IN A BOOK
I’m a voracious reader, but I have to admit that this summer I’m finding it harder to read serious works. Perhaps it’s the effect of living with the coronavirus or maybe it’s part laziness. In any case, I’m spending more time devouring beach reads and mysteries with the occasional heavier title tossed in. Some of the books I brought to Maine are ones I’ve owned for awhile, but many of them sit in a yet-to-be-read stack while I dive into the latest e-book from the library or some just purchased light fare. That said, here are two intriguing novels and one long memoir that lends itself to skimming. What is your reading like this year?
Historical Fiction
Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin
Books about people and events during World War II are still big sellers. I’m beginning to tire of them, but Mistress of the Ritz was an exception. It’s gripping and thrilling and a fast-paced read. It’s based on or perhaps inspired by, as author Benjamin states in an afterword, Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the manager of the Ritz. It begins in 1940 when the Nazis first occupy Paris–and the hotel. What is amazing and makes for delicate situations, is that the hotel remains open to rich and celebrated guests while simultaneously being Nazi headquarters. Blanche is an American while Claude is French and exceedingly proud of his position. He devotes himself to the Ritz and to a succession of mistresses that leave his wife subject to neglect.
Early on, the reader experiences Blanche as a bit of a flibbertigibbet, caught up with fashion, hobnobbing with famous guests, and flirting with handsome Nazi officers. One wonders where her story will lead. As ordinary people begin to disappear, life becomes harder for these two gracious hosts, and the roles they furtively play expose them to danger and exposure. It’s a novel of secrets and intrigue, love and trust, mistrust and misunderstanding. Chapters alternate between Claude and Blanche. Recommended!
Benjamin is also the author of The Aviator’s Wife, a very well received novel about the marriage of Anne and Charles Lindbergh. (~JWFarringon)
Contemporary Thriller
The Last Flight by Julie Clark
I have my friend Marnie to thank for putting me on to this novel. The Last Flight is about two women anxious to exit their present lives. Claire Cook is married to a wealthy man, scion of a wealthy family, who is also abusive. She is desperate to escape his censure and physical abuse and plots to assume a new identity on a business trip to Detroit.
Claire gets re-assigned to fly to Puerto Rico instead and in the airport meets Eva who is leaving a checkered past behind. Eva has fewer options for the future, so she offers to exchange boarding passes and IDs with Claire. What happens when Claire and Eva assume each other’s identities and struggle to function in new environments makes for a gripping story. There may be a few too many coincidences, but it’s a great gallop of a book! (~JWFarrington)
Memoir–Serious But Not Too
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan (2015)
William Finnegan is a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of a number of books. I am the last person my friends would expect to read a book about surfing, but his memoir won the Pulitzer Price and got such great reviews, it’s been on my radar. A hefty 400 plus pages, it’s chock full of detail about surfing spots around the world.
Finnegan is almost mesmerizing as he describes waves, water, and the thrill of surfing. And he’s candid about his occasional fear of drowning. For me, the appeal was more his account of his childhood years in California and Hawaii, his parents’ laissez-faire approach to any oversight of his doings, and the regular bullying he quietly endured into his teens.
Finnegan took a long time to settle down. He roamed the globe to experience great surfing venues (Samoa, Australia, Madeira), dropped in and out of college, reported from war zones, and worked on a novel. Finnegan claims that surfing was not his primary passion in the way that it is for others, but he was regularly enticed to yet another locale. It’s clear that surfing remains important to him and is an escape from the mundane even into his 60’s. (~JWFarrington)
Note: Header photo of Cozy Harbor ©JWFarrington
