Short takes
The Nightingales of Troy: Stories of One Family's Century
By Alice Fulton
Norton, 254 pp., $23.95
These beautiful connected stories feature several generations of good Catholic women in upstate New York. Ruth is introduced in the 1960s as "the loneliest girl in North America. . . . the only Catholic High student who subscribed to Zen Teen, the Journal of Juvenile Macrobiotics." An admirer of Melville, a believing Catholic, and a Beatles fanatic, she expresses all of these enthusiasms when she travels to New York City with her mother, Annie, to present her relic, a first edition of "Typee" that had belonged to the author, to the Fab Four.
In an early story, we meet hopeful Charlotte, whose courtship by a wealthy Connecticut suitor ends abruptly. She appears in a later story mocked by her clowning husband, Ward, lovingly deceived by her sister Edna, living and dying in "solitary confinement in her centrally isolated home." In the perfectly titled final story, "L'Air du Temps," Ruth sniffs the complicated scent of her mother's mortality. That story and this collection end with a subtle and sure emotional impact: "That was the thing about time, the past. Once you'd breathed enough of it, you could smell the world's deliciousness even when it was no longer there."
After Charlotte's suicide Edna thinks, "Words once spoken cannot be withdrawn, and that is why our entire family would say nothing about anything important. We never stopped to think that silence also can't be taken back." But in the same story, Edna concludes, "By not saying anything, she let us dream up our own consolations and forgiveness over time. Silence is so steadfast, you know. It is so ample, after all."
Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife
By Marie Winn
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 320 pp., $25
Bird and bug watchers are easy targets for mockery. But Marie Winn, one of their number, draws a portrait of them as a group of gentle, generous oddballs. It is incidental to her purpose to draw this portrait, but not incidental to the pleasure of reading her charming account of the natural nighttime wonders of Central Park.
As the most important and exciting parts of many animals' lives, such as hunting and mating, occur in the dark, Winn's group of nature lovers gather at dawn or dusk to spot bats, owls, robins. Winn also becomes a member of the Central Park Mothers (rhymes with "authors") who gather in half light or dark to observe caterpillars, moths, crickets, slugs. While this may sound dull, Winn's account of slug sex, which she promises as a treat and then withholds for several chapters, is indeed hot. Close observation and keen speculation lead to the thrilling discovery of the bedtime rituals of huge packs of robins. Winn's most extended narrative concerns the experiment of introducing owlets into the dwindling stock of the park. This account becomes a tragic story of love, sex, parental longing, and loss. Winn transforms herself and her pals from a group of awkward loners into a band of daring explorers.
Origins: A Memoir
By Amin Maalouf
Translated, from the French, by Catherine Temerson
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 404 pp., $26
When Amin Maalouf, the faithful chronicler of this meticulously reconstructed family memoir, finally meets a distant elderly descendant of the Cuban branch of his Lebanese family, it is surprisingly moving. Maalouf's memoir focuses on two brothers - his grandfather Botros and his great-uncle Gebrayel - and their separate lives, one in Havana, the other in the Lebanese village of Machrah.
In the early years of the 20th century, Gebrayel, one of these two energetic young men, despairing over the narrow prospects at home, chose to emigrate. His brother Botros, although he gave Cuba a brief trial, felt that an honorable life demanded that he remain in his native land. From there, he sought to reform and reinvigorate his backward country by founding a progressive school. Gebrayel, in Havana, became rich and successful in business. Botros, although respected and admired for the school he established, never achieved wealth or fame.
After Gebrayel's death and the loss of his fortune, Botros and the family back in Lebanon believed the money had been squandered or embezzled. They broke off ties with their Cuban relations, ties that Maalouf seeks to unravel and repair. The usual family dynamics are complicated by differences in religion (the family includes Catholics, Presbyterians, Freemasons, and atheists), education, and temperament. In exhaustive detail, Maalouf locates and describes the conflicting values among the family members and provides a history not only of his clan but of his country.
Barbara Fisher is a freelance critic who lives in New York. 