Cascade; Maryanne O'Hara

Title:  Cascade

Author:  Maryanne O'Hara

Publication Year: 2012

Publisher: Viking

Edition: eGalley

Setting: MA and NYC

Source: NetGalley

Date Completed: December/2012

Rating: 4.5/5 

Recommend: yes

Desdemona (Dez) Hart Spaulding, is an independent woman, a gifted young artist who has studied in Boston and even Paris.  Her dreams of living in the big city and making it big in the art world are set aside because of a promise she made to father, John Hart, a former actor,  who lost his fortune and was even forced to close his Cascade Shakespearean Theater when the Depression hit. 

Following her father's advice Dez marries the older, but sensible Asa Spaulding, a pharmacist who is anxious to start of family, something Dez is not ready for.  When her father dies just two months after their marriage, she learns that he has left his theater to her husband, but wants Dez to see that it opens once again.

At the same time, something else is going on that has the potential of affecting the town of Cascade. Her father's dream of his theater reopen in Cascade, MA may not happen if plans by the state to build a new reservoir by flooding several small towns goes through.  Dez begins throwing her energy into her painting and art by capturing Cascade as it is (pre-flood) in the form of postcards.  When a Jewish artist from New York, now traveling salesman, breezes into town, he and Dez feel a bond because of their love of art, but townspeople with anti-Semitic views see him as a suspicious outsider.  For Dez, when a New York magazine seems interested in her art, she must decide what to do. Stay with Asa or pursue her dreams.

This was an wonderful debut novel which appealed to me for several reasons. The author beautifully detailed life in New England in the 1930s as well as what Greenwich Village in New York must have been like at that time as well.  The author really creates a realistic dilemma -- doing what's right or following one's heart.  The characters as well as the impending doom surrounding the flooding of the towns seemed believable as well. Oh, and I almost forgot, a surprise ending as well.

Another reason I found the story so interesting was that, although this was a work of fiction, the story, at least in part, was based on a similar event that occurred about 20 miles from where I grew up in Western Massachusetts around the same time (1936). The Quabbin Reservoir resulted when larger cities like Boston were in need of a larger drinking water supply. The Quabbin is one of the largest suppliers of drinking water in the United States. It's a beautiful place to visit and spend time with nature and family.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Every Tuesday, I'll be posting the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book I decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along. For today's First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro, I'm featuring an intro of a book I picked up from the library yesterday. It's new for 2012 from Penguin.

The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas

Julia Romp

(from Prologue)

" When it came to first impressions, Ben didn't exactly shine.  He wasn't a small, pretty kitten with a blaze of ginger hair or even a sleek adult cat with a shining tortoiseshell coat.  In fact, his black and white fur was covered in dried blood, his red rump was completely bare and his thin tail looked more like a hairy twig.  Thankfully, I couldn't tell by looking at him that he was also home to scores of fleas and ear mites.

But as off-putting as he looked, when the sickly stray started visiting my garden I left out food, because I've always had a soft spot when it came to animals.  Even my pet rabbit Fluffy lives in a shed that I painted with bright flowers --it's like the Ritz for rabbits--so I made up a bed for the cat in a carrier, which I left in the shed, hoping it would sleep there.  The stray was looking worse each day and, I thought, once it felt at home in the carrier, I'd shut the door and take it to the vet. " 

Would you keep reading this memoir?

Please feel free to grab the logo and join in by posting the first paragraph (or 2) of a book you are reading now or hoping to read soon.

December Holiday Giveaway

Happy Holidays

I've been thinking that it's been a while since I had a giveaway and December seems like the perfect month, since most everyone is busy buying others gifts, how about a chance to win something for yourself.  I'm giving away an unabridged book on cds of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful new book, Flight Behavior.  (If interested you can checkout my review here. )

 

Flight Behavior; Barbara Kingsolver

 

(This giveaway is made possible thanks to the good people at Harper.)

 

TO WIN

• Open to US and International Readers
• Leave a comment with an email address to contact you.
• Tweet about it for an EXTRA entry
• Drawing will be on Sunday December 16th
• Good Luck to Everyone who Enters

Saturday Snapshots - December 8

Saturday Snapshot

is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.

Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

A short video of our future knitting prodigy.

Shadow Tag; Louise Erdrich

Title:  Shadow Tag

Author:  Louise Erdrich

Publication Year: 2010

Publisher: Record Books - Harper

Edition: audiobook

Reader: Coleen Marlo (very good)
Setting: Minnesota

Source: library

Date Completed: November/2012

Rating: 4/5 

Recommend: yes

Shadow Tag is one of those stories where a married couple, this one with (3) children, stay together even though everyone knows that they would be better off living apart. Well, everyone in the family at least; to the outside world, they seem like the perfect Native American family.

The couple is Irene and Gil, two people who have a love-hate relationship, with their constant fighting, anger, rage, and downright hatred playing out on a regular basis. Their children, ages 14 to 6, Florian, Riel and Stoney are often witnesses to much of what goes on between the parents, and even the children and family dog are sensitive to the tension.  Each knows when to get out of the way of the parents. Irene wants a divorce from Gil. He's a somewhat famous artist, and Irene has been his model for some 15 years.  She has often being subjected to posing in crude demeaning positions, even looking beaten, bruised and bloodied.  She's conflicted - she has been working on her graduate degree and dissertation for many years and often drinks too much as well. She wants out of her marriage, but she hangs in there believing that she is doing it for her children because Gil will not let her leave with them.

When Irene discovers early on that Gil has been reading her personal diary, she comes up with an idea to really give him something to read, that may make him want to divorce after all.  The red diary embellished with statements that are meant to set her husband off (which Gil reads), she writes of her sexual encounters with other men. The blue diary (kept safely locked) is the one where Irene writes with honesty the frustrations about her marriage to Gil.  Of course, nothing good can come from her plan.

This story as I'm sure you have gathered was very dark, and even tragic.  I did not like either of the parents in this story and felt for the children -- each distinctly different and damaged by their surroundings.  Each of the children, I was able to sympathize with.  Listening to this audio book was like having this black cloud brooding above me. Although, I was not sure how this rather short novel was going to end, I was still taken aback when I turned the final pages.

As with any Louise Erdrich book I've read, I was not disappointed.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Every Tuesday, I'll be posting the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book I decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along. For today's First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro, I'm featuring an intro to a book by a new to me author. Has anyone read this one?

We Sinners; Hanna Pylvainen

2012 Henry Holt and Co.

"SHE SHOULD HAVE told him already about the church but she hadn't.  The warnings were all there--he could name all of her siblings, and he looked at her too deliberately, and when he hugged her she was caught too long against his chest.  Every morning she decided she would tell him, but every afternoon it was too tempting to go one more day, one more minute where he found a way to hold her fingers as she passed him a note.  But now she knew he was going to ruin it all and ask her to the dance, she could feel it--she avoided him carefully but fussed with her hair, nearly sick with the twin terrors of him asking her or not asking her, not sure which end she should assign her hope."  

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Please feel free to grab the logo and join in by posting the first paragraph (or 2) of a book you are reading now or hoping to read soon.

 

MailBox Monday - December 3

I'm a bad blogger, I have no idea who the Mailbox Monday host is for December - Forgive Me:)  Oh, wait - I know, December's host is Suko's Notebook.

(arrived by mail)

• Death of Bees; Lisa O'Donnell (sent by Harper)
• With or Without You; Domenica Ruta (sent by Spiegel and Grau)
• The Bookie's Son; Andrew Goldstein (sent by author)
• News From Heaven: The Bakerton Stories; Jennifer Haigh (sent by Harper)
• The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards; Kristopher Jansma (sent by Viking)
• Dear Life; Alice Monroe (sent by paperback swap member)

Building a young child's library month by month

• The Night Before Christmas (Kohl's Care Edition) ; Clement C. Moore
• Mommy?; Maurice Sendak (hardcover pop up)
• The Day Tiger Rose Said Goodbye; Jane Yolen - (reviewed this one earlier this year after reading library copy and had to buy it!)
• The Old Woman Who Named Things; Cynthia Rylant (recommended by Nan)