Sunday Books & Culture
This week’s reviews include Alizah Holstein’s Dante inspired memoir “My Roman History” and Miranda July’s novel of steamy self-reckoning, “All Fours.”
Edited By Vanessa Sekinger
MY ROMAN HISTORY
by Alizah Holstein
Published by Viking (June 25, 2024)
Hardcover $22.41
Audiobook $17.71
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
I remember reading – or trying to read - Dante’s Divine Comedy in college. I felt like I was trapped in either purgatory or the inferno. I don’t think I ever finished it. Compare my experience with that of this author, who became fascinated with the Italian poem written in the 1300s.
Holstein grew up in a house of highly educated professionals who encouraged reading and the love of literature. They had an early computer in their home and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica purchased from a salesman who came to their door. Years later, when her parents divorced, they could not agree who got the encyclopedia, so each parent took half.
Her love of Dante began during her senior year of high school, in a class taught by Mr. V, who explained that “the work could be read on four levels – the literal, the allegorical, the moral and the anagogical.” To her, the poem became a great riddle. Mr. V threw in Italian phrases which sent her to a bookstore to find an Italian-English dictionary. Thus began her love affair with both the book and Italy. Specifically Rome.
A month after graduation, she took her first of many trips to Rome. The book delves into her travels, but goes back and forth between what she sees and the history there. Throughout this memoir, Dante is the specter that both haunts and encourages her. We learn that Dante was one of the first authors to write in the Italian dialect spoken around Florence, his home. Until then, Latin was the language of writers.
Pursuing advanced degrees in medieval Italian history proved to be difficult. There was little in the way of documents and papers from the period. Despite learning some Italian, Holstein was always an outsider. She loved Rome, but was lonely. Weeks or months would be spent in Italy, then she’d return to the States. But the itch to go back never went away, imploding relationships and jobs.
I find it difficult to describe this book, but I can say I found it both historically interesting and meditative with beautiful writing. Most of us reflect on our past, the choices and decisions we made. Holstein does the same, but there is a lot of navel-gazing here. At times I wanted to yell to her: “Grow a spine! Stand up to those who think you, as a young woman, do not have the intellect, the skills, the stamina, to achieve your dream.”
This is a book in which you will learn a lot about Rome and Italy, as well as tidbits of information. I know now that no one really knows what Dante looked like. His bones were moved many times over the centuries and ironically, his jawbone is gone… “the skeleton of the father of the Italian language is missing one of the few bones required for speech.” We have his written words. Maybe that is enough.
Penny A Parrish is a long-time book reviewer and artist. Learn more about her by visiting her page at Brush Strokes Gallery, which is in downtown Fredericksburg.
ALL FOURS
by Miranda July
Published by Riverhead Books (May 14, 2024)
Hardcover $22.58
Audiobook $17.72
Reviewed by Drew Gallagher
For whatever reason, it seemed as though I was reading a lot of dreck this summer in reviews for The Advance. One book had me so disgusted with the fact that I had read it and would never get those hours of my life back that I stood up and boldly pronounced to my wife, who was ever so close to napping, that I was going to Barnes & Noble in search of something of substance to read. Her need for some mid-afternoon sleep be damned even if she just ran eight miles in the Virginia heat of August. This was a moment of import, and one that needed to be memorialized with a bold pronouncement.
I had a few titles in mind as I drove to the bookstore, but when I saw All Fours by Miranda July among the new releases I knew that it was time to regale the readers of The Advance with my particular insights into one of the best-reviewed books of the summer and one that was likely to end up on “Best Of” lists at the end of 2024. Here was a book of substance worthy of my nearly 30 years as a book reviewer. Readers would rejoice over their Sunday morning substack, and I believe that clarions could be heard in the background as I approached the register.
There are a lot of sex toys in All Fours.
As any of my book editors can attest, I have never been one to shy away from books with sex or been timid about using profanity in my book reviews when effective (and I’m certain the mere mention of sex toys is causing consternation at the moment). [[Editor’s Note: Nope, Drew, we’re good!]] And I have no problem with the sex in All Fours (very important preposition choice there).
The author proves yet again that women writers are much better at writing sex scenes than their male counterparts. The underlying difficulty for me with All Fours is that one of the main characters in the book is menopause, and I did not know how I could gracefully couch that experience through my 54-year-old male viewpoint without alienating readers or, worse yet, insulting them. I’d rather dive headfirst into a bear pit.
The protagonist is a married woman of 45 who is semi-famous for reasons that are never fully exposed. She wants to take a break from husband and son and decides that a cross-country drive from LA to New York City will give her ample time to find herself. She makes it to Monrovia, about half an hour from her house, where she meets a young man who works at a nearby Hertz Rental Car and decides that he has more to offer her than the long drive or New York City, so she books a room at a motel around the corner from the Hertz location for the next two weeks.
The promise of her young lover is never fully realized, and she must return home to reconcile her life and the changes her body is experiencing which does not go especially well for her marriage or her mental well-being.
July writes exceptionally well, and I do believe that the writing is foremost in much of the praise heaped on All Fours. But this is another LA-based novel where everyone is beautiful, and as much as the protagonist’s problems might be a physically unfair cliff for all women, this particular woman has a degree of beauty which allows her to hook up with people almost immediately upon meeting them and an amount of wealth that allows her to lavishly remodel a motel room and continue to live a life where she never really has to work. She’s not relatable beyond the physiology.
I will not be surprised when All Fours garners end-of-the-year praise, but for now I will seek solace in a new Pete Rose biography. The Big Red Machine may prove more relatable than menopause.
Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 136-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance.
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