I received an advanced review copy of this title from the publisher through Netgalley.
My Review:
The blurb that describes this book on sites like Goodreads and Amazon really sells the book short. One gets the impression that this is a light, summer beach read, a book categorized as “chick-lit.” This particular classification of genre, “chick-lit” has always made me uncomfortable. It seems to imply, at least in my mind, that females read these lighter, less serious books, ones meant for the beach or for times when ones attention is not fully given because the children are running around. This genre also seems to imply a certain amount of gratuitous sex. But Blanca’s story about the death of her mother and her very complicated love life are much more complex than to be classified as “chick-lit.”
The entire book is written as a letter from the main character, Blanca, to her mother who has just passed away. Blanca is forty years-old, twice divorced and has one son with each ex-husband. The death of her mother has caused her to not only feel grief, but also to experience a deep sense of loneliness. Even though Blanca is constantly surrounded by loved ones, her children, her friends, her ex-husbands, a sense of loneliness pervades every scene in the book. We get the feeling that her relationship with her mother, right up to her dying days, was very complicated.
Blanca decides to leave Barcelona for a summer seaside vacation to Cadaqués where her mother’s home is. Even though she is consumed by sadness, the memories of childhood summers in Cadaqués and being surrounded by her mother’s things are a comfort to Blanca. When she arrives at her mother’s house, the first item she encounters is a jacket that her mother always wore. She is not sure what she should do with it, but by the end of the novel she brings it to the dry cleaners which act is symbolic of finally letting go of her grief.
Another theme that pervades the book is intimacy, both sexual and emotional. After her mother’s death, Blanca craves physical affection and begins having sex with Oscar, one of her ex-husbands. But she recognizes that this is a temporary situation to ease her sorrow. Blanca is also having an illicit affair with a married man who also shows up in Cadaqués. Her mother’s death makes her reevaluate all of the intimate relationships in her life and Blanca comes to the realization that this affair is not satisfying her emotional needs. One of the best parts of the book is when she blurts out to the man with whom she is having the affair that they should break it off. I saw this as Blanca finally coming out of her fog of grief, asserting her independence, and recognizing her self-worth.
In sum, this book brings up important issues about grief and how we deal with the loss of an important role-model in our lives. Blanca comes to understand that her friends and her family are her true support system and these relationships will help her get over the loss of her mother. As the plot of the book progressed, I became more invested not only in Blanca’s story, but also in the other lively characters in the book. Her two best friends, her sons, and her ex-husbands, all of whom have very different personalities, made up a very amusing cast of characters. I would recommend taking this book to the beach, but you will need to give it your undivided attention to fully appreciate the deeper messages about dealing with loss.
About the Author:
Petterson presents us with the story of Tommy and Jim who grew up together under difficult circumstances in the same small town in Norway. They lose touch with one another and a chance meeting on a cold morning on a bridge brings them back together and causes memories of their troubled childhood to flood their lives. The story alternates between 2006, when they are middle-aged men and the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when they are teenagers. Since their early years are full of tragedy, we get the feeling that for the rest of their lives they are fighting a constant emotional battle, pushing back against the darkness and continually having to say “I Refuse” to unpleasant circumstance.
Petterson knew from the age of 18 that he wanted to be a writer, but didn’t embark on this career for many years – his debut book, the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa, (Ashes in the Mouth, Sand in the Shoes) was published 17 years later, when Petterson was 35. Previously he had worked for years in a factory as an unskilled labourer, as his parents had done before him, and had also trained as a librarian, and worked as a bookseller.
As I have noted above I don’t usually read or review books in the fantasy genre. It’s just not something that usually catches my attention, but when Mr. Webber sent me an e-mail to request a review how could I possibly say no? He is one of the best students of Latin I have and, in fact, he is one of the most talented students I have ever had in my classes, so I was intrigued to see his writings.
The first reaction that I had to the writing style and narrative of this book is that it feels like a series of flash fiction stories. When we first meet the narrator he lives in Porto Alegre with his mother is a decrepit, abandoned apartment. Other miscreant vagabonds also spend their days idling around the lobby of this building and doing drugs. The narrator’s actions and thoughts in the book reflect his aimless and disjointed life; he talks to his mother, he tries to write poetry, he sleeps, he wanders around the city.
This latest release from Istros Books is a fictional account of Lord Byron’s tour around parts of the Ottoman Empire in 1809 during which trip he is the guest of a local Albanian ruler, Ali Pasha. The story takes place during a period of two weeks on his travels when Byron is accompanied by a retinue of English servants as well as his good friend John Hobhouse. As they reach the city of Ali Pasha, they are greeted by a severed arm that is hanging from a tree and being slowly eaten by birds of prey. There is an undercurrent of uneasiness throughout their stay in Yannina as they immediately understand that the political and social landscape of The Ottoman Empire is very different from England.
Muharem Bazdulj, born in 1977, is one of the leading writers of the younger generation to appear in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He writes in a wide variety of genres, including novels, short stories, poetry, and essays; he is also active as a journalist and a translator. Bazdulj’s work has been published `Best European Fiction 2012´ (Ed. Aleksandar Hemon, Dalkey Archive Press) alongside Milan Kundera, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, Péter Esterházy and Andrzej Stasiuk. Short stories and essays in `World Literature Today´, `Creative Nonfiction´, `Habitus´, `Absinthe´ etc.Translations:One of his short story collections has appeared in English (The Second Book, Northwestern University Press, 2005). Bazdulj is the author of nine books in all, including his most recent set of stories, Magic. He currently lives in Travnik and Sarajevo. – See more at: 
The Book Binder's Daughter 