Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, this first novel portrays gritty daily life in Belfast and its environs. The tension between neighboring Catholics and Protestants is often escalated by seemingly random acts of violence. Cushla, a young elementary school teacher, lives with her alcoholic mother and helps occasionally at the bar owned by her older brother Eammon. The bar has its regulars, Catholics, but sometimes a Protestant wanders in.
One evening, barrister Michael Agnew, notices Cushla and strikes up a conversation which leads to involvement and then an affair. Michael is not only Protestant, but also married and considerably older. Theirs is a tender love story marked by absence, evasion, and affection.
Kennedy straightforwardly captures the small details in the setting. I found the first part a bit slow, but then the book gained momentum as one tragic event led to another. Kennedy grew up near Belfast and was a chef for almost 30 years before becoming a writer. Trespasses was the A Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2022 and also shortlisted for several other awards. It’s the first read from my summer list.
LIVE THEATER
Man of La Mancha(Asolo Repertory Theatre)
Don Quixote & Sancho (SarasotaHeraldTribune.com)
This run of Man of La Mancha has ended, but it was the all-time best production the Chief Penguin and I have enjoyed at the Asolo. This is not faint praise as the overall caliber of Asolo productions is always extremely high. The staging, the setting in a contemporary prison, the intricate choreography of fight scenes, the voices and sounds of actors and musicians, and the music itself combined for an engrossing performance. We were entranced! And hearing The Impossible Dream sung and then sung again two more times, we were uplifted. This play was a gift for our complex, polarized times.
I always have ambitious goals for my summer reading and this year is no exception. I create a list and aim to read as many of the titles as possible. I usually fall short. I get sidetracked by other appealing works or find a particular book not engaging (I allow at least 50 pages before I retreat). Or somehow the premise of a novel or nonfiction work no longer resonates with my summer state of mind. And, of course, some summer reading should be just for fun—whether it’s a mystery, a romance, or an adventure tale!
Here’s my baker’s dozen to read before Labor Day. Maybe.
FICTION
Careless Love: A DCI Banks Novel by Peter Robinson
I’ve read many, but not all of Robinson’s suspense novels. This definitely falls into the fun category. It’s #25 out of 28 in the series. Several earlier books were adapted for a very good TV series.
Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls
Walls is the author of the memoir, The Glass Castle, about her nomadic upbringing.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
A contemporary take on Little Women
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
One of my all-time favorite writers. I started this in hardback earlier this year, now I will finish it.
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Historical novel about a community on a Maine island. Harding’s first novel, Tinkers, published in 2009 won a Pulitzer Prize.
The Shooting at Chateau Rock by Martin Walker
Having seen Walker give a serious talk, I’m curious to read one of his Chief Bruno mysteries, this one set in the Dordogne.
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Journalist, author and former chef, this novel by Kennedy is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
Three by Valerie Perrin
I loved Perrin’s previous novel, Fresh Water for Flowers. This one is also translated from the French.
Trust by Hernan Diaz
A family saga, a Best Book of the Year (NY Times) and a Pulitzer Prize winner.
The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear
Another mystery by the Maisie Dobbs author, this one with a new character.
NONFICTION
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen
Memoir about two best friends since childhood.
The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge
Anti-slavery sister activists in the 19th century.
The Lobster Coastby Colin Woodard
I spend much of the summer in Maine. This is a chance to learn more about its history.
Note: Header image of woman reading is from readersdigest.co.uk
I recently completed several novels: historical fiction about a rich heiress, a contemporary novel about the power of books, and lastly, an unusual first novel set in nature. This week, the Chief Penguin and I also got to the Whitney Museum of American Art for one of their featured exhibits.
LIVING WITH THE ONE PERCENT
The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Postby Allison Pataki
Marjorie Post, 1946 (Frank O. Salisbury via Artsy)
Allison Pataki’s novel about the life of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post is a fast-paced engrossing read. Doted on and educated in the family Grape Nuts business as a child, Marjorie was beautiful and smart and a millionaire before the age of 30. Coming of age when women of her class did not hold jobs, let alone run companies, she relied for decades on the men in her family, generally her husbands (multiple) or her uncle, to run Post (which later became General Foods). She lived a life of supreme luxury and both built and renovated lavish homes.
When she became frustrated with just hostessing and socializing, Marjorie would take on a grand project. She furnished money, supplies, and staff for a frontline hospital in France during the Great War. During the Depression, she started and ran a large soup kitchen. She became friends with U.S. presidents. And when her 4th husband was ambassador to Russia during the Second World War, her social skills were an important asset to his success.
Marjorie was less successful in her choice of men from first husband Greenwich gentleman Ed Close to fourth husband statesman Joey Davies; she ended up divorcing every one of them. Yet she was notable and memorable to the end for her style and the causes she championed. A fascinating and fun novel! (~JWFarrington)
FOR LOVE OF LITERATURE
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
Sara Adams connected with her grandfather through a love of books. In her first novel, The Reading List, teenage Aleisha works at a branch library in London and after being rude to an older gentleman patron, becomes friendly with him and ultimately with his granddaughter Priya. Mukesh is a lonely widower and not the reader his late wife was. He reads Time Traveler’s Wife and then asks Aleisha for a book recommendation. Thus begins his literary journey with Aleisha giving him books from a handwritten list she found. She reads the books first to be knowledgeable.
Several other people in the community find copies of this same list of titles. Reading these classics such as Little Women, The Kite Runner, and To Kill a Mockingbird, provides comfort and perspective on their own troubles and concerns. A paean to the power of good literature, the novel is also a poignant story of connection and community among neighbors and family of different generations. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
SUBSISTING IN NATURE
Lungfish by Meghan Giliss
Author Giliss (Portland Press Herald)
Lungfish is a first novel set on an isolated island in Maine. Tuck and her little daughter Agnes have fled to what was Tuck’s late grandmother’s deserted cottage. It’s summer, but there is no heat or amenities, and Tuck has very little money. Her husband Paul is sometimes physically present, but often asleep. He works little or not at all and is suffering the ravages of addiction. Tuck and Agnes comb the shoreline for snails and other edible animals and plants. It’s a hard austere life.
The narrative is all told from Tuck’s perspective and goes back in forth and time as she re-visits her childhood in Indiana, her relations with her mother and father, and her aborted veterinary studies. She reviews specific events and reflects on them in a new way.
I found this a challenging novel to read. The prose is straightforward and the physical details of the natural world concrete, but so much is diffuse in terms of when and how a past event occurred. As I read, I always found myself working hard to fill in the blanks. I did finish the book and, in a limited way, appreciated Giliss’s bold and unusual approach to storytelling. (~JWFarrington)
At Christie’s last week, one of the first paintings I encountered was a large canvas of mostly red with some browns by this artist, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
Smith’s work at Christie’s gallery
I was intrigued and so, when we planned our visit to the Whitney Museum, I noted we could view the first New York retrospective of this Native American artist’s art. Born in 1940, Smith has had a long career as artist and educator. Her works feature images relative to Native American life combined with themes of conservation and the environment, racism, and cultural identity.
Cheyenne Series, #4, 1984
Some of the earlier works are more representational, a series of horses, for example. Later works are somewhat collage-like and often satirical or absurd in tone with newspaper headlines and snatches of text pasted on.
What is An American? 2003
I didn’t like everything, but found the exhibit thought-provoking and a different way to think about Native American imagery.
Flathead Vest, Father & Child, 1996
Note: Unattributed photos by JWFarrington. Header photos is Green Flag, 1995 by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
Christie’s has its New York gallery and auction headquarters in Rockefeller Center. Thanks to a tip from our son, we went down to see a wonderful Rousseau and other marvelous works. We walked into a wide lobby space, a coat check and coffee bar tucked in on the left. No one spoke to us, and no one asked for identification or what our business was. We wandered into a transverse hall and saw the first pieces of art.
Eglise Saint-Philibert by Maurice Utrillo
Everything on display was from private collections. All were here to be auctioned off during a week of high-profile sales. The art ranged from Impressionism to Contemporary and 20th and 21st century pieces.
The Gate by David Hockney
Shown in the top photo, this beautiful Rousseau of flamingos by a shore (Les Flamants, 1910) sold for $43.5 million on May 11 in the largest sale price ever for this artist and as the highest price piece in the 20th Century Evening Sale. That same week, the third chapter of Masterpieces from the S. I. Newhouse Collection was also very successful with its inclusion of notable works by de Kooning and Picasso.
Rachel Zurer by Alice Neel
Au Casino, Bonnard
We wandered from gallery to gallery as the intertwined spaces opened to us with more walls of art. I especially liked a portrait by Alice Neel (having seen her work on exhibit at the Met two years ago); two portraits by Alex Katz, one on a vibrant orange background; Bonnard’s Au Casino; a church streetscape by Utrillo; several gloriously colorful landscapes by David Hockney; and a white rose by Georgia O’Keeffe. It was a marvelous experience!
White Calico Rose, O’Keeffe
Part of the fun was the people watching—the very professionally suited Christie’s staff with their notebooks and usually a small clutch of exhibit catalogues under their arms–and the mix of potential buyers and just lookers like us. Dress in the latter groups ranged from an elegant black pants suit on an elegant white-haired woman to jeans and a white shirt, to khaki pants, and even the occasional rumpled sweater.
ARTY SUMMER READ
The Price of Inheritance by Karin Tanabe
By happenstance, I read this early novel by Karin Tanabe just after being at Christie’s. The Price of Inheritance is about the fine art industry and provides a detailed look at how dealers go about evaluating and acquiring pieces from private collectors. Carolyn Everett, ambitious and intense, is a young star in the Furniture Department at Christie’s in Manhattan. Botching her career after a record-breaking sale, Carolyn returns to small-time art buying and begins a questionable romance with a magnetic Marine. Romance that is tied up with the inside world of buying and selling art. A fast, suspenseful read!
Note: Art photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is Ada by Alex Katz.
