The BIRTHDAY LUNCH

Joan Clark. THE BIRTHDAY LUNCH. Knopf, 2015.

Fourth selection for the book club. Maritime writer; set in Sussex, New Brunswick. Lily is run over by a speeding truck as she returns to her sister's car carrying 2 strawberry ice cream cones. The family rallies--her husband Hal, an antiques dealer; their children Claudia, a librarian, and Matt, a lawyer; the sister Laverne, a high school teacher who lives down stairs. Details of the complexity of arrangements, the checklist. The return of the lost brother. The secret lover. Past mistakes. A surprising love. The conflict centres around the competition between husband and the mean-spirited sister-in-law, which concludes on the final page. Laverne has renovated her suite in the shared house to copy a favourite Dutch Master painting. Too much insignificant detail for my taste, but I enjoy the crafting of story around ordinary lives.

QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS

Billy Collins. QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS. William Morrow, 1991, U Pittsburgh, 1999.

On the day a friend was moved into Palliative Care, I received word that the request I submitted for any books by Billy Collins some years ago has resulted in this arrival. Lovely putti on cover, medieval brown. Recognize two favourites: "Questions About Angels" and ."Forgetfulness"-- "No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted / out of a love poem that you used to know by heart."

 

RECITATIF

Morrison, Toni. RECITATIF. Knopf, 1983. Intro by Zadie Smith, 2022. 

A find at the library book sale. An experiment by Morrison to try to tell a story about two girls, Twyla and Roberta, without specifying which is Black. The intro includes Morrison's explication of fascism, the steps in erasing a people. 

I'm always surprised how the American experience of racism feels so different to our issues here in Canada. And how the Black struggle for equality in the USA has no reference whatsoever to Indigenous Americans. 

Although my one complaint is always against titles which have no meaning to the majority of readers or book buyers (almost seeming like a deliberate attempt to make people feel stupid) this book must make up part of my racism research library. 

The HANGING VALLEY

Robinson, Peter. THE HANGING VALLEY.  McClelland & Stewart, 1989.

The joke's on me. Bought at the library book sale, but the final pages missing. Could not find a full copy in library or bookstore. Luckily, the plot ended fairly completely.

This is such an early Peter Robinson. And I love the title, a geology term. A body found near a waterfall, close to a B&B where another unsolved murder happened ten years earlier. Banks is still married; Gristhorpe is still his boss. A trip to Toronto is part of the investigation.

Loved it. Miss this writer. 

THE BOOK of LOST NAMES

Harmel, Kristin. THE BOOK OF LOST NAMES. Gallery, 2020.

Found in the condo library. Another book set in France during WW II, about forgers who help people, especially Jewish children, escape to Nazis to freedom in Switzerland. Eva, an octogenarian widow living in Florida, sees a book she once knew and used in a article in a New York paper and flies to Germany to retrieve it. Flashes back to her early life in Paris, the flight to Southern France, her decision to use her art talent to work on forged documents. The hardest part for me was the mother's deliberate undermining and guilting of her daughter's actions. And the sentimentality. And the immaturity of the main character, although that too could be realistic. It seems the history is relatively fact-based. 

The SOLITUDE of PRIME NUMBERS

Giordano, Paola. The SOLITUDE of PRIME NUMBERS. Penguin, 2008.

Third book I've read for the Ladies Meet Up Club. A first novel by a young Italian writer about the coming-of-age of two young people who experienced trauma in childhood. The impact of home life and trauma on adolescents, and on how it may delay adolescence well into the so-called "adult" years. Alice was injured in a ski accident. Mattia lost his sister. Alice is obsessed with photography and is anorexic. Mattia is obsessed with numbers. Set in Italy and in Denmark? where Mattia goes to university and stays to work. 

So glad it is not about numbers, and that the ending is not sentimental.