August 2011 Book Reviews by Sharon L. Shervington

With summer on the wane, and Labor Day and a new school year fast approaching, this is a good time to also turn a bit more serious, perhaps, in what might catch one’s reading fancy. And there are several offerings that effortlessly fit that bill.

My favorite read this month is a new collection of Harlem Renaissance novels that mixes some of the period’s best-known works and authors such as Cane, by Jean Toomer, with the work of lesser known but top-notch authors such as George Schuyler (also a noted journalist), Nella Larson, and many more.

In some cases these novels are as dramatic as one might hope for while draining summer’s cup of unlimited reading pleasure to the last drop. But, of course, the often taboo topics, such as passing and the profundity of racism, do lend themselves to dramatic treatment.

Plum Bun, for example, deals with a nuclear family in which mother and daughter can pass for white, while father and daughter cannot. While family dynamics are a key component of the story, the meat of it is how racism—with its systemic nature—diminishes the possibilities of individual lives and tears apart otherwise healthy relationships.

These novels, compiled in two volumes, represent a distillation of some of the best work of the period. In addition to the commonality of tackling tangled and taboo subjects with clarity and verve, several of the nine novels are set in a New York City and a Harlem of yesteryear that remain surprisingly fresh and compelling. This is a collection that can be savored over many months, if not years, and that will open readers’ eyes to truths that in today’s terminally shallow culture we forget at our peril.

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Before Versailles

Written by Karleen Koen

Although there are a few more months to go, I feel quite certain that this is going to be my favorite historical novel of the year. It is rare that this happens more than once per annum, but this is the second historical novel to be published this year for which I have waited several years. The first was The Land of Painted Caves, by Jean Auel, which was disappointing. I consoled myself with the thought that not every volume could meet the standard of the earlier books in the Earth’s Children saga, and still I did enjoy the pleasure of spending time with characters of whom I had become very fond even though the text was troublingly repetitive.

Although the characters are not those first introduced in Through a Glass Darkly, Before Versailles exceeded my expectations in every way. Set at the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, this is many stories in one. Among the highlights are the characters sensitively drawn emotional lives, court intrigue; young love and even high adventure with shades of The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask. Though many hundreds of years separate readers from the action, it is impossible not to care for the characters, such as Madame and Monsieur, who have been written about so very many times.

In doing my research for this column I discovered, to my happy surprise, that I am not the only one who consistently rereads Ms. Koen’s work.

Before Versailles; by Karleen Koen; Crown; 458 pages; $26