Kirkus Review: "Brooks' prose is lush and delectable...there are many...moments of stunning imagery...An intelligent ... blend of romance and family conflict." Bookreview.com: Rating, Excellent. "The Ravenala seems...like an old movie...that play[s] in your head like an old love song. As in poetry, it is not so much the story as the voice you won't forget. Bookreview.com highly recommends this story of survival." Among modern male writers, J.M. Coetzee, John Updike, and Philip Roth have written intense novels about aging in the life of a man. But since the days of Colette, there have been few novels that explore the richness of life as women age. Elizabeth Strout's collection of short stories, Olive Kitteridge, is a notable exception. Yet, older women often live deeply exciting lives. Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychoanalyst, wrote that during our first forty years we journey outward to find our place in society and during the second forty we journey inward to contemplate our inner world where we can discover the genuine self. The novel, The Ravenala by Jackie Zollo Brooks is driven by characters who must leave behind some of those they love in order to go on this quest. The title is taken from the ravenala palm, the so-called "travelers' tree" found only in Madagascar. A traveler cutting into the palm's branches can receive a refreshing drink of cool water; one who is lost can follow the ravenala's alignment, always on an east/west axis. The story of the novel is of a New England woman and her sisters. Vivian James goes to Madagascar to find her destiny. Then, having found the unexpected freedom to be herself, Vivian discovers there is another more significant value. Living among the unsophisticated but very brave Malagasy, Vivian comes to consider that it is endurance we may learn to value more than freedom. Years later, Con Bennet, a British economist for the United Nations, becomes a regular visitor to Fort Dauphin, the coastal town where Vivian lives. Their eas
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