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HOT
NEW AND OLD BOOKS
Novel Pursuits, March 1999
by Pilar Webster
Visit our online
catalog and search by title to see if
these books are on the shelf.
Revere Beach Boulevard
By Roland Merullo
Set
in a blue-collar beach town near Boston, this novel
explores the complex relationships of a second generation
Italian Family. Vito, the immigrant father, is a hard
working honest and religious man whose wife Lucy is
dying of cancer. His son Peter is an unsuccessful real
estate business owner whose life is falling apart because
of gambling debts. All too often Peter has relied on
his parents and his sister Joannie, a successful Boston
reporter to bail him out. The author allows each character
a turn at narrating his story. Secrets surface as the
family tries to deal with the crises facing Peter. Revere
Beach Boulevard is a well-crafted suspenseful novel
that gets into the soul of its characters.
Once Upon the River Love
By Andrei Makine
A
small Eastern Siberia town in the '70s is the setting
of this beautifully written novel. When a nearby city
permits the screening of a movie starring French actor
Paul Belmondo, the outside world penetrates the isolation
of the tiny town. A passion for Belmondo takes hold
of the entire area. This obsession for a foreign culture
and language is seen through the eyes of 14 year old
Mitya and his two friends who travel miles in snowshoes
to see the movie time and time again. The three share
a longing for love and a life outside of their bleak
environment. Eventually they do leave their homeland
for the western world. Many years later Mitya and Utkin
meet in New York. They have made many compromises in
the course of their lives but their childhood dreams
remain intact.
Makine
also wrote Dreams of My Russian Summers, an autobiographical
novel recalling his childhood and the summer visits
to his French born grandmother. A young boy growing
up in a cold, bleak city on the Volga River is mesmerized
by his grandmother's stories of Paris. These tales evoke
in him a sense of awe and wonder about the unattainable
life outside of Russia. The boy becomes enamored with
all things French and learns to speak the language.
He can't wait until the following summer when once again
he will be enchanted by his grandmother's tales.
Ordinary
Money
By Louis B. Jones
This
is a first novel about people leading ordinary lives
in Marin County until millions in $20 bills, real
or counterfeit, fall into the hands of Randy Potts.
He shares his secret with childhood friend Wayne Paschke.
Despite the windfall, these ordinary people get caught
up in a web, and react to the opportunity of all that
cash in different ways "The question of what is real
or counterfeit becomes an amusing vehicle in itself
for exploring truth and fraud in the American dream."
Foreign Affairs
By Alison Lurie
In
this satirical comedy, Lurie unfolds the exploits
of two American professors who are in London on research
grants. Virginia Miner, an anglophile, is a plain
woman in her fifties and an authority on children's
literature. Her colleague, Fred Turner, is young,
handsome and a specialist in 19th century literature.
Fred has an affair with a beautiful, aging English
television star. Miner's "foreign affair" is with
a big, balding polyester type American whom she has
met on her flight to England. It is a delightful satire
that pits American and English eccentricities and
gives refreshing look into the sex life of a middle-aged
woman.
Iron & Silk
By Mark Salzman
In
Salzman's narratives about China, each a beautiful
window into the life and characteristics of its people,
the reader is charmed and captivated by Salzman's
love of China.
Clover
By Doris Sanders
A
beautiful book narrated by Clover, a 10-year old black
girl growing up on a South Carolina peach farm. Her
father dies only hours after marrying a white woman
and Clover is left in the woman's care. This is a
story about blacks, whites but more so about the unfolding
relationship between Clover and her stepmother.
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