The Scenic Route

First of all I would read any book where the main characters were Sylvia and Henry mainly because I had an aunt and uncle with those names and they bickered constantly, mostly in public, and were always a source of entertainment for me. Kirshenbaum's Sylvia and Henry (Henri)are nothing like my aunt and uncle and that's a good thing because I already knew their story. Binnie Kirshenbaum's "take no prisoners" style of writing gets the reader hooked right from the beginning and doesn't let go even at the end. It lingers on. Her humor is frequent and rapid-fire, situational and never contrived and so obviously spot-on that while often unexpected it constantly fits in and as a reader one knows that nothing else in it's place could be better worded or funnier. Kirshenbaum knows how to place a word, turn a phrase and write a story so different from the "run of the mill" novel that, I, as a reader felt the intimacy as if we were strangers in a strange place and she was telling me a story over cocktails and I never felt the need to interrupt and ask her to explain anything she was saying. While her humor is killer-her understanding of the human psyche and her ability to convey the loneliness, hurt and pain is also a finely honed skill. Whether Kirshenbaum is writing about family, sex or friendship she is fearless and that is a rare commodity in a writter and even a rarer treat for a reader.

Binnie Kirshenbaum creates small masterpieces which invigorate her readers to read and re-read each novel. In this one she has outdone herself-the charcters are memorable and sympathetic, the setting is, as it should be, a character in the novel, the conflict is specific to this story and, at the same time, universal and, as always with this writer, the wit and the insight and the irony are all present and very much accounted for. I have loved all her work, especially HESTER AMONG THE RUINS , but I consider this to be her best yet. If you are a reader who loves really fine, intelligent and perceptive writing, don't miss this one.

Don't read this book if you don't like brilliant fiction, hit the nail on the head dialogue, character portrayals so right-on you think Binnie Kirshenbaum has been in your living room, head, heart, and bedroom and those of your entire family. Read 'The Scenic Route' if you do want what everyone who loves a good read wants: to be transported into the lives of people so instantly rich and full that you know them right away, in fact, they may be you. Binnie Kirshenbaum triumphs in her writing and in her ability to see what is true and real and honest in human nature and shares that with her readers in this darkly comic and profoundly moving novel. This book, this beautiful book, is so smart, so real in its truth, that it can both break your heart and make you smile for days. Buy it, read it, love it!!!

On one level this is a book about a bittersweet mid-life love affair, conducted over the course of a meandering summer road trip through some of the loveliest parts of Eastern and Western Europe, from Florence to Krakow to Prague to Vienna to Ljubljana to Venice, over the Alps and down into France. The cities and the countryside and the romantic hotels are beautifully rendered, and the protagonist/narrator, Sylvia Landsman, is an unforgettable character. Her take-no-prisoners wit and her mordant insights into the deepest strengths and failings of the heart are irresistible, as she recounts to her lover Henry the experiences and anecdotes of a lifetime (and of the many different lives a lifetime contains) to pass their time on the road -- while what clearly is "the time of their lives" passes. But memorable as the story of Sylvia and Henry is, it represents only the surface level of this astonishing novel. The real wonders of this book are to be found in the stories themselves and the way they're told -- a tour-de-force narrative in which the many recurrent threads of memory, personal and historical, weave themselves into an ever-enlarging tapestry that embodies, not just the way memory moves, but the way the heart and mind move in the act of remembering. It's as if what starts as a simple love song -- the plot device of the affair and road trip -- culminates in a symphony, in which the themes of love and death, of time and loss, and all the tributaries of our individual and collective experiences over the course of generations, come together as a profound, and profoundly heartbreaking, meditation on history and what it means to be human. To begin with there's just Sylvia and Henry, sole residents of their own summer Eden; by the end, the circle of their tragic affair has widened to include an extraordinary cast of characters, fictional and historical, all creatures of memory, all inhabitants of a fallen world. One of Kirshenbaum's earlier books was entitled History on a Personal Note: never has that title been more brilliantly realized than in this newly-minted contemporary masterpiece.

The doomed love affair and the road trip are beautifully done, but this novel cuts far deeper than the surface of plot and device. It is often hilariously funny. Brilliant and biting, the comedy is dark. Kirshenbaum's characters are the imperfect beings of great literature. This is an honest articulation of the particular fears of the middle-aged. It's a mediation on memory, and how all too easily we can forget who matters and what needs to be remembered. It's about sorrow and death and the tragedy of timidity. The way it is told is ingenious. The scenic route is the narrative. It digresses, detours and turns back on itself as if by magic. Characters seem to get dropped only to reappear at that exact moment when you are ready for them to return. Snippets of memory pop in and vanish. This is a novel that needs to be read more than once or twice. I'm a big fan of Kirshenbaum's writing. This is her most ambitious book to date. It succeeds richly on every level.