Paradise Close by Lisa Russ Spaar

Name of Book: Paradise Close 

Author: Lisa Russ Spaar 

ISBN: 9780892555512

Publisher: Persea Books

Type of book: money, wealth, actions, 1914?-2017, time breaks, mental hospital, eating disorders, art, great love, poetry, family mysteries and secrets, Pennsylvania, New York, home  

Year it was published: 2022

Summary:

In 1971, orphan Marlise Schade—fourteen, anorectic, and evicted from the psychiatric hospital her trust fund can no longer support—finds herself alone in an ancestral home during a blizzard. Marlise’s struggles to survive there become the focal point for a host of imperiled figures, living and dead, whose stories intersect with hers and with forces roiling the U.S. in the ’70s.

Decades later, on the brink of Trump’s America, sixty-something Tee Handel is shaken by an inexplicable visitation. For years he’s nursed a deep hurt over his breakup with a captivating artist, spending his days and nights in solitude tinkering with antique clocks. What’s become of the artist, and how Tee reacts to his mysterious guest, testifies to the risk and inexorability of change.

These two seemingly unrelated tales entwine to show how the wages of the past are always with us, as are the dangerous and redemptive consequences of secrets confided and withheld.

Characters:

The novel is more of a visual experience therefore it barely focuses on characters and their growth. The characters, one could safely say focus on their art and experiences. Personality wise their personalities aren't revealed. I am not sure if it makes sense. Marlise Schade, for instance, is best defined by the actions and history rather than as someone who is sweet, warm and just wants to belong. Same for the rest of the characters. Again, this is my experience with reading the novel. I imagine others will have different experiences. 

Theme:

Disparate events can surprisingly fit together. 

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative from pretty much a lot of characters points of view. It's also divided into three sections, first one taking place in 1971 in a mental institution introducing the reader to Marlise Schade and her family history as well as to people who become and are important to her. Second section moves on to 2016, when we meet Tee Handel, a reclusive professor who had a great love with a married woman. Third section ties the first and second one together by providing us details and plots that were left in limbo, especially as it pertains to first section. 

Author Information:
(From goodreads)

Lisa Russ Spaar is the author of many collections of poetry, including Glass Town (Red Hen Press, 1999), Blue Venus (Persea, 2004), Satin Cash (Persea, 2008), Vanitas, Rough (Persea, 2012), and Orexia (Persea, 2017). She is the editor of Monticello in Mind: Fifty Contemporary Poems on Jefferson, Acquainted with the Night: Insomnia Poems, and All that Mighty Heart: London Poems. A collection of her essays, The Hide-and-Seek Muse: Annotations of Contemporary Poetry, was published by Drunken Boat Media in 2013. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Award, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, an All University Teaching Award, an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the Library of Virginia Award for Poetry, and the 2013-2014 Faculty Award of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. Her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry series, Poetry, Boston Review, Blackbird, IMAGE, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Slate, Shenandoah, The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other journals and quarterlies, and her commentaries and columns about poetry appear regularly or are forthcoming in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was short-listed for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Reviewing, and has taught at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Seattle Pacific University, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. --Poetry Foundation.

Opinion:

This one is a tad bit difficult for me to sort and understand my emotions. It is a lot like poetry and for me it was opaque and vague. At the same time, there is definitely a hidden beauty to the novel as well as to the main character, Marlise Schade, in 1971 a fourteen year old anoretic ( one who is close to being anorexic but isn't quite yet there) young woman who is experiencing tragedy and romance all at once. The second half is about Tee Handel who had a great love but then that love is lost. At first nothing is visible when it comes to these two disparate stories, and I imagine if there is a connection to be made, I would argue for perhaps reincarnation or coming around without going into major spoilers. It's interesting to note that two portions are stylistically different too, the first half reminiscent of Anne Leigh Parrish's Our Love Could Light Up The World, and second half for me was reminiscent of Susan Chois The Foreign Student. 

This was given for review 

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)