Tag Archives: historical fiction

Part IV: Best Books I Read in 2016

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Judging by the historical novels I normally gravitate towards, my favorite book from 2016 shouldn’t appear on this “Best” list. It’s the kind of book more likely to end up on one of my “Worst” lists.

Image result for surprised woman reading

My favorite novel of 2016 focuses on real-life historical figures, my least favorite kind of historical fiction. And one of those figures is a founding father. In my own real life as an academic historian, I haven’t leapt on the founding father bandwagon to devour big, bulky biographies of the men who kickstarted this country. And though I’ve heard some of the songs, I haven’t listened to the entirety of Hamilton or schemed to score a couple of tickets.

I still hold a grudge because those guys couldn’t see that the “course of human events” involved so much more than white men.

The first couple times I saw this novel–the one that turned out to be my favorite–on the library shelf, I passed it by. I looked at the title, winced, and left it there. Then one day I decided to add it to my check-out pile. It was a library book. It didn’t cost me anything. If I got frustrated with the first few pages, I’d just return it.

I didn’t get frustrated. I became mesmerized. This is the novel I think about more than any other from 2016:

Image result for thomas jefferson dreams of sally hemings

In my reading, O’Connor doesn’t romanticize what happened between Jefferson and Hemings, nor does he reduce Hemings to a one-dimensional victim.

The two best reviews I’ve read of the novel come from the always astute Ron Charles and the novelist Jean Zimmerman.

Charles concluded his review:

“Ultimately, this is a book in vigorous debate with itself, just as strange and contradictory as the author of the Declaration of Independence. With its magically engineered collection of fiction, history and fantasy, and particularly with its own capacious spirit, Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings doesn’t just knock Jefferson off his pedestal, it blows us over, too, shatters the whole sinner-saint debate and clears out new room to reconsider these two impossibly different people who once gave birth to the United States. It’s heartbreaking. It’s cathartic. It’s utterly brilliant.”

Here, Zimmerman highlights Sally Hemings:

“…after reading this novel I would love to know Sally Hemings…. She is one of history’s numberless mystery women, but she comes thoroughly and thrillingly alive in O’Connor’s telling.”

History is full of “numberless mystery women.” My fascination with them is the reason I so admire O’Connor’s novel.

Check back tomorrow, when I recommend two novels about slavery.

 

Part III: Best Books I Read in 2016

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Mothers and daughters. That’s the theme for today’s pair of recommendations.

4 Auguste Reading to Her Daughter impressionism mothers children Mary Cassatt (Mary Cassatt)

The 5-star is:

Image result for the wonder by emma donoghue

Ever since reading Slammerkin I’ve eagerly awaited each new book by Donoghue. I haven’t liked them all, but she always comes up with interesting plots. The Wonder is set in 19th century Ireland where a little girl named Anna O’Donnell seems to be surviving without eating. Lib Wright, a trained nurse from England, is brought in to determine if this is a miraculous event or a clever fraud. Donoghue’s careful portrayal of Lib’s growing closeness to Anna, interlaced with an array of artfully concealed secrets, serves as a meditation on the bond between mothers and daughters.

Very close to 5 stars:

For me, this slender novel narrowly missed 5 stars because I was left wanting a bit more plot. Maybe that’s a testament to Strout’s finely drawn characters. Lucy Barton is in the hospital, her estranged mother comes for a visit, and the family stories flow. It is a marvelous book about mother-daughter love and the power of shaping a story about it.

Tomorrow, the last of my 5-star novels from 2016. Then a few more posts about several other books I liked a lot.

 

Part II: Best Books I Read in 2016

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I launched this novel reading year in review with recommendations for two books about female artists.

467pxlebrun_selfportrait (Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun)

Georgia by Dawn Tripp is a fascinating fictionalization of the life of Georgia O’Keeffe. The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro, with its main character Alizée Benoit, is overtly political. The fictional Benoit shares O’Keeffe’s struggles to be taken seriously as an artist, but Benoit is also consumed with fear and outrage over the fate of Jewish people in Europe during World War II.

Today’s pair of recommendations are novels about the Holocaust. My 5-star rating went to:

Late in the war, twin sisters Pearl and Stasha arrive in Auschwitz where they are subjected to Josef Mengele’s medical experiments. When Pearl disappears, Stasha cannot believe her sister is dead. The story is horrifying and harrowing, yet full of hope.

Very nearly 5 stars is:

Also focusing on children, equally harrowing and horrifying, Shepard’s novel is set in the Warsaw ghetto. Young teen Aron gradually loses his family and ends up in the ghetto’s orphanage, protected by the once-influential Dr. Janusz Korczak.

I liked Konar’s book a bit more because it is a story about sisters. I also admired her deft depictions of Mengele’s brutality–crystal clear without being gratuitously graphic. And Konar managed true, beautiful voices for twins who, despite outward appearances, are so very different.

Stay tuned. The next two novels deal with mothers and daughters.

The Best Books I Read in 2016

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I write nonfiction history, real life tales of extra/ordinary women. This means I do a lot of research, not only in rich and compelling primary sources but also in a wide swath of secondaries. My leisure reading, then, is all about fiction.

https://theresakaminski.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/b00ff-6a00d8341c69f653ef0133f5d726ed970b-pi.jpg (Vanessa Bell)

I read over 50 novels in 2016, most of which were historical fiction. My next few posts will be devoted to the best books I read this year (though they weren’t necessarily published in 2016).

I’m not limiting myself to 10 books. While that’s a neat number, it’s arbitrary. In 2016, for example, I ranked 4 novels as 5-star reads, but I liked an additional 13 very much.

The first of the 5-star novels is:

Image result for georgia by dawn tripp

Tripp did a marvelous job of imagining the life and career of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. I didn’t know much about O’Keeffe, but I do know quite a lot about women’s lives in the 20th century. Tripp deftly handled the historical context while providing a complex, compelling portrait of a talented and driven woman. The novel is every bit as gorgeous as O’Keeffe’s paintings.

Another work of historical fiction about a female artist that I liked a lot is:

Image result for the muralist by b.a. shapiro

Shapiro’s main character is a fictional female artist hired by one of the New Deal programs in the 1930s. Increasingly radicalized by the politics of the times, Alizée makes a fateful decision to try to help the European Jews being crushed by Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies. Some of the real-life historical figures who appeared in the book didn’t always quite ring true for me, but the character of Alizée is fascinating.

Up next: another pairing of a 5-star novel with one that came pretty close.

 

So Far in Historical Fiction….

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Land and Sea

During early January I’ve read three works of historical fiction that I liked well enough to recommend. My favorite of the trio is by Katy Simpson Smith, who has the distinction of holding both a PhD in History and an MFA. Her debut novel is The Story of Land and Sea, a slender, elegant story set near the end of the American Revolution along the North Carolina coast. The war doesn’t take center stage, but it is–along with slavery–an integral part of the story. Smith poignantly examines the love between parents and their children, and how loss shapes actions. It’s a quiet yet powerful story.

Lucky Us

I also liked Amy Bloom’s Lucky Us, set in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. It’s also about family, but the kind that is acquired. Bloom assembles a cast of quirky yet likable characters who are drawn to sisters Iris and Eva, who have run away from their unreliable father. Beautiful Iris is determined to become a movie star, but when things fall apart in Hollywood, the siblings have to scramble for a plan B. I really liked Bloom’s episodic style with its shifting points of view. One of the plot lines didn’t really work for me, and I thought the book ended rather abruptly, but I still enjoyed it.

The Lie

Rounding out the trio is Helen Dunmore’s novel of World War I and its aftermath, The Lie. Alternating between the killing fields of the western front and quiet Cornwall, Dunmore tells the story of Daniel Branwell, who survived the war only to return home lost and alone. The story may be a bit familiar, but Dunmore’s depictions of the war are especially vivid, and the individual characters are so finely drawn that the book was hard to put down.

All in all, a great start to the reading year.