Palm Springs Noir

 Edited by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Akashic     2021

293 pages     Noir

I was at loose ends on Monday after a busy holiday prep weekend. I picked up Palm Springs Noir, knowing  that I would be entertained and enlightened about a city that I had been to several years ago. What I remembered best about the Palm Springs experience were the fields of wind turbines in the valley. Those wind turbines show up frequently in the short stories in the book, but apparently I didn’t have the same kind of Palm Springs experience that the characters in these stories had. I may have to go back.

In her introduction, DeMarco-Barret defines noir thus: “In noir, the main characters might want their lives to improve and may have high aspirations and goals, but they keep making bad choices and things go from bad to worse.” She goes on: “In noir, characters follow the highway to doom and destruction. They are haunted by the past, and the line between black and white, right and wrong, dissolves like sugar in water. The hero rationalizes why it’s ok to do whatever dark thing they are about to do.”

DeMarco-Barrett used that definition as she selected the stories to go into this volume of noir. The stories are just as sleezy as you might expect in a book of noir fiction, but the reader also experiences a lot of suspense and darkness. There are references to famous stars that have lived in the area and includes the music of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. Through the stories we visit the places the tourist knows, like the golf courses and the pools, the mountains and the desert. My favorite place, Joshua Tree, however is spoiled by homicide, and a beautiful pool by a drowning. DeMarco-Barrett’s story concerns a brother who drowned in a mother’s pool. Could the sister have caused the drowning?

There are fourteen stories by several well-known Southern California authors. They are pure naughtiness happening in one of America’s most beautiful places. As steamy as the air. A great review in the NY Journal of Books.

I have written extensively over the years about the Akashic series of more than 100 noir books in settings all over the world. You might also like to read my description of noir and neo-noir literature. You can find it here. Stay tuned for the February arrival of Paris Noir: The Suburbs, which I will review the next time I have a day of loose ends.

The Sentence

 By Louise Erdrich

Harper     2021

400 pages     Literary

Louise Erdrich owns the bookstore Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, which specializes in indigenous materials. Her newest novel takes place in that bookstore, and the major protagonist is Tookie, a bookseller at the store. Louise, herself, makes an appearance as well as a ghost named Flora, who haunts Tookie every day at the store.

The first half of the book is a delight. We learn about how Tookie, an indigenous woman, makes a very stupid move and ends up in prison for ten years. She reads everything she can get her hands on while she is in prison, and when she gets released, she gets a job at Louise’s bookstore. She is really intimidating looking with black eyeliner, black stompers, a nose ring and eyebrow cuff. She says, “Who would dare not buy a book from me?”

Tookie is quite an incredible woman, and the reader is totally drawn to her. Her marriage to Pollux has its ups and downs. He was the tribal policeman who was involved in her arrest. He  says, “You could be anything. You make my brain boil. You make my heart flip over. Twist in a knot. It’s like you never learned that our choices get us where we are.” But when she reaches out her arms to meet his—he slaps handcuffs on her and arrests her. When she is released from prison, they meet again, fall in love and get married.

Life improves for Tookie and the reader is drawn into her brilliance as a bookseller, as a wife, and as a stepmother/grandmother to Pollux’s daughter and her baby. But then the pandemic hits followed by the murder of George Floyd, just down the street from the bookstore. The tone of the book changes, and the reader is caught with the ferocity of life in Minneapolis as it is engulfed in protests. Everyone is scared; everyone is worried, and the air around the bookstore is filled with tear gas.

The bookstore has closed because of the pandemic and the protests, so Tookie spends a great deal of time alone in the store, pulling books from the shelves for online orders.  “Everyone who wasn’t out on the streets wanted to read about why everyone else was out on the streets.”  Oh—and Tookie spends a great deal of time fending off Flora, the ghost, who is bound and determined to inhabit Tookie’s body, mind, and spirit. Flora plays an pivotal role in the plot so I won’t go into more details about her. The reviewer in the Washington Post says that “The novel’s ectoplasm hovers between the realms of historical horror and cultural comedy.”

Interspersed with the crazy plot is the world of books and bookstores. Tookie really knows her books and is able to pick the perfect book for her customers. Titles of books are everywhere in the text—so much so, that there is a bibliography at the end of the book. Tookie also consults a dictionary frequently, and the book begins and ends with her defining her word of the day.

There is so much going on in The Sentence that I hesitate to go much further. I was entranced with a chapter about a dinner party where the conversation is about wild rice—a conversation that could only happen in Minnesota. I laughed aloud because I had cooked a wild rice casserole for Thanksgiving and I had trouble softening the wild rice, a problem that the wild rice chapter was able to solve for me.

Additionally, the narration about the protests after the George Floyd murder was compelling and profound. Obviously the author had witnessed the mayhem firsthand. I read those chapters with great attention. My niece, Cory, had been involved in the protests as a medic, and I could almost find her on the streets with Tookie’s coworker and Tookie’s husband. Spellbinding.

Louise Erdrich is one of America’s best authors. Her recent book, The Night Watchman, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020, and I read and reviewed The Round House in  2013. She has the unique ability to weave indigenous wisdom and history with modern sensibility. One reviewer has said, "Novelists who can create vivid, plausible, living characters are rare, but novelists who also can create a believable world and a compelling story for those characters are blessed. Louise Erdrich is blessed."

Here is a terrific review of The Sentence in the New York Times. Next time I am in Minneapolis, I am going to be sure to visit Erdrich’s store, Birchbark Books. 

You Speak for Me Now

 By Sandy Graham

Kindle Direct     2021

292 pages     Fiction

The Shortlist

You Speak for Me Now is an up-to-the-minute fictional look at the state of American politics through the eyes of a couple and their young son. John and Emma were high school sweethearts, overcoming many odds, including race and disability, to marry and develop a successful business. John becomes enamored with the possibility of becoming a politician, causing a great deal of anxiety to their relationship. Ultimately, John becomes a liberal media sensation, and the target of a conservative commentator. Their home is attacked, and Emma takes their toddler son, Peter, to Canada in order to be safe.

The summary continues: “Keeping the tension mounting, You Speak for Me Now follows John and Emma through a painful separation and vicious assaults. Undaunted by death threats, a critical injury, and coming face-to-face with gunfire, the couple continues to speak, write, and sing the truth—until their message finally gets heard and acted on.”

Through the eyes of this young couple, Graham shares his own ideological convictions and deep concerns about the current state of the country. The couple has to deal with conspiracy theories, alternative facts, social media,  vigilante groups, and systemic racism, all while espousing their own political viewpoint.

Interestingly, the story is told almost entirely through dialogue, which I discovered was a little difficult to wade through. I found myself getting lost in the dialogue in much the same way that I can get lost in too much background description.

Ultimately, You Speak for Me Now is a polemic disguised as a novel. While I agreed with most of John’s political aspirations and political viewpoints, the book ended up being too tedious for me. Specific readers, however, will probably be satisfied with Graham’s work.

I am intrigued with the author, Sandy Graham, and his journey to express his political viewpoints through his novels. Here is his website. Also an interview with reviewer, Norm Goldman. I was sent the book via his publicist. I admire Graham’s initiative and the enjoyment he gets from his writings.

Rebecca

 By Daphne du Maurier

Little, Brown     2013 edition

449 pages     Literary

How could I have gotten to my age as a voracious reader and never have read Rebecca? Thank goodness for my book group for reading it this month! This week I read the book and watched the 1940 movie with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Can’t wait to discuss it with my book friends.

Well, enough of that. The plot is very basic. The narrator is an unnamed young woman who travels to Monte Carlo as the companion of a wealthy older woman. While there, she meets a wealthy widower, perhaps in his mid-40s. Maxim de Winter. Very handsome, very conflicted, very depressed. His wife, Rebecca, had drowned a year ago.  Maxim takes an immediate shine to the young woman, and they marry on the spur of the moment. Shortly after their marriage they return to his very famous country estate in England named Manderley. Our young narrator thinks she has arrived in heaven.

Instantly, the young Mrs. de Winter realizes that she is out of her element. There are signs of Rebecca everywhere. It is obvious that all the servants in the household are still mourning Rebecca’s death, particularly Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who had a very long relationship with Rebecca and doesn’t want a new Mrs. de Winter in the house. For a long time, Mrs. de Winter’s only friend on the estate is the estate manager, Frank, who not only works for Maxim but is his best friend. He becomes the young wife’s best friend as well. For a while, I thought a romantic relationship might build between Frank and Mrs. de Winter, but Frank stays true to his job and his friendships.

The plot didn’t develop in the way I thought it would. It just slowly builds to a magnificent,  if perilous, conclusion. But the plot is only a part of the story. Du Maurier is a marvelous writer. Her descriptions of Manderley and the development of her characters is superb. I kept underlining terrific passages, and writing down questions I needed answers for.  

I was especially taken with this unfortune young woman brought into a situation for which there was no resolution. Du Maurier’s portrayal of this young woman and how lost she is in this environment is stunning and all-consuming.  She knows nothing about how to run a household, especially since Rebecca had run the household without error, planning enormous parties, and mastering horseback riding, sailing, and all the other skills of the leisure class. She is horribly intimidated by Mrs. Danvers, and ultimately with her arch nemesis, Rebecca. She is never sure of Maxim’s love and blames his distance on his grief over the loss of Rebecca. But as the story develops,  she gains confidence and a desire to take control of Manderley and her own life.

One reviewer says that in Rebecca, du Maurier “fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.” But in Rebecca, the handsome prince is old enough to be the narrator’s father. Of course, like all fairy tales, there is also a witch—Mrs. Danvers, who haunts the young woman’s every move.

I believe that Rebecca is worthy of every award it gained through the years, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 1938 and the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century in 2000. The Alfred Hitchcock 1940 film won the Oscar for Best Picture. It stayed pretty true to the novel with only slight adjustments to the conclusion. There is also a 2020 version of the film on Netflix.

 

The Secret of Snow

 By Viola Shipman/Wade Rouse

Graydon House     2021

400 pages     Fiction

I am going to begin this review with the summary that came from the Book Reporter website.

“When Sonny Dunes, a SoCal meteorologist whose job is all sunshine and 72-degree days, is replaced by a virtual meteorologist that will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract, the only station willing to give the 50-year-old another shot is the very place she has been avoiding since the day she left for college --- her northern Michigan hometown.

Sonny grudgingly returns to the long, cold, snowy winters of her childhood…with the added humiliation of moving back in with her mother. Not quite an outsider but no longer a local, Sonny finds her past blindsiding her everywhere: from the high school friends she ghosted, to the former journalism classmate and mortal frenemy who’s now her boss, to, most keenly, the death years ago of her younger sister, who loved the snow.

To distract herself from the memories she's spent her life trying to outrun, Sonny throws herself headfirst into covering every small-town winter event to woo a new audience, made more bearable by a handsome widower with optimism to spare. But with someone trying to undermine her efforts to rebuild her career, Sonny must make peace with who she used to be and allow her heart to thaw if she’s ever going to find a place she can truly call home.”

The setting for The Secret of Snow is the marvelous city of Traverse City, Michigan in winter, and Rouse completely captures the unique nature of a snowy Michigan winter. The narrative describes snowstorms and slippery roads, but it also helps us tune in to snow angels, snowmen, and a variety of snow festivals and ice fishing that make for a fabulous Michigan winter. I say “fabulous” rather tongue-in-cheek because it is snowing tonight as I write this review, and I am frankly not feeling too “fabulous” about it.

Like Rouse’s other works, he speaks very effectively through the voice of a woman, touching the heart as well as the sensibilities of a woman. He uses the pen name of his grandmother, Viola Shipman, for a reason. He knows his audience well. One of Rouse’s great gifts is to weave a great story filled with introspection. One of the reasons his novels relate to women of a certain age is that very few of us have lived lives without tragedy or complications. This, most definitely, is a story about second chances in both life and love.

 Sometimes I felt Sonny’s story was a bit overwrought, although her emotions seemed authentic. I have been thinking a great deal about mid-life crises as I have watched my children and step-children reach middle age and experience their own individual mid-life crises. Sonny, most definitely, is rethinking her life, and particularly the loss of her sister all those many years ago. And she rather begrudgingly has to begin anew, something many of us have had to do.

My favorite parts about reading a Viola Shipman novel are all the references to the coastal towns of Michigan. I had to chuckle while reading The Secret of Snow, because I know that Wade and his husband Gary spend their winters in Palm Springs and out of the cold and snow that he so eloquently describes in this cold, snowy novel.

This is the third Viola Shipman novel I have read. The others are The Summer Cottage, which takes place in Saugatuck, Michigan, and The Clover Girls, which takes place in Glen Arbor, Michigan. When I heard him speak last spring, I asked him when he was going to write a novel about Pentwater, Michigan, my favorite summer place. He said, “Soon.” Holding you to that promise, Wade! (By the way, the author picture includes some of my book friends when we went to his book reading at Cranes Pie Pantry in Fennville, Michigan.)

Wade Rouse’s website.

Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood

 By Dawn Turner

Simon & Schuster     2021

336 pages     Memoir

When the positive reviews began flowing in about Three Girls from Bronzeville, I found that I had received the book from the publisher. I looked on a Chicago city map and realized that I had connections to the Bronzeville neighborhood. That made the thought of reading this book all the more appealing. Then when I saw that the subtitle of the book indicated it was “a uniquely American memoir of race, fate, and sisterhood", I dug it up on my Kindle and became enmeshed in this remarkably-written story. I’ll let you know my connections to the book, but first the story line.

Dawn Turner grew up in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, one of the first settlements in Chicago for African-American peoples who had headed north during the Great Migration. Turner’s grandmother was one who came in the first wave of new Black residents. She reminded Turner frequently that “We took a bunch of scraps and stitched together a world.” When Dawn was growing up, her family settled in a safe apartment complex near the notorious Ida B. Wells apartments, but she, her sister Kim, and her best friend Debra were products of the first wave of the Civil Rights movement. They had relatively intact and extended families with secure incomes.

What Turner probes in her memoir is how these three children ended up with such disparate lives. She has had a remarkable career as a novelist, journalist, and columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and a contributor to NPR, while her sister Kim became an alcoholic and died of a heart attack at 23. Debra’s life became very problematic, and as Turner probes Debra’s story, the narrative becomes absolutely engrossing.

She writes: “As children we had moved freely around our world of low-slung public housing and gated high-rise developments. But right around adolescence we have to start making a choice. If we choose right, a promising future lies within our grasp. If we choose wrong, the path is unforgiving. The ground has already begun to harden around each of us, and soon it will be impossible to undo who we have become.”

The Kirkus reviewer suggests that the narrative may be too long, but I was completely absorbed. Turner probes the concepts of grace, redemption, and forgiveness, as well as ideas of fortitude, perseverance, and luck. She has woven together some of her Chicago Tribune columns and her NPR reporting, as well as stories told her by her life-long friend Debra. What particularly intrigued me was the detailed information about the Bronzeville neighborhood. Although we only lived in Chicago during 1966-1967 when I was in graduate school, my husband taught middle school in the Bronzeville neighborhood, and my oldest son and his family lived just south of the neighborhood in Hyde Park for many years. Every time I went to visit, I went past the Hyde Park Academy where Dawn, Debra, and Kim went to high school. Maxwell, my oldest grandson, went to the Chicago Arts high school, which at that time was located in an elementary school building near Ida B. Wells. As a ninth grader, he read Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago, which is about the neighborhood, and he recommended it to me.  I then read and reviewed it on my blog.  Both Our America and Three Girls from Bronzeville have been life-changers for me. They have broadened my world view greatly.

Dawn Turner tells her compelling story beautifully, and I look forward to reading more of her writings. I am going to recommend the book to my book group as well as my Chicago daughter-in-law’s book group. Here is a terrific article about her life and her work.

 

Interior Chinatown

 By Charles Yu

Pantheon     2020

288 pages      Literary 

I must say at the outset of this post that Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu is the best book I have read in 2021. And I am not alone in thinking that. Yu won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, so my vote for best book is in good company.

And with that, let me tell you a bit about the plot. As the book opens, Willis Wu is a first generation American living in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, where his parents settled after they left Taiwan. They have all taken roles in movies and television as “Generic Asian” man and woman, and right now they appear as part of the cast of a TV cop show called “Black and White,” which takes place in and around a Chinese restaurant called The Golden Palace. Family members as well as other bit players on the show live above the restaurant in single room occupancies (sro). Most of them have lived in these rooms for many years. Willis was raised there. He has worked his way up the bit player in the television show roster: from “background Oriental male” to “dead Asian man” to “generic Asian man number three/delivery guy.” What he really wants to be is the “Kung Fu Guy,” so when he becomes “Kung Fu Guy” toward the end of the book, it is a major plot surprise.

The novel is bitingly humorous while at the same time hauntingly potent. For example, the  recruiter for the show responds to Willis when he seeks an audition for a speaking part. The recruiter says, “No one really wants to hire you. It’s your accent.” Willis replies, “I don’t have an accent.” The recruiter: “Exactly. It’s weird.” So Willis learns to have an accent. The most poignant scene for me occurred when Willis’ father, “Old Asian man,” sings “Take me home, country roads” at the restaurant’s karaoke night, and there are tears in everyone’s eyes, because everyone wants to go home. There is an intense undercurrent of anger and sadness amidst the screenplay. The reader doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As I was reading the book, I pondered the way in which we categorize the different varieties of immigrants we see in our community—the Asians running the restaurants, the Middle Easterners’ who run the convenience stores, the Indian owners of the motels, and on and on. As I watched television, I watched closely for “background Asians.” I saw many in the commercials that came on. Even during  a speech during the Virginia governor’s race, three people stood in the background of the Republican candidate: a white man, a woman, and an Asian man. “Background Asian man” for sure. The New York Times reviewer mentions: “Yu explores in devastating (and darkly hilarious) fashion Hollywood’s penchant for promoting clichés about Asians and Asian-Americans.”

I had little prior knowledge about Interior Chinatown before I began reading, so the format was a huge surprise and very confusing at first. Please be aware of the format as you begin reading. At book club last night, most of these veteran readers expressed some difficulty figuring out the format, the print size, and most of all, they had questions about the dialogue. Was the dialogue part of the tv show script or the characters speaking as themselves?

I would suggest that you take the challenge of reading this book. It will change some of the ways you view the world. 

Here is an incredible article about Charles Yu, the author, in the New York Times. It explains so much.

Dovetails in Tall Grass

By Samantha Specks

Spark Press     2021

310 pages     Historical Fiction

The Shortlist

This summer I was privileged to read several books about relationships between native peoples and white Americans in Minnesota. They included This Tender Land and Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger and also Dovetails in Tall Grass, by Samantha Specks. One of the troubling things that I have learned is that I was never taught anything about the Dakota Wars or anything about the treatment of Native Americans as Minnesota was being established and settled.

I learned nothing about any of this in any history class I took as a young person. However, I was very aware of native reservations  that were prevalent in the Minnesota of my childhood. It seems ironic that I was so troubled when we all learned about the destruction of the “Black Wall Street” and the death of African Americans in 1918 Tulsa, Oklahoma, while I knew nothing about the thirty-eight Dakota men who were hung in 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota. ”To this day, this is the largest mass execution in United States history.” An article on Minnesota Public Radio discusses why the topic is not taught in Minnesota schools.

Specks does a remarkable job of telling the story of the Dakota Wars through the lens of two teenage girls, Emma Heard, the daughter of settlers in New Ulm, Minnesota, and Oenikika, the daughter of Chief Little Crow. I was particularly taken by Oenikika. She knew that she was born to be a healer. She notices the pull of the plants as she walks in the prairie: “My soul was listening as much as my ears. I was sensing it again—their pull. The plants of healing whispered through the rustling grasses.” Reminded me so much of Robin Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass. Emma thinks that she is called to be a teacher. Both are remarkable young women and great witnesses to the conflict that emerges.

This is a beautifully-written witness to Minnesota during the Civil War, the Dakota Wars, as well as an eloquent observation of teenage girls of any generation.

 Here is the Kirkus review. Samantha Specks website.

 

 

Lightning Strike

 By William Kent Krueger

Atria     2021

400 pages     Thriller

 Let me just say at the outset that I love anything by William Kent Krueger, and its not just because he writes about Northern Minnesota, my home turf. The protagonist in his mystery series, Cork O’Connor, is a skilled detective, and a former sheriff in the same community that his father Liam O’Connor served as sheriff. Krueger does a great job laying plot groundwork and creating the setting. His characters are realistic, recognizable, and in most cases, redemptive.

Lightning Strike is a prequel to the Cork O’Connor series. Cork is 12 years old, a product of the Aurora community. He is one quarter Ojibwe on his mother’s side, so he is particularly attuned to the native community; his grandmother lives in the community; and he has several friends who are Ojibwe. Liam, his dad, while no stranger to the native community, is not particularly trusted as the sheriff, even though he has interactions every day within the community. He is an Irish-American transplant from Chicago, and therefore an outlier. Cork's grandmother, on the other hand, is one of the matriarch's of the Ojibwe community.

The plot begins when Cork and a friend are hiking near Iron Lake in the Superior National Forest when they make a horrifying discovery. One of the community elders, Big John Manydeeds is hanging from a tree at Lightning Strike, a clearing where Cork and his friends often hang out. The native community doesn’t believe that Manydeeds could possibly have committed suicide, and Liam comes to believe that it was a homicide. A cryptic note at the murder scene and Cork’s insistence that he help his dad with the case keep away the rush to judgement that Liam might have initially considered.

I loved how Krueger created the character of 12-year-old Cork. Like most boys his age, he hangs out with his buddies, delivers his newspapers, and maintains his natural curiosity. Every parent of boys can identify with Cork, his parents, and his grandmother as they deal with this pre-adolescent detective. He and his friends are haunted by the specter of Manydeeds hanging in the tree, and they set out to help Liam solve the crime. Because they know the streams leading into Iron Lake from Boy Scouts, they know that Manydeeds knew the streams as well as they do. On one excursion, the boys find Manydeeds’ canoe in one of the streams leading into the big lake, and they know that they are on the right track to solving the crime. On the other hand, Krueger does not glorify the boys and their detective skills; they are not the Hardy Boys.

Like he did in This Tender Land, Krueger explores the complexity of the white community’s relationship with the Native community. I appreciated this so much. One reviewer says that he “shows rather than tells why with a subtle but unflinching touch.” Additionally, Cork is growing in his understanding of his own relationship to the Ojibwe community, what that means, and what his response and responsibility should be. At the same time, I could relate to the communities and the scenery of the region. It is a unique Minnesota spot.

Can you read Lightning Strike without having read any of the other eighteen Cork O’Connor detective books? I think so. I have read several of them, including Manitou Canyon, which I reviewed in 2016. Krueger believes that Lightning Strike is the perfect starting point. He says, “I love that this look at Cork has allowed me to explore the complex relationship between father and son, so important in shaping Cork into the man who occupies center stage in the series.”

 I highly recommend Krueger’s novels. If you haven’t read any of them, start now. Here is his website.

 

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

By Kim Michele Richardson

Sourcebooks     2019

308 pages     Literary

The most important aspect of an historical novel is the research that goes into it. Richardson has done an incredible job in creating an historical novel that is both creative and meticulously researched. It is the story of a young woman in 1930s Kentucky Appalachia. My book club read it this month and we had a lively discussion last week.

Cussy Mary, a young single woman, lives in the hills and hollers of Kentucky during the 1930s. She has applied and been accepted as a pack horse librarian, which was a job for women, sponsored by the WPA. Her job is to deliver books by horseback to the people on an established route in her mountain neighborhood. She knows her readers well and works very hard to find the materials that her clients want—everything from the classics to magazines to newspapers, many weeks old by the time they get to Cussy. She makes her way through the mountains on a mule named Junia, who is both her protector and best friend as well as the carrier of the library materials Cussy carries.

What distinguishes Cussy Mary from other young women of the area is her color. She is one of the last of the Blue People of Kentucky. This was a clan of blue-tinged people that had populated the area for several generations. They have hidden in the hills because they have been ridiculed and shunned and classified as inbreds, which they were not. Thank goodness for Google, because I had never heard of the blue people, but when I read up on it, I discovered that this aspect of the story line was remarkably true.

It would appear that Cussy (or Bluet, as she was called by her clients) had more than three strikes against her, but she is strong and feisty, and she prevails. She loves her job and takes pride in the help that she offers her clients. People rely on her to read stories to them, bring them news from the outside world, and even provide food if necessary. Her work is a testament to the power of reading and books.

There’s a lot of heartbreak in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, not just for Cussy Mary and her father, a miner, but also for the people in the hills. The description of life is remarkable, thanks to the skilled writing of Richardson. Here is one paragraph. “I found the tiny cabin stitched into a mountain, tarred with black pine and stingy sunlight. In the yard, two crows drank from mud puddles. Overhead, more cawed before dropping down to scar the yard. Two sick chickens peeked around the corner of the cabin, their combs and wattles festered with the fowl pox. A rawboned dog dozed on the crumbling porch. Junia snorted, and the pup raised its mangy body and flattened its flea-bitten ears before slinking off.” Inside, Cussy finds her favorite child client, Henry, and his siblings suffering from pellagra, and Henry is dying.

One reviewer says that Richardson doesn’t “pull punches when it comes to describing the hardscrabble lives of the hill people.” Yet, I considered the descriptions to be fairly realistic, contrasted, as they were, with great moments of hope and kindness. I do have to say that the ending is quite abrupt, and we are not allowed enough time to enjoy the happiness that Cussy Mary finds as she discovers true love and her life moves on to another level. The only weakness I found in a totally engrossing book.

This is a terrific review in bookreporter.com.  Kim Michele Richardson’s website. It looks like she has a follow-up book about Cussy’s daughter, Honey, called The Book Woman’s Daughter. It arrives next May.

I can highly recommend The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. I especially enjoyed the pictures of the Kentucky Pack Horse librarians that come at the end of the book. 

The Turnout

 By Megan Abbott

G.P. Putnam’s Sons         2021

352 pages     Thriller

It has been several days since I finished reading The Turnout by Megan Abbott, and the book is still haunting me! Abbott writes, “Ballet was full of dark fairy tales.” And for Marie and Dara Durant the fairy tale darkness comes true as they prepare their young ballet students for this year’s coming production of the Nutcracker. Marie, Dara, and Dara’s husband Charlie run the school that the girls’ mother started in the 1980s. Charlie was a dancer, but because of a variety of injuries, he can no longer dance. The three live in the same house that the family has owned for years and teach in the building that has been the studio since the beginning. This is the foundation for the "dark fairy tales."

Marie is at odds with her sister and husband and has moved to the attic of the studio to live. The heater she is using causes a fire which burns one of the studios just as the Nutcracker practices begin in earnest. The insurance agent recommends Derek, a local contractor, to do the repairs, and Derek invades the space, the lives, and the minds of Marie, Dara, and Charlie. Tension builds, illusions are shattered, and lives are destroyed.

The Kirkus reviewer says that “the mesmerizing prose will keep you turning the pages.” Abbott does a spectacular job of setting the scene. For example, after Derek begins the work on the ruined studio, she writes, “All day there were thunderous tremors from Studio B, the floors coming up, leaving a haze of debris. The old planks like matchsticks, the smell of mold, mice. The silt from decades of young girls: stray earring studs, hair elastics, dusted ribbons, Band-Aids curled with browned blood.” Every moment is filled with these captivating images.

 While there is no murder to solve, the plot is surprisingly propulsive. Abbott knows a lot about ballet, and while the main plot concerns the relationship between the ballet studio owners and Derek, the contractor, the sub-plot of putting together the Nutcracker ballet with all the tryouts, the practices, the pre-teen girl drama, the injuries, and the costuming is enlightening and repulsive at the same time. I don’t believe that I will ever look at ballet lessons and/or The Nutcracker with the same eyes again. One reviewer notes, “For all its beauty, ballet can be born out of pain.” Abbott explores that concept relentlessly, and the reader moves from fond childhood Nutcracker memories to visions of turned ankles, spiteful girls, and unraveled dreams.

Last week, I had a timeout trip to the family cottage on Lake Michigan. The Turnout was the book I took with me to read. I knew it had been well reviewed, and I felt that it would be an excellent respite book. I was in and out of the house all day and took several walks—every time the tension in the book got to be more than I could stand. It was about 10:30 at night when other family members arrived. According to my Kindle I was 97% through the book. How dare they come when I was this close to getting some final closure on the horrifying events! I excused myself as quickly as I could and retreated to my bedroom to bring the whole sordid affair to the end.

Here is a fascinating interview with Megan Abbott on the Book Page website.

Just published, The Turnout is on many lists of the best books of summer 2021. 

The Book of Eels

 By Patrik Svensson

Ecco     2019

245 pages     Nature

What! I read a book about eels? Who would imagine that could happen? And what’s more—I read it for our book group.

Even more—I loved it!

As I began to read the book, I researched the author, Patrik Svensson, who is a journalist based in Malmo, Sweden. That amazed and surprised me, because I had just finished reading and reviewing Alexander McCall Smith’s Detective Varg book, The Man with the Silver Saab. Detective Varg is based in Malmo, Sweden. What a remarkable coincidence, even though McCall Smith’s book didn’t mention eels.

When reading The Book of Eels, you ponder three topics: the science of eels; the history of the study of eels; and Svensson’s childhood memories of fishing for eels with his father.

Here are things that I learned that I never had known before about eels, because, frankly,  I had never thought about eels—not once in my life. Nor had I ever seen an eel or eaten eel—although apparently my friend Jan has. Although I did eat a tarantula when I was in Cambodia, but that’s another story.

1)      European and American eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, which in case you didn’t know, is a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Svensson says, “The Sargasso Sea is like a dream: you can rarely pinpoint the moment you enter or exit; all you know is that you’ve been there.” For my part, I didn’t know there was such a place as the Sargasso Sea.

2)      There are four stages in the life of the eel. They are: willow leaf (tiny little things) when they leave the Sargasso Sea and head a thousand miles or more to European or American waters. Next stage is the glass eel. This is what they are when they arrive in fresh water rivers and streams. They are yellow eels for the majority of their lives, which can be 30-50 years. Glass eels are aged eels who return to the Sargasso Sea of their birth to procreate before they die.

3)      Scientists through the ages have pondered the existence of eels and the mysteries surrounding them. Svensson says, “Science has come up against many mysteries, but few have proven as intractable and difficult to solve as the eel. . .Somewhere in the darkness and mud, the eel has managed to hide away from human knowledge.” Among the many unsolved mysteries has been the lack of understanding about how they procreate.

4)      Many famous scientists have studied eels, including Aristotle, Freud, and Rachel Carson.

5)      Eel fishermen and women are a breed apart as well. Svensson remembers with great love and respect fishing with his father as well as attending eel festivals and visiting eel fishing sites. This is the memoir part of the book, and Svensson dos a great job of binding together the science and the history into the memoir as well as engaging the reader in a lot of metaphysical musings.

Here is something that amused me as I was reading The Book of Eels. When I would mention to someone that I was reading about eels, nearly everyone would ask me if I had seen the recent documentary about an octopus, My Octopus Teacher, which won the 2021 Oscar for best documentary. It can be viewed on Netflix. I can understand the connection; both the movie and the book are about elusive animals and about the mystery surrounding them.

The book was a New York Times notable book for 2020. Here is the review. The reviewer called it “strange and nerdy”

Since I read the book, I have come across several interviews with Svensson and several You Tube videos about eels. I think its quite remarkable that this book has developed such a following and expansion of the study of eels. I am so grateful to the member of our book group who introduced me to this wonder of a book. 

Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old

 By Richard J. Leider & David Shapiro

Berrett-Koehler     2021

145 pages     Self-Help

“Everyone is getting older; not everyone is growing older.” This is the premise of a compact, but profound look at aging. The authors, Leider and Shapiro, have been friends for many years. They are intrigued by their own aging as well as the concept of aging in general, and offer a guidebook to thinking about the process, without offering definitive conclusions. My husband and I used the book as our morning reading exercise, taking turns reading and then discussing what we read.

If we have fewer outward responsibilities, the authors propose, then we should have greater inner growth. This has been one of the concepts that my husband and I have struggled with for several years. The struggle has never been more pronounced than when we were reading this book. My husband has always felt that he would work at his business forever. Yet, now that he is in his 80s, he has begun to rethink his purpose. Each day, as we read, he considered some alternatives; finally he announced that he was going to stop working on Fridays. I almost fell over with surprise. Now we will see if he is going to follow the plan.

On the other hand, I have been completely retired from my career as a librarian for several years, and this year, I retired from my editing business. The retirement was very short-lived, because family members needed covid-related help with children. I felt lucky that my schedule was flexible enough that I could help out. The points made in Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old helped me in my decision-making. One of the authors’ points is that often retirees feel a loss of relevance. Lucky for me, I still feel very relevant.

Finally, the last chapters of the book concern death and dying, and we were able to have some significant conversations about what we still wanted to do, but also how we felt about dying. There are excellent discussion questions in the last chapter: “1) What do you think happens when you die? 2) How would you like to die? 3) What gifts do you want to leave the world before you die?” These questions offered us several hours of thought and discussion. As we read each morning, we felt our relationship grow closer and our conversations become more significant. We would certainly encourage couples to have these discussions. I am very grateful to the authors for opening these doors for us. I appreciated their personal stories as well as the people they quoted. The final discussion questions are excellent.

“The path of purposeful aging is a choice to wake up every day with the intention to grow and give.”

An interview with the authors.

 

The Man with the Silver Saab

 By Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon     2021

256 pages           Mystery (?)

I am not at all sure in which genre to place The Man with the Silver Saab, and indeed, any of the writings of Alexander McCall Smith. In seeking out the answer to that question, I noticed that few of the reviewers had the same classification. Some placed it in mystery, some in humor, and some in satire. I might place it in philosophy because McCall Smith infuses his philosophy of life into every aspect of the narration.

This particular series, the Detective Varg series, takes place in the Swedish city of Malmo, where Ulf Varg is the head of the Department of Sensitive Crimes. The Man with the Silver Saab is the third book in the series, but the reader can drop in anywhere. (That’s part of the genius of McCall Smith.) Although we never truly understand what constitutes a “sensitive crime,” we end up loving Ulf Varg, especially as he deals with a very boring colleague, as well as with the colleague for whom he has romantic feelings.

The reader quickly finds that the plot is secondary to the musings of the characters and the laugh-out-loud humor that infuses every moment of the plot. I genuinely laughed out loud several times and was emotionally touched at other times. An example of this occurred when Varg was looking out the window. He noticed a man and woman walking down the street. Their pace changed when the man took the woman’s arm. It appeared to Varg that they belonged together. “That was security; that was completeness. And then two young men came along, walking behind them, and one of the young men suddenly put an arm around the other, and Ulf thought: that is exactly the same thing.” It is this type of narration that warms the heart of the reader and expresses the soul of the author. There is a sensitive crime, to be sure, a strange situation with a painting and the art expert who believes his life is being damaged because of bad publicity. And here is a picture of a silver Saab, similar to the one Varg drives, in case you, like me, had no idea what a Saab looks like.

The Man with the Silver Saab is a perfect read for warm summer days and a foil against disturbing daily media. McCall Smith says in an interview with the Scottish newspaper, The Herald: “I, like most people, want to be uplifted and presented with a vision of the world that has some hope in it. I believe in being positive – what’s the point of being negative? It doesn’t improve life. I don’t want to be a Pollyanna claiming everything is wonderful, but we should leave room in life for the positive and uplifting.”

Not much more needs to be said about The Man with the Silver Saab except to escape into its pages. Publisher’s Weekly suggests that the plot is “gossamer thin” and “almost irrelevant. The novel’s pleasures lie in Ulf’s philosophical asides and comments on how to live a good, just life.” You will be uplifted and will contemplate how Ulf lives a life that is filled with kindness and civility while solving sensitive crimes. Oh, and you will discover how a veterinarian could possible sew the nose of a dog upside down after the dog has been attacked by a squirrel.

I have read—and I am sure you have as well—several books in the many series of Alexander McCall Smith. He wrote and published 7 books during the pandemic, including a new entry in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, my personal favorite.

Great American Road Trips Scenic Drives

 Readers Digest  2020

191 pages     Travel

I returned recently from a trip to my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, where my grandchildren and I had ventured up the North Shore Scenic Drive, one of the scenic drives featured in Reader’s Digest’s lovely Great American Road Trips Scenic Drives. Imagine my pleasure when I returned home to find a copy of the book waiting for me, sent by the publicist. 

Beautiful photographs lure the reader into marvelous vistas and not-to-be-missed sites. I immediately searched out the section on the North Shore Scenic Drive that we had just visited. We had been on Highway 61 on a dramatically beautiful day, eaten at Betty’s Pies in Two Harbors, jetted down the alpine slide in Lutsen, saw the Split Rock Lighthouse on the horizon, and let Gooseberry Falls wash over us. It had been a glorious day, so it was fun to read the narrator’s take on the drive that I knew so well. What is not told is the magnificence of the city of Duluth, which on the three nice days of the year is the most beautiful city in America.  

I then went to the Table of Contents and checked off all of the scenic roads I had traveled, and it was a nostalgic pleasure to read about all the wonderful places I had been—17 I think. I especially enjoyed remembering the Heart of the Palouse outside of Spokane, which a friend drove us on. (We had not known a thing about the Palouse before our ride.) I also loved our visit to Door County, Wisconsin, and Monument Valley in Arizona and Utah.

Several years ago, my sister gave us the book, The Most Scenic Drives in America, a detailed look at 120 drives all over the United States. It was published in 1997 by Reader’s Digest. The current book, Great American Road Trips Scenic Drives, is more compact and easier to handle than the older version. The book gave me renewed interest in taking a scenic autumn trip to the Central Adirondack Trail in New York this year.

Read this book and get inspired! Happy trails to you!

Truth is in The House

 By Michael J. Coffino

Koehlerbooks     2021

355 pages     Literary

We seldom, if ever, notice how one life can parallel another. In his first novel, Michael Coffino, a California attorney and high school basketball coach, narrates the story of two men who keep “running into each other,” first as boys, then young soldiers, as adults, and finally as retirees. Here is a summary of the plot. The subtitle indicates that the novel was inspired by true events.

As a young boy in the late 1950s, Jimmy O'Farrell emigrates with his family from Ireland to Manhattan to bask in the dawn of a new life. Thousands of miles away, the family of Jaylen Jackson seeks to build a life amid Jim Crow culture in Mississippi. As teenagers, both boys struggle to come of age in a racially divisive world, suffering horrific tragedies that shape their characters and life missions. Jimmy seeks to define what it means to stand for someone when the chips are down, while Jaylen embarks on a journey to gain respect beyond the color of his skin. 

Fleeing the past, both families land in neighboring Bronx communities in the 1960s, where Jimmy and Jaylen's lives first intersect, on the basketball courts and then in the Vietnam jungle. Repeatedly tested as men of different races, their friendship faces its toughest challenge outside a Bronx bar-with fatal consequences. Truth Is in the House is an epic and provocative tale that plumbs historical and modern racial themes and explores redemption, forgiveness, and the power of connecting through the human spirit.

 

Here are several things that I appreciated about the book. I especially liked the love and care expressed by the parents of Jimmy and Jaylen. They were clear in the ways in which they wanted their children to succeed in life and tried very hard to shield their children from hardships and tragedy, even though both young men were exposed to and lived through both hardship and tragedy. Both boys were taught a work ethic by their parents. And finally, both men were loving and caring grandparents in their older years—something I could very well relate to.

 

And I loved reading about the sports. I was especially taken by the chapter about the 1960 World Series between the Yankees and the Pirates. Jimmy and his father bonded by listening to the final game on the radio. (I suppose I got a kick out of this particular story because I remember listening to that game during my civics class at my high school in Minnesota. What a great teacher to let us listen!) Sports continues to play a large role in the lives of the characters throughout the novel.

 

The language Coffino chooses to use in the novel is quite erudite, with some of the dialogue a bit stilted and uncomfortable. He gets his message across sometimes by hitting us over the head with the point he is trying to make. Coffino is better at narrating the settings and the plot, and I really appreciated the arrangement of the chapters. I always knew who and what the upcoming chapter was going to be about. I also appreciated the striking cover.

 

Through the plot and the narration, the author’s views on the racial divide come shining through, and were very much appreciated. I kept thinking of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson that I am currently reading and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates that I read several years ago. These books plus Truth is in The House have given me a new perspective on the world of racial differences in which we live. What really shines in Truth is in The House is the humanity we share, no matter our origins or our life circumstances.

 

The author’s website. I thank the publicist for offering me a copy of the book. It is published this month.