TWO FRIENDS AND A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES: a book review

BLACKGAMMON by Heather Neff

“Understand this, Michael : There’s no such thing as a sanctuary. “

Believe me when I say that the pessimistic opening line of this intriguing novel belies the apparent optimism of the writer’s vision.  At least this is what I concluded after reading this story which chronicles friendship of two women from two different generations whose destinies were to work, live and try to love in Europe.

Michael…that’s right her name is Michael…lives in the academic environment of England, as professor of…predictably…African American literature with her husband a brilliant English scholar of ….you guessed it…African literature.

Cloe Emmnauel is a….. painter.  Well, at least she not a Naomi Campbell clone or an  aspiring chocolate Hemmingway squandering her days away playing with the green fairy in the squalor of bohemian Paris.  I’ll get to those books later.

Nevertheless, the two women met by chance in an American museum.  The older woman, planning to flee to Paris after  a disastrous romance with an Black-Canadian immigrant (yes, you read that correctly) and the other a quasi-orphan with dreams of living abroad, meet, become fast friends and  vowed to keep in touch.

They kept their vow throughout the novel through letters and occasional visits involving heart wrenching revelations..

Cloë the painter struggles with domestic violence issues from her past while trying to negotiate some equilibrium between her increasingly successful and demanding career and her challengingly peculiar love life.  The cultural and ethnic dynamics of her personal relationships with the men in her life will  definitely baffle any female reader who has lived abroad for any length of time, yet despite the implausibility of her mates you will probably gladly follow the story to its conclusion because of the vivid images of the cosmopolitan lifestyle of these two friends.

Black American women living abroad will obviously react  to the relationship configurations of these two women with a certain degree of scepticism.  More than a touch of mendacity and hints of multi-cultural treason prevail in this tragic-comic novel of the search for identity, love and, professional success.

The problem I find with novels written about American women abroad is that there is a stereotypical quality to the life choices of these women.  It places limits on the perceptions of the black American experience abroad, which limits the kind of novels we can expect  to be disseminated through the mainstream publishing industry.

Despite what probably feels like a negative review of Blackgammon, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it on many levels.

author, Heather Neff

Next I will review, Andrea Lee’s LOST HEARTS IN ITALY

KIDNAPPED AND IN HOLLAND: a book review

LENOIR by Ken Greenhall

"THEY ARE DERANGED.

They are pale, their country is flat and wet, and they have no souls.  I believe they are being punished for having only one God."

This powerful opening paragraph hooked me until the very end.

Have you ever visited a museum and noticed the rare face of  a Black person amid the colors and nuances of a European culture?  When you stopped to reflect, did you ever think to push yourself into the time and place of the painting while wondering what life was like for the exotic individual who inspired it?

Dutch painter, Peter Paul Rubens painting, Four Heads of A Negro was the inspiration for author Ken Greenhall's  extraordinary novel, LENOIR.

Lenoir, a kidnapped African during the European slave trade, is sold to a Dutch hustler during the height of  the Renaissance in 17th century Amsterdam.

The regal and arrogant Lenoir, finds himself both intrigued and repulsed by the Dutch society in which he finds himself.  In his  complex status as a slave he finds his duties to include that of companion, business partner, advisor, clandestine lover, to a man who introducess him to the upper levels of  society and the great salons of  the artistic community.

Working as a artists' model and painter's assistant  for personages such as Rembrandt and Rubens, and eventually as an actor for the traveling Italian Commedia de Arte theatre troup allows Lenoir to become a keen social observer and participant in the strange customs of what he considered a souless,  primitive and morally conflicted people.

Lenoir is an astonishing ahcievement and a well crafted novel, by a contemporary author who obviously had spent a great many years as an outsider in Europe's Low Country.

Next review: Blackgammon by Heather Neff