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Shade and Light
The effects of World War II resonate through the lives of two families--one American and one European--living outside of Boston. As Jenny grows up in the shadow of her parents' dark experiences in Trieste during the war, she is pulled to the haunting art and ironic gaze of her next-door neighbor Jonas, whose own father, preparing for deployment as an army medic, died before he was born. But when the mysterious Eric Stram enters her life unexpectedly, she learns how her parents' past is not behind them but will continue to push her life in unexpected--and possibly unwanted--directions. From the author of Journal of Eva Morelli, this poignant tale of the echoes of the past and the complications of the present explores the tensions between duty to family, the desires of the individual, and the striking way that art can draw disparate lives together.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 26, 2018
5 people want to read
About the author
Maryann D'Agincourt
10 books25 followersMaryann D'Agincourt, the author of National Book Award-nominated Journal of Eva Morelii, All Most, and Glimpses of Gauguin, was born in Boston, MA. An alumna of Simmons College, she has earned two graduate degrees in English literature, and studied in the Humber School for Writers, Toronto. She has written design columns for a regional newspaper in the Connecticut Valley, and has had short stories published in literary magazines.
She and her husband, a child psychiatrist, have two sons and live outside of Boston. She is currently working on another novel.
Learn more about the book http://portmaypress.com
She and her husband, a child psychiatrist, have two sons and live outside of Boston. She is currently working on another novel.
Learn more about the book http://portmaypress.com
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 28, 2018
When you visit an art gallery or museum, how do you view the drawings and paintings? Do you view them with the mind of a reader and thinker, or through the eye of an artist? This book will help you see art and life through your mind and through your eyes.
Author Maryann D'Agincourt writes in the unique literary genre of Art Fiction. Shade and Light is the fifth work of fiction in her Art Fiction series. I had never heard of art fiction, so that is why I chose to read this book.
According to the book information, Art Fiction is a literary genre in which art is not solely an object, but is a reflection of what is human in all of us. A work of art precedes each story as a vivid portrayal of how art inspires literature. For this book, a drawing by Norman Rockwell guides us as we read the story of Jenny, Jonas, and Eric.
Each of the three main characters has a story that is somber and dark, more shadow than light. We meet Jenny, Jonas and Eric as young people and observe as their lives entwine as each looks for their purpose. The book is written in the third party omniscient point of view, which keeps us at a distance.
As readers, we see them as displays of artwork. We are told about them and as we “look” at them, it is up to us to see what we want or can. Plot is not the point of this book. There is no “big reveal” or answer. In art, “light and shadows” visually define objects. Before you can draw the light and shadows you see, you need to train your eyes to see like an artist. And you need to read this book like an artist.
For me, this was only a 3-star read, because I felt so distant and removed from the characters. However, the book is well-written and other readers might be able to better bridge the mind of the writer and the eye of the artist than I could.
Author Maryann D'Agincourt writes in the unique literary genre of Art Fiction. Shade and Light is the fifth work of fiction in her Art Fiction series. I had never heard of art fiction, so that is why I chose to read this book.
According to the book information, Art Fiction is a literary genre in which art is not solely an object, but is a reflection of what is human in all of us. A work of art precedes each story as a vivid portrayal of how art inspires literature. For this book, a drawing by Norman Rockwell guides us as we read the story of Jenny, Jonas, and Eric.
Each of the three main characters has a story that is somber and dark, more shadow than light. We meet Jenny, Jonas and Eric as young people and observe as their lives entwine as each looks for their purpose. The book is written in the third party omniscient point of view, which keeps us at a distance.
As readers, we see them as displays of artwork. We are told about them and as we “look” at them, it is up to us to see what we want or can. Plot is not the point of this book. There is no “big reveal” or answer. In art, “light and shadows” visually define objects. Before you can draw the light and shadows you see, you need to train your eyes to see like an artist. And you need to read this book like an artist.
For me, this was only a 3-star read, because I felt so distant and removed from the characters. However, the book is well-written and other readers might be able to better bridge the mind of the writer and the eye of the artist than I could.
February 16, 2019
GNAB An interesting look at the lives of families affected by personal travails in Trieste during World War II, and the personality quirks and insecurities that carry back to those experiences. Jenny was born in the US after her parents immigrated, but Eric still carried the darkness within despite his years in America. Even Jonas, a several generation American, finds his life marred by the fact that his father died - of an illness before he was shipped overseas to fight in the war. The effects and aftereffects seem never ending.
That said, this novel was almost exclusively a series of mental gymnastics. I can understand better the term Art Fiction since I tackled it, but I found it very limiting and a read downer in places. Still, an interesting experience.
I received a free electronic copy of this historical novel from Netgalley, Maryann D'Agincourt, and Portmay Press LLC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.
pub date Nov 26, 2018
rec Dec 17, 2018
Portmay Press LLC
That said, this novel was almost exclusively a series of mental gymnastics. I can understand better the term Art Fiction since I tackled it, but I found it very limiting and a read downer in places. Still, an interesting experience.
I received a free electronic copy of this historical novel from Netgalley, Maryann D'Agincourt, and Portmay Press LLC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.
pub date Nov 26, 2018
rec Dec 17, 2018
Portmay Press LLC
October 20, 2021
Maryann D’Agincourt, Shade and Light, Portmay Press, 2018
Thank you NetGalley and Portmay Press for sending me this uncorrected proof for review.
Maryann D’Agincourt has such a distinctive voice that reading her work is a full and engrossing experience. Shade and Light is an amalgam of complex characters and ideas; an intriguing story line, quietly realised; and a journey in which D’Agincourt’s even, informative prose is mixed beautifully with a passion for colour that is fluidly woven through the narrative. Colour is a more distinctive enhancement in the early part of the novel but lightens or darkens the narrative to its end, embellishing the main character’s recognition of herself as a person of shade and light.
Jenny Smila and Jonas Hoffman are neighbours, meeting briefly in 1968 when Jenny is fourteen and has newly moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Boston. While Jenny embraces her birth in America, her parents are linked immutably to Trieste, their European heritage, and experiences during the war, woven intricately through their lives and impacting on Jenny’s. The much older Eric Stram becomes enmeshed in Jenny’s life seemingly as a consequence of an untold story that binds their parents.
Subtlety permeates the secrets that are integral to the stories, interactions between characters, and their backgrounds. The desire to know more about Jenny’s parents’ obligation to the Strams, and their erratic responses to their financial position and their daughter’s emotional needs provides a background, rather than taking over the interactions between the characters. Jenny’s own behaviour suggests that there is more to be known - about her feelings, her personality, and her capacity for love; Jonas wants more information about his father, and his mother’s friend - and what is his capacity for love? Eric’s absences are secretive, Jenny believes she has found an explanation for some, but is she right? Irrespective of how engaging it may be to find a solution to these mysteries, none presents a raucous demand for answers. Rather, they are a nuanced part of the lives that D’Agincourt depicts.
Shade and Light introduces the characters, stories and mysteries that are continued in D’Agincourt’s later novel, August. However, Shade and Light is a fully realised narrative, with engaging characters and story lines that are truly engrossing. This novel is a delight to read, absorb and almost live in.
Thank you NetGalley and Portmay Press for sending me this uncorrected proof for review.
Maryann D’Agincourt has such a distinctive voice that reading her work is a full and engrossing experience. Shade and Light is an amalgam of complex characters and ideas; an intriguing story line, quietly realised; and a journey in which D’Agincourt’s even, informative prose is mixed beautifully with a passion for colour that is fluidly woven through the narrative. Colour is a more distinctive enhancement in the early part of the novel but lightens or darkens the narrative to its end, embellishing the main character’s recognition of herself as a person of shade and light.
Jenny Smila and Jonas Hoffman are neighbours, meeting briefly in 1968 when Jenny is fourteen and has newly moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Boston. While Jenny embraces her birth in America, her parents are linked immutably to Trieste, their European heritage, and experiences during the war, woven intricately through their lives and impacting on Jenny’s. The much older Eric Stram becomes enmeshed in Jenny’s life seemingly as a consequence of an untold story that binds their parents.
Subtlety permeates the secrets that are integral to the stories, interactions between characters, and their backgrounds. The desire to know more about Jenny’s parents’ obligation to the Strams, and their erratic responses to their financial position and their daughter’s emotional needs provides a background, rather than taking over the interactions between the characters. Jenny’s own behaviour suggests that there is more to be known - about her feelings, her personality, and her capacity for love; Jonas wants more information about his father, and his mother’s friend - and what is his capacity for love? Eric’s absences are secretive, Jenny believes she has found an explanation for some, but is she right? Irrespective of how engaging it may be to find a solution to these mysteries, none presents a raucous demand for answers. Rather, they are a nuanced part of the lives that D’Agincourt depicts.
Shade and Light introduces the characters, stories and mysteries that are continued in D’Agincourt’s later novel, August. However, Shade and Light is a fully realised narrative, with engaging characters and story lines that are truly engrossing. This novel is a delight to read, absorb and almost live in.
January 1, 2019
The echoes of the past resonate through the lives of two families living in Boston. The secrets of the past where one family was helped by the other in Trieste, are never revealed, yet the threads of it are woven through their lives. It is a slow and easy read, not much happening. The reader stays an outsider, much like the characters themselves.
Jonas sketches Jenny and the final product resembled his aunt Belinda, who was the only one telling him some of the history of the two families. Jonas spends a lot of time in a coffee shop, sketching people. He once saw a man, and imagined him to be Harold, his mother's lover. He was quite disillusioned to learn that Harold was not the man in the coffee shop.
Jonas was quite bewildered when he learned that the reality of marriage was not as dry and stilted as defined in his mother's old Webster.
Jenny set up a rigorous schedule to finish as much classes as possible, before getting married to the much older Eric.
I was not drawn into the story in the beginning, the narrator's voice was stronger than those of the characters. The characters never came to life for me, I could not resonate with one of them, but therein lies the strength of this novel. They stay in the shade.
There is very little dialogue and the personality of characters did not develop. I only later realized how clever it was, to portray Jonas as the observer of the world around him.
When Eric told Jenny about their parents in Trieste, it was in a cold, absent way. In fact, everything in this book happened in a cold, distant way as if one looks at the lives of the characters through a transparent curtain. They say in the shade, but for huge parts of the book, unfortunately so is the reader.
Jonas sketches Jenny and the final product resembled his aunt Belinda, who was the only one telling him some of the history of the two families. Jonas spends a lot of time in a coffee shop, sketching people. He once saw a man, and imagined him to be Harold, his mother's lover. He was quite disillusioned to learn that Harold was not the man in the coffee shop.
Jonas was quite bewildered when he learned that the reality of marriage was not as dry and stilted as defined in his mother's old Webster.
Jenny set up a rigorous schedule to finish as much classes as possible, before getting married to the much older Eric.
I was not drawn into the story in the beginning, the narrator's voice was stronger than those of the characters. The characters never came to life for me, I could not resonate with one of them, but therein lies the strength of this novel. They stay in the shade.
There is very little dialogue and the personality of characters did not develop. I only later realized how clever it was, to portray Jonas as the observer of the world around him.
When Eric told Jenny about their parents in Trieste, it was in a cold, absent way. In fact, everything in this book happened in a cold, distant way as if one looks at the lives of the characters through a transparent curtain. They say in the shade, but for huge parts of the book, unfortunately so is the reader.
October 9, 2021
This is the “prequel” to ‘August’, the story of Jenny’s second marriage. It is also the stand alone story of her first marriage to Eric and the consequences of her unhappiness, doubt and self reckonings. The novel takes place in the fifties. Jenny is the American child (born, raised and educated) of a couple who came to America from Trieste, Italy, after the war. Eric, whom she ultimately marries, is the much older son of the couple who help save her parents. She is disturbed by the age differential and unconsciously by the fact that she does not know what he does for a living other than that he travels for work. Jonas is her next door neighbor. He is in college when she is in middle school and they have a casual friendship that, through the years evolves into more. The two novels are going to be sold as a set. Readers will have the advantage of reading them together and sequentially…and wondering what Jenny’s future will bring. They are well written and surprisingly fast reading. Thanks to Net Galley and Portman Press for an ARC for an honest review.
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February 18, 2019I received an advanced digital copy of this book from Netgalley.com and the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Thanks to both for the opportunity to read and review. Bethlehem is set during the steel boom of Pennsylvania. It spans 2 very similar decades in American history, the 1920s and 1960s. It is a story of family and coming to understand the people in our family and ourselves in the process. A fast paced tale that moves flawlessly between decades, not a word is wasted on bringing to life a grand steel family and their struggles.
5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended!
5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended!
February 12, 2019
I received an advanced digital copy of this book from Netgalley.com and the publisher. Thanks to both for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Ms. D'Agincourt has written a beautiful book that is full of descriptive prose that fills your head with imagery as you read it. Ultimately it is a story about family and love and loss.
4 out of 5 stars.
Ms. D'Agincourt has written a beautiful book that is full of descriptive prose that fills your head with imagery as you read it. Ultimately it is a story about family and love and loss.
4 out of 5 stars.
April 9, 2019
Received a copy of the book through netgalley,would also like to thank the publishers for this.
The title of the book is very appropriate,as the characters also move from light to dark,secrets untold but understood,duty and debt to be paid by the main character to Eric gor helping her parents.The after effects of war that effects the next generation moving from the dark to light.
The title of the book is very appropriate,as the characters also move from light to dark,secrets untold but understood,duty and debt to be paid by the main character to Eric gor helping her parents.The after effects of war that effects the next generation moving from the dark to light.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews