What Makes a Book a Great Read?

Would you say character development is the key to a brilliant book? Or is the plot the most important element that keeps you reading? How important are luscious prose, beautiful descriptions, and clever turns of phrase to you? What about setting and time period–does that sway you?

Well, I completely agree.

Because I’m a writer and avid reader (I would argue the two are intrinsically linked) I want it all! Since I’ve written my own novel–check it out here–I find myself increasingly drawn to a variety of styles. What I might have turned my nose up at as a 20-year-old resonates with my 62-year-old self.

I’ve been all over the place in my reading lately, but a couple of recent novels stood out…which inspired me further! I’m super-excited to launch Buchanan’s Best Books today. If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll get regular book reviews of some of the newest–and my favorite– releases.

Sound good? I thought you’d like that! And you’re really going to like this first one…

What Disappears

Barbara Quick‘s stirring historical novel What Disappears (Regal House Publishing, 2022) transports the reader from Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century to the start of the First World War in Paris. La Belle Epoque is a rich time of history, especially for the arts, and I love reading about it.

What Disappears is a delicious blend of real and fictional characters. The two main characters are identical twins, Sonya and Jeanette, who interact with legends like Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, fashion designer Paul Poirot, author Colette, and the Ballets Russes founder Sergei Diaghilev. 

The sisters, separated as infants, grow up in vastly different circumstances, which kept the nature vs. nurture debate perpetually in my thoughts. Quick’s dual timeline propels the action forward with agility, and you have to be on your toes (no pun intended…well, maybe a little bit) to keep up. But the mental exercise is exactly why we read, right? That and it’s fun. So much fun. Don’t you just love to read?!

Anyway…

Sonya and Jeanette’s separate lives intersect in Pavlova’s dressing room. Sonya is employed as a seamstress and Jeannette as an extra ballerina for Ballets Russes. Their relationship is anything but predictable, which is a bonus in my book (again with the puns? Sorry.)

Neither of the sisters is perfect and their secrets, hopes, and fears create a braid of rich characterization, propelling tension, and intellectual satisfaction. Barbara explores complex themes of identity, the impact of pursuing arts, relationships, loss, and hope. It is a complex novel with the potential to generate terrific discussions.

The author would be a wonderful guest at your book club–she’s so interesting! I got a chance to ask her a handful of questions. Check out her fascinating answers below.

Q&A with the Author

I love talking to authors about their work and lives. I always glean something that benefits me, either as a writer or just a human being. Barbara lives with her husband on a small farm and vineyard in Sonoma County. Doesn’t that sound idyllic? I could have asked Barbara soooo many more questions but I limited myself to these…

Me: Why did you write your book?

Barbara: I began writing what would become What Disappears when my narrative skills didn’t extend beyond those of a confused twenty-one-year-old poet who’d never attempted to write an extended work of fiction before. It started as a series of sketches based on whatever stories I’d been able to wrest from my taciturn but beloved maternal grandmother, Nana, about growing up in a family of politically leftist, largely secular Jewish tailors in Kishinev, under the last Russian Tsar. Nana told me about the unforgettable kiss she received from Jascha, the pharmacist’s son (not my grandfather!), under a streetlamp in the snow. And how the commission her mother won to make the hats and coats for the local parochial school led the parish priest to shelter her family in the attic of the church whenever there was a pogrom (a violent, state-sanctioned riot attacking Jewish people and their businesses).

One of the most intriguing things Nana told me was that my great-grandmother, a humble and unworldly woman, took the train to Paris twice a year to see the fashions. This part of Nana’s story made no sense to me. It wasn’t until I returned to this story, over 40 years after I’d started it, that I found the right characters, and the right plot twist, to make this action not only plausible but also necessary.

Me: What was the most rewarding aspect to writing it? 

Barbara: This is such a difficult question to answer, because I find everything about writing to be essential to my emotional well-being. I’ve never had a period in my life, from about the age of 9, when I haven’t been writing. It’s quite impossible for me to understand the dark soup of my feelings until I write them out, in journal entries and, more often than not, poems. I guess writing is like a kind of meditation for me: it helps me find focus and clarity. And once in a while it gives me a gift that I can offer to others: words that also might have meaning for them.

I never liked history classes, apart from art history and literary history, when I was in school. But I’ve come to absolutely love the research I’ve done for all three of my historical titles, Vivaldi’s Virgins, A Golden Web, and, most lately, What Disappears. The research phase has, for all these books, been a very exciting treasure-hunt. Sometimes I can work for days on winnowing out a single telling fact about one of the historical characters I’m writing about–but there’s such a sense of triumph when that gleaming, golden fact shows itself to me.

Because I’m a poet as well as a fiction writer (and sometimes an editor and journalist), I’m used to the idea of weighing each word, trying to make sure it’s the best word. I always read everything out loud when I’m revising: the music has to be right. I don’t mind revising, although sometimes I’ve been guilty of falling in love with an early draft of something I’ve written, only to realize that it still needs a lot of work. “Killing one’s darlings”….Yes, that can be painful! But getting it right–not feeling any regrets about the final, published version–is a gratifying feeling. Writing is craftsmanship just as much as it’s art. I like to turn in manuscripts that are clean, clean, clean.

Me: Did anything change drastically from your first draft to the final version?

Barbara: Well, absolutely! The first draft was a story that took place exclusively in Russia. Ballet had nothing whatsoever to do with the story then. The plot evolved drastically over the course of decades, waiting for me to learn my craft and find the wisdom I needed to find the emotional truth of my characters’ lives.

Me: What do you hope is the take-away for readers?

Barbara: My mission as a writer and as a person is encapsulated in a Hebrew phrase I only learned as a mature adult: Tikkun olam. These words have many layers of meaning in Jewish tradition. But for me–at this point, in my sixth decade–the phrase serves as a sort of shorthand for something I’ve felt and believed for a very long time.

Tikkun olam refers to the notion of healing what is broken. I write to try and heal what’s broken inside me–what’s broken inside all of us. What’s broken in our beautiful world. When I hear that something I’ve written has brought tears to someone’s eyes or touched their heart, or made them remember someone or something they care about, or caused them to see beauty where they hadn’t noticed it before: that’s the take-away I hope for most in my readers. Of course I also hope they’ll just be riveted by my story and want to keep reading it until they get to the end.

As Far as I’m Concerned…

If you pick up What Disappears, you’ll definitely read to the end. Barbara has nothing to worry about there. And what interesting and thoughtful answers to my questions! I love the history of this book, the personal connection.  What a treasure for all who read it.

What questions do you have for this author? Ask away–I’ll bet she’d be happy to answer!

Click here for a link to Barbara’s website, where you can learn about her other books too.