Marc Petitjean; The Heart - Frida Kahlo in Paris

9781590519905, Hardcover, Pub date April 28th, 2020, Other Press, NY/USA (Penguin Random House)


Marc Petitjean is a filmmaker, photographer and writer who set out to write about a lesser known period of Frida Kahlo's life in Paris in 1938  also investigating the meaning of a painting called "The Heart" she gave to his father. It is also an attempt to find out about the seriousness of the romance that developed between them. Michel Petitjean was working in an art gallery Renou & Colle in Paris during the 1930ties, an important place for the Surrealist movement around Andre Breton, Dali, Picasso and Marcel Duchamp. Petitjean was also the official lover of wealthy intellectual, Marie-Laure de Noailles, living with her and her husband in their villa.  

Frida Kahlo had met the Breton's in Mexico City granting them refuge at her and Diego Rivera’s famous Blue house when they found themselves without a place to stay. Out of gratitude Breton offered to arrange her first exhibition in Paris for her but when she arrives by ship from New York, nothing has been set up and her sleeping arrangement at Breton’s house is not what Frida is expecting. She and Breton's wife Jacqueline Lamba become close friends starting an affair but the bisexual Frida becomes also very attracted to Michel Petitjean who is her contact at Renou & Colle where her exhibition is finally taking shape. Their attractions leads to a passionate romance, something Marc Petitjean discovers many years’ later thru letters made available to him from various sources after having been contacted by  journalists and  historians from the US.  

I was very fascinated by this very personal and intimate account of Marc Petitjean’s investigation into his father’s time with Frida, learning a lot about this rather unknown period in Frida Kahlo's life and the surrealist connection. It was a crucial period for Frida as a serious artists when Diego Rivera was on the verge of leaving her after conducting an affair with her sister Christina. The clash between the very emotional Frida and the more abstract intellect of the surrealist artists in Paris could not have been more pronounced producing some fascinating encounters. 

This is a book for readers interested in art,  feminist literature and art history; I greatly enjoyed reading the proof of this upcoming small hardback.  

Anika Scott: Finding Clara, Hutchinson (Penguin Random House UK) 9781786331885, trade paperback 

“Finding Clara” is set in the winter of 1946 in war torn Essen, Germany where the first order of business is to survive with a roof over your head and food in your belly. Clara Falkenberg is on the run trying to avoid Allied troops under a false identity as her real background would land her in an allied prison for war criminals in a second. As the daughter of one of the most successful steel industry tycoons and an English mother, Clara was forced to run her father’s business with the use of slave laborers under the Nazi regime to achieve their production quota. But this does not feel like an excuse to her as guilt and disgust with herself are eating at her consciousness. 

Captain Fenshaw of the British Forces is hot on her heels as Clara is trying to find her best friend Elise in the ruins of Essen.  Enter fate and Jakob Relling, a black market dealer who lost one leg as a soldier in Russia, and Willy, a boy in hiding in a coal mine guarding a priceless commodity – food and daily goods..   

What made this novel so appealing to read is its setting in unfashionable Essen, the prewar center of Germany’s  steel industry, a very well-drawn out female characters in Clara Falkenberg, her cold hearted family, Jakob Relling, a salt of the earth type black marketer trying to provide for his sisters and the grim, realistic description of life during the post war years. It reminded me in parts and atmosphere of “The Aftermath” (Niemandsland) by Rhidian Brook which has been made into a movie starring Kira Kneightly. I can easily see the potential of this plot for TV or Netflix.  The author has clearly done some extensive research and written an authentic capturing story. I would guess some ideas were drawn from the history of the Krupp family. 

I have to confess I was not totally blown away even though it is a well crafted story, it was just too predictable for my taste. But I can easily see the appeal to readers who are not very familiar with German history during that time.

Abir Murkherjee: Death in the East, 9781787300576, Vintage UK, Penguin Random House, hardback, pub date November 14, 2019,Ebook available

I am a sucker for Abir Murkherjee’s historical crime series featuring sergeant police detective Sam Wyndham of the Calcutta police and his trusted, smart side kick, Indian Sergeant Surrender-not Banerjee.  “Death in the East” is the fourth in the series, I have read them all and they are all equally fabulous.  His first, “A rising man”, won the CWA Dagger Award in 2017 for historical crime fiction and rightly so. There is something fascinating about the atmospheric Raj setting that has pulled me in from the start, the description of India, its society and politics during the Indian independence movement and the last days of the Raj, not to forget some very clever plots.

“Death in the East” has two separate murder cases running parallel, one set in 1905 London and the other in Assam in 1922. Towards 3/4^th of the book they merge into one thrilling development with an unexpected turn in the story.

1905 London: a rookie Constable Sam has to investigate the murder of his ex- girlfriend Bessie Drummond who was found brutally beaten to death in her room in London's East End, with the door locked from the inside. He vows to find her killer despite some inexplicable facts bringing him into contact with very dangerous East End characters. The chain of events he sets into motion have a different effect than anticipated costing him dearly.

1922 A much older, sicker Sam has finally decided to end his opium addiction travelling to an ashram in the hills of Assam which is known for a miraculous cure concocted by a sacred monk. While puking his heart out during his opium withdrawal, the ghost of Bessie arises from the past in his dreams and Sam is sure he has also seen someone linked to her murder at a train station on his way to the ashram who was considered long dead.  When a young fellow inmate from the monastery is found dead, Sam’s detective instinct tell him he did not die by accident and he starts digging, creating some disasterous ripples which leads to yet another death...

I loved the atmospheric, parallel running crime stories set on different continents, all coming together in the end leading to a gripping grand finale.

Craig Johnson: Land of Wolves, Viking/Penguin Random House US, 9780525522508, hardback

I should probably keep my passion for Craig Johnson's Longmire series hidden, but hell...it always guarantee me an armchair trip to Wyoming with beautiful descriptions of the unique nature of the American West featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire and his colorful cast of charcters be it staff, friends or  family.

The plots always lead to a surprise twist and so does this latest one, with a wolf, a still wounded Longmire, a murdered shepherd and a powerful ranching family at the heart of the mystery.

Had a fun reading time with "Land of Wolves" after reading more serious novels for a few weeks. I am not a fan of the Netflix Longmire series, my Longmire is a different one....

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Water Dancer, 9780593133118, C format Paperback, International Edition, One World/Penguin Random House US

(German edition "Der Wassertänzer", Karl Blessing Verlag, March 2, 2020)

Ta-Nahesi Coates “The Water Dancer” is probably my favorite literary  book of the year, right alongside Ocean Voong’s “On earth we are briefly gorgeous”. Two very different books but both with such powerful prose that it is almost impossible to decide what to read next as they leave such a void.

In my view Ta-Nahesi Coates, who has written non-fiction before,  winning the National Book Award in 2015 with “Between the World and me”,  has written a debut novel that can stand alongside such masterpieces as “Beloved” by Tony Morrison, Maya Angelou’s work and Colson Whitehead “The Underground Railroad”. 

Reminding me also in parts of the magical realism of Latin American authors but with a very distinct voice of its own, “The Water Dancer” tells the story of Hiram Walker who was born into slavery by an African mother and the white owner of  a tobacco plantation in Virginia.  When his mother is sold, in his pain he loses all memory of her but she has passed on a powerful, mysterious gift to him which reveals itself for the first time when the carriage he and his white half-brother are riding in derails and falls into the river Goose. Only Hiram by magic survives and his real life journey begins. What follows is a dramatic story of atrocities inflicted to generations of slaves, where emotional and physical cruelty and disregard of human pain was considered normal by white people and the bravery and human cost of people working in The Underground  unimaginable.

Sometimes I put the book aside and let the power of the story  and the language do its work in my mind and heart before resuming the read.  I urge you to read this incredible book.

Cara Hunter: All the  Rage, Penguin Paperback (Penguin Random House UK) 9780241985113, pub date January 23, 2020

Cara Hunter’s mysteries are always psychologically very cleverly crafted and “All the Rage” is no exception. Set in Oxford featuring DI Adam Fawley and his colorful team of detectives , Faith Appleford, a beautiful fashion design student is found in a deserted part of the city by a taxi driver, looking very distressed, dazed and with her clothes torn.

Everything points to sexual assault but when Fawley and his team start investigating what might have happened to her; she is unwilling to press charges but is able to remember some striking details which point to an old case Adam Fawley would rather forget.  There are obvious resemblances to a case of a serial rapist whom Fawley was able to get convicted despite him claiming his innocence until the end of the trial. Fawley's wife had been one of the victims who got away.

“All the Rage” has a very plausible plot, the characters are richly drawn and I am really into this down to earth Oxford team of detectives now.  Be prepared for several unexpected developments which keeps you on your toes until the very end of the novel!  

Ocean Vuong: On earth we are briefly gorgeous, 9781787331501, Vintage / Penguin Random House, hardback

German Edition: Auf Erden sind wir kurz grandios, Carl Hanser Verlag, hardback

Ocean Vuong’s „On earth we are briefly gorgeous“ is one of these memorable books that will stay in your head for quite a while.  I still remember some sentences after 6 weeks!   One of the best literary reads for me for quite some time. 

Written by a poet in the most beautiful, elegant prose, this debut novel is many things: a heart-wrenching love story of Little Dog, a boy growing up as an outsider in America with a Vietnamese heritage but also discovering his homosexuality at age 15 to Trevor, the son of a tobacco farmer, a love letter written to his mother Rose who cannot read or write and earns their living slaving away in nail salons, the sometimes funny yet sad portrait of their lives as a family together with his very Vietnamese schizophrenic grandmother Lan, the absence of his biological and substitute father, both white Americans, the flashbacks to his grandmother’s and his mother’s lives during the Vietnam war, this novel is a whole mélange of feelings and memories. Vuong is unusually frank with the description of homosexual sex scenes; the tenderness of Little Dogs and Trevor’s feelings for one another and the heart-wrenching unfolding drama brought a lump to my throat.

Reading this unusual novel has been an absolute delight.