Stephane Sayeb Sayeb থেকে Cauchitos, Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia
Laura Lippman delivers with wit, sympathy, wisdom and surprise. While the main narrative follows a writer in the process of revisiting the people and places she has already chronicled and made famous in her memoirs, some other people involved have their own narrative interludes. Sections of the published memoirs intersect with the re-discovery of what happened or how it was experienced by others involved. Furthermore, the writer decides to solve a mystery involving one of her former friends. Where Lippman "delivers" is in being so entertaining that I'm born along, so convincing that I see the perspectives, in rendering judgments so I concur and in executing the tale so I take nothing for granted. Several of the characters are black from a range of social backgrounds and the topographical (Baltimore), social and historical settings (ranging back almost 50 years) are unfamiliar to me, but quite interesting. In a postscript Lippman writes that the spine of the book is based on a Baltimore real-life crime case. This is Lippman's home turf, she used to be a reporter before she elevated her "reporting" into fiction, into art. While Lippman's ground is social realism I imagine that the first mentioned qualities must have given her the wind under her wings for liftoff.
another story of loss. beautifully written, by an author i was fortunate enough to read in The Detroit Free Press daily for many years of my life...