
I am a fan of Kate Forsyth. I love the way in which she takes folk tales and put a new twist on them. I loved Bitter Greens (her take on Rapunzel), […]
I am a fan of Kate Forsyth. I love the way in which she takes folk tales and put a new twist on them. I loved Bitter Greens (her take on Rapunzel), […]
Whenever I complained about Ivanka Trump, my husband would tell me: “Don’t knock Ivanka. She’s the only adult in the room who can do anything about Trump.” I was never so sure. […]
Ostensibly, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES is the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch, who founds an orphanage at St. Cloud Maine, and of his favorite orphan Homer Wells, who follows in his footsteps […]
A CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling is the story of a bitter class struggle between the smug, wealthy inhabitants of Pagford, and their much poorer neighbors who inhabit the council flats […]
How wonderful to read something so imaginative! I loved the voice of naughty (temerarious) January Scaller, who at 7 had precociously worked out how to annoy everyone. Her mischievous side really drew […]
Here’s to the New Year…hope all of you are keeping healthy, happy & safe! Today, I thought I would share one of the most fascinating novels I have ever read: THE KING’S […]
THE LOST DAUGHTER by Elena Ferrante is a meditation on motherhood. When 40-something Leda decides to rent a beach house near Naples for the summer, her unaccustomed solitude leads her to meditate […]
NANA, published in 1880 by Emile Zola, is an interesting take on sex-obsessed Paris of the nineteenth century, the Paris that has now become a stereotype for sexual behavior in our own […]
Here is yet another novel about the harrowing events of World War Two, with the Fairy Tales a beloved French grandmother told to her grand-daughter used to find two missing men. What […]
I don’t usually read memoir, as I normally don’t find it very interesting. And this quiet narrative of family strife would normally cause me not to continue due to boredom. But there […]
I thought you might enjoy this photo of a troika of horses for this Christmas! Today, I thought I would share some thoughts with you about another of my favorite novels of […]
Today, I thought I would share some thoughts with you about one of my favorite novels of all time: TIGANA by Canadian fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay. Here is a book review […]
“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he […]
Having just finished Katherine Arden’s WINTERLIGHT trilogy of Russian folktales set in 1300s Rus, it was absolutely fascinating to read about the Siege of Leningrad presented as the Russian folktale THE PEASANT […]
This novel has an extremely interesting structure, perhaps because it is the third novel in a trilogy. Unlike most novels which begin at a low energy point and gradually build to a […]
Like many readers, I thought THE GIRL IN THE TOWER much better than the THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE As you can see from my review of THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE, […]
I admit that I was very puzzled by THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE. At the beginning, it sounded like a set of linked short stories. Oh well, I said to myself, the […]
“This intriguing tale explores the hopes, plans, and struggles of Angelina, the stubborn youngest daughter of a troubled Italian-American family, and her two daughters. A widow, Angelina became a “fallen woman,” acting as a mistress over the years in an attempt to earn her own money, and the story opens just as her life begins to change.
The author has clearly done a great deal of historical research into the time, filling the story with details about the clothes, buildings, and passersby, to where readers can enjoy an immersive experience. The dialogue similarly seems to fit, with some lines in Italian and then translated into English to give the feel of the characters and the way they’ve kept their heritage alive.”
Cynthia Sally Haggard’s FAREWELL MY LIFE initially thrusts the reader into 1920s-era Washington, D.C., looking at the precarious lives of four women: Angelina, mother to teenagers Grace and Violet, and the elder Aunt Paulina. Immediately, it’s impossible to pigeonhole them. Angelina’s passionate, norm-defying behavior belies a world-weariness born from difficult experiences–but so does Paulina’s balancing of traditional values against the transforming world Grace and Violet are entering. Throughout the book, the relationships and conflicts among the four anchor a winding story of courtship, 1920s and ‘30s-era political intrigue, secrets, and scandals, with Grace at the heart of it all.
The complexity and interactions of the four central women are refreshing. All of them have their flaws, and all of them are distinct (Angelina is perceptive but vain and overly strident while Paulina is fooled repeatedly, but unwavering in her love for and commitment to Grace and Violet, to take just two examples). While the core of the story concerns 17-year-old Grace’s various gentleman suitors, a cast of characters from demure to unsettling to ribald, Angelina, Paulina, and Violet always are the most compelling of all.
One of Grace’s love interests, Russell, adds an individualized sort of darkness to match the upheaval of the era. His experiences in the then-recent Great War and on the receiving end of bigotry against Italians in early-twentieth century America both make his icier moments eminently believable. The first, early twist in the story was legitimately startling, but likewise consistent with what we know of Russell. From that moment forward, the tension between Russell’s shadowy qualities and his overwhelming desire for Grace remains a harrowing constant. Even with Russell, Haggard still imbues him with complexity, forcing readers to empathize with him, however reluctantly or partially. Later twists and turns refuse to show him as flat, simply and utterly villainous; his past traumas are given serious weight, even if they do not absolve him of his worst actions. It’s a delicate balance that, most of the time, Haggard accomplishes. Toward the middle of the book, Grace’s eager suitors interact altogether—the only time—in one place, an expertly drawn passage told iteratively from the different perspectives. It’s nearly forensic, in the best possible sense; each partial perspective frames how limited our individual observation of a situation can be, and the ramifications of the scene echo all the way to the conclusion.
The ending might be rather divisive, then becoming almost an inevitability—but all readers will have an opinion on it either way. In the end, FAREWELL MY LIFE will appeal to fans of historical fiction, broadly, to readers of fraught romantic courtship tales set in the past (think Atonement or Revolutionary Road).
Droll, dramatic, frightening, immersive, Haggard’s work grabbed my attention from the first pages and kept it the entire way.
In the spirit of classic novels grappling with gender and class, Cynthia Sally Haggard’s FAREWELL MY LIFE is a sweeping, beautifully rendered addition to the historical fiction canon.–Andy Carr for IndieReader
“The author…adeptly summons the era in all its manners and details with her descriptive prose…Her omniscient, third-person narrator effectively flits through the heads of various characters, offering momentary glimpses of their inner lives.”
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