In this historical novel, Liza Wieland distills Bishop’s formative years into an artful blend of biography and imagination. Her challenge is to echo Bishop’s poetic voice without losing her own, and she manages beautifully. She delivers an impressionistic novel, with individual scenes coalescing to form a luscious whole ... Readers unfamiliar with Bishop’s poetry will not get a tutorial here. But there are many glimpses—'Paris, 7 a.m.' is the title of a poem. These, in addition to the adventures Wieland creates for Bishop, give readers an appreciation for the woman who set a new direction in American poetry.
With this exquisite novel, Wieland...offers a beautifully realized tribute to distinguished American poet Elizabeth Bishop ... As with Bishop's own work, the novel is quiet, observational, and reflective, exhibiting its own kind of poetry as it brings its subject's deeply humane, inquisitive, and intelligent sensibility compellingly to life ... A triumph; recommended for fans of poetry, women's studies, and contemporary literary fiction
This creative retelling of Bishop’s life provides an intriguing look at a complicated woman and writer. Moreover, Wieland’s choice to write in the eternal present with a limited third-person point of view to reveal Bishop’s thoughts and keen perceptions of those around her lends a particular freshness to the novel ... Although those already familiar with Elizabeth Bishop may appreciate seeing this famous American writer in her youth through Wieland’s eyes, enjoyment of this novel does not require prior knowledge of Bishop. However, readers should not be surprised if, on finishing Paris, 7 A.M., they discover a new curiosity to learn even more about Bishop’s compelling life and work.
...magnificent ... The author does a great job of inhabiting Elizabeth through a narrative voice that borders on — but does not efface — the main character’s voice. Wieland employs a present-tense narration that keeps readers close to the action, both exterior and interior. In dialogue, private utterances, and thoughts, she avoids quotation marks, softening the border between narrator and characters. A quality of understatement generates unusual energy ... what [Wieland] has done here — in scope, craft, and sensitivity — is superb.
Lisa Wieland begins her novelistic account of the life of lesbian poet Elizabeth Bishop with a dream. This literary strategy introduces readers from the outset to the trance-like world of the novel in which reverie, memory, and fantasy mingle freely. Stylistically, Wieland elects to omit quotation marks, and her liberal use of interior monologue as well as the decision to blend biographical incidents with fictional accounts seem designed to produce a phantasmagoric effect ... a high-wire propulsive fictional account ... some readers may be put off by Wieland’s fictional liberties or by the appropriation of parts of the poet’s work ... Still one must commend the originality and ambitiousness of Paris, 7. A.M; Wieland’s fascinating effort does provide an interesting new take on a beloved cultural figure.
...about two-thirds of the way through the book, author Liza Wieland whips out an imagined subplot that was her chief inspiration yet that seems awkwardly pasted onto this exploration of moods: A friend asks Elizabeth to help rescue some Jewish babies from Belgium ... The [book] is an odd hybrid that almost works. The subplot adds new dimensions to the very private Bishop, whose poems are precise and vivid but not personal ... The problem is that Wieland’s inventions are significantly contrary to the character of the real Bishop, who was not known for any interest in either children or political activism. So the novel will not actually give readers any insight into the poet ... Happily, the language of Paris, 7 A.M. is better than the narrative. It is sharp, evocative, and true to Bishop’s style of picking out details of the physical world ... this novel perceptively explores Bishop’s inner turmoil as she increasingly views the world around her with a poet’s eye even while despairing that she will ever be a poet.
Wieland’s prose is simultaneously poetic and sparse, much like Bishop’s poems. The chapters are short and often skip through time like a stone across water ... Bishop contemplated what it meant to keep her 'eyes open' and attain a deeper vision that could reorder pieces of the past and present into coherence ... Wieland’s rendition of Bishop’s life aptly and beautifully mirrors that process.
...a finely written but frustrating narrative. Wieland creates an unsettled, dread-soaked atmosphere appropriate to the period, with ugly scenes of Jew baiting and inexplicable German rage, but it’s no substitute for character development. The facts that Elizabeth yearns for her lost mother and that Marianne Moore has urged her to engage with the world don’t seem adequate to explain why the poet agrees to help French aristocrat Clara smuggle two Jewish infants to safety in a Paris convent. A hasty wrap-up that whisks from 1938 to 1979 in 25 fragmentary pages reinforces the impression of an author not quite sure what she intends. An intriguing but imperfect attempt to translate the subtlety and poise of Bishop’s poetry into prose.
Striking imagery and sharp, distinctive language shimmer in Wieland’s haunting fifth novel ... Wieland makes scrupulous use of known fact in crafting her fictional narrative, but neither rehashes familiar biography nor attempts literal interpretations of Bishop’s poems or life. Instead, her dreamlike juxtapositions of the searing and the sensual probe the artistic process, the power of the mother-daughter bond, and the creative coming-of-age of one of America’s greatest poets.
