Two Books By My Favorite Authors

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

There are some authors whose work I will always read. Their books are filled with characters that feel like people I want to know, the stories are interesting, and writing entrances me. Lisa Grunwald and Caroline Leavitt are two of those authors, and they both have wonderful books publishing in April.

There are some authors whose work I will always read. Their books are filled with characters that feel like people I want to know, the stories are interesting, and writing entrances me. Lisa Grunwald and Caroline Leavitt are two of those authors, and they both have wonderful books publishing in April.

Lisa Grunwald’s last novel Time After Time (about a young woman who, after she dies in train crash in a tunnel in Grand Central Station before WWII, returns to life but can only exist within the walls of Grand Central Central Station, falls in love with a train conductor) is one of my all-time favorites. It’s a beautiful love story.

Her new novel, The Evolution of Annabel Craig also has a historical setting. In 1925 Dayton, Tennessee, Annabel is married to George, a lawyer. Annabel overhears a group of the town’s businessmen discussing a newspaper article that states that the American Civil Liberties Union was offering to back any teacher in Tennessee who was willing to test a new law signed by the Tennessee governor. 

The Butler Act forbid the teaching of evolution in public schools in order to protect the children from hearing something that is in direct contrast to religious teachings. The Dayton businessmen believed that this test case could be a boon to business in town. 

Luckily for them, John Scopes, a young substitute science teacher and high school football coach, had taught a class about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is found in their science textbook. John agrees and history is about to be made.

Annabel’s husband George ends up on the defense team, and their lives immediately change. Their neighbors and friends become angry with them. Over 200 reporters descend on the town, including a female reporter named Lottie Nelson. 

Lottie befriends Annabel and opens Annabel’s eyes to a life beyond being a housewife. Annabel likes to take photos and Lottie encourages her in this pursuit, telling Annabel that “what a person wants can change”. 

The Evolution of Annabel Craig may be a historical novel, but it has so many parallels to things happening right now. The media circus, the debate over separation of church and state in schools, the country coming out of a recent horrific pandemic (the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic), it all resonates with today's issues.

If you’re familiar the play “Inherit the Wind”, you know about this story. Lisa Grunwald tells it through the lens of Annabel’s growth as a woman, discovering who she is and what is important to her. It’s a book that leaves the reader with so much to think about, I read it months ago and I still think about it. I give it my highest recommendation.

Caroline Leavitt’s new novel, Days of Wonder is more contemporary, but also tells the story of  a woman’s growth. When Ella was sixteen years old, she fell madly in love with Jude. They were inseparable and their love became nearly obsessive.

When it appears that Ella and Jude poisoned his father, a judge, after he disapproved of their relationship, Ella is sent to prison while Jude’s father moves him far away.

Ella was pregnant with Jude’s baby and Ella’s mother Helen made the decision that the baby would be given up for adoption. Six years later, Ella gets out of prison and returns home to Helen, who just wants her daughter to be safe and happy. Ella cannot forget about the daughter she gave up however and is determined to find her.

Moving to Ann Arbor, Ella doesn’t tell her mother she is going to find her daughter who has been adopted by a couple. Ella becomes involved in the lives of her daughter and the woman who has adopted the baby without them knowing who she really is.

Meanwhile, Helen, who has never had a relationship with a man since she had Ella, finds herself involved with a man who treats her with kindness and respect. Her life has opened up in ways she never believed possible.

Leavitt does a remarkable job with the characters of Helen and Ella. We watch them change and grow as they have to deal with an impossible situation and we root for them. Helen and Ella have found a place in my heart and no one writes the mother-daughter relationship in novels better than Caroline Leavitt. I also give Days of Wonder my highest recommendation, and it may be Caroline Leavitt’s best book yet.

The Evolution of Annabel Craig by Lisa Grunwald- A

Published by Random House

Hardcover, $30, 320 pages

Days of Wonder by Caroline Leavitt- A

Published by Algonquin Books

Hardcover, $29, 320 pages

Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643752419

Hardcover, $27, 224 pages

When I began reading Lee Smith's Silver Alert, I thought it would be a little bit sunnier and lighter (judging from the cover art) than it ended up being.

Herb is 86 and his health is beginning to fail. He cares for his beloved younger third wife Susan, who is suffering from dementia, in their beautiful Key West home with the help of a rotating group of caregivers. Susan is slipping away, and it breaks Herb's heart to see it.

One day, a young woman named Renee comes in to give Susan a manicure and pedicure, and Susan seems to respond to Renee. Renee gets Susan to sing, and brings in an easel and art supplies for Susan. Susan owned an art gallery, and this is seems to reawaken some light in her.

Herb is thrilled with Renee's progress with Susan, but when he tries to give Renee a ride home, Renee demurs saying that the bus is fine. Renee lives with her friend in a rundown trailer in a not-so-nice part of town- and her name isn't Renee, it's Dee Dee.

We slowly get Dee Dee's backstory, which isn't pretty. As a child she is surrounded by a mom who used drugs and lived with a succession of men who victimize and traumatize a young Dee Dee, even through her young adulthood.

Herb's family- including his children, stepchildren, an ex-wife and Susan's children- have decided that it is time for Susan to be in a nursing home and for Herb to sell the house and move into an assisted living facility right near Susan. And they don't trust Renee.

Wanting nothing to do with that, Herb decides to take his Porsche out for a final spin, and when Renee shows up at the house after being ditched by a man she thought she had a future with, he invites her to join him on a tour of Florida. 

This is where the road trip portion of the story comes into play, towards the last section of the book. As Herb and Renee travel the state, they get to know each other better. Eventually they discover a Silver Alert has been put out for them by Herb's family, hence the title of the book.

I found Renee and Herb's stories interesting, although I would have liked to know more about Herb and Susan's story. There are some really triggering aspects to Renee's story, something that may take readers by surprise if they expect this to be more of a lighthearted road trip story between two people of different generations.

Renee is a resilient young woman, and with Herb's encouragement, she makes good decisions that will lead her on a path that would make him proud.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Lee Smith's tour. 

New in Paperback- Perpetual West by Mesha Maren

Perpetual West by Mesha Maren

Publiblished by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643753409

Trade paperback, $16.99, 400 pages

With so much happening at the US-Mexico border, Mesha Maren's novel, Perpetual West, brings a fascinating perspective as told through the lens of a young married couple, Alex and Elana, who have moved from West Virginia to El Paso.

Alex was born in Mexico and adopted by a missionary couple from West Virginia. He moved in with Elana and her father and brother, and eventually he married Elana, his best friend. He wanted to go to Mexico to learn more about his heritage, so he and Elana are attending college in El Paso.

They frequently cross the border to Mexico, as Alex wants to study lucha libre, Mexican wrestling, for his thesis. He meets one of the wrestlers, Mateo, and quickly falls in love with him. When Elana goes back to West Virginia to welcome her brother Simon home from drug rehab, Alex and Mateo spend the week together.

Elana doesn't speak Spanish very well, and feels left out when she and Alex go to Juarez. She also has decided to drop out of college and is secretly battling anorexia. Her trip home brings up memories of her mother's death when Elana was just a young child.

When Alex doesn't pick up Elana from the airport, she fears something bad happened to him. The police tell her that Alex probably ran away, and they have so many missing people to look for, he is not a priority.

There is so much in this wonderfully written story. Even though there are many characters in the book, Maren manages to make us care about each of them. Elana, Simon, Mateo, Alex- each one is compassionately portrayed.

Her rendering of the settings- the city of Juarez, the drug cartel head's massive compound, Elana's apartment- are all drawn so you feel like you are right there. You can almost taste the delicious foods from her descriptions as well. 

Maren's comparison of what happened to people who worked in the factories that moved from El Paso to Juarez to the miners of West Virginia- "both placed stretched thin, cadavered for their resources and labor and then abandoned, their people rendered subhuman in the national dialogue"- is eye-opening.

I also found her comparison of the migrants crossing into the United States for better opportunities to the people who moved west in the United States intriguing. One group is looked upon as brave frontiersmen forging a new life by opening up borders, the others are derided as "illegal aliens". 

Perpetual West gives the reader a lot to ponder in this propulsive novel and there is a lot going on- love, art, violence, political issues, trauma, religion- enough to keep the reader engaged and thinking about this book long after it's over. It's easy to see why so many publications chose it as one of the Most-Anticipated Books of 2022. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Mesha Maren's tour.

Trailed by Kathryn Miles

Trailed by Kathyrn Miles

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616209094

Hardcover, $27.95, 320 pages

Kathryn Miles is an outdoor expert and she combines that with her award-winning journalistic style to investigate the brutal double murders of two women in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park in Trailed- One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders.

Miles began a teaching job at Unity College in Maine in 2001. A small college in central Maine that focused on environmental studies, it had only 500 students and 30 faculty. Lollie Winans was a student at Unity in the 1990s. Lollie was "confident, egoless, gregarious, and fiercely protective". She came from a wealthy Michigan family, and was a sexual abuse survivor at the hands of her mother's new husband.

Julie Williams was from a conservative religious family "a world traveler, quiet, self-assured and big hearted". Julie and Lollie fell in love and overcame struggles to be together. Lollie and Julie led outdoor excursions for other women, sharing their love of the outdoors with others.

In May of 1996, the two women set out to hike and camp in Shenandoah National Park. Their bodies were found at the end of May at their remote campsite when their dog was found wandering alone. The murders shocked the National Park goers and staff, and the investigators on the case were determined to find the culprit.

There were many problems with the investigation. The murder site was an outdoor campsite, and it had rained before the bodies were discovered. Budget cuts at the National Parks meant that resources, including investigators, were spread thin. FBI agents called in clashed with the park police as how to process the crime site.

The nature and location of the heinous crime made capturing the killer a priority. People want to feel safe in national parks, and this could frighten people away. Investigators narrowed in on a suspect, and in 2002 Darrell Rice was arrested.

Rice had been previously arrested for harrassing a female cyclist, and he was at Shenandoah in May. US Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference and announced that Darrell Rice would be charged with a newly established hate crime statue for the murders of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans. 

The case against Rice fell apart, and in 2004 it was dismissed. In 2016, twenty years after the murders, the FBI issued a press release asking for any information that may lead to the successful prosecution of the case, implying that they already had a suspect.

It was at this point that Kathryn Miles became involved. She was a writer at Outside magazine at the time, and she pitched her editor on the idea of writing a long form investigative piece on the murders. She would write of the lives of Lollie and Julie and the FBI's renewed interest in the case.

The murders consumed Miles. She became friendly with the park police investigators, and spent months, years even, going over every detail and possible suspect. She learned all about forensic science, getting to know Ann Burgess who worked on the launch of the FBI's Behavorial Science Unit (if you watched Mindhunter on TV, you saw a fictionalized version of her).

Miles comes to the conclusion that Darrell Rice did not kill the two women, and she zeroes in on another likely suspect. 

Fans of true crime TV shows, and books like Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone In The Dark will want to read Trailed, but it appeals to more readers than that. Kathryn Miles gives the readers a look at flaws in the criminal justice system, not always intentional. We get to know police investigators, FBI agents, Darrell Rice, friends of Julie and Lollie, and especially Julie and Lollie. Miles honors the memory of Julie and Lollie by letting us get to know them as real people whose lives were tragically cut short. 

I am not a reader of True Crime, and yet I could not put Trailed down. 

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Kathryn Miles tour.

Healing- When A Nurse Becomes A Patient by Theresa Brown, RN

Healing- When A Nurse Becomes A Patient by Theresa Brown, RN

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643750699

Hardcover, $27.95, 272 pages

Theresa Brown, an RN who worked in oncology and hospice, is at a followup scan to her mammogram when a mass is found in her breast. She takes us through her journey as nurse and patient in her moving memoir Healing-When A Nurse Becomes A Patient.

Brown describes in intimate detail being told by the radiologist that she sees "an ugly mass". She writes of calling her college aged twin daughters to pick her up and telling her family what is happening, and it puts every woman in her place. We all have that fear in the pit of our stomach when we go for that mammogram.

Brown also shares her story working as a nurse, what she learned there, and the nurses (good and bad) with whom she worked. As the mother of baby twins and a toddler, Brown felt she knew that speed was most important in her work as a nurse. Her preceptor taught her that it was more important to take time with the patient to truly discover what was going on.

Brown's journey as a cancer patient through the medical system in this country was eye-opening for her. As a nurse who worked in a hospital setting one would think she would know how to get the best care, but she had to transverse many mazes to get the treatment she needed.

Like everyone else, she turned to Google for answers to her questions, but that led to what she called "rabbit holes".  She learned to trust the "safe sites- American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and the CDC". She found that some breast cancer blogs and websites sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were untrustworthy.

She shared her experiences choosing a surgeon, having to wait too long for results, and arriving at the outpatient surgical center only to be told brusquely that "she wasn't on the list".  After her surgery, she had to undergo four weeks of radiation threatments, and she takes us along with her.

Theresa Brown has a PhD in English, and her writing is crisp, detailed and informative. She doesn't waste a word in this important and personal memoir. One of Brown's biggest takeaways from this experience is that for-profit health care doesn't work for patients. When the biggest motivator is a profit for health care companies and their shareholders, patient care suffers. 

Her other big takeaway is that "treatment can be imbued with kindness and compassion so that caring for ohers feels like the act of grace that it is." The care that people get should not depend on where they live, their skin color or the amount of money they have. Health care is a basic human right.

Healing is an important book, as most of us will face health care crises either as a patient or as the loved one of a patient. I highly recommend it. Brown is also the author of The Shift, about her work as a nurse.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Theresa Brown's book tour.

New in Paperback- Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley

Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643752600

Trade paperback, $16.95, 321 pages 

The writer Ann Patchett said that a book has to grab her from the first sentence for her to continue reading it. Fiona Mozley's novel, Hot Stew, did just that for me. She immediately sets a stage in her writing, describing Des Sables, a French restaurant that has been in business with very little changes for decades.

Des Sables is in the Soho section of London, and in just a few pages Mozley covers the history of Soho in breathtaking language. We are introduced to some of our large cast of characters. Tabitha and Precious live together in the building above Des Sables, where they and other women rent the rooms to ply their trade, the world's oldest profession. (In Tudor times, brothels were called 'Stews', hence the book title.) Tabitha acts as an aide/maid to Precious, who at the age of 41, may be retiring in the next few years.

Robert is celebrating his 64th birthday with his younger friend struggling actor Lorenzo, at Aphra Benn, a bar on the same street as Des Sables. Paul and Debbie enter the bar, dumping half-filled drinks into a bottle to consume later. Paul performs magic tricks (poorly) for tips, and Debbie is his sidekick. The owner prefers that the bartender show them the door.

Paul and Debbie live in the basement with other unhoused people. A man called the Archbishop rules over the roost there.

Agatha is the wealthy owner of the building where Precious and her coworkers live. She wants to evict them and the restaurant and build luxury condos as Soho is primed to move from its reputation as a Red Light district to an up-and-coming London suburb. Agatha knows some shady characters, and she is willing to use them to get what she wants.

Precious will not go quietly. She encourages the other women to join her in a protest, which catches the eye of the local media, and Precious becomes the face of the movement. She won't give up her home, "a place that you feel has left its mark on you, for better or worse, and also being a place that you've left your mark upon, for better or worse."

Fiona Mozley's writing is exquisite, she paints such a picture of this place that I felt like I was in this neighborhood, looking out my window watching these characters and their actions. (Her essay on the gentrification of Soho at the end is an added bonus I enjoyed.) The way she ties all these people together is astonishing. I was torn between wanting to race through the book to find out what is going to happen and wanting to read slowly to savor the delicious descriptions and words. I will settle for re-reading Hot Stew, and I'll recommend it to everyone I know.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for providing me with a review in exchange for an honest review.

Friday 5ive- April 8, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) My birthday was on Thursday, and it's a big birthday so there are lots of festivities. My friends from the Book Cellar celebrated with a luncheon with quiche, salad, a delicious lemon blueberry cake, flowers, and gifts. It was delighftul! I came home to find three more floral arrangements- one each from hy husband, my older son and his wife, and my younger son. Our apartment smells and looks fantastic!

 2) My wonderful husband took me to dinner at The River Cafe, just over the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a lovely Michelin-starred restaurant, tucked away in the DUMBO section right on the water. The menu is a three-course prefixe and it was amazing. I had Tortelloni as my first course, handmade pasta filled with butternut squash and buffalo mozzarella, with a crispy pork guanicale that was so tasty. The Black Sea Bass second course was the best fish I've ever had. For dessert, I had the Chocolate Brooklyn Bridge, such an intricately designed dessert. The giant lobby floral display is spectacular as well. It is a special occasion splurge dinner for sure, one I highly recommend.

3) The laundry room in our apartment building got a makeover with all new machines and now there is an app that you can use to start the machines.  You can put money on the app (no more losing your laundry card), use your phone to start the machines, and even get an notification when your laundry is done. It also tells you how many machines are currently in use so you don't have to lug your laundry down the elevator to the laundry room only to find all of the machines in use. Technology can be good.

4) We're watching Showtime's miniseries Superpumped-The Battle For Uber, created by the same people who produce Billions on Showtime. Joseph Gordon Leavitt portrays Uber founder Travis Kalanick, and Kyle Chandler plays venture capitalist Bill Gurley, who heavily invested in Uber. It's a fascinating look at how Uber became the behemoth disrupter it is, and the rise and fall of Kalanick. We are really enjoying this one. 

5) I read two excellent books this week. Fiona Mozley's Hot Stew, is a fantastic novel about the residents in a building in the Soho section of London. A restaurant occupies the first floor, and a brothel takes up most of the upper floors. The owner wants to evict everyone and raze the building to build luxury condos, but the ladies who work in the brothel will not leave. Mozley brilliantly builds her story and introduces us to all the interesting characters, and how they tie into each other. Algonquin Books is on roll publishing so many powerful books like Thrity Unrigar's Honor, Elena Medel's The Wonders and Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie. My full rave review of Hot Stew publishes on Monday.

I read a nonfiction book from Algonquin as well. Theresa Brown's memoir Healing- When A Nurse Becomes A  Patient shares her story of being diagnosed with breast cancer and working her way through the health care system as a nurse and patient. She shares her eye-opening experiences, and many of them are not positive ones. I read this one in just a few hours, unable to put it down. My full review publishes on Tuesday. 

Have a great week everyone.

New in Paperback- Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Published by Algonquin ISBN 9781643752587

Trade paperback, $16.95, 352 pages

March is Women's History Month, and there are many wonderful historical novels now out in paperback that make great reads honoring this month. Lauren Willig's fantastic Band of Sisters (my review here) fictionalizes the true story of a group of Smith College alumni who traveled to France during WWI to aid villagers displaced by war.  Another terrific one is Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie, which takes us to the Civil War, and tells the story of a Black female physician in New York, and her daughter Libertie. Both are excellent reads.

As the novel opens, Libertie is a dark-skinned Black 11 year-old daughter of Cathy, a light-skinned Black female physician living in Brooklyn during the Civil War. Libertie's father is dead, and in addition to caring for the people of her community, Cathy also aids people on the Underground Railroad.

Madame Elizabeth, whose husband is an undertaker, brings Cathy an escaped slave hiding in a coffin. Cathy resusitates the man, Ben, and then Ben is sent to live in town with other escaped men. Libertie is drawn to Ben, and he has a strong effect on her.

In one striking passage in 1863, during what became known as the New York Draft Riots, mobs of Irish people burned down a Black children's orphange to protest being drafted to fight in the Civil War, and the children that could be saved were rowed across the river to Brooklyn where Cathy and Elizabeth and others rushed to help the refugees. I don't recall learning about this horrifying event in history class.

Cathy and other Black women formed the Ladies' Intelligence Society, and they planned to build a hospital to treat Black people, with a focus on women's health issues. Soon, she began to treat white women who turned to Cathy with reproductive issues they couldn't get help with in their own communities. They allowed Cathy, with her light skin, to treat them, but many wouldn't allow the dark-skinned Libertie to touch them.

Cathy arranged for Libertie to attend a Black college in Ohio to train to become a doctor like herself. While at school, Libertie does not get the grades necessary to continue, and she is afraid to tell her mother when she returns home. 

Libertie meets the doctor who is now assisting her mother, and she agrees to marry him and move to Haiti, where his father and sister have fled the scourge of slavery in the United States. Cathy is furious that the dreams she had for her daughter are gone, that Libertie has chosen to be a wife and mother as her life's ambition.

Adjusting to life in Haiti is difficult for Libertie, her father-in-law and sister-in-law do not treat her kindly, and her husband appears too busy to notice. She becomes attached to TiMe, the family servant, and discovers a troubling situation, one she will not ignore.

Libertie tells her own story here, and people who love Toni Morrison's novels will find themselves drawn to Kaitlyn Greenidge's lyrical style of writing, with an element of magic involved. Libertie has a strong mother-daughter story at its core, and I for one would love to read Cathy's own story told by her as well.

We read to put ourselves in the shoes of others, and read historical fiction to feel how people lived in other times other than ours, and Libertie accomplishes both of those brilliantly. I can see why so many publications called it one of the best books of 2021. Libertie the book and Libertie the person are unforgettable.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Kaitlyn Greenidge's book tour.

Algonquin has many wonderful excellent books for Women's History Month, including Thrity Umrigar's Honor, and Elena Medel's The Wonders. 

Honor

The Wonders

The Wonders by Elena Medel

The Wonders by Elena Medel

Published by Algonquin ISBN 9781643752112

Hardcover, $26.95, 240 pages

March is Women's History Month and if you are looking for a great read, you can do no better than Elena Medel's brilliant and moving novel, The Wonders. Some of the book is set during the Women's March in in Madrid 2018.

Medel takes us inside the lives of two women- Maria in 1969 and Alicia in 2018. Maria works as a housekeeper and caregiver, scraping out a living in the few ways available to her. She left her hometown as a teenager after becoming pregnant by an older married man and giving birth to a daughter.

Maria is forced to leave her baby Carmen behind in the care of her disapproving parents, with her sister Soledad and 13 year-old brother Chico who help as well. Chico splits his time between working at a bar and caring for his niece.

Maria works hard, visits Carmen when she can, which is not often enough, She dreams of the day she has enough money to be permanently reunited with her daughter, but even as hard as she works, that opportunity slips further away with each passing each day.

We see Maria as she grows older and becomes politically active, beginning with her neighborhood association, trying to make her neighborhood safer. Eventually she started meeting with other women to discuss things important to them, but not to the men, in their lives- divorce, abortion, physical and emotional violence. Over the years, Maria found her voice and became a leader to other women.

I was particularly struck by this passage:

"No one can know the truth about these women. Their enemy is the boss: the one with more money, more power, the one who changes their shifts without bothering to ask, who's always looking down on them."

In 2018, Alicia is working her night shift at the convenience store. She prefers that shift, leaving her days free. Her husband Nando wants her to work days so they can spend time doing the things he likes but Alicia does not- cycling trips, beach days with his mother, dinner at the same restaurants with the same couples and their young children.  She "molded her life to his" and that is not enough for her.

In her unhappiness with Nando, Alicia has begun having one-night stands with strange men. Alicia's mother is Carmen, Maria's daughter. We are privy to Alicia's upbringing, and once again Chico has played a big part in the lives of the women in his family helping raise Alicia after her father's suicide. Chico is a caring, kind man, a balance to the other selfish, self-centered men in the novel.

As Alicia walks through the crowds of the women's protest, we wonder if she will meet up with her grandmother Maria- would she even know her if she saw her?

"Money's the thing: not having enough is the thing." Society does not value the work women do, from caring for children to caring for our elders, and money means freedom for those who have it. 

Medel is a Spanish poet and as such, every word in is carefully chosen for maximum inpact in this slim yet powerful 240-page story. We know Maria and Alicia's lives intimately in these few pages, a true accomplishment. If you read and loved Elena Ferrante's novels (or if you thought those books were too long for you), Elena Medel's debut novel The Wonders is your next read. I give it my highest recommendation.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Elena Medel's tour.

Friday 5ive- November 5, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(-ish) blog post about five things that caught my eye this week.

It's been a busy time, with a lot of things happening this first week of November.

1) We attended the ArchCare Gala on October 28th. My husband is the CEO and President of ArchCare, and each year a gala fundraiser is held at Gotham Hall in Manhattan. This year, $1.5 million was raised at an event that featured author/director/filmmaker/playwright Adriana Trigiani as the event's emcee, Broadway star Mary Testa performing four songs, and Dr. Deborah Birx as the featured speaker. The evening was a great success, and the crowd of 350 people adored all three of the incredible ladies. 

2) I found this Little Free Library on my walk in Longboat Key, the first one I have seen in our neighborhood. 

3) Our older son has been an Atlanta Braves fan since he was seven years old and they won the 1995 World Series. This week, the Braves won the World Series and so many of our family and friends were very happy for him. Nobody thought they had a chance since they had a losing percentage at the All-Star break. Way to go Atlanta!

4) I watched the 92Y event with Samantha Barry interviewing Hillary Clinton and Huma Abdedin about Abedin's memoir Both/And . Abedin, born to Indian parents, spoke of traveling all over the world as a child with her family, and she spoke very lovingly of her father who passed away. She and Secretary Clinton shared stories of Abedin's rise from White House intern during the Clinton administration to her working as Hillary Clinton's chief aide while Clinton was a Senator, Secretary of State, and Presidential candidate. Adebin has led a fascinating life, and she is an excellent role model for young women. (The stories she told were quite amusing too.) I can't wait to read her book. 

5) I read two books this week. Indian author Thrity Unrigar's new novel, Honor, (which publishes in January) was suggested to me by someone who knows good books. It tells the tale of a young Indian reporter who has lived in the US since she was a teen. She returns to India to cover the story of a young woman whose Muslim husband was killed by the woman's brothers as revenge for marrying their Hindu sister. The brothers then burned and severely disfigured their sister. It's a stunning novel about revenge, honor, courage and the dangers of tribalism which unfortunately resonates in our society today as well, and Umrigar's best book yet.

I also read Jenna Blum's Woodrow on the Bench, a memoir about the last year in the life of Blum's beloved 15 year-old dog Woodrow. Woodrow was Blum's faithful companion, popular with all those who met him and his fans on Instagram. (He had his own account.) Anyone who has ever had and lost a dog will relate to this touching book, and Blum does not shy away from the bad things that happened to Woodrow as he became more and more infirm and ill. It's a true love story, and you will cry. 

Stay safe and healthy everyone.

New in paperback- At The Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman

At The Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman

Published by Algonquin ISBN 9781643752082

Trade paperback, $16.95, 320 pages

One of the many consequences of this pandemic is that is has brought to the forefront hidden problems like hunger and homelessness. People who were living on the edge found themselves for the first time visiting food pantries to feed their families, and turning to charitable agencies to help them pay rent.

Katherine Seligman's novel, At the Edge of the Haight, shines a light on the problem of homeless young people in San Francisco. As we meet Mad, she is chasing her dog Root who has run off into the underbrush of the park where she and her friends spend most of their day. 

Root and Mad stumble upon a young man in the throes of death, and a man standing over him who threatens Mad. Mad runs, fearful for her life.  Mad's father left her when she was just a child, and her mother suffered a psychotic break a few years later. She went to live with relatives in a foster care situation, and left as soon as she could.

She ran to San Francisco and found other young people like her- running away from bad situations at home, many who aged out the foster care system with no support or place to go. Mad and her friends sometimes spend the nights in shelter, where they have to be in by 8pm and out by 8am. She goes to the public library, or hangs out in the park during the day.

In addition to the everyday stresses of homelessness- where to get food and money, clean clothes, avoiding the police- Mad now has to avoid the man who killed the young man. The young man's father, Dave, comes around looking for answers to what happened to his son. Dave and his wife want to help Mad out, but they make Mad uncomfortable.

We learn so much about life on the streets in this powerful novel. The scene where Mad and her friend Ash get soaked waiting out a rainstorm in a doorway overnight rather than spend the night in a dangerous shelter is so vivid you can feel the shivering rain on your own skin as you read it.

There are people who are kind to these kids- a librarian who gives Mad paper, envelopes and stamps to write letters, store keepers who let them hang out, people who work in the shelters who try to help them get assistance. There are also people who are not kind, like the gang of thugs who regularly take Mad and her friends' food and money as a toll payment. The people (some with their young children) who want to take photos with the "hippies" made me cringe, as if these young people are tourist attractions.

One thing that caught my attention was something that Mad's mother said- "You can't judge people because you just never know why they do what they do." That line resonated for me.

At the Edge of the Haight won the 2019 Pen/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a prize initiated by author Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite authors. Good fiction makes people more empathetic, and At the Edge of the Haight made me look at homeless people in a more compassionate light. We can all use a little more compassion these days. I highly recommend At the Edge of the Haight, it's remarkable and enlightening.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Katherine Seligman's book tour.

The Archer by Shruti Swamy

The Archer by Shruti Swamy

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616209902

Hardcover, $26.95, 293 pages

The first thing you notice about Shruti Swamy's novel The Archer is the striking cover- a young woman dancer caught in midspin. I immediately wanted to know all about her.

The story opens in 1960's Bombay with a young Vidya, who is not living with her mother or brother, but with her father, aunt and two cousins.  After a time, her mother and baby brother return home, but Vidya cannot remember why her mother and brother disappeared for a while, it is a mystery not to be discussed at home.

Vidya is dark complected like her mother's family, and her father's family treats her differently as they are lighter-skinned. Her paternal grandmother says Vidya also has her mother's temperament, calling her "restless and unsatisfied", and it telling her it will lead to problems in the future.

While her mother is taking singing lessons, Vidya wanders into a kathak dance class and is mesmerized. She wants nothing more than to dance like the young women she saw. When Vidya's mother discovers that she wants to take dance lessons, she tells Vidya that it takes discipline and practice. Then her mother tells her the story of Eklavya, a young boy who wanted to be an archer and what he had to sacrifice to do it.

Vidya is accepted into dance class, and her teacher requires complete dedication to dance, which Vidya is only too happy to give. As the years go by, we see Vidya attending an English scholarship school where she excels in academics and continues her dance instruction.

When Vidya goes to college, she studies electrical engineering, and does very well in her classes. She finally makes a good friend in Radha, a fellow female engineering student, who tells Vidya that she may have to make a choice between dance and engineering as both require rigorous devotion.

In her heart, Vidya is a dancer. She trains with a reknowned teacher who requires perfection, something that Vidya strives for in her life. When Vidya earns a solo dance performance, she is so filled with joy, but her teacher's comments take her aback.

The Archer is a beautiful coming-of-age story for Vidya, with the book divided into five sections, each one dealing with a different part of her life. We see her grow from a young girl who finds her passion in dance, and how she strives to continue to live a life that honors her art, even though society asks something else of her. If you are someone for whom art is your passion, you will get even more from this beautifully written story. If you loved Alka Joshi's The Henna Artist, put The Archer on your list.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Shruti Swamy's tour.

New in Paperback- With Or Without You by Caroline Leavitt

With Or Without You by Caroline Leavitt 

Published by Algonquin Paperbacks ISBN 9781643751436

Trade paperback, $16.95, 289 pages

Author Caroline Leavitt's novels share stories of people facing some kind of crisis, often ones not of their design. In Pictures of You, a car crash causes the death of a woman that upends the life of the other driver. In Cruel Beautiful World, Charlotte's life is thrown into turmoil when her younger 16 year-old sister runs away with her teacher. She creates characters that you empathize with, and feel deeply about.

Leavitt's latest novel, With or Without You, begins with Stella and Simon, who have been together for twenty years, having a recurring argument. Stella, a nurse, wants to settle down, buy their New York City apartment, and have a child. Simon, a rock musician, does not.

Simon is preparing to go Los Angeles with his bandmates to open for a younger, popular rocker. He sees this as an opportunity for the band to break out and gain the attention they have been seeking for the last twenty years. Times have been tough for them, and this may be their last best chance.

Stella is suffering from a terrible cold, and instead of going to Los Angeles with Simon as planned, she says that she will stay in New York. At first upset, Simon tries to talk her into coming, even though maybe deep down, he thinks it would be better for her not to go. 

During the argument, they are drinking wine, and Simon gives Stella a pill to take to feel better. The next morning, Simon has to rush the unconscious Stella to the hospital where she works, after she has fallen into a coma.

Libby is an attending doctor and one of Stella's best friends. She is on Stella's case, and not a fan of Simon, whom she thinks is selfish. But Simon stays by Stella's side the entire time, giving up his trip to Los Angeles and dreams of stardom.

Stella's mom Bette flies in from Spain, and she and Simon form their own new family as they wait by Stella's bedside for her to wake up. The relationship between Simon and Bette is touching, and we see a side to Bette that Stella doesn't know. Libby comes to see another side of Simon as well.

When Stella eventually wakes up, she is a different person. She begins drawing circles on paper, over and over. She goes to the park and feels compelled to sketch people. Her drawings are so intense, and she becomes a popular attraction. People begin to pay her for her drawings, and soon she gets commissions for her sketches and draws the attention of the media.

Simon doesn't know what to make of this. All his life he has been an artist, and wanted attention for his work, and now Stella is the one whom the world notices. 

No one writes characters as well as Leavitt, and here we see how the circumstances of Stella's coma have changed the lives of not only Simon and Stella, but Libby's as well. People are forced to look at the life they had wanted but must deal with the life they now find themselves facing. 

 I liked how Leavitt looks at memories that we have of our childhood, and assumptions we make about those we love that turn out to be different from we had always believed. The characters in With Or Without You go through such emotional and physical upheavals, and the reader is right along with them for all the heartache. I read With Or Without You in one sitting, my heart breaking the entire time. I highly recommend it, and Caroline Leavitt gets better with every novel.

 Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Caroline Leavitt's tour.

Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond

Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616208202

Hardcover, $27.95, 309 pages

In the memoir, Nowhere Girl, author Cheryl Diamond states "by the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identies. I know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and the most important, how to disappear." How can you resist that?

When the book opens, four year-old Cheryl (whose given name is Bhajan), her older brother Frank (age 14) and older sister Chiara (age 16) are traveling in an out-of-control car careening through the Himalayas with their parents, George and Anne. The family are Sikh, vegetarian, and constant travelers, on the run from Interpol and their mother's father, a member of the Luxenbourg secret police. 

Cheryl is not exactly sure what her father has done, it has something to do with money, but the family has to obey his three rules- always be loyal to their family, trust no one, and be a noble criminal. It is an "unbreakable outlaw code".

Moving from country to country, the children could not make friends. When they are in British Columbia, Chiara plans on attending college and is devastated when George gets into some trouble with an investor and tells them to pack up, they are on the move.

For people who are always on the run, I found it puzzling that George encouraged Frank to join swim teams wherever they moved, becoming good enough that he would train for the Olympics. Cheryl showed skill in gymastics, and she trained with an eye towards the Olympics as well. Weren't they worried they would be discovered?

George had an explosive temper and could be violent with his family. He verbally and physically abused them, beating young Cheryl with a electrical cord. He didn't speak to Frank for over a year- not a word spoken to him. That abuse left emotional scars on all of them.

As the children get older, they rebel against this lifestyle. Eventually, Cheryl wants a passport in her real name, but the problem is that she doesn't have a legal birth certificate. The birth certificate she has is fraudulent, and getting a passport with that would mean that she would be committing fraud. 

Nowhere Girl is a crazy true story, and if it were a novel, the editor would probably tell the author to tone it down, it's too outrageous. The family lived like kings in fancy hotels at times, and then were living in their car, homeless, at others. They had adventures and traveled the world, but had to constantly look over their shoulder. If you liked the books Educated and The Glass Castle, put Nowhere Girl on your list. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Cheryl Diamond's tour.

New in PaperbackThe Falling Woman by Richard Farrell

The Falling Woman by Richard Farrell
Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643751399
Trade paperback, $16.95, 352 pages

In Richard Farrell's debut novel The Falling Woman, Erin is fighting a tough battle with pancreatic cancer. When she and her husband Doug, who has been by her side caring for her, receive the latest test results, the news is not great. She is not in remission, but she will need to continue treatment, to keep fighting.

Erin is tired, and not sure how much longer she can fight. She decides to fly to a cancer survivors retreat, something that concerns Doug. The flight that Erin is on crashes over the Kansas farmland, and it appears there are no survivors.

But Erin is thrown from the plane and lands in a barn. She is found by the owner, and taken to the hospital. Before she can be questioned by the authorities as to what happened, Erin disappears.

Charlie is an investigator for the NTSB. This accident is the first major case he is assigned to, and if he does a good job, he will move up the ranks and gain respectability. He is assigned to identify the 123 bodies, a gruesome and difficult task, but one he takes very seriously.

When rumors of a female survivor swirl, the media leaps on the story. The lead investigator assigns Charlie to track the woman, and determine whether she exists or it is a hoax. This upsets Charlie, he feels it is a waste of time, and he is in a no-win situation.

Erin hides out in a cabin in Virginia, she has decided not to tell anyone that she is alive. Her husband and daughters have already mourned once, and they will have to mourn all over again when she dies of cancer.

Charlie tracks her down and tries to convince her that she must come forward. She owes it to her family, and the families of the other six women who hold out hope that it is their loved one who is the survivor.

The scenes between Charlie and Erin are the heart of this intriguing story. Can he convince her to come forward and save his job or will Erin convince him that she is entitled to live out her final days in peace? Charlie also confides in Erin about a major step he and his wife have to decide.

We see the government bureaucracy at work as the higher-ups in the NTSB want to shift blame for anything that can go wrong with the investigation, and I found the steps the investigators took at the crash sight intriguing.  I liked the character of Lucy, the investigator who put forth the idea that other people have survived plane crashes and maybe someone did here as well.

There is action and two characters thrown together who have to convince the other of what is morally right. The Falling Woman feels like a cross between The Fugitive movie and Ann Napolitano's novel Dear Edward.  Readers will spend time wondering what they would do in Charlie and Erin's positions. Farrell's first novel is thought-provoking, it will be interesting to see where he goes with his next one.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Richard Farrell's tour.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Libertie by Kaityn Greenidge

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616207014

Hardcover, $26.95, 336 pages

Kaitlyn Greenidge's historical novel Libertie is the second book I've read in two weeks dealing with the role of women in the Civil War era (Dorothy Wickenden's nonfiction The Agitators about the lives of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward and Martha Wright is the other), and it's a revelation.

As the novel opens, Libertie is a dark-skinned Black 11 year-old daughter of Cathy, a light-skinned Black female physician living in Brooklyn during the Civil War. Libertie's father is dead, and in addition to caring for the people of her community, Cathy also aids people on the Underground Railroad.

Madame Elizabeth, whose husband is an undertaker, brings Cathy an escaped slave hiding in a coffin. Cathy resusitates the man, Ben, and then Ben is sent to live in town with other escaped men. Libertie is drawn to Ben, and he has a strong effect on her.

In one striking passage in 1863, during what became known as the New York Draft Riots, mobs of Irish people burned down a Black children's orphange to protest being drafted to fight in the Civil War, and the children that could be saved were rowed across the river to Brooklyn where Cathy and Elizabeth and others rushed to help the refugees. I don't recall learning about this horrifying event in history class.

Cathy and other Black women formed the Ladies' Intelligence Society, and they planned to build a hospital to treat Black people, with a focus on women's health issues. Soon, she began to treat white women who turned to Cathy with reproductive issues they couldn't get help with in their own communities. They allowed Cathy, with her light skin, to treat them, but many wouldn't allow the dark-skinned Libertie to touch them.

Cathy arranged for Libertie to attend a Black college in Ohio to train to become a doctor like herself. While at school, Libertie does not get the grades necessary to continue, and she is afraid to tell her mother when she returns home. 

Libertie meets the doctor who is now assisting her mother, and she agrees to marry him and move to Haiti, where his father and sister have fled the scourge of slavery in the United States. Cathy is furious that the dreams she had for her daughter are gone, that Libertie has chosen to be a wife and mother as her life's ambition.

Adjusting to life in Haiti is difficult for Libertie, her father-in-law and sister-in-law do not treat her kindly, and her husband appears too busy to notice. She becomes attached to TiMe, the family servant, and discovers a troubling situation, one she will not ignore.

Libertie tells her own story here, and people who love Toni Morrison's novels will find themselves drawn to Kaitlyn Greenidge's lyrical style of writing, with an element of magic involved. Libertie has a strong mother-daughter story at its core, and I for one would love to read Cathy's own story told by her as well.

We read to put ourselves in the shoes of others, and read historical fiction to feel how people lived in other times other than ours, and Libertie accomplishes both of those brilliantly. I can see why so many publications called it one of the most anticipated books of 2021. Libertie the book and Libertie the person are unforgettable.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Kaitlyn Greenidge's book tour.