Religion – Finding My Wings

Be transported with ‘Gateway to the Moon’

Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday) April 2018
In 40 words or less: Brilliant storytelling and character development propel the reader from the Spanish Inquisition/Expulsion and Columbus’s exploration to the desert of New Mexico five centuries later. Morris weaves together history, astronomy, human frailty, and the strength of family bonds across generations.
Genre: Literary fiction/Historical fiction
Locale: Spain, Portugal, New World, and New Mexico
Time: 1492-1500 and 1992
A rare novel combining two periods of discovery. Historical figures are carefully researched and noted as such in the listing of characters and families. Gateway to the Moon is also a coming of age story for a teen whose connection to the stars is his solace and path to the future.

As long as I’ve been in book groups I’ve searched for an engrossing novel that brings to life the conflicted period of Spain’s ascendancy as a world power and the injustices and horrors of the Inquisition and the Jews expulsion from Spain. Even less common are writings about those along on Columbus’s first expedition and what may have transpired with those left behind as the ships returned to Spain. Finally, there is a book that fills this void.

Mary Morris has the special hand required to mix history and historical figures with fictional characters with due respect to both. Even before Chapter 1 begins, Morris provides a framework for navigating the pathway from fact to fiction and back.

Miguel Torres has his feet in the dust of Entrada de la Luna and his eyes in the stars. A loner, he is fascinated by space and his thirst is recognized by his science teacher who works to keep him on the straight and narrow. Poverty and boredom are often the ticket to “juvie”, a brief trip Miguel has already taken. A chance sighting of an ad for someone to help with two small boys after school may be the way for Miguel to afford a better telescope and car money. Respectful of his elders, but in large measure raising himself, he’s dutiful about heading home Friday nights where his mother prepares the trailer for candle lighting.

The story shifts 500 years to 1492. Among those on Columbus’s ships as they left Spain in 1492 were linguists, navigators, and cartographers from the crypto-Jewish community who lives would have been at risk as the Inquisition and Expulsion pressures increased. Separated from their families, these men and boys held out hope they’d find a new home for themselves and their families at the end of their voyage. Through Luis de Torres, Columbus’s scribe, others on the ships and those left behind, Morris richly describes the fragmenting of families even as Columbus anticipates riches and glory.

This is a book filled with beautiful language. Descriptions provide just enough detail to conjure up pictures without detracting from the characters or plot. While Columbus and Miguel look to the stars for orientation, each of the other characters must adapt to the unexpected and does so in a fitting and natural way which isn’t easy to pull off. Chapter titles provide orientation in time and place, and the character lists and genealogy at the front of the book are there in the event the reader is momentarily distracted from the story’s flow.

The Jazz Palace, Mary Morris’s previous book set in Chicago during the early years of the 20th century, took on history, the development of jazz, discrimination, and families. While that was a big undertaking, Gateway to the Moon takes on a bigger challenge and brings it home. Whether your taste runs to coming of age stories, hidden communities or history brought to life, you will find it in Gateway to the Moon. This is an ideal book for book groups and will quickly push its way to the top of your to-be-read pile.

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Emma Donoghue has a thing for mothers

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown and Company, September 2016)
In 40 words or less: A nurse trained by Florence Nightingale travels to rural Ireland to confirm/refute that a young girl is surviving on faith and water alone.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Rural Ireland
Time: 19th century
In both her earlier novel, Room, and here, Emma Donaghue creates women characters desperate to protect children in their care. The Wonder juxtaposes faith and science, the authority of men versus women, and the power and damage of keeping secrets.

Many readers shied away from Donoghue’s Room. Most of that story took place out of sight, in a bunker where a young boy was raised by his mother, both captive to her rapist. In The Wonder, Lib, a Nightingale-trained nurse travels from London to the Irish countryside to observe a phenomenon -a young girl, Anna, seemingly surviving for months without consuming any food. Visitors have been flocking in search of blessings. The church and local leaders are concerned about the spectacle and the possibility of a hoax.

Lib and a Sister nurse are charged with observing Anna round the clock, documenting her physiological status and any possibility of food being provided. The nurses are charged to observe and record, not consult. Any judgments are to be left to the community leaders.

Lib is a fish out of water. A Londoner through and through, it is unclear why she would take this position. She has little good to say about the community or its people. And there is no evidence of contact with family or friends, seemingly both physically and emotionally alone. Only with the arrival of a journalist does she appear to have a connection in the community, though with risk.

In many ways, this is a novel of silence and secrets. The question of Anna’s family’s honesty is at the crux of the plot. The family had recently experienced the death of Anna’s brother, to whom she was devoted but it is barely noted. As the narrator and a main figure in the novel, it might be expected to learn about Lib but she is a closed book in public and in private. It is only by coming to grips with their secrets that each can be saved.

Emma Donoghue is very skilled in building tension in her stories. In Lib she has created a watchful and intelligent protector who sees her responsibility as much to Anna as to those who hired her. Anna is at the same time angelic and strong as steel, unwavering and faith-filled. Neither friends nor adversaries, each holds her own as the novel unfolds.

The Wonder was chosen by many critics as a top book of 2016. It is impossible to separate the essence of spirituality from the plot of the narrative. As a reader, one’s individual connection with the spiritual likely will have an impact on the appreciation for the book.

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When a novel hangs on a luminary striking a sour note

And After the Fire by Lauren Belfer (HarperCollins, 2016)
In 40 words or less: A secret J.S. Bach manuscript, hidden from inception due to inflammatory lyrics, passes from generation to generation, finally landing in a German home at WWII’s end. Grabbed then hidden by a Jewish GI, its uncovering after his death raises many questions.
Genre: Fiction with strong historical elements
Locale: Prussia, Germany, USA
Time: 1776 – 2010
Read this for a generation-crossing novel, interweaving music, faith and family secrets.

First, a caveat. If you are a classical music purist, J.S. Bach fan or musicologist, the literary device Belfer employs throughout the book may drive you crazy.

Susanna Kessler has had a very bad year. After the collapse of her marriage, she takes solace in her work for a family foundation and her new apartment on the grounds of a church. Her beloved Uncle Henry dies, leaving her to settle his estate. When doing so, she comes upon a folder with cursory notes, containing what appears to be a manuscript of a work by Johann Sebastian Bach, dated 1783. The lyrics accompanying the music are virulently anti-Semitic.

Belfer then takes the reader back to 1776 and the family of Daniel Itzig, important banker and advisor to the King of Prussia. Itzig’s family holds a unique position in Berlin society, particularly for Jews. Martin Luther’s beliefs are taking hold, creating new levels of acrimony towards Jews.

Sara Itzig was an accomplished pianist, under the tutelage of one of J.S. Bach’s sons. Upon her marriage, her teacher gives her his prized possession, an unpublished manuscript by his father. Grateful for the gift but appalled by the lyrics, she and her husband vow to keep it hidden. Sara continues her interest in music and culture, performing on piano and hosting salons. Never having children, she bestows her attention on her nieces and nephews.

To her chagrin, Sara’s sister and brother-in-law decide to convert to Christianity to better their position. One of Sara’s nieces marries the son of Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, and is the mother of Felix Mendelsohn, the composer. The manuscript is carefully hidden and then passed along for safe keeping within the family. The generations of the Itzig family, their connections and interests, seem to be consistent with history.

When Susanna discovers the manuscript, she realizes the importance of authentication and the publicity surrounding, and potential adverse reaction to, its content. Susanna seeks out Dan, a history of music scholar at a Lutheran college, who is suffering a personal crisis. Intrigued by the possibility, he brings in a colleague from a private library to assist in the authentication. Both vie for Susanna’s attention, eventually protecting her from an intellectually predatory scholar.

In authenticating the work, Susanna travels to Germany to meet Dan at a conference. There she is confronted with lingering anti-Semitism. At Dan’s conference, a musicologist/theologian is arrested for war crimes. The threads of anti-Semitism are not left to the document alone.

Belfer pulls her story together like a complex multi-colored knitting project. Throughout, she adds complicating elements for each character’s story that are unnecessary to moving the plot forward. A common thread among many of the characters is a crisis or betrayal of faith.

Despite Belfer’s periodic tangents, this is an engaging novel, more for the cultural history of Prussia and Germany than the specifics of J.S. Bach or his purported composition. When an author explicitly creates a fictitious device in an accurate historical context, it is important that the reader is able to suspend belief. For those who can do so, ‘And After the Fire’ is a fascinating story with much material for discussion.

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