4 minute read
trans. by Margaret Jull Costa
readers who love a good queer May-December romance, but the novel is too long on detail in many places and frustratingly short in others; the fraught relationship between the locals on Eleutheria and the crew members is hinted at but never fully fleshed out. Much of the novel’s momentum stalls in Willa’s long-winded, retrospective narration.
A sprawling debut with an urgent message about the danger of climate change that unfortunately gets lost in the clutter.
WITH LOVE FROM LONDON
Jio, Sarah Ballantine (400 pp.) $17.00 paper | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-101-88508-6
A 35-year-old Seattle woman whose British mother took off for London when she was a child learns that her mother has died and left everything to her. A few minutes after she finds out that her husband, Nick, a lawyer, is leaving her—to be with a 23-year-old paralegal at his firm—Valentina Baker discovers that her mother, Eloise, has died. Unsure of how to move forward, Valentina puts one foot in front of the other and simply…does. She moves to London and finds out that her mother adored books as much as she does and that—after a happy career as a librarian and book Instagrammer—she is now the owner of a beloved neighborhood bookstore in Primrose Hill. This is a charming tale: Valentina discovers who her mother was—and rediscovers herself after the end of her marriage—as she works to raise enough money to pay the inheritance taxes on the bookstore. Author Jio has taken a well-worn trope—American woman inherits property and a life in London—and made it her own, full of warmth, love, happiness, and books. Two storylines unwind as readers follow Valentina’s efforts to save the bookstore and explore dating and Eloise’s life as a young woman who falls in love, becomes a mother, returns to London despite her unwavering love for her daughter, and opens the bookstore she’s been dreaming of her entire life.
A cozy bit of escapism that will leave many readers dreaming of true love and the bookstores they might one day open.
THE WIND WHISTLING IN THE CRANES
Jorge, Lídia Trans. by Margaret Jull Costa & Annie McDermott Liveright/Norton (528 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-63149-759-9
The fates and fortunes of two Portuguese families become entwined during the later years of the 20th century.
The lonely death of Dona Regina, the matriarch of the influential Leandro family, prompts her granddaughter Milene to investigate its circumstances so she can explain them to the rest of her extended family, all of whom are out of reach on vacation at the time. Milene, an opaque and guileless sort, revisits the site of her grandmother’s demise, the family’s former cannery on the Portuguese coast. Her futile investigative efforts bring her into the orbit of the Mata family, the current tenants of the cannery, who have turned it into their family compound. The welcome extended to her by the Matas, working-class
troy chimneys
immigrants from Cape Verde, contrasts (in almost every measurable way) with the hand-wringing, anger, and annoyance Milene’s presence provokes within her own family. Jorge manages to recapitulate many of the issues present in post-colonial Portugal—racism, workers’ rights, sexism, economic disparities, overdevelopment—within the context of Milene’s developing romance with one of the Matas, but she never lets the didactic get in the way of the romantic. An anonymous and enigmatic narrator propels much of the narrative while essential aspects of Milene’s sometimes-puzzling character are slowly revealed. Present in both families are key actors and bit players living a thoroughly 20th-century life in Portugal: the White cannery scions are succeeded on their landholdings by the Black Matas, who have produced a pop star (tuna replaced by tunes?). As translated from the Portuguese by the team of Jull Costa and McDermott, who provide an extensive introduction to the work, Jorge’s narrative ranges from the lyrical to the mundane but conveys the universality of a specific, familial place.
Jorge delivers a dose of near-contemporary history tempered by a page-turning family saga and romance.
TROY CHIMNEYS
Kennedy, Margaret McNally Editions (288 pp.) $18.00 | March 8, 2022 978-1-946022-30-1
A sophisticated historical novel set in Regency England explores the moral dilemmas and internal conflicts of politician Miles Lufton, an unsettled figure. Best known for her novel The Constant Nymph, Kennedy, author of many works of fiction, died in 1967. This book, first published in 1953 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, offers an unusual character portrait revealed through complex layers of narration (diaries, letters) bound together with a nonlinear timeline. Lufton, son of a clergyman and one of seven children, is a clever and ambitious boy who will grow up ever conscious of disparities of class, connection, and property: “I was nobody, because I was heir to nothing.” He enjoys
