Olivia Burton

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book. *

One thing that seems typical of the immigrant experience is that the next generation idealises the home country, based on the nostalgic memories of their parents. Olivia Burton, daughter of two Algerian immigrants to France is one such person. Her parents were "black-foots": the French colonisers that had to rapidly leave the country as groups like the FLN and the OAS started to turn Algeria into a bloodbath.

Burton burns to see the place that she came from, even though her family used to live in the Aurès, one of the most dangerous parts of the country. She heads to Algiers on her own and, with the help of a few contacts, manages to make it into the Aurès and meet people who knew her family. It's an eye-opening and somewhat romantic story, with rather an ironic twist.

I couldn't help but feel that Burton glosses over a bit in her re-telling and that there is a grittier story here, Still, the account that she gives of connecting with and coming to understand her family's past is quite affecting and, at times, amusing.… (altro)

Towards the end of her journey, Olivia wonders about her grandparents before they left Algeria:

"...The world they'd known since they were children was crumbling all around them, and they couldn't understand why. When you're fifty years old, how do you accept the fact that you've been on the wrong side of history? That your entire life has been built on a deep injustice? And me? What part do I have in that injustice?"

I think I just skimmed the synopsis of this book, and so I was a little surprised at the direction this book took...pleasantly so. As is so aptly stated in the quote above, this was all about discovering a family history that was complicit in "the wrong side of history," but the excitement and soul journey of discovery regardless of that history. Not really a spoiler alert: it's complicated. And the twist at the end knots it all up even further...I've been trying to figure out what I think about it, but in true Lindsay fashion, that fact that I'm thinking so much about it makes me like it. It's something I've been mulling over a lot lately--how much emotion and meaning we attach to symbolic representations of the things we find important to us...people, places, things. Does it matter in the end? Do the means outweigh the ends? What happens when our ideals are shattered? Does that really have to cheapen the experience? It was comforting and human to go with Olivia on her journey.

I'm bumping this up to 4 stars for the overall message that has been dogging me today. I must say I felt a little bored, or maybe rather disconnected, because I didn't know that many details about Algeria's struggle for independence. It's not all lost since Burton does include several helpful footnotes and conversations to fill in some of the holes, but I may have gotten more out of it had either the text included more of a discussion on Algerian history or if I came to this with a sounder knowledge base. Clocking in at 176 pages, I would have been able to stand a little more depth. Thankfully, again, the overall message did come through in the end, leaving me with plenty of food for thought.

Many thanks to Lion Forge and NetGalley for the advanced copy.… (altro)