May books

Brief life update: I now have a fourth grader! I can’t really believe it. Also SG is getting ready to go to sleep away camp for her first time… for about 3 weeks! It’s going to be a big step for my sensitive little one but I know she can do it.  I’ve been selecting more things for our future house and we finally got our permit from the city to begin construction.  Oh and today’s my birthday!

It was a great month for reading.  Almost all of these books have something to do with New York around the turn of the 19th century, with class or racial struggles, and are semi rags-to-riches stories (my favorite).  There are several that deal with someone trying to uncover a story from many generations prior.  What are the chances?

The Address by Fiona Davis

New York City, 1885 and 1985… narratives one hundred years apart.  This historical novel is a mystery and family drama in one.  We grow close to two strong women who struggle against different things.  My favorite aspect of the book was learning more about The Dakota, a famous building where most of the story takes place, as well as what life was like before New York was fully built. I recently read Davis’ The Dollhouse, also about a famous NYC building, and loved this one just as much.  She is an amazing author and I look forward to reading The Masterpiece when it is released in August.  Highly recommend.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

In a country which could be any country that’s fighting a civil war, two young people meet and identify with each other. They leave their families behind to escape through a series of magic portals (why?), gradually grow apart and end up separating to live out their own lives. I think we are meant to see the immigrant experience, the “otherness” inherent within that, and struggle with how experience itself can change a person. For me, I wasn’t convinced of their “coupleness” in the first place, so I wasn’t overly saddened that they did not stay together.  I suppose having a shared past does bind people together, but obviously you’d need more than just that to sustain a relationship. The novel has gotten amazing reviews, so perhaps I’m missing something here. I have read some remarkable immigrant narratives and this one was just “eh.”

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova

Fans of Still Alice will want to read this right away because it’s just as compelling.  I didn’t realize Genova is a neuroscientist! This is a page-turner… Pianist Richard develops ALS and we follow his daily challenges. It’s interesting that we don’t really have the change to feel sorry for him because we also read from the perspective of his ex-wife, who has some stories of her own.  Highly recommend.

Astor Place Vintage by Stephanie Lehmann

New York City in 1907 and present day.  Amanda owns a vintage clothing store and finds a diary in the sleeve of an old fur muff. It is Olive’s journal from 100 years ago.  The two women have some surprising commonalities: Both lost a parent, are in the city alone, have much to learn about relationships, are waiting for confirmation that they aren’t pregnant, and they seem to find themselves in exactly the same physical locations in some of the same clothes.  Interestingly, Olive is the more “modern” one who teaches Amanda some life lessons about living in the present.

I enjoyed this quick read, although when Amanda began having lucid dreams about what she reads in the diary, imagining Olive to be with her, I started getting confused. The two girls’ stories are so similar!

The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe

This historical novel is amazing! I can see why it’s being made into a movie.  It’s based on the true story of Anita Hemmings, the first black student to attend Vassar College and who successfully passed as white until just before her graduation in 1897.  Old moneyed families have the power and new ideas are slow to be adopted.  Anita and her family had to sacrifice much to achieve her dream.

In this one book (that I couldn’t put down) we’ve got race, gender, class divisions, education, love, and belonging. You can just tell that Tanabe must have done extensive research for this novel. It is written so well, down to the detail about the street’s gas lamps. Others have compared this to an Edith Wharton novel, and I definitely agree.  Interestingly, the next secret African American woman to attend and graduate Vassar was Anita Hemmings’ daughter, and she did not even realize that she wasn’t 100% white.  Highly recommend.

“She couldn’t tell Porter anything about herself.  She couldn’t tell him that her mother ran a boardinghouse in Cottage City every summer, or that her father had recently begun working two jobs, as a janitor and a coachman, cleaning up after and transporting white wealthy Bostonians. She couldn’t announce that she lived in the city’s Negro neighborhood or that she had never left the state of Massachusetts until she was an adolescent, and still had not traveled beyond the Northeast.  Was she supposed to talk about her profound fear that she would grow so comfortable at Vassar that her secret would burst out of her like a sneeze? That she would accidentally mention something about her background, her education, her family that would expose her true origins? Or should she admit that she was not supposed to be speaking to him at all? That he should stay away from her, because she was the thing the world reviled most: a Negro woman?”

“‘I think only someone who has lived as we have can truly understand our positions,’ said Andrew.  ‘I never attended a school as a white person like you did, but I have lived as one.  I am familiar with floating between both worlds, to be treated as white.  I know what it’s like to leave behind your identity as a Negro and be confused about whether you are doing so willingly or unwillingly.  And I understand the guilt that can come with securing a better life by passing.   The shame.  You may think, am I doing this because I am not brave enough to live as a Negro? Or am I living this way because it is the only way to pursue a career I deserve? Perhaps it is an act of bravery? Tricking them into treating you like one of their own.'”

The Debutante by Kathleen Tessaro

I got this one from the library because I loved the Rare Objects so much (see below). It was absorbing but at this point in the month, I’ve read 4 other novels with the same structure of dual timelines and self-awareness/life lessons. I was much more interested in the characters from the past than the present day ones, and ultimately that story wasn’t tied up neatly at the end. Still, it was compelling and I’d recommend it.

Rare Objects by Kathleen Tessaro

I read Tessaro’s The Perfume Collector and loved it. This one is similar in its structure and detailed characters. It’s Boston in the 1930s, and we meet Maeve, a first-generation Irish immigrant.  She is unlike many women of her time in that she does not conform to what society expects of her.  somehow talks herself into a job in an antiques shop and meets some wealthy collectors. And we also meet Diana, deeply flawed and wealthy. Their lives become intertwined in a myriad of ways.  There’s heartbreak, love, character growth, and much to learn about antiques. I can’t say more without giving too much away. Recommend.

“Winshaw and Kessler was quiet.  Not just quiet but holding its breath, waiting.  After the constant jostling and hustle in New York City, it was strange to walk down an almost empty street each morning, unlock the door, and step into a word dominated not by people but by things.  There was a sense of solemnity and guardianship, like being in a library or a church.  And like a church, the shop had a muted, remote quality, as if it were somehow both part of and yet simultaneously removed from the present day.  The essence of aged wood, silver polish, furniture oil, and the infinitesimal dust of other lives and other countries hung in the air.  I could feel its weight around me, and its flavor lingered on my tongue.  Time tasted musty, metallic, and faintly exotic… Almost everywhere else, time was an enemy; the thief that rendered food rotten, dulled the bloom of youth, made fashions passé.  But here it was the precious ingredient that transformed an ordinary object into a valuable artifact.”

“In it’s purest form, collecting is designing – selecting objects to create sense, order, and beauty.  To us, we’re simply selling a serving dish or an ivory comb.  But for the buyer, he’s fitting another intricate piece into a carefully curated world of his own construction.  At its root is an ancient belief, a hope, in the magic of objects.  No matter how sophisticated we think we are, we still search for alchemy.”