Dana Spiotta

Meadow Mori was always fascinated by film. First watching it and after a 9-month affair with one of the greatest director and actor of all times, she becomes a film maker herself. Learning by doing is her way of studying film. Watching over and over again the old classics and copying their ways of shooting she develops not only a style of her own but also an obsession with her films. When she records Jelly aka Nicole about her love life, she oversteps a thin line and comes very close.

It takes some time until the different parts of the novel melt into one story. They seems to be completely without any connection, even the ones about Meadow since they are not told in chronological order and rather fragmented, made it difficult for me to focus on the story. What I liked best was the love story of Jelly and Jack, both of them visually impaired, they have to rely on their voices and what they hear in it.

The construction of the novel is quite interesting, the way the single parts are presented and how, in the end, the join to create a complete story. Also the development of some of the characters was attention-grabbing. Yet, I missed a red thread and therefore the whole of it could not convince me completely.