Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

April 14, 2015 · 10:17 am

Review: Diamond Head by Cecily Wong

I received an advanced review copy of this book from Harper.

My Review:
Diamond HeadBohai is a quiet, unassuming man who, growing up in China at the beginning of the 20th century, is viewed as different even from his early childhood.  This book is a narrative of his life as seen through the eyes of the women that surround him: his mother, his wife and his daughter.  It seems that none of them truly understood or appreciated him until his early and tragic death.  Their grief forces them to look back on their own lives, their family secrets and their experiences that greatly impacted this silent, yet honorable man.

Lin Leong, Bohai’s mother, could not produce a child for her husband.  She has two stillbirths, both of which produce girls and she is so desparate to produce a boy to become his father’s heir, that she hires a concubine for her husband.  The concubine, only 14 years old at the time, gives birth to Bohai and dies shortly thereafter.  Lin and her husband dote on their only son until the age of five when they realize that he is not like other children. Instead of being active like other boys his age, he rarely speaks and he is content to sit quietly in his room and read books.  His mother doesn’t think he will ever marry and for a while she even fears Bohai is gay.  When her husband moves the family from their home in China to Hawaii, Lin is hoping that this will be a new beginning for the entire family.

Amy, Bohai’s wife comes from a very poor family of twelve.  It is evident from her narrative that she wants nothing more in life than to dig herself out of her poverty.  When she starts working for her father’s photography business, World War II has just broken out and dozens of men who are ready to be shipped out come to the studio to have their pictures taken.  This is when Amy meets a handsome engineer named Henry.  They have a whirlwind, month long romance and before Henry goes off to war in Europe, he asks Amy to wait for him.  While Henry is away, she is introduced to the Leong family and marriage is proposed between Amy and the shy Bohai.  Amy has a difficult decision, but in the end she opts for wealth and security over passion and love.

The final woman connected to Bohai is his eighteen year old daughter Theresa who is pregnant and, at such a young age, has a life fraught with hardship and difficult decisions.  When Bohai dies, Theresa is told all of the long-buried family secrets about her father and his family.  Theresa also took Bohai for granted when he was alive and now she deeply regrets that she did not build a closer relationship with her father when she had the chance.

DIAMOND HEAD is a novel that kept my attention from beginning to end. The author is adept at building the storyline of the family a bit at a time to keep the reader turning the pages. I highly recommend this interesting historical fiction novel, a triumphant first piece of writing from Cecily Wong.

About The Author:
Cecily WongCecily Wong is Chinese-Hawaiian. She was born on Oahu and raised in Oregon. Diamond Head grew from family stories told to her by her parents and grandparents. Wong graduated from Barnard College, where the first pages of this novel won the Peter S. Prescott Prize for Prose Writing. She lives in New York City.

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April 13, 2015 · 12:00 am

Review: The Given World by Marian Palaia

I received a review copy of this title from Simon and Schuster through NetGalley.

My Review:
Given WorldRiley is a sad, lost, melancholy soul who has commitment issues and is not really even sure if she is capable of loving anyone.   When she is nine, her beloved older brother, Mick, goes off to fight in Vietnam where goes MIA.  The fact that her brother died is difficult enough for her to deal with, but not knowing how he dies or where he is buried compounds her grief.  When Riley is in high school she has a boyfriend named Darrell who also goes off to the war.  It is this second loss of a male in her life that really seems to push Riley over the edge.

Riley leaves Montana and takes off for the Ocean, which she longs to see and be near.  She ends up in San Francisco where her life is a tumultuous string of jobs, friends, drugs and dwellings.  She seems to be running from something, but she doesn’t know from what, and she seems to be looking for something, but she doesn’t know what that something is either.

Since it is  the Vietnam War that has so altered Riley’s life, she decides to leave San Francisco and live in Saigon for nine months.  I thought that from the descriptions of the book Riley was going to actively look for her brother there to figure out what happened to him.  But her life in Vietnam is much the same as it was in San Francisco with binge drinking, sleeping with random men and living recklessly.  I did not find this part of the book particularly interesting, although I suppose it was the author’s attempt at trying to portray the fact that Riley is running farther and farther away from her life and her problems.

In the end, an illness brings Riley back to Montana and she learns she really should not have pushed away her parents who, in dealing with their own grief over their lost son,  could have helped her get over her own.  Riley keeps saying that she wanted to leave her small town in Montana and not be trapped, when all along it is the one true place where she is accepted and loved unconditionally.   THE GIVEN WORLD is an sad coming-of-age story in which the main character learns that instead of running away, she should have dealt with the world as it was given to her.

About The Author:
Marian PalaiaMarian Palaia lives in San Francisco, California, and sometimes, when it is not winter, in Missoula, Montana. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Madison, Wisconsin, where she received the 2012 Milofsky Prize, and of the MA program in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She was a 2012-2013 John Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University and a 2014 recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her work has been published most recently in The Virginia Quarterly review (http://www.vqronline.org/fiction/cu-chi); TriQuarterly (http://www.triquarterly.org/issues/issue-144/last-place-she-stood); and Joyland (http://www.joylandmagazine.com/regions/san-francisco/hello-kitty-justice-league-selections). Two of these stories are also chapters in her forthcoming (April 14, 2015 from Simon and Schuster) novel The Given World.

 

 

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April 12, 2015 · 12:00 am

Review: The Settling Earth by Rebecca Burns

I received an advanced review copy of this collection of short stories from the author.

My Review:
The Settling EarthAll of the characters in these short stories are connected by their sense of alienation and misery while living an emigrant’s life in the hot, dusty colony of New Zealand in the 19th century.  The book begins with Sarah, whose parents have given her away to an older man named William Sanderson who drags her off to live on his isolated farm in New Zealand.  Sarah is lonely, homesick and stuck in an unhappy marriage.  She seems to be wandering around her home in a daze, either not fully aware of her surrounding or in denial of her situation.

William himself is also the focus of one of the stories in the book and he doesn’t seem to want to live in New Zealand any more than his wife does.  In order to relieve his stress and find an outlet for his frustrations, he likes to visit a brothel in Christchurch.  William is also a bigot and has a severe dislike for the Maori natives.

Several characters from the brothel also have their own stories.  The owner of the brothel, having left England and started her business, tries to look after her “girls” as best she can.  But, despite the fact that precautions are taken,  several of them still manage to get pregnant.  The women in the brothel are just as sad as Sarah and trapped in a lonely and demeaning life.

The saddest, and most heart-rending story in the collection, is that of Mrs. Gray who takes in the babies of unwed mothers.  These fallen women and their children are judged harshly and shunned by the colony.  It is ironic that many of these women have come to the colony for a fresh start but the colony also rejects them because of their perceived sins.  Mrs. Gray believes that she is helping these women and her babies, but the help that she is giving these women is not what they are expecting.

THE SETTLING EARTH is a well-written group of stories, full of downcast and moving characters.  My only complaint about the book, if indeed it can be called a “complaint,” is that just when I became fully invested in a character the story would end. This collection could easily have been made into one, continuous, thought-provoking book;   I would love to see what a talented author like Rebecca Burns could do with a full-length novel.

About The Author:

Rebecca Burns is an award-winning writer of short stories, over thirty of which have been published online or in print. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011, winner of the Fowey Festival of Words and Music Short Story Competition in 2013 (and runner-up in 2014), and has been profiled as part of the University of Leicester’s “Grassroutes Project”—a project that showcases the 50 best transcultural writers in the county. In November 2014 she won the Black Pear Press short story competition with her story, “Seaglass”. Her piece is the title story in the Black Pear Press anthology, “Seaglass and Other Stories” – available from December 2014 at http://blackpear.net/2014/12/28/wonde…

Rebecca’s debut collection of short stories, “Catching the Barramundi”, was published by Odyssey Books in November 2012 and is available to order from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Barram…. In March 2013 it was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Award.

The Settling Earth is Rebecca’s second collection of short stories.

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April 6, 2015 · 8:58 am

Review: A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent

I received an advanced review copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

My Review:

A Slant of LightOne of my favorite places to visit is The Finger Lakes region in New York so I was thrilled to find an historical fiction novel that is set in this beautiful place.  Malcolm Hopeton moves from New Hampshire with his elderly grandfather and buys a plot of land to farm near Seneca Lake.  Malcolm toils from dawn to dusk for years in order to yield a fertile bounty and he is very successful.  He hires a young boy named Amos Wheeler as farm help which will prove to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Malcolm also meets Bethany and they have a brief and whirlwind romance and settle down to a blissful, married life.  When Malcolm decides to go and fight in The Civil War, and chooses to stay away for all four years of the war, his farm, his wife and all that he holds dear are taken away from him.  He commits a horrific act of violence against Amos and Bethany for which he stands trial.  As the story unfolds we learn that Malcolm is an honorable man who is driven to his breaking point.

The narrative also focuses on the character of Augustus, who I found to be the most interesting character in the novel.  Augustus is also a hardworking farmer that has suffered tragedy very early on in his life.  His pregnant wife, Narcissa, dies in childbirth and he vows to be alone for the rest of his days.  He quickly realizes that he needs someone to help take care of his house and feed him, so he hires Becca Davis and they get along very well.  But Augustus is so focused on staying faithful to his dead wife that he refuses to see what a great match he and Becca would make.

One theme that is carried throughout the novel is the abuse of women.  Bethany is treated poorly by her father and is beaten mercilessly when he perceives that she has committed a sin.  She finds solace and love with Malcolm, who turns around and abandons her to go off to war.  When Malcolm is gone she is emotionally and physically abused by Amos Wheeler.  Bethany’s life comes to a tragic end at the hands of her husband who, brought to his breaking point, kills Wheeler and in the ensuing struggle accidentally kills her as well.

Becca is treated well by Augustus but it becomes clear that she feels more for him than an employee feels for an employer.  When Augusts takes in Becca’s teenage brother the three of them live together as a pseudo-family and Becca seems especially content with her living situation.  But at two kept points in the novel Becca tries to have a serious conversation with Augustus and she is frustrated that she is still treated by him like nothing more than the hired help.

The bucolic language of the book captures the beauty and peacefulness of this region and the serene landscape stands in sharp contrast to the turmoil of the characters’ struggles.  A SLANT OF LIGHT is an intense read that comes to an abrupt and incomplete ending.  I was happy to read on Jeffrey Lent’s website that this book is the first in a two book deal with Bloomsbury.  I look forward to the next installment.

Visit the author’s website for more information about his other novels: http://www.jeffreylent.com/

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March 23, 2015 · 12:00 am

Review: When The Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen

I received an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher.  This book was originally written and published in Finnish and has been translated for this publication into English.

My Review:
Doves DisappearedThe setting of this story involves the sad history of Estonia, a country that is caught between two fascist superpowers and never allowed to be free.  The narrative moves back and forth between the period of World War II when Estonia is occupied by German forces, and the 1960’s when Estonia is under Soviet Control.

There is a patriotic group of Estonians who are trying to cast off the oppressive yoke of the Bolsheviks that has a grip on the county in the early 1940’s.   This group of revolutionaries are represented by the character of Roland.  Roland is a farm boy who has led a simple life, but he trains in Finland with a group of rebel Estonians who want to oust the Red Army and declare Estonian independence.  When the Germans cast the Red Army out of the country, Roland recognizes that one oppressive tyrant has been tragically replaced by another.  He continues his underground resistance and his goal is to cast off the Germans who are just as cruel and harsh as the Red Army.  Roland is a figure who possesses loyalty, honor and patriotism; he is true to his cause, the freedom of Estonia, no matter what happens in the story.

Edgar, Roland’s cousin, serves as a sharp contrast to the loyalty of his closest family member.  Edgar’s two driving goals in life are self-preservation and self-advancement.  When the Germans take over, he assumes a new name and attempts to make a career among the German government in Estonia by managing some of their labor camps.  When the Germans are run out of Estonia, Edgar takes on yet another new name and tries to ingratiate himself with the Soviet government by writing a book about all of the German atrocities that were committed while Hitler’s armies occupied Estonia.  Edgar does not particularly care who is in charge of the government, as long as he is seen as someone who is worthy of praise and attention.  His greatest desire in life is to be given special privileges and recognition as a result of his work for the government.

The most tragic character in the book is Juudit, Edgar’s wife.  Juddit is truly in love with Edgar when they first marry and she has such high hopes about spending a wonderful life together in wedded bliss.  However, Juddit is sorely disappointed when Edgar refuses to have any sexual relations with his wife.  It becomes apparent in the book that Edgar is homosexual and has no intentions of carrying on a physical relationship with a woman.  When Juddit meets a German officer stationed in Estonia, she has a mad, passionate love affair with him that lasts for the duration of the German occupation.  Juddit finally feels loved, wanted and fulfilled when a German officer gives her all of the attention and affection that she so desperately desired from Edgar.  Unfortunately for Juddit, when the Germans are driven out of Estonia, she is forced to go back and live with Edgar, at which point she carries on a sad and wretched life fueled by lots of alcohol and pills.

Sometimes the dual narrative that jumps between the two time periods becomes very confusing and convoluted.  It is hard to keep the names straight of which person is on which side, who is working for the Germans and who is still loyal to the Russians.  There are also certain storylines that I would like to have seen further developed.  For example, the details of Edgar and Juudit’s reunion after the Germans withdrawal from Estonia is never described.  How could these two people who despise each other end up living under the same roof again?  Also, Roland’s fiancée, Rosalie, suddenly dies in the beginning of the book and the suspicious circumstances of her death are not mentioned again until the very end.  Rosalie’s story could have been just as interesting as Juudit’s and I would like to have seen her character elaborated upon.

Overall, this is an intriguing historical fiction novel about World War II that revolves around a scarely spoken of country that was the victim of two oppressive regimes.  If you are a connoisseur of World War II historical fiction, then WHEN THE DOVES DISAPPEARED should definitely be on your “to read” list.

About The Author:
Sofi OksanenSofi Oksanen was born in Finland to a Finnish father and an Estonian mother. In 2010 she won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize for her third novel (originally a play), Puhdistus (Purge).

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