The Glass Maker
By Tracy Chevalier

This is a tale that spans six centuries of the art of glassblowing, starting in 1486 on the island of Murano, near the major trade center of Venice. The main character, Orsola Rosso, born into a family of glassblowers, rises to become the most skilled beadmaker at the time, a rarity for a female. Her brothers and father create magnificent bowls, goblets, pitchers, candelabra, chandeliers, and figurines of exceptional color and quality. In addition to the craft of glassmaking, the author focuses on their family history, business rivalries, love affairs, and vicissitudes resulting from the passage of time. Chevalier covers the rise of Napolean and his visit with wife Josephine to Venice in 1797 when Orsola is commissioned to create a splendid necklace for the empress. The author later switches to WWI, and then forward to 2019 when Venice is sinking and the Rosso workshop is under water.

When in modern times, the family moves its enterprise from Murano to Venice, they are dismayed to see tourists favor cheaply made trinkets in ugly color combinations over their highly superior goods. For centuries this family of adept craftsmen has taken immense pride in their creations. During various historical periods, their business and livelihood have been threatened, first by the Plague and more currently by the coronavirus. Nevertheless, the Rossos have endured. Even though at one time all the glass in the world was exported through Venice, some craftsman, like Orsala’s beloved Antonio, emigrated to other countries that grew to become competitors in the trade.

The Glass Maker is also imbued with the local color of “La Serenissima,” with scenes set on The Grand Canal, La Piazza di San Marco, the Doges Palace, Riva di San Matteo, and other of the city’s well-known hallmarks. In addition, the book is most informative regarding the process of the art: pumping the bellows by foot to get the flame hot, then sticking the end of a glass cane into the heat to melt it. In the workshop, men pull punties – long iron rods – in and out of the furnace with molten globs of glass, twirling them on a flat iron sheet called a marver, squeezing them into molds of various shapes and placing the finished pieces into the anealer to cool down slowly. It is arduous work since each artist needs to do three things simultaneously: turn the glass, and shape it, while pumping the bellows. Adding a second or third color to the mix makes it even more difficult. It takes years to master the craft. In addition, the reader learns about the various stages through which a workman must pass, from servente to garzoni, under the maestro’s guidance. I found this book most interesting, especially the history. The author did a creditable job weaving the story seamlessly through the centuries while developing a plot involving numerous characters. Perhaps the best known, other than Napolean, is the infamous rogue Casanova who swindles the Rosso family when he commissions a very costly chandelier for which he never makes payment. Adding to my enjoyment was the author’s sprinkling of numerous Italian words and phrases. However, even if not proficient in the language, they offer no impediment to the reader. In fact, they too contribute to the local flavor. You may recognize Tracy Chevalier as a New York Times Best-selling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring in which she also demonstrated her prowess of writing historical fiction rich in detail of former ages and periods.

The Stolen Child
By Ann Hood

In her latest novel, local author Ann Hood attempts to weave together a number of different plots in different time periods. The first focuses on soldier Nick Burns in World War I. While fighting in a trench, he is handed a baby by a woman with instructions to “save it.” As a fellow soldier is struck down by a bullet, Nick manages to climb out and run into unknown territory amidst gunfire where he later deposits the swaddled child near a well. Haunted by this experience all his life, his guilt at not knowing its fate causes him nightmares, contributes to his sense of failure, and results in his fear of fathering a child himself. These feelings may have also affected his marriage since his wife descends into alcoholism. More than fifty years later in 1974, the now elderly and very ill Nick will recruit Jenny, a young woman, to assist him in finding the now-adult baby Nick abandoned. Their search will take them to France and later Italy. Jenny is a prime candidate for this assignment as she has had to drop out of college due to an unwanted pregnancy after which she gives the baby up for adoption. Extremely eager to escape her boring hometown and leave her past behind, she convinces Nick that she can help him solve the mystery and find the abandoned child.

In addition to this plot is a parallel one involving an Italian named Enzo, the proprietor of The Museum of Tears in Naples, who collects people’s tears in vials. He will meet and fall in love with a travel writer Geraldine. Then there is the budding romance between Jenny and a soulmate named Daniel whom she met before he took off for South Americas to study the poet Pablo Neruda.

Many reviewers have praised the author’s seamless knitting together of numerous characters and various time periods. One author declares the book “vividly peopled, intricately plotted, and gorgeously written.” However, I found the plot itself improbable. For example, it seemed unlikely that a soldier under fire while fighting in a ditch would be handed a baby. Moreover, a man who collects tears from sorrow-laden individuals also defied reality. I was unable to summon what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “a willing suspension of disbelief” necessary to “buy” into this tale. Furthermore, the three disparate plots seemed an incongruous stretch to connect.

On a more positive note, I am a fan of anything with an Italian flavor so I appreciated the various Italian phrases with which I am familiar, as well as the specific locations: cosi`e`la vita (so is life), in dietro (backward), fratellino (little brother), parmigiana di melanzane (eggplant with tomatoes), rosso brillante (bright red); foods like calamari, sfofliatella; and places like Sorrento and Capri. What might appeal to Rhode Islanders are the many locations that Jenny, a native, frequents, such as URI where she begins her freshman year, IHOP on the East Side of Providence where she waitresses, College Hill Travel and the Avon Cinema on Thayer Street. Nick, as a young man, lives in Little Compton and dates a girl from Pembroke, Brown University’s sister college at that time. If you enjoy reading stories set in a familiar setting this book may be for you — but, in my opinion, it is not Hood’s best work.