The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant

This book captivated me from the start. The way she develops the plot and story line, pull the reader in from the first chapter. The beginning takes place in the present, when Vivien meets her dead uncle's former girlfriend and fiance and there's an iciness and story to be told. The reader senses the tension between the two and wants to learn the story.
The author then goes back to tell Vivien's (and her family's story). Her own folks tell her nothing of their past - they only poison her with stories of her evil uncle. Her parents really don't live. They exist. They feel so fortunate to have escaped thier native Hungary and to find "shelter" in London that they turn their back on the past and don't share it with their daughter. She has a thirst for knowledge, for the truth, for an identity and she learns all of this from her uncle Sandor.
She was told he was an evil and bad man, but in truth, he was just a survivor and a person who wants to live, savor life and is not the bad slum landlord he was made out to be (and served in prison for his crimes).
People choose different outfits to change them on the outside. Here's a great quote from the book:

"The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in. We are all trapped with these thick calves or pendulous breasts, our sunken chests, our dropping jowls. A million imperfections mar us. There are deep flaws we are not at liberty to do anything about except under the surgeon's knife. So the most you can do is put on a new dress, a different tie. We are foreven turning into someone else, and shoud never forget that someone else is always looking."

Reading Short Stories

For quite a while I have resisted reading short stories. Not sure why. I guess I like the experience of a novel....the build up of plot, the thrill of getting to the climax, and to reaching the finish.
Well, with the advent of a favorite author, Jumpha Lahiri, coming out with a critically acclaimed collection of short stories, I am now a convert. I've read about half of them so far, but can combine that with another novel...which provides a very rich reading experience.
So, right now I am reading "Unaccustomed Earth" by Lahiri and "The Clothes on their Backs" by Linda Grant. Love them both!

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

This is an amazing book. A difficult topic - losing a child - but written with such beauty and sensitivity. There are so many deep and thoughtful passages about memory, about how the mind works, and how we see. The protagonist is a photographer and the author brings the theme of photography into the mix with such relevance to the story. there were passages that I wanted to read over and over again.
"We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility. We wage monotonous war against our own impending deaths, against time that turns children into that other lesser species: adults. We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselves preserved. We fear hat we will die and others will not know that we lived."
This is just one passage dealing with how photography reflects life.
The book seemed a little long because I wanted SO much to know the outcome. Will she find Emma? But the fact that it went on so long was just the point that the author was making. When something like this happens, every day must seem like an eternity. I kept thinking....she will find Emma, or else the book would have been 100 pages shorter. But then I would think.....NO, she will NOT find Emma and that IS the point. Every day there is the same pain, but different feelings. She is capturing this so realistically.
Anyway, I am not giving away the end. It is worth reading this book. I LOVE the author's website too. Here is a link:
http://michellerichmond.com/