airplane tickets to Paris and set off to Paris to find him. He found the family home had been rented. He was shocked at this, but also not surprised. It appears he did follow them to Paris but decided to spy on them rather than make contact. What would have happened if his family had still been in Milwaukee? Would anything be different? Would he have stayed with his family or left again? I suspect he would have left again and the fact that his family was gone justified his continuing abandonment of them.
The husband has written a successful novel, a bit like the story of their life except in his book the wife is the author. He submits the book to a publisher in the wife's name and she gets all the royalties.
The woman does not tell her children that their father is still alive. It is probably easier for them that way than to try to understand why he has left them.
As the book ends the old woman who was the wife's partner in the bookstore tells the woman she has to leave the store. The woman goes back to school to study film making.
I found the book hard to take, all the intrigue and coincidences are a bit cheesy. I found the husband completely unsympathetic and frustrating. He should have gone to the family and explained his position without making them suffer so long not knowing what had happened to him. Beyond the story line itself I found the book not all that easy or interesting to read. Other reviews I have read also commented that it was disappointing, hard to get engaged with.
I think the characters disappointment that life didn't turn out to be entirely the way they wanted it to be was lame.... this happens to most people as they have children and their lives have to adjust to family life. Not everyone has to give up on their dreams but they do have to make accommodations for the changes that occur in their lives. Just as life doesn't always work out the way we thought it would, Paris probably doesn't live up to people's romantic notions about the city.
The way the book ends, with the wife saying she doesn't really read anymore, might be a hint that the author himself is suffering some of the angst, and writer's block of the woman's husband. I guess time will tell....
This book is by the author of the popular book The Cloud Atlas.
Some of the reviews of this book describe it as a romance set in the romantic, evocative city of Paris. This is too simplistic a reading of the book. Some praise it as about a woman finding herself. Rather, I think it is a tribute to a woman trying to cope and a childish man who doesn't want to grow up.
The book is about a family, two parents and their daughters, but it is largely about the parents.
The parents meet when the mother steals a book from a bookstore. She is a film studies student fascinated by the film the Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse, which is set in Paris. The father is a fan of the Madeline books of Ludwig Bemelmans, also set in Paris. Both would like to get to Paris but finances don't permit.
The couple marry and the man continues to pursue his career as an author. The woman gives up her film aspirations and becomes a speechwriter for a local college. The husband is not as successful as he would like to be and is very moody. He often leaves to go off to do writing. His wife does her best to keep the family together. One day the husband disappears and does not return. His wife while searching the house finds a clue in a box of cereal. She discovers that her husband bought tickets to Paris. She thinks that must be where he has gone. She rents out their house and sets off to Paris.
While in Paris she gets a cheque, royalties for a story/book her husband wrote. She decides to stay in Paris, enrolls her girls in school and makes arrangement to purchase an English language bookstore in Paris with the money they received.
A family friend tells her that police believe her husband died when he took a boat out onto a lake and encourages her to take steps to get him declared legally dead. The woman and her daughter refuse to believe his is dead. Particularly since strange things happen, for e.g. she finds one of his books in the bookstore with the words "I'm sorry" written in it, and her daughters think they have seen him at times in Paris.
Near the end of the book the husband does show up. He tells her he didn't really intend to disappear, he was just in a bad state and didn't want to be hospitalized and drugged. He tells her he has been watching them in Paris and didn't reconnect because they all seemed happy. Little did he know how sad all of them were, missing him, not knowing what had happened to him.
I have to say I found the husband's behaviour frustrating and hard to understand. I can understand that he got depressed and needed to leave for a while. It seems he just wanted his wife to be as playful, adoring and unquestioning as she was when they first married. However, while he seems stuck in his fantasy to be an acclaimed author, she has been worn down by the burden and the reality of running the family and dealing with him and his moods. In an interview the man said he doesn't believe in writers block, but this is what appears to have happened to him.
While he claims to love his kids how could he just walk away and leave them in limbo? He says he watched them and they seemed happy without him... I think that is just and excuse for his self-absorption and irresponsibility. Just as many people fantasize about Paris and its romantic appeal, I think the man and his wife both have childish obsessions with the city, at least when they first meet.
When the husband shows up in Paris he admits he did go back to see his family after his disappearance but by then his wife had found the clue about the airplane tickets to Paris and set off to Paris to find him. He found the family home had been rented. He was shocked at this, but also not surprised. It appears he did follow them to Paris but decided to spy on them rather than make contact. What would have happened if his family had still been in Milwaukee? Would anything be different? Would he have stayed with his family or left again? I suspect he would have left again and the fact that his family was gone justified his continuing abandonment of them.
The husband has written a successful novel, a bit like the story of their life except in his book the wife is the author. He submits the book to a publisher in the wife's name and she gets all the royalties.
The woman does not tell her children that their father is still alive. It is probably easier for them that way than to try to understand why he has left them.
As the book ends the old woman who was the wife's partner in the bookstore tells the woman she has to leave the store. The woman goes back to school to study film making.
I found the book hard to take, all the intrigue and coincidences are a bit cheesy. I found the husband completely unsympathetic and frustrating. He should have gone to the family and explained his position without making them suffer so long not knowing what had happened to him. Beyond the story line itself I found the book not all that easy or interesting to read. Other reviews I have read also commented that it was disappointing, hard to get engaged with.
I think the characters disappointment that life didn't turn out to be entirely the way they wanted it to be was lame.... this happens to most people as they have children and their lives have to adjust to family life. Not everyone has to give up on their dreams but they do have to make accommodations for the changes that occur in their lives. Just as life doesn't always work out the way we thought it would, Paris probably doesn't live up to people's romantic notions about the city.
The way the book ends, with the wife saying she doesn't really read anymore, might be a hint that the author himself is suffering some of the angst, and writer's block of the woman's husband. I guess time will tell....
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