I'm deep into A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve. Although my husband read Shreve's Sea Glass, which he thoroughly hated, I am drawn to her writing and the fact that she weaves historical events into her work, either writing in the period or floating between the past and present. Where as Sea Glass begins on the cusp of the Great Depression, A Wedding in December takes place in the present, and through one character's musings chronicles the events of another December morning in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when the WWI French munitions ship, Mont Blanc, collides with the Norwegian vessel, Imo. The result is the largest man made explosion in history, that is until the atomic bomb.
This story within the story is as richly populated with engaging characters as the main story. They take place in the same month, and when snow begins to fall in one, so it does in the other. So beautifully written and told. Ahh, I love a good book.
"Very weird." Harrison said. "There's some trick of time and memory at work here that I haven't quite figured out yet."
1 comment:
My darling, allow me to offer a clarification to such a heinous misrepresentation of my opinion of Anita Shreve and her novel "Sea Glass." I do not "hate" her or her writing. She is a talented and popular novelist. I read her above-mentioned book at your suggestion and just found it to be a more chick litty than suits my taste. And just to counter any chauvinism that might be drawn from me not embracing her work, allow me to also point out that I took far greater issue with another book I read at your suggestion: Clive Cussler's "Sahara," featuring his superhuman protag Dirk Benedict Registered Trademark. Now THAT was a piece of crap.
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