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 Post by Allison Pataki
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
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)
POLITICS IN ART
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map
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.
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.
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.
I didn’t like everything, but found the exhibit thought-provoking and a different way to think about Native American imagery.
Note: Unattributed photos by JWFarrington. Header photos is Green Flag, 1995 by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
