The Breakwater House

Finished June 18

The Breakwater House by Pascale Quiviger, translated by Lazer Laderhendler

This literary novel follows Lucie as she goes through a difficult period in her life, with flashbacks to her past. Lucie grew up with her single mom Aurore, struggling financially. Early on she meets Claire, who is only five days apart by birth, but who lives with her wealthy mother Suzanne. The girls are almost inseparable. Aurore wove stories about her own past and relatives that she told the girls, but when Lucie turned fifteen, Aurore left and began a life elsewhere. Lucie grew even closer to Claire and when Lucie in turn has a child on her own, Claire moves in with her and becomes another parental figure in her daughter Odysśee's life. 

When tragedy comes into their lives, Lucie struggles, and she eventually finds a house by the sea, where an older woman lives, that is for sale. When she moves to the remote house, with no connection to the rest of the world she finds strange occurrences, odd dreams that bleed into her waking life, and time that passes in an elusive fashion. 

This is a story of grief and loss and how one woman experiences it. Captivating. 

Every Time We Say Goodbye

Finished June 18

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner

This is the third book in the series The Jane Austen Society. It is set mostly in 1954-1955 with flashbacks to a related storyline in 1943. The main character is Vivien Lowry, a British playwrights. She's recently premiered her second play on the London stage, but it wasn't well received by critics. Her contacts, which include several well-known women including Peggy Guggenheim, Daphne du Maurier, and Ava Gardner, arrange a job in Italy for her, working on the script of an American director. Many of those working on the film have left the United States due to the McCarthy investigations, including her fellow writer American Jew Levi Bassano, a young man who served with a Field Photo unit in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. The lead actress in the film is American Claudia Jones, a beautiful biracial woman who passes for white. As she engages with the film community in Rome, we see other real people enter the story, including a young Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and Gina's husband Milko Skofic. Vivien becomes friends with Claudia, who recently starred in a film as a nun and who is making some life decisions of her own. We also see the strong influence the Vatican had on the film industry at the time. 

Vivien is still coming to terms with the disappearance of her fiancé David, who had been captured by Italian forces during the war and then gone missing. She hopes to be able to gather more information while she is still in Italy. 

An Italian director is looking to do a film about a young woman known only as La Scholaretta, who was a partisan during the war and who was executed for the assassin of a Nazi SS Commander. He also has a personal connection to her story. In the 1943 portion of the plot, we see this young woman in the hours surrounding the assassination and her motivations and actions during this time.

I found it interesting to see how these two plots came together and how the repercussions of the war were still being felt during this time. As part of the series, this book centres women who make their own careers and decisions and who support each other doing so. 

I also enjoyed learning that the author is Canadian.