Review from Reader Views

Pieces of Someday

Jan Vallone

Gemelli Press (2010)

ISBN 9780982102350

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (12/10)

Jan Vallone’s “Pieces of Someday” is an extraordinary book. Memoirs of my contemporaries rarely impress me, unless those people have done something absolutely outstanding, and I would seldom choose to read such memoirs. “Pieces of Someday” was a true exception. Even if I would not have cared for the story – but I did! – I would have read this for the sheer beauty of Ms. Vallone’s writing. Consider this passage: “In those days, I often had a dream, sometimes still do. I’m in a house, climbing stairs, walking hallways. Rarely, it’s modern, picture-windowed; more often Tudor, dark beamed with leaded panes. Its halls are lined with doors knobbed in iron, pewter, glass. I choose a brass knob like a flower, enter a chamber with deep violet walls. Window light filters through an oak tree casting shifting shadows upon another door. I open to a second room, rose red, then another, another, another – green, saffron, flax blue – a Russian Babushka doll of rooms, my heart, a hummingbird.” I was left speechless after so many passages like the aforementioned one, overcame by the sheer beauty and power of them. “… doors knobbed in iron, pewter, glass…”, what a beautiful departure from the “different knobs on the doors”…

Set in New York, Seattle and Italy, this memoir explores a quest for happiness, balance and truth as one woman saw it. While her story is utterly believable and relatable, it is also astonishingly unique and unquestionably delightful. The writing style alone would make me think extremely favorably about “Pieces of Someday,” but then Jan Vallone did something even more extraordinary. She made me care about her life, her struggles and her search for who she was/is and who she truly wanted to be. Few stones were left unturned in her keen explorations of who, what, where, when and why. Her candid musings on the true essence of beauty, the price of career and the search for balance, the importance and meaning of religion, the proper ways to teach and on the many kinds of love were awe-inspiring and oftentimes poignant. Her eye for detail, her ability to bring all the senses to life in a very vivid way, her sharp dialogue and even the truly surprising epilogue made me wish Ms. Vallone’s “Pieces of Someday” would never end. But end it did, leaving me amazed and joyful, as true beauty always will. This is a book that everybody could relate to, and I would recommend it highly to anybody who takes pleasure in the beauty of a well written sentence – or many of them.