This eminently readable book introduces the history of Miami Beach over the decades, as told by those who lived there.
The author spent two years inteThis eminently readable book introduces the history of Miami Beach over the decades, as told by those who lived there.
The author spent two years interviewing people from all walks of life -- chorus girls, gangsters, business owners, service people -- and that effort shows in both the well edited anecdotes and original photographs.
I especially like how this book delves into racism and how that -- against Jews and Black people -- shaped the construction of the resort town and its ongoing evolution.
I wish this book were back in print! If you can get your hands on a copy, don't hesitate. ...more
A phenomenal read, and the seminal memoir of the early AIDS crisis.
Devastating in its detail, both about the desperate search for treatments in the eaA phenomenal read, and the seminal memoir of the early AIDS crisis.
Devastating in its detail, both about the desperate search for treatments in the early 1980s and about the impact of AIDS on close relationships.
The writing is exceptional as well.
“Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slant of yellow light.”
“Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.”
“We were doing the best we could with what we had left, and more and more it was like Diogenes tossing away the tin cup because he could drink with his hands. It turns out there is no end to learning what you can do without.”...more
A haunting book, grounded in human physicality and the yearning for connection with the wider world.
The book's ending defies readers' desires to see A haunting book, grounded in human physicality and the yearning for connection with the wider world.
The book's ending defies readers' desires to see "the girl" reunited with fellow humans - a choice to acknowledge that Europeans at the time of contact brought smallpox and other diseases that wiped out the indigenous peoples of the Americas. ...more
Wake up and smell the cider: Love, danger and betrayal intermingle in this suspenseful tale set in German-occupied France
Its title taken from a line fWake up and smell the cider: Love, danger and betrayal intermingle in this suspenseful tale set in German-occupied France
Its title taken from a line from poet W.H. Auden, In the Orchards of Our Mothers plunges readers inside two lesser-known worlds: the Breton countryside, redolent of apple groves and family secrets, and the efforts of Allied agents to free France from German occupation. At the heart of the novel is a love affair between two undercover operatives, French Resistance fighter Jacques Berlangier and his less-experienced American OSS partner Claire Skiffington, who is dropped behind enemy lines one harrowing night to aid one of Britain’s own.
McMaster draws on his own experiences in military intelligence and espionage to effectively render the complex inner life of an operative, whose every glance, word and action can spell life or death for himself and others, as well as for the mission. Being keenly observant is critical for surviving as an operative, the reader learns, as is trusting one’s instincts. These traits also magnetize Jacques and Claire to one another, initially as joint operatives, then as lovers, the pair dropping their mission pseudonyms as the first step in intimacy.
Set in postwar France, the second half of the novel returns to Jacques’ apple farm, where married life with Claire is upended by tragedy and assassination attempts whose source Jacques must ferret out. Ultimately, what lingers when you close the pages of this novel is a profound appreciation for the impossibly brave men and women who, against daunting odds, supported Allied operations under the cloak of darkness and secrecy....more
Who is our family? Who can we trust? And if we can’t trust or even locate our biological family, can we find the courage to ‘scent’ our way to a more Who is our family? Who can we trust? And if we can’t trust or even locate our biological family, can we find the courage to ‘scent’ our way to a more meaningful family circle – human or otherwise?
These are some of the questions at the heart of The Scent of Distant Family, a debut novel by sid sibo. A former wilderness ranger and animal-shelter cofounder, sibo sets her familial tale in the wilds of Wyoming, in the Rocky Mountain winter, where a missing dog, Zolo, sparks a frantic hunt that soon encompasses family members, neighbors, hunters and even the wild creatures who inhabit the valley.
There are many characters in this 266-page novel, and each short chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, introducing sub-plots of a broken marriage, a child’s search for the truth of his origins and a rancher’s attempts to run an ecolodge in oil country.
Of these storylines, the most poignant, for me, is that of Charlie Delaney, the elderly patriarch whose dementia-fueled confusion and desire to help his daughter find Zolo lure him into the perilous snowbound night.
But sibo’s strength as a writer lies in her ability to conjure the lived experiences of animals, wild, domesticated and hybrid, challenging us to acknowledge their rich sensory and emotional lives.
Toward the novel’s end, Zolo – lost in the vast wilderness, having barely survived attacks by animals and humans – encounters a herd of wild horses, one of whom is badly hurt:
“Zolo is near. He smells infection, sees swollen cut. He lays on his belly, watching. Mare nickers, hollow sound, creek rolling under curved rock. Her voice calls him. Big horse stands in falling snow, watching.
“It happens slowly, but it happens, a mutual agreement among the three. Zolo licks her dark leg. She blows warm breath over his ears. He licks as snow builds around them, and stallion guards against danger. Three others sleep, standing nose to tail to nose under cottonwoods, sheltered by arched willows. Zolo licks, rhythm speaking of movement, of possibility. Possibility for movement, free and bound together. All things possible in movement, landscapes opening secrets, grass and vole together, fed by sun, together moving horse and dog.”
Readers who delight in evocations of the natural world and its creatures will enjoy The Scent of Distant Family. ...more