’TIS THE SEASON!
Lorna Landvik
Ballantine Books
Fiction
ISBN: 9780345499752
Let it be known that I am a sucker for Christmas. I put up the tree, the nativity scene and all the decorations --- including exterior lights --- right after Thanksgiving and start buying eggnog by the quart as soon as it shows up in the grocery stores (and then spend the entire month of January trying to work it off). I especially love Christmas carols and all the holiday songs, and I enjoy each and every one of those seasonal TV specials --- from the Rankin-Bass “Rudolph” classics to Lifetime Network’s holiday-themed romance movies. So when I was asked to review a holiday novel, I knew it was a task right up my alley (or right down my chimney, so to speak!). And just like a gift from an early Santa, Lorna Landvik’s ’TIS THE SEASON! arrived at my door.
The novel hits directly on the timely topic of celebrity and our culture’s obsession with it. The main character is Caroline “Caro” Dixon, a wealthy heiress whose hard-partying, alcohol-fueled lifestyle is food for the entertainment media’s biggest bottom-feeder tabloids. After a particularly wild bender, she finds herself ostracized by her entire circle and decides to finally dry out and get some help. She begins tentatively reaching out to some people from her past with whom she had genuine relationships --- Astrid Brevald, her Norwegian nanny from her teenage years, and Cyril Dale, a cowboy and owner of an Arizona dude ranch where Caro spent some time during an especially rough patch in her childhood. Through these reconnections, the story of these characters begins to unfold, and ’TIS THE SEASON! explores what it means to forgive and be forgiven.
Landvik undoubtedly has an ear for the circus our celebrity-obsessed tabloid culture has turned into, and in these days of Paris Hilton and Brangelina, the book couldn’t be timelier. Although I didn’t feel that the author’s use of the epistolary novel form for this particular undertaking was strong --- the entire story is written as a series of emails, articles, letters, notes and recordings, which at best was distracting and at times downright confusing --- her attention to her characters is unfaltering, and she has a perfect ear when it comes to mimicking the tone of the entertainment shows and tabloids.
I found myself rooting for Caro to succeed in turning herself around, which surprised me, given how little sympathy I felt towards her in the beginning. This, I believe, is Landvik’s great strength. As with her earlier novel, THE VIEW FROM MOUNT JOY, she has a rare ability to connect readers with those very real human flaws in her characters.
Ultimately, like the very best of Christmas stories, ’TIS THE SEASON! is all about forgiveness, hope and charity; what it means to be human and what it means to be very rich. This is the perfect book to curl up with (eggnog optional) and an engaging (and very seasonal) reminder to count our blessings.
--- Reviewed by Lourdes Orive
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