Once again, de Moor offers an enchantingly original novel. She’s getting better with every book.
From the internationally acclaimed Dutch author (First Gray, Then White, Then Blue, p. 979, etc.), a richly imagined, subtly constructed exploration of an unusual fictional subject: Europe’s gypsy populations and their adversarial relationships with settled societies.
Stage center is the marriage of Lucie, a beautiful Dutch woman who runs her family’s horse farm, and Joseph Plato, a charismatic nomad whose effortless empathy with all creatures domestic and wild (and also the ingenuous souls with whom he trades horses) is matched by the easy power he exerts over the smitten Lucie and their three children. Every spring, Joseph leaves his family to wander (belonging as he does to “a race of people with lungs so full of air that it simply has to escape”) across the continent; every fall, he returns, seemingly unchanged. Scenes from different stages of his courtship of Lucie, their union, and numerous separations and estrangements are shown from their viewpoints, as well as those of Lucie’s widowed, roughhewn father Gerard (who grudgingly admires the sleek, confident Joseph almost as much as he distrusts him) and of an unidentified narrator who seems, at various times, to be Joseph (observing himself as he observes others), Lucie’s sister, the voice of her village, and the omniscient author. Behind Joseph’s “story” (which is central) loom the travels, and travail of his people, recorded in tales told by his elders, the complex memories Gerard resists and compulsively recycles, and piecemeal historical information (invariably vividly dramatized). It’s a resonant, bittersweet history of romance and adventure, elaborate confidence games (e.g., itinerant public performances with a trained bear reputedly capable of “cur[ing] gout and tumors by laying on one of its paws”) and other strategies for survival, and the continuing threats (and the realities) of persecution and imprisonment.
Once again, de Moor offers an enchantingly original novel. She’s getting better with every book.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55970-546-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
Most likely to appeal to readers looking to see just how far the “enemies to lovers” trope can be stretched before it snaps.
A married couple’s long years of feuding come to an end in this romance debut.
In her first season, Lady Violet Grey was caught unchaperoned on a balcony with Lord James Audley. Although they only engaged in mild flirting and friendly banter, he immediately offers to marry her rather than see her ruined. The timeline jumps forward five years to a couple in great distress. Even though they were celebrated as a great love match, a year into the marriage they had a bitter fight that neither could forgive or forget. The chilly, uncomfortable silence lasts for four years, only breaking when Violet receives a note informing her that James was knocked unconscious after falling from his horse. She realizes she still loves him and rushes to his bedside, but he’s fully recovered by the time she arrives. Furious and convinced he played her for a fool, she decides to fake an illness of her own to show him how it feels. Their friends and family encourage them to talk to each other rather than plot and plan, but they are too afraid to trust each other after all the years of discord. Waters is a gifted writer. She deploys sharp, incisive prose to describe each character’s inner world, showing how each is a product of their upbringing and class. James resents being the neglected second son while Violet chafes at the bounds of feminine propriety. It’s clear the novel is attempting to create a comedic War of the Roses–style game of one-upmanship, but readers might lose patience as James' and Violet’s immature antics drag on. It’s difficult to root for characters so committed to nursing their feelings of resentment, animosity, and persecution.
Most likely to appeal to readers looking to see just how far the “enemies to lovers” trope can be stretched before it snaps.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3611-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another tremendous book from Proulx, sure to find and enthrall many readers.
Renowned author Proulx (Bird Cloud: A Memoir, 2011, etc.) moves into Michener territory with a vast multigenerational story of the North Woods.
“How big is this forest?” So asks the overawed immigrant Charles Duquet, who, with his companion René Sel, has nowhere in the world to go but up—and up by way of New France, a land of dark forests and clannish Mi’kmaq people, most of whom would just as soon be left alone. The answer: the forest is endless. Finding work as indentured “barkskins,” or woodcutters, they wrestle a livelihood from the trees while divining that the woods might provide real wealth, kidnapping a missionary priest to teach Duquet how to read so that he might keep the books for a dreamed-of fortune. René founds a powerful local dynasty: “Here on the Gatineau,” Proulx writes, “the Sels were a different kind of people, neither Mi’kmaq nor the other, and certainly not both.” She drives quickly to two large themes, both centering on violence, the one the kind that people do to the land and to each other, the other the kind that the land itself can exact. In the end, over hundreds of pages, the land eventually loses, as Sels and their neighbors in the St. Lawrence River country fell the forests, sending timber to every continent; if they do not die in the bargain, her characters contribute to dynasties of their own: “He wanted next to find Josime on Manitoulin Island and count up more nieces and nephews. He had come out of the year of trial by fire wanting children.” As they move into our own time, though, those children come to see that other wealth can be drawn from the forest without the need for bloodshed or spilled sap. Part ecological fable à la Ursula K. Le Guin, part foundational saga along the lines of Brian Moore’s Black Robe and, yes, James Michener’s Centennial, Proulx’s story builds in depth and complication without becoming unduly tangled and is always told with the most beautiful language.
Another tremendous book from Proulx, sure to find and enthrall many readers.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8878-1
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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