Recent Reviews
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
In this powerful story about a young girl growing up on a rundown horse ranch in Colorado, Aryn Kyle takes us on a ride that is both heartbreaking and hopeful. Alice Winston is 12-years old and lives with her father, Joe, her mother, Marion, and, until recently, her 17-year old sister Nona who eloped with her boyfriend. Alice’s father is struggling to keep the ranch afloat and her mother never leaves the house. Alice feels isolated and confused as she attempts to put the puzzle pieces of her life together. Alice is living her life, but she does not understand it.
The book exquisitely depicts life on a horse ranch and Alice’s internal musings about the people in her life. Alice also learns about human traits such as tenderness, cruelty and indifference by observing the interactions between her horses. She tries to comprehend why her father does what he does, why her mother does not come downstairs, why her sister abandons them, and why her lab partner Polly Cain drowns. The adults that provide the scaffolding of her life are doing the best they can, but they are limited. There is no one on the ranch capable of taking care of Alice’s most basic needs. She wears her sister’s hand-me-downs that are either too big or too small.
Kyle captures the rich complexity of Alice’s interior life as she encounters her immediate family, her grandparents, her classmates, and eventually the rich women who board their horses at the ranch. Alice names this collection of women "the Catfish" and one of the daughters becomes her first friend. Issues of class, adultery, and alienation seep into the interactions at the barn. Though the Catfish provide money to the Winston family, the residue of these womens' dysfunctional lives affect Alice and she feels more confused than ever. Enter Alice’s English teacher, Mr. Delmar. Alice confides in Mr. Delmar and through their conversations, Alice starts to make sense of the world and gain self-confidence.
One night, Alice’s mother Marion asks Alice about her father’s affection for Patty Jo, one of the Catfish. Alice is surprised that her mother knew her father's feelings, She says, “All these years, I had thought we were protecting her, shielding her from the ugly world outside. But now I wondered how I could have ever believed that I was protecting anyone from anything. The world was what it was. There were no secrets. There were only things that went unsaid.”
Kyle’s lyrical writing is both quiet and startling. She offers psychological insights and deep development of Alice's character. There are wonderful quotes that made me reach for my highlighter. When Alice learns from her sister the reason for their mother's retreat to her room, Alice says, “This information, I didn’t have to accept it. Stories get twisted over time. Memories changed shape. It didn’t have to be truth if I didn’t want it to be. The event flashed through my mind and I saw it happen. Real or not, it would stay in my mind, a scar on something that had moments before been flawless. It would be there forever.”
Kyle writes, “Childhood is never over, not really. But the places we come from don’t leave us as easily as we leave them.” No doubt Alice’s growing up will leave her with scars. It is hard to imagine recommending such a bleak book. Yet by the end of the novel, Alice has something she does not have at the beginning: a sense of empowerment. She better understands the choices and behaviors of the people in her life. The puzzle pieces are beginning to come together.
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan’s impressive novel astutely explores complicated psychological dynamics. The year is 1962. Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting are staying at an inn perched on a bluff overlooking Chesil Beach and the English Channel. Here is the first sentence, "They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.”
Married that morning, this novel describes their disastrous attempt to consummate their marriage. That Edward and Florence share a deep love for one another is never in doubt. Their connection is honest, playful, and respectful. Yet, they both have psychological dimensions of themselves they have not explored. After a lovely wedding and reception, their fears, expectations, and innocence infiltrate the hotel room and their easy rapport dissolves. McEwan’s precise prose describes the wrenching events and powerful emotions that end the marriage before it begins. His carefully crafted sentences operate on multiple levels. He describes the dominant factors that shaped Edward and Florence’s childhoods and offers insight into their responses to their sexual encounter. He alludes to the possibility that Florence’s father sexually abused Florence. But that possibility has not emerged from Florence’s unconscious. Edward, too, has issues. McEwan writes, ”The language and practice of therapy, the currency of feelings diligently shared, mutually analyzed, and were not yet in general circulation.” Even still, I want to climb into the book and tell Florence and Edward: Take a deep breath. You love each other. You can work this out.
Instead, Florence and Edward withdrawal from each other and develop their separate narratives about what went wrong. Given the high emotion of this intimate encounter, they feel embarrassed, ashamed, and angry. Their vulnerability and insecurities prohibit them from authentically sharing their feelings. They lash out, retreat from one another, and return to their prior lives. McEwan describes the multiple layers of miscomprehension: “And what stood in their way? Their personalities and pasts, their ignorance and fear, timidity, squeamishness, lack of entitlement or experiences or easy manners, then the tail end of a religious prohibition, their Englishness and class, and history itself. Nothing much at all."
McEwan shows us their futures without one another. He reminds his readers that one event or even one evening can change the trajectory of a life. At the end of the book, Edward is in his 60’s and is ruminating about his wedding night 40 years ago: “All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience - if only he had had them both at once - would have surely seen them both through. This is how the entire course of a life can be changed-by doing nothing.” With psychological insight, McEwan provides a vivid portrait of a couple that loves each other - but tragically, in this story, love is not enough.
the Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers is a beautiful book about the redemptive power of love, wisdom, grace and healing. By illuminating the Victorian era practice of communicating feelings through flower selection, Diffenbaugh softens the otherwise painful story of a young women trapped in the foster care system. We first meet 18 year-old Victoria Jones on her “emancipation day.” Victoria's social worker is driving her to a transition home in the Sunset District of San Francisco. Victoria feels unwanted, unloved, and unworthy. Abandoned at three weeks, Victoria has lived in dozens of foster homes. Though she is bright, her anti-social behavior and attachment disorder cause her to hide within herself. Victoria has pushed away anyone that begins to care about her. The pain of familiar isolation is better than the pain of rejection and abandonment. Miraculously, she endures the foster care system for 18 years. After running away from her “transition” home, she is homeless and living in a public park. She eventually works for a florist named Renata and rents a tiny room from Renata’s sister. After she meets Grant at the flower market, he hands her a clipping of mistletoe, which Victoria knows to symbolize - I surmount all obstacles. Victoria then gives Grant snapdragon which symbolizes-presumption. Victoria’s feels fear and something new: a glimmer of hope as she realizes they both know the language of flowers.
The story alternates between Victoria’s post-emancipation life and her recollection of the most formative year of her life when, at age 10, Victoria is placed in a foster home north of San Francisco. Her new foster mother, Elizabeth, is single and lives in a house on a vineyard. After experiencing abuse and neglect, Victoria seems incapable of receiving love. Yet, the lush landscape of grapes, flowers, and endless sky offer possibility. Her new foster mother sets clear boundaries for Victoria. She cooks her delicious meals, pays attention to her, and treats her with compassion and respect. Victoria’s hardened heart begins to yield. She is finally being treated with respect, not like an unworthy foster kid.
Initially, it is difficult for Elizabeth and Victoria. Yet, Elizabeth knows the shame of rejection and abandonment. She too was neglected and received little love from her distant father and mentally ill mother. She perseveres due to the love of her older sister, Catherine, who now lives next door. This experience provides Elizabeth with empathy and understanding. She tells Victoria, “Nothing you could do would make me send you away. Nothing. So you can go on testing me, hurling my mother's silver around the kitchen, if that is what you have to do - but know that my response will always be the same: I will love you and I will keep you.”
Elizabeth teaches Victoria the turn-of-the-century practice of conveying emotion through flowers. This cryptic communication resonates with Victoria and she begins to share her emotions through flowers. Victoria asks Elizabeth the name of the flower for hate. Elizabeth retorts, “The flower you are looking for is clearly the common thistle, which symbolizes "misanthropy." Misanthropy means hatred or mistrust of humankind. Victoria responds, “No one had ever described my feelings in a single word.” Victoria quickly absorbs this new language and uses it to communicate her feelings to Elizabeth. Victoria settles into Elizabeth’s world and experiences the feeling of being loved. “I didn't want to go back. I liked Elizabeth I liked her flowers, her grapes, and her concentrated attention. Finally, I realized, I had found a place I wanted to stay.”
Yet trouble is brewing. The sisters have not spoken in 15 years. The silence emanating from Catherine’s house next door has wrapped itself like a vine around Elizabeth’s heart. She begs her sister to talk with her, but is met with silence. Her grief and despair take their toll on Elizabeth's relationship with Victoria. When the day comes for Elizabeth to adopt Victoria, Elizabeth panics. She does not get out of bed. She fears she cannot provide Victoria with the love and nurturing she never received. Emotional chaos ensues and Victoria does something shocking. The foster care system cannot make sense of what transpired. There is miscommunication and misunderstanding and the fragile possibility of a loving home evaporates. Victoria is sent back into the foster care system for eight more years. Her grief is overwhelming as Victoria knows Elizabeth loves her and yet, in her guilt and confusion, Victoria believes she deserves her fate.
I don’t want to spoil the many subplots. But during the year that Victoria lives with Elizabeth, the seeds of love and acceptance were planted in Victoria. They are not revealed for 10 more years and Victoria’s painful path is hard to observe. Yet, Victoria does change and learns to integrate a bit of the love and trust she learned from Elizabeth into her present life. When Victoria sees Elizabeth again after 10 years, she bring Elizabeth a huge bouquet of flowers. The flowers in the bouquet are: Flax – I feel your kindness; forget me not – forget me not; hazel - reconciliation; white rose - grace; pink rose - a heart acquainted with love; helenium - tears; periwinkle - tender recollections; primrose - childhood; and bellflower - gratitude. Victoria has grown and changed. She not only understands the language of flowers; she can now experience the feelings they symbolize.
