Divisadero

It's been so long since I've reported on a book that you probably think I was somehow rendered illiterate. It took me forever to work my way through this Michael Ondaatje novel because I consumed it in bite-size bits. The novel opens with the story of a single father raising three children on a farm in California: the biological daughter, Anna, the adopted daughter, Claire and Coop who was taken in at the age of four when orphaned and is a kind of farmhand/brother/babysitter. Coop and Anna begin a romantic relationship and violence erupts when Anna's father discovers that they are lovers. The family fractures and Claire, Anna and Coop go their own separate ways.
The story fastforwards. Coop is now a Vegas gambler, involved with shady cardsharps. He runs into Claire who works for a public defender in San Francisco and is in Vegas on business. She looks after him during a rough time then she takes him back to the family farm presumably to reconcile with their adoptive father.
Anna moves to France and lives on the farm of the late author, Lucien Segura, whose life she is researching. She becomes involved with Rafael, a Gypsy who lives on the property. Ondaatje then relates the story of Segura, his childhood, his marriage, his time in the war, the affair with his childhood friend and pseudo sibling, Marie-Neige, that mirrors the affair of Anna and Coop.
Divisadero is split rather roughly into two parts. The first half of the book, the story of Anna, Claire and Coop in California ends abruptly and unfinished. The stories of Anna in France and Segura are told in an almost dreamy way, blurring into one another. I found the structure jarring and a little disorienting. All in all the stories are beautifully told but in the end I felt like I was left hanging.