false 9903 20 24 TESS URIZA HOLTHE is the author of the critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling When the Elephants Dance. She grew up on a Filipino-American family in San Francisco. When the Elephants Dance is inspired, in part, by the experiences of her father, who was a young boy in the Philippines during World War II.

Tess Uriza's second book, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, was a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2007 and an ALA Notable Book of 2007.

In a series of linked stories, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes takes readers onto the 5:45 train to Cannes, linking northern Italy with the French Riviera while running like a thread through lives that touch one another in unexpected and often secret ways: Chazz, the heir to a great fortune; GianCarlo, a kindhearted young Italian thief; Anais, who feels the insults of age; and Sophie, a talented young photographer. At the center we find beautiful, bereaved Claudette, wife of the doomed Chazz, making the journey to Cannes, where she, like all the others, remembers her past and draws from it irresolvable feelings of strength and fragility, meaning and emptiness, permanence and loss.

In these stories, Tess Uriza Holthe peers deeply into the inner lives of these women and men. Sad and lovely, often at the same time, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes takes us to places where we are happy to linger, in the world and in the human heart.

Author photo copyright: Ross Pelton]]> female San Francisco 1966/01/01 2087640 16035 0142002887 9780142002889 129 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166697157m/16035.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166697157s/16035.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16035.When_the_Elephants_Dance 4.04 574 When the Elephants Dance opens, in fact, with an apposite metaphor for a horrible reality: "Papa explains the war like this: 'When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.'" The elephants in question are the Americans and the Japanese, fighting for possession of the Philippines. The chickens are, of course, the ordinary Filipinos. Three of these "chickens" by turns tell us the story of the Japanese occupation as a small neighborhood near Manila literally goes underground, hiding in the cellar and swapping stories. Holthe takes her onus as a seminal Filipino voice seriously; she sometimes seems determined to cram every bit of tradition, history, and myth into her novel, to the detriment of the plot's propulsion. But readers who stay with her will be rewarded with an extraordinary display of historical color, and will certainly root for her three narrators. --Claire Dederer]]> 9903 3.99 668 157 2002 279819 0307351858 9780307351852 18 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173378821m/279819.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173378821s/279819.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/279819.The_Five_Forty_Five_to_Cannes 3.40 50
In these stories, Tess Uriza Holthe peers deeply into the inner lives of these women and men, while evoking with sensual grace the richness of the land and culture they share: the time-stopping quality of an exquisite and leisurely meal taken at a tiny ristorante in an unmapped village; the salty breeze that wafts through the open bedroom window of an elegant chateau by the sea; the pulse of life at the festival in Rapallo, in the bullrings of Pamplona, and on the streets of Cannes when the movie people have gone. Sad and lovely, often at the same time, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes takes us to places where we are happy to linger, in the world and in the human heart.]]> 9903 3.99 668 157 2007