The Haunting Toll of a Missing Child

Posted on by Jan tramontano

When a child goes missing, an unfathomable nightmare begins for a family, the community and the police. Yet, we have a bizarre fascination with these events as evidenced by the upsurge in true crime media. It seems people can’t get enough of podcasts, TV shows, movies and books. Although some of this story has the feel of a whodunnit and what happened, at its core it's about the forever toll a child gone missing takes on families and neighbors. It weakens faith in home as a place of safety. What piqued my interest in this novel is how characters with different kinds of involvement weathered the loss.

The Emotional Depth of Historical Fiction in Ann Hood’s The Stolen Child

Posted on by Jan tramontano

The Stolen Child is a beautiful story of regret, forgiveness, and the pursuit of dreams.

A Dual Narrative Journey

Posted on by Jan tramontano

There were many projects developed for young artists to keep them going under during the Depression. The WPA (Works Progress Administration) and the Federal Art Project (FAP) were created to keep struggling artists working. Artists that eventually came into their own such as Jackson Pollack, Willem DeKooning, Mark Rothko, and Dorothea Lange were kept afloat during this period. They were charged with creating work for public spaces. In this story, a young woman artist entered a contest to paint a mural for her local post office in New Jersey but need meant shifts and she was sent to a town she’d never heard of—Edenton, North Carolina—to paint their post office mural.

The Complex Dynamics of Friendship

Posted on by Jan tramontano

A truth that none of us think much about (or we’d go crazy) is how precarious our lives are or how they could be upended without warning. A tragedy and its blowback on everyone involved is the through line of this beautifully wrought book.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Latest Novel: A Dream Count Unpacked

Posted on by Jan tramontano

In this latest novel by Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, she explores the idea of dream count, a backwards look at the past in the hope of arriving at a better future. If the past is filled with so much unrealized potential, how can the failed affairs of old be transformed?

Everything We Never Had, A Story of Fathers and Sons

Posted on by Jan tramontano

This beautifully crafted novel was written for a young adult audience but I would recommend it for teens and adults alike.Long listed for the National Book Award it is the tale of four generations of Filipino Americans grappling with identity, past trauma and the long reach it has into the future.

Predicting Death: A Review of Moriarty’s Latest Novel

Posted on by Jan tramontano

n Liane Moriarty’s tenth novel, she once again throws her characters into spontaneous crisis. The book opens with a scene we are all familiar with. A flight delay. The cause doesn’t really matter. It sets the reader up to relate to what starts out as a very common day we’ve all experienced and then abruptly becomes a life changer.

My 2020 Good Reads List

Posted on by Jan tramontano

One of the few upsides of quarantine living was the time for more reading. I’m sure many of you surpassed your reading goals quite by accident, others because as with everything else, reading has also become a competitive sport as has cooking, design, fashion, and other arts. I'm just hoping I never see a reality … Continue reading My 2020 Good Reads List