Ann Howard Creel - The Uncertain Season

Author: Ann Howard Creel
Title: The Uncertain Season
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

When I stood on the shores of Galveston in 2013, I was clapping my eyes on the ocean after decades. I grew up in a town that was a little like Houston, only much smaller in scale. It was hot and humid and the seashore was at least an hour's drive away. Absence had made my heart fonder for the sea shore. The proximity of the ocean from the city charmed me. The sands, the rolling waves were the same as they were on the beaches of my childhood.

I have read the 1900 Galveston: Indignities series by N.E. Brown and enjoyed them immensely. I read up on the infamous 1900 storm and a book by Suzanne Morris Galveston. 

Ann Howard Creel's book was recommended to me by a Kindle newsletter that sends me a list of books that are recommended and marked down as a special deal for the day. I usually browse through the newsletter and buy the book if it looks interesting, as this one did. I used the Look Inside option  available on Amazon to get the feel of the book. This option reminds me of flipping through a few pages of a book in a library or a bookstore to see if it looked good. This method has rarely failed me.

The Uncertain Season gives us a prologue where a girl's family is lost during the 1900 storm in Galveston. She is saved thanks to the ingenuity of a fisherman her family is friends with. From the next chapter we learn about the main character, Grace Hilliard who is on her way to the railway station to pick up her cousin Etta. The girls know each other slightly, having met only once before as children. Etta is gorgeous but a poor relation. Grace is true to her name, talented, rich and graceful.  She is engaged to Jonathan, rich and handsome. Etta tries to make a foothold in this rarefied world of the Hilliards, she wants to marry a rich young man and live this luxurious life they are accustomed to.

By contrast Grace finds herself doing charity work among the poor people of the city by the side of  the Methodist Reverend Ira Price and is deeply affected by the life there. She also comes in touch with the Girl who lost her family in the 1900 storm and tries to help her.

The changes that Grace and Etta face changes their thinking and way of life. There are secrets that are uncovered and revealed dramatically which alters them forever.

We can call the book a historical romance. It is the story of Etta and Grace, girls who are related by blood but not class. All the divisions of that age, between rich and poor, colored and white are well etched.  Etta is an outsider trying to fit in, she can hold her own in a conversation with the friends of Hilliards but when they start talking about travel or opera and the art scene, she finds she cannot compete. She isn't exposed to that kind of a privilege. Hence she has to use subterfuge and mystery to augment her appeal. Grace has been so ensconced in her privileged life that when she first steps into the alleys to work with the poor she is taken aback. She has lived her life barely a mile away from the alley but never imagined anything like it.

I liked how well etched the characters were. They seem so real with their angst and anxieties. It is easy to empathize with them even when they are doing something wrong, for we understand why they do it. The story is well crafted and it was easy to read. The writing style is simple and engaging. This a little gem of a book and I am willing to read more books by this author.

I love a good romance but find it hard to find one. There are so many romance novelists who wind up being tedious, most of them are too fluffy and the story feels like flat soda. This one was full bodied and it barely even felt like a romance, it was more like a slice of life story. The best kind in my opinion.

Rishad Saam Mehta - Hot tea across India

+Amazon India 

+Kindle Store 

@Tranquebar Publishing

This is not the first time I have fallen for an attractive cover and an enticing name,  Tea is to Indians what magic potion is to Asterix.  I know some people who can imbibe as many as fourteen cups a day.

This book is not just about tea, though it pops up quite frequently in it.  It is a travelogue. I will amend that.  It is an adventure-travelogue. Rishad Saam Mehta traveled at any given opportunity, whether hitching a ride on a truck, or on a train, rickety bus, airplane, motorcycle or myriad cars.

This book is a collection of his essays on a travel to some part of the country, titled by the most remarkable point of his journey.  He has been nearly robbed, looked down the gun of a policeman manning checkpoints, caught pooping in a wrong place, subjected to arson and had his bones rattled in a rickety bus. 

No matter where Rishad is, or what he is doing, his narration is so interesting, so full of warmth that we are loath to put the book down.  He is always aware of the beauty of the place he is visiting, the history behind it and remarks on it.

"Chandra Tal is as close to heaven as you can get while yet in a mortal form." 

Don't expect pretty purple prose though.  This is only on occasions when he is struck by the beauty of his surrounding. That is when he gets all lyrical.

While traveling to Manali he was tempted to take this 'LUXAREY BUS'.  Imagining plush seats and a comfortable ride, he is rudely awakened by a wreck on four wheels and wooden seats. He says:

Most of the other passengers were simple hill folk for whom the bus really was a luxury- because for them anything that moved on its own accord without the help of a four legged creature was a luxury.

Then there were people he met:

The first thing that struck me about him was his hair: hormones had made a serious navigational error because while his pate was shining and bald, his shoulders were a barber's playground.

He is very witty without sounding smart-alecy.  How he manages that, I don't know.  He has, I presume, an innate and an enviable talent for writing.  His anecdotes are so well told, that most times I was laughing out loud.

I polished off his book in a couple of long sittings.  I was blessed with very little work in the office and read this book on phone all day.

He touches upon his visits to Leh, Ladakh, Drass, Srinagar, Delhi-Chandigarh highway, Kerala, Jaisalmer, Rann of Kutch.  He has done river rafting and also participated in Raid-de-Himalaya. He knows how to let us know the difficulties of his situation without depressing us.

I got a recommendation for this book by @raghavmodi of tickereatstheworld@wordpress.com. 

Like in my last blog post, I will go into a didactic mode and exhort all to read this book.

Han Suyin - Birdless Summer

@Jonathan Cape Books
+Putnams
@Blossoms Book Store, Bangalore

I have been looking for books by Han Suyin for quite a while now.  They are out of print mostly and not available on kindle.  My only hope is to come across her books in second hand book store; I depend on serendipity there.

I found some books by Han Suyin at Blossoms, the famous second hand book shop in Bangalore.  It was a treat for me.

The name Birdless Summer invokes a cheerless feeling.  It is a chronicle of a particularly bleak period in the life of the author.  She was pursuing her medical studies in Belgium in 1938 when she ran into an old neighbor from her childhood days, Pao. She was struck by nostalgia and marries him.  Not just that, she abandoned her studies and returns to war torn China to be by her husband's side.

Pao had just completed his military studies in London and is an officer in the Army.  He was full of idealistic zeal and ready to fight for his country alongside his beloved leader Chiang Kaishek.  Suyin too is full of patriotism for China and wanted to do something to serve her country.

They returned to find China in shambles.  The Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kaishek was losing badly to the invaders, the Japanese.  As is always the case, the poor people were the worst off.  They were living in sub-human conditions and things were getting worse and worse.  The people in power did all they could to live comfortably and avoid the ravages of war.

Suyin was appalled. China was sinking in dirt.  It was not just the state of China that was horrific.  She found Pao extremely conservative and narrow minded.  He abused and beat her routinely.  Suyin tried to justify Pao's behavior and tried to do as he wished of her.  But her spirits refused to be quelled.

She worked in a maternity clinic for a while, tried to do something useful.  Later, when Pao was sent to London as an attache, she went along and resumed her medical studies.  She was on a path to self-fulfillment. But her marriage was in shambles, just like China.

She found herself sympathizing with the Communist ideology and Mao TseTung.

The book chronicles the tumultuous decade in the history of China, 1938 to 1948 with vividness.  The horror of war is very realistically painted.  The fear, the maiming, the extreme poverty of those times, people scrounging for food, battling with diseases are well etched.

Han Suyin also writes about her bestselling first book, Destination Chungking.  She describes the circumstances in which she wrote that book.  It wasn't the correct chronicle of the time.  Birdless Summer is an honest re-write of that book, according to her.  It is hard to figure out the truth, as autobiographies are rarely brutally honest.  Anyhow, the political happenings cannot be denied.

Despite the book being a cut and dried account of war-torn China, it is not boring.  It is a gripping account of the time.