Solace and Joy
The solace and joy to be found in a well-written book, no matter how sad or difficult the content, is immeasurable. I have an embarrassment of riches for you this month with books covering politics, trauma, sexuality, art, relationships and family.
Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy by Anne Sebba (Les Parisiennes) is a brilliant biography of a remarkable woman—a Communist, a singer/musician, a loving wife and mother who, along with her husband Julius, was executed in 1953 for espionage. It is a horrifying story, endemic to the history of post-war America, the Cold War and McCarthyism. While Sebba does not claim Ethel Rosenberg to be entirely innocent, she illuminates the injustice and prejudice which surrounded this famous trial. Not only a story of betrayal (in more ways than one) the story of the Rosenbergs is also a tragic love story.
The Promise is a beautifully written novel by South African writer Damon Galgut. A fascinating dissection of a white family living outside Pretoria, their fate reflects that of the benighted country in which they live. The Promise of the title on one level refers to an unfulfilled promise made to the family’s black servant, but also to the broken promise of a ‘new’ South Africa. Galgut’s gorgeous language, extraordinary characters and ever-shifting point of view make this a very human and complex novel.
The personal is political also, in Katie Kitamura’s excellent novel, Intimacies. In pared-back prose, Kitamura’s female protagonist is a cosmopolitan interpreter, recently arrived in The Hague, who is given the confronting job of interpreting at the trial of a brutal African dictator. In her personal life, she is having trouble interpreting not only her own motives and behaviour, but those of her new lover and friends. Such a brief précis short-changes this stunningly insightful, multi-layered and rewarding book.
I’ve been hand-selling Animal by Lisa Taddeo (Three Women) because of its totally out-there main character. Nice, empathic women people so much fiction, it’s refreshing to read a book about a deeply flawed, kind of crazy (traumatised) character driving a kind of crazy narrative. Gird your loins!
And lastly, I’ll mention Night Blue, a debut Australian novel by Angela O’Keeffe which has been out a few months and divided opinion, it being told partly through the ‘voice’ of the painting Blue Poles. I’ll take sides. I loved it!
Hopefully be seeing you on D’hill by the time you read this, Morgan