The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

400 pages

Published August 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. 

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

My Thoughts: 

Confession: this is another one of those books that I picked up without any notion of what it was about; I picked it up solely based on the author, an author I've been meaning to read for years, an author who's written three books I own but have never read. It's time I thought. And now I can't help but wonder if I might have done those other three books a disfavor. Not so much in ignoring them for so long (although that's certainly a disfavor), but in having set the bar so high for them with this one. 

The New York Times calls this book "a murder mystery locked inside a Great American novel" and a web. 

That murder mystery begins in the opening pages of the book, when that skeleton is found and then the mystery disappears until it is finally explained in the closing pages of the book. There is not much investigation, nor an inquiry in 1972 and readers will be forgiven for forgetting about that skeleton over the course of the book. They'll forget about it because McBride's about to weave that web, bringing in more and more story lines that, at first, seem to be leading nowhere. 

We quickly travel back in time to the 1920's and 1930's, to Chicken Hill, where African Americans and Jewish immigrants live in sometimes uneasy peace with each other and with the "real" Americans who live down the hill in Pottstown. McBride introduces to a wide range of characters in the neighborhood and a complicated water rights issue that will try your brain but stay with it, the payoff is well worth it. Not even the smallest detail is a throwaway in this book; everything points to something more. McBride takes his time building the novel; but it never felt too slow, so wrapped up was I in the people of Chicken Hill, the dynamics of the people who lived there, the music and politics of the time. There is humor here, tension, heartache, sadness, satisfaction, and joy and so many small and great lessons to be learned (although McBride is never preaching here). 

I picked this one up without knowing anything about it. Now I doubt I will ever forget it. 

100 Places To Visit After You Die by Ken Jennings

100 Places To Visit After You Die by Ken Jennings

Published June 2023 by Scribner

320 Pages

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary: 

Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism’s Lord Vishnu, or avoid the flesh-eating river serpents in the Klingon afterlife? What hidden treasures can be found off the beaten path in Hades, Valhalla, or NBC’s The Good Place? Find answers to all those questions and more about the world(s) to come in this eternally entertaining book from Ken Jennings. 

100 Places to See After You Die is written in the style of iconic bestselling travel guides—but instead of recommending must-see destinations in Mexico, Thailand, or Rome, Jennings outlines journeys through the afterlife, as dreamed up over 5,000 years of human history by our greatest prophets, poets, mystics, artists, and TV showrunners. This comprehensive index of 100 different afterlife destinations was meticulously researched from sources ranging from the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern-day pop songs, video games, and Simpsons episodes. Get ready for whatever post-mortal destiny awaits you, whether it’s an astral plane, a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape, or the baseball diamond from Field of Dreams. 

Fascinating, funny, and irreverent, this light-hearted memento mori will help you create your very own bucket list—for after you’ve kicked the bucket.

My Thoughts: 

Yes. THAT Ken Jennings. Which made this one interesting to me even if the title and description hadn't intrigued me, which they did. 

Yes, this book is funny and irreverent and light-hearted. Which made me so happy - I was so hoping that Jennings would be just as humorous in writing as he seems to be on t.v. And, no surprise, just as smart. There are, actually, one hundred entries in this book, in seven different categories. He includes references to the afterlife in mythology, religion, books, movies, television, music and theater, and a miscellaneous group. Yes, I know it says 100 in the title, but I didn't seriously believe that there would be 100 different ways that Jennings could refer to the afterlife. I don't for a minute believe that Jennings pulled these 100 references off the top of his head, but he had to have had a pretty good number to start with or he wouldn't have even considered the idea for a book, right? 

This is not a book to be read straight through; it's a book to read a couple of chapters at a time, especially in the mythology and religion sections. There's a lot to be said about all of those references and if you read too many at once, it's for it to begin to feel a little repetitive and (for me) a little boring. But read a bit at a time, the humor holds up much better. As does your ability to refresh your memory in one of those areas; or, as I did, learn new things. 

Of course, when we got to television, movies, and books, I was more in my element...and the chapters were shorter and more diverse so it became easier to read a few more chapters at a time. Also, those chapters were a lot less gruesome. Those mythology and religious afterlives can be crazy gruesome! Not that Dante wasn't every bit their equal. 

Where can you choose to travel to in the afterlife? Hades and Valhalla (of course), the Bardo, Limbo, Nirvana, Johanna and Jannah, the Three Kingdoms of Glory, Aslan's Country, King's Cross, Pandemonium, the Bogus Journey, Hotel Hades, Iowa, the Bad Place, Robot Hell, Hadestown, Rock and Roll Heaven, and the Outer Planes. 

It's great fun and it's definitely one I'd recommend. Just put it on your coffee table or nightstand, and read a chapter or two every night for maximum enjoyment! 

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

336 Pages

Published January 2022 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

*my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review*

Publisher's Summary:

In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. 

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

My Thoughts: 

If you've been here long, you know that I'm a huge fan of Umrigar's work. In 2015 I included her on a list of authors who are on my "auto-buy" list. To say that I was excited to have the chance to read her latest early would be an understatement. 

In 2012, I wrote this about The World We Found: "India comes alive in her hands - I never fail to want to travel there after reading one of Umrigar's books. 

In 2014, this about The Story Hour: ''Umrigar just never disappoints me, always taking me out of my little white suburban bubble to look at the world in a bigger way."

In 2010 I was so in love with The Weight Between Us that my review of the book is almost entirely made up of quotes from the book. Also in 2010, I had this to say about The Space Between Us: "She is not the first person to write about class distinctions, poverty, and despair. Umrigar just does it better than most."

In 2022, I have this to say about Umrigar's writing - all of those things remain true. While it's true, of course, that our own country has more than its own share of prejudice, misogyny, and, as Isabel Wilkerson explained in Caste, our own caste system, it's always thought provoking and often heartbreaking to read about how those things play out in India. In Honor, Umrigar takes readers even deeper into the struggle that is life in a rural country divided in so many ways. There are some incredibly brutal scenes in this book that were really difficult to read; but, sadly, based on the reality that is the life of so many in India. Umrigar, as she always does, forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths and touches on so many difficult themes. Here she explores corruption, classism, religion, sexism, family, secrets, and, of course, honor. 

One of the things that I've always loved about Umrigar's books is how well she writes multi-dimensional characters. Unfortunately, that was one area where I felt this book fell a little flat for me. While Smita and Mean are well developed, other characters were less so. Perhaps it was because there were quite a few characters who had so little space to be developed. There is at least one character who I felt developed to a point and then her story got lost in the greater story; she might have been left out altogether. 

The relationship between Smita and Mohan caused me more trouble - being both too predictable and too unbelievable. I understand that Umrigar wanted the dual love stories to work against each other and I'm not sure how she might have developed Smita's and Mohan's storyline so that it would have felt less forced to me. 

This one doesn't leave as many unresolved issues as so many of Umrigar's books do and there was a part of me that wished it had. Perhaps Umrigar felt as if she'd already given us too much pain and sadness. 

Perhaps all of that gives the impression that this one didn't work for me. Let me just paraphrase what I say about Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey - even an Umrigar book that I have problems with is still better than most books. Umrigar always forces readers to face uncomfortable truths about the world in which we live and she always leaves me thinking about the characters she's created. 

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toewes

Published 2004 by Counterpoint

246 pages

Publisher's Summary:

Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, Nomi Nickel's days are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of East Village, a town founded by Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada. This darkly funny novel is the world according to Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen-year-old trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member lands on a collision course with the only community any of them have ever known.

My Thoughts: 

When I put together the list of books for my book club to read this year, one of my tasks was to choose a book written by a Canadian author. I chose one, read it, and decided it was too dark. And then I looked and looked for a book by a Canadian author that was set in Canada and not too dark. Having enjoyed Toews' Women Talking and The Flying Troutmans, I picked this book. Which is, if not dark, bleak. Although it is loaded with dark humor. 

In a small, restrictive town, it should be no surprise that things happen slowly in this book with hardly a ripple in the pool that is life in East Village. A daughter leaves home. A mother is excommunicated and leaves town. A father, unable to deal with the loss of the love of his life, slowly comes apart. A young teen, adrift with no one to really care about her well-being, begins to fail in school and stay out nights doing more and more drugs.

A lot of reviews of this book compare it to The Catcher In The Rye, a book I've never read. But I'm given the impression that Holden Caulfield, angsty teen, has not particular reason for being disaffected. Nomi, on the other hand, has had her life turned upside down. Growing up concerned that one or the other of her family members might be headed for eternal damnation, Nomi was happy. She admired her sister and loved her parents even though she knew how deeply unhappy her sister, Tash, was in East Village and how mixed-up thing seemed to be. After Tash and their mother leave, Nomi gradually begins to see how constricted her life will be if she stays in East Village and how trapped she has become. Tash has taught her "that some people can leave and some can't and those who can will always be infinitely cooler than those who can't and I'm one of the ones who can't because you're one of the ones who did and there's this old guy in a wool suit sitting in an empty house who has no one but me now thank you very, very, very much." 

Religion rules the village and Nomi's life. It's a complicated thing - real life is nothing like the life American tourists come to the village to see. It's so different that the villagers have set up a separate part of town where the tourists can see villagers acting out the way life used to be. But the young people in East Village behave very much like teenagers every where, especially those who feel trapped in a small town with no good prospects. Which makes me wonder about the Mennonites I see here sometimes. Are they really who they appear to be in when they are in public? 

The days seem to drag on, every day much the same as the other - walking around town, driving around town, sitting in his truck with her boyfriend, visiting her friend Lydia in the hospital, getting kicked out of school again and again for being mouthy to the teachers, and trying to help her father stay afloat. In many ways, as I was reading, it felt like we were treading water and it was work to keep going. 

In doing some research to put together discussion questions for my book club, the question of what the title means kept coming up and, as with so many books, there were a lot of different theories. Not until just this moment did I finally come up with my own opinion about what the title means. But I'm sorry to say that I can't tell you what that theory is because it has to do with the end of the book, an ending I can't say I thought much of until this theory occurred to me. And now I'm left wondering if that complicated kindness with have been worth what it cost. 

River of Dust by Virginia Pye

River of Dust by Virginia Pye

Published May 2013 by Unbridled Books

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

On the windswept plains of northwestern China, Mongol bandits swoop down upon an American missionary couple and steal their small child. The Reverend sets out in search of the boy and becomes lost in the rugged, corrupt countryside populated by opium dens, sly nomadic warlords and traveling circuses. This upright Midwestern minister develops a following among the Chinese peasants and is christened Ghost Man for what they perceive are his otherworldly powers. Grace, his young ingénue wife, pregnant with their second child, takes to her sick bed in the mission compound, where visions of her stolen child and lost husband begin to beckon to her from across the plains. The foreign couple’s savvy and dedicated Chinese servants, Ahcho and Mai Lin, accompany and eventually lead them through dangerous territory to find one another again. With their Christian beliefs sorely tested, their concept of fate expanded, and their physical health rapidly deteriorating, the Reverend and Grace may finally discover an understanding between them that is greater than the vast distance they have come.

My Thoughts: 

When I started blogging, Unbridled Books was one of the publishers that came to me time and again offering books for review. It didn't take me long to figure out that anything they offered me was worth the reading. Through Unbridled I discovered Peter Geye, Masha Hamilton, and Emily St. John Mandel. I was thrilled when they picked up local author, Timothy Schaffert's The Coffins of Little Hope. But it's been a long time since I've picked up a book from Unbridled. 

Some years back I requested River of Dust on Netgalley and then never got around to reading it, which I regretted. Recently I discovered that it was available at my library; I decided it was time to rectify that oversight. As soon as I started reading, I remembered one of the draws of Unbridled Books - here was a story I have never read before. 

The book opens with Grace arriving at a country home Reverend and Ahcho have built for the family to enjoy outside of the small village the mission compound is set in. Life feels marvelous to Grace - she is married to a man she admires so much that she only calls him Reverend, she has a adorable little boy, and she is, blessedly, pregnant again. And then the worst imaginable thing happens; two men ride out of the dust and, for reasons Grace can't begin to imagine, steal their son. Reverend and Ahcho immediately ride off after the bandits and only Mai Lin's skill as a healer save Grace from having a miscarriage. 

Things only get worse from there. Both Reverend and Grace begin to mentally fail, a terrible drought brings on famine that not even people with money can survive, Grace contracts "consumption," and Reverend's faith is lost. I suppose the title and the cover of the book should have been my first clues that this was going to be a dark read. It didn't take long to figure out that there would be no happy ending. It's incredibly sad but, I suppose, sadness is likely to follow where arrogance, ignorance, and misguided intentions lead. For me the most compelling part of the book was the exploration of faith. 

The book is set just two years after the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising that started in North China because of growing resentment against Christian missionaries and foreign influence. To set out into any new territory to do missionary work was dangerous; to set off into an area that had so recently made it obvious that they didn't want to hear about your faith was, perhaps, the ultimate act of your own faith. Pye's story is drawn from the journals of her own grandfather, which makes the book all the more compelling in retrospect. 

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Read by Bahni Turpin

Published September 2020 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary: 

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love.

My Thoughts:

Transcendent: adjective

• beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience
• (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe
• surpassing the ordinary; exceptional

Two years ago I read Gyasi's debut, Homegoing, and was so impressed with her writing and the story she told. I knew that I would read her next book and requested it from my library before it was even available. I was not alone - it took until November for me to get the book. It might have been because other people had also been impressed with her first book or because this one is gaining high praise from all quarters. For good reason. This book lives up to its title in every way. 

It's a complex novel that handles a lot of themes beautifully, never becoming overwhelmed by them. Gyasi's characters are complicated and wholly developed and I felt so deeply for them. Gyasi looks at the immigrant experience from the point of view of those who choose to stay and those who choose to return home. But this is not just an immigrant story. It's the story of parenting, the relationship between parents and children, the pressure we put on our children, marriage, addiction, mental health, faith, and science. 

Certainly these are not, on their surface, characters to whom I shouldn't necessarily be able to relate. But I can relate to the experience of being the mother of an addict and the constant fear that you are going to lose your child. Mercifully, I did not lose my child to a drug overdose as Gifty's mother did; but I can absolutely imagine finding myself reacting in the same way, being crippled with grief and depression. I also related to Gifty's struggle to reconcile her religious upbringing and faith with science. Even as Gifty is studying science and running an experiment she hopes will help people like Nana, she longs for the days when she could put herself in a higher beings hands. This conflict is one of the strengths of this book, of which there are many. 

If you've listened to any other books read by Bahni Turpin, you'll understand why she was the perfect choice to read this book. I'm always impressed with her work; you absolutely find yourself believing you are listening to the characters tell their stories. If you choose to read this book, I highly recommend the audiobook. I was about a third of the way through this book when I knew it would make a great choice for my book club and put it on our calendar. I recommend it for your book club as well. 

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and The Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and The Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

Published May 2018 by Crown Publishing Group

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer, designed the massive aqueduct that would make urban life here possible. D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture, gave L.A. its signature industry. And Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist who founded a religion, cemented the city’s identity as a center for spiritual exploration. 

All were masters of their craft, but also illusionists, of a kind. The images they conjured up—of a blossoming city in the desert, of a factory of celluloid dreamworks, of a community of seekers finding personal salvation under the California sun—were like mirages liable to evaporate on closer inspection. All three would pay a steep price to realize these dreams, in a crescendo of hubris, scandal, and catastrophic failure of design that threatened to topple each of their personal empires. Yet when the dust settled, the mirage that was LA remained.

My Thoughts:                                                                                                                                                  The more nonfiction I read, the more I find that I'm a gal of many interests I didn't even know I had. Thank heavens for people who can convince me to take a chance on a subject like the rise of Los Angeles, a place I've never even been. 

Krist's book focuses on how three people changed the course of history for Los Angeles. They are all three people I knew of but I had no real idea the impact they had on the growth of Los Angeles from a place that should have remained a remote town to the second-largest city in the U.S. Krist covers the period from 1900 - 1930 and moves the book between these three players. Each of their stories and each of their industries would make for great reading, especially in the hands for a storyteller as good as Krist. That they all came about as part of the growth of Los Angeles makes for a fascinating read. 

As Krist moved back and forth between the three industries - movies, water, and religion - I kept thinking that the one I was reading about was the most interesting. Which wasn't altogether surprising when I was reading about the movie industry; I knew a fair amount about it and have always found it interesting. And religion? It certainly can be interesting. But water and engineering? How in the world did Krist manage to make me interested in that? Well, there were intrigues, land battles, ruined friendships, and a major disaster, so there's that. But Krist also makes it about the players and the David and Goliath aspect of it all. 

Perhaps part of what made this book so compelling was that, while it was historical, it was also incredibly timely. The battle between urban and rural, the machinations of the media, the impact of technology, race, corruption, and the  influence of big money on politics, religion, and the movie industry are every bit as relevant today as they were in the 1920's. 

The Mirage Factory is clearly meticulously researched but it hardly even feels like nonfiction and it certainly doesn't feel like Krist is trying to force facts into the narrative, as so many writers do. Krist also wrote City of Scoundrels, a book I've had on my Nook for a long time; somewhere along the way someone had convinced me that a book about the rebirth of another city, Chicago, was worth reading. As much as I enjoyed this book, I'm really looking forward to finding time for that one soon. 

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
Published July 2020 by Simon and Schuster
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. Despite the cramped quarters, this is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and it always feels like home.

Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams.

Esther only wants to keep her daughters close and safe but some matters are beyond her control: there’s Fannie’s risky pregnancy—not to mention her always-scheming husband, Isaac—and the fact that the handsome heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems to be in love with Florence.

When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal.


My Thoughts:
To prove how important the cover of a book can be, when Netgalley asks potential reviewers why they're requested a particular book, one of the reasons is the cover. To be honest, between the title and the cover, I was going to request this book - doesn't it, after all, look like a perfect summer read? While the cover and title and absolutely perfect, they are also very misleading. This book is not a simple summer beach read.

If I'd paid at least as much attention to the description as I did to the cover, I would have known that. I would also have noticed that the Jewish faith was going to play a role in this book. But I didn't notice that. So early on Beanland not only stunned me with something incredibly she also surprised me with how much of a role faith was playing in the book. And, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure that was going to be a book I was interested in reading. I'd recently read two books in which the Jewish faith played a big role and I wasn't necessarily interested in reading another one so soon. But you all know how hard it is for me to put down a book, so I kept reading.

While faith continued to be a part of the story, it began to feel less intrusive and more cohesive to the story. And I began to care about these characters and to understand the family dynamic. By the end, I was really enjoying the book and happy about how things played out.

I did have a couple issues with the book as I was reading but some of those have faded away as I've thought about the book more. Isaac is always the guy you're going to dislike, even when you find out why he is the way he is; but in real life, not everyone grows and changes so his lack of growth is not only to be expected but more believable.

If you choose to read this book, I'd definitely recommend you read the afterward. Much of the story is based on Beanland's family history. I think she's written a lovely homage to her great-aunt Florence!

The Book of Longing by Sue Monk Kidd

The Book of Longing by Sue Monk Kidd
Published April 2020 by Penguin Publishing Group
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.

Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.

My Thoughts:
Anytime you write a fictionalized account of Jesus' life in the unknown years, you've risked alienating a whole group of readers. When you decide to give him a wife, you are, as they publisher's summary says audacious. When you take it even a step further and suggest that Jesus did not grow up believing he was the son of God, you've ventured into territory that could really upset some people. I mean, it's not The Last Temptation of Christ but it could certainly be considered controversial.

I spent a lot of time at the Presbyterian church up the street from us when I was younger; I grew up with the story of Jesus. What we're taught about him is, in my mind, mostly incontrovertible. So, even though I'm more what I would call spiritual rather than religious these days, I confess to having had problems with the liberties Monk Kidd took in the story of Jesus. I'm not opposed to filling in those missing years; I'm not even opposed to making him a little more questioning or giving him a wife. I think what I struggled with was the idea that, while Jesus was faithful (although struggling with that), his movement was more akin to the teaching of Martin Luther King than God, the idea that change in the government could be made through peaceful means.

It wasn't the only thing I struggled with in this book. Do you ever watch action movies, where everything bad that could happen, does happen? This book felt like that to me. Ana's mother doesn't like her, her father sells her off in marriage then tries to barter her off as a concubine. She has only one friend who is brutalized and banished, most of her in-laws don't much care for her, and her uncle confines her to the house for a year and a half. All of that and we already know how things are going to end for her brother and her husband.

I always want to love passionate, intelligent women in books. I wanted to love a character who fought back, who told the stories of women and stood up to men. Early on, It's not that I didn't like Ana. She was a strong young woman who stood up for what she believed, admitted her faults, and wore her passion on her sleeve. But it so often felt like her story got lost in all of the dramatic events and Jesus' story.

I loved The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings. I felt certain that Monk Kidd could take this idea and create something that would impress me. I wish it had. I do recommend, if you read it, reading her notes at the back about why she wrote it and her research. It truly is a well-researched book.

The Book of V by Anna Solomon

The Book of V by Anna Solomon
Published May 2020 by Holt, Henry and Company, Inc.
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
For fans of The Hours and Fates and Furies, a bold, kaleidoscopic novel intertwining the lives of three women across three centuries as their stories of sex, power, and desire finally converge in the present day.

Lily is a mother and a daughter. And a second wife. And a writer, maybe? Or she was going to be, before she had children. Now, in her rented Brooklyn apartment she’s grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires, while also trying to manage her roles as a mother and a wife in 2016.

Vivian Barr seems to be the perfect political wife, dedicated to helping her charismatic and ambitious husband find success in Watergate-era Washington D.C. But one night he demands a humiliating favor, and her refusal to obey changes the course of her life—along with the lives of others.

Esther is a fiercely independent young woman in ancient Persia, where she and her uncle’s tribe live a tenuous existence outside the palace walls. When an innocent mistake results in devastating consequences for her people, she is offered up as a sacrifice to please the King, in the hopes that she will save them all.

In Anna Solomon's The Book of V., these three characters' riveting stories overlap and ultimately collide, illuminating how women’s lives have and have not changed over thousands of years.


My Thoughts: 
I can't actually recall requesting this book but I can tell you two reasons why I would have - I love the cover of this one and that opening paragraph comparing this book to Fates and Furies, a book I very much enjoyed and which was a probably the most talked about book in 2015. Comparing any book to it is a bold statement. Unfortunately, for me, it wasn't a comparison this one could live up to.

Perhaps if I'd more recently read the Book of Esther, this one would have had a greater impact on me. Because I hadn't, I didn't see where Solomon had veered away from that part of the Christian and Hebrew bibles and it made the final chapter of her story less impactful. Unfortunately, this storyline was also the storyline in which I had the least interest which was a problem given that it's the story that the other two storylines are based on.

To be fair to this book, it sort of felt like the wrong book for me to be reading at this time. When I finished this book and started looking for what to read next, I knew I needed either something light or something that would take me to another world. In other words, nothing like this book at all which is a book entirely designed to make readers think about what it means to be a woman, now, forty years ago, and thousands of years ago. We're in the heads of these women a lot which makes it slow going. It also makes it a book I want to be able to recommend; I want to be able to say "read this book about how being a woman has changed and how it hasn't."

I'm loathe to tell you what my other issue was with the book because I know it's not going to be a popular thing for me to say. Here goes: there was a lot of religion in the book (duh, Book of Esther) and I felt like that part took away from the part I was interested. It's not that I'm opposed to religion in a book, and I'm always up for a book that teaches me something new. But I didn't really feel like I was learning from this book, just that religion was being forced into the storylines.

Ugh. I feel like I'm beating this book up. It's not a bad book. If I'd been in the right frame of mind, I feel like I would have enjoyed this one more. If I was more familiar with the story of Esther, I might have enjoyed this one more. If the summary interests you, check out other reviews. Other people may feel very differently about it.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Read by: Arthur Morey, Daniel Passer, Kimberly Farr, Rebecca Lowman
Published: August 2008 by Random House Publishing Group
Source: audiobook bought at my local library book sale

Publisher's Summary:
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of her family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith.


My Thoughts:

Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young
taken between 1869-1875

Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning was a real person, the woman who called herself Brigham Young's 19th wife. I know this because, as I was listening to this book, I found myself more and more curious about how much of what Ebershoff had written was based on fact, particularly in light of the fact that Ebershoff has included many segments that purport to be items from the Mormon church's archives. You know how much love I have for any book that can make me want to do more research!

The 19th Wife was written in the period when it seemed like all novels had two story lines and, just like so many of those, this book suffers from one story line being stronger than the other. Here the historical piece is so fascinating, and Ebershoff spends so much of the book on it, that it often felt like Ebershoff had forgotten he even had another story going.

Ann Eliza Young was an interesting character, a woman who defied one of the most powerful men in the country when she left the Saints, a woman who was thrice divorced in a time when divorce was rare. She was instrumental in the United States outlawing polygamy and toured the country and wrote a book in that pursuit. But she was also a woman who became estranged from both of her sons as adults and whose second edition of her book tried to erase her own flaws.

The Mormon faith is something that I know very little about but haven't thought much of some of their beliefs, to be honest. Ebershoff, however, does a good job of explaining why a group of people would be willing to follow a faith with rules that are so difficult to follow and he highlights the value Mormons place on family and philanthropy. On the other hand, with Ann Eliza Young at the center of the story, the practice of polygamy, and the Saints willingness to accept and encourage it, is only one of the ways Ebershoff looks at the hypocrisy of the faith, particularly that of Brigham Young. I'm going to guess that this book is no more popular among the Latter Day Saints as Ann Eliza Young's original The 19th Wife was.

It's too bad the modern story line wasn't stronger because the modern polygamy is certainly interesting. When the Mormons gave up polygamy, there were some who refused to do it. Having been told for so many decades that polygamy (or plural marriage) was God's will, they felt like the Mormons were turning their backs on their true faith. It's these Mormons who gave us people like Warren Jeffers. Ebershoff calls these people "Firsts" and bases his present day story on them, making many of them descendants of the original characters. His focus is on what becomes of the young men in these sects, young men who the older men are eager to get rid of so they can take the young women for their own wives. It's a story line that deserves at least an equal share of a novel.

Despite the modern story not being as strong, I still enjoyed the book and learned so much. It would make a good book club selection, with a lot to discuss with both the historical and modern pieces.