News of Our Loved Ones by Abigail DeWitt

The Delasalle family has lived through 4 years of Nazi occupation in Normandy. When the day of liberation comes, tragedy strikes. Told through the eyes of a number of different family members, News of Our Loved Ones describes what happens to the Delasalle family in June of 1944.

I don't want to give away any of the details of this story because I liked the way it unfolded, although it could be confusing, at times, and the sheer quantity of viewpoints makes it feel very disjointed. In spite of that, everything comes together in the end in a satisfying way. So, instead, I'll talk about the stylistic choices.

News of Our Loved Ones feels more like an interconnecting set of related stories than a novel, at least to me. I noticed that parts of the story have been previously published, so my gut feeling that it was written as separate parts and then cobbled together may be somewhat supported by the fact that bits of it have been published separately. I tend to dislike this particular type of novel, but because it's a WWII story, there was no way I was going to give up on it without finishing. In spite of it being doled out the way it was, the prose is magnetic and the author has a way of making you feel like you're looking through a window at times, at other times planted in a character's shoes. Regardless, it was enough to glue me to the pages. I had to know what happened to each of the characters.

From 1944, the story jumps ahead decades and one of the family members, Geneviève, is now an American who brings her children back to France in the summers. This is from the cover description:

Geneviève's youngest daughter, Polly, becomes obsessed with the stories she hears about the war, believing they are the key to understanding her mother and the conflicting cultures shaping her life. 

Moving back and forth in time and told from varying points of view, News of Our Loved Ones explores the way family histories are shared and illuminates the power of storytelling to understand the past and who we are. 

Recommended - The writing is what wins the day in News of Our Loved Ones. It's incredibly vivid, enough so that I gasped at least once and felt caught up in the emotions of the characters. However, I didn't love the disjointed sensation and the feeling that the author was holding out on me, telling the story in such slow drips that I couldn't read fast enough. I wanted to fully understand the characters and what had happened to each of them, but had the book not been a WWII story, I probably would have given up on it in spite of the exceptional prose. If multiple viewpoints tend to make you want to pull your hair out, you might want to skip this one. But, it's a moving story that tells about the Allied invasion from an unusual angle, everything makes sense in the end, and it is stunningly told. So, if you aren't bothered by a fragmented sensation that makes you feel like there are a few too many pieces of the puzzle left out for maybe a bit too long, News of Our Loved Ones is really a marvelous piece of literature.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

In Tin Man by Sarah Winman, Ellis is an artist at heart and his mother, Dora, appreciates beauty but is stuck in a small, dark life. She encourages Ellis to stay in school and follow his heart while a copy of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" painting is the one ray of sunshine in her dark world. But, Ellis's father has other plans for him.

Michael's young life has been fraught with pain. At the age of 12, he goes to live with his grandmother, Mabel, and everything changes. Here (with his grandmother in Oxford, UK), he finds love, acceptance, and the best friend of his life, Ellis. As he and Ellis grow, their relationship changes. And, then when Ellis marries Annie, he becomes part of a trio -- Michael, the bubbly writer who makes everyone laugh; Ellis, the artistic, thoughful one; Annie, everyone's friend, the one who sees into your soul (and a book lover). But, Michael disappears for years and loses contact.

Annie and Ellis miss Michael but they don't even know where to look for him. Realizing they've become dull without him, they make an effort to add some fizz to their lives. And, then one day Michael returns and tragedy strikes.

All of this is told upon reflection, as a painfully lonely Ellis reflects on his life. It is, oddly, the ability of a 19-year-old Ellis is teaching to knock dents out of car metal who finally gets Ellis's pain right and, in so doing, helps him to realize that there's still life to be lived.

Highly recommended - Heartbreaking and achingly beautiful, the story of a friendship between two boys that stretches and changes, then alters to fit in a third person and the tragedy that upends it all. A tale of love, loss and hope. There's much I can't talk about without spoiling Tin Man, but just . . . wow. What an amazing read. The book bounces back and forth between the 60s, the 90s, and somewhere in-between. It's a book with a melancholy tone, yet there's always a thread of hope winding its way through the prose and it ends on a high note. It is so very, very real and the end is just so freaking perfect and beautiful that I sat on the bed, staring at my cats with tears streaming down my face. This one will go on the good shelves.

Note: The cover is so gorgeous that I tried to position it to best effect to show how the gold glistens in the light. It's apropos, too, as it's an image of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" (one from the series).

Release date for this hardback copy is May 15, 2018.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.