Sarah's Key; a book review

Sarah’s Key

by Tatiana de Rosnay

Book review by Pam Pedler

Sarah’s Key is a gripping story of parallel plot. Young Sarah and her family are arrested in Paris in July of 1942 as France participates in the round up of Jews for the Nazi’s genocide plan. She hides her brother in a cupboard and locks it, leaving him safe in their apartment.

In 2002, Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article for her editor for the sixtieth anniversary of this nearly forgotten dark mark on France’s past. Her dual citizenship as a result of her marriage to her French husband creates a relentless pursuit of the truth that Paris would rather forget. Her research leads her back to her connection to Sarah’s story. It is a gripping read as you toggle between the fates of Sarah and Julia.

Sarah’s resourcefulness in war torn Europe and Julia’s movement through a more subtle battlefield of love and marriage demonstrate great pacing right up until the end. The last thirty pages dawdle as the story winds down and does not do justice to author’s story. Even though the end feels a bit flat and dragged out after such powerful intensity, this is both a remarkable book and a successful craft of parallel plot lines. Tatiana de Rosnay’s first novel has been translated into eighteen languages and is an international best seller.   

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka, A Book Review

The Buddha in the Attic

by Julie Otsuka

Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2011

To read this book is to experience the numbing and overwhelming disregard for human dignity in the United States in the early 1900’s. The narrator makes the reader feel the dashed hopes of mail-order "picture brides" as they arrive in San Francisco on a boat from Japan. These disenfranchised young women and girls were given up by families that hoped to better their own lives and those of their daughters.

The clever author’s use of a pleural voice with no distinct main character in the beginning gets the reader restless as they feel oppressed with what at first glance appears to be a sagging middle in the story. The reader wearies as their senses are assaulted with these “dead women walking” and the author’s clipped prose.

The foreigners press on when all that is promised in their new lives is a lie. The culture shock is felt when they are puzzled that Americans read their books backwards and wonder why the opposite of black in America is not red, but white!

This pithy book can be read in an afternoon, but is pondered much longer. The startling end is paralleled by the narrator’s skill to give these invisible immigrants dignity, even if only through a subtle and brilliant technique.

 Julia Otsuka records an era in our history that is hard for Americans to fathom. It is a timely reminder of the results of unchecked presidential power in our nation in the recent past: Beware citizens and neighbors that we do not allow this ending to ever repeat itself in our nation. May we learn from history, and from Julia’s stunning historical novel.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Delightful characters introduce themselves within the correspondences of Juliet, a single journalist. She informs her agent, Sidney, that she no longer wants to write her current book because she finds it annoying and quite impossible to write humor after the war. the year is 1946 when she receives a letter signed by an unknown man named Dawsey Adams. The envelope is postmarked from Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands between the UK and France.

Dawsey treasured a book he had found during the German occupation of their island which bore her name and address in the cover. Since the Germans left no bookstore on the Island in their wake (the islanders were just now being supplied with food and shoes after the occupation) he wondered if she might send him the address of a bookstore in England so he could obtain another book from the same author.

Juliet strikes up a correspondence, and inquires just what is Potato Peel Pie, and why is it a part of their literary society’s name? The only clue I’ll reveal is that the crust is concocted from potato peels. Words like ration coupons, black out curtains, curfews and German patrol officers start popping up in the letters as the island’s occupants introduce themselves through Dawsey’s pen and paper. It is not a surprise when Juliet visits the Island and this amusing story literally comes to life!

This book is a special treat because Mary Ann Shaffer’s niece, Annie, finished it for Mary when the author became shelved with poor health. Enjoy this treat!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Book Review

The Help

Kathryn Stockett

Penguin Group, New York, NY

Copyright 2009

This novel about women transcends age and race in Mississippi during 1962. Aibeleen, a loving black maid is raising her seventeenth white child. Skeeter, a new college graduate disappoints her mother because she didn’t graduate with a “Mrs.” degree. Aibeleen’s best friend, Minny, usually blurts out what’s on her mind, and this result in a punctuated employment record. Her sweet cooking is the gift she developed to offset her impulsive mouth.

The bridge club meets monthly and while Miss Leefolt is a clueless follower, she is only out done in pride and cruelty by one Miss Hilly. They reminded me of those unforgettable girls in middle and high school who clutch power via lies and innuendos; these women are all grown up though! Peer pressure is an inheritance deeply seeded in Southern Society and Celia, who unwisely married Hilly’s old boyfriend, is the club’s blackballed scapegoat. 

You can’t help but root for Skeeter as she ignores the edicts of Miss Hilly. She follows the advice of an editor who rejected her job application: Get experience and write about what annoys you, especially if it doesn’t seem to bother others! So the story’s hand is dealt and the pages turn like a battery operated card shuffler. The author, Kathryn Stockett, weaves romance, mystery, and drama into a read more satisfying than Minny’s cooking. Don’t miss these unforgettable characters struggle with a lopsided view of human dignity as they ultimately affirm that integrity is a choice, not an inherited trait.

For those of you who also saw the movie, which did you like better? I couldn't have a blog without including this great story.

The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman

The Zookeeper’s Wife

by Diane Ackerman

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

A Book Review by Pam Pedler

The Zookeeper’s Wife

by Diane Ackerman

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

The Zookeeper’s Wife awakens to a lovely morning in Warsaw, Poland, during the summer of 1935. Beautiful and gifted writing draws the reader into the exotic world of a private zoo, as the animals; gushed, cranked up arpeggios, called, whooped, howled, gibbered, roared, croaked, screeched, snorted, yelped, brayed, shifted, squealed, bellowed, and yodeled like an intricate overture. The author paints a delightful world inside the zoo, and the zookeeper’s wife has a special connection to the animals; especially the newborns that are motherless or injured new arrivals. Speaking of new arrivals, their first child, a son, arrives into the zookeepers' lives and joins the ruckus with babbling.

When one of the keepers states that someone has to stop Adolf; this clever foreshadowing and  humor reveals that this is the nickname of a rhesus monkey, during mating season.  On September first,  the initial day of the school year for Polish children, the author assaults our sensory receptors as hundreds of Nazi airplanes hum across the city. I can not shake her description of the animals running out of the bombed zoo cages and emptying into the streets like Noah’s Ark. Even in the midst of history’s depravity, I was captivated by the author’s lyrical writing.

The most remarkable attraction to the book though, is this true story of how the Zabinski family saved hundreds of people that they hid at the zoo. The citizens clever efforts to outsmart the oppressive Nazis inspire and leave the reader to wonder about the source of their courage. This book paints a unique picture of how civil disobedience strives to do the right thing; to protect human dignity and life. This engaging book certainly earned its place as a New York Times Bestseller! 

Pam Pedler

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved

By Toni Morrison

Copyright 1987, 2004 Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York

Beloved by Toni Morrison is not a beloved book on my bookcase, even though it is a Pulitzer Prize Winner. I’m better off for having read it though.

By page 47 I still couldn’t understand much of what was going on, except that in 1873 Seth and her daughter lived in 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati, Ohio, with something evil. And Paul D, a man from Seth’s past arrived, and then a thirsty, silent girl named Beloved. And the house was crowded with much more than people; the memories, the history-- you know peoples’ story, all continue to unfold. And the whole time my head swirls and strains forward, and slips backwards like the emancipated slaves’ minds must have after their lived horror changed; for it never ended in the minds of the abused, the heartbroken, and the enslaved. Toni Morrison does some incredible writing to put my head into the ex-slaves’ eddy of suppressed grief, and their peculiar ‘freedom’. The author provides a genuine sense of the time.

Human capacity for dehumanizing made the bile rise up in my throat on occasion, and I’d have to set the book down, vowing to not return. But I had to know… I needed closure, and I’d pick it up again. Timeless saving grace is found in community, not in isolation, and this is the enduring message of grief. Memories too consuming are laid to rest and the next generation is the hope. And after brewing, and distilling, and spilling, and losing love; love is all that remains.

It is a timeless story. It's not an easy read mind you, but a redeeming story none the less.

An Interesting Denver Museum

Saturday I explored an amazing museum in Metro Denver, The Colorado Railroad Museum. I was in search of authentic ideas about a train ride to Denver in the late 1800's for my novel. The volunteers and archivist in the museum were incredibly helpful and one volunteer, Steve, lead me to a restored car from 1885.  I even rode in this car as the train circled around the museum property! I posted the link on the right column for you.

I regretted that I hadn't discovered this great location when my kids were younger, they would have loved it. Perhaps the pictures from inside the old train car will let your mind escape and ride the rails out west!

Kerosene Light Fixture, 1885

Coach Car # 284