Category: Books

Carolina Capers: Reading & Art

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From Unravelling the Threads by Vera Weinfield

RECENT READING—D DAY

June 6th this week marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day when Allied troops landed on the Normandy Beaches and changed the outcome of the war.  Two recent novels I’ve just completed are concerned with the Holocaust.  One is set in France and has been a bestseller in France and Europe, and the other is set in Italy.  

The Postcard by Anne Berest

Author Berest (Wikipedia.com)

French novelist and writer Anne Berest was intrigued by a postcard her mother, Lelia, a noted scholar, received in 2003.  Written on the card in an unfamiliar hand were the names of four members of their extended family, Lelia’s grandparents and her aunt and uncle, all of whom were deported and killed in the concentration camps.  With her mother’s assistance, Berest goes on the hunt to find out who wrote and mailed the card and to learn more about her great grandparents, Ephraim and Emma, and her great aunt Noemie and her great uncle Jacques.  

Although the work is a novel or autobiographical fiction, it reads like nonfiction since so much of it is factual.  Berest does, however, create dialogue and flesh out situations based on the archival information the two women discover.  Central to the story is Myriam, Ephraim and Emma’s oldest child, and Leila’s mother.  Myriam survived the war and Anne Berest knew her and visited her in Provence as a child.  

The book goes back and forth in time and is an absorbing and poignant journey into family history as daughter and mother share experiences, but don’t always agree on what should be pursued or what is too painful to revisit.  The book is translated from the French.  Highly recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson

Robson (Amazon.com)

The Postcard, published in 2023 in English, was on my summer reading list.  Having finished it on my Kindle, I discovered this related novel by Canadian author Jennifer Robson.  Robson’s historical novel portrays the experiences of one Jewish woman, Nina, taken into hiding by a Catholic family in 1942.  

Nina’s physician father is determined that she should be protected and makes arrangements with a friend. Having enjoyed a comfortable and sheltered childhood in Venice, Nina must now masquerade as farmer Nico’s wife. She earns her place in his family through hard work on their farm, but later is arrested, beaten, and transported to a camp in Poland. 

Nina is a fictional character, but her story was partly inspired by Robson’s son asking whether it was true that his Italian grandparents had hidden Jews during the war.  Robson’s novel reflects the extraordinary amount of research she did about real events—massacres, hangings, deportations—and is both graphic and extremely compelling.  It is a fitting companion to Berest’s book, and I recommend it. (~JWFarrington)

READERS’ RECOMMENTATIONS

Our Swedish friend is deep into Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin and calls it a must read.  It’s translated from the French and was a bestseller all over Europe.  I read it in 2022 (see blog of 4/3/22) and found it slow to get into and then fascinating and memorable.

(amazon.com)

The Chief Penguin’s Colorado cousin belongs to an international book club which meets every other month. She shared their 2024 list.  Two titles on it are:  The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and River Sing Me Home, a historical novel about a mother’s journey to find her stolen children.    

ART OUTING

CAM Raleigh

From Samantha Everette’s Crowning Glory

The Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) is located in downtown Raleigh in a former produce storage building in the Warehouse District. Opened in 2011, it’s a non-collecting museum that offers bold and innovative exhibits from local and national contemporary artists as well as educational programming.  

On a recent visit, I surveyed a photographic study of Black women and hair, Crowning Glory, an exhibit of UNC-Chapel Hill MFA student thesis projects, and a collection of works from emerging artists in rural Robeson County, part of a project called CAMERA.  Overall, a wide diversity of styles and media here. Shown at the very top, the Vera Weinfield collage is one of her thesis works on Jewish identity.

Joyful Mysteries
Collage by Molly English (UNC MFA student)
Detail, Cleft, by Jeffrey Geller

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Note: All unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Header painting is Still by S. K. Chavis-Bullard.

Summer Reading 2024

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READING GOALS

Each June, I set myself the goal of reading a set list of books over the summer.  Most years, I read some of them, but seldom all.  Along the way, I purchase or borrow books, and they end up taking priority.  This year’s list is a mix of notable books and bestsellers, both fiction and nonfiction. 

I’ve read many of Verghese’s earlier works and almost all Toibin’s and Strout’s novels; they are favorite writers of mine!  Years ago, I read Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips for my book group and then later her Quiet Dell.  

Claire Keegan is a recent discovery, and as part of becoming a Tar Heel, I will read Wilmington’s Lie.  Sadly, Jacqueline Winspear is giving up Maisie Dobbs, detective, and the title here is her last appearance.  Overall, this list includes many writers whom I’ve read previously.  

MY SUMMER READING LIST

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (#18, end of the Maisie Dobbs series)

Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Demon of Unrest by Eric Larson (Abraham Lincoln & the months before the Civil War)

Homecoming by Kate Morton

Long Island by Colm Toibin (return of Ellis Lacey of his earlier Brooklyn)

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo (2024 Pulitzer Prize winner in biography)

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Tables for Two by Amor Towles (stories)

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

The Marriage Question by Maggie O’Farrell

The Postcard by Anne Berest (autobiographical fiction, Holocaust family)

Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin (life & politics in the 1960’s)

Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan (stories)

Wilmington’s Lie by David Zucchino

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Manhattan: Looking, Dining & Reading

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WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

The Whitney Biennial is held every two years and brings together the works of contemporary painters, sculptors, video artists and the like.  This year there are 70 artists represented and the works can be abstract, challenging, and occasionally accessible.  I find the experience of viewing this exhibit interesting and yet somewhat off-putting.  But I feel it’s a good exercise to be exposed to art I don’t necessarily like or understand.   Here are several works from the Biennial. Luger’s inverted tipi echoes his Native American heritage while stating that the world is upside down.

from Future Ancestral Technologies by C. H. Luger

Philadelphia artist Karyn Olivier uses found objects as reference points for the past or loss. Anyone who’s spent time in Maine will recognize these lobster trappings.

How Many Ways Can You Disappear, 2021

We also spent time in a gallery of works from the Whitney’s permanent collection.  Here are two pieces that spoke to me, one visually appealing, the other disturbing and powerful. I like the vibrancy and beauty of the Gullah woman in Dry Clean.

Dry Clean, Eldzier Cortor, c.1945-46

Norman Lewis’ stark black and white oil painting is chilling with its masks, skulls, and echoes of Klansmen and would easily have fit in the Biennial exhibit.

American Totem, Norman Lewis, 1960

DINING AROUND—THAI STREET FOOD 

Up Thai (Upper East Side)

We had walked by Up Thai in the past, but never eaten here before.  I read a recommendation for it and decided to book. It’s a very popular place and while an attractive space, it’s jammed packed with tables and there is very little space for the wait staff to navigate.  Granted, we were here on a Friday night, but it was crowded with families with children as well as 30 and 40 somethings.  

Our waitress was smilingly pleasant and efficient, and we loved what we ordered!  UP spring rolls with shrimp and crabmeat with plum sauce to start. 

UP spring rolls

Then a medium spicy green curry with chicken, string beans, bamboo shoots, bell pepper, and basil leaves, along with pad krapraw, an entrée of Thai chili, onion, peppers, shitake mushrooms, more basil leaves, and pork.  Both dishes came with white rice. 

On a return visit, we sampled the curry puffs and a vermicelli dish with shrimp.  The vermicelli with ginger and other spices was especially good. In addition, we ordered pad krapraw, this time with chicken. We had more than enough to share.  It was all so good that we will be regulars here!

GUT WRENCHING & HEARTRENDING NOVEL

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Author Winn (theguardian.com)

In her first published novel, Alice Winn depicts the mostly unspoken love between two young men, schoolboys together, and then soldiers in the front lines in France. Ellwood (Elly or Sidney) and Gaunt (Henry) are classmates at an upper-class English boarding school.  When Britain enters the World War, they and most of their classmates enthuse about joining up as soon as they are old enough.  Their view of war is one of glory and excitement on the battlefield.  Little do they envision the carnage and the gruesomeness they will experience in the trenches at Ypres, Loos, and the Somme.  

The novel alternates in time and space between Ellwood and Gaunt and their experiences together and separately (Henry becomes a German prisoner of war) and those of their closest friends and classmates.  Besides this group, Gaunt’s sister Maud is the other principal character.  She serves as a nurse during the war years, giving her some perspective on what these young men have suffered. The years covered are 1913 to 1919.

The battle scenes are extremely graphic and some of the most gut wrenching I’ve ever read.  Bodies are blasted apart and pile up.  These scenes are contrasted with and redeemed by tenderness and shared forbidden love.  Despite all the deaths that litter these pages, the reader is left with a sense of hope in the years after the war.

Inspired by war remembrances in the historical archives of her own college and enriched by extensive research, Winn has crafted a powerful, moving, and ultimately beautiful work of art.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.) Header photo is Deep Calls to Deep by Maja Ruznic at the Whitney Biennial.

Return to Manhattan & a Mystery

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SECOND SPRING

In May, we typically spend the month in Manhattan.  It’s a round robin of visits to great art museums, dining at favorite restaurants, sampling new eateries, people watching in the parks, discovering new titles from beloved bookstores, and spending lots of time with our delightful granddaughters—without being a drag on their busy schedules.  

We have always enjoyed seeing tulips in bloom in Central Park, in the Jefferson Market Garden, and along Park Avenue.  This year, we reveled in early spring in North Carolina—delicate redbud trees, daffodils, yellow snapdragons, and then the azaleas bursting out.  We arrived here mid-week past the peak of the tulips, but there are still enough hanging on to attract our attention:  robustly red ones, rosy pink blooms, and in Central Park, dark purple tulips verging on black against a backdrop of white azalea petals. 

We’ve been here about three days and haven’t yet done much except walk, dine, and enjoy our granddaughters.  Our new life in North Carolina is filled with so much activity that I believe we are in recovery mode, a winddown from our recent move and all the energy that required.  Soon we will get back to touring the exhibits at the MoMA, the Met, and the Whitney. In the meantime, there are even “flowers” on 5th Avenue–thank you, Van Cleef & Arpels!

FUN HISTORICAL MYSTERY

The Lace Widow by Mollie Ann Cox

Eliza Hamilton, wife and then widow of Alexander Hamilton, was a formidable woman.  Strong, smart, resilient, and determined to make a difference in the world, she outlived Alexander by 50 years.  

In The Lace Widow, author Cox turns Eliza, or Mrs. General Hamilton as she is politely addressed, into a detective.  It is a fact that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.  And it is true that some of Hamilton’s political enemies falsely accused him of misusing U.S. Treasury funds.  After Hamilton’s untimely and unseemly death, Eliza desperately seeks to see Burr punished, but he has disappeared.  She is also motivated to continue to protect Hamilton’s reputation and that of herself and her children.   

When several of Hamilton’s close friends also die in suspicious circumstances, and her oldest son is fingered as a suspect, she begins her search for the culprits.  In the process, secret societies and strange alliances are uncovered midst several false leads.  

While the events here depicted after Hamilton’s death, including the several murders, are fiction, Cox crafts a good story and highlights the role of lace in a woman’s wardrobe and the skill and nimble hands required to make it.  A fast read that believably combines fact and fiction!

I foresee a future Eliza Hamilton mystery. In the meantime, for an absorbing take on Eliza’s multi-faceted life, read My Dear Hamilton:  A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie.  

NORTH CAROLINA DINING

This entry is for my new cadre of local readers.

Peck & Plume (The Mayton)

The Mayton, Cary’s boutique inn a few doors from the downtown park, houses not only attractive rooms for overnight guests, but a welcoming and tasty restaurant.  Peck & Plume is open for all three meals, and besides its inside dining room, boasts a lovely terrace.  With fans and heaters, the terrace is comfortable most any time of year. 

The Chief Penguin and I enjoyed lunch there recently.  He had the sashimi tuna preparation along with a small Caesar salad.  I took advantage of the soup sip (a demitasse cup of the daily soup for $2) and tucked into a Caesar salad with salmon.  The salad greens were fresh and crisp, and the salmon was perfectly done.  

We also sampled the specialty cocktails.  I liked the sound of the lavender mule with ginger and lemon but found it overly perfumed.  Service here can be a bit slow, but if you have the time, the food is worth the more leisurely pace!

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)