Review of "The Hollywood Daughter: A Novel" by Kate Alcott

It's the 1940s, World War II is raging, and young Jessica Molloy (Jesse) is growing up in Hollywood - where her father Gabriel is a publicist for Selznick International Studios.

One of Gabriel's clients is the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, who becomes a household name after she stars in the Oscar-winning film Casablanca. Bergman becomes a superstar and Gabriel's career climbs.


Ingrid Bergman


Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

At the same time, Jesse herself becomes enchanted with Bergman. The actress's daughter Pia goes to Jesse's private elementary school - and uses the same transportation - and Jesse is captivated by Ingrid's grace and beauty as she sends Pia off to school every morning.


Ingrid Bergman and her daughter Pia

Jesse's mother Vanessa, a devout Catholic, fears glitzy Hollywood will adversely influence her daughter. Thus Vanessa insists that Jesse be transferred to St. Ann's Catholic School for girls, which goes from primary school through high school



Before Jesse switches schools, however, Gabriel arranges for a few supportive words from Ingrid Bergman, which Jesse deeply treasures. Afterwards, young Jesse has several more brief encounters with Bergman, all of which are encouraging and uplifting.

At St. Ann's, Jesse meets fellow student Kathleen - a mildly rebellious free spirit - and the two girls become best friends forever. When they're not in class, Jesse and Kathleen swim, play tennis, and secretly devour movie magazines forbidden by the school. The girls obsessively follow Hollywood news and gossip, and keep up with Bergman's personal life, career, and movies - which they're generally not allowed to see.


Movie magazine from the 1940s

In fact movies are controversial throughout the country. This is the era of the 'Catholic Legion of Decency', an organization determined to wipe out objectionable material in films. If a movie contains sexual content (including long kisses) or excessive violence, the League bans the film and Catholics are forbidden to see it. This puts a damper on the movie industry, since a denunciation strongly affects box office revenues.



The studio makes sure Bergman's films pass muster with the League, and the actress's star continues to rise. She makes a string of successful films, including For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, The Bells of St. Mary's, and Joan of Arc.









As it happens, The Bells of St. Mary's - about a nun who runs a convent school - is filmed at St. Ann's, and Jesse is thrilled to see Bergman on the premises. Between scenes, Jesse hears Ingrid recite a monologue from Shakespeare, and this becomes important years later, on graduation day.

Bergman's roles as a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's, and then a saint in Joan of Arc, endear her to the Catholic Church and its devotees.

When the war ends, repression by the Catholic League is joined by the oppression of McCarthyism. Senator Joseph McCarthy thinks American institutions have been infiltrated by Communists, and makes it his mission to root them out. Hollywood, which is supposedly filled with 'reds', is hit hard.....and myriad people lose their livelihoods over the next few years.



Ingrid Bergman now does something unthinkable. She leaves her husband, Dr. Petter Lindstrom, runs off to Italy with director Roberto Rossellini, and gets pregnant with his child. AMERICA GOES CRAZY.


Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rosselini

Bergman is denounced by the Catholic Church; condemned by the Senate; decried by newspapers; and severely criticized by people across the country. In fact, the actress is forbidden to return to the United States, where her daughter Pia still lives with Lindstrom.

Jesse, who's a teenager by now, is stunned and mystified by the furor - and confused by the suppression and hypocrisy she sees around her. Subsequent events strongly affect Jesse, her family, and her future.



The book is narrated as a long flashback by twentysomething Jesse. Adult Jesse lives in New York, is a copy editor for Newsweek, and sends stories to national magazines - hoping to be published. Jesse receives a surprise invitation to attend the 1959 Academy Awards, and while she's debating whether to go, recalls her life in Los Angeles.



In modern times it's hard to fathom the tyranny of the McCarthy/Catholic League years. This book paints a vivid picture of those days, and their effect on a coming-of-age Catholic girl who's fearful of 'sinning', but doesn't always agree with her Church.

Actually, as I was reading the book, I couldn't help thinking about the horrific child abuse scandals plaguing the very church that made itself the arbiter of 'morality' in past years.

This is a well-written, engaging story, recommended to fans of literary fiction and coming-of-age novels.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "A Taste For Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them" by Neil Bradbury, Ph.D.

 

Historically, poison was a popular murder weapon because it was difficult (or impossible) to detect in the dead victim. Thus countless killers got away with murder. Now of course, modern technology can sniff out poison quite easily, and its use as a murder weapon has plummeted. Still, poisons are a fascinating subject.

'A Taste For Poison' is a compendium of eleven well-known poisons, familiar to fans of mystery fiction as well as true crime aficionados. For each substance, Bradbury describes its provenance, how it works, and its use by a killer. The poisons are aconite, arsenic, atropine, chlorine, cyanide, digoxin, insulin, polonium, potassium, ricin and strychnine.



Many poisons, such as aconite, atropine, cyanide, digoxin, ricin, and strychnine come from plants; insulin is a hormone made in animals; and other poisons are found in soil, rocks, and other naturally occurring substances.


Aconite comes from the monkshood plant


Ricin comes from castor beans


Arsenic is found in minerals

Bradbury explains, 'Whatever the poison may be, there are three distinct stages that occur before death: delivery, actions, and effects." Poisons can be delivered via four paths, ingestion (eaten or drunk), respiration (inhaled), absorption (taken in through the skin), or injection (shot into muscle or blood vessel). Once inside the body a poison might attack the nervous system; interfere with vital organs; affect cell chemistry; paralyze muscles; break down cells; and more. Taken far enough, any of these actions could result in death.



In some ways, the sections on how poisons kill is reminiscent of my college physiology class, but Bradbury's narrative is much more entertaining. I was also struck by the killers Bradbury uses as examples, some of whom crafted murder schemes worthy of the great Agatha Christie herself. Of course most of the murderers exemplified in this book were caught.....and I shudder to think of the many more that walked free.

Many people have heard of poisons like arsenic, cyanide and strychnine, and most of the other featured toxins probably 'ring a bell' as well. So, to provide a feel for the book, I'll briefly outline Bradbury's chapter on a rare and unusual killer - polonium.





Polonium, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1903, is a lethal radioactive metal. Sadly, one of the first victims of polonium may have been the Curies' daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, who died of leukemia at the age of 58 - possibly from accidental exposure to the radioactive substance.


Marie and Pierre Curie


Irène Joliot-Curie

Polonium-210 is the ideal poison. It's lethal in small amounts, doesn't generate the hard gamma radiation that's easily detected by monitors at airports and shipping ports, and causes death relatively quickly. Of course polonium is very expensive and hard to get, but - in one case (at least) - it was used as an assassination tool.

The story: In 2006 a London man named Edwin Carter suddenly fell ill. He exhibited stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, and labored breathing. At the hospital, Carter was diagnosed with gastroenteritis with dehydration, but Edwin's low white cell count argued against it. Nevertheless, Carter was treated with the antibiotics normally used to combat gastroenteritis.

When his health continued to decline, Carter announced that he was an ex-KBG agent named Alexander Litvinenko, and that he'd been poisoned. Hospital staff thought Edwin was delusional until his hair started falling out and his blood platelet count plummeted, which doesn't happen with gastroenteritis.


Alexander Litvinenko in the hospital

An MI-6 handler finally confirmed that Litvinenko had been a KGB agent who had publicly accused KGB officials of being in league with Russian organized crime. Litvinenko was fired in 1999, and defected to Britain, where he became an informant for MI-6.

Litvinenko was poisoned during a meeting with Russian 'businessmen' who would (supposedly) help British firms do business in Russia. Litvinenko unknowingly drank some polonium-laced tea during the conference, and fell ill while the 'businessmen' hustled back to Russia.

It turns out the polonium came from a nuclear facility in Russia, and the 'businessmen' were Russian agents called Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun - ostensibly sent by either Vladimir Putin or the Russian secret service. In any case, no one was ever extradited or arrested.


Andrei Lugovoi


Dmitry Kovtun

Bradbury explains what polonium does in detail, but in a nutshell: Polonium enters the body via the small intestine and breaks down the gut wall. This causes bacterial infections, which make the victim ill. Meanwhile, polonium enters the bloodstream, travels around the body, and destroys the liver, heart, hair follicles, immune system, bone marrow, and so on. Litvinenko's body was "literally shredded apart."


How polonium damages the body

This is more dramatic than most of Bradbury's examples, which usually involve things like spouses killing their partners; nurses or doctors murdering patients; relatives killing for an inheritance; the Borgias poisoning their way to wealth and power; poison gas used for mass murder; and so on. In any case, the book will make you wary of what you eat, drink, touch, or breathe in.



Though most information in the book is available on the internet, the narrative pulls the information together in one place, and the audiobook is excellent for dipping into during free moments.

Thanks to Netgalley, Neil Bradbury, and Macmillan Audio for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "The Island of Missing Trees" by Elif Shafak"

The Island of Missing Trees revolves around a couple who met in Cyprus shortly before the 1974 Cypriot civil war.

In a nutshell: Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean Sea with a long history of being occupied or administered by different countries. In modern times, Cyprus was under the dominion of the British Empire from 1878 to 1960, when the island became independent. At that time, Cyprus was largely populated by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, each of whom considered the island to be part of their home country.



To broker peace, the Zurich Agreement of 1960 recognized the equality and autonomy of the Greek and Turkish communities, which would be politically and culturally separate. Nevertheless, continuing conflict led to a 1974 civil war that (essentially) divided the country into 'Turkish Cyprus' in the north and 'Greek Cyprus' in the south.



A romance between a Greek boy and a Turkish girl would be excoriated by both communities, and that's the conflict at the center of this gorgeous novel.

The story rotates among three time periods: 1974; the early 2010s, and the late 2010s.

⦿ 1974: Two teenagers in Nicosia, Cyprus - a Christian Greek boy named Kostas and a Muslim Turkish girl called Defne - are in love.



They can't be seen together, so they meet in the back room of a taverna called The Happy Fig. The popular hangout is run by two men, Greek Cypriot Yiorgos and Turkish Cypriot Yusuf, who are sympathetic to the young couple's plight.



The Happy Fig is an ethnic eatery, described as follows: "The entrance of the tavern was partially covered with twisting vines of honeysuckle. Inside, solid black beams ran the length and breadth of the ceiling, from which hung garlands of garlic, onion, drying herbs, chili peppers and cured sausages. There were twenty-two tables....and a charcoal grill at the back from which the smell of flatbread wafted daily, along with the enticing aromas of cooking meats."



To add to the taverna's ambiance, a Ficus carica (fig tree) sat in the middle of the dining area, growing through a cavity in the roof, and a resident parrot called Chico landed on people's shoulders and tried to snatch their food.





On their first evening at The Happy Fig, Kostas and Defne could afford nothing more than water, but the taverna's owners sent a tray with stuffed vine leaves, shrimp saganaki, chicken souvlaki with tsatziki sauce, moussaka, and pitta bread.


Stuffed Vine Leaves


Shrimp Saganaki


Chicken Souvlaki with Tsatziki Sauce


Moussaka


Pitta Bread

The happy young couple enjoyed every mouthful....and the Ficus watched it all. The fig tree is actually one of the book's narrators, and its long life, ability to converse with birds and insects, powers of observation, and intellect make it uniquely knowledgeable and articulate.

Though Kostas and Defne were only dimly aware of it, there was big trouble on the horizon, spurred by deep divisions between Greeks and Turks, rising unrest, and increasing terrorism.

*****

⦿ Early 2010s: The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) is digging up sites in Cyprus, looking for the remains of people killed in the 1974 civil war. Thousands of people, both Greeks and Turks, are unaccounted for.....



......and the teams searching for them are composed of archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, geneticists, forensic specialists, and others. The CMP works from information supplied by anonymous informants, and is hoping to reunite the deceased with their families.



A CMP searcher observes, "Sometimes you search for weeks on end and achieve nothing. It's frustrating. Some of the informants misremember the details, others deliberately lead us on wild goose chases. You search for victims, you encounter medieval, Roman, Hellenistic bones. Or prehistoric fossils....Then, just when you think you are going nowhere, you find mass graves." Explaining the need to hurry, the worker goes on, "The older generation is dying, taking their secrets with them to the grave. If we don't dig now, in a decade or so there won't be anyone left to tell us the whereabouts of the missing. It's a race against time, really.'

The CMP workers go on to discuss similar searches in Spain, Argentina, Chile and other countries that experienced internal conflict - and the stories are heart-wrenching.

*****

⦿ Late 2010s: Kostas and his teenage daughter Ada are living in London, mourning the recent death of Defne. Kostas, engulfed by grief over the loss of his wife, throws himself into his work - researching and writing about plants, animals, nature and ecosystems.



Kostas seems most comfortable with his fig tree, grown from a cutting of the fig tree in The Happy Fig taverna. Kostas talks to his fig tree, and the tree talks back....but Kostas can't hear it.



In fact the the fig tree is quite loquacious. For instance, one winter afternoon the tree hears a bird and muses, "Inside the hedge a whitethroat began to sing - swift, scratchy notes. I wondered what a North African warbler was doing in our garden at this time of year. Why hadn't it left for warmer places with all the others that must now be on their way south, and who, if they made a slight change in their flight path, might just as well head towards Cyprus and visit my motherland."



As for Ada, she's overwhelmed by the loss of her mother, feels shut out by her father, and has problems concentrating at school.



Ada experiences an additional emptiness because her parents never talked about Cyprus and she's never met any of her Cypriot relatives. Kostas and Defne wanted Ada to feel English, but the teen feels a pull toward Cyprus, a sort of epigenetic longing.

Nevertheless, when Defne's sister, Aunt Meryem, comes to London for a visit, Ada's first instinct is to be standoffish and distant. In large part, this is because Meryem didn't come to Defne's funeral, and Ada is angry at Meryem and all the other Cypriot relatives.



Like many Cypriot islanders, Meryem is deeply superstitious. On her first night in London, Meryem does a ritual for the dead near Kostas's fig tree, to guide Defne's spirit to safety. The tree, who's seen it all before, muses, "Humans have always sensed there was something uncanny about me and my kind....In Judaism, sitting under a fig tree has long been associated with a deep, devout study of the Torah....The Prophet Mohammed said the fig was the one tree that he wished to see in paradise....It was while meditating under a Ficus religiosa that Buddha attained enlightenment....and King David was fond of us." The Ficus goes on and on like this, explaining how special its kind are. (This is one smart fig tree!! 🙂)


Buddha under a Ficus religiosa

Meryem's visit does give Ada the opportunity to ask questions about Cyprus, and Meryem reveals some surprising truths about Ada's parents and their families. Meryem also likes to cook, and tells Ada, "Food is the heart of a culture. You don't know your ancestors' cuisine, you don't know who you are." Then Meryem goes on to extoll the virtues of Turkish baklava, saying, "Everyone makes baklava, true, but not everyone succeeds. We Turks make it crispy with roasted pistachios. That's the right way. Greeks use raw walnuts - God knows who gave them that idea, it just ruins the taste."


Turkish Baklava


Greek Baklava

In many ways, Kostas is the most sensitive character in the book, with his deep love of nature and his pain at its destruction. Kostas doesn't believe humans have the right to exploit everything in the world, which makes him something of an outlier. For example, one day young Kostas is watching his mother preserving songbirds (a Cypriot delicacy), opening their breasts with her thumbs and stuffing them with salt and spices. A wave of nausea overcomes the boy, and crying, he says, "Don't do that, Mama. I don't want to eat them anymore." Years later, Kostas tries to interfere with songbird poachers, which doesn't work out too well for him.


Songbird Dish

I like historic novels that enlighten me, and this one has bits about Greek customs; Turkish culture; the history of Cyprus; Greek mythology; and much more. The novel is also filled with beautiful word pictures, exemplified by one of the London fig tree's memories of Cyprus: "Of the past we left behind I remember everything. Coastlines etched in the sandy terrain like creases in a palm waiting to be read, the chorus of cicadas against the rising heat, bees buzzing over lavender fields, butterflies stretching their wings at the first promise of light.....many may try, but no one does optimism better than butterflies."

This is a memorable story with an unexpected (and very nifty) ending. Highly recommended.

FYI: At the end of the book, Elif Shafak describes how she researched the book, and includes a bibliography. Shafak also provides a glossary of foreign phrases, such as: abla - older sister (Turkish); ambelopoulia - a dish of grilled, fried, pickled, or boiled songbirds (Greek); kardoula mou - my little heart (Greek); majnun - a crazy person (Arabic); nazar - evil eye (Turkish); and many more.


Nazar (evil eye on necklace.....or good luck)

Thanks to Netgalley, Elif Shafak, and Bloomsbury Publishing for a copy of the book.

Rating: 5 stars