Amy Bloom's new novel brims with love, war, and complexity
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We begin with a brief prologue set in the unspecified present: a woman named Gazala is dying at home, tended to by three women, Anne, Alma, and Honey, and a man, Samir, who is identified as her brother. Soon, we flash back to Paris in 1930. There, Gazala's first person, present-tense narrative plunges us into a vividly evocative and propulsive story. Her wry reflections on and spirited accounts of life in Paris from 1930 to 1945 and then New York City, where she travels with forged papers and finds a job in a bakery comprise the strongest chunk of the novel.
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This is due in large part to Gazala's irresistible voice, the vibrant setting, the suspense inherent to a tale of occupied Paris and WWII Europe, and the eccentric characters, who range from the French writer Colette, described by Gazala in a chapter title as 'Famous Writer, Anti-Semite, Beloved Friend,' to the jeweler for the Duchess of Windsor. Gazala is gritty, resourceful, hilarious: an irresistible artistic creation. Her life is outlandish and outrageous — she commits multiple murders, without training gives great massages to illustrious people, learns how to seduce men and perform sexually from experienced older women — but she always feels real. Spending time in her mind and in her milieu is an adventure, continually surprising, and consistently rewarding.
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When a new section begins with Samir's arrival in New York City in 1947,
however, the style and the tonal acuity change. The narrative voice switches, for the most part, to third person, and the reader feels the loss. The missing intimacy of Gazala's narrative and the crackling idiosyncrasy of her voice leave a palpable void.
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Samir and Gazala, now lovers and life partners, end up settling down in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Samir works his way up in a department store, achieving financial success and domestic happiness with his sister/lover. And from this point, the chapters move back and forth in time with no rhyme or reason, jumping from Poughkeepsie to Mexico to New Jersey, from 2015 to 1968 to 1984, as characters pile up and depth is sacrificed for collage. The novel gains little by its leaps backward and forward and sideways in time and space, which feel arbitrary and often interrupt momentum, disrupt flow, and muddle things for the reader.
Even a writer as adept as Bloom at characterizing someone with an arresting image —'Madame shakes off a couple of shawls like an old warhorse hearing the bells of battle' — or telling life summary — 'David will go to Brooklyn College and eventually become an accountant in New Jersey with a fat, kind wife and no one will feel sorry for him' — can't overcome the effect of superficiality.
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Thus while sections of the book enchant, moments and lines provoke laughter, knowing nods, or a delighted smile, the overall effect deflates our hopes. 'I'll Be Right Here' reads more like a collection of vivid sketches, haphazardly bundled, than a finely wrought and fully realized novel. The parts are greater than the whole, the ingredients tastier than the dish.
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But how succulent, spicy, and nourishing Bloom's ingredients can be! At one point Gazala remarks: 'A good storyteller has memories and caraway seeds and cinnamon sticks and candied dates in his pocket.' Bloom's eccentric perspectives, unusual characters, and warm-hearted approach make her storytelling alluring just as the story itself is often incomplete and confusing.
Bloom's virtues and values are evident on every page of this endearing if ultimately somewhat unsatisfying book. The novel makes important points about immigration, acceptance of difference, open-mindedness to alternative ways of living and loving, and the preciousness and wisdom of our elders in a refreshingly non-didactic way. A wryly humorous, emotionally generous, and expansively embracing author, Bloom approaches each of her characters with empathy, insight, and sensitivity. She remains acutely aware of the absurdities of life, its harrowing hardships, and its fragile, fleeting joys. What is perdurable, what binds us together over space and time, countries and continents, in war and in peace, are found family, good humor, and love.
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I'LL BE RIGHT HERE
By Amy Bloom
Random House, 272 pages, $28
Priscilla Gilman is a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College and the author of '
' and '
.'
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