Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Book Review: Great Circle

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In Great Circle:  A Novel, author Maggie Shipstead takes us into the epic life of a female aviator, Marian Graves. Rescued from a sinking ship as an infant with her twin brother, Jamie, Marian grows up in Montana, raised by an uncle who had little interest in the two children. While still a teenager, Marian discovers a passion for planes…and will do anything to learn to fly.

Several decades after Marian disappears on a “great circle” flight to both the north and south pole, actress Hadley Baxter is playing Marian in a movie. Hadley is a successful but disgraced actress who takes the role initially to try to redeem herself in Hollywood. The story weaves back and forth between Marian’s life and Hadley’s.

Two things really stood out to me when reading this novel. First, it’s too easy to misinterpret or minimize the complexity of someone’s life when observing it from the outside. After Marian’s disappearance, writers tried to fill in the blanks, creating myth and misinformation. Hadley has to deal with tabloid culture.

Second, I was struck by how a life can be altered by one small action or shift. If Marian hadn’t been rescued as a newborn, she would never have existed. It was as if every aspect of her life led her to flight, but one less twist or turn would have given her a very different experience.

Shipstead’s command of research and her ability to weave it into a story are astounding. Readers will learn a lot about the history of flight and the role of women that is often under-reported.

Initially I had some trouble getting into the story. There’s a fair amount of set-up that may come across as random. Hang in there. It will all make sense in the end. I also struggled a bit with Marian’s precociousness, but I consider this a minor criticism, as the era of The Great Depression forced people to grow up fast. 

I would highly recommend Great Circle to anyone who loves stories about tenacious women. There’s a lot here about families, friendships, and love here, too.

Great Circle‘s release date is May 4, 2021. NOTE: I received a free copy of this novel via NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.

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Book Review: Anxious People

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This is the first book I’ve read by Swedish author Fredrik Backman, though some years ago I saw the movie version of A Man Called Ove. My trip through this novel was quite a journey!

Anxious People tells the story of a would-be bank robber, a hostage situation, a bridge, and much more. We twist and turn through the story as if on a roller coaster. Backman alternately makes us laugh and then pulls the rug out from under us, revealing some new detail that is so shocking we are stunned to tears.

The bank robber, you see, is not a real criminal, but someone desperate to get enough money to handle a short-term cash flow problem. The hostages taken turn out to be a group of people with their own issues, and while the would-be bank robber/hostage taker tries to figure out what to do (having zero experience in hostage-taking), somehow start to bond.

Often as I was reading asked myself, how can such a frightening situation be so…funny? It’s not easy to pull that off.

The tightrope walk between comedy and intense drama is one Backman handles brilliantly. There are interesting parallels and connections among some of the characters that I found believable, especially given that they were in a small town. Details are revealed just when they need to be and in a way that keeps the jaw dropping to the floor. I can’t wait to read all his other books!

I hope you’re enjoying my book reviews. Starting soon, I’ll be adding a non-book review post each week. Please subscribe to my blog (see below) and invite others to do so as well! Also, if you’re interested, please consider purchasing one of my novels. More information can be found here.

Book Review: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

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I wasn’t sure I wanted to read The Four Winds. The Great Alone was such an incredible novel, and I thought, how can she top it? That might be impossible, after all. Still, I couldn’t resist. The subject matter was compelling: the struggles of a family during the Dust Bowl.

The story centers around Elsa Wolcott, whose early life was defined by an illness and, in her family’s opinion, a lack of attractiveness. Expected to live at home and tend to her parents in their later years, Elsa had different ideas. Readers will find a young woman defined by both a deep sense of inadequacy and an innate wildness that will give her strength to endure tremendous hardship, though she won’t recognize the latter in herself for some time.

As in The Grapes of Wrath, Elsa will find herself migrating to California with her children to escape the Dust Bowl, where instead of finding milk and honey, she finds more hardship and bigotry. Californians weren’t impressed with the increasing numbers of migrants seeking work, so not only is work limited, but the pay continues to drop.

Hannah describes the conditions in excruciating detail. As someone who just finished writing a historical novel, I was impressed with her ability to take us there, not just as observers, but to help us truly feel the suffering and hardship of these difficult times.

In this painful reality, Elsa finds her inner strength, and that is the real beauty of this story. She is a reminder of the lengths most women will go to for their families, especially their children. I think I cried more during the small happy moments and the occasional humanity than the most difficult times.

I found the beginning a bit slow, and it felt as if the parents and future husband could have been more nuanced. Elsa seemed a bit like Cinderella, and the family a bit too much like the wicked stepmother and stepsisters. However, this part of the story was necessary to set up Elsa’s worldview, so I can forgive it. Elsa, Lareda, and Elsa’s in-laws are far more developed and interesting, and the story really picks up when Elsa leaves home.

The Four Winds is, sadly, too relevant for our times. The treatment of migrants, the inequality, the sense of endlessness of the Depression…all of these are visible now. In addition, the environmental crisis of the time, the Dust Bowl, is a sad reminder of what happens when we don’t care for our planet, and we see that in our current climate crisis. What is astounding to me is how long these travails went on…we are a year into a pandemic and going bonkers, while the main part of this story spans six years. How our fellow Americans endured this is beyond me.

Some reviewers have complained about the “political agenda” of the book, particularly the role of Communists in trying to organize the workforce. Yet what was she supposed to do, write them out of history? They were there, and they were trying to help. I did not see Hannah as “advocating for Communism,” as some reviewers believe. In fact, she uses Elsa to voice deep concerns and reservations about the philosophy. At the same time, by respecting their role in seeking better working conditions for the migrants, she reminds us that people are far more complex than Twitter would have us believe.

I highly recommend The Four Winds, and hell, anything else Kristin Hannah writes.

Forgotten Women Writers: P. L. Travers

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It may be St. Patrick’s Day, but we’re also still in Women’s History Month! So today I’m writing about P. L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books. Though Travers grew up in Australia, her father was Irish, and while in her twenties she moved to London, often visiting Ireland in the decades she lived there.

When I was a little girl, enchanted by Marie Poppins the movie, I had no idea then that there were books, several of them, in which a very different Mary Poppins existed. (Too be fair, I was five.) This Mary Poppins was vain, cranky, and mysterious.

Turns out Travers hated the movie and went toe to toe with Walt Disney himself during its making. Did you see Saving Mr. Banks? Those tears at the end weren’t that she loved the movie, though that’s what the film might have led you to believe.

As a fellow writer, this realization broke my heart. Travers is not the first or last author to dislike the movie adaptation of a book, but I guess this was the first time I thought about how devastating it must be to see your baby contorted into something you never intended.

Recently, curious about Travers and wanting to learn more about her life, I read Mary Poppins: She Wrote by Valerie Lawson. Travers started out as an actress, then turned to writing. In an age when women were mostly housewives, Travers carved out a successful career that led to the Mary Poppins series. She was outspoken, often abrasive, and impatient with small talk. In other words, my kind of gal.

Turns out she and I have a lot in common. We share, unfortunately, a lot of anxiety and odd ailments. Like Travers, my life has been an ongoing spiritual search, and we both came across some charlatans along the way. And also like Travers, later in my life I have become deeply fascinated with fairy tales and am delving more into their history. That was an odd parallel I didn’t expect!

Deeply private, Travers didn’t want a biography written about her. Though Lawson does her best, she can’t penetrate Travers’ deeper thoughts and feelings because Travers took all that with her. So if we want to know who she was and what matters to her, I suspect the bread crumbs are in all her books. Best get reading.

If you enjoy this blog, please consider purchasing one of my novels. Information is available here. The Factory Girl and the Fey is coming October 2021! Details coming soon.

Happy Labor Day!

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In the world of the upcoming novel Jane, the Factory Girl, mill workers grind it out 14 hours a day, five days a week, then 10 hours on Saturdays. Sundays are the only day off. Even children work long hours, though less than the adults. Workers were often asked to work in unsafe conditions, and wages could be cut at the whim of the mill owners.

It’s hard for me to grasp what that world was like. They say “write what you know,” and there’s no way I can truly know what day-to-day life was like for my great-great grandparents, to whom I gave fictionalized lives in this book. My own existence is cushy in contrast. Even when I did hold a full-time job, I never had to work under those conditions.

On this Labor Day, let us remember that the development of unions provided safer environments, reduced work hours, and provided protections to workers to keep their jobs.

Recently in New York City, the Teachers Union was able to successfully postpone school openings until later this month to create a better environment to protect students, teachers, and staff from COVID-19.

My late father was a union worker. Thanks to the union, he was paid a decent wage that allowed him to provide for his family. My younger brother belongs to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Unions aren’t perfect. In some cases, they have taken on their own corruption. And at times it appears police unions, while valuable, have protected rogue cops who use excessive force. As with all organizations, unions have their flaws and must be held accountable when they go too far.

Yet unions are at risk in these uncertain times. The existence of unions has benefitted even non-union workers, so let us today pay homage to unions and all they have provided. We don’t want to go back to the days of Jane, the Factory Girl.

The Dutchess is Keeping Me Sane (Sort of)

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I’ve made it no secret that I’m not fond of social media. I have stopped and started Twitter accounts so often it’s impossible for anyone to find me. Too often I find myself getting into arguments with strangers (who may not even be real people). I’m trying again, this time hoping to avoid that fate by limiting who I follow, especially in the political realm.

Upon my return to Twitter, my stepdaughter Sarah told me about one Duchess Goldblatt and sent me a link to a New York Times article about this mysterious, sage, and very anonymous persona that has hooked thousands of followers.

The Duchess, for the ten people who don’t know who she is (I am late to the party) is a fictional 80-year-old author who lives in the equally fictional Crooked Path, New York. She dispenses cleverness and wisdom in every post. She is a major fangirl of Lyle Lovett, and over time the feeling has grown mutual.

Duchess Goldblatt recently came out with a memoir, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt. She has written the book as the person behind her creation. In stories both funny and sad she tells of a life that had fallen apart: losses of job, marriage, and friends in a short period of time. The Duchess started as a way to help her cope, and ended up helping her heal.

Though I knew little about the Duchess before buying the book, I was enthralled with the writing. It’s an easy read, but I still found myself putting it down from time to time to absorb her words. It’s likely I’ll browse back through it another time or two. Despite hiding behind a fictional character, the author behind the Duchess is an incredibly authentic human being.

The Duchess says her Twitter feed is a refuge for the broken-hearted. For me, her feed and her book have provided a bit of light in these dark times. As we continue to tend to ourselves and each other, we need to find that light wherever we can.