During the first World War, the British government employed many people as spies in German-occupied Europe, and many of them were women. One of those women was code-named Alice DuBois (who preferred to be called Lili), and became their "Queen of Spies," managing an underground slew of informants that became known as the Alice Network. After the second World War, Charlotte (aka Charlie) St. Clair is searching for her missing cousin, which brings her to Evelyn Gardiner, one of the women in that network. These two set out on a journey, together with Evelyn’s driver and helper Finn Kilgore, not only to find Charlie’s cousin, but also to resolve unanswered questions from both devastating wars.
Yet again, I find myself of two minds about a novel. On the one hand Quinn writes this novel with true aplomb, where the excitement grows into veritable fireworks for the climax scene. Mind you, I think Quinn’s pacing accelerated somewhat slower in the book than I would have liked, and for most of the book I would say it felt like the tension built at a carefully insistent pace. However, when I got to about the 80% mark, that speed increased into something absolutely exhilarating. (Admittedly, before I got to that point, I was wondering if I could give this even four stars.) With this, I was surprisingly pleased with how Quinn carefully slowed that rhythm down for the aftermath and conclusion of the story. This fast let-down could have felt much more abrupt, but I think it was the perfect antidote to the almost frenzy that Quinn worked up to prior to that.
As for Quinn’s writing style, I found this mostly transparent, which allowed the characters and the plot to shine through, with a few jarring things sprinkled throughout the text. For example, it didn’t feel comfortable with Charlie referring to her being pregnant as having gotten “knocked up.” It isn’t that this slang didn’t exist back then, because it did. However, I think that Charlie probably would have used some other, more delicate euphemism early in the book, and only allowed herself to use this lower-class sounding slang after her increased exposure to Evelyn’s very rough-and-tumble personality which came with some outright vulgar vocabulary.
However, what struck me the most was how Quinn developed her three main characters. Quinn made sure that all three of them were very sympathetic, realistic and humanly flawed. Although neither Evelyn nor Finn seemed terribly lovable to begin with, there was something about them both that felt worthy of giving them a chance, and they certainly grew on me by the end of the novel. In fact, all three of them start out at one place in their lives and change throughout the story in one way or another. However, I did feel Quinn allowed some inconsistencies to creep in here. For example, there were times when I thought that Charlie’s part in the story felt superfluous, only for her to come back into the fore later. Also, I felt the title of book was a bit misleading, because the story didn’t give me more than a second-hand view of Louise de Bettignies, the “Alice” of the network, where I was expecting we’d get at least something from her viewpoint. This is my biggest bone of contention with this book, the fact that we aren’t served what was on the menu.
Of course, this isn’t to say that this isn’t an absorbing novel, because it is. Quinn artfully melds Charlie’s search for her cousin and Evelyn’s fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) past, making for an excellent plot basis, which Quinn respectfully and notably develops, practically irrespective of Alice/Louise/Lili and her famous network of spies. My problem is that Quinn piqued my interest about this amazing “Queen of Spies,” and after learning about her (mostly in the afterward), I wished this book had focused more on her exploits and life. Sadly, from what I can see, that historical fiction book hasn’t yet been written. Despite this, I can still recommend this book warmly and give it a solid four out of five stars.
According to Goodreads this is “a moving novel about three people who find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of happiness. Arthur, a widow, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who is avoiding school by hiding out at the cemetery, where Arthur goes every day for lunch to have imaginary conversations with his late wife, and think about the lives of others. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation. Maddy gives Arthur the name Truluv, for his loving and positive responses to every outrageous thing she says or does. With Arthur’s nosy neighbor Lucille, they create a loving and unconventional family, proving that life’s most precious moments are sweeter when shared.” Well, I couldn’t have summarized this book better, so let’s leave it at that.
At the outset, I have to admit that I’m of two minds about this book. In general, I really did enjoy it. Berg’s prose is so gentle and inviting, we cannot help but feel for these characters, while totally understanding their motives and actions. Plus, as the story progresses, Berg builds them so lovingly that it’s almost like watching flowers come into bloom. Furthermore, Berg seems to have an excellent knack for pacing her story so that we never get bored nor feel confused with too many things happening. Berg also constructed a plot that makes good sense, and runs faultlessly from beginning to end. Everything Berg is trying to show here comes through with empathy and care. These include the need people have to feel appreciated, the desire to help others and share our lives with them, and the feeling of being in control while at the same time, having people in our lives we can also depend upon.
One thing I really must commend Berg for is the ending of this novel. In my mind, I can imagine a certain scene that Berg could easily have included here, just before the final chapter. Thankfully, Berg (or her editors) didn’t include that scene, and instead jumped ahead in the story, and allowed the readers to assume this situation. Had it been included, I’m certain it would have lessened the effect of the final chapter, so kudos to Berg and/or her editors for that exclusion.
However, despite all this praise, I still have some reservations about this book. Now, perhaps this might seem unfair but early on in reading this book, I got the distinct feeling that Berg was attempting to mold Arthur into an American version of Ove (as in, from Backman’s debut novel). Yes, Ove is far more curmudgeonly and judgmental than Arthur, and also unlike Ove, he certainly hasn’t given up on life. But there are many versions of the old man who you might not always like, but you can’t help loving them nonetheless. Unfortunately, Arthur isn’t the best example of any of them, since for me, Berg wasn’t able to evoke any strong emotions out of me for Arthur. It took me a long while to put my finger on why Arthur didn’t move me, and I think the reason was that Arthur was simply too nice, too often, and it didn’t balance well with the smaller incidences of when he was being difficult. That may sound silly, but I have to be honest, and I feel I needed more harshness in Arthur, so that Berg could convince me to fall for him despite his faults. I’m certain that Berg could have done this, since essentially, we learn to love Lucille in exactly that manner, as Berg knew exactly how terribly infuriating she could be, and we still end up adoring her, both because of and despite her many faults. So, although this is a truly warm and heartwarming tale, tenderly written that just flows softly from beginning to end, it will make you smile, but I’m afraid it won’t make you cry. For this, I can still warmly recommend it, and give it a solid four out of five stars.
Random House will release "The Story of Arthur Truluv" by Elizabeth Berg on November 21, 2017. This book is available (for pre-order) from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo Books (USA, Canada & Australia), Kobo audio books (USA, Canada & Australia), eBooks, iTunes (iBook or audiobook), The Book Depository (free worldwide delivery), new or used from Alibris or Better World Books as well as from an IndieBound store near you. I would like to thank the publishers for sending me an ARC of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
The Deal of a Lifetime: A Novella by Fredrik Backman
The protagonist of this novella is a father who is wealthy, successful and famous. He also has cancer, but so does the adorable five-year-old girl he meets in the hospital. Both of them are going to die eventually. The question is, does it really matter when, how or even why they die? That, together with the question of what differences the choices we make have on our lives, is the essence of Backman’s latest work. (Dear Amazon and/or Atria Books: this is how you write a concise summary of such a brief work of poetic prose, and not the four paragraphs describing half the story, which I found on Amazon.)
In the introduction to this novella, Backman writes “Every day, everywhere, we go down one road or another. We play around; we stay at home; we fall in love and fall asleep right next to each other. We discover we need someone to sweep us off our feet to realize what time really is. So I tried to tell a story about that.” Backman also adds, “Maybe you will find this to be a strange story, I don’t know. It’s not very long, so at least it will be over quickly in that case.” Of course, reading a short work by Backman can be disheartening, simply because I never want to stop reading whatever he writes. Despite that, I understood fully why this story was so short, and why its ending was absolutely perfectly timed.
More importantly, what Backman gives us here is a type of fairy-tale, or if you will, a new Christmas Carol for the 21st century. Our unnamed protagonist is not a nice person – much like Scrooge – who cares more about money than he does about people. In fact, it took him several days to discover that his wife had left him, taking their son with her. This tidbit about the protagonist is exactly the way in which Backman shows the reader what kind of man this is, together with his own admissions of guilt. However, with this callousness, Backman gives us this man’s first-person account of his interactions with this sweet, dying little girl, and his spying on his son, happily working at his bar-tending job. Backman counters these solidly credible connections to this man’s life with an aspect of magical-reality from this mysterious woman with a folder, hence the “Christmas Carol” feeling.
Where this novella seems to depart from his other works, is that here Backman’s prose sounds like this man was speaking directly to his son, and in that, he makes all of his readers into this character. Because this man has never been a good father, and more importantly, isn’t a caring person in general, using this method, Backman succeeds in gaining some level of sympathy for this protagonist, and not just because we know he has an incurable case of cancer, just like the little girl (who we adore at the outset). Of course, Backman has always known how to make us fall in love with less-than-lovable characters, but this man never becomes truly lovable. Instead, Backman only makes us feel somewhat sorry for him. Furthermore, although we still don’t like him very much, when this story ends, we certainly feel better about him, and almost proud of what he does. I’m pretty sure that this was Backman’s intention. Mind you, these conflicting feelings also meant that, for the first time, I didn’t cry while reading a Backman book. On the other hand, after I read the last paragraph, I did sit there stunned for a good five minutes, while the words “oh, wow” went through my head. (Yes, Backman has done it again!)
However, I did have two gripes with this book. The first, as mentioned above, was the blurb I found on Amazon, which is far too detailed for my liking. Hello! This is a work by Fredrik Backman, people! He’s already got a huge following; you don’t need to give so much away. I promise you, it will sell even if all you say is “Fredrik Backman’s newest work is a thought-provoking novella about love, death, choices and consequences”! My other problem was that they sold the Kindle file of this book together with an excerpt from “Beartown” and lots and lots of promos of all Backman’s other books. With all these additions, the novella itself ended at just past the 50% mark of the file! I suspect they did it just to fool people like me into thinking we had more Backman to read. Although this did tick me off somewhat, it didn’t really distract from the novella itself, and I cannot give it less than a full five out of five stars (surprise, surprise - NOT!).
