September 1, 2004
Two couples seek to escape their painful pasts and find asylum in Sweden in this intricate, occasionally melodramatic novel by Richman (The Mask Carver's Son). Salome de Ribero's tranquil life in Santiago, Chile, with her beloved husband Octavio, a film star and poet, and their three children, is shattered when Octavio's political alliances put the family in danger. Octavio finds himself on the wrong side after General Augusto Pinochet takes power in a violent coup, and Salome is kidnapped and tortured. Octavio, consumed by guilt, desperately tries to free her. After the family's escape to Sweden, Salome's story intertwines with that of Dr. Samuel Rudin, a French Jew whose parents fled to Peru during the Holocaust; now he's a therapist who treats recent survivors of torture and war. As he works with Salome, Dr. Rudin must admit his attraction to her and confront his own troubled relationship with his wife, Kaija. Richman presents an engrossing examination of the prisons people create for themselves and the way they accustom themselves to suffering until liberation seems as painful as captivity. This is an ambitious exploration of political and personal struggles, but Richman heaps too much misery on her long-suffering characters.
September 15, 2012
Richman explores the story of two couples whose lives touch in unexpected ways. When Octavio met Salome, she was a beautiful schoolgirl with thick dark tresses and the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Every day Octavio, a college student and struggling poet, schemed to come up with ploys to meet the young girl, finally settling on using the poems of one of Chile's masters to capture her heart. Years later, Octavio is a famous, though reluctant, actor, whose political participation has put him, his children and, worst of all, his beautiful Salome, in danger. Meanwhile, across the ocean, another drama is playing out in the form of a young and extremely poor Finnish family that is barely surviving during the dark days of World War II. The family, three young boys, a beautiful mother and a husband recently returned wounded from the fighting, struggles to provide sustenance for its members. Soon, the woman finds she is pregnant and gives birth to a tiny, perfect blonde daughter who captures her heart. But her husband, bitter that he is no longer the man he once was, makes a heartbreaking decision that alters all of their lives and leads his baby daughter through an unanticipated journey to Sweden. Richman develops strong characters but heaps so much misery and unhappiness upon the ones she devises that readers may often feel besieged with their situations and despair. Her strongest passages take place in Finland and in the early days of the lives of two of her characters--Samuel and Kaija--but the author tends to repeat herself a great deal, hauling readers through the same scenes told from the same character's point of view. The author's strengths include her beautiful, evocative language and sense of place. Chile, Finland and Sweden all come alive through Richman's adept prose. Wonderful in places, but sometimes more of a downer than many readers may bargain for; Richman's latest could have withstood some judicious pruning without losing its rhythm.
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September 15, 2012
Loss, sorrow, and faint yet insistent hope drive a story centered on the foibles and longings of the human heart in a world filled with atrocities and carelessness. Octavio Ribeiro deeply adores his wife, Salome, and the life they have created with their three children in Chile. When Salome pays a terrible price for her husband's outspokenness under a military regime, their family is splintered in ways that will haunt them for years. The setting alternates between Chile and Sweden, where the fleeing Ribeiros find sanctuary. There they meet expatriates Samuel and Kaija Rudin, who have their own troubled pasts to reconcile. A therapist and a French Jew, Samuel was bought up by parents who escaped the Holocaust, and this makes him expertly suited to treat the emotional and mental scars left by Salome's experiences in Chile. The graceful narrative leapfrogs between decades, visiting past events before hurtling into the future and then back again. Richman's (The Lost Wife, 2011) story line is captivating, intertwining lyrical nuances and devastating subjects.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)