<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: a lifetime exquisitely told
Review: absorbing. the characters wouldn't let go of my mind. storytelling in its most refined form, spoken by voices rarely heard.
Rating:
Summary: I am recommending it to all of my friends
Review: This is a wonderful novel. It's rich with historical detail, beautifully written and moving. Intriguing, honest characters and great storytelling.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars are not adequate for this novel!
Review: This is absolutely one of my all-time favorite novels. It has everything I want in a good work of visionary fiction. Written by perhaps the most overlooked genius in literature today, this book has the power to touch you deeply and change the way you see the world forever after. When I think of titles that SHOULD HAVE won the great prestigious critical awards in the past quarter century, Confessions of Madame Psyche heads the list.
Rating:
Summary: undescribable
Review: This is one of the most beautifully written novels I have read in a long time. Selections from Confessions was assigned in a college philosophy class, and I had to go back and read the whole thing from beginning to end. Characterization was so complete and encapsulating that I was sad to leave Mei-Li at the end. Her journey becomes your own journey of selfdiscovery; what it means to be moral, human, a woman.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-researched historical novel set in San Francisco
Review: This precisely rendered historical novel relates four disparate periods in the life of its fictional heroine, Mei-Li Murrow, or Madame Psyche. Mei-Li's childhood and early adulthood is spent as a renowned (if fraudulent) spiritualist wunderkind, a period which begins with the San Francisco earthquake and continues through the First World War and influenza epidemic to the advent of radio. During the 1920s, Mei-Li leaves her first profession and establishes a utopian (and ultimately dystopian!) community south of the Bay area. These first two sections are truly novel. In the last two parts, Bryant retreads familiar literary ground. Mei-Li's Depression-era experiences are very much like Steinbeck's novels (both "In Dubious Battle" and "The Grapes of Wrath"), yet, like many other works of Depression-era proletarian fiction (such as Alexander Saxton's "The Great Midland"), it is more representative of the non-white ethnic mix of American labor. Eventually, Mei-Li ends her life in an asylum for the mentally ill, in a section that exposes the injustices of these institutions while simultaneously displaying the humanity that can flourish within their walls. Mei-Li's various episodes and adventures, while seemingly unconnected, conspire to trigger the novel's one big plot twist--and I can't say anything else without ruining the surprise As J. J. Wilson notes in her afterword, the novel is "admirably well-researched," and the result is a fascinating historical panorama. The narrative is always absorbing and occasionally suspenseful, yet the story is rarely emotional or sentimental; Mei-Li relates the death of a lover with the same matter-of-fact tone she uses to describe one of her fraudulent seances. Often this works in the book's favor, but at times the meticulous research and academic tone nearly overwhelm the drama. Even Wilson admits that Bryant "chose a difficult path in putting her Psyche in charge of her own narrative. . . . Mei-Li reports events with little comment." In spite of this weakness, Mei-Li's story is faithfully and believably depicted, and there is much wisdom and beauty in Bryant's epic novel.
<< 1 >>
| 
