janeajones' hopeful 2017 thread

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janeajones' hopeful 2017 thread

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1janeajones
Modifié : Jan 5, 2018, 3:35 pm



1. Dubravka Ugresic, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac, Celia Hawksworth and Mark Thompson, retold myth, Croation, 2007: 1/2
2. Natsuo Kirino, The Goddess Chronicle, trans.Rebecca Copeland, retold myth, Japanese, 2008/2012:
3. Ali Smith, Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis, retold myth, British/Scottish, 2007: 1/2
4. Jeanette Winterson, Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, retold myth, British, 2005:
5. Sjón, The Blue Fox, trans. Vicoria Cribb, fable, Icelandic, 2004/2008, 1/2
6. Ariana Franklin, A Murderous Procession, historic mystery, English, 2010,
7. Karin Fossum, In the Darkness, trans. James Anderson, mystery, Norwegian, 1995/2012,
8. Beatriz Williams, Cocoa Beach, romance cum mystery cum historical novel, American, 2017,
9. Norman Lock, A Fugitive in Walden Woods, historical novel, American, 2017,
10. Willa Cather, One of Ours, novel, American, 1922,
11. Willa Cather, My Mortal Enemy, American, novella, 1926: 1/2
12. Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist, historical novel, British, 2014,
13. Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel, novel, Canadian, 1964, 1/2
14. Martha Batalha, The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao, trans. Eric M.B. Becker, novel, Brazilian, 2017
15. Linn Ullmann, The Cold Song, trans. Barbara J. Haveland, novel, Norwegian, 2011,2013 1/2
16. Zadie Smith, Swing Time, novel, British, 2016
17. Louise Erdrich, The Round House, novel, American, 2012 1/2
18. Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior, novel, American, 2012 1/2
19. Ami McKay, The Witches of New York, novel, fantasy, American, 2016
20. Ed. Barbara Ras, Costa Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion short stories, Costa Rican, 1994 1/2
21. Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean, The Birds of Costa Rica, American, Costa Rican, 2007/2014
22. Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry, British,novel, historical fiction, magical realism, 1989
23. Ali Smith, Autumn, British, novel, 2016 1/2

2janeajones
Modifié : Jan 1, 2017, 3:59 pm

It was a slow reading year for me -- distracted by life and travel, I guess. I still have 3 or 4 partly finished books lying around that I will get to soon. I hope 2017 will be a richer reading year.

Statistics on my 2016 reading:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/207877

31 books finished

Gender
22 by female authors
9 by male authors

Genre
27 fiction
2 non-fiction and biography
1 memoir
1 poetry

5 books in translation
1 Italian
1 Swedish
1 Icelandic
1 Norwegian
1 Austro-Romanian

26 books in English
17 American
7 British
2 Canadian

Stars:
5 s -- 2
4-4 1/2 s -- 19
3-3 1/2 s -- 3

3NanaCC
Jan 1, 2017, 11:52 am

Hi, Jane. Happy New Year! I hope I'm not jumping the gun on your thread, but wanted to say I hope to follow your reading this year.

4AlisonY
Jan 1, 2017, 4:33 pm

Looking forward to your 2017 reading!

5The_Hibernator
Jan 1, 2017, 9:09 pm

6dchaikin
Jan 1, 2017, 11:37 pm

It's nice to see you here again Jane. I look forward to your thread, always. Happy New Year!

7baswood
Jan 2, 2017, 6:50 pm

Hi Jane

8arubabookwoman
Jan 2, 2017, 6:54 pm

Hi Jane--I followed your thread last year but failed to comment. My goal this year is to participate more and to comment once in a while. I'm glad you're back this year.

9avaland
Jan 4, 2017, 8:15 am

Hi Jane, I had a similar kind of reading year. It was what it was. Life did get in the way a bit. However, I should like to be distracted by travel this year, but have tweaked the other knee, so we'll see about that first. Will be following your reading this year.

10AnnieMod
Jan 4, 2017, 5:56 pm

I love the picture in >1 janeajones: :)

11janeajones
Jan 4, 2017, 8:40 pm

Nana, Alison, Hibernator, Dan, Barry, aruba, Lois -- thanks for stopping by. I'm trying to jump into the reading, but distractions continue to beckon.

Thanks, AnnieMod -- it spoke hopeful to me.

12DieFledermaus
Jan 10, 2017, 3:45 am

Hope 2017 is a good year for reading!

13janeajones
Fév 5, 2017, 6:52 pm

14janeajones
Fév 5, 2017, 6:54 pm

15janeajones
Modifié : Fév 6, 2017, 10:15 am

and
The Goddess Chronicle and Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugrešić
by Natsuo Kirino

I am finding some solace in the realm of myth. These two very different types of myths retold are part of Canongate's imaginative The Myths series.

Natsuo Kirino's The Goddess Chronicles is based on the ancient tales of the earliest Japanese document, the Kojiki, which chronicles the myths of the creation of the gods and of Japan, The Goddess at the center of this book is Izanami, who with her husband, Izanaki, gave birth to the gods, the land and the sea, created the islands of Japan, and died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, the fire god. When she died, she was exiled to Yomi, the land of the dead. When Izanaki comes to rescue her, he disregards her request not to look at her and flees in horror at the rotting decay he encounters. Furious, Izanami sends monsters after him, and she becomes the Goddess who brings death.

The story is set near the end of the Yamato period (ca. 250-710 ce) in Japan. Most of the tale is told by Namima, a daughter of the small island of Umehebi, far over the sea from Yamoto. From a family whose daughters are destined to be the priestesses of life and death, Namima was born yin and fated to be the priestess of death, ever a virgin. Resisting her destiny, she falls in love, escapes from the island, gives birth, is betrayed, and dies by the age of 16. Finding herself in the realm of Yomi, she becomes handmaiden to its goddess, Izanami. What follows is agony, revenge and a kind of reconciliation for both the Goddess and her priestess.

While the story is fascinating, I'm not sure the translation quite gives justice to the original. This is not a novel of vivid characters, but it carries the myth well with a definite feminist bent. (Note especially the character of Hieda no Are, the storyteller, whose contribution to the Kojiki gets lost in the passing of time.) There are resonating echoes of the myths of Inanna and Persephone for those who are archetypically oriented.

In Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Dubravka Ugrešić takes an entirely different path. In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is an ambiguous figure with a long hook nose, who flies around in a mortar, wielding a pestle or broom, and lives deep in a hut in the forest. She can be helpful or baneful to those who seek her out.

Ugrešić's book is divided into three
sections. In the first, a writer travels from Zagreb to Varna, Bulgaria, acting as a surrogate for her mother, who is dying, to seek out relatives and bring back news and impressions of her childhood home.

The second section, by far the most entertaining, tells the story of three friends who travel to the Grand Hotel. Their encounters and experiences climax with the necessity to transport a dead body and huge casino winnings back to Zagreb. Ugrešić pushes each episode with an epilog along the lines of "What about us? We carry on. While humans long for fame and glory, the tale just wants to complete the story."

The third section is subtitled "Baba Yaga for Beginners by Dr. Aba Bagay" and contains all you ever wanted to know about Baba Yaga.

In essence, this a book about facing old age and death -- and it does it brilliantly.

16SassyLassy
Fév 8, 2017, 9:52 am

You remind me that I always intend to read Dubravka Ugresic. Now may be the time... thanks.

17baswood
Fév 8, 2017, 5:40 pm

Enjoyed your reviews of books in the realms of Myth

18valkyrdeath
Fév 8, 2017, 7:00 pm

Good reviews of the myth books. I've been thinking of trying to read some more of the Canongate Myth series. Both of those sounds worth a read.

19dchaikin
Fév 8, 2017, 10:28 pm

>15 janeajones: fun stuff on the myths. I would count myself archetipically oriented, not mention completely unaware of Japanese mythology.

20janeajones
Fév 16, 2017, 11:37 pm

Just want to say how much I appreciate the LT threads. Such a relief from the DT news everywhere else. I do have a couple of reviews I need to post when I can gather my brain synapses together.

21avaland
Fév 17, 2017, 8:41 am

Nice reviews of very interesting books, Jane.

22janeajones
Modifié : Avr 23, 2017, 10:23 am


Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams

I've been AWOL. My daughter's wedding, houseguests, other diversions. But I got an LTER book, so I thought I should review it.

In the Acknowledgments to her novel, Beatriz Williams admitted that during the writing, it "was proving a Very Troublesome Manuscript. The plot kept growing and transforming, throwing off shoots, like the gothic Florida vegetation itself." She handed it over to her editor whose advice allowed her to finish the book.

The finished novel still has too many plots, some of which are unresolved, and too many characters, some who make brief appearances and then disappear and some who are referred to and never appear. Generically it's a rather lurid romance cum mystery cum psychological drama cum historical novel. I will admit curiosity and the setting in 1920s Florida kept me turning pages (hence the 3 stars), but the ending was just too contrived.

23janeajones
Mai 7, 2017, 2:09 pm


A Fugitive in Walden Woods by Norman Lock

Another LTER.

Samuel Long is a fugitive slave who cut off his shackled hand to escape his bondage. With help of the Underground Railroad, he travelled North and landed in Concord, MA under the protection of Ralph Waldo Emerson who sends him off to Walden Woods to look after Thoreau during his sojourn there.

The story is told as a first person memoir by Samuel (a fictional character) -- supposedly written some years after Thoreau's death in 1862. Not much happens in the book. We overhear philosophical conversations between Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau -- some taken from their works. Thoreau and Samuel tramp through the woods and go on an excursion to Mount Katahdin in Maine; Thoreau spends a night in jail for refusing to pay his taxes -- all actual events from 1846.

In his Acknowledgements, the author admits: "To have written this story from a first-person viewpoint that claims to belong to a black man and a slave is a presumption; my motives were the highest among them to learn something new about myself and to reflect of Samuel Long's ordeals as a member of the race responsible for them."

I hope he achieved his goals because the narrative voice just isn't very believable. For those interested in a glimpse into the lives of the Transcendentalists, this may be an introduction, but it didn't work very well for me.

24AlisonY
Mai 8, 2017, 4:13 pm

Your daughter's wedding - aw. Waterproof mascara situation?

25janeajones
Mai 9, 2017, 2:00 pm

I quit wearing mascara about 15 years ago ;)

26janeajones
Modifié : Mai 15, 2017, 2:53 pm

27AlisonY
Mai 9, 2017, 4:36 pm

Beautiful picture - I just love a good wedding. Your daughter looks gorgeous. Is the little boy holding the ring in the box? He has the look of someone with a key position of responsibility!

Looks like they got a perfect day for it.

28janeajones
Mai 9, 2017, 8:39 pm

He is, and he's her son. New happy family!

29VivienneR
Mai 11, 2017, 7:10 pm

Oh, beautiful wedding! I love her dress. The little boy is adorable.

30kidzdoc
Mai 15, 2017, 3:35 am

Great photo, Jane!

31janeajones
Modifié : Mai 15, 2017, 2:55 pm

Thanks, Alison, Vivienne and Darryl. And as of Thursday, I have a new granddaughter.

32janeajones
Modifié : Mai 16, 2017, 11:29 am


One of Ours by Willa Cather

This is a splendid novel, well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it received in 1923.

Claude Wheeler is a, idealistic, restless young farmer, pulled from a small religious college to be put in charge of his father's Nebraska farmlands. He feels he has no purpose in life, hemmed in by a narrow education and an American materialism that he finds meaningless.

It is only when he enlists in the Army as the US is pulled into WWI that he feels he find a purpose and sense of the wider world. He is sent to France and as a lieutenant leads his men into the horrors of trench warfare.

The novel has been criticized, most notably by Hemingway, as idealizing war, but I didn't see it that way at all. Certainly Cather is sympathetic to a young man's idealism that leads him to enlist to fight such a war, but her descriptions of the trenches and war-ravaged France leave no such impression.

The prose is gorgeous and her characterizations are subtle and multi-faceted, even of minor characters. At times I was reminded of DH Lawrence's layers in a novel such as Women in Love.

I consider One of Ours, The Song of the Lark, and My Antonia Cather's best novels.

When Ernest left, Claude walked as far as the Yoeder's place with him, and came back across the snow-drifted field, under the frosty brilliance of the winter stars. As he looked up at them, he felt more than ever that they must have something to do with the fate of nations, and with the incomprehensible things that were happening in the world. In the ordered universe there must be some mind that read the riddle of this one unhappy planet, that knew what was forming in the dark eclipse of this hour. A question hung in the air; over all this quiet land about him, over him, over his mother, even. He was afraid for his country, as he had been that night on the State House steps in Denver, when this war was undreamed of, hidden in the womb of time.

33kidzdoc
Mai 16, 2017, 9:37 am

Congratulations on your new granddaughter, Jane!

Nice review of One of Ours.

34janeajones
Mai 16, 2017, 11:30 am

Thanks, Darryl -- can't wait to see her in June.

35AlisonY
Mai 17, 2017, 1:31 pm

Gorgeous grandkids - congrats on the new addition!

I still haven't managed to get to a Willa Cather book. I enjoyed your review.

36janeajones
Mai 17, 2017, 1:43 pm

Thanks, Alison. Cather is well worth the time. Especially the prairie novels.

37NanaCC
Mai 19, 2017, 11:19 am

Oh, congratulations on the new grandbaby! Her big sister looks so proud.

I really enjoyed One of Ours, and My Antonia. I've not read The Song of the Lark. I'll have to find it.

38janeajones
Mai 19, 2017, 11:55 am

Thanks, Colleen. I think The Song of the Lark is my favorite Cather.

39janeajones
Modifié : Mai 21, 2017, 12:49 pm


My Mortal Enemy

Another Cather, but more a novella than a novel. My Mortal Enemy tells the tale of Myra Henshawe, who defied her great-uncle/guardian and lost her inheritance to elope with the love of her life in a grand gesture. The story is narrated by Nellie, niece of Lydia, Myra's childhood friend. In Part One, Nellie is 15 when she first meets Myra, now in her 40's. Part Two takes place 10 years later as Myra is dying, bitterly regretting much of her life. As narrator, Nellie is part innocent observer, part judge of character, and part authorial voice. There are the usual strengths in Cather's writing, but I found the novella rather truncated, stingy almost. I prefer Cather in her amplitude, rather than in a condensed, short form.

40janeajones
Mai 23, 2017, 3:51 pm


The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Cover note: I read the e-book version of this with the above cover, but I prefer the cover on the hardcover edition. No truncated women and more revealing of the contents of the book.



This is an historical novel set in the 17th century Amsterdam of shipping magnates and narrow Protestantism. While it's not great literature, it is skillfully written. I was absorbed in the read and finished it off in one day.

When Nella Oortman enters the Brandt household as the young bride of its head, Johannes, she enters into a bewildering world of strained relationships and close-kept family secrets.

To keep her entertained and occupied, Johannes gives her a cabinet house, the exact replica of the one in which she is currently living. She hires the only miniaturist listed in the Amsterdam business directory to supply some items for the house. When the first delivery arrives, the package contains not only the items ordered but figures of household's inhabitants. Nella tries to meet the miniaturist, but no one answers her knocks at the door.

Unsolicited packages of miniatures continue to arrive and uncannily presage events within the household. Menace and mystery hang over the novel and Nella's life. I found the characters intriguing and well drawn, and the Dutch setting was interesting. All in all, an enjoyable escape.

41NanaCC
Mai 23, 2017, 3:55 pm

>40 janeajones: I think I will check this one out, Jane. You've made it sound intriguing.

42AlisonY
Mai 23, 2017, 5:44 pm

>40 janeajones: I really enjoyed this too when I read it recently. Surprisingly so.

43VivienneR
Juin 6, 2017, 1:48 pm

>40 janeajones: Another one for the wishlist! Sounds intriguing and it has Alison's backing too!

44arubabookwoman
Juin 14, 2017, 7:46 pm

Exciting things going on here! Congratulations on the new son-in-law, and the new grandbaby!

Do the grandchildren live far away? That's my biggest complaint--my kids chose to live entirely across the country with my grandkids. :)

45janeajones
Juin 29, 2017, 9:49 am

aruba -- my daughter lives in Tampa, about an hour away -- we see lots of them. My son's family is just outside DC -- a 2-3 day drive or a hassle-filled flight. We just got back from visiting them, but probably won't see them again until November.

46janeajones
Juin 29, 2017, 11:23 am


The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

Laurence's acclaimed novel has some resemblances to Cather's My Mortal Enemy -- both protagonists have moved from prairie towns to cities, both defied their guardians to marry unsuitable matches and were disinherited, and both face the end of their lives with a certain amount of bitterness. But there the resemblances pretty much end. Where Cather's novella seemed truncated to me, The Stone Angel is ample and full of detailed description of indoor and outdoor spaces, both physical and psychological.

Hagar Shipley, the 90-year old protagonist/narrator of the novel, has shared her house with her 60-something son and daughter-in-law for 17 years, but caring for the increasingly needy old woman has become difficult and burdensome for them, and she resents their attitudes.

Now I am rampant with memory. I don't often indulge in this, or not so very often, anyway. Some people will tell you that the old live in the past -- that's nonsense. Each day, so worthlesss really, has a rarity for me lately.... But one dissembles, usually for the sake of such people as Marvin, who is somehow comforted by the picture of old ladies feeding like docile rabbits on the lettuce leaves of other times, other manners. How unfair I am. Well, why not? To carp like this -- it's my only enjoyment, that and the cigarettes, a habit I acquired only ten years ago, out of boredom.

Hagar, who has lived a hard life of toil and carved out a space of self-sufficiency for herself, is proud and stiff, quick to speak her mind and slow to forgive. The novel is full of her memories of the people and places in her life as she tries to cope with her increasing debilitating and humiliating physical condition. This is a humbling novel for anyone who thinks they want to live on into old age.

47VivienneR
Juin 29, 2017, 12:25 pm

>46 janeajones: Great review!

48Cait86
Juil 9, 2017, 1:01 pm

>46 janeajones: I love Margaret Laurence, but this book... not so much. I attribute that to the fact that I was forced to read it in high school, as most grade 12 or 13 classes in Ontario were at the time. It's hard for a 17 year old to sympathize with a character this old -- you're just so self-absorbed at the time. I should find a copy and give it a reread.

49janeajones
Juil 9, 2017, 4:46 pm

Thanks, Vivienne.

Cait -- I can't imagine reading this in high school. It's a book for those with life experience and some understanding of old age. It's the only Laurence I've read -- what else would you recommend?

50Cait86
Juil 10, 2017, 8:33 am

>49 janeajones: Laurence's short stories are lovely; I've read some from her collection called A Bird in the House. I loved her novel A Jest of God, and I have The Diviners on my TBR shelves somewhere....

51janeajones
Modifié : Juil 10, 2017, 11:08 am


The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha, trans. Eric M.B. Becker

I requested this LTER, because it was a contemporary Brazilian novel, but it was much more light weight than what I expected. Batalha is no Clarice Lispector.

This novel felt to me like a throwback to the fiction of the 1960s inspired by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. Euridice Gusmao is the wife of a rising bank official and the mother of his two children. Highly intelligent, she is frustrated over and over by her husband in every attempt to do something with her life from publishing a book of recipes to starting a business as a dressmaker. I found her lack of self-esteem incredibly annoying.

When her sister Guida arrives at her door with her young son in tow and the story of a deserting husband, things get a bit more interesting. But basically this novel is chick-lit, not really my cup of tea. Another reader might find it more satisfying.

52avaland
Juil 13, 2017, 10:58 am

Oh, Jane! You've been reading some GREAT books, and most of them rated highly by you. I've been meaning to read Margaret Lawrence and enjoyed your review of the Stone Angel. I am coming to the conclusion that I will not live long enough to read all I want to read (and I want to read so, so much). And the real problem is that the publishers keep publishing NEW books.

53janeajones
Modifié : Juil 31, 2017, 2:19 pm


The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann

Linn Ullmann, daughter of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann, has written a book worthy of a Bergman film: a psychological portrait of a family affected by the brutal murder of Milla, a young woman who had been working as an au pair for the summer. The novel moves back and forth in time and shifts perspectives from one character to another with elegant ease.

Jon, a well known novelist unable to complete his next book; Siri, his wife, a busy restaurateur; and their two daughters, Alma and Liv, spend their summers at Mailund, a large country home owned by Siri's mother Jenny. Each of the family members has a different relationship with Milla and perhaps plays a part in her death, wittingly or unwittingly.

I needed to take a break from reading the book between each of its six sections because of its intensity. While not a murder mystery -- the murderer is revealed at the beginning of the book -- the psychological thrill of discovery drives the book.

I found this a highly satisfying read.

54janeajones
Modifié : Juil 31, 2017, 2:25 pm

52> Hi Lois -- I seem to be reading very intermittently this year. I read Margaret Lawrence along with the Virago group's June read. Don't know if I would have picked her up otherwise,

55avaland
Sep 21, 2017, 10:15 am

I imagine you are not getting much reading done post-Irma. How are things going? I'm hoping you don't get anything from Maria.

56janeajones
Sep 28, 2017, 1:28 pm

55> I actually did read a couple of books during the week of no power caused by Irma. I just haven't gotten around to reviewing them. Maybe now is a good time ;-}

57janeajones
Modifié : Sep 29, 2017, 12:27 pm

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

58janeajones
Modifié : Sep 28, 2017, 2:19 pm


Swing Time by Zadie Smith

I enjoyed the first part of this novel about the childhoods of two friends obsessed by dance and old film musicals that featured dancers. Growing up in public housing, both have very different mothers ambitious for their daughters. One is the classic stage mother and the other a highly disciplined political activist determined that she and her daughter will rise to a different rung of society.

However the second part seemed pretty pointless to me.

The nameless narrator and her friend Tracey become estranged during their early twenties and follow different paths into adulthood; neither can gain a productive foothold in the world. Tracey has some early success on the stage, but is derailed by single motherhood and bitterly stuck in the same public housing she grew up in. The narrator goes to college and ends up as one of the personal assistants to a mega pop star named Aimee. The young women are really shadows of their childhood selves, and that's how the novel ends. There is a rather Chekhovian naturalism to the book, but Chekhov stuck to pointed short forms -- stories and plays. Swing Time goes on far too long.

59janeajones
Sep 29, 2017, 2:26 pm


The Round House by Louise Erdrich

This National Book Award novel is the second in Erdrich's justice trilogy also including A Plague of Doves and LaRose. The life of thirteen-year old Joe Coutts is forever changed in 1988 when a terrible crime is committed against his mother, Geraldine, the tribal historian on the North Dakota Ojibwe reservation. As Geraldine retreats into silence from fear and trauma, Joe's father, a tribal judge, is hampered in his quest for justice by jurisdictional issues. Joe and his friends search for clues to solve the mystery and seek vengeance for his mother.

Like all of Erdrich's novels, this one is beautifully written with fully developed characterizations. The tale is mainly told from the young Joe's perspective with an occasional hindsight revelation from his adult self. It is at once a coming of age story, a mystery, and an exploration of the interaction between native society and the outside world. Highly recommended.

60avaland
Sep 29, 2017, 6:58 pm

Interesting choices for powerless reading! :-)

61janeajones
Sep 30, 2017, 1:28 pm

Long afternoons on the lanai.

62janeajones
Sep 30, 2017, 2:18 pm


Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver is always a socially-conscious novelist, and here her concern is climate change and the human causes of and responses to it. But she is also a master at creating fully developed characters who evolve in brilliantly described landscapes.

Dellarobia Turnbow is climbing a mountain to a lover's tryst, escaping her narrow, mundane life married to a sheep farmer, caring for two small children when she happens upon an extraordinary sight:

The flame now appeared to lift from individual treetops in showers of orange sparks, exploding the way a pine log does in a campfire when it's poked. The sparks spiraled upward in swirls like funnel clouds. Twisters of brightness against gray sky. In broad daylight with no comprehension, she watched. From the tops of the funnels the sparks lifted high and sailed out undirected above the dark forest....

She was on her own here, staring at glowing trees. Fascination curled itself around her fright. This was no forest fire. She was pressed by a quiet elation of escape and knowing better and seeing straight through to the back of herself, in solitude. She couldn't remember when she'd had such room for being. This was not just another fake thing in her life's cheap chain of events, leading up to this day of sneaking around in someone's thrown-away boots. Here that ended. Unearthly beauty had appeared to her, a vision of glory to stop her in the road. For her alone these orange boughs lifted, these long shadows became a brightness rising. It looked like the inside of joy, if a person could see that. A valley of lights, an ethereal wind. It had to mean something.


What Dellarobbia happened upon was a colony of monarch butterflies, millions of them, displaced and come to winter in the dicey climate of southern Appalachia. When her discovery becomes public, the life of her family, her community and the entomologist who has spent his career studying monarch behavior are irrevocably changed.

A wondrous book by a novelist at the height of her powers.