Schmitt’s three complex stories are beautifully translated and masterfully written.
Schmitt (Concerto to the Memory of an Angel, 2011, etc.) writes movingly about three women, divided by time and distance, whose lives connect when they attempt to break free of expectations imposed by society.
Displaying empathy for women and the constraints they face simply because they’re born in a certain era, the author delivers three fascinating, multilayered stories that merge in an unusual way. Young, pure Anne lives in Bruges at a time when most eligible young men are off fighting in the Crusades. Other girls envy her impending marriage to a handsome young man, but when a mirror splinters on the floor, Anne escapes her aunt’s home and her unwanted engagement and takes refuge in the woods. There, she finds comfort and companionship surrounded by nature. Labeled as a chosen one, Anne eventually travels with a trusted monk to a convent, where the poetry she writes is misinterpreted and her faith is questioned, but she remains resolute in her beliefs. Years later, in early-20th-century Vienna, another young woman seeks answers to her own questions. Hanna is married to a loving nobleman who adores her, but her unhappiness manifests itself in inexplicable actions and compulsive behavior. Seeking understanding of her despair, she turns to psychoanalysis and one of Sigmund Freud’s disciples. In present-day Hollywood, a third young woman buries her pain in sex, drugs and alcohol. Anny is a beautiful, brilliant actress who’s on a self-destructive course as she and the sycophants who surround her pursue the almighty dollar, the ultimate symbol of success in the movie industry. But when she crosses paths with a hospital employee, a character actress and an acting role with substance, Anny’s life begins to take on new meaning. Each woman’s journey is unique and painful, yet enchantingly sweet, as she works toward self-realization and rejects conformity.
Schmitt’s three complex stories are beautifully translated and masterfully written.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60945-122-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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