Paris, 7 a.m. by Liza Wieland
Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A wonderfully written life of Elizabeth Bishop lies in wait. I am often enamored of dreamy books; this one is such a delight to encounter. Within the scope of a few days in a part of Bishop’s life about which little is known, a gap in her journals, Wieland imagines a different moment of the poet’s life. An act of resistance against the Nazis. She is lost in words, this Bishop, and her thinking will either please the poet in you or maybe not – I found the writing to be strong, an echo of what one might expect her to be like, maybe at moments pushed a bit, but that was fine, really. One leaves the book with a strong sense of the woman, the poet, the possibility of this strange interlude. Many background figures drawn in a gauzy light, and then those figures connected with the rescue of the child, solid and real and fixed. A beautiful outpouring of words. The ending gave me some hesitation, it seemed to slide away from me forward in time. But it worked. If you are a fan of lovely prose, you will find a home in these pages.