The End of Manners

April 14, 2008
In Marciano’s brisk third novel (after Rules of the Wild
and Casa Rossa
), an unlikely pair of women are dispatched to war-torn Afghanistan circa 2004 to report a story about young Afghan women attempting suicide rather than entering into arranged marriages. Imo Glass is a flamboyant magazine writer who wants the story no matter what societal taboos she tramples. Maria Galante, an award-winning but emotionally withdrawn photojournalist, has forsaken dangerous assignments to take pictures of fancy food for fancy magazines, until her agent persuades her to take this job. With a fluid mix of gritty irony and palpable fear, Marciano’s evocation of landscape and environment brilliantly captures a devastated Kabul, a messy war and the soulless arms dealers and cold-blooded mercenaries drawn to the fractured nation by the lure of money. Equally intense is her compassionate depiction of a culture where taking photos of women is forbidden and religious doctrine dictates the way of life in “a world of a far greater insanity” than Maria, for one, had envisioned. This work of fiction, rooted in harsh reality, tackles moral complexities with powerful self-assurance.

April 1, 2008
The narrator of Marciano's ("Casa Rossa") contemporary novel is an Italian photojournalist who, having written many stories on such difficult subjects as AIDS in Africa, begins to feel "like a thief, intruding on people's grief, waiting like a vulture for the right second to click the shutter." Maria grows increasingly depressed and withdraws, eventually drifting into food photography. Then, after some time, her agent persuades her to go to Afghanistan with Imo Glass, a flamboyant London-based journalist, to do a story on Afghan women who attempt suicide in order to avoid arranged marriages. Together dealing with the unending problems of language, cultural differences, unreliable transportation, and security issues, Maria and Imo enter into a friendship that heals her in many ways, and Maria leaves Afghanistan with an appreciation for the country, a true sympathy for its citizens, and the realization that this experience has made her grow. Writing with grace and heartfelt emotion, Marciano, both a novelist and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, is a born storyteller. Her engaging work is strongly recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/08.]Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

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