Sofie & Cecilia by Katherine Ashenburg

Sofie & Cecilia is a first novel by Katherine Ashenburg, an academic and an accomplished journalist and author, who has now turned to fiction to tell the story of a female friendship that takes place over half a century, from the late 1800s until the mid 1930s. Although the characters are “loosely based” upon the lives of two Swedish artists, it would make absolutely no difference to the power of the story if they were not. And, in fact, it is the women, the two wives of the artists who are at the centre of the novel and make it such a compelling story.

We meet the two women in1882 and 1887. Sofie marries Nils Olsson, and immediately falls into a life of child bearing and support of a husband who assumes her assistance as his due. Though Sofie was herself a talented artist, who had studied painting, it is given up – as is expected - when she marries. She takes up spinning and weaving and needlework as a vehicle for her need to be creative, to use her sense of colour to make beautiful things. It is Nils work that is important.

Cecilia is from a well to do Jewish family, and waits some time to marry Lars Vogt. In agreement with the wishes of her family, it is not until Lars has established himself that the marriage takes place.

The two women meet through their husbands work, and begin a friendship that will span half a century. They soon discover that they are both readers of literary fiction, and readers of this novel will delight in the exchanges of letters, and the conversations between the women as they discuss their feelings about the books they are reading – from Dickens, to Mary Shelly, to Virginia Woolf.

Then, there are descriptions of the astounding beauty of the landscape, and summers spent in the Archipelago – a landscape so very similar to Georgian Bay. There are long summer days with picnics, and evenings of conversation. Both couples are interested in local folk-art and the primitive objects of daily life that are fast disappearing in a modern world. With the foresight to collect the old costumes, household objects, and clothing they amass what will become a museum collection.

This is a novel that explores questions of fidelity, loyalty, sacrifice, and respect. These are narcissistic men who have little respect for marriage vows. The women know their support makes it possible for their husbands to concentrate on their careers, but they also struggle with the lack of acknowledgment of their sacrifice. Though Sofie does consider leaving her marriage, she thinks, “but such a dense web of strings bind us together. I do not see how I could cut it.” Her loyalty is both admirable and sad.

Toward the end of the novel Cecilia says to Sofie, “I always thought that when I was old, I would have worked everything out, and I would have no worries”.  Some time later, Sofie muses, “small things worry me less. What people think doesn’t concern me much any more”. The conversations of older women are sometimes astonishing, as we examine who we are now that we have aged in every way.

Sofie & Cecilia is certainly a book women my age, well past what we used to call middle-age, will find not only a pleasure to read, but also thought provoking. Its themes perhaps echo what many of us think about now that we are very definitely well into the second half of life.

I feel very safe in predicting that Sofie & Cecilia will be on all the book club lists this year. It is a book that will be read by women, passed between friends, and lead to conversations about our own lives and who we have become.

I'll Keep You Safe by Peter May

For the many readers of the many books of Peter May, you will be happy to know there is a new one.

I’ll Keep You Safe flew in the door today just as I finished reading an advance copy. It is a stand alone novel and returns to the landscape of the islands of Lewis and Harris for most of the action.

But, the story begins in Paris, where we meet Niamh and Ruairidh, fabric weavers and designers who are in Paris preparing to display their fabric at a prestigious trade fair.

We have, however, barely met them when we learn of a conflict between the two. Niamh has received an email from a “well wisher” telling her that her husband has been having an affair with a Russian fashion designer. Ruairidh leaves the hotel room, denying her accusation, and as she watches, he climbs into the woman’s vehicle, driving off just as the vehicle explodes.

With both driver and passenger dead, a grieving Niamh returns to Lewis to bury her husband and wonder how she will carry on the business without him. As the present day story progresses, the back story of the lives of Niamh and Ruairidh and their families is slowly revealed. A tragedy from their childhood has coloured all of the years since, and though their love survived, it divided their families. Even with the death of their son-in-law it seems unlikely that Niamh’s parents will forgive her for choosing Ruairidh for her husband.

The French police investigate, and after a few days, allow Niamh to return to Lewis with what is left of her husband’s body for burial. Without a suspect, the French detective Lieutenant Sylvie Braque is sent to witness the funeral and consult with the local policeman on Lewis. They attempt to discover who might have sent the emails, as not only did Niamh receive one but so did the designer’s husband, a man who has since disappeared.

Woven ( no pun intended) into the mystery of the murder is the story of the weaving of Harris Tweed, and fictional characters from the fashion industry provide a great collection of secondary characters and many possible perpetrators. The setting on the island of Lewis, is of course stunningly beautiful, where Niamh and Ruairidh have built a home overlooking the ocean on a remote point of land in a place of beauty and peace, even in grief.

I’ve often said that Peter May is not a great writer but he is a very good storyteller, and except for a few rather too long passages about the past that slow the pace, I’ll Keep You Safe is much what one expects from Peter May – a (mostly) fast paced action-packed story, set in a landscape to die for (again, no pun intended).  And, a satisfactory conclusion – though I’d surprisingly long since clued into who the murderer was and suspected the twist double-twist revelation at the end of the novel.

For fans of Peter May, I’ll Keep You Safe is a satisfying escape from our own troubles – as his characters always have so many more things to worry about than we do – not to mention the challenge of just staying alive.

A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey

The blurb on the jacket of Peter Carey’s new book A Long Way From Home is “In his wildly exuberant, deeply surprising new novel about a road race that circumnavigates 1954 Australia, Peter Carey takes us on an unforgettable journey into the lies and secrets of his homeland.”

Sounded good to me – and it is better than good. A Long Way From Home is the story of a young couple who, determined to prove themselves worthy of running a new car dealership, take part in the Redex Trail, a grueling long distance circumnavigation of Australia.

“Titch” and Irene Bobs are young, idealistic, and very much in love. Titch grew up around cars, his over-bearing and manipulative father a well-known car salesman. Irene would like to see Titch get out from under his father’s heavy thumb and become his own man. This race might be just the thing to do it, if they can win and establish their reputation, they may be able to secure the rights to a car dealership for themselves.

Titch and Irene live in the middle of nowhere, in Bacchus Marsh, where their closest neighbor is Willem Bachhuber, a disgraced schoolteacher. A sensitive, educated and intelligent, man he is fascinated by the Bobs and being presently at loose ends, is happy to become their navigator.

The unlikely trio set off with high hopes into a months’ long road trip fraught with the physical challenges of the landscape and perilous driving conditions. All are leaving something behind, and all will discover this trip is as much about personal exploration as it is about meeting the challenges posed by the geography of the remote outback. They are young, and only beginning to realize their adult selves. Their very different childhood experiences are revealed, and the relationships between each of them change, as miles and miles of time spent together pass.

Irene loves her husband but she also comes to care deeply for the loyal Willem. As she learns more and more about Willem’s past, he is also coming to terms with acknowledging the truth of past experiences, and discovering his own ability. As life changes dramatically for Willem, his story becomes more central to the novel.

I was reminded as I read this book, as with novels by Kate Grenville and Thomas Keneally, that Australia has an aboriginal population whose experience is, in many ways, similar to that of Canada’s native people. What is known in Canada as the Sixties Scoop also happened in Australia some years earlier. With compassion and honesty, Peter Carey explores the very difficult modern experience of the aboriginal people and those with racially mixed heritage.

A Long Way From Home is one of those, rare, wonderful novels that offers not only a page turning story, but a thought provoking one. We think about love and marriage, friendship, and parental love. We meet parents who believe they are doing what is best for a child, only to discover that the child is left with nothing when secrets and lies are exposed. We think about loyalty to friends, to a husband or wife, or a parent who may or may not be deserving of trust, or respect, but is loved nonetheless.

A Long Way From Home is a good read that also leaves the reader dwelling on some profound themes. Pretty perfect!

New Novels from Donna Leon & Charles Todd

Two of our favourite writers of mystery novels have new books published this month – The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon and The Gate Keeper by Charles Todd.

This is just about the perfect time of year to visit Venice, I was thinking as I read Donna Leon’s most recent novel. Visiting Venice in the late winter months, or early spring months, may mean a few cool days but it also means being able to visit museums and churches without standing in line; you can walk into St. Mark’s to marvel at the mosaic floors at any time of day, climb the tower on Torcello for a view over the lagoon, and get a table in the inner dining room at Gato Nero on Burano. The next best thing to being there is to read Donna Leon’s books set in “the most serene republic of Venice”.

The investigation at the heart of The Temptation of Forgiveness begins with a mother’s concern about her son, and his possible drug use. Though Commissario Guido Brunetti is sympathetic, as the father of teenagers himself, he is uncertain that he can be of much help. He does however make some inquires about who may be selling drugs to students near the school Signora Crosera’s son attends.

In the meantime, late at night, a man is found injured near one of the many bridges in the city. It turns out that he is the husband of Signora Crosera and the father of her son. Taken to hospital, it is discovered that he is suffering a serious brain injury.

What was he doing out so late at night – without a coat, without a wallet? As Brunetti and his team investigate, they discover a scheme to defraud both innocent Venetians and the government. Corruption is so commonplace in Venice that it is hardly a surprise. The only challenge for Brunetti’s team is how to deal with their discovery when they find who it is behind the scheme.

The new Charles Todd, The Gate Keeper, takes place almost a century earlier, just after the end of the First World War. Inspector Ian Rutledge comes across a car stopped on a country road, late at night; and a dead man lying on the ground, shot only moments before.

This is only the first of more murders and it is a good long time before there is any clue to a connection, though Rutledge knows there must be one. The first man to be murdered is Stephen Wentworth, a local bookseller. And as Rutledge ruminates, “To put it simply, a bookseller sold books. He ordered them from the publishers and displayed them in a shop in order to attract buyers. Hardly a hotbed of criminal activity.” Indeed.

The second man to be murdered is a progressive farmer. As had so many, both of these men had been in the war. Otherwise, there appears to be no connection, except that one was a customer of the other. Rutledge is finding this a difficult case. Looking into the background of the bookseller, Rutledge discovers he experienced a disturbingly sad childhood, but hardly one that might lead to murder. Of course, by the end it all does come together and the case is solved in the last few pages with great drama. Another Charles Todd book that does not disappoint!

The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher

The friendly ones – are they the curious but pleasant shopkeepers and neighbours? Or are they the so-called friends who betray?

The Friendly Ones opens with Nazia and Sharif Sharifullah preparing for a party. Their daughter, Aisha, is here from Cambridge for the occasion, at home with her much younger twin brothers, Omith and Raja. The Sharifullah’s have recently moved into a lovely detached home with a garden in an upscale neighbourhood, and today will welcome friends and family. The day of the party the Sharifullah’s meet for the first time their neighbor, a retired doctor. Hilary and Celia Spinster have lived in their house for 30 years, and raised their four children there.

The relationship between the Sharifullah and Spinster families is a complicated one. The lives of all will be intertwined in one way or another throughout the novel. There are the secrets kept from parents by children, and by parents from children.

Author Philip Hensher was born in 1965, making him of the same generation as his character Aisha and her contemporaries in The Friendly Ones.

The novel begins sometime during Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minster of England, and from there we travel back and forth in time a few decades before and after. There is mention of the memorable unusually hot English summer of 1976, and of the Montreal Olympics. There is also a mention of the wedding of Charles & Diana that so many of us watched in our pyjamas at some ungodly hour of the morning in the summer of 1981. All of these touchstones, and more, place us firmly in time throughout the novel.

Half way through the book we are taken back to East Pakistan, where Nazia and Sharif were born and raised. After post-graduate education in England, where Aisha is born, Nazia and Sharif return to East Pakistan planning to contribute to the country of their birth only to find the country plunged into a bloody civil war. As with all civil wars the Bangladeshi War of Independence has divided loyalties – there are those who are seen as freedom fighters and patriots  - or as traitors and terrorists. There are both in the Sharifullah family. During this time there takes place a great betrayal that is alluded to throughout the novel, and eventually revealed to the reader.

As the country becomes more and more repressive and writers, poets and academics are murdered, it becomes too dangerous for Nazia and Sharif to stay. Fleeing to England, Nazia and Sharif return to Sheffield, where Sharif takes up a post at the University, twin boys are born and they all settle into British life, becoming more and more prosperous over time.

This is a great big book, and a great big story. I can’t possibly do justice to it here. In addition to Nazia and Sharif, the novel is the story of Aisha Sharifullah and Leo Spinster, and of all of the siblings, as time moves forward and the world changes. This is a story of diversity and assimilation, and also of those who only seem to assimilate and become the next generation of terrorists. There is history; there is love, and betrayal. There is prejudice and hate. There are those who behave with dignity and responsibility, and those who do not - fictional characters who are all too human.

Thanks, Philip Hensher, for a great read.