Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar

Across So Many Seas tells the stories of four young girls of Jewish ancestry in four very different eras.

The story begins in Toledo, Spain in the year 1492. Benvenida Toledano lives in Toledo with her parents and her brothers, Isaac and Jacob. It is a bright sunny March 31st morning, as Benvenida and her family listen to the officer-at-arm as he reads the proclamation from the King and Queen of Spain. It states that all Jews must leave the Spanish kingdom by the end of the month of July or they will be executed. They will only be allowed to stay if they convert to Catholicism. King Ferdinando and Queen Isabella want to unite the kingdom under the Catholic faith, Many Jews have already converted, including Benvenida's father's two sisters, her aunts Leah and Rachel and their families. As well, Benvenida's two best friends, Susanah and Deborah have also converted and no longer play with her.

Benvenida is able to read and write in Hebrew and Spanish and knows some Arabic. Although women aren't allowed to read, her father allows this because Benvenida's mother's family are printers. Her father's sisters, now known as Asuncion and Juana press him to convert as they did, so his family can remain in Spain. But her father, who is a hazan, flatly refuses. And so her father begins selling their possessions while her mother writes letters to her family in Naples, telling them they are coming. Benvenida's mother's family moved to Naples after her birth years ago.

Eventually, after delaying in the hopes the decree would be relaxed, Benvenida's family leaves their home taking the key to their house. Her father is also determined to carry the Torah on his shoulder, wrapped in Benvenida's shawl. Along with the remaining Jews of Toledo, they walk through villages and plains in the hot sun. One of the women, Naomi gives birth beside the road to a baby girl named Preciada. On one occasion they are met by priests offering them to convert to Catholicism and some elders do so. 

In Siete Aguas, they are aided by an innkeeper, a converso who helps them obtain passage on a ship, in a closed cabin, travelling to Naples. On the voyage, Benvenida's father dies and is buried at sea. In Naples, they are reunited with Benvenida's mother's family including her mother's sister, Tia Mazal and brother, Tio Yehuda. Tio Yehuda reveals that the situation in Naples is not ideal either There is famine and cholera and the Jews are being blamed for these problems. They are planning to leave for Constantinople soon because the Muslims there do not try to convert the Jews. The day to leave soon arrives and Benvenida and her family arrive in the city to start over.

The story now moves four hundred years into the future in the newly independent country of Turkey under President Ataturk. It is 1923 and Reina, a descendant of Benvenida lives with Mima and Papa and her sisters, eight-year-old Dina and ten-year-old Suzi in Silivri. Their neighbours with whom they share a courtyard are a Muslim family: Ahmet and his wife Afrah and their three sons Sadik, Emir and Nazim.

Twelve-year-old Sadik is friends with Reina and invites her to watch the all night fireworks at a party at the port. Reina wants to go but her father forbids it. However, Reina is determined to make her own choice and when everyone is asleep, she sneaks out of their house. With Sadik, Reina goes to the beach However, she quickly realizes she is the only girl among the Armenian, Greek and Muslim boys. The lone Jewish boy, Benny asks her to play her oud and sing a song for them which Reina does. But this ends up leading to an altercation in which her oud is scratched by Benny. 

The next evening after dinner Reina's father reveals  that he has learned she was at the beach the night before with Sadik. Furious that she disobeyed him and that she has shamed their family he tells her "You are not my daughter anymore. To me you are dead."  Several weeks later Mima tells Reina that her father is sending her to Cuba with his sister, Tia Zimbul, where she will marry a distant cousin named Moshico. Reina's journey to Cuba will open a new chapter in her life that leads to more journeys for her daughter and her granddaughter and a wonderful discovery that despite what happened so long ago, a friend never forgot her.

Discussion

Across So Many Seas is a historical fiction novel that weaves an engaging ancestral story portraying one Jewish family through the centuries. The story features the daughters who carry on the traditions of the Sephardic Jews as they move through time and location.

The author, Ruth Behar, decided to focus on young girls, "...since the voices of young girls are too often missing in the records of the past."  Behar's paternal and maternal grandmothers both arrived in Cuba in the 1920's, one bringing "...the Yiddish language and the Ashkenazi culture of Eastern Europe..." and the other "...the language of Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, and the culture of the Sephardic Jews, who trace their ancestry to Spain before the 1942 expulsion."  Her abuela's life, as a Turkish Jew who was sent to Havana to be married, provided the inspiration for this story. Like Reina, she played the oud beautifully as a young woman.

The novel moves seamlessly from the events in the late fifteenth century to the early twentieth century in 1923. Behar decided to skip these four hundred years as those who have Sephardic heritage are often unable to trace their lineage that far back. They do know that their families originated in Spain so that seemed to be a logical way to structure her story. The novel also incorporates important historical events that form the background to each character's story. In the Sources section at the back of the novel, Behar offers short explanations regarding both the important historical events and the Jewish customs incorporated into the story. 

Using these important historical events as the backdrop to the lives of these young women allows readers to learn about events that affected millions of people over the last four hundred years. For example, the Spanish Inquisition which was formalized by Pope Sixtus IV led to the Edict of Expulsion. For centuries prior, Jews and Catholics had lived together in Spain.  There were conversions over the centuries from Islam and Judaism to Catholicism. These people were called conversos. It's likely many of the initial conversions were not genuine, either being forced or motivated by other desires such as ambition, as only Catholics could hold public office in Spain.  But it is likely that later generations of the initial conversos were faithful Catholics. 

The Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula (from the Moors) led to strong anti-converso and anti-Semitic feelings. During this time Spain was forging a new national identity - one that was strongly Catholic in light of finally reclaiming Spain from the Moors.  The Spanish Inquisition came to Spain to deal with those conversos who had done so under false pretenses, It had no authority on practicing Muslims and Jews. It was in this nationalistic environment that led the Spanish crown to request Jews either convert or leave. Many chose to convert but many also chose to leave as Benvenida's family did. 

In this regard, Behar's account of what happened, from the Jewish perspective does ignore history from the Spanish Catholic perspective and judges it without regard to the Spanish experience. While touring the Sephardic Museum, their guide Mari Luz, points out a large facsimile of the Edict of Expulsion hanging on the wall stating, "You can see the signatures of King Ferdinando and Queen Isabel, and the date, March 31, 1492. It's here so we won't forget the horror they unleashed with their words of intolerance and hate."  The Spanish Crown gave the Jewish people time to convert or leave before the penalty applied. Was it cruel and harsh by today's standards? Absolutely. But it was also the action of a king and queen attempting to finally bring lasting peace to their country which had been at war for over seven hundred years. As a result, Spain would avoid the religious wars that came to be a part of life in the rest of Europe.

All four major characters, Benvenida, Reina, Alegra and Paloma  are intelligent, resilient young women. Benvenida endures deadly prejudice that forces her family to flee both Spain and Italy. Reina experiences the loss of her family as a result of the social restrictions that still existed on girls and women in the early twentieth century. Alegra wants to help others learn to read but must flee her country because of the Communist regime. 

Behar brings the story almost full circle with Alegra's daughter, Paloma, "the keeper of memories" and the three generations of women returning to their roots in Toledo, Spain. There, they encounter the parchment Benvenida placed so long ago in the wall of her home prior to leaving for Naples. It was her hope that someday it would be found and it was. Although Reina, Alegra and Paloma do not realize that this is their ancestor they are inspired to claim the writer as one.

Reina also learns that the boy who was her best friend, Sadik Topal, was their guide's father-in-law. Mari Luz reveals that her father-in-law Sadik learned to play the oud and never forgot Reina.  Sadly the two friends missed being reunited by a year, with Sadik's death a year earlier. This lovely connection brings the story full circle and helps Reina to heal from losing a friend so long ago.

Across So Many Seas is a touching and well-written novel that ties in several important historical events through the lives of several generations of Jewish girls.

Book Details:

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar

New York: Nancy Paulsen Books     2025
258 pp.

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys

 "Sometimes the truth is dangerous, Julia. But we should search for it nonetheless..." Antonio, Julia's husband.

Ana Torres Moreno works as a maid at Castella Hilton Madrid, in Madrid Spain. It is 1957, almost twenty years after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. During the war Ana has lost her parents; her father executed and her mother imprisoned  and murdered for wanting to open a Montessori school. For this crime her family was broken apart. Now Ana lives in silence, never mentioning her parents, dreaming of a life she cannot possibly have and of leaving Spain some day.

Now twenty years later, dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco has opened up Spain to tourists again. One such tourist is Daniel Matheson, from Dallas, Texas. Daniel, who is an only child, is with his parents who are in Spain to secure an deal for his father's oil company. They have rooms at the Castella Hilton Madrid.


Recently graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas, Daniel will attend Texas A and M University in the fall. His father wants him to take over the family oil business upon graduation, but Daniel is determined to be a photojournalist. To that end he is one of five finalists for the 1957 Magnum Photography Prize. With the trip to Spain, Daniel is hoping to get some great photographs that will win him the coveted prize and enable him to attend journalism school, an endeavour his father has made clear he will not finance.

Out on the street, Daniel who speaks fluent Spanish,  takes a picture of a nun carrying a bundle, the wind revealing the gray face of a dead baby. It is the last shot for the roll of film so Daniel quickly reloads another roll into his camera. When the Guardia Civil,  the military force that serves General Franco appear, Daniel quickly takes a shot, but he is at once accosted by the guards who rough him up, order him to remove the film, question him as to where he is staying and then escort him back to the hotel.

Ana and Daniel first meet when he returns unexpectedly to his room after his encounter with the Guardia Civil. After work that day, Ana goes to a workshop on Puerta del Sol where she helps her sister Julia sew traje de luces, the suit of lights worn by the matadors. The suit of lights is so called because it is covered in gemstones and beads sewn into fabric. In another room the master tailor, Luis is fitting the matador Ordonez. Julia and her husband Antonio have a four month old daughter who is not very healthy. Julia's work helps to feed their family and pay their debts. They hope to move from the impoverished Vallecas to a small flat in Lavapies. Ana tells Julia about her assignment to a very wealthy American family and how their son has access to American magazines. Julia warns Ana that their life is very different and to keep her distance.

That night Daniel attends a dinner reception at the Van Dorn's villa in Madrid. Daniel meets Shep Van Dorn, the U.S. public affairs officer for the American embassy and his son Nicholas who seems to Daniel to be a typical rich kid, interested in parties and women. Shep tells Daniel that Spain has many stories based on its geography and then introduces him to Benjamin (Ben) Stahl who works out of the Madrid Bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. Ben is impressed with Daniel's intensity and determination and also that he is a finalist for the Magnum Prize. During the reception, Daniel also learns from Nick that the embassy is processing the paperwork for an "orphanage deal" which he assumes means a monetary donation from his parents.

Purificacion (Puri), Ana's cousin works at the Inclusa, a orphanage that provides for destitute mothers and their babies. Babies arrive at the Inclusa via an opening in the wall near the door, called el torno. But some babies arrive with a nun or a doctor by the back door. Puri's questioning about this has gone unanswered. Puri's job is to interact with the babies so they will develop normally. She is especially devoted to one orphan, whom she has secretly named Clover. Puri is happy because Sister Hortensia, who runs the orphanage has arranged for Clover to be adopted. As she leaves the Inclusa, Puri encounters a distraught woman who states her baby was taken two days ago to be baptized and has not returned. She asks Puri if her baby is here but Puri tells her this is the orphanage.

At the orphanage, the newborns are easily adopted. It is the older children who concern Puri. When she is sent by Sister Hortensia to place notes into the files downstairs, Puri begins to read some of the information in the files. She discovers that Clover's adoption fee is the astronomical amount of 200,000 pesos. She wonders if the Inclusa works to find homes for the children, why are the adoption fees so high?

As Puri continues to read through the files over the next weeks, she discovers letters from parents claiming the child they were shown to be deceased did not match their baby, with other letters claiming outright that the orphanage has stolen their newborn. Doubt and hesitation begin to plague Puri who continues to read through some of the hundreds of letters, dating back over twenty years. These letters are in the "Resolved File" but they do not appear to be resolved!

More questions arise when Puri is sent by Sister Hortensia to work in the maternity clinic down the street from the Inclusa. Her discovery of a dead baby in the freezer at the clinic instead of the morgue add even more distress. She brings her questions to her confessor, asking him, "...is it better for a child to have no parents than the wrong parents..." Eventually, when her parents are out, Puri begins to investigate at home, looking at letters and pictures in a box her mother has hidden in a closet. And she begins to wonder about her own past and who she really is.

Ana's brother Rafael (Rafa) and his friend Fuga are "comrades of hardship".  They spent their youth in a boys' home in Barcelona, a humiliating experience where they were both abused. Now Rafa works in a slaughterhouse while Fuga whose name means "Escape" is a grave digger. Fuga is determined to become a famous torero and earn enough money in order to expose the evil that is going on in the children's homes. He has discovered that some of the small coffins which feel too light do not contain the bodies of babies. Fuga believes "babies born to Republican or poor families are being stolen,that the church wants the children redeemed and raised by Francoists."Rafa asks his sister Julia to ask Luis to lend Fuga a suit of lights. He explains that Fuga has been practicing on the bulls in the willow field using a blanket dyed with red bricks. Julia agrees but asks Rafa to speak to Ana whom she is certain is headed for more trouble.

When Daniel's parents travel to Valencia, Ana takes him on a trip through Madrid to reach a photography shop to have his film developed. He meets twelve-year-old Carlitos, the bell hop at the Castellana Hilton and Lorenza, a tacky hotel employee and Miguel who runs a camera shop. Miguel is impressed with Daniel's expensive Nikon as well as his photographs.

Although Daniel's relationship with Ana deepens, life in Spain does not flow smoothly. Rafa is jailed, Ana loses her job at the hotel, Julia's daughter becomes seriously ill and Daniel and his parents leave, returning to their life in America with a surprise even Daniel couldn't predict. But over the years, secrets will be uncovered, second chances will be discovered and love rekindled.

Discussion

The Fountains of Silence is an unforgettable novel about war, repression, poverty, secrets, and the burden of silence often borne by the survivors. But it is also about love, hope and redemption. The novel is set twenty years after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War which began in 1936 and ended in 1939. The Spanish Civil War was the result of a complex set of factors that dated well back into the 19th century when Spain was still a monarchy. Attempts to transition to a liberal government were fraught with uprisings, coups, and abdications during this century. In April of 1931, general elections were held and socialist and liberal republicans won in most of the provincial capitals, leading to the formation of the Second Spanish Republic.

In the 1930's Spain became a deeply polarized country. On the right politically were the Nationalists who were mainly Roman Catholics and included many landowners, businessmen and members of the military. They were opposed by the left-leaning Republicans, comprised of the educated middle class, labourers and those who worked in the cities. Elections held on February 16, 1936 saw a Popular Front government elected. This was a left wing coalition made up of working and middle class parties including the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and the Republican Left. They were determined to resist what they felt was fascism, which had already infected Italy and Germany. Spain was now wracked with violence, the outright seizure of farmland from landowners, the closure of Catholic schools, the seizure of Catholic property and desecration of churches.

However, members of the Spanish military began to plan a coup, which eventually took place on July 17, 1936. Led by three men, Emilio Mola y Vidal, General Jose Sanjurjo and eventually General Francisco Franco Bahomande, the Nationalist coup was unsuccessful and the country sank into civil war between the right Nationalists and the left Republicans. Both Mola and Sanjurjo were dead by the middle of 1937, leaving Franco to lead the war. With neither side strong enough to win the war, both enlisted military support from other countries. Eventually the Nationalists, with help from Germany and Italy, gained control of much of Spain. On March 28, the Republican armies began to surrender and disband.

Sepetys weaves together four stories; Ana, daughter of a middle class family whose parents were murdered and imprisoned for wanting to start a school and who longs for something more than the impoverished life she shares with her sister Julia and her brother Rafa; Daniel son of a wealthy American oil tycoon who dreams of becoming a photojournalist but who is expected to enter the family business; Ana's brother Rafa and his friend Fuga, survivors of a brutal boys school who discover that the coffins they are burying are empty; and Puri, Ana's cousin who works at the Inclusa and who longs to uncover the secrets of the orphanage and possibly her own identity.

The Fountains of Silence is a novel about how the greatest suffering in war is often borne by the youngest and most innocent, the children and teenagers who are unable to fight back against the violence and repression. Sepetys wanted to tell their story. "During the postwar period and dictatorship in Spain, young people were left amidst the wreckage to navigate an inheritance of heartache and responsibility for events they had no role in causing. The young adult narrative is what I chose to represent in the story -- innocent youths who, instead of pursuing hopes and dreams, became fountains of silence."

Almost everyone in the novel has a secret. Daniel has secrets; his plans to attend journalism school, his breakup with girlfriend Laura Beth, his blossoming relationship with Ana, his encounter with the Guardia Civil. Daniel's parents have their own secrets, a miscarriage, an illness and then an adoption. Ana, Julia and Rafa's share the secret of their family's involvement in resisting Franco, the murder of their father and the imprisonment, torture and public humiliation of their mother. Rafa and Fuga have the secret of their abuse at the boys home, of Fuga training in the fields illegally. Julia too has a secret, one that we don't learn until the very end.

It is Julia, who is considered the guardian of the family secrets who wonders at the cost of silence. "What is the cost of silence? If she remains quiet about her suspicions, is granting acceptance of what is happening? If she imposes silence upon Ana and Rafa, what is that telling them? That she is ashamed of their parents? Their parents did nothing wrong. They were academics, hardworking, sophisticated people. Their father wanted to create a school outside of the Catholic Church. That is all..."

One of the greatest strengths of this novel is Sepetys' characters. They are authentic to the era, unique and interesting. For example, Daniel Matheson is an endearing character, a teenager growing into adulthood as a young man with courage, compassion and honour. He is a protector and therefore very appealing. His love for Ana is genuine. Her family justifiably are concerned over her relationship with Daniel, but his honour is demonstrated in how he treats her. Daniel represents the reader looking into a Spain he cannot really understand, even though his mother is Spanish. Sepetys discovered during her research for the novel, that understanding what happened in Spain so many years ago was difficult for an outsider like herself. Daniel is that outsider, looking in, his focus sharpened by the lens of his camera.

Daniel's strength as an outsider is that he can tell the human story of what's happening Spain and Ben Stahl urges him to do so. "But you. You can capture a real story here -- a photo essay to show a different side of Spain than the one on the postcards. All the foreign correspondents are chasing the same threads....But they're mission something. What about the people of Spain? What is life like under a dictatorship? What's it like for young people when textbooks are government sponsored? What are their hopes and dreams when there are no free elections and only one religion?"

Ana, Julia, Rafa and Fuga are all well crafted characters, used to portray the suffering of the Spanish people during the Franco years. Ana, Julia and Rafa had their lives upended when Franco took power, losing their parents and being separated. Their grinding poverty is contrasted by the wealth of Daniel and the other wealthy Americans living in Spain. This is especially evident when Daniel visits the slum, Vallecas where Ana lives with her family in a concrete cement shack, without running water or toilets, a broken window and door and a collapsing roof. In contrast, Daniel's father meets with General Franco and his family is able to afford to dine at the renowned restaurant Lhardy, where "Waiters stand behind screens, so not to interrupt the guests but watch and tend to their every need." Both Rafa and Fuga have suffered mental and physical abuse and deprivation. Julia's husband, Antonio has a left foot that drags a bit, an injury courtesy of the Guardia Civil.

At a hefty 500 pages, The Fountains of Silence is an epic work of historical fiction. It is a work that touches not only on the poverty and repression the Spanish people endured under Franco's dictatorship, but also on the heinous practice of stealing newborn infants from families deemed too poor or too "Red". The theme of missing children is woven throughout the novel and is a part of the stunning conclusion. It is through the character of Puri, that the reality of this practice is exposed in the novel.

Sepetys includes an Author's Note about the Spanish Civil War, a section on Research and Sources which includes an extensive list of sources the author consulted, a Glossary and a section of black and white photographs from the era. 


Book Details:

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
New York: Philomel Books    2019
495 pp.

Out Of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington by Michelle Markel

In Out of This World, American author, Michelle Markel tells the story of English artist, Leonora Carrington and her art. When she was four-years-old, Leonora loved scribbling on the walls of her home. Her imagination was fed by the "enchanting legends from Ireland" that her grandmother told. "These stories took Leonora to worlds that shimmered beyond this one, and when the spirits flew, and the gods stirred their cauldrons, and the fairies shifted shapes...." 

Although her drawings were "fanciful",  her parents wanted her to follow a more traditional path, to become a lady and then marry a wealthy man. To that end, at age nine she was sent to boarding school. But Leonora rebelled until she was finally sent to Miss Penrose's Academy in Florence. There, she discovered that others were painting in the same way she was and this only fueled her determination to become an artist.

Leonora's parents eventually relented and sent her to art school in London where she met other artists who were known as surrealists, including Max Ernst, a famous surrealist. She eventually travelled to Paris to meet other surrealists. In 1940, with war coming to France, artists fled the country, many of them settling in Mexico. The exotic plants and animals of Mexico only stimulated Leonora's imagination further. She became friends with a Spanish painter named Remedios. Through her friend, she met a photographer named Chiki who eventually became her husband. Even as a wife and mother, Leonora continued to create her eccentric paintings. Her first exhibition in New York City enchanted visitors. Through the years Leonora continued to paint, design theatre costumes and create fantastical sculptures. 

Discussion

Leonora Carrington was an English artist whose paintings are known for their strange juxtaposition of objects - a type of art known as surrealism. A more detailed biography of  Leonora Carrington follows. Leonora was born into a wealthy family in Cockerham, England in 1917. As a child she lived with her parents and her three brothers, Patrick, Arthur and Gerald on their family's large estate.

Raised in a Roman Catholic family, Leonora was often rebellious. She and eventually was sent to Mrs. Penrose's Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. In Florence, Leonora was exposed to the world of art through the many galleries in this beautiful city. She wanted to become a painter, a choice her mother supported but her father did not.

In 1935, she attended the Chelsea School of Art in London where she met artists who painted in a unique style that was so attractive to Leonora. These artists were part of the Surrealist movement which drew on the imagination and free conscious thinking to create art. Leonora became involved with Max Ernst, a much older artist, running off to Paris with him. There she encountered more artists who were part of the Surrealist movement including Pablo Picasso, Salvadore Dali and Yves Tanguy. It was at this time that she painted Inn of the Dawn Horse which was a self-portrait.

Leonora and Max continued to live together in the south of France until 1940 when Max was sent to a Nazi detention camp. Max's imprisonment was so distressing that Leonora fled to Spain where she was committed to a mental institution, Santander against her will, after suffering a mental breakdown. Leonora was able to escape from the mental hospital and travel to Portugal where she  met and married Renato Leduc, a Mexican diplomat who helped her escape to the United States. She lived for a year in New York City, where she reconnected with the surrealist movement. At this time, Max Ernst was also in New York City but Leonora was not interested in rekindling their relationship. She then traveled to Mexico where she would live for the rest of her life. By this time she had divorced Leduc and was now a part of the vibrant art community in Mexico.

She became good friends with Remedios Vaso, a Surrealist Leonora had known in France. Leonora married Emerico Weisz, a Hungarian photographer who went by the nickname of "Chiki" and they had two children, Gabriel and Pablo. In 1947, a large exhibition of her work was hosted by the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Leonora Carrington also found the time to write. Her works include a set of surrealist short stores such as the House of Fear written in 1938, Down Below which she wrote about her forced incarceration and The Hearing Trumpet which was a surrealist novel. In the 1990's Leonora created numerous large bronze sculptures. She was the last of the Surrealist movement artists, passing away in  2011.

As a picture book, Out Of This World does an excellent job of capturing the essence of Leonora Carrington's life and art. Leonora's work was influenced by the Celtic myths she learned from her grandmother, as well as her own dabbling in magical realism and alchemy. In Out Of This World, Markel focuses on Leonora's determination to forge her own path in life, even when she was a young girl. She rebelled against the constraints of  the time and the expectations of her Roman Catholic parents. She did  not want the traditional life of a wife and mother that was expected of her at the turn of the 20th century. She didn't want to be a debutante.  Instead, she rebelled and did the very opposite expected. She lived with a man, Max Ernst which resulted in her father disowning her. She was married twice, also highly unusual in the first half of the 20th century. While her choices in early life  were broke with tradition,  eventually Leonora did settle down and marry and have children. She eventually found her home in Mexico and it was there that her style matured.

Leonora was a strong woman who survived the displacement of war, overcame mental health issues and treatment that was harsh and against her wishes, and emigration to countries halfway around the world.  She persevered to create the art she felt inspired to paint. Markel writes that Leonora painted women in a way that was different from how men painted women, not as objects of beauty but both beautiful and strong. "Instead of lying on a couch, they were listening to the stars. Instead of posing in gowns, they were going on magical processions. They were friends with monkeys, Minotaurs, and mythic birds."  Her art, as her life, was not traditional but explored very unusual themes and was populated with strange objects, animals and people often strangely situated. Markel certainly portrays all of this in her book, aided by Amanda Hall's beautiful illustrations.

Illustrator Amanda Hall's artwork  in Out of This World reflects this artist's unique life and work. Hall's art is fantastical, capturing Leonora's life in a way that she herself might have painted it. Hall's illustrations are filled with vibrant colours that depict Leonora's rebellious childhood, her Irish grandmother's influence, her life in Italy and France, her escape from France, and her life in Mexico. Hall writes that "...the specific challenge for me was to convey the spirit, themes, and sensibility she explored in her creative output without attempting to re-create literally any of her actual imagery."

A beautifully crafted picture book to inspire budding artists of any age. 

Image credit: https://www.amandahall-illustration.com/

Book Details:

Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington by Michelle Market
New York: Balzer + Bray        2019

Small Damages by Beth Kephart

"You aren't happy," Estela says.
"I can't be happy," I say.
"Look at me, Kenzie."
"I'm looking at you, Estela."
"Do you know your own heart?"
"I don't know anything."
"Go," she says, "and think. And don't come back until you know."

Small Damages tells the story of a young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and is sent away to have her baby.  The story is set outside of Seville, Spain in 1995 but begins in Philadelphia.

When her father dies suddenly in September of her senior year as a result of a heart attack, this leaves Kenzie and her mother to pick up the pieces of their life in Philadelphia. Kenzie was very close to her father who was a photographer. She admired him because he chose to be a photographer in spite of the disapproval of others, including Kenzie's mother. After her father's death, Kenzie's mother does not cope well and Kenzie feels like a "half orphan". Then one day, her mother announces she is starting her own business, Carlina's Catering. She packs Kenzie's father's photographs, cameras and albums into boxes, which are stored in the basement. His clothes are taken to Goodwill and his favourite chair is moved to the guest room. She joins Match.com. This leaves Kenzie angry and disoriented.

Further turmoil ensues when Kenzie finds herself unexpectedly pregnant during her senior year. Neither her boyfriend, Kevin Sullivan nor her mother are supportive. Her mother, realizing that something is wrong, asks Kenzie, "What have you done?"  and when she learns of the pregnancy tells her "I'm calling Dr. Sam. We're going to fix this." But Kenzie refuses, telling her mother that she cannot force her to have an abortion.  When Kenzie decides to continue the pregnancy, her mother considers her irresponsible. Determined that they "...can't let anybody see what she's done" , she makes arrangements to send Kenzie to Spain. Kenzie says that "...she wouldn't help me, and in the end, she said, it was Seville or nothing, and I chose Seville."  Her mother chooses Spain because she has a  friend, Mari who married a Spaniard and who knows of a couple wanting a baby. So Kenzie is shipped off to Seville for five months to have her baby and then to return to college.

As for her boyfriend Kevin, a baby was never part of his future. In a flashback, Kenzie remembers the day she confirmed she was pregnant. Late for her period and trying to ignore this fact, she does a pregnancy test at the pharmacy. When it is positive, she is overwhelmed, and scared, and calls Kevin. However, Kevin ends the call before Kenzie can tell him, promising to call her back. When she needs him most, he's not there. Later he comes over and Kenzie tells him. Instead of comforting her and accepting some responsibility, Kevin points out that she has planned to attend Newhouse School of Public Communications and that he has Yale "and everything he had to be on account of everyone else." He asks her "what are your choices?" leaving her feeling like the pregnancy is her problem. He tells her the baby is only a half inch and that she doesn't have to continue with the pregnancy, but Kenzie tells him the there's a part of her dad in her baby. The day before she leaves for Spain, she asks Kevin to come with her to Spain. He refuses, telling her that she doesn't have to go through with the pregnancy.

So, feeling abandoned by both her mother and Kevin, Kenzie arrives Seville and is met by Miguel who drives Kenzie to his ranch in a cranky old car he calls Gloria. The ranch, Los Nietos is where Miguel raises bulls for bull fighting. Also living at the ranch are a cook, Estela, and Esteban, a young man around Kenzie's age. Estela tells Kenzie she will teach her how to cook. Esteban doesn't live in the house and seems at first to be somewhat reclusive. Kenzie is distraught at having left her old life behind because pregnancy changes everything. "...it's yours, and no matter what you do, you've done a big thing that stays with you a lifetime."

Estela sets out to cook a huge meal for a man, Luis, who is expected to arrive shortly. Kenzie learns that this man is Miguel's uncle and also Estela's friend. However, Luis does not arrive alone but with a group of people whom Estela calls the Gypsies of Benalua. They include Angelita, Joselita, Bruno, Rafael and Arcadio. Furious at the arrival of the gypsies, Estela retreats to her room. Kenzie asks Esteban why Estela hates the gypsies but he only tells her she has her reasons.

Estela brings Kenzie a letter from Kevin but once again Kevin disappoints her.  Although it's written by Kevin, it reads like a group letter from her friends, telling her how they all miss her. When Estela advises her to write her boy back, Kenzie tells Estela that she has no plans to respond and that she knows nothing about what it is like for her. Estela advises her to "Know your own heart first. Be careful." Distraught over the letter, Kenzie has had it. "That's it today; I can't stand it. I can't stand being here, on my own, invisible but also growing larger...Twenty-one words, and a bunch of we's, like I'm on some holiday. Like all I need out here in the desert of Spain is a lame group hug from the shore." She walks away from the ranch.

She is found by Miguel who tells her everyone has been looking for her and that he promised her mother he would look after her. Miguel takes her to Puerto de Sevilla and shows her the Necropolis in the hopes of calming her. Later, Esteban brings Kenzie dinner and tells her about his past and how he came to live with Estela and that they are taking her tomorrow to meet her baby's adoptive parents, Javier and Adair. Slowly Kenzie and Esteban begin to form a friendship. He is kind to her and takes her riding on his horse, Tierra. As she learns about Esteban's life and what happened to Estela when she was young and in love, Kenzie begins to rethink her choices. But it is Estela's story that finally crystallizes Kenzie's feelings for her baby, leading her to begin to make her own decisions about her life.

Discussion

Small Damages was in some ways a difficult read because initially Kenzie's voice is awkward and stilted. Her story is told in pieces, sometimes in the present, sometimes in flashback, giving the reader only a partial picture of what has happened in the past and what her current situation is. Eventually Kephart weaves together all the threads of this poignant tale. At its heart is a young woman confronting a life-changing event - an unexpected pregnancy, and offered little support when she makes the choice to continue the pregnancy. Instead, those who claim to love her, focus on keeping her pregnancy a secret and not respecting her choice to give birth to her child. Kenzie has lost her father and now experiences emotional abandonment by her boyfriend and her mother. In fact Kenzie's mother is so deeply in denial, that when Kenzie asks who is adopting her child, her mother tells her not to call "it" her child.

Thankfully, Estela steps into the void, to mentor and mother Kenzie, because as it turns out, she was in a similar situation years ago. Estela who is an accomplished cook, is determined to teach Kenzie. She is a woman with a huge heart, having taken in Esteban when he was orphaned. It is Estela's loving care that brings about growth in Kenzie. Estela reveals her life of regret at giving up her own child under very difficult circumstances. This helps Kenzie discover what her heart has known all along - that this baby matters to her.

Kephart gives hints of Kenzie's attachment to her unborn child from the very beginning of the novel because Kenzie identifies almost immediately with her baby. She's taken a health class in Grade eight and remembers what she's learned. Throughout her narrative, she refers again and again to her unborn child. "I choose a pastry from the tray -- raisins, white frosting, a rising yellow marmalade, and then I'm back out on the streets, thinking of you, tiny as a finger curled, and fed."

When Miguel refers to the adopting parents Javier and Adair as the parents of her child, Kenzie internally balks at this. She tells her baby, "Your dad plays lacrosse; he plays forward. He has dark hair, green eyes, a crowded Irish smile. He's always going somewhere..."  Thinking of her morning sickness which has now passed, Kenzie remembers "But everywhere is the flail of you, your necklace of bones, your hardly skin, your fingernails, you already have them."

When she remembers the day she took the pregnancy test, Kenzie states, "Eight grade health. The baby like a pea, a lima bean, like a see-through ocean of living. Six weeks, I thought. Maybe seven. And the baby and the cord still growing...Elbows at six weeks. Digits. Eyes on the sides of the head." While Kevin is attempting to convince Kenzie that their baby is insignificant because it is only a half inch, Kenzie knows the truth - that this baby is already forming and developing. And she matters.

Forced to chose between having an abortion and be allowed to stay at home, or going to Spain and having the baby, Kenzie tells her baby she chose to go to Seville because she could already imagine a future with this child, even if others could not. "I chose Seville, because in my head I could see you; you were already a film that was playing...Call me an idiot. Call me selfish. A nothing half inch. But you weren't that to me."

When she's with Adair, she tells her that she's having a girl. "It's not that I actually know, I guess. It's just something I feel. Something inside." As Adair shows her the nursery they have prepared for the baby, Kenzie realizes this is her child's future and she's not a part of it and it hurts. "Suddenly it's all here; it's the future. It's you in Adair's arms, at the window, looking down on the streets of Santa Cruz, bouncing up and down beneath the dangle of clowns, looking part like Kevin, and part like my dad, and all like who you are, against her skin. The future is here in the room, and I catch my breath, and it hurts to breathe, and I can't."

Small Damages is another wonderful novel by Beth Kephart. She tackles a difficult subject with much sensitivity and honesty. While it might not seem very realistic that an eighteen year old girl can be forced to travel to Spain to have her baby, Small Damages reminds us that pregnant women were often sent away to have their babies and in some cases, still are. Young pregnant women are often bullied, abused and forced into making choices they don't want. An eighteen-year-old girl is financially vulnerable and one who's pregnant is especially vulnerable emotionally and physically. Kenzie, after allowing her mother to make some of her choices, takes control of her life by the end of the novel, recognizing that no matter what choice she makes, someone will be hurt. But she has to take that chance for herself and for her baby otherwise she may face a lifetime of regret like Estela.

Small Damages is well written, with interesting characters and an exotic setting. Readers will be pleasantly surprised by the twist at the end of the novel, one that completes Kenzie's transformation from a girl who found herself unexpectedly pregnant to a young woman in control of her destiny.

Book Details:

Small Damages by Beth Kephart
New York: Philomel Books        2012
293 pp.