A thoroughly intriguing portrait of a neglected historical figure.
The Byzantine life and times of a female monarch during a bloody, perilous era.
Joanna I (1326–82) held her own dominion in southern Italy for more than 30 years despite the machinations of four husbands and jealous in-laws, not to mention the challenges posed by invaders, plague and the deaths of her children. Orphaned at an early age, Joanna was raised in the Kingdom of Naples at the dazzling court of her grandfather, King Robert the Wise. The learned patron of many important early Renaissance figures (most notably Petrarch), Robert presided over a highly cultured court. After he died in 1343, the in-laws jockeyed to empower her cousin (and husband) Andrew as King alongside Joanna as Queen of Naples. He was brutally murdered, and his wife may well have had a hand in it, but she managed to gain exoneration from the pope, withstand invasion by the Hungarians and get herself reinstated as queen. She recaptured Sicily, a long-cherished goal of her ancestors, and consolidated her position by further marriages, as well as those of her nieces and nephews. Maintaining good relations with a succession of popes, Joanna helped preserve the balance of power in Italy until the Great Schism of 1378 divided Neapolitan loyalties and opened her kingdom to another invasion by the usurping Hungarians. In scholarly but accessible prose, popular historian Goldstone (Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, 2007, etc.) underscores the many significant accomplishments of this exemplary queen.
A thoroughly intriguing portrait of a neglected historical figure.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1670-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
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The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he...
The latest from French writer/filmmaker Carrère (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) is an awkward but intermittently touching hybrid of novel and autobiography.
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he describes powerfully. Carrère and his partner, Hélène, then return to Paris—and do so with a mutual devotion that's been renewed and deepened by all they've witnessed. Back in France, Hélène's sister Juliette, a magistrate and mother of three small daughters, has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that crippled her in adolescence. After her death, Carrère decides to write an oblique tribute and an investigation into the ravages of grief. He focuses first on Juliette's colleague and intimate friend Étienne, himself an amputee and survivor of childhood cancer, and a man in whose talkativeness and strength Carrère sees parallels to himself ("He liked to talk about himself. It's my way, he said, of talking to and about others, and he remarked astutely that it was my way, too”). Étienne is a perceptive, dignified person and a loyal, loving friend, and Carrère's portrait of him—including an unexpectedly fascinating foray into Étienne and Juliette's chief professional accomplishment, which was to tap the new European courts for help in overturning longtime French precedents that advantaged credit-card companies over small borrowers—is impressive. Less successful is Carrère's account of Juliette's widower, Patrice, an unworldly cartoonist whom he admires for his fortitude but seems to consider something of a simpleton. Now and again, especially in the Étienne sections, Carrère's meditations pay off in fresh, pungent insights, and his account of Juliette's last days and of the aftermath (especially for her daughters) is quietly harrowing.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9261-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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