The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes

A very satisfying read! Holthe gets inside the heads of her very varied subjects in a way that makes them real. Her descriptions are so vivid I felt that I was actually on the train, in the cafes, in the towns. This was a series of short stories that were all interconnected - an intriguing approach. Holthe is a very skilled and imaginative writer. I can't wait for her next work.

No point beating about the bush. Might as well get the finale over with right now at the top, instead of coyly building to it with flourishes of logic and neat exempla. Here goes. This is one terrific book Tess Uriza Holthe has written. It's tough, slapstick, delicate, witty, bawdy, rueful and superbly crafted. One minute she throws her head back in laughter; the next she whips out a blade and knifes you in the ribs. Can't trust her at all, meaning she's the best sort of writer. There are lots of good characters, too, women and men: a Scots enforcer, three widows all once married to the same man, a band of gypsy pickpockets, a hard ex-con who finds happiness with a street urchin and vice versa, a Jewish mother and son, a master lace maker, a snoopy wife who suffers migraines, a young French woman who marries a rich good-hearted American only to discover that he's mentally ill and drug-addicted. These characters are unusual and engrossing, including the not-so-likable ones. In fact, now I think of it, most of the good ones aren't so good all the way around, and the bad ones aren't so bad all the way around - which is to say that they have dimension and are recognizably human. However hard the surfaces are sometimes, and they do get hard, there are knots of love in these stories. But this ain't chick lit. No way. Rakish heroes and heaving bosoms do not abound in Holthe's worlds. She's too Annie Oakley smart. Miss Sure Shot, you know. Can throw a dozen glass balls in the air and get 'em all before they hit the ground. That good. A champ. And the dust jacket design is very nice, too, by the bye, and useful to see the locations, which are mostly the Italian and French Rivieras, the Côte d'Azur. So, to put the conclusion before the facts: I highly suggest you pedal your Schwinn to an independent bookstore and buy this collection of interrelated short fictions by Holthe. Read it. Savor it. Dig it. You'll be glad you plunked down your bucks. You'll be advising your friends to do the same. So now that's clear, time for some convincing details. How about this fine, calm image of the exterior of a wealthy château in Cannes that the protagonist, Claudette, comes back to after a few years' absence in the U.S.: The château is heartbreakingly beautiful in the soft twilight. Mauve and rose light upon the clay-colored exterior and black wrought-iron railing...Blue cornflowers and red poppies rustling in the warm breeze. Cypress and plane trees leaning in to shade the house. Ivy climbing alongside magenta bougainvillea. Two small red birds flutter and hop on the faded red-tiled roof, craning necks down, small jerks of their heads as they listen to her fumble for the copper skeleton key... And those two birds! Or how about this, a nice contrast, in which Clara thinks Alberto, the man she has just intentionally knocked into the bushes, is a thief, and confronts him. He will become her husband, of course. [S]ince she was certain Alberto was a thief, albeit a g

Tess Uriza's Holthe's novel, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, weaves together a number of stories centering around the city of Cannes and the French Riviera. In the opening chapter, Chazz Jorgenson is traveling to Cannes on a whim, fleeing his wife and all the complications of his life. He has his medications, and when he is taken up by two brothers who are set upon relieving him of as much of his money and valuables as possible, he is both suspicious and too delusional to shake them off. As he exits the five-forty-five train in Cannes he sets out at a run, fleeing them, compelled by his fear and drug-fueled anxiety. He runs into traffic and is killed by a passing taxi, We pick up the story with another character who has witnessed the event. The gypsy brothers are indeed criminals--pickpockets of long standing, with a third brother who is trying to shake off their life and start new. They thread their way through all of the chapters of this book--whether Holthe is writing of three lace-making widows, the sorrowing mother of a son who has deserted her for a woman she doesn't like, the released criminal who is trying to make a new life without the complications of relationships, or the young boy who is abandoned in a doorway and picks out a new grandfather. This much complication and interweaving of stories takes a great deal of skill. This collection never quite achieves the satisfying level of integration that the premise should offer to a reader. Some of the characters are fascinating portraits of a time, a place, a culture--like the three widows of Alberto Moretti. Others are a little too much like a Hollywood movie of the poor little waitress who marries money and love. Still, the setting and the glimpses of everyday life of people who are not in Cannes for the film festival is charming and attractive. Armchair Interviews says: If you're looking for an engaging read with plenty of action and lots of scenery, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes is for you.