This was one of my two favorite books I listed
by Geraldine Brooks. I often find that when I love a book, I immediately read
more by the same author.
I found it fascinating that Brooks based her novel on
a fictional character, in this case, the mostly distant father of the March
family, made famous in Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women.
I enjoy reading novels that take minor characters
from well-known books and reimagine the stories from their points of view.
As Valerie Martin did in Mary Reilly
(based on a character from Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Brooks
brings the main character, as well as other characters, real and fictional, to
vivid life in a story about the Civil War, an era I find of great personal interest
and about which I’ve written a novel myself.
From the author of the acclaimed YEAR OF WONDERS, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Set during the American Civil War, MARCH tells the story of John March, known to us as the father away from his family of girls in LITTLE WOMEN, Louisa May Alcott's classic American novel. In Brooks' telling, March emerges as an abolitionist and idealistic chaplain on the front lines of a war that tests his faith in himself and in the Union cause when he learns that his side, too,…
This novel's central character is a fictionalization, not of another character, but of an author, Thomas Mann. Tóibín presents the known outer details of Mann’s
life well—his work, his fame, and the cultural and social upheavals of 20th-century Germany—but I find the intimate inner life of the great writer most fascinating.
Drawing on Mann’s
published works as well as his posthumously published diaries, Tóibín can enter Mann’s mind and heart as he interacts with his wife, his brother, his
children, particularly Klaus (nicknamed Essi), his sexuality, and above all,
with his forbidden love for the young Tadzio, the love interest of Mann’s novel
Death in Venice.
I found that Tóibín’s work has the quiet gravitas
and beautiful prose of Henry James.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
From one of our greatest living writers comes a sweeping novel of unrequited love and exile, war and family.
The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism.
He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected…
I have an affinity for the Antebellum and Civil War period in American history, and Brooks' novel covers this era vividly and powerfully.
Aside from Brooks’ keenly
drawn characters and crisp prose, what I found particularly fascinating in this
novel was the brilliance of her narrative structure. She proceeds along two alternating fronts, from
the past moving forward in time, and from the present moving backward, achieving
a tension in the narration as well as a harmony of meaning that historical
novels strive for: namely, making the past relevant to the present, and using
the present to illuminate the significance of the past in human terms.
The fact that it was about horses and the characters’
love for them was an added bonus. I say
this because I know little about horses, but I always appreciate when an author
can make me smarter about a subject and come to care for that subject as much
as the author does.
"Brooks' chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling." -The New York Times Book Review
"Horse isn't just an animal story-it's a moving narrative about race and art." -TIME
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an…
In this powerful novel based on an actual case, two Irish immigrants are arrested for the murder of a young man traveling along the road from Boston to New York in 1805. Daley, a family man with a young son, and Halligan, who has a checkered past and a lost love, face their fate bravely with the help of Father Cheverus, a Catholic priest from France.
Victims of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic prejudice, the tragedy of the Irishmen is the tragedy of America—how does an immigrant fit in America?
White vividly captures early New England's political, social, and cultural context. Told from two different points of view, the novel interweaves the stories of Halligan, an atheist, and Father Cheverus, a priest who has questioned his own faith.
