So much energy and heart went into writing this book that I can’t imagine her writing another, but from what I know after reading this, I would bet there will be more from Mary-Louise Parker. I hope I live long enough to watch her grow old.
Mrs. Hemingway, by Naomi Wood (Penguin Books) is subtitled “a novel” to clarify from the get-go that this is a work of fiction; nevertheless, it rings true. The story is told through the minds of Ernest Hemingway’s wives, Hadley, Fife, Martha, and Mary, and these four voices are clear, identifiable, and sympathetic. So is that scoundrel, Ernest.Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Mrs. Hemingway, by Naomi Wood”
Reading it was like a river journey, swaying and floating from one port to another on an invisible, seamless current. Once you are on board, disembarkation seems impossible.
May we, like the elves, find the time and enough love in our hearts to welcome the foreigner, the unbeliever, the lonely stranger half crazy from grief, and turn him into a valued member of our communities.
Behind every word the reader can sense the implacable tread of life itself moving warily, silently, away from oblivion. By any means necessary.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie carries a dozen boldly sketched characters through 588 engrossing pages with a tale that pokes into our (surprisingly sensitive) national and racial selves.
This is a magnificent book, and I am not alone in thinking so. The New York Times Book Review calls it a “tour de force,” others compare it to Madame Bovary and War and Peace.
Magnuson skitters over the top of her Indian experience, barely able to breathe.
If forgiveness can bloom for the Gardner family, then there is hope for us all.