Though the titular Ava serves as narrator and ultimately the tale's
heroine, her story spans multiple generations, starting with her
great-grandmother, remembered only as Maman, an immigrant to "Manhatine"
two generations earlier. Through the eyes of her grandmother Emilienne,
and then her mother Vivianne, Ava's lineage unfolds. Emilienne,
suffering a broken heart, leaves New York and travels to Seattle, where
she sets up shop as a baker on Pinnacle Lane. She gives birth to
Vivianne, Ava's mother, who later suffers her own heartbreak and gives
birth to Ava in 1944. Ava is a normal girl with one notable exception:
she was born with the wings of a bird. Ava looks to the stories of her
matriarchs to make sense of her own life and to understand how to
navigate the world as both an "other" and a typical teenage girl. It is
not until a fateful day in her 16th year that many narrative threads
come to a head. Difficult to categorize,
this is a mystical tale, a historical novel, a coming-of-age story,
laced with folkloric qualities and magic realism, often evocative of
great narratives like Erin Morgenstern's transcendent The Night Circus
(Doubleday, 2011) or the classic Like Water for Chocolate (Anchor, 1995)
by Laura Esquivel
Saturday, March 19, 2016
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Picked my Melissa - April 19th 2016 Meeting
Though the titular Ava serves as narrator and ultimately the tale's
heroine, her story spans multiple generations, starting with her
great-grandmother, remembered only as Maman, an immigrant to "Manhatine"
two generations earlier. Through the eyes of her grandmother Emilienne,
and then her mother Vivianne, Ava's lineage unfolds. Emilienne,
suffering a broken heart, leaves New York and travels to Seattle, where
she sets up shop as a baker on Pinnacle Lane. She gives birth to
Vivianne, Ava's mother, who later suffers her own heartbreak and gives
birth to Ava in 1944. Ava is a normal girl with one notable exception:
she was born with the wings of a bird. Ava looks to the stories of her
matriarchs to make sense of her own life and to understand how to
navigate the world as both an "other" and a typical teenage girl. It is
not until a fateful day in her 16th year that many narrative threads
come to a head. Difficult to categorize,
this is a mystical tale, a historical novel, a coming-of-age story,
laced with folkloric qualities and magic realism, often evocative of
great narratives like Erin Morgenstern's transcendent The Night Circus
(Doubleday, 2011) or the classic Like Water for Chocolate (Anchor, 1995)
by Laura Esquivel
Though the titular Ava serves as narrator and ultimately the tale's
heroine, her story spans multiple generations, starting with her
great-grandmother, remembered only as Maman, an immigrant to "Manhatine"
two generations earlier. Through the eyes of her grandmother Emilienne,
and then her mother Vivianne, Ava's lineage unfolds. Emilienne,
suffering a broken heart, leaves New York and travels to Seattle, where
she sets up shop as a baker on Pinnacle Lane. She gives birth to
Vivianne, Ava's mother, who later suffers her own heartbreak and gives
birth to Ava in 1944. Ava is a normal girl with one notable exception:
she was born with the wings of a bird. Ava looks to the stories of her
matriarchs to make sense of her own life and to understand how to
navigate the world as both an "other" and a typical teenage girl. It is
not until a fateful day in her 16th year that many narrative threads
come to a head. Difficult to categorize,
this is a mystical tale, a historical novel, a coming-of-age story,
laced with folkloric qualities and magic realism, often evocative of
great narratives like Erin Morgenstern's transcendent The Night Circus
(Doubleday, 2011) or the classic Like Water for Chocolate (Anchor, 1995)
by Laura Esquivel
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