The Man Booker prizewinner Michael Ondaatjes (The English Patient) glorious new book Divisadero, is an engrossing, beautifully crafted, erudite read for book-lovers. His poetic skills are evident- riveting sentences that enchant, mesmerize and capture the reader. Ondaatje dares us to slow down and immerse ourselves in his coruscating powers that reveal the nature of the human heart.
The story begins in 1970s California. A grief-stricken father, whose wife died while giving birth, adopts Claire (whose single mother has also died in childbirth) and raises her with his own daughter Anna. Their makeshift family is rounded up with Coop, an orphan, whose parents were murdered.
The taciturn grief stricken father who consumes red wine at breakfast neglects the girls emotional upbringing. Coop, four years older than the sisters, is left with the daunting task of filling in the maternal role. However, doting on the girls has dire consequences, a love triangle ensues and the inevitable violence that follows when knowledge of 16 year old Annas sexual relationship to Coop is exposed, the familys tenuous cord is irretrievably shattered. Both Anna and Coop flee California.
Some twenty years later, we encounter Anna in south central France immersed in researching the history of the writer Lucien Segura, whose life, as the readers discovers in the third part of the novel, eerily mirrors Annas. As we zigzag between the present and the past, California and France, the protagonists feelings about life, love and being are subtly revealed.
They are programmed to believe they are doomed. There is the hidden presence of others in us, Anna declares. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross. Yet, despite this gloomy premise, Anna is able to break the chains and finds love with Rafael, Seguras semi-adopted son. For a while, Coop a renowned card shark, is able to beat the odds at the Nevada casino tables. Claire who has always stayed close to home and hearth is left with the intimidating prospect of resolving the familys conflicts and repairing their jagged, shattered hearts.
Ondaatjes narrative élan will continue to haunt the reader. It is an unflinching account of the terrible wounds families inflict on each other, gently reminding us, plus ca change, plus cest la meme chose!
