Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. Sure, you could read advertising blurbs on Amazon, but wouldn’t you be more likely to believe a neighbor with no skin in the game over a corporation being fed words by publishers? So in this new series, we are sharing these mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com.
“Ethan Frome,” by Edith Wharton (1911)
It’s not often I have such a love-hate relationship with a book as I do with “Ethan Frome.” Love: Wharton packs so much into this novella. Using an anonymous narrator, the structure of the story keeps me wondering. We know the outcome from the beginning, but it’s not until the very end that we know how Ethan became this disabled, broken man. Wharton describes both the natural world and people with finesse, and her writing is stellar: “When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months’ siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.”
Hate: The characters, especially Ethan and Zeena, are not at all likeable. My initial pity (not a particularly endearing emotion) for Ethan gradually turned to contempt. Even sweet Mattie Silver is dim and ineffectual. Yet there are many great characters in literature I can’t say I like, and I don’t read just to find fictitious characters I’d like to befriend. Wharton’s “American tragedy” is just as thought-provoking as Greek tragedy, and I am enriched by the reading. — 3 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
“Long Gone, Come Home,” by Monica Chenault Kilgore (Graydon House)
Set in small-town Kentucky and the big city of Cincinnati and spanning the decades between the Jazz Age and the civil rights movement, this novel focuses on one woman’s search for a better life and her brushes with the underworld along the way. But it is also the story of generations of African American women forced into single motherhood as their partners go missing for longer or shorter spells or even forever, while the women, not knowing the fate of their partners, cycle through anguish, anger, hope and potential forgiveness. Our heroine perseveres, and in the process finds the true meaning of family and home. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“A Chateau Under Siege,” by Martin Walker (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023)
Whenever I want to imagine that I am in France, I reach for one of Martin Walker’s atmospheric chief of police mysteries. Bruno is somewhat of a Renaissance man who lives in the Perigord region of France in the Dordogne Valley. Living on a small farm with his horse Hector and dog Balzac, Bruno is a fabulous cook who always uses fresh ingredients, is a wine expert and is the chief of police of the Vezere Valley in the Perigord region. “A Chateau Under Siege,” Walker’s 16th in the series, does not disappoint. Bruno is drawn into an international scheme when French authorities charge him with
guarding the lives of an extremely wealthy group of microchip innovators and investors. Walker, a former editor of the UPI, weaves his knowledge of current events into the stories, which makes them very topical and has a “ripped-from-the-headlines” feel. Bruno is in over his head but comports himself well, with an ease and charm that is very French. A delightful read! — 3 stars (out of 4); Susan Tracy, Denver
“A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains,” by Isabella L. Bird (Digireads.com Publishing, 2019)
Isabella Bird puts paid to the notion that women in the 1800s lacked adventuring spirit. First published as a serial in 1879, Bird — the nineteenth-century traveler, writer and historian — left Britain in 1872, going to remote locations around the world and winding up in Colorado. Her time in Estes Park with a “dear desperado” mountain man as companion entrances and inspires. She never stopped breaking society’s dictates and continued pursuing her passions throughout her life and convinces the reader that the more things or women change, the more they stay the same. — 4 stars (out of 4); Bonnie McCune (bonniemccune.com)
