Lowell Reading Club: Wives and Daughters Edition

Note: as part of the Amazon Associate program, we may receive a commission for purchases made through the links on this page. Thank you for supporting the work of Lowell’s First Look!

 

Mother’s Day falls in May and that got us thinking about the rash of books that seem to be devoted to someone’s wife or daughter. The recent trend seems to have kicked off with The Time Traveler’s Wife and since then, we have seen books with all sorts of variations of that title. There’s been The Zookeeper’s Wife, The Shoemaker’s Wife, The Aviator’s Wife and even The Lobotomist’s Wife.

But there are apparently only so many wives you can write about and soon we noticed a variation on the theme: daughters. The Clockmaker’s Daughter, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Firekeeper’s Daughter. You get the idea. Interestingly, we don’t see many books referencing husbands and sons…although there is Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons which you really should read sometime.

In the meantime, in honor of Mother’s Day, here are some books with “wife” or “daughter” in the title that we’ve read recently.

Amanda’s Picks

I like reading about life as part of a circus. I like reading about plots set during WWII. I wish I liked this book more. Not horrible but nothing spectacular in my opinion. I kept wanting more – more about the war, more about the circus, more about the characters. But instead, there were hints of these things without a deep dive into any of the categories.

Michel is a young (early 20s) Parisian who flees the city as the Germans approach. He is encouraged by his friend and mentor to leave. He jumps on a train that ends up belonging to a circus group. He is able to convince the ringmaster to allow him to stay and work with the horses.

Michel and the ringmaster seem to be at odds most of the time. The ringmaster tells Michel to not interact with the performers. He’s not to ask questions. And numerous times Michel wonders if he should remain with the group. He’s not getting paid but he essentially has room and board as he’s working.

As time goes on Michel becomes friends with some of the circus group and begins to have feelings for a girl he is told to stay away from. While spending time with the circus Michel also writes letters to his friend in Paris and from time to time will receive a letter in return.

While the setting for some of the book was at a circus, I didn’t feel like I really got to see what circus life is like. While many of the side characters performed at the circus and had stories of their own, I didn’t feel like I really got to know them. And while the war was going on around the setting and characters, I didn’t feel like much was said about it other than Michel wanting to avoid Paris being taken over by Germans.