Within the first two paragraphs of this dramatic and incisive study of human relationships, author Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indians, introduces a series of powerful conflicts which pit family against family, culture against culture, and generation against generation. In the opening scene, quoted at the top of the review, Landreaux Iron, a careful and respected member of his culture, accidentally kills Dusty Ravich, the five-year-old son of Peter Ravich, a friend and family member with whom he had planned to share the meat from the buck. Racing back to Peter’s house, Landreaux encounters Peter’s wife Nola, who becomes understandably hysterical, and by the time the tribal police, the county coroner, and the state coroner have arrived, the trauma has been felt by all the members of both devastated families. Later, Landreaux, his wife Emmaline, and their five-year-old son LaRose take solace in the traditions of their Indian culture by going to the sweat lodge. There, in their mystical dreams, they have a vision of the future. True justice and repentance, they decide, can only be achieved if Landreaux gives his own five-year-old son, LaRose, to Peter Ravich and his wife Nola to raise as their own. The action of the novel evolves from this decision in the first few pages of the book.
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On the surface, The Illuminations, the fifth novel by Scottish author Andrew O’Hagan, appears to be a simple story about Captain Luke Campbell, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and his grandmother, Anne Quirk, with whom he has always been particularly close. Luke has returned from the fighting with issues which prevent him from becoming close to those around him, perhaps reflecting some aspects of PTSD. His beloved grandmother Anne, now eighty-two, is staying at a co-operative living facility on the west coast of Scotland, where the other residents and a caring staff are trying to keep her from harm as her developing dementia begins to become dangerous. A former art photographer, whose work has recently interested a group which hopes to present a retrospective showing, Anne spent time in Canada, New York, Glasgow, and eventually Blackpool, before she mysteriously stopped doing any photography in 1963 when she was in her early thirties. Luke, whose mother Alice’s issues have always prevented her from becoming personally connected with her son, has come to Scotland after the war to try to help Anne. Packed full of thoughtful imagery, well-developed characterizations, subtle changes which reveal the longings of the heart, and actions which each character hopes will inspire new beginnings, The Illuminations lives up to its title.
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As the novel opens on March 30, 1924, the Nivens, Sheringhams and others throughout England are celebrating Mothering Sunday, a holiday in which the citizens, aristocracy and servants alike, all celebrate their mothers. Servants are especially happy, as they all get a day off to travel to their homes and visit with family. Jane Fairchild, who works as a housemaid at Beechwood in an atmosphere much like that of a small Downton Abbey, will not be traveling, however. A foundling deposited at the door of an orphanage shortly after she was born, Jane has never known a mother or a father, does not know any birth name she may have had, and has spent her whole life in an orphanage – until, at age fourteen, she entered “service.” At sixteen she begins working for the Niven family, which, in the aftermath of World War I, has reduced the number of their household servants to two – Milly, the cook, and Jane, the maid. As we learn in the opening pages, Jane, now twenty-two, has been having a secret sexual relationship for the past six years with the only surviving son and heir of neighboring aristocrats who live near the Nivens. The young man, Paul Sheringham, will be entertaining Jane in his own house and in his own bed for the first time on this holiday, and, at his request, Jane will arrive at the estate’s front door as an equal, not at the servants’ entrance. Paul’s parents and the Nivens are off visiting with their friends, the Hobdays, celebrating Paul’s future marriage to Emma Hobday, a woman of “appropriate” class. The wedding is to be held in just two weeks. A close look at a young woman’s growth as an independent thinker.
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Anne Enright’s intimate and often humorous look at an Irish family with roots in an unnamed County Clare village near Limerick may reflect the values and attitudes of one family in that part of Ireland, but Enright is by no means parochial. The Madigan family dynamics, which operate beneath their polite veneer, betray long-time resentments, continuing hostilities, and difficulties in communication shared by other families, not just in Ireland, but almost anywhere else in the world. Enright’s skillful rendering of the Madigan family members as they interact with each other and within the new worlds they choose to inhabit – away from their mother and their home village – reflects deep feelings, and will feel familiar to many, if not most, readers because of their universality. Rosaleen Madigan, the widowed matriarch of the family has always been a powerful figure within her family, managing all aspects of family life and the household where she has lived with her husband and children for her entire marriage. Now she is alone and lonely, and she will not “go gently into that dark night.” She has a plan. The novel, which resembles a series of interconnected short stories, focuses on individuals who are all trying to fill voids in their lives. The novel is less “Irish” than many other such novels, as the universal themes carry this character-based novel far beyond place. In other ways, however, the atmosphere and the setting are consummately Irish, its descriptions of the village, the heritage of the family and its churchly connections over the years, the traditions, and the focus on the land and the sea.
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Both a journalist and a novelist, British author John Prescott puts all his writing talents to use in this stimulating work which straddles the line between reality and fiction. The Dig, set in June, 1939, near Woodbridge, on a North Sea estuary about a hundred miles northeast of London, engages the reader from the opening Prologue. Basil Browne, a local resident with great sensitivity to the both geology and archaeology, has returned at night to the site where he has been digging for several weeks and where he has already found evidence of a ship, its outline preserved by elements from the local soil which have replaced the material from which the ship was originally constructed. This Prologue sets the scene, the tone, and the atmosphere for the narrative which follows. Sutton Hoo is a real place, and its excavations, along with the internecine rivalries which emerged among local and national historic preservation groups, as they are described here, parallel what really happened in 1939, bringing the author’s journalistic skills to the forefront. The novel really excels, however, in the vibrant personalities created for Basil Browne, Grately the butler, Mrs. Pretty, and all the other participants in the drama of the excavation. These emerge from the characters’ conversations and behavior during the action, which though plausible, are not factual. Adding dialogue and some imagination to his reality allows author Preston much more flexibility in telling his story. His characters become much “rounder” and more realistic, allowing modern readers to identify with them and be drawn into the expanded story. A book that is hard to put down.
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