Changes

|title=Divisadero

|author=Michael Ondaatje

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=304

|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

|date=August 2008

|isbn=978-0747592686

}}

In northern California a man's wife died giving birth to his daughter. In the same hospital, in the same week another mother died giving birth and the man brought to his home both Anna, his daughter and Claire the daughter of the other woman who had died. Well, they owed him for the death of his wife, didn't they? Both girls were brought up, if rather distantly, by the man but their emotional support came from Coop. He too was an orphan taken in by the farmer. When he was four, the rest of his family had been murdered on the next-door farm. The child hid in the crawl space under the house and emerged to tell the tale a few days later. And so the four lived and worked and loved and it might have continued had it not been for what happened in a few dreadful minutes. Here's how Anna describes it:

Reviewing a bad book is easy. Reviewing a good book is a pleasure but the hardest book is the one that you find exceptional. Whatever you write will never quite do the book justice and there is always a sense of having failed despite having done your best. All I can really say about this book is that if you read just one book this year then this should be the one.

If this book appeals then we think that you might also enjoy [[Notes From An Exhibition]] by Patrick Gale.

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