Wish You Were Here by Stewart O’Nan

Wish You Were Here is a book I have reularly recommended to customers since it was published in 2002. It was the first book by Stewart O’Nan about the Maxwell family. The third, Henry, Himself will be released this spring. The second, Emily, Alone, was published in 2011 and you will find a review I wrote that year on our website.

After reading an advance copy of Henry, Himself I decided to re-read Wish You Were Here, and loved it all over again. After almost twenty years I found, of course, that I brought to this books a different reader. When I read this novel in 2002 I identified more with the middle aged adult children – this time I felt much more in common with the oldest generation of the Maxwell family, the widow, Emily, and her sister-in-law, Arlene.

The family is meeting for one last time at their summer home, a cottage on Lake Chautauqua, a place they have been going all of their lives. But, Emily has decided to sell the cottage and has asked her children and grandchildren, and Arlene, to come for a week and take what they most value before the cottage is sold.

The children are Margaret, “Meg”, mother of Sarah and Justin, and Kenneth, “Ken”, his wife Lise, and their children, Ella and Sam. Margaret is in the midst of a divorce from her husband and father of her children, Jeff. This is the first time Meg has been at the cottage without her husband. One first of many.

The girls are young teenagers and the boys are younger. The siblings see each other only for major holidays but feel a closeness based on nostalgia and genuine love. This week will be a week of remembrance; their father’s presence felt by all of them, but also his death an intense loss. There is memory everywhere for all of them. For Emily, “All those summers were gone, but how sharply – just now – she could recall them….It was why they came here every year, she supposed, this feeling of eternity and shelter.”

Every member of this family is at place of change. Kenneth in his career, Margaret at the end of her marriage, the teenage girls growing into young women, the boys leaving young childhood behind, Arlene trying to find ways to fill her days now that she is retired, and Emily of course adjusting to life without Henry. Even Emily’s old dog, Rufus, who is nearing the end of his life, senses change. Every one of them would like to keep this cottage, keep this place in their lives, but Emily does not want the worry and her children cannot afford to look after it for her. It is with profound regret but also some relief to say goodbye.

They pack a lot into a week, and we share it all. When all is done, everything said that could be said, they disburse. Emily comes home to Pittsburgh, to the house where she and Henry raised their family, “Back to Reality” she says to herself and Rufus.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

“Alice would always remember this day as the one that changed her life irrevocably, even though it would take her the next twenty years to understand: life is lived forward but only understood backward. You can’t see the landscape you’re in while you are in it.”

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a first novel by Holly Ringland, is the story of Alice and her journey through time, and one I know I can recommend without reservation.

We meet Alice first when she is a young girl, daughter of Clem and Agnes Hart, living on an isolated farm in Australia. Clem is an abusive man and both Alice and Agnes experience the brutality of his anger. This part of the story was tough to read but necessary to understand the rest. Agnes teaches Alice the language of flowers, and each chapter begins with information about native Australian flowers and their meaning and description. Agnes also reads to Alice and instills in her a love of books, and the escape reading, especially fairy tales, provides from the harsh reality of their lives.

When tragedy strikes Alice is only nine years old, and she is given into the care of her paternal grandmother, June. June has her own demons and takes on this responsibility with some reluctance. But, she comes to love Alice and does all she can to protect her, though by hiding from Alice secrets that might best have been revealed, she does harm.

June owns a flower farm, Thornfield, a sort of retreat and place of safety for women who have lived with domestic violence or have a need to withdraw from the world. Here June will do all in her power to keep Alice safe. For June it is a second chance to raise a child, to attempt to make amends for the damage her son inflicted on Agnes and Alice. This world of women is a good place to raise a child, and there is comfort and constancy in the gardens.

But, sometimes history has a way of repeating itself, and as June sees Alice mature into a young woman, infatuated – perhaps in love – with a young man she considers unsuitable, she steps in and ends the relationship. June’s second serious act of deception.

Though June would keep Alice on the farm forever, the choice to leave is made by Alice alone. She flees to a remote town in the outback and begins, on her own, to make a life for herself. For the first time in her life, now in her twenties, she is making her own decisions; she finds work, she finds friendship – and she may have found love.

But, once again, life becomes almost unbearably hard, and hard to read about, before Alice sees that only she can make a change that will allow her to be free of the past, and make a better future for herself.

I loved this book, the setting and the characters, and the writing, and anyone who has an interest in plants and gardening will especially appreciate the botanical content of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

Fourth Dimension by Eric Walters

I’ve spent a lot of time this winter reading both novels and picture books for young readers. One of the many novels I read was Fourth Dimension by the very prolific Eric Walters.

Fourth Dimension is a novel for older teens, with the main character, and narrator, 15-year-old Emma, as the novel begins. Emma lives in an apartment building on the lakeshore of a large city with her mother, Ellen, and her younger brother, Ethan. Her parents, both in the military, are recently separated and Emma and Ethan are preparing for the school year to begin. But, first, a bit of a holiday. As Emma, her mother, and brother pack their car to go on an end of summer camping trip the lights go out in the underground garage. It is determined, quite soon, that the power is out across the city. Their cell phones do not work. Nothing digital or computerized works. And the story begins.

Emma’s mother, with her training both as a Marine and as an emergency room nurse ,is a woman who is both brave and smart. She knows that in order to protect her children, and herself, she must get them out of the city. With their canoe and camping supplies at the ready they paddle some way out into the lake to a group of islands, away from the city but within sight.

Anyone who knows the city of Toronto will recognize the landscape. There is the city, and the Toronto islands. I can only imagine that Eric Walters has made Ellen Williams a Marine, rather than a member of the Canadian Armed Forces so that this book will also find an American readership.

As one might expect things go from bad to worse. On one of the islands Emma and her family make friends among the community who have homes there. But, there is constant danger of invasion from those seeking food and shelter, many are attempting to escape the increasing violence being experienced in the city. Emma’s mother tells her children  “I’ve seen another dimension, to the world and to people. There’s a fourth dimension to people that you don’t normally see. Normal, nice people in normal and nice circumstances become different when bad things happen. Desperate situations cause people to do desperate things.”

And, things do get desperate. I would not recommend this book for anyone younger than 15 years old. There is death, and there is killing. There are people with guns. I have to say, as an old pacifist, that I found the violence in this book disturbing. But, in today’s world I realize that most young readers will find it less disturbing than the news. It will make everyone who reads it think of those who live in parts of the world where there is war, and where each day brings the challenge of survival.

A few years ago I interviewed Eric Walters about an earlier novel and remember him saying he’d kill to protect his family. In this novel, Ethan asks his mother is she would really have shot some men who were threatening their community. She replies, “If I had to.”

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

Does anyone younger than 65 even recognize the name Hedy Lamarr? I wondered this after I read the new novel by Marie Benedict, The Only Woman in the Room, about the life of the actress who was a Hollywood sensation in the 1940s and 50s. And though I did know her name I had no knowledge about the life of this woman, who was so much more than an actress. She was, in fact,  in possession of a serious intellect and was a wartime inventor in the United States – and though her inventions were not applied at the time they have taken on more importance in recent years.

We meet Hedy Kiesler in the spring of 1933 in Vienna, as she is applauded for her role in a play, and meets, for the first time, Friedrich Mandl. Hedy is Jewish, and even as early as 1933 there is a rise in anti-Semitism in Austria. But, as Hedy muses, “my family, well, we really didn’t consider ourselves Jewish, except in a vague, cultural sense. We were fully assimilated into the vibrant cultural life of the capital city. We were Viennese above all else.”

Hedy’s father realizes that Friedrich Mandl’s interest in Hedy may protect the family from some of the looming threats, as he is Catholic and well connected to those in power. And, Hedy, despite some misgivings enjoys the attention of this powerful and confident man. Fritz, as he becomes to her, is however, a domineering man – he struck me as a Trump-like character, a narcissist whose only interest in women is as an accouterment – arm candy to enhance his own image. Hedy is not blind to this but is more and more aware of his power and his ability to protect her family. Since she is always by his side, she is in the room when matters of politics are being discussed – and she is more than a pretty face. Hedy is an intelligent young woman and is well aware of what is going on in Europe and the threat of what is to come. Much of her knowledge is from the discussions between her now husband and Mussolini and their cohorts.

Eventually, Hedy does manage to leave Europe and finds work in Hollywood – where she becomes the legendary actress and glamour girl we know from her films made in the 1940s and 50s.

During the years of the Second World War Hedy Lamarr became involved in scientific research. She had spent many evenings in Vienna at “dinner parties as Mrs. Mandl where military and weaponry matters were discussed …Of all the munitions, armaments, and weaponry components Fritz has manufactured, torpedoes had presented the trickiest problems. Their accuracy proved to be challenging, as did their susceptibility to signal jamming by enemy ships.”

It was after the tragic sinking of the SS City of Benares, a ship attempting to carry children from England to safety in Canada, torpedoed by the Nazis, that Hedy Lamarr decided she needed to do something with her knowledge.

She knew the there was a need “to improve the accuracy for the torpedoes of the Nazis’ enemies while finding ways to prevent signals to them from being jammed by Hitler’s men if a radio solution was to be utilized”.

She and her friend, a pianist and composer, and fellow scientist, George Anthiel, set to work and came up with an invention they presented to the American Navy.

Doing a little research, after I read The Only Woman in the Room, I discovered that there was a film made recently documenting the life of Hedy Lamarr – much the same story as this novel. A fascinating woman, and novel, and one about to be discovered by a much younger generation of readers.

The Mystery of Ireland's Eye by Shane Peacock & Flame and Ashes by Janet McNaughton

Each winter I spend time reading books for children and young adults, preparing for the coming summer so that I can, with confidence, personally recommend books to my young customers that I am sure they will enjoy reading.

I was very pleased to see that Shane Peacock’s book The Mystery of Ireland’s Eye has been re-issued. Written in 1999 The Mystery of Ireland’s Eye is the first in what became the Dylan Maples Adventure series. An ideal series of books for boys aged 10 to 13 or so. Ireland’s Eye is an island off the south coast of Newfoundland, settled in 1600s and now abandoned after the families were forced to move in 1965 when so many isolated communities were “re-settled” by the government.

Dylan Maples is an only child, his parents an adventurous couple, a lawyer and a schoolteacher. Dylan is a typical young teenager, a hockey player, and a skateboarder. The family lives in an affluent Toronto neigbourhood and spends summers at their cottage north of the city. Dylan’s father is a keen swimmer and kayaker and, as the novel opens, he is beginning to plan a trip to Newfoundland, to a popular kayaking destination, Ireland’s Eye. Overhearing the plan, and captivated by the idea of visiting a Ghost town, Dylan decides he will prove to his father that he has the skills needed go along on this trip, which he does. And off they go, Mom and Dad, and Dylan heading into much more of an adventure than they could every have imagined.

The Mystery of Ireland’s Eye is a very suspenseful adventure, with plenty of thrilling challenges both on the water and at the hands of some very bad men. These men have nefarious reasons for being on Ireland’s Eye and the Maples family land right in the middle of serious trouble. Of course, all ends well and young readers can read on in the series as Dylan has many more adventures.

Flame and Ashes by Janet McNaughton is one of the Dear Canada series, novels about Canadian history seen through the eyes of girls and young women. This edition is The Great Fire Diary of Triffie Winsor in St. John’s Newfoundland, in 1892.

We meet Tryphena “Triffie” Winsor on an early summer day. She is one of three children, her parents affluent merchants in the city of St. John’s. Her younger brother, Alfie, is her best friend and companion and Sarah is a beloved sister and a well brought up young lady. Triffie herself is an imaginative girl, and one who finds it difficult to sit still and settle to a task. It is suggested that she keep a diary, and as Triffie herself is set on self-improvement she is excited at the idea of writing about her daily experiences. Her diary begins with the day-to-day life of the family at home, but when the Great Fire of 1892 destroys much of downtown St. John’s, including this family’s home and business premises.

The Winsor family is wealthy compared to most, they have assets that allow them to reestablish their business, and to help others to rebuilt their lives after losing most everything they owned, as Triffie records it all in her diary.

I think this particular novel will appeal to girls of about 8 to 12 years old who enjoyed reading Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden. It is richly old fashioned in it’s language, and the events as described portray a fascinating time and place, and a way of life that is long gone.