Our current selection for
Cook the Books Club is, of course,
Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots, by Jessica Soffer. Plenty of angst here. Daughter, Lorca, longing for the love and affection of her cold mother (so remote we never even know her name) for her father, left behind, and not caring enough to fight for his daughter. Lorca mutilates herself to escape the pain? I guess immediate pain knocks out the more existential sort. Temporarily at least. She longs to make her mother happy, and thinks preparing food for her, maybe finding the perfect dish will save her from boarding school. Then we have a grandmother who mourns her husband, gave her child away and now regrets it, a lifetime later. The grandfather who mourns the loss of his child all those years ago. The former mistress, Dottie, who mourns him as well. The only character I really liked or identified with was Lorca's sweet boyfriend, Blot. Yes, Blot.
I was dissatisfied with the end, as it didn't seem consistent with earlier sections. If Joseph really believed that their child had been still-born, that certainly didn't come through in his POV sections. If he told Dottie that later, it was most likely to protect his wife (and himself) from the shame of giving their child away. That should have been revealed. Also, at one point (P. 21) Lorca's mother tells her sister that she had not tried to find her biological parents. She hadn't wanted to. Almost at the end, she tells her ex, and Lorca, "I found my parents... In the obituaries." Doesn't really hold up, and seems more in tune with her character that she is lying. Finally, Lorca is headed off to boarding school at the end, after nearly dying from her latest slashing episode. Do we believe that the thought of her boyfriend and maybe father and grandmother visiting occasionally will stop more of this self-mutilation business? Not really, but we can hope. Bukra fil mish mish, the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.
