Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: Love is a Canoe

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

canoe2A self-help junkie, I have often wondered what it would be like to spend face-to-face time with one of my favorite gurus.

What insights could I gain from Louise Hay, Martha Beck or Wayne Dyer?

In Love is a Canoe, author Ben Schrank plays with this deep-seated desire among fans of self help/motivational literature.

Stella Petrovic, an ambitious young editor at a prestigious New York publishing house, spearheads a contest to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of a best-selling relationship book—Love is a Canoe—written by Peter Herman. She invites married couples in trouble to share their stories. One lucky couple will spend a weekend with the author in a picturesque town in upstate New York.

Hundreds of letters arrive, most of them “hopeless and upsetting in shocking circumstances.” While reading about these unfixable marriages, Stella frets about finding suitable candidates and worries that some of that negativity may rub off on her.

Emily Babson’s letter makes the cut.

Happily married for three years to Eli Corelli, she has recently discovered his affair with an employee at his bicycle company. A long-time fan of Love is a Canoe, she admits to reading and rereading the book several times while growing up in a household with fighting parents who eventually divorced. Still devoted to the success of her marriage, she hopes that her weekend with Peter will enable her to forgive Eli.

While Peter’s own marriage with his recently deceased wife appears almost idyllic, there were cracks in that perfect facade. Peter didn’t always follow the folksy advice he gives in his book: “Good love is a quilt—light as feathers and strong as iron”; “Desire for your loved one gives you the strength to paddle on.”

I didn’t particularly like any of the main characters,  but I could easily visualize the quiet and judgmental child/woman struggling with her husband’s betrayal, the awkward outsider trying to get a handle on the clawing and back-biting in the publishing industry, and the conflicted, aging author forced to acknowledge past indiscretions.

A well-written novel that explores the chaos and messiness of relationships.

Book Review: My Beloved World

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

soniasotomayorA dysfunctional home with an alcoholic father and an angry mother forced Sonia Sotomayor to grow up quickly. Throw in a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes at age seven, “a culture that pushes boys out onto the streets while protecting girls,” and a neighborhood where stairwells were filled with muggers and addicts shooting up. Not the background you would expect for the first Hispanic justice and third female justice in the Supreme Court’s 220-year history.

In her memoir, My Beloved World, Sotomayor reflects on her childhood as the daughter of Puerto Rican parents, her education, her relationships, and her brilliant career.

The self-discipline and perseverance began at a very early age. Faced with a life-threatening disease, a working mother and a father with trembling hands, Sotomayor started giving herself insulin shots at age seven. This “existential independence” set the stage for a remarkable life journey with impressive stops at Princeton, Yale Law, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and an appointment to the bench.

Sotomayor, however, is quick to point out the obstacles and challenges along the way.

Realizing that she lacked the appropriate study skills in elementary school, she approached the smartest girl in the class and asked her how to study.  When she received a C on her first midterm paper at Princeton, she devoted each day’s lunch hour during subsequent summers to grammar exercises and learning ten new words. After a less than stellar performance at one of the top law firms in Manhattan, she trusted her instincts and applied for a job at the state department.

Unfortunately, this well-honed independence led to the break-up of her marriage to high school sweetheart, Kevin Noonan. Her husband felt she didn’t really need him; Sotomayor didn’t think of “need as an essential part of love.” While she regrets the children she never had, she lavishes love and attention on her many godchildren.

Whenever Sotomayor entered any new environment, she experienced an initial period “of fevered insecurity, a reflexive terror that I’ll fall flat on my face.” But the love and protection of her grandmother Abuelita allowed her “to imagine the most improbable of possibilities” and her mother  taught her that “a surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.”

Throughout the book, it is evident that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has a deep and sincere love for the “beloved world” that shaped her values. In sharing many of the darker experiences, she has succeeded in showing everyone, especially people in difficult circumstances, that happy endings are possible.

Book Review: The Housemaid’s Daughter

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

housemaidFatherless and unschooled, Ada grows up in service to the Harringtons, a family of Irish immigrants in the remote South African town of Craddock. In spite of her circumstances, Ada receives a well-rounded education from her Madam, Cathleen Harrington. Impressed by the young girl’s intelligence, Cathleen teaches Ada how to read, write and play the piano.

But not everyone is comfortable with Ada’s privileged position in the household. When Cathleen suggests enrolling Ada in school, Master Edward discourages her. “It’ll only lead to trouble later on, expectations and whatnot.”

Spoiled and self-absorbed Miss Rose treats Ada shabbily and refuses to answer any of her questions. “I don’t have time to explain. You haven’t any money so you probably don’t need to learn to count.”

On the other hand, young Master Phil has feelings for Ada and is not afraid to walk with her in town or hug her at the train station.

After Miriam, Ada’s mother, dies and Rose heads for the bright lights of Johannesburg, Ada and Cathleen gravitate toward each other. As this unlikely friendship blossoms, rumblings of apartheid begin to divide the small community. A set of unfortunate circumstances force Ada to leave the only home she has ever known.

A natural storyteller, Barbara Mutch has a wonderful eye for detail and a gift for creating a strong sense of place. I particularly enjoyed reading  the following description of the Great Flood: “At first it was a brisk eddy, then a howl of demented water that went way beyond the Beethoven rush of my youth, or the tumbling Grieg of Mrs. Cath’s Irish stream. This flood had no musical equivalent, and it raged at a pitch both higher and lower than anything I’d ever heard on the piano.”

In her debut novel, Barbara Mutch has provided an interesting perspective on the apartheid era, focusing on how it affected women on both sides of that huge divide in South African society.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

hatti2The novel opens on a positive note.

Hattie Shepherd and her newborn twins, Philadelphia and Jubilee, are dozing in the shade on the porch.  The scene is an idyllic one. “The neighborhood rang with birdsong. The twittering lulled the twins to sleep and put Hattie in such high spirits that she giggled all the time.” The proud young mother was deeply in love with her first-born children and had given them “names of promise and of hope, reaching forward names, not looking back ones.”

Unfortunately, Hattie’s optimism is short-lived.

During a brutally cold Philadelphia winter, money is scarce and the furnace breaks down. Hattie struggles to keep her twins healthy, but they die of pneumonia. Hattie never recovers from this tragedy. She goes on to have nine more children, but fails to establish a strong, maternal bond with any of them.

In the remaining self-contained chapters that cover the years 1948 to 1980, author Ayana Mathis reveals the extent of Hattie’s grief through the eyes of her other children and a grandchild. Thrown in the middle of their lives, we watch as they wrestle with their inner demons.

We meet Floyd, a talented musician, who struggles with sexual confusion and shame.

Hattie’s son Six alternates between bouts of violence and Bible preaching.

We can feel Bell’s ambivalence toward her mother as she lies dying of tuberculosis in a run-down apartment. She actually fantasizes about her mother’s soup: “Hattie had kept them all alive with sheer will and collard greens and some southern remedies. Mean as the dickens, though.”

While Alice appears to be the most successful and upwardly mobile sibling, she cannot release memories of the childhood abuse that she and her brother Billups endured.

Bits and pieces of Hattie’s life emerge as each child’s life unfolds. We can feel her frustration and anguish as she wrestles with her husband’s womanizing and the circumstances surrounding the births of Ruthie and Ella.

At times, it was hard to keep track of all the characters. Personally, I would have preferred more depth and  the use of, at most, four different voices.  I found Hattie, Bell, Floyd and Six to be the most compelling of the characters. If  Ayana Mathis decides to continue this saga, I hope she considers writing Bell’s story.

Note: Oprah will have an exclusive television interview with Ayana Mathis on Super Soul Sunday–February 3rd at 11:00 a.m.

Book Review: A Week in Winter

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

week3This is the last time Maeve Binchy will enchant us with her writing.

Set in a bed and breakfast on the Irish coast, A Week in Winter follows the lives of innkeeper Chicky Starr, her niece Orla, family friend Rigger and a group of strangers who find their way to Stone House. Binchy has given each character a separate chapter, allowing the reader to discover their back stories.

Each evening, I found myself curling up with a different character and reading with anticipation as Binchy applied her familiar formula. She once said, “I don’t have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.”

I was most fascinated by Chicky Starr. After surviving a disastrous love affair, she concocted a fantasy about her life in New York and kept the fantasy alive for two decades. When she returned to Stoneybridge, she purchased a dilapidated estate and, against all odds, turned it into a successful small hotel.

The colorful cast of characters include the following…

Thirty-four-year-old Winnie has found her soul mate but must deal with his overbearing mother.

Corry, an aging movie star, must learn how to embrace and share his fame.

Two married doctors, Henry and Nicola, are still grieving several unfortunate deaths while yearning for a child.

Anders, a Swiss accountant, has abandoned his passion for music and the only woman he ever loved to please his father.

Nell Howe, a retired school principal, faces a bleak and lonely life.

Freda, the librarian, must learn to accept and value her psychic abilities.

The Walls, a married couple, struggle with their second-place win: a week at Stone House.

An impressive collection of linked short stories that can be easily described as a Maeve Binchy’s final tribute to Irish family life. Excellent reading, especially on cold, blustery January days.

Book Club Night

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

bookclubWhen I joined the book club, I didn’t expect to like all the selections. I welcomed the challenge of cross-reading and hoped to discover books I would not normally pick up on my own.

This month’s selection, however, disappointed me. In fact, I was unable to finish reading it. Among the other members, three enjoyed it immensely, two had lukewarm reviews and one other woman read only half of it.

The discussion was a lively one. The fans of the book praised the author’s use of dialect and enjoyed the references to jazz music, while the rest of us found the German-American slang tiresome and thought some of the characters were not fleshed out enough.

The book, in question: Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan. Winner of the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Man Booker Prize Finalist 2011. Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

The storyline is a compelling one.

In 1939, an interracial jazz band called the Hot Time Swingers has been forbidden to play in Berlin. After the Nazis deport the Jewish piano player, the other members—Chip, Sid, Hiero—flee to Paris. There, they meet and audition for Louis Armstrong. While at a café, Hiero is arrested. The young twenty-year old son of a French African solder and white German mother is considered a despised Rhineland bastard. And to make matters worse, he does not have a visa.

As the novel alternates between the war years and 1992, we learn more about the relationships between the three band mates: the pettiness, jealousies, treacheries and split-second decisions that cannot be taken back.

While I did not enjoy the book, I was fascinated by Esi Edugyan’s writing journey. Unable to find a publisher for her second novel, she considered abandoning writing and perhaps, studying law. But first, she accepted residencies in Iceland, Hungary, and France. While living in Germany, she immersed herself in the culture and was inspired to write Half-Blood Blues. It was first published in the United Kingdom and later picked up by Porter Books in in Canada. After that  publishing company closed its doors, her agent found a new home for the novel with Thomas Allen.

Life, with Cancer: The Lauren Terrazzano Story

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

lauren2Journalist Lauren Terrazzano had two life goals: win a Pulitzer Prize and write a book.

In 1996, the fearless young journalist shared the Pulitzer Prize with her team at Newsday for their coverage of the TWA Flight 800 crash. Unfortunately, she was not able to achieve her second goal. At age thirty-nine, Lauren’s life was cut short by lung cancer just three years after her diagnosis.

But that dream did not die with Lauren.

Her father, Frank Terrazzano picked up the torch and, with the help of co-author Paul Lonardo, wrote Life, with Cancer: The Lauren Terrazzano Story. In writing this book, Terrazzano wanted to honor his daughter’s memory as a dedicated and well-respected social journalist who was a voice for the voiceless.

So many wonderful examples of Lauren’s investigative reporting….

When she reported on the lack of adequate security at New York nursing homes, new legislation was introduced and she received a commendation from Governor George Pataki.

While her cancer was in remission, she accompanied four young men on a helicopter mission to hurricane ravaged parts of Guatemala. She reported her experiences in an article that was widely syndicated in the United States.

In the fall of 2006, the cancer returned, but Lauren decided to fight it with words. After receiving a weekly column entitled, Life, with Cancer, she shared her experiences in the hope erasing the stigma associated with lung cancer. She wrote with humor when she discussed “the dumb things people say to those who are ill” and with anger as she wrote about the complicity of tobacco companies.

In a recent interview, Lonardo admitted he was skeptical at first, but after learning more about Lauren, he realized that “it was her life story—not just her death story” and the book would inspire young female journalists.

A wonderful tribute, filled with sensitivity and love, from a father to his only child.

The Headmaster’s Wager

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

At age fifteen, Vincent Lam knew that he wanted to be a writer. And the first book he wanted to write was one inspired by his grandfather, William Lin, a headmaster of an English school in Cholon who “had a taste for gambling, women, the finer things of life.”

Lam started writing The Headmaster’s Wager over a decade ago, but put it aside to finish medical school and complete his award-winning short story collection, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures.

In a recent interview, Lam claims that The Headmaster’s Wager took ten years of toil. More than 1,000 pages were tossed as he experimented with different points of view: four different narrators, third person, first person and back to third person. He commented, “It would be awfully nice to be more efficient, but I haven’t figured out away to do it yet.

The novel opens in 1966, just as the Vietnam War is escalating. Chen Pie Sou, also known as Percival, is the headmaster of an English academy in Cholon. Determined to play all sides, this Chinese expat businessman negotiates relationships with the Vichy French, Japanese, South Vietnamese, Americans and North Vietnamese forces. Throughout the novel he reiterates the simple Chinese business strategy of remaining indifferent to politics.

When his son, Dai Jai, broadcasts his Chinese patriotism, Percival realizes he cannot keep his son safe in Viet Nam. Using all his connections, he sends Dai Jai to China at the height of the Cultural Revolution. To console himself, Percival turns to gambling and enters a relationship with Jacqueline, a mixed-race Vietnamese-French prostitute. On the eve of the Tet Offensive, Jacqueline bears Pericival a son.

As the fighting in Viet Nam intensifies, Percival tries to protect both sons, but quickly discovers that the rules have changed. He must now risk more than his fortune; he must risk his very life to save his own flesh and blood.

Inspired by Nicole Abouhalka

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I was curious about the elegant soft-spoken woman who sat across from me at the table. While she said very little during the first session of the writing workshop, I sensed that she was working on an amazing life story.

In fact, Nicole Abouhalka had already written several anecdotes, stories and poems in a published collection entitled Oh! Canada.

Nicole did not discover her writing abilities until 1982. While travelling from Lebanon to Cyprus, she wrote poetry to keep awake. After a two-year stop in Montreal, the Abouhalka family moved to Guelph and made a decision to open a Lebanese restaurant.  Nicole took creative writing courses at the University of Guelph and tried her hand at short stories.

Fast forward to 2004…

After undergoing brain surgery , Nicole lost all her capacities. Her sons urged her to write about her experiences since leaving Lebanon. Slowly, Nicole regained most of her coordination and the use of her analytical mind as she wrote this entertaining collection.

Her humor is evident throughout the book, especially when she discusses the diagnosis of meningioma. She asked the neurosurgeon the following questions:

“Could my tumour be due to all the chocolate I ate and am still eating?”

“Could it be the Black Box of my life?”

“Could it be a concentration of all the negative energies that I have been channeling?”

After learning that the tumour was large—120 ml—she asked: “Would I be called an air-head?”

Nicole Abouhalka is now working on a memoir for her grandchildren.

Book Review: Thirst by Shree Ghatage

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

The opening is unsettling.

A wounded man has lost his memory and is being nursed by a kind Samaritan and his mentally ill daughter in North Wales. A connection to India is established and the amnesiac is given an alias, Hari.

When Hari regains his memory, he recalls the picture-perfect fairy tale life he left behind. Hari is really Baba Chafékar, the youngest son of a wealthy Hindu family, who grew up on a lush Indian estate complete with servants, horses, tennis and badminton courts, and a swimming pool. After reluctantly agreeing to an arranged marriage with the beautiful and recently orphaned Navasanti, Baba falls passionately in love with her.

Prior to the marriage, Baba had already made the decision to study law in England. A worthy goal for many Anglophiles in British India, but not a practical one in the middle of World War II. Motivated by a desire to punish his father for an unforgiveable act, Baba ignores his father’s plea, “Don’t let my life affect your decisions,” while Christopher, his British friend, writes and suggests that Baba postpone his educational plans. His wife’s uncle advises: “If London is bombed again, or threatened in any way, or for any reason things don’t work out, don’t hesitate—just return home.”

As the departure date nears, Baba is torn by his love for Vasanti and hopes she will ask him to reconsider. But the orphan has matured and accepted her new husband’s decision. Her parting words would ring in Baba’s ears long after he left India: “I began to say goodbye the very day you told me you were leaving. That was also the day I began awaiting your return.”

After a difficult sea voyage, Baba arrives alone in a Blitz-besieged London. His spirits sag as he experiences the cold dampness, bombed out buildings, rationing of food, and a disappointing encounter with Christopher. Alone and friendless, Baba cannot satisfy his thirst and hunger. A vegetarian, he rejects the usual British fare of liver sausages, beef and lamb and has unappetizing meals consisting of soup, scrawny potatoes and dirty brown bread. Desperate to flee the inhospitable city, he embarks on a hiking excursion to the Scottish Highlands where he has an unfortunate accident and is rescued by Mr. Owens and his daughter, Catherine.

As his circumstances continue to spiral downward, Baba gradually releases the stubborn pride that has alienated him from his father and acknowledges that he has participated in a transgression similar to the one he once found so unforgiveable. Throughout the novel, Baba refers to an inscription written by his mother in her prayer book: “It is no use asking why the small stream is not the might Ganges, or why the sparrow does not fan its feathers like the peacock, or why the coconut palm does not provide shade as does the banyan tree. Each is what it is and so it is with humankind: all His creation, we are what we are.” Baba comes to terms with the new normal, the turbulent normal that has replaced his once charmed life.

While we are aware of Baba’s changing circumstances in England, we know little about Vasanti’s life during those two years. Some chapters are written from Vasanti’s point of view, but the majority of the book focuses on Baba. In the last chapter, we get a glimpse of her life, but it is too rushed. I wanted to read more about the anger and frustration she experienced when there were no letters from Baba. How was she treated after Baba left? Did she continue to enjoy the same privileges as her sisters-in-law? Did she reconnect with her own relatives or continue to depend only on her in-laws?

The title is an unusual one and, at first, I wondered about its suitability for a historical novel based in India and England. But after reading the entire novel, I realize that Thirst is really about the different forms of desire—physical and emotional—that abide within all of us and the tragic consequences that can occur when that thirst is not properly quenched. While Baba enjoys many privileges in India, he has a prolonged desert experience during his two-year stay in war torn England.

Canadian writer Shree Ghatage has created a compelling novel with a conflicted character, set against the backdrop of World War II. Born in Mumbai, Ghatage grew up in a society characterized by the rhythms of British India. In writing this novel, she drew upon those early memories and her own experiences as a new immigrant in Canada.

The ending is unexpected and I wonder what Shree Ghatage has in store for us next. Thirst is the second in a trilogy of books that are loosely connected, but can easily stand alone.