A few years ago I really enjoyed Tom Rachman’s debut
novel, The Imperfectionists, a story about a newspaper and its various contributing
journalists in Rome. I was impressed with the interesting way that the story
line inched along, each chapter being told in a different character’s voice,
each character becoming lifelike and engaging in the process. If you haven’t
yet read The Imperfectionists, I highly recommend it.
So when Rachman’s newest novel, The Rise and Fall of
Great Powers was published, I put a hold on it right away at my local library
and was excited to check it out last week. I couldn’t get my nose out of it! What
pleasure it is to read a book where you not only enjoy the revealing of an
intriguing mystery, but also appreciate the skillful way that it unfolds,
chapter by chapter.
This time Rachman introduces his main character, Matilda
(Tooly) Zylberberg, as the 30ish-year old owner of a dusty second-hand book
shop in an out-of-the-way town in Wales. In a succession of a trio of chapters,
one time period each, Tooly is 10 years old in 1988, 21 in 1999/2000 and then
back to present day, in her early 30’s, in 2010. Along this roller coaster of time we
are exposed to her very unusual childhood and young adult-hood. Present-day
Tooly knows that her growing up was unconventional, to say the least, but she
has no understanding of how or why it came about that way. Where were her
parents, who were these people she travelled the world with and where are they
now? Maybe, now that she has “grown up”, she can get some answers.
When an email from an old lover finds her, against all
odds, at her book shop in present-day Wales, she is inspired to travel to New York where she
begins a journey of self-discovery. Along the way she encounters surprising
things about those various characters that populated her youth and who molded
her into the young woman she is now.
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