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“With the first autumn chill, life will begin anew,” wrote F.S. Fitzgerald. September is the time to turn the page of a new book and immerse yourself in pleasant reading, somewhere in nature or wrapped in a warm blanket at home, with a cup of a warming drink.
The energy of a wild dream
“Tea Rose” by Jennifer Donnelly
A gracefully woven historical adventure novel, where times and manners, written out in detail, do not distract attention from the love story, and where, despite all the tension and tragedy of events, the heroine’s perseverance and character will lead to victory.
It all starts in 1888 in a poor area of London’s Whitechapel, where dirty children run back and forth during the day and women wash clothes in the Thames, and at night the killer, who will later be called Jack the Ripper, is operating.
Here, a local manufacturer is building a tea empire, and the eldest daughter of loader Paddy Finnegan, blue-eyed 17-year-old Fiona, endlessly packing tea in boxes, dreams of saving 25 pounds and opening her own shop with Joe, whom she has known and loved since childhood.
Women’s rights are out of the question in this booming season, when it’s fairly easy for a man with a grip to succeed, but that doesn’t stop Fiona. She is used to the fact that her father talks to her on a variety of topics and her lively mind and ambitious plans delight him, she discusses the ideas of the future store with Joe, argues, objects, studies.
Fiona grows up with the belief that if she wants to and works hard, she can achieve anything. The heroine breaks the rules, sometimes because she simply does not know about them, sometimes because a sense of justice, common sense or her own heart tells her to act without looking back.
It is the indomitable character of the girl, her passion, the ability to set goals without any “ifs” that will save her at a tragic moment in her life, when Fiona loses all her relatives and the familiar world begins to crumble.
Once alone in New York, the girl will decisively take over her uncle’s store and turn it into a whole company, and having met a successful entrepreneur, she will ask him in detail about the work of the Stock Exchange, without thinking whether it is appropriate for a lady to be interested in this.
In style, atmosphere, and manner of writing, “Tea Rose” resembles the novel by Diana Setterfield While the river flows – the same love for the Thames, the same lacy and at the same time simple language.
Jennifer Donnelly writes very visibly, her prose is associatively reminiscent of the still lifes of the Dutch, while in Tea Rose there is no deliberate stylization of the Victorian era – it is primarily a story of love and personal development. A story about what the energy of bold fantasy is capable of and how important it is in life – to learn to truly dream.
Translation from English by Igor Ivanov. Alphabet, 768 pages, 595 rubles.
Alienation
“American Marriage” by Tayari Jones
Artist Celestia and marketer Roy had been enjoying their marriage and making plans for a year and a half when a woman from a hotel accused Roy of rape. The hero is sentenced to 12 years for a crime he did not commit. There is no need to wait for justice if you are a black guy, and a respectable white lady puts forward the accusation.
We can say that this is a story about a stolen life, but mainly it is still about how separation destroys feelings, how the inability to share daily joys and sorrows undermines a happy union from the inside.
We read the letters of the characters, watching as Celestia and Roy move away from each other step by step, and nothing can be done about it. A bitter, deep romance about what intimacy is made of.
Translation from English by Anastasia Platonova. AST, 352 p., 485 rubles.
Memory
Secret Road by John Irving
Our past and the memory of it make us who we are. And yet everyone has a chance to create their own destiny in spite of them, – this is the new book by the author of the New Hampshire Hotel and the Winemakers’ Rules.
Little Mexican Juan Diego, the son of a prostitute and the pupil of a scavenger, a “junkyard reader”, who learned to read in two languages by saving books from fires, grew up and became a famous writer. Detailed dreams about the past haunt him. Especially the memory of the day when he crushed his leg and became disabled.
Adrenaline surges become dangerous for the heart, so the doctor prescribes beta-blockers to Juan Diego. But without these dreams, where the younger sister Lupe, who knew how to predict the future, lives, Juan turns into Ivan, who does not remember kinship. And so the writer decides to give up the pills for a while – he is ready to face the past.
Translation from English by Igor Kubersky. Foreigner, 608 p., 527 rubles.
Three reasons to read
Room of Miracles by Julien Sandrel
Get to know yourself. The young Frenchman in his debut novel collected all the fears of a working mother. Thelma is pursuing a career in a major cosmetics company and is raising her son alone. She is torn between duties, worries that her son is increasingly hearing from her “wait, I’m working”, and she does not know what her Louis, who is growing up so rapidly, is dreaming of. The fear of losing contact with the child literally materializes: desperate to wait until the mother pays attention to him, the boy rushed on his skateboard around the corner – right under the truck.
See the world through the eyes of a teenager. Louis is in a coma, and Thelma is looking for a way to get through to him. The diary of her son, accidentally found by her, with a list of cherished desires, tells how to awaken the thirst for life in Louis. Thelma takes a camera and begins to fulfill his dreams, one stranger than the other, showing remarkable imagination and capturing all the unusual sensations in order to tell her son about them. By releasing her inner teenager, the introverted businesswoman saves not only her son, but herself.
Set priorities. Sandrel wrote a kind, sparklingly funny, inventive novel about the power of motherly love and faith. And it is not at all necessary to wait for extraordinary circumstances in order to use this magic. Reading a book, I want to immediately change my priorities – turn off your laptop and phone right now and notice those whom we really love.
Translated from French by Maria Troitskaya. Corpus, 256 p., 700 rubles.