Three Outstanding Historical Novels

Reprinted from the Citizen:

Historical fiction has gained in popularity in recent years, and there are several wonderful books to savor this spring that drop the reader into a different time with interesting people. 

Kate Quinn has been writing about women who have been heroic during WWII in several wonderful books (The Alice Network, The Huntress and The Rose Code) and her latest entry is The Diamond Eye. 

Mila is a librarian working on her thesis for her advanced degree in Kiev, Ukraine (part of Russia then) during WWII. She is separated from her surgeon husband, and raising her young son with the help of her family. She joins the Russian army to help defeat the Nazis who are marching towards Russia, causing utter devastation in their wake.

Along the way, Mila shows great skill as a sniper, becoming the most successful female sniper in the Russian army with over 300 kills to her credit (she actually had many more). The Diamond Eye takes us through Mila’s service and her visit to the United States on a publicity tour where she meets and becomes friendly with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Kate Quinn excels at taking the true story of Mila Palivchenko and fictionalizing her life, giving the reader insight into what it is like to be a woman in a traditionally male army. The reader feels the tension as Mila remains silent and motionless looking for her opportunity to complete her missions. The Diamond Eye continues Quinn’s masterful storytelling of women’s contributions during war.

Melissa Fu’s powerful novel, Peach Blossom Spring tells the story of a different war. Like Mila, Meilin has a young son. Meilin and Renshu are on the run in 1938 as Japan begins bombing China. Meilin’s husband is killed in war, and she and Renshu leave their home with her husband’s family to find safety.

They are refugees fleeing war, and the descriptions of people leaving everything behind, walking for days, resonates so deeply with what we see on the news today in Ukraine. Meilin will do anything to save her son and give him as normal a life as she can.

Renshu is an excellent student and receives an opportunity to study in the United States. Here the story of mother and son diverge- we see Renshu’s new life in America and Meilin building a new life for herself in Taiwan.

Fu’s story of the sacrifices a mother makes for her son, and the difficulties Renshu faces as an immigrant who looks very different from others is so beautifully told and creates such empathy in the reader for Meilin and Renshu. Peach Blossom Spring is one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Like Kate Quinn’s The Diamond Eye, Allison Pataki’s novel The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post fictionalizes the life of a woman who actually lived. Many of us have heard the name Marjorie Post, the heiress to the Post cereal fortune. Her story is an amazing one beyond just that. 

As a young child, Marjorie helped her father as he created breakfast cereal for the general public. As his only child, Marjorie inherited the company upon his death. The Post company became a conglomerate over the years, and one of the most interesting facts in this fascinating novel is that Marjorie Post brought frozen foods to the general public when she purchased a small company called Birdseye Foods. Her board of directors were against the purchase, stating that people would not want to buy frozen foods. She persisted, and that purchase solidified her company’s future as she changed the food business in this country forever.

Marjorie Post was a very wealthy woman, and while she was a brilliant businesswoman, she did not have the same prowess in her choice of husbands. She married and divorced three times. 

Continuing with our WWII theme, Marjorie Post was married to a man who became the American ambassador to Russia just before WWII. I found the descriptions of life as the wife of an ambassador so interesting, and Post bought many of the treasures the Russian government was selling off, creating one of the most impressive collections of Russian art anywhere.

As I was reading The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post, I found myself saying “she knew who?”, “she did what?” “she went where?”. The title of this book could not be more perfect, Marjorie Post lived so many magnificent lives. I highly recommend it.

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn- A

Published by William Morrow

Hardcover, $27.99, 448 pages

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu- A+

Published by Little, Brown & Co. 

Hardcover, $28, 400 pages

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki- A

Published by Ballantine Books

Hardcover, $28, 400 pages

Friday 5ive- February 18, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish blog post featuring five things that caught my eye this week.

1)  Last week was Valentine's Day and Today With Hoda & Jenna had a segment on Valentine's Day Romantic Reads. My favorite author Adriana Trigiani gave two recommendations, one of which is my all-time favorite romantic read- Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald. It's a time travel story set in Grand Central Station that's so beautifully written that every time I'm in Grand Central, I look for the main characters, Nora and Joe, there. My review of the magnificent book is here. You can watch the Hoda & Jenna segment here.  

2)  While flying home from Florida, the woman in front of my seat put on this headband right after takeoff. Although we flew out of Sarasota, I'm guessing she visited DisneyWorld. Shout-out to Maleficent.

3)  We did a Zoom wine-tasting with the Reagan Library and Caymus Vineyards. The Reagan Library is hosting three vineyards, one each month, and since Caymus Cabernet is one of our favorite wines, we were excited to hear their story. Charlie and Jenny Wagner, whose family has owned Caymus for generations, spoke about the origins of their family vineyard. Like many older California vineyards, they started out as orchards growing fruit and pivoting to wine making in the 1970's when California wines really came into their own. We tasted their The Walking Fool red blend, which features their great-grandfather on the label. 

4)  One of my goals is to watch the movies nominated for Academy Awards. I watched Denzel Washington's stunning Best Actor nominated performance in The Tragedy of MacBeth on Apple TV+. It's an amazing film, shot in black and white, with great cinematography and directing in Joel Coen's adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy. Frances McDormand is fantastic as Lady MacBeth. Watch this one with the closed-captioning to get the most of out this Best Picture nominated movie. 

Also on Apple TV+ is CODA (Children of Deaf Adults), which may be my favorite movie in a long time. Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only hearing person in her family. Troy Kotsur plays her father, and he is the first male actor who is deaf to be nominated for an Academy Award. (Marlee Matlin plays her mother.) Ruby's family depends on her to communicate with everyone around them, and when Ruby's talent for singing means she may be able to attend a music school away from her family, she has to make a decision. It's a humorous, heartwarming family story with great music. 

5)  I got a lot of reading in lately. I was on a TV memoir binge, having read three of them in the past few weeks. Directed By James Burrows is the story of the legendary TV director James Burrows, who takes us through his stellar career as the premiere director of TV pilots. We get backstage stories of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newheart Show, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, and Will & Grace. If you are a fan of television sitcoms of the past forty years, this is a great read. It publishes in June. 

We go from TV sitcoms to TV dramas. Sharon Gless's memoir Apparently There Were Complaints shares her story from her days as one of the last contract players at Universal Studios to her days as a TV superstar on Cagney & Lacey, through her alcoholism and tumultous marriage to Cagney executive director Barney Rosenzweig. It's a honest portrayal of a fascinating person. 

Most people recognize Molly Shannon from her years on Saturday Night Live during the Will Ferrell days. Her memoir Hello, Molly! begins with the traumatic experience at age four of losing her mother, younger sister, and cousin in a car accident caused by father who had been drinking heavily at a family party. Molly and her six year-old sister had to deal with the tragedy growing up without a mother, and with their father's wild mood swings. The story of her and her friend sneaking on a plane as children (back when you could do that) in Ohio and spending the day in New York City with no money in the 1970's alone is worth the price of the book. The grit and determination she showed as she made her dream of performing come true is inspiring, and she has some great SNL stories. 

And finally I read a fabulous novel- Allison Pataki's The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post. Most of us know the name Post from our favorite breakfast cereals, but I did not know anything about this fascinating woman. Pataki fictionalizes the life of Marjorie Post who, as brilliant as she was in business (she brought frozen foods to our tables through her strategic purchase of Birds' Eye foods) was not as successful in her personal life, marrying and divorcing four men. You'll read this one saying "She knew who?", "She did that?" and "How did I not know of this woman?" 

Stay safe and warm in this crazy weather, until next time.