It was an interesting book about how families are traumatized by war. Jenny grew up in Hartford Connecticut and her next door neighbor was John and he was an artist. They became friends different times. He was much older than her and he loved to go to college. She She went to college and had some fun. Then this boy called Erica oh love with her he was much older. A family encouraged her to go out with him because they had With the family in Italy During the war. She ends up marrying Erica but it's not a very happy marriage. Jones on the other hand was an artist and he went to California and then came back. Jones runs into Jennifer in New York where she was living. I hit it up pretty well. Then our decided he didn't want to be married anymore Jenny so he started his own thing. Jenny had an appointment with her mother's doctor son. An arrow died somehow in the book. She eventually married Jones and this who is Still an artist. Book has a lot of twist and turns and you'll find out when Jones and Jenny go on a honeymoon to Rihanna. In france. A lot of things came up during this time and she meant something's why Erica had problems. Eric Let's did it this time. And a lot of the stuff stolen back to war 2 with this family and all the complications. It was interesting how marriage entangled people up together some strange ways.

Maryann D'Agincourt, The Marriage of the Smila-Hoffmans, Portmay Press, LLC 2022

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof in exchange for an honest review.

This work brings together the beautifully realised Shade and Light, and August, with a new Prologue and Interlude. Short though they are, they deserve their own reviews. However, I reviewed Shade and Light and August in October 2021 and shall use some of that material to review this new edition of the novels. The feature that stood out above all others when I began re-reading was the lyrical nature of the language, with its dive into the ordinary to create a moving picture of events, feelings and characters.

Shade and Light introduces the characters, stories and mysteries that are continued in D’Agincourt’s August. While Shade and Light and August are fully realised narratives, with engaging characters and story lines that are truly engrossing, the new Prologue and Interlude add more delicate layers to the story. Alone, each novel remains a delight to read, absorb and almost live in.

Maryann D’Agincourt has such a distinctive voice that reading her work is a full and engrossing experience. Shade and Light is an amalgam of complex characters and ideas; an intriguing story line, quietly realised; and a journey in which D’Agincourt’s even, informative prose is mixed beautifully with a passion for colour that is fluidly woven through the narrative. Colour is a more distinctive enhancement in the early part of the novel but lightens or darkens the narrative to its end, embellishing the main character’s recognition of herself as a person of shade and light.

Jenny Smila and Jonas Hoffman are neighbours, meeting briefly in 1968 when Jenny is fourteen and has newly moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Boston. While Jenny embraces her birth in America, her parents are linked immutably to Trieste, their European heritage, and experiences during the war. These are woven intricately through their lives and impact on Jenny’s experiences and feelings. The much older Eric Stram becomes enmeshed in Jenny’s life seemingly because of an untold story that binds them to Europe rather than America.

Subtlety permeates the secrets that are integral to the stories, interactions between characters, and their backgrounds. The desire to know more about Jenny’s parents’ obligation to the Strams, and their erratic responses to their financial position and their daughter’s emotional needs provides a background, rather than taking over the interactions between the characters. Jenny’s own behaviour suggests that there is more to be known - about her feelings, her personality, and her capacity for love; Jonas wants more information about his father, and his mother’s friend - and what is his capacity for love? Eric’s absences are secretive, Jenny believes she has found an explanation for some, but is she right? Irrespective of how engaging it may be to find a solution to these mysteries, none presents a raucous demand for answers. Rather, they are a nuanced part of the lives that D’Agincourt depicts.

Maryann Agincourt’s introduction to August is utterly beautiful, in its seemingly dancing like dust motes in the sun over colour, feelings, action and description of, at times mundane features of Jonas’s recall. This novel follows Jenny Smila and her the impact of her European roots and first marriage arising from those, and her second marriage, to Jonas.

August takes on several meanings in this novel. The Joseph Conrad quote with which it opens refers to ‘august light’, the month of August is significant, for the writer, as the ‘last full month of summer’, and, in the same last paragraph of the novel, august is a characterisation of a person with fortitude, one who can choose a path, has ‘majesty’. So, too does the writer slip from memories that are hazy, to events in August, to characters who have the opportunity to be august, but may well leave that to others. The lyricism of the writing draws the reader in to almost forgetting that some of the characters fall well short of being august. Perhaps none so much as the main character, Jenny.

Although Jenny has married Jonas, an artist, after her first husband, Eric Stram, dies, her European forbears and their history remain instrumental in her behaviour. Eric remains in Jenny’s, and ultimately, Jonas’ lives through a post card Jenny has kept as a bookmark. Although she has forgotten receiving it, she plans her honeymoon at the hotel depicted on the postcard. Here the couple meet people from Jenny’s past, some of whom have known Eric, some who continue in their friendship with Jenny. At the same time as characters merge into past and present, Jenny’s constant dream of a bloodstained woman and hurrying man in grey impacts on her and her relationships. At times these relationships also have a dreamlike quality, moving from reality to recall and reassessment.

Throughout, Jenny’s self-regard is central to her interactions with others. However, at the same time as making her an uncomfortable character with whom to identify, she draws us into her developing consciousness of who she is and her determination to be a person with a life beyond being the young unmarried Jenny Smila, Jenny Stram, or later, Jenny Smila-Hoffman: she is more than a name. There is no harshness in Jenny’s purpose, the writing, like the Mediterranean she views from the balcony of her honeymoon hotel, moves gently between action, thought, meetings, understanding and misunderstandings, hurt and joy. At times this was not a comfortable read and I looked forward to reading more of the author’s work.

My anticipation was realised, when The Marriage of the Smila-Hoffmans with its new Prologue and Interlude was published. The Prologue is a vignette of Jenny’s parents’ relationship. Johanna meets Henri in his lunch time: both are anxious to meet, they want to see each other. However, the imminence of war and the political environment which infects their relationship hovers around them. While they are together, the political ideas that dominate Henri’s life impact upon Johanna. She is aware of his political intensity, and he looks to the distance as much as he is in her presence. The prologue, with its picture of the love between Jenny’s parents, but the importance of politics to at least her father, illustrates the depth of the feeling within the family that is bound up with Europe.

The Interlude, Tilting Toward The Light: The first months of the marriage between Jonas and Jenny, is a contrast to the marriage of Johanna and Henri. They are bound up in Jenny’s past marriage, and their activities as individuals. However, like her parents’ need to see each other, this is possibly to be a passionate marriage. The epilogue, although not new, can be seen anew after reading the links between the novels made through the new material.

I was pleased to have the new material to provide more insight into the Smila- Hoffman marriage, Jenny and Jonas, and the past. I look forward to Maryann D'Agincourt bringing her unique approach to another set of characters and places.

A riveting read that sweeps you off your feet. Our character has a deep rooted trauma that casts it shadows on everything in her life. Unable to come to terms with it, she suffers hard to accept and to simply be in life. However a certain turn of incidents makes her reflect and come to terms with it.