Publisher's Weekly Review
Lee's seductive novel (her first in 15 years, after Lost Hearts in Italy) chronicles the life of Shay Gilliam, a Black American woman married to an Italian man. Her husband, Senna, builds the couple a vacation property and pension in northwestern Madagascar. It takes a while for Shay to adjust during visits from Italy, where Shay teaches literature, but she befriends head housekeeper Bertine, whom Shay enlists to help her get rid of loud, racist Kristos, the house manager. As the decades pass, the couple raises children and continues to visit. Meanwhile, various episodes in Madagascar occupy Shay, including a feud between a volatile bar owner and an ostentatious business rival who appears to be "living out some Happy Valley colonial fantasy." (One of the two ends up dead.) Shay also has an unsettling encounter while searching for a "sacred tree," and develops a "strange intimacy" with the skipper of the couple's decrepit catamaran. These experiences lead Shay to confront ideas about race, class, and colonialism. If the plotting is episodic, the writing is vivid: "the first caress of tropical air" is "like an infant's hand on the face," and Shay's fond reflections on Bertine are especially moving. Things ebb and flow, but the overall impact is quietly powerful. (Mar.)
Library Journal Review
While it is classified as a novel, the latest offering from Lee (Russian Journal) is more like a series of related, beautifully written vignettes centering on life and culture in Madagascar. Each vignette includes Shay, a Black literature professor who vacations in Madagascar with her husband Senna, a wealthy Italian executive who has built his dream house in the tropical island paradise. Senna revels in his role as lord of the manor, employing and using the Malagasy locals as it suits him. Shay, however, develops feelings of kinship with the Malagasy; over the years, she becomes more and more uncomfortable with what she sees as their exploitation at the hands of wealthy Europeans. She even comes to believe that she may be on the wrong side of Madagascar's struggles with racism, classism, and colonialism--the very issues she explores as a scholar of African American literature. Bahni Turpin masterfully portrays Lee's international cast of characters, and her versatile narration pulls together the many threads of the interconnected short stories. Her warm delivery and slow pacing also allow listeners to savor Lee's lovely prose and contemplate the novel's important issues. VERDICT Listeners expecting a traditional novel may not have the patience for Lee's nonlinear narrative, but those who do will long remember the characters that Lee and Turpin have brought to life.--Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.
