Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. No one understood us, only we two-I thought-understood one another. by Catherine Dunne This thrilling novel from bestselling Irish novelist Catherine Dunne is like if you took the Neapolitan Quartet, condensed it into one novel, and separated the lives of the two leading women (who nonetheless influence one another’s lives, without even realizing it). We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other.
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As she deals with her grief, her sisters’ needs, and her Dawdi and Mammi’s strict rules, Ivy finds solace in both an upcoming trip to Germany for an international Mennonite youth gathering and in her great-aunt’s story about Ivy’s great-grandmother’s visit to Germany in the late 1930s.Īs Ivy grows suspicious that her parents’ deaths weren’t, in fact, an accident, she gains courage from what she learns of her great-grandmother’s time in pre-World War II Germany. But when her parents are killed in a tragic accident, Ivy’s way of life is upended. Ivy Zimmerman is successfully navigating her life as a young Mennonite woman, one generation removed from her parents’ Old Order Amish upbringing. I’m excited about my next dual-time series, Amish Memories! The first book, A Brighter Dawn, releases March 28 and is available for pre-order now. The mood then shifts to bittersweet triumph. Because of the events Firdaus details, the mood for the bulk of the novel is disheartening, until Firdaus breaks free from fear. Although Firdaus is telling the psychiatrist and the reader about horrific events, she is a calm and collected storyteller, and she takes pride in the life she led before being incarcerated. Thus, as the reader finishes the psychiatrist’s section of the novel, the mood is anticipatory.Īlternatively, the tone in Firdaus’s section is calm, reflective, and confident. Saadawi is there to research neurosis in female inmates Firdaus has been convicted of murder and is scheduled to be hanged in a few days. The psychiatrist desperately wants to meet with Firdaus, and the reader feels the rollercoaster of emotions the psychiatrist experiences as Firdaus first refuses, and then agrees, to meet her. Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian psychiatrist, states that what follows is the true story of Firdaus, a woman Saadawi meets in Qanatir Prison. The tone in the psychiatrist’s section is investigative and urgent. This difference serves a stylistic and structural purpose because it helps to characterize the psychiatrist and Firdaus. The tone and mood of the psychiatrist’s section of the novel are different from the tone and mood of Firdaus’s section. |