Tourmaline: A Novel [Paperback]

Joanna Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2003

A vividly imagined new novel from award-winning Scott. In the mid-1950s, an American family travels to an island off the coast of Italy to make a fortune in gemstones.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Napoleonic history, geology and a father's folly are woven together in this captivating novel by Scott (The Manikin; Make Believe). In 1956, extravagant, debt-ridden Murray Murdoch takes his wife and four young sons on a vacation to Elba, where he becomes convinced that he can profit from the island's abundant deposits of semiprecious gems. When the summer comes to an end and Murray still hasn't found the valuable tourmaline that he's looking for, the Murdochs decide to postpone their departure indefinitely. Their idyllic existence is shattered when a mysterious local girl goes missing and the community begins to suspect that the "investor from the United States" is somehow involved. The story is told by Ollie, the youngest of the four boys, who was five when the family arrived on the island and is 50 now. His memories are shaded by both a child's imagination and an adult's nostalgia, which allows Scott to explore some of the less straightforward aspects of the story. Entranced by the island's beauty, the boys communicate without speaking, and their mother, Claire, becomes uncharacteristically dreamy and distant. Murray's hunt for treasure grows increasingly desperate and futile, and finally, in an attempt to escape his responsibilities, he disappears on a three-day drinking binge. A few of Scott's departures from traditional narrative are tiresome, especially the pages devoted to the inner thoughts of an elderly British historian as he dies, but details of Elba's rich history, and particularly of Napoleon's exile there, are artfully woven into the narrative. This is an absorbing picture of a family rediscovering themselves in a foreign land.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Poetic prose enriches this evocative, carefully observed but slight story of Americans abroad. The tiny, remote, once mineral-rich Italian island of Elba, Napoleon's penultimate exile and infamous for the daddy of all palindromes, is nowhere tourists ventured in the mid-1950s. But for unemployed Murray Murdoch, husband to Claire and father of their four energetic boys, it's where the whole family can live cheaply while he undertakes grandiose fortune-making schemes. Setting his sights on finding the rare Elban tourmaline, borrowing to buy worthless land at triple its value, he comes afoul of and elderly and eccentric Englishman named Francis Cape, a failed Napoleon biographer nursing unrequited love for young Adriana Nardi, daughter of a prominent family. Cape imagines a rival in Murdoch, which leads to bizarre and fatal consequences. The sometimes Gothic tale is told in various voices, primarily those of Claire and son Ollie, who returns seeking answers to what happened when he was a child. Scott (Make-Believe) has won Guggenheim and MacArthur grants and teaches creative writing at the University of Rochester. Recommended for all libraries. Jo Manning, Barry Univ., Miami Shores, FL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (September 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316608483
• ISBN-13: 978-0316608480
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,261,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Gem of a Book, October 29, 2002

By 

FictionAddiction.NET - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tourmaline: A Novel (Hardcover)

In the 1950's, Murray Murdoch decides to take his family to the island of Elba for a vacation financed by his relatives. The family - Murray, Claire, their four sons and a cat - spend the next fifteen months on the island searching for gems, but finding suspicion and death instead.

The author uses an unusual device in Tourmaline. The story is told from the point of view of several major characters, including the father, Francis Cape, and the boys themselves. The most unique is the voice of the mother critiquing the words written by Oliver, the person trying to capture this story. She is the only such voice we have and it lends a feeling of authenticity to the book.

Unfortunately, since all the voices are filtered through the main narrator, the characters all tend to sound alike. This is a minor issue, and does not distract from the story or from the reader wanting to find out the truth about what happened on Elba.

Even without the essential questions resolved, the reader is left with a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the novel. We have as much of the truth as Oliver uncovered, both fact and imagination, and that is what makes the novel work.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good, May 6, 2003

By 

"madcarrot" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tourmaline: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is pretty good. I know that sounds wishy washy, but that sums it up well. I found, as another reviewer said, the foreign languages that weren't translated to be annoying. Sorry, we don't ALL speak Italian. This strikes me as a good summer read. I don't know that I'd recommend this book to anyone, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it either. I am sitting on the fence! (I'd have given it 2.5 stars out of 5, but that's not an option...)

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious and overwritten, April 13, 2003

By 

Madtea (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tourmaline: A Novel (Hardcover)

The kind of book that frequently uses Italian or French phrases and never translates them for you. Also, the author apparently assumes you have an intimate knowledge of the geography of Elba before reading the book.