Through Her Opera Glasses - Butler, Pat

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Résumé :
It's August 1930 and storm clouds are brewing across Europe, heralding the rise of fascism and the upheavals of the Great Depression. Even so, these frightening realities can't stop twenty-four-year-old Betty Harbert from making the most of her tour of the continent. Sailing from Montreal with her wealthy Aunt Barbie and cousin Win, Betty attends a Parisian finishing school, tours Europe twice, and spreads joie-de-vivre wherever she goes. Based on a stack of letters written by the author's mother during her year abroad, this novel offers an exciting glimpse of inter-war life in some of Europe's great cities, through the eyes of a vibrant young woman who never failed to appreciate the magnificent world around her. Whether she's riding around the English countryside in her date's Morris Cowley sports car, at the salon getting a Marcel wave, or touring the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden, Betty's great wit and warmth come through in every line of this account of her adventure abroad.

Biographie:
Pat Butler, a native New Yorker, has transplanted to New England, France, and the South, and currently resides in Florida. Transition, transience and relocation are therefore a way of life, and the major theme of this chapbook. Two previous chapbooks, Poems from the Boatyard and The Boatman's Daughter, explored themes of place, identity and home. Transplants probes the dislocation, disorientation, and emotional dynamics of transition. The Boatman's Daughter finds herself on a new shore, returning to America after 12 years overseas. America has changed, as has she: a frenetic urban pace slows to small town rhythms; the hustle of the city relaxes into contemplations on the couch. Northern directness, mellowed by French finesse, now yields to Southern charm. The poems, written mostly in Georgia, observe its culture, wildlife and rhythms, through the lens of re-entry shock. Transition is eased by the gifts of magnolias, hummingbirds, and soft temperatures. Transplants opens with a poem that evokes the emotional roller coaster of transition, and closes with one that resolves its tensions. Both poems are set, appropriately, in Autumn, the season that marked the anniversary of Pat's arrival in and, eight years later, departure from Georgia. The season appears as one of the chapbook's main characters, with its distinctive rhythms of death and release, gathering and harvest. It provides an apt metaphor for transition, and ultimately reveals where hope can be found. This is Pat's third chapbook with Finishing Line Press. She has also been published in a number of literary and online journals, including Cardinal Flower, Aurorean, and Ruminate. Pat is part of the Peachtree Poets' scene, including its annual poetry competition, where she has won numerous awards, mentions, and publication in their chapbooks; four entries appear in Transplants. Follow Pat on social media and the following sites: Website: www.theliteraryboatyard.wordpress.com Blog: http://poemsfromtheboatyard.blogspot.com/ Facebook: Poems from the Boatyard Instagram: boatyardpat