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THE TEAHOUSE FIRE: reviews
Lylah Alphonse, The Boston Globe-- Avery's writing is saturated with color and detail... in this deeply engrossing, multifaceted work. (February 8, 2007. Click here to read the full review) New York Press, Best of Manhattan, 2007-- BEST WRITER YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF BUT SHOULD GO READ RIGHT NOW Ellis Avery We can't shut up about Ellis Avery's THE TEAHOUSE FIRE. The novel makes the story of 19th-century Kyoto as it is opening to the West-- told via the perspective of an American orphan, Aurelia, adopted by a Japanese family of tea masters-- seem like it's playing on IMAX. Aurelia inhabits a hyper-cinematic world of lacquered palanquins, shoji-screened teahouses and Geishas wearing layers of kimonos as the "butter-smelly barbarians" (that would be Americans) are on their way. Just go read it already. Go! Why are you still reading this? (October 24-30, 2007) A starred review from Publishers Weekly-- Avery, making her debut, has crafted a magisterial novel that is equal parts love story, imaginative history and bildungsroman, a story as alluring as it is powerful. (October 30, 2006. Click here to read Craig Morgan Teicher's Q&A with me in the same issue.) Lucy Daniel, Financial Times-- The tea ceremony becomes a tiny stage on which grand passions are enacted... Avery captures all this with the emotional poise befitting her characters, and great sensual pleasure. Her novel is a rather beautiful thing: all the more so for emulating the values of another world. Marie Claire-- On every page there's a gorgeous image to savour... hypnotically beautiful. (December 4, 2007) Karen Schechner, January Magazine-- Artful... an intricately imagined world... Part of the enjoyment of Avery's expansive novel is that as Urako finds her place in Japan, and in The Way of Tea, she sweeps the reader along with her in almost visceral experience of late-1800s Kyoto. (May, 2007) Allison Block, Booklist-- Top 10 First Novels on Audio: 2008 Caruso seamlessly renders French, American, and Japanese accents in this historical fiction set in nineteenth-century Japan and focusing on a French orphan and her adoptive family of prominent tea masters. (November 15, 2008) Francesca Segal, The Guardian/The Observer-- A rich story, to be savoured for its detail. (January 6, 2008) Laura Brown, Tonight South Africa-- A good historical overview of Japan's transforming society shortly before the arrival of the Americans, while at the same time a seductive and gripping tale of love and war. (January 17, 2008) Michael Janairo, Albany Times-Union-- A well-researched and intimate cross-cultural journey...Aurelia is always at the center of this generous, engaging and rewarding story. (June 11, 2007) Paul Kim, Audrey: The Asian American Women's Lifestyle Magazine-- A strong story of friendship that avoids Orientalist tendencies...a breathtaking portrait of two women...Avery fuses history, romance and cultural observation into a novel of impressive scope and stylistic execution. Fascinating in its portrayal of friendship during a time of great cultural transition, The Teahouse Fire is a story that will please readers and history buffs alike. (June, 2007) Terri Paul, Ohioana Quarterly-- [Avery] seduces us with the breadth and depth of her knowledge, the endlessly fascinating and relevant experience of her immigrant narrator, and the graceful way she brings this alien, long-ago world to life. (Spring, 2007) Susan Pavloska, Kyoto Journal-- "A fascinating...account of daily life in Kyoto during the crucial years of Japan's struggle to come to terms with the end of its centuries-long cultural and political isolation." (Spring, 2007) Tim Bryant, Buffalo Artvoice-- Beneath the beautiful surface of Avery's artfully controlled prose...the novel's essential question is that of desire: By what ceremonies, through what pains and past what obstacles must we endure in order to have not just any life but the one we most want to claim as our own? (February 8, 2007. Click here to read the full review) Kate Lavin, The Contra Costa Times-- By turns beautifully minimalist and rich in detail... (February 4, 2007. Click here to read this interview in its entirety.) Cassandra Neyenesch, The Brooklyn Rail-- Ultimately the story of The Teahouse Fire is beauty, in all its allurements and sacrifices. (February, 2007. Click here to read this interview in its entirety.)
Deidre Donahue, USA Today-- Fans of historical fiction, as well as those with an appetite for all things Japanese, should consider Ellis Avery's THE TEAHOUSE FIRE. (December 27, 2006. Click here to read the full review)
Bookdwarf--
Suzanne Kamata, Japan Visitor--
Two reports on THE TEAHOUSE FIRE reading by Ellis Avery and tea ceremony demonstration by Norico Sakagami of Cha An at New York's Asia Society on March 3, 2008: one by Lee Kottner, who attended the event, and one by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, who hosted it. Sarah Laurence, Sarah Laurence Blog-- THE TEAHOUSE FIRE is as beautifully choreographed and unrushed as a tea ceremony...What is striking about Avery's story is that it reads like a Japanese novel. (April 2008) GA. A. Banks-Martin, Her Circle Ezine-- From the beginning, [THE TEAHOUSE FIRE] is about changing and recreating self. (March 2008) Robert Belton, Shiawase-- This is a very interesting debut novel by Ellis Avery. What struck me most about it is the author had obviously learnt Japanese and learnt it in some depth... (March 2008)
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