Bellagrand

April 15, 2014
The white Floridian mansion seems like a dream to Gina after years of struggling to scrape by. Her relief is palpable at the ease and luxury of life at Bellagrand, given to her husband by his mother, but equally evident is her feeling that this respite cannot last. Set before Simons' The Bronze Horseman, the book dissects Gina's fraught marriage at great length. An immigrant from Sicily, Gina finds that her goal of a better life clashes with the consequences of her husband's communist ideals through the strikes, war, and disease of the early twentieth century. Although the simultaneous rise of the Soviet Union and crackdown on seditious comment in the U.S. are central to the story, other historical references at times seem shoehorned in. The plot, despite some eloquent moments, largely plods through more marital squabbles than one would care to count. The central characters are richly developed, and one gets to know them well over such an expanse of time. Whether that time is well spent will depend on the reader's investment in the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)