Tag: Tracy Chevalier

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (Historical Fiction)

Writing: 3.5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4.5/5

A chronicle of glass making in Murano (still known as the center of glass!) as told through the life of Orsola Rosso — the eldest daughter of a glass blowing family. Orsola wants to work with glass herself, but it’s 1486 and the Renaissance hasn’t quite reached the stage of promoting social changes for women. The story uses the (very) unusual contrivance of allowing Orsola and those in her immediate orbit to age slowly while time for the world at large gallops by. While the “action” starts in 1486 and ends in the present day, Orsola only ages from nine to her late sixties. While this device is explained (poetically) in the prolog, I didn’t really get it so I’m hoping that I can help you avoid bafflement by stating it here with less skill but more clarity 🙂

Orsola’s life embodies the personal (love, marriage, and children in a large extended family rife with personalities), the political (Venice shifting from commercial center to Austrian occupied territory to part of a United Italy to tourist center) , and the business (Guild control to competitive pressures to tourist-driven). She and her family go through the Plague (and later Covid!), two world wars, and the changing mores of an evolving Europe as the Renaissance gave way to the Age of Enlightenment followed by whatever our current age is destined to be called. I learned a lot about Italian history — details that I had learned in the past now integrated and brought to life in this story of artisans buffeted by the constantly shifting trends over time. The history became so much more real to me told through the lens of this particular family.

I give this a four star rating because for my taste there was a little more description than I like, though that same description may fascinate others.

Thank you to Viking and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 18th, 2024.

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier (Historical Fiction — Audio Book)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4.5/5

This is historical fiction at its best. Not a recounting of precipitous events, but the every day details and inner drives of a family — in this case a family trying to eke a living from an orchard / farm in the Black Swamp of Ohio. The narrative spans the late 1830s to 1856 bouncing around between times and four perspectives: James — with a love of apples and his orchard that borders on obsession; his wife Sadie — overwhelmed by the swamp, stubborn as a mule, and a mean drunk; their youngest son (of 10 children) Robert who is somewhat different from the rest; and their daughter Martha, timid, obedient, and fragile.

I listened to this as an audio book and the four voices were astonishingly good. I took a look at a physical book and think I would have loved reading the book just as much, but the audio definitely added a lot to the experience.

I loved the depictions of real people and events. There is just enough description of apple growing (told from James’ perspective) to be engrossing, but never tedious. Real historical characters pop up with intriguing detail: John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) visits the farm regularly to supply apple seedlings and God Talk; William Lobb (a collector for Veitch Nurseries of Exeter who was rapidly importing all of the “new” plant life found in North America) introduces Robert to the art of plant collecting. Settings from Sacramento gold mining to Ohio camp meetings to new tourist attractions in the newly discovered Sequoia grove populate the story. I was most impressed by the array of survival tactics needed in this hugely different world. No modern sensibilities poked their noses into the narrative, and it occurred to me multiple times how hard a real hard life for some people was. It was survival in a time with little stability and absolutely no backup. Instead there was just mud, swamp fever, real hunger, and ever present danger. Not sure how many of us today would make it past our 20s.

I loved the interior worlds of the four “voices.” They made sense, even when they did things that I thought were wrong, or stupid. Their worldview was coherent and their actions made absolute sense within those worldviews. This is an extremely hard trick to pull off. Stellar writing all around — just the right amount of description — distilling thoughts / actions / scenery into their essence without a lot of extraneous verbiage — great dialog, and fully cohesive characters that are a product of the place and time.
One of my top reads of the year.