Books to Watch for This May - Reviews and Reading Guides
Finding a book you love can be a bittersweet experience: How can your next choice ever compare to what you just finished? We revisit the page-turners of the past and recommend titles we're betting will become the stars of the future.
O, The Oprah Magazine | From the May 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine
Photo: Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D
|
Then: The Bonesetter's Daughter By Amy Tan 400 pages; Ballantine In 2001 we read Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter, another of the beloved author's great mother-daughter sagas about the clash of worlds old and new—and the different perspectives that exist within any family. Now: The Long Song By Andrea Levy 320 pages; Farrar, Straus & Giroux Andrea Levy's shimmering new novel The Long Song, set in 19th-century Jamaica, marks a similar coming to terms with the past by women and their children. Writing her memoirs, the elderly "Miss July"—a former slave named for one of the months her mother had been taught to spell—grew up in the great house of a plantation after her mistress plucked her from her mother on a whim. But July's is not the only version of events. There are also frequent entries from her son, Thomas, who had been abandoned by July as an infant; he quarrels with the facts of her possible fictions and questions her memories. Shifting styles of storytelling evoke the voices of Tan's generations. The novel also offers a unique portrayal of an island where a mother's secrets become the history of us all. — Celia McGee Get the reading group guide Next: Behind every great author... |
