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A review by smalltownbookmom
The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik
5.0
Another great historical fiction that is so transporting and well-written and taught me a lot about a period and a person I wasn't very familiar with at all. This was AMAZING on audio, Dylan Moore as narrator was excellent! I loved learning about the early life of Dorothea Lange, before she became a famous documentary photographer of the Dust Bowl and migrant crisis of the 1930s and 40s. This story mainly takes place in 1918 San Francisco, right as the height of the Spanish Flu and anti-Asian sentiments were strongest (it's really sad how little has changed from over a hundred years ago!). A great story of friendship and the challenges of being an independent woman at this time (particularly one with a physical disability, or of Asian heritage like her friend Caroline). Dorothea established her own Photography studio and balanced her work with marriage and motherhood. Definitely recommend this for anyone that enjoys great historical fiction or is looking for something to read after finishing Kristin Hannah's The four winds.
CW: rape and anti-Asian racism
Favorite quotes:
"Despite all the hiding they did, people wanted to be known, to be understood. Even more than a desire to be admired, what they wanted and so seldom got, was to be seen."
"Three weeks after the announcement that the Spanish lady was gone for good, thousands more fell sick. Half the time you couldn't bring yourself to think what it meant, and the other half you couldn't think of anything else. That the masks were useless, that the vaccines were impotent, that so many more would die."
"Lodged deep in me, deep as muscle, bone and blood, was my idea of myself as a cripple. I couldn't say the word aloud but it was at the center of everything. Polio had plucked me out of an ordinary life, which gave me a sort of freedom. If I hadn't have gotten sick I might never have become a person that was happiest in a dark room. And yet shame was in my drop foot. Loneliness was there, the constant fear of exposure and the burden of concealment, it was all there in the drag of my leg."
"Those who'd never liked the Chinese, who believed that they were a backward race, a menace to our public health, as well as to our racial purity, were increasingly vocal."
"A photograph is only a piece of paper with a silver image burned onto it but there is something about some of them, the rare few, that you can't call anything but an act of love, and you give it not to only one person but you give it to the world."
"There'd never be a more magnificent time than those early years in San Francisco. I'd landed there by chance, alone and lost but in the end there was no place I'd ever love as much or miss more."
CW: rape and anti-Asian racism
Favorite quotes:
"Despite all the hiding they did, people wanted to be known, to be understood. Even more than a desire to be admired, what they wanted and so seldom got, was to be seen."
"Three weeks after the announcement that the Spanish lady was gone for good, thousands more fell sick. Half the time you couldn't bring yourself to think what it meant, and the other half you couldn't think of anything else. That the masks were useless, that the vaccines were impotent, that so many more would die."
"Lodged deep in me, deep as muscle, bone and blood, was my idea of myself as a cripple. I couldn't say the word aloud but it was at the center of everything. Polio had plucked me out of an ordinary life, which gave me a sort of freedom. If I hadn't have gotten sick I might never have become a person that was happiest in a dark room. And yet shame was in my drop foot. Loneliness was there, the constant fear of exposure and the burden of concealment, it was all there in the drag of my leg."
"Those who'd never liked the Chinese, who believed that they were a backward race, a menace to our public health, as well as to our racial purity, were increasingly vocal."
"A photograph is only a piece of paper with a silver image burned onto it but there is something about some of them, the rare few, that you can't call anything but an act of love, and you give it not to only one person but you give it to the world."
"There'd never be a more magnificent time than those early years in San Francisco. I'd landed there by chance, alone and lost but in the end there was no place I'd ever love as much or miss more."