Author Archives: Silvia Cademartori

Awesome Drives

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Every new year starts with lists and I’m going to add another list to the growing list of lists.

Yesterday, we were at the car show where we spent five-hours getting in and out of the latest and greatest automobiles. That exercise got me thinking of all the gorgeous, long drives I’ve taken so far. I don’t mean run-of-the-mill sunny Sunday drives. I mean those once-in-a-lifetime, jaw-dropping, absolutely heart-stopping drives. Here then, is my list of the best drives so far:

  1. The Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
  2. The Hana Highway ( the road to Hana) in Maui, Hawaii.
  3. Highway 1 in California.

What are your awesome drives?

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Cape Breton Highway

Cabot Trail, Cape Breton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hana highway 1 hana highway 2

Hana Highway

Hana Highway, Maui

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Highway 1 in California

Highway 1 in California

 

 

Book Review, The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar

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Indian-American author Thrity Umrigar’s The World We Found does for middle-age women what The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants did for teenage girls – use powerful experiences to create ageless friendships. Umrigrar has taken chick lit and steeped it in a potent brew.

world-we-foundThe novel is about how the dying wish of one woman leads to secrets exposed, acknowledging present disappointments and ultimately betrayal.  Armaiti is the character whom the story is centered around. She’s a transplanted Indian who left her country for post-grad studies in the States, ends up marrying locally and builds a life stateside. Her sudden grim prognosis moves her to contact her old college girlfriends back in India, who she hasn’t seen in 30 years, and ask them to visit her. It’s an unlikely beginning but Umrigar’s capable story telling makes it believable.

However, my book club pretty much agreed that we were left not understanding some of the actions and motivations of the leading characters – Armaiti and her gal pals Laleh, Nishta and Kavita. One married rich, betraying the socialist cause they once fought for, another leads a secret life, while the third is lead into an ultra-conservative Muslim existence.

The book is about the journey of overcoming 20 years of separateness and reconciling with choices made in life, rather than a grand reunion. In this book, Umrigar’s story telling is greater than her character building. If strong character development is your preference, then Umrigar’s The Space Between Us is for you.

Staying Healthy

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FluSeasonAhead_LrgeImageTwenty-fifteen couldn’t have come any sooner.  Our usual festive season was curtailed by the flu. Here’s two takes on the 2014 flu: Twelve year-old boy gets the flu on the first night of Christmas break. Muscle aches, fever, vomiting; the works. Less than 36 hours later, his head is in the fridge scarfing down whatever he can get his hands on. He says he’s “starving” and will “die” if he doesn’t eat “right now.”  It was 11:30 at night. Flu, what flu? Forty-six year-old man gets the flu and is down for the count for a full eight days. It hurts to move. The forty-something year-old woman who cared for them both crosses her fingers and hopes she’s spared. Couldn’t have said good-bye to 2014 fast enough. Hello 2015!

Book review of The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill

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This novel was eagerly anticipated by my book club, which read O’Neill’s previous offering; Lullabies for Little Criminals and generally loved it. We were disappointed.

the-girl-who-was-saturday-nightAs the person who chose the book, I read the online reviews, which are all glowing and appreciative of O’Neill’s quirky metaphoric prose so I expected a stellar read. However, the book’s storyline and writing style left us underwhelmed.

The Girl Who Was Saturday Night is only O’Neill’s second novel since her runaway success Lullabies for Little Criminals came out 7 years ago. And similarly, it’s about a lost girl living on the wrong side of town who eventually finds her place, if not in the sun, then in a warmer spot.

This time the heroine is a French Canadian teen named Nouschka who lives with her twin brother Nicolas and their ailing grandfather Loulou on the seedy side of St. Laurent Blvd. because they’ve been abandoned by both parents – a teenage girl and a famous French Canadian chansonnier. The book is written in English but we’re to imagine the language spoken is French and to remind us of that, O’Neill adds French phrases seemingly randomly throughout the book.

The story takes place during Quebec’s second failed referendum for sovereignty in 1995 and I’m left wondering if the referendum is a metaphor for the failed lives so-far of the two protagonists. Their dreams are wild and magnificent, but their fulfillment, just like sovereignty itself, eludes them.

Through poor life-choices like dropping out of school, marrying the wrong man, aiding in a bank robbery, using drugs and indiscriminate sex, Nouschka’s life spirals out of control until an event changes her path ever so slowly and she pieces her life together. Nouschka’s love of and talent for writing saves her soul from the dead streets of downtown Montreal.  O’Neill had a hard-scrabble life as a youth and I wonder how much of O’Neill’s actual life figures in this novel.

O’Neill’s penchant for metaphor and simile is rampant. I underlined about a hundred metaphors and similes, fascinated by how she compares unrelated elements to describe everything from the countless cats that appear in the book to her character descriptions. While I enjoyed this, the majority of the book club didn’t.

I wanted to like this book, but don’t.  However, it’s an excellent choice for a book club selection because you will be discussing her use of metaphors, plot twists and character development for hours.