Almost Famous Women

December 15, 2014
The conceit for Bergman's second collection (after Birds of a Lesser Paradise) is immediately appealingâshort, punchy sketches of women either completely neglected by popular memory or better known for their association with men. Hence we have Lucia Joyce, daughter of James, in "Expression Theory," Norma Millay occupying the shadow of her sister, Vincent, in "Norma Millay's Film Noir Period," and the steady dissolution of Oscar Wilde's niece in "Who Killed Dolly Wilde?" Bergman's strongest stories concentrate on the historical moments in which her cast of characters (which includes conjoined twins, lady stunt motorcyclists, and smart-mouthed horn players) function as vectors, precisely because these womenâlesbians, artists, and African Americansâremain outsiders in their own era. The larger-than-life boat racer "Joe" Carstairs makes her private island into a refuge for lost souls in "The Siege At Whale Cay"; the painter Romaine Brooks shuns even her servants in "Romain Remains"; and Butterfly McQueen repudiates both God and her most famous role, the maid from Gone With the Wind, in "Saving Butterfly McQueen." But for all its veneration for these women, the collection becomes repetitiveâtoo many devoted friends narrating the story of their doomed and famous peers, too many aging burnt-out dames and, overall, too little access to the actual voice and psychology of its heroines. Still, even with weaker entries like the redundant Shirley Jackson impression "The Lottery, Redux," the collection is worth it for its feminist reclamation of the narrative thatâfor exampleâcelebrates Byron and forgets his abandoned daughter.

January 1, 2015

Every so often a work of fiction engages the reader immediately and resonates long after the book is finished. Such a work is this marvelous collection of stories about remarkable people whose lives had been reduced to mere footnotes. At the top of her craft, the empathetic Bergman (Birds of a Lesser Paradise) embellishes select moments in their history. While the stories themselves are unequivocally fictitious, the characters are not. We meet a member of the first all-female integrated swing band and Allegra, Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter. We also meet a cigar-smoking speedboat racer who calls herself Joe; Dolly, Oscar Wilde's disturbed niece; and Norma, the sister of Edna St. Vincent Millay, to name but a few. The author has infused her characters with passion and yearning; they are so lifelike we feel we know them. VERDICT Writing with brilliant cadence and economy, Bergman is an impressionist who uses her brilliant palette to illuminate facets of the lives of these brave and creative lesser-known strivers.--Joyce Townsend, Pittsburg, CA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 23, 2015
This collection of short stories takes actual women from history and weaves imaginative narratives around them. All of these characters are historical figures “lost to popular memory”—conjoined twins who aspire to show business, a painter who has not put hand to canvas in 40 years, and survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp whose jutting clavicles and hollow eyes are known in haunting photographs. The scope of the book is ambitious, with multiple settings and secondary characters serving as narrators; as a result, the stories in the audio edition are increasingly hard to differentiate. Reader Lockford does a fine job with the range of emotions, from wry detachment to despair to joy. However, she is less skilled at the many accents required by this diverse collection, whose stories require fluidity with German, Kenyan, Eastern European, Bahamian, and many other inflections. Most of these accents do not sound natural or believable. A Scribner hardcover.