book group – Page 6 – Finding My Wings

‘The Muralist’: Historical Fiction and Art Appreciation in One Package

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The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro (Algonquin Books, November 2015)
In 40 words or less: At the cusp of WWII, a young French-American artist pursues her art as her family tries to escape Europe. Seventy-five years later, her great-niece works to solve the mystery of her disappearance and secure her place in the art world.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: New York and France
Time: 1939/40 and 2015
Read this for a gripping story filled with insights into the world of art and the machinations of the US government as the Jews of France sought to escape Nazi Europe.

RELEASE DATE – Tuesday, November 3. The Muralist, B.A. Shapiro’s second novel, brings together a young French-American artist with the luminaries of the fledgling Abstract Expressionist movement. In 1939, when the story begins, many soon-to-be-famous artists were working for the US government as part of the WPA project which commissioned realistic paintings and murals depicting life during the Depression. Alizée Benoit was born in America, leaving to live with relatives in France after the death of her parents when she was twelve. Seven years later she returns to advance her art career, aware that the situation in France for her Jewish family is becoming perilous. Her goal is to find a way to bring them all to the US, whatever it takes.

Alizée’s day job is drawing and painting murals intended for libraries, post offices and other civic buildings in a huge warehouse along with Lee Krasner and other artists. Their free hours are spent painting, drinking and arguing art and politics with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and others in their group. Separated from his wife, Rothko takes particular interest in Alizée, both personally and professionally. Barely subsisting, the artists are often consumed by self-doubt, alcohol and depression, creating at times a toxic mix.

Seventy-five years later, Danielle Abrams is recasting her life assessing art work for a major auction house. Inspired by brief stories of her great-aunt, Alizée, and the two paintings of hers that survived, Danielle had been a painter before her divorce and held out hope she could solve Alizée’s disappearance in late 1940. When a group of paintings by the likes of Rothko and Pollock appear at work for evaluation with small related squares secreted on the back, Danielle sees hints of Alizée’s style and sets out to find out more.

As Alizée struggles to acquire visas for her family she runs up against nativism and isolationism as typified by Lindbergh and Kennedy, and anti-Semitic and obstructionist policies in the State Department spearheaded by Breckinridge Long. Eleanor Roosevelt’s genuine interest in the WPA art projects serves to bring Alizée a patron and ally. Throughout The Muralist, Alizée is receiving evermore frightening letters from her relatives in France describing the roundups and tightening restrictions on the Jews. Alizée keeps from her artist friends her activities to circumvent US visa restrictions and take down Breckinridge Long.

Danielle comes into her own as she works to establish the hidden squares as Alizée’s. As with many Holocaust survivors, her grandfather chose not to discuss his experiences before resettling in America. In pursuit of her quest, Danielle comes to terms with her family’s experience in France.

Shapiro is emphatic in the afternote that is this a work of fiction weaving in historical figures and situations consistent with the times, taking liberties to serve the story. It doesn’t purport to be a telling of history with fictional characters added.

The beauty of modern historical fiction is the research that authors put into framing the story. While historical accuracy may be sacrificed for the plot, one of the great benefits of these books is whetting the reader’s appetite to discover aspects of history or art which may be relatively unfamiliar. Having read The Muralist I learned that the Abstract Expressionist movement emerged from artists involved in the WPA artist project. (see http://www.theartstory.org/org-wpa.htm) Similarly, while it is now fairly well-known that tens of thousands of visas were unused annually during WWII, the name Breckinridge Long was unfamiliar. Two clicks on the web and his role becomes all too clear.

With this second novel, B.A. Shapiro is setting a high bar for others seeking to inform the reader about art world while telling a complex and well-structured story. It is refreshing to see strong women artists as protagonists, well-drawn and wrestling with their imperfections and moral choices as they pursue their art in a male-dominated field. Her inclusion of historical events and figures moves the plot along and her clear acknowledgement of the liberties she takes with history are most welcome. The Muralist is a fine novel to share with a friend or in a group. Note: The Muralist tops the Indie Next List for November.

‘The Girl You Left Behind’ captures the evocative power of art

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The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (Penguin Books, 2012)
In 40 words or less: A portrait ties together two young women and their absent husbands. A thought-provoking story of love, art, ownership and restitution.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: France and London
Time: 1916 and Present
Read this for a classic story interwoven with contemporary issues of ownership, morality and the transformative power of art.

Jojo Moyes first made a splash on the US book scene in 2012 with her novel Me Before You. With a longstanding reputation in Great Britain, two additional titles were released here later in 2012, The Girl You Left Behind and its prequel novella, Honeymoon in Paris. Were it not for a book group requesting a discussion on The Girl You Left Behind, I might have missed it. I’m glad I didn’t.

Moyes immediately immerses the reader in the life of Sophie Lefèvre, a young woman struggling with her sister and brother to get by while the Germans occupy their French village in October 1916. Sophie, strong and independent, had lived in Paris, meeting her artist husband, Edouard, there while she was a shopgirl. When he left for the Army, she returned to the village to help her sister whose husband was goners well. The Germans commandeered almost everything, leaving the residents with little to eat and few possessions. The sisters’ inn, stripped of almost all furniture, was required to prepare and serve meals to the troops billeted in the town. While charged with preparing the food, the family, which included a baby and the daughter of a woman taken by the Germans, had to account for every morsel of food served.

The only item of value left in the home was a painting of Sophie by Edouard, an Impressionist. The portrait was imbued with all the love Edouard felt for his wife and served as a promise of their future together. The Kommandant was taken by the painting and was prepared to go to great lengths in the hope of acquiring it. And Sophie would put herself in great peril for the chance to reunite with Edouard.

The story shifts to present-day London where Liv Halston is a young widow, living in the Glass House designed by her late husband David, a renowned architect. Liv is frozen in her grief, the only softness in her life is the portrait David purchased for her while they honeymooned in Paris. A chance meeting with an ex-pat American involved in art restitution sets off a chain of events upending both their lives and demanding that the fate of the Lefèvres be known.

Don’t for a minute think this is merely a story of time-linked romances. Moyes presents the legal and emotional issues associated with art restitution, carefully making the Holocaust a minor player. By doing so the visceral attachment people have to art, as contrasted with its possible market value, is elevated. Moyes is acutely aware that most restitution claims arise from German confiscation of art owned by Jews and brings that into the story as a means of bringing moral gravitas to the debate about ownership and redress.

With carefully constructed plot twists, The Girl You Left Behind held my interest to final page. Moyes’s deft hand in tackling fundamental issues rises well above many popular novels.

An award winning story of Soviet-era politics meeting contemporary mores

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The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis (Little, Brown and Company, 2014)
In 40 words or less: A disgraced Israeli politician on vacation sees the man who betrayed him to the KGB forty years earlier. One is a prisoner of his past, the other has no sense of his future. Each is changed by the meeting.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Crimea, Israel, Moscow
Time: 2012 and 1972
Read this if you enjoy novels where difficult moral choices are front and center. Bezmozgis provides incisive historical context and characters consistent with the issues presented. It is rare that an author can pull it all together so succinctly .

David Bezmozgis has spent more than ten years opening the door on the lives of refuseniks that left the former Soviet Union (FSU) in a trickle in the early 1970s becoming a tidal wave in the 1990s. His latest, The Betrayers, tells of a senior Israeli politician, Baruch Kotler, a poster child of the dissident movement, who travels to Crimea with his young lover as pictures of their indiscretion hit the press. Kohler left Israel in disgrace after taking a position against the government, speaking out against dismantling settlements in the territories. The exposure of the affair came about after he refused to change his position.

The plot centers on an unfortunate coincidence. Upon arrival in Yalta there is a mixup at the hotel and Baruch and Leora are forced to find accommodations in a private home. Their host is the wife of Baruch’s roommate from 40 years earlier. He betrayed Baruch to the KGB, resulting in 13 years of imprisonment. When Baruch recognizes Volodya (Chaim) through the window, he has a choice – leave without disclosing his identity or confront the man he considered a friend and colleague.

From start to finish, the story covers less than a weekend. Using a mix of memory to bring in details of the past and technology to connect to the conflicts of the present, The Betrayers is tightly written and clearly drawn.

The title is plural for a reason. Each of the principals makes explicit choices with major repercussions for themselves and their families. By focusing on the encounter between Baruch and Chaim, the ripples of these decisions are clearly seen.

In this and his prior works, David Bezmozgis has been frank about the motivations that sent Jews (and non-Jews) from the FSU and the reasons some regretted this choice. Each book has shown the challenges in acclimating to a completely different way of life and the difficulties that the older generation, in particular, has had in finding a place in the new world.

As Bezmozgis was completing The Betrayers, the Russia/Ukraine conflict erupted. While this provides an odd current events twist for the reader, the setting was key to the story and Bezmozgis had undertaken extensive research so no changes were made.

For those in the DC area, David Bezmozgis will be on a panel on October 19 at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the DCJCC Literary Festival. The Betrayers won the National Jewish Book Award and was a Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist in the same year.

What I learned from my BFFs (Book Festival Friends)

If Malcolm Gladwell is correct and it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of a skill, I’ve certainly done the time to become a fine reader. The difference between mastery and truly owning a skill is the continuing passion to improve and find new opportunities to learn from others.

For the last ten years I have been taking an intensive course in critical reading, no classroom or tests involved. If you have served with me on a book festival committee or been a member of one of my book groups, I have you to thank for the lessons. So here’s some of what I’ve learned:

It isn’t a bad book just because you don’t like it. Not every book works for every reader. Just like the car you test drive or the great looking pair of shoes, it doesn’t always suit. There is no crime in putting down a book if you really can’t get into it. Figure out what it is that turns you off. There are people very uncomfortable with multiple narrators or time jumping. Others dislike lengthy descriptions with little dialog or action. Take a few minutes and consider whether someone you know might enjoy it. And sometimes it is poorly written or flat-out boring and you can chalk it up to experience.
Reading a book knowing nothing about it can be exhilarating. Publishers and authors supply bookstores, bloggers, reviewers and book festivals with advance copies to build a buzz and secure orders. This may be the first exposure to a new author. Often these early editions look nothing like the finished product – no fancy cover, no laudatory blurbs. While you may kiss a lot of frogs before finding a prince, it is great when it happens. Sometimes a published book has just been below the radar waiting for someone to wave the flag. It could be you!
Authors are interested in what readers take from their writing. I’ve been lucky to facilitate discussions with a few authors about their books and to talk to several one on one. With few exceptions they’ve been curious about what has piqued the most conversation and what characters/situations were liked or troubling. Authors of both nonfiction and fiction spend so much time on research these days. They are very appreciative of questions about how they came to their ideas and the process to get from a glimmer of an idea to a finished title.
Sharing the reading experience with others takes time. It just takes longer to read a book that is under consideration as a book group title or to be reviewed. At this point it is almost second nature to create discussion questions as I read and mark passages to go back to later. I spend time thinking about the author’s intention or how a particular title connects to a different author’s work or a museum exhibit I may have seen. My matchmaking goes beyond the people in a living room discussion. It’s so nice when people come up to me about a book they have read and ask for suggestions. My TBR (to be read) pile inevitably gets longer after they share what they have found.
Make time for “just for fun” reading. I love a good mystery. While I don’t completely write the genre off for discussion purposes, many are good reads better consumed and passed along to a friend. Thankfully my facilitator eyeshade doesn’t kick in when I settle in to read one. But don’t be surprised if you see a write-up of a favorite mystery author here before too long because sometimes you just have to share.

David Liss’ The Day of Atonement – Audiobook review

David Liss has created a special niche in historical fiction. His books provide a rich portrait of difficult business and social interactions at pivotal points in commercial history. My first exposure to his work was The Coffee Trader which takes place in 1659 in Amsterdam at the beginning of coffee as an international commodity. In each of his novels the main protagonist is Jewish, well-versed in the different business and social customs of the times and often at odds with those governing Jewish communal norms in the city. Liss is expert at describing the look of the city, its clothing and foods, taverns and houses of worship, elite and servant classes.

In The Day of Atonement, Liss brings a young man, Sebastian, back to Lisbon from London in 1755, during the latter days of the Inquisition. Sebastiao Raposa was smuggled out of Lisbon a decade earlier just as his family was taken by Inquisition. While in London he had been mentored by a man with a keen eye for business and conspiracies as well as great fighting skills. As Sebastian Foxx he returns to Lisbon with the intention of seeking retribution against those that destroyed his family, killed his father and separated him from his first love.

Every aspect of the story is seen through Sebastian’s eyes. Characteristically, the priests of the Inquisition pitted neighbor against neighbor and were ever vigilant to any inkling of Judaization among New Christians, those Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism more than 200 years earlier. Lisbon was at the nexus of international trade and English Protestants were major traders, forming an alliance for their own protection. Both New Christians and Protestants were at peril of being imprisoned by the Inquisition at any time for almost any reason. Continue reading David Liss’ The Day of Atonement – Audiobook review

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