This spare historical novel focuses on events leading up to the Sioux Uprising of 1862. It is loosely based on a memoir by Sarah Wakefield who with her children was held captive for six weeks by the Sioux Indians. In The Lost Wife, Sarah Butts, later Brinton, leaves an abusive husband in Rhode Island and travels the long distance to the Minnesota Territory to make a new life with her good friend Maddie. Maddie has died and Sarah marries the local doctor who is physician to tribe members at the Indian agency.
How Sarah adapts to life among the Sioux, learns their language, and works with the women, will affect her reception later by both the white women and the tribe. Told from Sarah’s perspective, the novel is full of details of the physical landscape and both mundane and grisly aspects of her daily life, but short on emotion. The one exception to this is Sarah’s relationship with Chaska, one of her captors. This relationship colors how she is treated upon release by her former neighbors and her husband.
The novel is short, but not a fast read. It highlights a shameful incident in the settling of the American West. (~JWFarrington)
VIEWING—UNSOLVED MURDER CASES
Unforgotten, Season 5(PBS Masterpiece)
Jessie & Sunny (PBS)
I miss Nicola Walker. Her role as DCI Cassie Stuart in the first four seasons was central. She has been replaced by prickly Jessie James, played by Sinead Keenan. DI Sunny Khan is grieving Cassie’s death and has personal issues at home. Newbie Jessie’s dismissive approach to her team is harming morale, but she has a personal crisis of her own.
The case of a body part found in the chimney of an empty house is complex and many layered, and some of the varied cast of suspects have complicated pasts and questionable issues. This season has six episodes, all focused on this one case. Despite the tension between them, Sunny, Jessie, and the team eventually solve it. I like this series but didn’t love this season as much as previous ones.
NOVEMBER REFLECTIONS
In the Northeast especially, November brings dark nights and cold days. Around Election Day each year, I reflect on my father’s short but impactful life. This year was the 50th anniversary of his death, more years gone than he lived. And yet, he remains vivid in my memories.
November is also a time to celebrate. Thanksgiving Day provides us with an opportunity to be mindful of and thankful for all that we have. This year, I am especially grateful for my extended family: son, daughter-in-law, granddaughters, siblings and their spouses, nieces and their families, and especially my Chief Penguin.
This week we unexpectedly lost a sibling, the Chief Penguin’s brother, a doting uncle. Siblings share experiences from their past lives; when one is gone, the puzzle is missing a piece, and a space remains unfilled. I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends filled with joy and love!
With the publication in 1996 of Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes shone a spotlight on one of the lovely Italian hill towns in Tuscany. Since then, “her” town of Cortona has become a tourist attraction, and she has milked the area and her life there for several other nonfiction books. I read Under the Tuscan Sun when it first came out and then, several other books by Mayes.
Fast forward, and around 2003, I hosted Mayes at Lehigh University for a Friends of the Libraries event. Last month, the Chief Penguin and I spent several very pleasant days in Cortona sitting in the main square, dining around, and soaking up the architecture and the history. For all these reasons, I was keen to read Women in Sunlight, Mayes’ new novel.
At heart, I’d say Mayes is much more of an essayist/memoirist and poet than she is a novelist. This book features a writer, Kit, in her 40’s who lives in Tuscany, and three senior women, who rent an old villa and become her neighbors. The women are new friends from North Carolina who met while visiting a retirement community in Chapel Hill. One is an artist, another has a green thumb, and the third is a seasoned traveler and organizer. Camille, Susan, and Julia are all single, and each is recovering from loss of a spouse through death or desertion. Over the course of a year, they bond with one another and with Kit, become acquainted with the townspeople, and have their horizons expanded through more travel.
Much of the novel reads like a travelogue. Mayes deftly paints word pictures of the beautiful surroundings and mouthwatering descriptions of meals and food in general. Except for Kit, I found the other women somewhat diffuse and not well distinguished one from another. Also, Kit’s focus or wandering attention to writing her memoir of her friend Margaret was a distraction and didn’t enrich the plot.
Overall, this was a mixed reading experience. I liked aspects of the book and was curious enough about how the women evolved to read to the end with a bit of skimming here and there. (~JWFarrington)
I loved Bonnie Garmus’ novel, Lessons in Chemistry, as did everyone in my book group. I wondered if it could be translated into a successful series, and I’m pleased to say it has been.
Garmus was involved in this production, and the series is exceedingly well cast. Brie Larson as chemist and later TV star Elizabeth Zott is spot on, and Lewis Pullman as scientist Calvin Evans has the right combination of indifference, fierce dedication, and hidden charm. Child actress Alice Halsey plays the delightfully idiosyncratic Madeline, Zott’s daughter.
Set in 1950 and into the early 1960’s, the series showcases women’s second class status (some might say third) outside the home with pathos and humor. Elizabeth is smart and determined, but subject to blatant sexism and belittlement. Nonetheless, she is a force to be reckoned with, and despite many obstacles, she perseveres.
There are 8 episodes in total with new episodes being released weekly through November 24. The first two episodes are free.
The Chief Penguin and I have watched the first two episodes of this four-part mini-series. Based on Anthony Doerr’s novel with the same title, it’s intense and powerful. I must admit that it’s been too long since I read the novel to be able to assess how closely the series hews to the book. Whether or not you’re familiar with the book, this story of young blind French broadcaster Marie, and Werner, a misfit Nazi radio operator in occupied coastal France (Saint-Malo, to be precise) is compelling and will quickly draw you in. It also demonstrates the staying power of a voice on the radio.
As a side note, last year the CP and I visited St. Malo, walked this once walled city, and and climbed up to its ramparts overlooking the mouth of the Rance River. Recommended!
The Sommerdahl Murders, Season 4(Acorn)
Dan & the principals including Josefine (Rotten Tomatoes)
The Chief Penguin and I have enjoyed the earlier seasons of this Danish crime series, and this latest one held our interest also. The triangle of crime solvers and best friends Dan Sommerdahl, Flemming Torp, and Marianne Sommerdahl (Dan’s ex-wife) is complicated by Dan’s new love interest, Josefine Sundby. The crimes are intriguing, and always lingering in the background is puzzlement about what fishmonger Oscar is hiding. There are eight episodes, each an hour long, and most crimes are dealt with in 2 parts. Recommended!
Ann Patchett’s latest book is just out and it’s a good one. Part of it is built around Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, long a staple of high school English classes. When I was that age and we read Wilder’s play, I thought it tedious and mostly boring. Later in life, I saw several stage productions and liked it somewhat more. Recently, the Asolo Repertory Theater in Sarasota presented it and, it was wonderful! Whether it was age (mine) or the quality of the performance, I felt like I appreciated the play fully for the first time.
In Tom Lake, Lara, in a dreamlike way, slowly unwinds for her three adult daughters, the long-ago story of her brief career in summer stock and her love for now famous actor Peter Duke. She played the role of Emily in Our Town and another part in Fool for Love. Duke, older than Lara, is magnetic, attractive, and enamored of her, but perhaps not all he seems. With his steady reliable brother Sebastian and Lara’s dancer colleague Pallace, they make a foursome for swimming and tennis. Throughout, Lara tells her daughters more than she ever has about that summer, unspooling the events slowly, keeping them in suspense, but also holding back some memories too painful to divulge.
Set against the pandemic and the family’s cherry orchard in northern Michigan, Emily, Maisie, and Nell eagerly gobble up the details of their mother’s experiences interspersed with bouts of cherry picking. It’s a novel of young love, friendships made and ruptured, the lure of the stage, and the quiet joy of a stable marriage.
Lara played the role of Emily in Our Town in high school and then was sought out for Tom Lake. it’s helpful, but not essential, to be familiar with the play. Knowing it enriched the reading for me. With three sisters and a cherry orchard that soaks up hours and dollars, there are faint echoes of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
Without a lot of fuss, Patchett captures what it was like during the pandemic when time was suspended. These three young women, a farmer, a vet in training, and an aspiring actress, are “trapped” on the farm helping out their parents since their workers have left. I liked this novel the more I got into it with its slight twists and ended up loving it. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
A MEMOIR OF LOVE MIDST ILLNESS
Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron
Delia & Peter (NYPost)
More people probably know about Nora Ephron, Delia’s more famous novelist sister who died of acute leukemia in 2012. Delia Ephron is also a novelist and playwright. When Delia’s first husband died of cancer several years after her sister’s death, she never expected to find love again and so soon. She and Peter Rutter got together quickly; he a psychiatrist, she a writer who had forgotten about dating him in a much earlier stage of life.
There is joy in this memoir and pain and fear when Delia develops leukemia, her sister’s disease. Hers is a variation. The medical sections of this memoir are not for the fainthearted, but Delia’s path was smoothed and made more bearable by the legions of friends from all stages of her life and the unending encouraging support of new husband Peter. It’s a bracing, fast-paced, involving story, and if you have the courage for it, it’s well worth it. I read it in a day! (~JWFarrington)
A historical German drama, The Empress is about the making of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. In 1863, Elisabeth and her mother and sister Helene travel to meet the young Emperor Franz Joseph. Helene is expected to become the emperor’s bride. Instead Franz Joseph selects the unruly and rebellious Elisabeth.
Thus begins a battle of wills. Battles between Elisabeth and her mother-in-law Sophie who is accustomed to wielding all the power, between Elisabeth and Maximillian, Franz’s disruptive, but seductive younger brother, and between Elisabeth and Franz as she chafes against filling the mold of perfect empress.
The acting draws one in, the costumes are sumptuous, and it’s an engaging series. One might feel some comparisons with the Queen Charlotte season of Bridgerton; one review even praised the costumes here above those. Season 1 has eight episodes and a second season is planned. (~JWFarrington)
Manhattan (Amazon Prime–modest cost for ad free screening)
Abby & Charlie & Frank (Decider)
With the Oppenheimer movie attracting crowds, the availability of the 1981 documentary The Day After Trinity for streaming, it is probably not surprising that this 2014 series about the Manhattan Project popped up for viewing on Amazon. I don’t recall reading anything about it when it was first released.
In any case,Manhattanoffers a different perspective on life in Los Alamos. It has fictional characters, but their activities are based on historic events. There are two competing groups of scientists working on the atomic bomb, one under the loose direction of the determined, almost maniacal Frank Winter and the other guided by Reed Akley and the arrogant and ambitious Charlie Issacs. But Los Alamos is run by the Army, so there are soldiers and numerous rules and regulations to ensure the secrecy of the mission.
And there are the wives and families of the scientists, many reluctantly and grudgingly trying to create a life midst dust and dirt with few amenities. Liza Winter is a PhD botanist frustrated at having had to give up her career, a character I find especially appealing. Abby Isaacs, high-toned mother of a 3-year old, becomes a switchboard operator.
Passion, both scientific and sexual, drives this compelling drama, and the Chief Penguin and I are completely hooked on it. Season 1 has thirteen episodes and Season 2, ten episodes, each about 45 minutes long. Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)
Sarasota has a brand new bakery on Osprey Avenue. Two guys from Canada are using European methods to create some wonderful breads and pastries. The Chief Penguin and I, he the very particular baker in our household, visited their shop the other morning and joined a line of six people at the counter. We went home with a loaf of sourdough for me and a loaf of multigrain for him plus several kinds of croissants, plain, almond, and chocolate almond. The breads make delicious toothsome toast. The lovely croissants have a crisp outer layer and are the best ones I’ve eaten in some years. So, if you’re up for a new treat, gander down and meet the Bread Bandits!
When Hurricane Idalia came barreling toward the Florida Gulf Coast, we watched, worried, and wondered from Maine. Had we been home, we would have once again landed on the doorstep of our good friend in Venice where we sheltered last year during Ian.
Our little island was a lucky place. Idalia left only storm debris and extra water here and there, but no damage to our building or others. Anna Maria Island and downtown Bradenton, however, had significant flooding. A big sigh of relief here and a cautious hope that Florida escapes further big storms this season.
As summer waned, I dove into several more books, and the Chief Penguin and I found some entertaining and some serious viewing. Next week I’ll share an overview of my summer reading.
JUST BECAUSE FICTION
I call this group “just because” fiction, because they are books that I came across or picked up that I might not otherwise have read. But did read. Summer is a time to do something different, read more widely, read remaindered titles, or just dabble with an unfamiliar author. Did I love all these works? No, I didn’t. Did I finish them? Yes, even if in one case, I skimmed a lot. So, proceed with caution.
The English Teacher by Lily King
I got this on deep discount at Sherman’s in Boothbay Harbor because I’m a fan of King’s more recent novels. Published in 2005, The English Teacher is a story of adolescence and of a new marriage. Peter is a high school sophomore with a new set of stepsiblings whom he desperately wants to like and to have like him. His mother, Vida, never a wife until now, is the English teacher and her class is studying Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Vida is struggling in the marriage and her life. Peter gets assigned to her class and discussions there bring to a head Vida’s unresolved issues. King’s writing acutely portrays the anguish of both son and mother. It’s an emotional book and one I found painful at points.
Margreete’s Harbor by Eleanor Morse (2021)
Appropriately for my summer, this is a novel set on the Maine coast from 1955 to 1967. I did not know Eleanor Morse, but she has written several other novels and lives on Peaks Island.
The character who catalyzes events is Margreete, a 70ish woman who is becoming forgetful and showing signs of early dementia. This character alone may be enough for some of a certain age to set the novel aside.
Liddie, Margreete’s daughter, and her husband Harry and their children Eva and Bernie, move from Michigan to start a new life with Margreete. Liddie is a professional cellist and Harry a high school history teacher who holds strong views about the Vietnam War.
This is a domestic novel in the truest sense capturing the small details of daily life as seen from the individual perspective of each family member. I liked parts of it, but found it overly detailed and wished that it had been shorter.
Think of Horses by Mary Clearman Blew
Author Blew (inland360.com)
As a memento of our June trip to Montana, I purchased this novel in Big Fork. Blew is the author of other books and nonfiction. Think of Horses, published in 2022 by the University of Nebraska Press, is the last book in her Montana quartet and set in the present. The other three take place in 1925, 1975, and 2012.
Tam Bowen, a successful romance novelist, has returned to her home county for the summer. An unwed mother at 17, now age 50, she has had no recent contact with her adult son, Rob. Tam relates easily to horses as her deceased father was a consummate horse-breaker, and he trained her. Through horses, she makes the acquaintance of James, a neighbor, and his half brother teenage Calvin.
Tam’s early life story made her the subject of gossip and in some quarters, hatred. Returning to the area, she raises the ire and the violent tendencies of some of her neighbors. These four individuals, Tam, Calvin, James, and even Rob, are all fragile with heartbreak in their histories.
How they deal with each other, and both come together and disconnect, makes for a poignant story set midst the roughness and the beauty of the west. (~JWFarrington)
After all the crime shows, we’d been watching, we needed something lighter and humorous. Red, White & Royal Blue was just the thing, a political rom-com. I hadn’t laughed so much in a long time.
Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the U. S. President while Prince Henry of the U.K. is the spare. The two don’t hit if off initially and cause an embarrassing display at a wedding. When they do become involved romantically, they must keep it a secret. With a female president, a Hispanic first son, and a gay couple, this is contemporary comedy. It’s great fun. Highly recommended for relief from everything serious!
Charly, Greta, Wilhelm & Friedhelm (The Telegraph)
Generation War is a German series aired in 2013 that follows five young Berliners as they serve and suffer in the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. When first aired in Germany, it was watched by millions, but also the focus of much public debate.
Greta is a bartender who aspires to become a popular singer; Viktor, a Jew, is her tailor boyfriend; Charlotte (Charly) is enthused about the prospect of nursing at the front, while brothers Wilhelm and Friedhelm are an army officer and an enlisted soldier respectively.
As presented on American TV, the production is in three parts, each about 90 minutes long. Narrated by Wilhelm and told from the German perspective, it contains some of the most brutal and almost physically punishing scenes of war I’ve ever seen.
These 20-year-olds are initially full of idealism for a quick victory and, except for Viktor, accepting of the goals set out by Hitler. They compromise their values, they see and do things that are horrible, and they are rendered emotionally numb by the machinery of war.
This is strong stuff. It’s an excellent series, but one that requires fortitude on the part of the viewer. Highly recommended! For another perspective, here is a review from NPR that appeared in 2014.
