Isola

 

Isola by Allegra Goodman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! It starts out slow, but I feel like it needed to to gain context of her life and the times. Her journey on the island was devastatingly beautiful and I thought it was a beautiful allegory. I was shocked to realize it was based on a real person. Goodman has transcended historical fiction with this one.

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I protested, "You never take my side." "I am always at your side," she said.  "That's different."

We were prisoners of love--but not as poets would describe it.  We had lost hope and equanimity, but not for any passion of our own. 

Even in the dark, my nurse found signs of grace

and I must hurt while was living.

They will say, You are not she.  You are not the Marguerite who lived here once.  And that was true.