A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

I first read this book back in 1980, just a couple of years after it was published.  Embroiled in graduate school demands and anxieties, I needed a reading escape, but nothing frothy or light.  My brain was working overtime, on all cylinders, and my recreational reading needed to do the same.

As it often is with books, I found A Woman of Independent Means as a beat-up paperback left behind on the student lounge bookshelf.  It turned out to be the exact right book at the exact right time.  Reading the life story of Bess, a woman who never, ever suffered from feelings of inadequacy or low self esteem, was the perfect foil to my own quivering mass of insecurities trying to survive in a often harsh and competitive environment.

In the years since, I have re-read this classic several more times and once again this past month when a new edition (above) entered my library to happily replace my original beat-up paperback, with a truly ugly cover.

 

 

 

 

 

This epistolary novel is comprised of one woman’s correspondence to her family, friends, and others spanning from the turn of the last Century to 1968. Bess is based on the author’s own grandmothers letters and we see Bess live through two world wars, the great depression, the influenza epidemic and the assassination of President Kennedy. She observs horse and buggy days through automobiles and from crossing the ocean by ship to air travel. We see history unfold through her letters.

The author has created a remarkable and complex woman – both ahead of her time and an ambitious, independent thinker.  Bess is outspoken, brash, rebels against convention, and yet, is completely vulnerable.  Through her letters, the reader watches the narcissistic Bess try to manipulate and control her loved ones’ lives — truly unaware she is overstepping and usually hurt and bewildered when they rebel.

Bess suffers financial ruin after the death of her first husband, so becomes financially savvy and sets herself up to be independently wealthy through her second marriage.  As a “women of independent means” she is able to get what she wants – whenever she wants — often with grimace-worthy results:

I am very sorry to hear of my cousin’s illness.  I have not received a letter from her since last summer and I was beginning to wonder what reason I had given her for such a long silence.  When she regains consciousness, please tell her I wrote to express my concern.

If she does not regain consciousness, may I remind you that I am the legal owner of the four-poster bed she now occupies and in the event of her death, it is to be shipped C.O.D. to me here in Texas.                        Cordially,  Bess Alcott Steed.

 

Bess’s Machiavellian actions are in stark contrast to her overwhelming need be loved and admired.  She is constantly confounded by others’ actions and strives to put things right – as she sees it. 

Throughout a series of of personal tragedies, Bess remains relentlessly optimistic.  From the loss of her son, to the burning down of her beloved home,  Bess never feels sorry for herself and is somehow stronger after each (often unbelievable) set-back.

Bess and her married daughter have a predictably difficult relationship which Bess tries to solve by inviting herself to her daughter’s social events and ingratiating herself with her daughter’s best friends.  A heart wrenching letter to her daughter in 1943 is some of the best insight on aging mother/grown daughter relationships I’ve ever read. 

There are many moments when Bess has the clear-sightedness of age and experience.  I stopped to underline several passages such as this one: 

Remember the night you and I talked until dawn with Betsy trying her eight-year-old best to stay awake with us?  The others had long since fallen asleep when she suddenly saw the sun rising and burst into tears, terrified to realize morning would come whether she had slept that night or not.  But better for her to learn early that nature does not ask our consent to continue its inexorable circuit.

Ms. Hailey has brilliantly crafted a complex character who will stick with you long after you close this novel’s pages.  Bess is far from perfect -and I was often exasperated (and sometimes horrified) by her — yet I still shed a few tears with her.  Like all fascinating characters, I was always interested in Bess, never bored by her and actually loved every moment I was allowed to spend in her presence. 

Advance Readers Copies

I revel in receiving Advanced Readers Copies of books from publishers.  These ARCs (sometimes called proofs or galleys) are given to book reviewers and book sellers in exchange for honest reviews and hand-selling the book at their bookstores.  They also ask that you state this fact with your review of the book.

This gift of pre-publication reading means I have often read many bestsellers by the time they are published and being talked about.  These ARC’s come to me in both digital and printed form, and have not gone through the final edit – so you find yourself slowing down at a few typos here and there — not to mention the odd formatting especially with digital editions.  They also sometimes lack cover art — so it is very surprising to see how the real book looks when it hits the shelves. (I find myself imagining the perfect cover as I read).

Quite a few of the ARCs I’ve read are pretty bad and I don’t get beyond the first few chapters, others are just not my type, and some are so horribly formatted (I’m talking digital here) that you can’t make heads or tails of what you’re reading.  But, happily, most are admirable — if not amazing.

I finished one of those simply great ARCs the other evening, and was ready to tell you all about it here.  The back cover says publication in March 2016, but something gnawed at me.  I’m a very minor player in the book review world, but I do keep up with book review publications and I hadn’t seen it on any bookstore “new arrivals” shelves.  (Trust me, I am a pretty major bookstore junkie browser.)

So I did some sleuthing and found out that this wonderful book’s publication has been delayed until October 2016.

Publishers ask that a reviewer NOT review an ARC until 30 days of its publication and I like to wait until it actually is published —  just to be sure.

So I will review another book here on Book Barmy shortly — one I just re-read and loved just as much as the first time I read it – yikes 30 odd years ago.

Otherwise Normal People by Aurelia Scott

You may remember THIS POST where I shared my obsession love of old garden roses which all started from reading a small book on lost roses.

But this book takes rose love to a whole new level.  These people are truly and certifiably obsessed — this book opens the doors into the quirky world of competitive rose gardening and shows.

In Otherwise Normal People, Aurelia Scott follows Roseaholics as they plan, prepare, and compete in prestigious rose shows — battling high winds, Japanese beetles, and the finicky demands of their precious charges.

There’s a former race-car driver who plants years in advance for each show, a forensic chemist whose collection of hybrid teas and miniature roses tops out at nearly one thousand, and my personal favorite, a genteel woman who traipses through abandoned lots rescuing antique varieties.

We marvel at the ingenuity of one rose gardener who installs wire perches  for the sparrows and trains them to eat Japanese beetles directly from his rose bushes.

We discover the sweetly eccentric:

I have 225 rose plants in my yard and I know every one of them by name.  They are as different from each other as people are.  I holler at them sometimes.  And I talk to them nicely.  They know that my greatest joy has been to get out in the garden with them.

We experience the tolerant love of the rose enthusiast’s partners:

Well, we went to the convention (Pasadena Rose Convention) and I walked into the showroom and said, “Oh my God” I had never seen so many roses in my life.  Kitty saw bouquets of a red-blend hybrid tea named Double Delight, leaned in to sniff its spicy fragrance, and said “I’ve got to have that, and I have got to have that one too”  So that was that. They dug up the yard. Or rather Bob dug up the yard.

Of course, my favorite chapter is entitled The Heady Scent of History which focuses on old roses and the stories behind roses brought out West by settlers, planted by graves of loved ones, and trailing over miners’ shacks in the California gold rush country.

Ms. Scott has written a book which names actual growers, so one would think it would raise eyebrows among the ultra-competitive world of rose showing.  But on the contrary, this is a gentle, happy book celebrating rose shows and the world of exhibition roses, it is not an expose.  The author is remarkably kind and seems in awe of the time spent in gardens, and the work required to keep their beloved roses thriving.

Even if you’re not a rose nerd lover like me, I think you will enjoy this peek into a hobby like any other – a hobby that can take over and become an all-encompassing obsession.  Yes, we’re they’re eccentrics — but they’re such a delight and their stories are equally delightful.

Shameless Plug:  If this book, or my other recommendation, has you at all interested in roses – especially old roses – and you’re in the Bay Area on May 15 – you must attend THIS AMAZING EVENT.

Fallen Land by Taylor Brown

Mini-Review

I’m going to use Mini-Reviews for books I didn’t enjoy and can’t recommend.  This doesn’t mean it isn’t a good, or even a great, book — it just means it wasn’t for me.

Fallen Land opens with an exciting historical adventure set in the final year of the Civil War, as a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward.  Callum, Ava, and their horse, Reiver encounter the devastation and insanity of  a war-torn country.

A wonderful premise, strong characters (especially the wonder horse Reiver) and an astounding sense of time and place.  But the unrelenting, and sometimes gratuitous, violence — page after page — chapter after chapter — I just couldn’t stomach it any further.

Guess I’m a wimp.  Takes a stronger reader than I to read and enjoy this book.

A digital review copy was provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.

 

The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild

Ever since launching Book Barmy, I read with a pen and index card, making notes and jotting page numbers to reference for this blog.  So I was surprised when halfway through this book I realized I hadn’t once picked up my pen.  That’s a testament to this wonderful debut novel — I read for pure enjoyment, immediately lost in its pages.

The Improbability of Love doesn’t fit neatly into a genre.  It’s a drama, a love story, a history novel, a mystery and a satire.  But mostly it is a book about art and the value of art both monetarily and emotionally.

Ms. Rothschild opens the book with a brilliant prologue which wryly captures behind the scenes at an art auction and then the cast of VIPs getting ready to bid on the art find of the century.

Then the novel goes back in time to Annie, a poor but accomplished chef who ducks into a secondhand store and buys a small, dusty painting which, unbeknownst to her, is an original Antoine Watteau, the French artist who revitalized the Baroque style of painting. 

And so it begins…

Soon there is a large cast of colorful characters surrounding her little painting — unsavory art dealers, arrogant art experts, narcissistic art patrons, eccentric artists, wildly wealthy Russians in exile, and Barty a cross-dressing little man who makes his living instructing the newly rich on how to fit into society. Hitler’s art squad and a hidden identity also come into play, which adds more layers of mystery and intrigue.

In several chapters, the author tells the story from the perspective of the painting itself – this technique is fascinating in the beginning but gets bogged down later in the book as the painting tries to delineate its provenance from his starving artist through royalty, war, and finally modern day obscurity.

I especially enjoyed the author’s characterization of the rich art patrons and their decadent and spoiled worlds:

“Poor Aunty Jo”, Emeline said with feeling.  “She never got over losing Topper.”

“I thought her husband was called Charles?”

“He was — Topper was her Pekinese.”

Annie secures a catering job for a Mrs. Appledore, one of the wealthy art patrons and with a “sky is the limit” budget recreates a dinner from art history. The description of the evening from decorating the dining room to the countless courses in this epic dinner is a wonder of descriptive food writing.

That said, Ms. Rothschild really shines with her knowledge of art history and her evocative descriptions of the art works, their history and the impact these paintings had on people’s lives.  She opens our eyes to the dirty underbelly of fine art – thievery, cheating and outright greed brought most of today’s fine works of art to museums around the world. But the reader senses the author’s overriding sense of love – love of artists, the patrons, the business of art and especially the beauty of art.

The Improbability of Love is a totally entertaining read — an accomplishment of wicked humor, counterbalanced with war crimes — outrageous conspicuous consumption, mirrored against the reverence and importance of art in all its many forms.

 

Thanks to my friend Michael for loaning me his copy of this book.

 

 

 

 

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

At first, I rejected this book because in the opening chapters — the main character, June, looses her entire family in a horrific home accident, and with the cruelest twist of all – on the eve of her daughter’s wedding.  I closed the book thinking, well this…

But then I read that Did You Ever Have a Family was nominated for both the Man Booker Prize and National Book Award and reviewers were using words such as “wondrous, eloquent and beautifully nuanced”.  I decided to give it a another go.  I vowed to give it four or five chapters this time. 

That did it, I was totally captured — caring so much about the characters that I couldn’t stop reading. Yet, I found myself reading slowly to fully absorb the language and the wisdom within its pages.  But, be prepared, Did You Ever Have a Family is unusual  — beyond just the missing question mark in the title — very little happens in the present and there is only a smattering of dialogue.

Mr. Clegg guides us through the devastation a tragedy brings to a small community and how the pain can spatter far and wide.  With each chapter, he allows those effected to open their hearts.

Each character slowly reveals their memories and accounts. Everyone is linked, some in minor ways — others with strong connections.  And it’s these connections that the author deftly weaves together into a bittersweet tapestry of people who love, who care and form more than just a community, but a family.  This comes alive with some gorgeous writing – as here, with Lydia, a waitress in the diner :

When you see someone every day for a while, you settle into a rhythm and you come to count on them even if for nothing more than fifteen minutes each morning they spend sitting at your counter, on one of your stools, talking about the weather and giving you a big smile and thumbs up when they sink their teeth into a poppyseed muffin.

The quiet heartache of this novel will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one. But surprisingly Mr. Clegg counteracts the sadness with the characters revealing little snippets of past and present happiness.  Many of their happiest moments and memories are the little things — which often turn out to be enormous.  I underlined this sentence and re-read it several times, simply lovely…

All we can do is play our parts and keep each other company. And it might be you never know the part you played.

Did You Ever Have a Family concludes 3,000 miles away from the original tragedy, with a gentle happiness warily gathering around the main characters.  As if their new community – this new family — is a healing shawl around their shoulders .

I closed this book thinking how grateful I am for the communities that surround me — friends and family, of course, but also those people you may think don’t affect your life, but at the end of the day are all part of your story and your community.

Yes, Did You Ever Have a Family is sad, but it is also a heartening testament to the fundamental human need to connect with others.  Those that keep us getting out of bed each morning, those we care for, worry about, love and if we’re lucky – wonders of wonders – they love us back.

A digital review copy was provided by Simon &  Schuster via NetGalley.