THE CROOKED MAID by Dan Vyleta

This story takes place in Vienna in 1948.  The backdrop is the deNazification of Austria and the turmoil experienced by people trying to find a place for themselves after the war.

Robert is a young man searching for the answer to his father's suspicious fall from a top-floor window.  Anna has come to Vienna to search for her husband - a man with secrets of his own - who has disappeared,  They meet on the train to Vienna.

Although their paths rarely cross in the city, they are connected by the people that they encounter along the way - a war-widowed American journalist, a hunchbacked young servant girl, a former POW whose primary purpose is to survive by any means, a detective who yearns for human connection (love?) but accepts that it will never happen.  On the simple face of it, this is a missing persons story;  a murder mystery.  But really, there is no simple face.  These characters are neither good nor evil.  There are no absolutes.  They present themselves as one way to one, another way to others - all are true but none are completely so.  It is an absolute pleasure to read this book and see how the author strips away layer after layer leaving us finally (perhaps) with a semblance of truth.

This novel was short listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2013.  It lost to Lynn Coady's short story collection 'Hell Going' (another excellent book).  I probably would have voted for 'The Crooked Maid'.

THE BOOK OF RUTH by Jane Hamilton

Ruth is a small-town young woman with not too much going for her.  She works at the local dry cleaner;  she and her husband live with her mother;  she goes bowling on a Saturday night.  Ruth's Aunt Sid has made a life for herself as a musician and teacher and their written correspondence gives Ruth a glimpse into life outside her small town.

The author has a beautiful writing style.  She paints a picture of a complicated mother-daughter relationship and a troubled marriage as seen through Ruth's eyes.  She has created a character who put me in mind of Rohinton Mistry's two beggars in 'A Fine Balance' - no matter how life kicks you in the teeth, you accept and carry on because, well, what else is there to do?

Toward the end of the book, a family tragedy changes Ruth's life - perhaps for the better.  But I never really got the feeling that she felt she needed to be saved.

I liked this book rather a lot.  It's pretty slow moving, but every page can be savoured.

THE PAINTED GIRLS: A NOVEL by Cathy Marie Buchanan

The Painted Girls is a good book, with interesting characters.  It is a novel about the three Van Goetham sisters in Paris of the 1880's.  They are exceedingly poor and struggle daily for the most basic subsistence.

The oldest, Antoinette, used to be one of the petit rats, one of the little girls hired by the ballet. Now she does walk-on roles in the Opera, trying to help her mother, an absinthe-addicted laundress, support her younger sisters. She's also in love with a young man who she believes loves her truly, but her sister believes is dangerous. Her younger sister Marie is just starting at the ballet as a petit rat.  She is talented and, while not beautiful, is chosen by the artist Edgar Degas as model and muse. The youngest sister, Charlotte is an excellent dancer, and follows her sisters into the Opera.

The book goes back and forth between chapters narrated by Antoinette and Marie.  We follow their efforts to survive, to keep going, to have enough to eat - no matter what it takes.

It wasn't until I read the author's notes that I realized that the Van Goethem sisters actually existed - that Marie was, in fact, the model for Degas' sculpture 'Little Dancer, aged fourteen';  that Charlotte had a successful ballet career that lasted until 1954;  that Antoinette's lover (although they never met in real life) was the defendant in a sensational murder trial.

I found this book to be well researched, the characters are beautifully drawn.  Nothing is sugar coated - it was a tough and often unfair life.  There are no 'AHA' redemptive moments, where someone realizes the error of her ways.  There is no knight in shining armour to offer true love and a way out.   There is, however, the thread of loyalty, devotion and sisterly love throughout.