Using history as the backdrop, David Leavitt’s newest novel The Two Hotel Francforts tells the story of two couples’ chance meeting in Portugal in 1940, on the eve of World War II. Lisbon remains as the last neutral port, as Germany sweeps Europe and more and more countries fall to the Nazis. Pete and Julia Winters, expatriate Americans, have abandoned their Parisian apartment, where they’ve lived a sedate life for the past years. They meet Edward and Iris Freleng, a sophisticated, independently wealthy writing duo at the Cafe Suiça, while, waiting for an American ship to bring them home. The Frelengs can’t return to their native England as their ancient terrier Daisy will be quarantined for 6 months and they fear she wouldn’t survive.

The couples seem caught in a bubble. Life goes on like normal, with complaints about hotel rooms and waitstaff service, appearing at the right places, spotting celebrities. Yet they encounter people trying in vain to get visas to anywhere but there. They only see other well-off refugees and it takes Iris to remind them of the plight of the Jews and less fortunate people for them to feel any sympathy. From the beginning of the story, as Pete narrates with some foreshadowing, the reader realizes that his marriage with Julia might not be all that it appears. In fact, much of the book revolves around the idea that you can’t take anything at face value. That woman sitting next to you in the cafe with all of the jewelry? That’s all she has left in the world. Pete spends a lot of time catering to Julia’s ever-changing moods, as she careens from games of solitaire to rants about her family.

Pete finds respite from the isolation  of his marriage and the flight from Paris in the arms of Edward. It happens quickly on a beach overnight away from their wives. The two spend many pages trying to find places to be alone, some hours in a room rented from a brothel, others in Pete’s car on country roads. How long can this go on? It turns out that Edward and Iris’s marriage is also somewhat of a sham, as Iris tells it to Pete soon after he and Edward get together. They no longer share the marital bed–Edward finds men for her to sleep with rather, something she’s  not thrilled about, but will do in order to keep him happy. Seems that Edward has spent some time in a hospital every now and then due to mood swings and depression.

Meanwhile, Iris, Edward, and Pete share in this secret, but poor Julia remains in the dark.  It’s at this point you realize that only a week or so has gone by. How has all of this happened in such a short period of time? As Pete learns more about Edward and his marriage, the ardor begins to fail. Pete is writing his story down years later, and adds in pieces of the puzzle that he only learns after the fact. There’s a huge plot twist at the end, one that I didn’t foresee,  but that throws everything off balance and reminds you once again, that things are always as they seem, character-wise and plot-wise. Leavitt creates such a rich atmosphere that it blinds you to this. He masterfully wrote an unconventional social comedy that becomes a more realistic and honest story, one that sublimely shows that you never take anything at face value.

Nothing ruins an essay collection more than an author’s smug, self-referencing anecdote dropped into a more serious piece on say, war or George Eliot. Somehow when Michelle Orange does it, I don’t mind at all. Her superb essay collection This is Running for Your Life, part of the excellent FSG paperback originals line (they’re the best pocket size attractive books!), spans topics from the American Psychiatric Association conference in Hawaii leading up to the publication of the latest edition of the DSM, to a rumination on Michael Jackson, to, in what I consider the pièce de résistance, an essay on her addiction to running, not for the usuals reasons of health and weight, but as a way of escape.

Her essays tend to meander, like Grandpa Simpson, and you might forget what the original intention was, but then she says something so stunningly witty and acute, you’re glad you got lost, like that time you took the wrong turn in Mexico and stumbled across that amazing taco stand. In a paragraph on the changing ways of defining personality disorders, Orange writes, “Freudians claimed successful psychoanalysis as a safe passage into adulthood; Carl Jung believed the personality only reaches perfection in death. It’s classically rich terrain, but as psychiatry continues to narrow its focus on the individual and his scientific profile, the whole concept of having a personality—a way of being formed symbiotically, over time and in relation to others—is politely being ushered to the land of the obsolete, where it will rest between chivalry and laser-disc players.” While the pop culture references could become tiresome, they never do in her essays. Instead they add depth and richness.

This book of essays came out earlier this year, received some smart reviews from some smart people, but I fear it’s not gained the attention that it deserves. Long-form essayists worth reading are as rare as can be; once you find one, you want to covet and make sure they never get away. Orange deserves coveting. Don’t believe me, read her book and you’ll see that she’s the real thing, a smart, singular voice in a world of sameness.

It’s not at all fair, but the entire time I was reading 50 Foods by Ed Behr, I referred to it as 50 Shades of Food. I couldn’t help it. This is no cookbook of course. Behr, editor of serious food periodical of The Art of Eating, has written an encyclopedic book on what he has determined the 50 essential foods. So you know. It’s just like the steamy “erotica” of 50 Shades of Gray. (Imagine those quote around erotica as air quotes and me rolling my eyes as I make them.)

You’re probably wondering why you should read this book at all at this point, but I say do read it. You don’t have to even read it narratively! Each alphabetical chapter, accompanied by a charming illustration, defines the food and its history, tells you how to buy said food, and wines that can accompany it, if there are any. Behr’s dry writing style becomes charming once you get used to it–again it’s a compliment I promise. Fascinating tidbits abound and the author’s enthusiasm for his subject carries him away occasionally in fun ways.

If you read the introduction Behr makes it clear that this is a subjective list of what he considers the 50 most essential foods. 6 of the 50 are cheeses after all, he says, trying to explain his judgement, by which I think he means is too much cheese for the list. I like that it’s all his opinion and that he’s clear that these are opinions not facts. It makes it easier to disagree. You can never have too much cheese on a list!

Nicola Griffith, author of Hild, is on Twitter, and she read our review of Hild and noted my interest in Kristin Lavransdatter as well. It was kind of awesome to have a conversation with her and I wanted to follow up here to note what she had to say.

I began by noting that Hild was truly a 21st-century novel, even though it was set in the 7th, while Kristin Lavransdatter was decidedly 19th or 20th century. Griffith agreed that the themes of the two differed dramatically.

@Short_epics And guilt. It’s Catholic apologia. Guilt’s the pervading emotion of the 3. Hild doesn’t know guilt from a hole in the ground 🙂
— Nicola Griffith (@nicolaz) September 26, 2013

@Short_epics Yep. #Hild is agency personified.

— Nicola Griffith (@nicolaz) September 26, 2013

Then, yesterday, when we posted my thoughts on Kristin Lavransdatter, Griffith had additional advice. She strongly recommended the Penguin edition, translated in 2000 by Tiina Nunnally, rather than the 1923 Charles Archer translation I’ve been reading. “It won’t get rid of Kristin’s caul of guilt or inject much joy,” she notes, “but it should at least be an easier read :)”

The thing is, the language I can get past. The joyless rumination over past sins is really starting to grind me down, though. I’m determined to get through the remaining pages of volume II but I don’t think I’m going to pick up volume III even in a newer translation.

Look up Sigrid Undset’s bio on Wikipedia and you’ll get a feel for where all the joy went: World War I. Undset grew up in a nominally-Lutheran, largely secular, liberal society shattered by mechanized warfare and decimated by influenza. Joyless repentance for unforgivable sins was the name of the game in the aftermath. Undset went not just back to faith, but to Catholic faith, because of it.

Knowing that makes it easier to understand where Undset (and her mopey protagonist) are coming from. They’re still hard for me to empathize with, but it may be all the more important to make the effort.

Reading about carefully-researched historical novels like Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and Nicola Griffith’s Hild, I came across more than a few mentions of a grande dame of the genre, Sigrid Undset’s three-volume Kristin Lavransdatter.

I’m at the end of the second volume now and I still can’t quite figure it out. It’s obviously a masterwork, and Undset won the Nobel Prize largely on its strength. But it’s also a decidedly strange piece of work.

The plot of the first volume could be torn from a 19^th century novel: Kristin is betrothed to a man selected by her father, but falls in love with another, and through steadfast love and bullheaded persistence, wins her father’s grudging approval of the match. Then there are two more volumes, as she becomes a noble wife and mother, and grapples with her own sins and imperfections and those of her family.

Of course, this being a novel about the 14^th century written in the first half of the 20^th, there’s a lot that goes unmentioned. A key plot point (hint: s-e-x) in the first volume takes place in an ellipsis. Several times I had to re-read a paragraph a few times to figure out what characters were talking about, because they were alluding to unnamed sins. I couldn’t tell where the prudishness of the 14^th-century characters ended and the prudishness of 1920s publishers began.

Kristin doesn’t seem to have a lot of agency of her own. She’s been brought up to be “biddable” and “shamefasted” –those are considered good things–and as an adult spends a lot of time in anguish over her various sins, including premarital sex, failure to love her stepdaughter, resenting or disobeying her parents, resenting or disobeying her husband, resenting or disobeying her priest, and failing to beat her children severely enough. Even though she’s the protagonist of the novel, she’s mostly just acted-upon. Most of her verbs are taken up with weeping, praying, sewing, and bickering with her husband. I don’t, I suppose, particularly like her as a character.

Ultimately, though, the novel isn’t about Kristin herself. It’s about grappling with your sins and finding ways to live with them and be penitent about them without being crippled by scrupulosity. In other words, finding ways to accept human imperfection and pray for grace.  But the sins Kristin worries about and strives so hard to be forgiven of are largely things that today’s reader will struggle to find consequential.

The whole thing, really, is a temporal jumble: 21^st century readership, early-20^th century novel, 14^thcentury setting.

Even better, the edition I’m reading is a set of pocket paperbacks from the 1970s. On the last page there is an offer for additional books on the theme of “Teens Wrestle with Life and Love.” It includes the largely-forgotten 1976 YA title Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on my Eyeball!, and The Bell Jar.

Why not?

Can’t wait until Downtown Abbey returns in January (OMG Paul Giamatti!) or super into Jane Austen? You’ll be psyched for Longbourn by Jo Baker. This isn’t some lame reworking that romances Darcy or whatnot. This is a Below the Stairs look at life in Austenland, complete with well-drawn characters, plot, and drama.

You’ll see the Bennet’s in a new light when reading this book. It follows orphaned housemaid Sarah as she spends her days toiling on the floors, emptying chamberpots, trying to keep the girls’ linens white. A new footman arrives and throws the downstairs on its end. If nothing else, you’ll find yourself actually sympathizing with Mary Bennet but just as irritated with Mrs. Bennet as in the original. As Bookavore smartly says, “I have a soft spot for Austen that hardens when I discover Austen-inspired fiction (MR. DARCY IS NOT REAL AND YOU CANNOT MARRY HIM, GET OVER IT), but this book just melted me.”

Readers of Bookdwarf will know that I love good food writing. With the boom in celebrity chefs, the Food Network, and food bloggers taking obsessive pictures of the latest hot restaurant, came food-related memoirs. They span a wide berth of writing skill–and interest–from insider’s account of the restuarant Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential to Julie Powell’s navel-gazing Julie and Julia to Gabrielle Hamilton’s soulful Blood, Bones, and Butter, anyone connected to food realizes the potential in writing a book proposal if they have even a remote connection to food. I could name a slew of titles that scream “I did it for the money and notoriety,” with mediocre prose. The worst actually make reading about food boring. I’ll refrain from naming names.

One of the writers I do like is Dana Goodyear, often published in The New Yorker. She’s written about varied subjects from James Cameron to an illuminating article on the chefs at Animal in Los Angeles, which was included in The Best Food Writing 2010. I was definitely pleased to hear that she has a book coming from Riverhead this fall called Anything that Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture, which purports to be a cross between Mary Roach and Anthony Bourdain. It features new and collected essays on how the far corners of the food world influence the center, from the art of eating odd animal bits to raw milk.

I think she’s a fine writer and always enjoy reading her essays when they appear. I particularly liked her piece on Jonathan Goldman and her foray into the exotic meat movement. But as a cohesive narrative, the book doesn’t really hold together for me. It really would be better presented as a set of essays than as a comprehensive investigation of a specific trend in food.

Nicola Griffith’s new novel Hild is bound to draw comparisons to Wolf Hall. It’s a thick, engrossing novel of political machinations and intrigue, historical detail and rich language. Like Wolf Hall, it’s the sort of thing to make you miss a stop on the train, or forget to start dinner cooking, or stay up just a little longer, to stay in the world it spins around you.

But it’s still a different beast. The world it inhabits, the language, and the story itself are less cerebral, earthier, bloodier, more pagan.

And less familiar. Just about everyone knows the story of Henry VIII, and there’s that handy mnemonic to count off his wives: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Fewer people know much about the 7th-century kingdom of Elmet or the feats of Æthelfrith or Edwin of Northumbria. There’s a family tree at the beginning and a glossary of old English words at the back of the book, which is handy when you need to distinguish a theign from a gesith. But I still wound up going to dictionaries and Wikipedia for words like freemartin and leveret and details about the locations and histories of post-Roman kingdoms near York.

Hild is set at a key point in history: Rome as an empire has fallen, the pagan kings are beginning to convert to Christianity, and trade networks are growing again. At one point, the young Hild comes to a market town for the first time in her life, and realizes that coinage can be far superior to barter, and that things like swords and slaves can be bought rather than won in battle or given as tribute. At another, someone is amazed at the idea of putting a piece of glass in a wall to let in light. Throughout the book, the use of written messages represents a huge technological leap for spycraft and espionage.

The novel begins when Hild is just four, and follows her as she grows up to become a seer and adviser to King Edwin. It ends well before she becomes the abbess known later as St. Hilda of Whidby. That leaves plenty of time for geomancy, theology, medieval economics, weaving, embroidery, sex, swordplay, battle songs, interrogation, political wrangling, poison, prophecy, slave-holding, and a great deal of mead-drinking.

If you read this blog you know we believe firmly in respecting genre. That is, you don’t look down on fantasy or sci-fi or crime novels or historical fiction simply because of their shelfmates. You look down on them if they’re bad, or enjoy them if they’re good. Or, in the case of things like Blood Oath, you enjoy them because they’re deliciously, outstandingly terrible. But they stand on their own.

And that’s the center of my only quibble with Margaret Atwood’s three-part tale of eco-pocalypse and corporate destruction, which ends with MaddAddam. Like Oryx & Crake and The Year of The Flood, her latest is beautifully imagined, full of complex characters and a storyline that comes together nicely. Even the chimerical animals and post-human theology of the Crakers is believable. It’s by turns funny and sexy and sad and terrifying.

But it seems to me that Atwood doesn’t really respect the genre of marketing, and it shows in the way she uses puns and rhyme in the names of products and businesses she’s trying to mock. In her novel, all of the colleges of humanities and social sciences have become a talent farm for marketing agencies. But the best they can do is name their businesses things like ANooYoo and HotTots and HappiCup? I don’t buy it.

Bookdwarf doesn’t agree with me. She says the names are deliberately silly, and she enjoyed them. It may be true, but they jarred me out of my suspension of belief just a little bit every time I came across them.

I learned a new piece of Massachusetts history in reading The Celestials by Karen Shepard. In June of 1870, 75 Chinese laborers arrived in North Adams, after two weeks on a train to cross the picket line at Calvin Sampson’s shoe factory. Mostly teenagers, they arrived at the factory of one of the biggest industrialists in the U.S. speaking no English, with the exception of Charlie Sing, their foreman. The townspeople, many of them angry industrial workers, greeted the train intent on launching a protest, but found themselves awestruck at the vision of these young, Asian men, in their blue blouses and soft slippers.

Shepard’s novel imagines the inner lives of Sampson and his long struggling wife Julia, who had lost 14 pregnancies. Historically, they did not have children and lived in a hotel, but she creates a wonderful story about a love triangle between Julia, Sampson, and one of the new laborers. The Celestials, with the help of well-meaning Christian townswomen, forge new lives, managing to fit in as well as they can into North Adams. At a time when the industrial age was just beginning, the  conflicts around immigration, labor, and technology all threaten to come to blows time and again. Julia begins a relationship with Charlie, who finds himself surprised at his own feelings. When a mixed race baby appears, the town and even Sampson don’t know how to react.

With quiet prose, the author examines this crucial turning point with her main characters. Some desperate for change, others wanting nothing more then for things to remain as they are. The most tightly drawn people, Charlie and Julia, want both.  With only a few mis-steps, Shepard’s novel brings to light a mostly unknown history with good detail.