Acquired Book By:I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Go Away Home” virtual book tour through HFVBT: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher Rising Sun Press, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Book Synopsis:
Liddie Treadway grew up on a family farm where options for her future were marriage or teaching. Encouraged by suffragette rhetoric and her maiden aunt, Liddie is determined to avoid both and pursue a career. Her goal is within her grasp when her older sister’s abrupt departure threatens to keep her on the farm forever.
Once she is able to experience the world she’s dreamed of, Liddie is enthralled with her independence, a new-found passion for photography, and the man who teaches her. Yet, the family, friends, and life of her youth tug at her heart, and she must face the reality that life is not as simple, or the choices as clear-cut, as she once imagined.
GO AWAY HOME is a coming-of-age novel that explores the enduring themes of family, friendship, and love, as well as death and grief. This novel will resonate with anyone who’s confronted the conflict between dreams and reality and come to recognize that getting what you want can be a two-edged sword.
Author Biography:
Carol Bodensteiner grew up in the heartland of the United States, and she continues to draw writing inspiration from the people, places, culture, and history of the area. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society. She is the author of Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl, a memoir. Her essays have been published in several anthologies. Go Away Home is her first novel.
Mid-West America : Americana as a setting:
I grew up reading a heap of Children’s Literature and Classical Literature for Young Readers which dealt with the Heartland of America, as much as the life on the frontier whilst America was just starting to sprout wings as settlers moved further West from the East. I also was fortunate to settle into stories which developed a positive outlook and relationship of the Native American tribes between Canada and America; not always focusing on the war between the settlers and the Indians, but rather stories which enriched the notion that oft-times a truce of peace and an alliance in trade was able to be transacted. What always fascinated me by the hearty life of ranching and farming, is the ordinary joys that whispered into the hearts and minds of those who lived aplenty off the land they worked, harvested, and grew families upon. Even in Native American cultures and societies there was a pure sense of honour and pride knowing that what you could either hunt or grow could not only sustain your own family but your neighbours and community.
My own ancestral roots include farmers and workers for civil rights and liberties, which is why I was thankful to see Aunt Kate and her suffrage movement work included in this particular story. The quality of food from farm to fork (or plate; there are two ready phrases in use nowadays) cannot be compared to industrial methods, and I am happily a locavore and have been for most of my days. The convenience of purchasing locally grown foods in places outside larger cities is still a means to an end to achieve, but the idea of lowering our footprint and supporting local farmers is at the core of my being. The best way to impact the economy is in direct support of local producers of food, commerce, and supplies. I also appreciate settling into stories where there is an ‘other age’ quality to the story-telling, where life was not bent against the wheel towards working one’s soul into an early grave, but rather, the work which was done was in effort to create a better living for yourself and those you took care of. To give industry to the hours of daylight and mirth to the hours that waxed into the moon.
Communication was limited (for the most part) to postal mail – letters and the correspondences exchanged between family and friends alike was not only a convenience but a lifeline built between everyone. In my own childhood, I came to appreciate the joy of sending and receiving letters quite readily; a tradition that I carry forward today. My eyes always glisten with a bit of eager happiness when a writer includes samples or full passages of the ‘letters’ being sent back and forth between their characters. In Go Away Home, the letters are warm reminders of how special a connection is to be kept and how dear the conversation is to those who send and receive postal mail.
Proposed Topic:The underscore of the novel is relating directly to the life choices each individual makes as we grow-up, and yet, not always an easy topic to write about as sometimes people have to make a harder choice which leads them back to family, their childhood home, or a place they weren’t expecting to find themselves. How did you originate the idea behind Liddie Treadway!? Was it partly inspired by a real person, either known in your own family’s history or one you came across whilst conducting research? What drew you into Liddie’s story to impart her onto readers?
One of the blessings I have always appreciated as a book blogger is having the opportunity to host authors as Special Guests on my blog! They give me such keen insight into their novels, a bit of their writer’s process, and the light of joy in their inspiring paths they take towards having their stories in printed form, that I am always fascinated and thrilled to feature a new author I have been enjoying the pleasure of knowing a bit better. In this particular case, what happily surprised me about having learnt the back-story on “Go Away Home” is that the author herself, quite literally ‘went back home” and found the inspiration of her story! I have oft mentioned my delight and joy in researching my own ancestral past, and like Ms. Bodensteiner I am generally left a bit bereft in having lost the true details of how my grandfathers and grandmothers stories truly knit together and occupied their living days.
Let me now present Ms. Bodensteiner and
give you the lovely insight into this historical novel
I was so happy to read about myself:
Book Synopsis:
Liddie Treadway grew up on a family farm where options for her future were marriage or teaching. Encouraged by suffragette rhetoric and her maiden aunt, Liddie is determined to avoid both and pursue a career. Her goal is within her grasp when her older sister’s abrupt departure threatens to keep her on the farm forever.
Once she is able to experience the world she’s dreamed of, Liddie is enthralled with her independence, a new-found passion for photography, and the man who teaches her. Yet, the family, friends, and life of her youth tug at her heart, and she must face the reality that life is not as simple, or the choices as clear-cut, as she once imagined.
GO AWAY HOME is a coming-of-age novel that explores the enduring themes of family, friendship, and love, as well as death and grief. This novel will resonate with anyone who’s confronted the conflict between dreams and reality and come to recognize that getting what you want can be a two-edged sword.
}: The story behind her novel,
& how her grandfather inspired her to create it :{
Is that a good choice?
“What if you choose wrong?” Liddie looked to her father.
“Then you make a new decision.” G.W. tapped the pipe bowl against the ashtray. “Every choice we make becomes part of who we are. That’s why you must take care.”
Acquired Book By:I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Love & Treasure” virtual book tour through HFVBT: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I received a complimentary hardback copy of the book direct from the publisher Alfred A. Knof, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Book Synopsis:
A spellbinding new novel of contraband masterpieces, tragic love, and the unexpected legacies of forgotten crimes, Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Treasure weaves a tale around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in the Second World War.
In 1945 on the outskirts of Salzburg, victorious American soldiers capture a train filled with unspeakable riches: piles of fine gold watches; mountains of fur coats; crates filled with wedding rings, silver picture frames, family heirlooms, and Shabbat candlesticks passed down through generations. Jack Wiseman, a tough, smart New York Jew, is the lieutenant charged with guarding this treasure—a responsibility that grows more complicated when he meets Ilona, a fierce, beautiful Hungarian who has lost everything in the ravages of the Holocaust. Seventy years later, amid the shadowy world of art dealers who profit off the sins of previous generations, Jack gives a necklace to his granddaughter, Natalie Stein, and charges her with searching for an unknown woman—a woman whose portrait and fate come to haunt Natalie, a woman whose secret may help Natalie to understand the guilt her grandfather will take to his grave and to find a way out of the mess she has made of her own life.
A story of brilliantly drawn characters—a suave and shady art historian, a delusive and infatuated Freudian, a family of singing circus dwarfs fallen into the clutches of Josef Mengele, and desperate lovers facing choices that will tear them apart—Love and Treasure is Ayelet Waldman’s finest novel to date: a sad, funny, richly detailed work that poses hard questions about the value of precious things in a time when life itself has no value, and about the slenderest of chains that can bind us to the griefs and passions of the past.
Praise on behalf of the novel:
“Love and Treasure is something of a treasure trove of a novel. Its beautifully integrated parts fit inside one another like the talismanic pendant/ locket at the heart of several love stories. Where the opening chapters evoke the nightmare of Europe in the aftermath of World War II with the hallucinatory vividness of Anselm Kiefer’s disturbing canvases, the concluding chapters, set decades before, in a more seemingly innocent time in the early 20th century, are a bittersweet evocation, in miniature, of thwarted personal destinies that yet yield to something like cultural triumph. Ayelet Waldman is not afraid to create characters for whom we feel an urgency of emotion, and she does not resolve what is unresolvable in this ambitious, absorbing and poignantly moving work of fiction.”
—Joyce Carol Oates
Author Biography:
Photo Credit: Reenie Raschke
Ayelet Waldman is the author of the newly released Love and Treasure (Knopf, January 2014), Red Hook Road and The New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her radio commentaries have appeared on “All Things Considered” and “The California Report.”
For more information please visit Ayelet’s website . Her missives also appear on Facebook and Twitter.
Her books are published throughout the world, in countries as disparate as England and Thailand, the Netherlands and China, Russia and Israel, Korea and Italy.
My Review of Love & Treasure:
Of all the ways in which I had an illusion of how this novel would open and begin, I think the first paragraph for me was an eye opener, as it did not quite match where my mind felt this novel would start. The rest of the first page was a bit jolting as well, as I found I had trouble finding my feet in the narrative. Where I thought the narrative voice would be empathic and soft, I found myself reading a sharpened edge of sound and vision. When Waldman starts to focus on the heart of the story centered around the lost possessions and valuable heirlooms of the Jewish families from World War II, her writing finds its clarity and knits together in a way that is a bit more fluid for me than the opening bits of dialogue being exchanged between a grand-daughter and her grand-father. She writes more into the historical bits than the everyday moments, which lends me to thinking her writing voice is hitched inside the historical elements to where she could write full-on historicals without the modern era attached.
The most tender scenes were exchanged between Jack Wiseman and Ilona Jakab, as each of them during the war were attempting to keep their sanity intact by not losing their humanity. Wiseman deferred to showing kindness during the rehousing of those who were returning from internment camps, and Ilona was electing to show her true strength and spirit, but deflecting her fears as she interacted with Wiseman. I appreciated how they met quite accidentally due to the train Wiseman was in charge of shifting its cargo to a warehouse. It reminded me a bit of a ‘meet cute’ in motion picture, despite the tragedy of their paths crossing during the Allied Occupation of Hungry. They each took each other by a surprise which refreshed their spirits and gave a kind grace to their situations.
I kept finding myself falling in and out of step with this story, because I am not one for crude humour nor crude expressions, and as I tried to continue to read the story with an open mind towards the time and era the story is set, I kept finding myself wishing Waldman had chosen different ways to express what was happening. I have read plenty of stories set during both World Wars, and the writers were not buckling down to this level of bare boned narration. The bits and bobbles I appreciated were starting to grow pale against the increasing tide of what either made me flinch or had my eyes adverting reading the paragraphs completely.
For me the story is told in a bit of a gritty and stark reality vein of dialogue and narrative voice; which made this difficult to read for my own readings tend to be towards a different vein of tact. I appreciate stories set during the wars, as war dramas and war romances are ones I tend to gravitate towards, but there is something different inside this one. I felt there was an undertone that I could not quite put my finger on but it wasn’t something that I felt I wanted to continue to read. I left the story fully intact without reaching the middle because to do so would have not proved enjoyable. I believe this story is best for readers who can appreciate the tone and dictation of action with a language presence that would not affect someone as much as it did me. I was truly disappointed as I was hoping to discover a historical mystery inside of a war drama; leading me through passages of research and provenance of personal property and giving me a historical epic of humanity.
Fly in the Ointment:
There are times where I give a pass on vulgarity but in this particular instance, the inclusion of strong language does not sit well with me because I could think of at least a handful of expressions or phrases to elicit the same manner of empathsis as found on page 6. The most obvious word instead is ‘muddled’. I am not an advocate for vulgarity in literature, and the few times I have given leeway to an author’s choice of inclusion is few and far between; the reasons were valid and if you go through the “Topics, Subjects, & Genres” cloud in the lower sidebar area of my blog, you will discover the reasons why I find strong language offensive and why in certain instances I did not wrinkle a brow over them. This novel kept pushing my envelope for tolerance.
I happen to know a bit about the setting of the story (the state of Maine) and what disrupted me a bit were the observations knitted into the backdrop, most especially about Bangor. I found myself with conflicting information, to where I was thinking to myself, that’s not true! The way in which Maine is represented in the book and specifics such as only one restaurant is open in Bangor during the long Winter months, in all honesty surprised me? I felt like there was a ‘fictional’ representation of Maine happening in this book, rather than an honest window into life in Maine.
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Love & Treasure”, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, and the quoted praise by Joyce Carol Oates were provided by HFVBT – Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. Author Interview badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. The book trailer for “Love & Treasure” via KnopfDoubleday had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva.}
Around the time I was asked if I wanted to join the blog tour for Love & Treasure, I was attempting to decide if I wanted to watch the motion picture Monument Men as previously I have found that war-time dramas can be a bit too much for my heart to handle. I thoroughly loved Tea with Mussolini and Life is Beautiful, although Saving Private Ryan pushed me past my edge. In recent years, I have appreciated the BBC tv series Foyle’s War, eagerly awaiting the next seasons to come through my local library who purchases them on seasonal dvd! It is such a blessing to be able to watch an historically enriched series, set during the war, and is full of characters who draw empathy into their characters as they give us a piece of what that particular portion of British life and history were during those turbulent times. Likewise, I have always been struck with curiosity about what became of the family heirlooms and personal effects which were stolen and taken away from them by the regime. It was such a darkened part of history, but there are moments of strength inside of the darkness as well. There was something stitched inside the premise of this story that spoke to me, and it was a story I wanted to read most surely!
I wanted to interview the author herself to see what inspired her to take on the subject matter and to get to know a bit more about her as a woman behind the pen, so to speak! I do hope you enjoy my questions and will be intrigued to visit with me again, as I share my thoughts and observations as I read the novel this week!
A bit of a note on why I included the quote by Ms. Oates: I’ve been attempting to read through The Accursed since I first discovered it through the library last year. Time sweeps me away, I fear, but the manner in which Ms. Oates composes her thoughts and paints the portraits of her stories has staid with me! I felt compelled to share her thoughts on behalf of this story, even though I typically do not post well-known quotations of reviews for the books I blog about myself.
Book Synopsis:
A spellbinding new novel of contraband masterpieces, tragic love, and the unexpected legacies of forgotten crimes, Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Treasure weaves a tale around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in the Second World War.
In 1945 on the outskirts of Salzburg, victorious American soldiers capture a train filled with unspeakable riches: piles of fine gold watches; mountains of fur coats; crates filled with wedding rings, silver picture frames, family heirlooms, and Shabbat candlesticks passed down through generations. Jack Wiseman, a tough, smart New York Jew, is the lieutenant charged with guarding this treasure—a responsibility that grows more complicated when he meets Ilona, a fierce, beautiful Hungarian who has lost everything in the ravages of the Holocaust. Seventy years later, amid the shadowy world of art dealers who profit off the sins of previous generations, Jack gives a necklace to his granddaughter, Natalie Stein, and charges her with searching for an unknown woman—a woman whose portrait and fate come to haunt Natalie, a woman whose secret may help Natalie to understand the guilt her grandfather will take to his grave and to find a way out of the mess she has made of her own life.
A story of brilliantly drawn characters—a suave and shady art historian, a delusive and infatuated Freudian, a family of singing circus dwarfs fallen into the clutches of Josef Mengele, and desperate lovers facing choices that will tear them apart—Love and Treasure is Ayelet Waldman’s finest novel to date: a sad, funny, richly detailed work that poses hard questions about the value of precious things in a time when life itself has no value, and about the slenderest of chains that can bind us to the griefs and passions of the past.
Praise on behalf of the novel:
“Love and Treasure is something of a treasure trove of a novel. Its beautifully integrated parts fit inside one another like the talismanic pendant/ locket at the heart of several love stories. Where the opening chapters evoke the nightmare of Europe in the aftermath of World War II with the hallucinatory vividness of Anselm Kiefer’s disturbing canvases, the concluding chapters, set decades before, in a more seemingly innocent time in the early 20th century, are a bittersweet evocation, in miniature, of thwarted personal destinies that yet yield to something like cultural triumph. Ayelet Waldman is not afraid to create characters for whom we feel an urgency of emotion, and she does not resolve what is unresolvable in this ambitious, absorbing and poignantly moving work of fiction.”
—Joyce Carol Oates
Author Biography:
Photo Credit: Reenie Raschke
Ayelet Waldman is the author of the newly released Love and Treasure (Knopf, January 2014), Red Hook Road and The New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her radio commentaries have appeared on “All Things Considered” and “The California Report.”
For more information please visit Ayelet’s website . Her missives also appear on Facebook and Twitter.
Her books are published throughout the world, in countries as disparate as England and Thailand, the Netherlands and China, Russia and Israel, Korea and Italy.
Your novel “Love and Treasure” encompasses such a gutting time in our historical past and touches on such a unique sliver of World War II history. How did the early conception of the story alight in your heart and how did it affect you on a personal level going through the research straight through until you wrote the last chapter?
Waldman responds: I have always been interested in literature of the Holocaust. That period looms in the imagination of American Jews, so many of whom feel that our survival was a matter of chance – immigration at the right moment. I have read in my my life probably hundreds of books, both fiction and non, about the Holocaust, many of which were the worst kind of Holocaust kitsch. You know, the story of the one good German. But the books that are good, books like W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz or Primo Levi’s memoirs, changed how I looked at my life and my world.
Writing this novel was emotionally difficult. I remember at one point my husband said to me, after a dinner party, “Sweetie, I love you, but not every conversation has to be a conversation about Treblinka.” I had to learn how to compartmentalize.
Did you find it difficult at all to shift between the time settings of the book? As you go both forward and backward in the narrative in order to best tell the story as it evolves?
Waldman responds: Not at all. This was one of the delights of writing this book. Obviously it required a tremendous amount of research, and also a tremendous amount of focus to keep the sections distinct in tone, but challenges like that are what make writing fun.
What do you feel is the hardest part about writing convicting historical fiction whose heart of story is rooted in a remembered part of our combined past?
Waldman responds: Not allowing your research to overwhelm the story. It’s so tempting to cram every single thing you’ve read or learned into the novel, because you spent so much time and effort on your research. But then the story takes second place to the research, and that’s neither interesting nor emotionally satisfying to the reader.
What do you think has led for this section of history to become re-examined both in fiction and in motion picture!? (i.e. Monument Men)
Waldman responds: I’ll tell you this much, from now on I’m going to insist that George Clooney make a movie tangentially related to all my forthcoming novels.
I suppose it’s because the last survivors are now nearing the ends of their lives and people want to capture their stories before it’s too late.
What has led you to soak into the historical fiction genre to such a passionate level and know that it is a niche you want to explore further!?
Waldman responds: It’s a challenge to write about a different time and place, and challenges are what make writing exciting.
You revealed settings for your second historical novel in a previous interview, what attracted you to the different time and locales you were referencing? (French Riviera before WWI; Hollywood 1940s & 1950s; and New England in the 1960s) You picked specific places and decades, which lent me to believe you had a particular attachment to those choices?
Waldman responds: My character in this one has a particular attachment. They are the times and places his life will lead him. But I don’t want to say more, because it’s tempting fate to discuss a work before it’s been fully realized.
Outside of the 20th Century, is there a moment in the folds of the historical past you might be curious to explore?
Waldman responds: Sure. But I don’t really know what yet. I do know that writing (and reading!) historical fiction is such a delight that I’ll definitely be returning to the genre.
Do you travel to destinations that are reminiscent of locales or scenes that are inside your novel(s)? Or is most of your research condensed to what you can draw out of materials outside of travelling? I think it works both ways personally, as not everyone can travel to each country or city where their novel is set.
Waldman responds: Oh absolutely. I love to travel. It’s one of my greatest pleasures. Being able to travel both enriches the novel and is one of the reasons for doing it. I set this book in Hungary because I wanted to go to Hungary!
What were your early influences and wanderings in literature!? Which authors spoke to you as far as a style of story-telling endeared itself to you ahead of creating your own stories? Are there any titles you could share which are still brought forward to mind in fond affection?
Waldman responds: I was a voracious reader as a child. In addition to novels and memoirs about the Holocaust (The Diary of Anne Frank, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier) my favorites included Harriet the Spy and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. All I did as a kid was read, gulping down books as many as one or two a day.
What was the impetus which gravitated you into writing? And, when did this occur? Who was your best cheerleader?
Waldman responds: I wanted to stop being a lawyer, and I’d always loved to read. My husband is a novelist, and I sort of thought, “Well, how hard can it really be?” Ha! He is no doubt my greatest cheerleader. He believed in me when no one else did.
What are your favourite tools to use whilst writing? And, where do you write to gain the most inspiration?
Waldman responds: I write anywhere. In my studio, in an office, at my kitchen table. I don’t believe in being too precious about it. I’m a terrible procrastinator and if I allow myself only to work in particular situations I won’t ever get anything done.
That being said, I love going to the MacDowell Colony. I get more done in that solitude than anywhere else on earth.
I write on a MacBook air using Scrivener. When I’m done, I put the document in Pages.
Outside the realm of writing and creating art, what enriches your spirit the most? Where do you find your serenity?
Waldman responds: I’m sort of a serenity-free zone. I’m always moving, always fretting. But I love my husband and kids. And my dog. If anything gives me serenity in life, it’s Mabel. She asks for nothing beyond a bowl of food and an occasional walk, and is always thrilled to see me.
Similar to blog tours, when I feature a showcase for an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog.
as I am happily honoured to be a blog tour hostess for:
Please visit myBookish Eventspage to stay in the know for upcoming events!
I am quite eager to share with you my ruminations on reading “Love & Treasure”!
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Love & Treasure”, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, and the quoted praise by Joyce Carol Oates were provided by HFVBT – Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. Author Interview badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. In conjunction with reading the novel for review on behalf of HFVBTs, I wanted to interview Ms. Waldman get to know the writer behind the novel, as it is such a captivating slice of WWII history. My questions were sent to the author and received a reply through HFVBTs for which I am thankful.}
Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Night in Shanghai” virtual book tour through Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Inspired to Read:
I’ve been swept into the Jazz Age since January of 2013 when I first read Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Having read the biographical fiction of Zelda, I started to understand the undercurrent of the era. There was a lot about that time in our history and in Europe’s history that I was not clued in on. Bits and pieces which surprised me, especially about the salons for writers & creatives, which apparently were not as free as they appeared to have been! I felt the hot scorn that Zelda felt and the inaccurate self-worth she struggled to regain control of whilst her husband took the spotlight even off of her own writings. Through that book, and the motion picture of “The Great Gatsby”, I became attached to the 1920s & 1930s even a bit more than I had been whilst I watched the BBC drama “The House of Elliott!” To the extent, that I sought out Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries which is a bang-on brilliant BBC/Aussie drama set in Melbourne around the same era of time!
I read the description of this novel, then moved over to the author’s website & played the book trailer. Somewhere between the description and the trailer I made my choice to read this novel! It’s sweeping in its depth and what I love uncovering through historical fiction are little nuggets of the unknown moments against the larger backdrop of historical events!!
}: Book Synopsis :{
In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war.
Song Yuhua is refined, educated, and bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai’s most powerful crime boss in payment for her father’s gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party.
Only when Shanghai is shattered by the Japanese invasion do Song and Thomas find their way to each other. Though their union is forbidden, neither can back down from it in the turbulent years of occupation and resistance that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and world war, they are borne on an irresistible riff of melody and improvisation to Night in Shanghai’s final, impossible choice.
In this impressively researched novel, Nicole Mones not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese Jazz age, but also weaves in a stunning true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West.
Author Biography:
A newly launched textile business took Nicole Mones to China for the first time in 1977, after the end of the Cultural Revolution. As an individual she traded textiles with China for eighteen years before she turned to writing about that country. Her novels Night in Shanghai, The Last Chinese Chef, Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light are in print in more than twenty-two languages and have received multiple juried prizes, including the Kafka Prize (year’s best work of fiction by any American woman) and Kiriyama Prize (finalist; for the work of fiction which best enhances understanding of any Pacific Rim Culture).
Mones’ nonfiction writing on China has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Gourmet, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. She is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
A passion for Jazz: I came to appreciate jazz and the blues from a young age, as I grew up in a home full of classical music and a deep passion for the living arts. I was free to decide for myself where my inclinations would take me musically, or even if I wanted to simply appreciate listening to music verse learning how to play an instrument or develop my vocality of voice. As a child I could not grasp which instrument would whet long-term interest to learn, therefore I became an appreciator of music. Symphony and orchestrations were the main focus as I loved attending live events at performing art centers in my hometown. Jazz came into my life a bit of a whispering on the musical winds, as like its counter-companion of the blues, the original inertia of interest was sparked by the stories of the origins rather than of attending concerts.
I was always drawn into those elements of the historical past which brought forward the ruminations of music, to evoke out a harmony of song, ballard or chord which drove into the human emotional well of giving back a living moment through a musical presentation. I vividly remember walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early 1990s, at a moment in my life where I could not enter the Jazz clubs but I could partake of their sounds emitting out onto the streets — giving everyone the freedom to listen as ears finely tuned to their music could always embrace the sounds! Another memory is hinged to the latter 1990s where I heard a vocal artist from Washington, DC create distinctive evocations with her voice. She sung Jazz in a way that felt like an experience rather than a performance! She was one artist I had hoped I could have travelled to see again live as I only had the one chance to be in an audience of her artistry. Thankfully, a short conversation afterwards has never left my memory.
Bluegrass by comparison is another thread of music I tend to gravitate towards for the same reasons I am attached to Billie Holiday, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Dinah Washington, Lena Horne, and countless more artists as there is a strong desire to curate human emotion into sound; and as such turn the sound into a living testament of life through story, vocals, and instrumentation. My dream is to collect albums on vinyl record and listen to the greatest voices throughout history belting out one memorable performance after another whilst sipping fresh brewed tea.
My Review of Night in Shanghai:
May I simply say, that any publisher who wraps their hardback in the loveliest shade of lavender such as Night in Shanghai has already warmed me to the experience of what lies within its covers! The cover-art is equally eye-catching as you want to know about the symbolism of the lanterns as much as your quite curious about where the stairs are leading you. Her inclusion of Chinese expressions, as well as their iconic alphabet lends the reader to emerge into the story as though part of our spirits are hinged directly to Shanghai during the setting of which is about to unfold before us. Little cues like these help us take a step out of where we are reading the book and directly connect into the reality of the story. The essence of jazz has to be in your veins to settle into the background of the story as I felt it heightens your ability to pick up on the subtleties and in evoking a strong thumb of presence on how Shanghai was changing in the face of war.
Night in Shanghai paints a light of appreciation how difficult it was for the musicians to make a living whilst finding their race to be in opposition of receiving a fair wage if they staid in America. Never one to understand the prejudicial limits placed on others, this is one thread of the story that I felt was given honour by presenting the facts which led to the choice of switching countries on behalf of the musicians who chose to live in Shanghai rather than attempting to nick out a living for half of what they were worth. The first half reads like a memoir of a bloke who is attempting to absolve his soul at the end of his life by representing his journey towards self-redemption and self-acceptance of his art. Yet, the story is actually on behalf of his lover re-telling the tale than the artist himself of whom we are given a front row and center look into the ambiance of his life as it started to root in Shanghai’s Jazz scene of the mid-1930s. A progression of musical revolution which had begun in the Roaring Twenties, as musical scouts were frequently travelling throughout America to recruit the men back to China.
The most compelling part for me is watching Thomas Greene sort out his bearings in a city as flavourful and colourful in all matters of decadence as Shanghai, whilst being greeted by the notions of how close on the edge of war he truly was by seeing shades of it bleed into his daily wanderings. A musician at heart and of soul, compelled to work tirelessly on his craft as he was not blessed with the ear yet the grace of reading the music by sheet; his was a journey towards achieving his dreams as much as arriving at a place of self-acceptance. His race was muted compared to others and in having his skin not representative of his origins gave him flexibility to perform but it confused him on how he choose to identify himself. I would think this would bear weight on a person’s mind as you are neither of one race or another, as you’re a hybrid of two. Add to the churning tides a high sense of political despondency and it is a miracle any of the American musicians could find their footing!
The intriguing bit for me was seeing how Shanghai echoed of Chicago in how the city was controlled by organised crime families, except they are known as triads instead. Clearly there is more to history than meets the eye, and like many cities of the age Shanghai was not immune to the darker shades of living. The entire underworld was fresh to the eyes of Thomas Greene who affirmed his surname by being ‘green’ in the ways of the world. The essence of neighbourhoods of distinctive origins from the boroughs of New York City and Chicago were also bloomed in full in Shanghai. Each district had its own rules and were segregated from each other.
I loved seeing how the fusion of the West and East in music organically started to percolate in the early 20th century, as one musician was influenced by another. The music became the lifeblood language which broke the barriers of race and ethnicity, and in many ways sharpened the ability to put a pulse on what was happening around the city. There was such a decorum of unease yet the blinded sort where everyone would refute the obvious and elect instead to carry-on as though nothing major was happening. Music became the one avenue of honest representation and in so doing, gave a generational lineage that is still thriving today. Music gives a voice to the emotions which are too hard to put into words alone.
Thomas and Song were intricately bonded to each other through a synchronicity of passion which became an electrified explosion of notes and chords arching out of his fingers as he played the piano the only tunes which could solidify their connection. In the music, they lived with a freedom neither of them had in life. The passion of two souls caught up in a world of war, desolation, and tragic pain. The title of the novel is a hidden symbolism of their love and of the hope they each had for what it signified as a whole.
Gratitude for authors like Mones:
Who take the extra leap of faith to chase after a story which has nestled into their conscience and find a way to draw the story out for the readers who are in full appreciation of their efforts! To give us a piece of known history during an era of a war and conflict that has been written about from various angles and uncover a breadth of enlightenment not yet realised to the Western world is extraordinary! How kind of her to pursue her intuition and nettle out the story of how lives were changed during one of the most brutally savage moments in history’s ink blotter! And, to give us all a pure sense of how ordinary men can be called to accomplish such wonderful acts of kindness in the shadows of intense personal danger.
Virtual Road Map of “Night in Shanghai” Blog Tour can be visited here:
Check out
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Shanghai Memories – Golden Songs from the 1930s & 1940s via BaBanChineseMusic
Please take note of the Related Articles as they were hand selected due to being of cross-reference importance in relation to this book review. This applies to each post on my blog where you see Related Articles underneath the post. Be sure to take a moment to acknowledge the further readings which are offered.
{SOURCES: Night in Shanghai Book Cover, synopsis, tour badge, author photograph and HFVBT badge were provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and were used by permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. The book discussion video by Connie Martinson, Shanghai Memories music video as well as the excerpt by Houghton Miffton Harcourt via Scribd had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it. Buy links on Scribd excerpt are not affiliated with Jorie Loves A Story. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva.}
Remaking all that Jazz from Shanghai’s Lost Era – (npr.org/blogs/codeswitch) There are videos and audio clips included in the article to give an introduction to the music which I found tranquil & lovely! I encourage everyone to click-over and discover the music!
The Shanghai Restoration Project – (shanghairestorationproject.com) I found this project through researching the Chinese Jazz era as this has a decidedly unique sound to the music.
Book Synopsis:
as I am happily honoured to be a blog tour hostess for:
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Author Biography:
