Recent Reviews
Secrets and Shadows by Roberta Silman
Roberta Silman’s Secrets and Shadows adds another important narrative to the numerous novels about Jewish families who endured the crazed cruelty of the Nazis during WWII. The novel also illuminates how fast democratic norms can be diminished until they erode completely leaving anarchy and evil in their place.
When the Berlin Wall falls in November of 1989, Paul Bertram calls his ex-wife Eve and asks her to accompany him to Germany. Given their almost non-existent communication, the request baffles Eve but she nonetheless agrees to join him.
As they visit the Berlin landmarks of Paul’s childhood, Paul recounts the incremental loss of freedom he and his family experienced in the 1940s. As a boy, Paul was known as Paulie Berger. His family was Jewish and his father owned a jewelry store. When it became clear that leaving Berlin was not viable, Paul’s parents arranged for a Gentile family, with whom they were friends, to move into the Berger’s home. The Berger family, in turn, moved into a hidden room in the attic. As the Nazis crept closer, the Berger family fled to the forest. Before their departure, Paul made a spiteful decision that affected the Gentile family. He had never told anyone - until this trip.
Paul had immigrated to the United States and became quite successful. He attended college and law school, married his wife Eve and became the father of three children. Yet internally, he felt ashamed about the choices he made as a teenage boy. The psychological trauma of his wartime experiences stayed with him. The accumulated stress and guilt haunted his every move. Paul withdrew from his family, flew into wild rages and engaged in a series of public affairs. Finally, Eve and Paul divorced and retreated into separate lives.
What Eve learns about Paul’s boyhood experience shocks and saddens her. She had never pressed him for details during their marriage. She feared what she might hear. Now she understands that Paul’s emotional distance came from the horrors he witnessed and his need for self-punishment. For Paul, the trip is part confessional, part therapy and part detective work to answer his own questions about those years. A unique aspect of this novel is that Paul is able to return to his boyhood home and even encounter one of the people he had betrayed. His psychological healing may begin.
The structure of this novel feels disjointed and the prose can ramble. Nonetheless, it is another significant story of the inhumane treatment of Jews during WWII. These stories, fictionalized or not, must be known and heard. Though Paul and his family escaped the concentration camps, they experienced their own version of hell. Secrets and Shadows shows how unspoken trauma can reverberate through families. The novel also reminds us that even when good people band together to confront evil, sometimes it can be too late.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Review published in the San Francisco Examiner on September 9, 2018
http://www.sfexaminer.com/tag/fruit-of-the-drunken-tree/
Fruit of the Drunken Tree is a riveting new novel by talented Bay Area writer, Ingrid Rojas Contreras. It is a powerful and disturbing coming-of-age story set in the Bogotá, Colombia of the 1990s. The book describes the intersecting lives of two young girls, one affluent, one poor, trying to grow up as a cyclone of escalating violence engulfs them. Kidnappings, assassinations, car bombs and the pursuit of Pablo Escobar punctuate their daily lives. The book is ultimately a tale of emotional resilience, as these children come to terms with the frightening disintegration of civil order.
Seven-year-old Chula Santiago lives in Bogotá with her nine-year-old sister Cassandra and her mother and father, Alma and Antonio. Inside her guarded community, Chula lives in comfort, plays with dolls and watches Mexican soap operas. But the threat of violence hovers all around. Anxiety is her constant companion. She tells us early on, “Most people we knew got kidnapped in the routine way: at the hands of guerrillas, held at ransom and then returned, or disappeared.”
Chula’s father works for an American oil company and is often away from home. Chula’s mother hires thirteen-year-old girl, Petrona Sánchez, as a maid. Petrona lives in abject poverty in an invasión, a slum on the outskirts of Bogotá. Her mattress rests on a dirt floor, there is no running water and food is scarce. A paramilitary group had kidnapped her father and older brothers and torched the family’s farmhouse. Petrona now provides for her mother and remaining siblings as best she can.
The narration of the novel rotates back and forth between Chula and Petrona as they absorb each new event in this dystopian world. The girls attempt to learn the names of a bewildering array of drug lords and guerrilla groups. A confused Chula says, “…I couldn’t grasp the simplest of concepts—what was the difference between the guerrillas and the paramilitary? What was a communist? Who was each group fighting?” The girls are living in a war zone. When Petrona becomes involved with a young man who has joined a guerrilla group, Chula and the Santiago family are suddenly more vulnerable.
A foreboding sense of danger and death lurk on every page. As societal norms erode and the poor grow desperate, some people’s behavior become more depraved. The young girls attempt to make sense of the mayhem from their separate perspectives. When Pablo Escobar is captured, Chula’s sister says, “We can go to the movies! We can go out wherever we want now and we won’t have to fear being blow up!” Petrona views it very differently, “People like el Patrón where I’m from.”
Rojas Contreras masterfully places her fictional characters into the real historical events of that tragic time. Her language is rich and beautiful and she deepens our immersion by blending Spanish words and phrases into the story. Like an Isabelle Allende or Gabriel García Márquez novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree includes captivating moments of magical realism.
By the time the Santiagos flee Colombia, Chula has personally experienced many violent incidents. Not surprisingly, there is a severe psychological toll. Chula’s panic attacks increase and PTSD dominates her daily life. The Santiagos eventually liquidate their assets and leave Colombia for California. But, it is clear that no family member will be able to leave the trauma behind. Petrona has her own scars, but no such possibility of escape.
It is almost too painful to imagine children growing up in this environment, but all too many did. Rojas Contreras was one of them, a testament to her resilience and strength. Many of the events described in this heartbreaking novel are based on her own experience. She does not seek to assign blame for the chaos in Colombia; rather her impressive novel engenders empathy for the children who were robbed of their childhoods.
Family History by Dani Shapiro
A friend recommended that I add Dani Shapiro’s new book Inheritance to my reading list. The publication date is January of 2019. Since I had not read any of Shapiro’s prior works, I picked up her 2003 novel Family History and finished it in two days. This sad story took hold of me and didn’t let me go until the very last page. It is clear that Shapiro understands both the strength and vulnerability of family dynamics and knows how to convey that complexity in her writing.
From the first paragraph, we know something is not right. Rachel Jensen is in her bed watching old family videos in the middle of the day with the shades drawn. Her husband, Ned, has moved out, her teenage daughter Kate boards at a therapeutic school and her 2-year-old son, Josh, has some unspecified issue.
Rachel and Ned fell in love in their 20’s when they were both struggling artists in Greenwich Village. When Rachel becomes pregnant with Kate, they marry and move to the fictional town of Hawthorne, Massachusetts to live in a “fixer upper” near Ned’s parents. Using her art history degree, Rachel feels fulfilled restoring art for wealthy patrons and an occasional museum. Her family is her first commitment and the routines of their life make her feel peaceful and content. Ned enjoys teaching at the local private school and pursues his art when time allows. The family videos and memories show Kate as a happy young girl embraced by the love of her parents. It seems the Jensens have been enthusiastic and engaged parents delighting in Kate’s school activities and developmental milestones.
At 13, Kate goes to sleep away camp for the first time. She returns home with a tattoo, a belly piercing and an angry attitude. “We had missed her so much after all, and how here she was a strange sullen creature.” Rachel and Ned attribute this radical change in her personality to teenage angst. But Kate’s surly behavior escalates. She skips school and is caught shoplifting. As is often the case, she finds a new riskier friend group eager to push the boundaries. Compounding this tough time for Kate, Rachel becomes pregnant and Kate’s mood swings increase. When her baby brother Josh is born, Kate keeps her distance and becomes more sullen.
Soon Kate and Josh are involved in an accident that injures infant Josh. The family spirals out of control. Each family member feels fear, anger and sadness: a malignant dynamic emerges. Kate is scared and confused about her role in the accident and cuts herself. Rachel says, “She was a robot, systematically destroying herself and everyone around her.” The cascading series of events traumatizes everyone in the family and the solidity of the family structure crumbles.
If you’re interested in psychology and family dynamics "Family History" is a page-turner. Shapiro offers no conclusions as to what happened to Kate at camp, the night of the accident or what the trajectory of the Jensen family will be. It is up to the reader to discern. I wish there had been more clues of Kate’s impending implosion. But sometimes mental illness can just appear after dormancy in a child’s youth. It is hard to know when an adolescent rebellion has shifted into a mental health concern. Life can be heartbreaking and tragic. One can only hope that the Jensens’ receive the help they need to repair the damage and heal their emotional wounds.
