The Glassmaker

The Glassmaker by Tracey Chevalier

This book, the twelfth novel by the author, is set on the island of Burano, in the Venetian lagoon. In 1486, when the story begins, Burano was a place remote from Venice and events happening there. The plot, about a family of glassmakers, skips back and forth through time to the present day, featuring the same characters, particularly the daughter, Orsola. She secretly becomes a talented maker of beautiful glass beads at a time when women were not allowed to work in the industry and her work actually saves the family from penury at one point. 

The book begins with a stone skipping and skimming across the waters of the lagoon and this becomes the analogy for a story which takes the reader backwards and forwards through five hundred years of history, but with the same family members aging much more slowly than would normally be the case. Murano is trapped in its own little backwater in this book, while the rest of the world proceeds through centuries of historical changes and events at normal pace. 

As with several other novels the group had read by the same author, this book was very much enjoyed for its beautiful descriptive writing, but one or two members had reservations about the confusing time line of the plot as it unfolded. 

Review by Barbara Marsh