Reading for Me

As I continue reading my way through the THO-TRE shelf of the Poplar and White Station branch of the Memphis Public Library, I am happy to say that The Crazyladies of Pearl Street was a pleasure to read. I had never encountered Trevanian’s writing and can now include him among the list of modern writers that I greatly enjoy reading.

Crazyladies is narrated by Jean-Luc, a pre-teen boy living in an Albany, New York slum with his mother and sister. Set in the 1930s and 1940s, Luke learns about the world’s challenges with the innocence of youth through his interactions with the people of Pearl Street and the surrounding community. The narrator understands love (and lust) at the Catholic School. His understanding of the European crisis is shaped by conversations with the Jewish store owner on the corner and his family’s prized possession, a second-hand radio. Having been abandoned by his father throughout his early years, Luke finds himself dealing with the pressure to provide for his mother and sister while growing to resent the responsibility that he never asked for. When a young cowboy arrives in the slum, Jean-Luc hopes the man will be a new father figure that he can admire that will also provide for the struggling family. Despite hopes and promises, the young family finds themselves deserted again, struggling to make ends meet in a new location without a job.

Trevanian combines artfully developed characters with gentle humor and heart-warming drama in a wonderful tale of trial, war, and heartache and its impact on a growing boy. I look forward to exploring more of Trevanian’s novels in the future.

My final book of 2014 was another installment in My Library Shelf project. The Oriental Wife was a book that was both engaging and confusing at the same time. The story begins with three young German children who find themselves dealing with the horrors of the 1930s. Ultimately, all three find themselves in the United States, but things do not turn out any smoother for them. It seems the book itself is a study of the impact of human loss and human cruelty.

The confusion came on several levels. First, there is the issue of the title. What in the world does the idea of an “oriental wife” have to do with anything in this story? There are references at the end of the novel to a wife of a Indo-Chinese businessman who leaves New York unexpectedly, but Toynton does not establish a clear connection between the figure and the rest of the story. My other issue with the book is its abrupt shifts and lack of continuity. Divided into three parts, the book is united by returning characters. However, the lives of these characters seem totally different than what was observed in the previous section. For instance, part 2 centers around the severe illness of Louisa and her apparent helplessness. By the time we begin part 3, Louisa is living in a boarding house where she requires little assistance for her disability and it is her ex-husband who is now sick with terminal cancer. While there is a certain amount of karma in this aspect of the story, the end of the book focuses on Louisa’s daughter to such a large degree that the idea of revenge is completely loss.

The writing had potential. I found myself thrust into the author’s world. It simply lacked development of plot. This is the only work by Toynton on my library shelf….and I don’t intend to seek out other works by this horribly confusing author.