Divisadero
Ratings5
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.2
From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time. In the 1970s in northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence—of both hand and heart—that sets fire to the rest of their lives. Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos, and eventually to the landscape of south central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time—Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough-hewn from the past. Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multi-layered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory.
Reviews with the most likes.
I like when an author switches from one perspective/narrator to another, and then successfully weaves them together to make a whole story. The key to this is the successful weaving part, though, and this is where “Divisadero” fails the most for me. Also, I prefer a plot, story arc, and a pretty high verb to adjective ratio, none of which did this book have. It was more a collection of vignettes, yet they didn't all come together to make something more than the sum of their parts like a good collection should. (An excellent example of vignettes coming together to make more than the sum of their parts is “The House on Mango Street” - super good read.)
This book was the July selection for my book club, and after talking it over and hearing their interpretations I actually have a much more positive view of this book than when I had first finished reading it. They discussed themes of loneliness and divisions (“divisaderos”), poetry disguised as prose, and the human need for closure. All these ideas are very tied to this book, yet did not become obvious to me until others pointed them out. Hearing the book clubbers talk about these themes was enjoyable, but reading this book was not.
The writing is beautiful and free of sharp edges, but the book is about feeling and not events (which by no means implies that nothing happens in this book because a lot does happen). It's a fairly introspective read and it leaves you with incomplete stories (aren't all stories incomplete any ways?). If you're looking to give yourself a bit of a bluesy moodiness on a beautiful afternoon this book will do the trick nicely.
I realize that my review makes it sound as if I didn't like the book and perhaps I didn't in a certain way but I still found it an enjoyable read, if that sentence made sense to you, you'll probably enjoy this book.
