Review: The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende's latest novel is a beautifully crafted story of a woman who has lived a surprising duel life. Alma Belasco is a wealthy woman from a much loved, well-respected and charitable family, who in her old age resides at Lark House, an unusual but charming and thoroughly progressive nursing home. As Alma attempts to matchmake Irina, a careworker at Lark House, with her wealthy but socially progressive son Seth, the pair slowly learn more about Alma and a mysterious but beautiful secret from her past. From there the author weaves seemlessly between the past and the present to tell the story of Alma's life, of her arrival in the United States before the onset of the second world war, to the events that would lead to her duel life--her role as a wife and mother with a man who can provide for her, but who feels no passion for her, and her affair with a man who can give her the love and passion that she needs. Allende is, as always, an author who can deliver a detail...