Tag: advance review copy

Book Review – Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak

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About the Book

daughters

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag.

As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground – an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past – and a love – Peri had tried desperately to forget.

Format: ebook (383 pages) Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 2nd February 2017 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

When the photograph drops from Peri’s handbag, it triggers memories of her childhood, her parents’ troubled relationship, her time studying in Oxford and the events that took place there with lasting consequences for her and others. These events are recounted in episodic fashion switching between time periods, the full picture only emerging towards the end of the novel. Peri’s encounter with the beggar also unleashes the complex feelings of uncertainty, anger, anxiety and guilt she has tried to suppress all her life, weighed down by family and society expectation: “Sometimes her own mind scared her”.

There is imaginative use of metaphors. For example, on the ambivalence of Turkey’s position on the borders of Europe – as if it “had put one foot through Europe’s doorway and tried to venture forth with all its might – only to find the opening was so narrow that, no matter how much the rest of its body wriggled and squirmed, it could not squeeze itself it.” Or, the need for the women of Istanbul, in their dress and body language, to navigate “a stormy sea swollen with drifting icebergs of masculinity… better to manoeuvre away from them, gingerly and smartly, for one never knew how much danger lay beneath the surface”.

A frequent theme is the conflict between religious belief and atheism/secularism and in particular how this featured in the modern history of Turkey. The novel does not shy away from tackling the turbulent and at times violent and repressive events in its history; the scenes following Peri’s brother’s arrest are especially unsettling.  At times, the message becomes a little heavy-handed, approaching didactic. For instance, the dinner party in Istanbul seems really to be a device to include a debate on contemporary Turkey. The other dinner party guests are not named but referred to by their occupation and appear to be there to represent the various ideological viewpoints.

Through Peri’s perpetual uncertainty and Professor Aziz’s lectures, the author poses the question how any person can be certain of the superiority of their beliefs, particularly if they have limited knowledge of other cultures and philosophies? A dialectical approach is evident through the frequent use of oppositions. For example, Peri’s parents inhabit each side of the religion versus atheism/secularism argument. To some extent, Mona and Shirin (who along with Peri make up the “Daughters of Eve”) mirror Peri’s mother and father, with Peri perpetually in the middle.  In fact, Peri describes herself and her friends as “the Sinner, the Believer, the Confused”. In spite of the title, only two of the “Daughters of Eve” – Peri and Shirin – seem fully developed characters; Mona is something of a cipher, merely there to represent the devout and to provide an opposite to Shirin.

Despite some reservations, I enjoyed the book, particularly the sections covering Peri’s childhood. At times, bordering on the didactic, it engages with debates which have contemporary relevance for the wider world.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Penguin UK/Viking in return for an honest review.

In three words: Engrossing, thoughtful, dialectical

About the Author

Author Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and she was awarded the honorary distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Shafak has published thirteen books, nine of which are novels and writes fiction in both Turkish and English. Blending Western and Eastern traditions of storytelling, she brings out the myriad stories of women, minorities, immigrants, subcultures, youth and global souls, drawing on diverse cultures and literary traditions, as well as a deep interest in history, philosophy, Sufism, oral culture, and cultural politics. Besides writing fiction, Shafak is an active political commentator, columnist and public speaker. 

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Book Review – The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak

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About the Book

signal

In a small town in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains Hannah and her son Bo mourn the loss of the family patriarch, Jozef Vinich. They were three generations under one roof. Three generations, but only one branch of a scraggy tree; they are a war-haunted family in a war-torn century.

Having survived the trenches of World War I as an Austro-Hungarian conscript, Vinich journeyed to America and built a life for his family. His daughter married the Hungarian-born Bexhet Konar, who enlisted to fight with the Americans in the Second World War but brought disgrace on the family when he was imprisoned for desertion. He returned home to Pennsylvania a hollow man, only to be killed in a hunting accident on the family’s land. Finally, in 1971, Hannah’s prodigal younger son, Sam, was reported MIA in Vietnam.

And so there is only Bo, a quiet man full of conviction, a proud work ethic, and a firstborn’s sense of duty. He is left to grieve but also to hope for reunion, to create a new life, to embrace the land and work its soil through the seasons. 

Format: Hardcover (272 pages) Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: 24th January 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Covering a period of a few months, we learn, mainly from the point of view of Bo, something of the tragic history of the family and the impact of his brother’s absence on the family and others.

There is some gorgeous writing: “The air smelled of the same candle smoke and slight perfume of frankincense and gardenia that she remembered, and it still sounded even in its silence like every voice uttered was a whisper and that whisper would echo forever if she just sat and listened long enough.”

The book is incredibly sad in parts as tragedies – natural and manmade – come one after another. The toll of grief on some of the characters is sympathetically conveyed: “No, she had come to believe that the only thing one could be certain of was loss. The loss of others as one lived on. Loss as the last thing one left behind.”

What prevents the book becoming too overwhelmingly depressing is the theme of reconciliation.   There are some particularly moving and touching scenes between characters in which longstanding differences are set aside. I’m not ashamed to say some moved me to tears.   I loved the descriptions of the routine of daily domestic tasks which never become mundane but gave a sense of the rhythm of life in a small, isolated community. The author explores ideas of duty, obligation and continuity through Bo’s sense of connection to the land acquired by and handed down by his grandfather and there is a sense of a real regard for skill and craftsmanship.

The one slight negative is that the absence of speech marks sometimes made it difficult to distinguish conversation between characters from internal monologue.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Scribner via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.

In three words: Evocative, moving, haunting
Try something similar: The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey.

About the Author

Andrew Krivak is the author of four novels: The Bear, a Mountain Book Competition winner, Massachusetts Book Award winner, LibraryReads selection, and NEA Big Read selection, as well as the freestanding novels of the Dardan Trilogy, which include The Sojourn, a National Book Award finalist and winner of both the Chautauqua Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize; The Signal Flame, a Chautauqua Prize finalist; and Like the Appearance of Horses. He is also the author of two poetry collections, Islands, and Ghosts of the Monadnock Wolves, and the memoir A Long Retreat: In Search of a Religious Life. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

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