BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

My Brilliant Friend
by Elena Ferrante

A Literary Novel Filled with Wisdom, Wit, and Insight About a Deep and Abiding Friendship (4/13/2023)

I read this extraordinary book by Italian author Elena Ferrante with a bit of trepidation. Two of my bookish friends whose opinions I greatly value have wildly different views of this novel. One friend loves it so much that this is her go-to book to give as a gift; it is so …more important to her that she simply must share it with many people. The other friend is vehement in her dislike, going so far as to tell me, "I hated the book!!!" (Yes, with three exclamation points.)

I fall somewhere between the two. The colorful characters just drew me in to their insular working-class world of 1950s Naples, Italy. The streets came alive, I could feel the crowded apartments, and I could always sense the underlying current of anger and violence that filled the hearts of so many of the men. It just seemed so real. And, oh, the writing! It's simply exquisite.

This, the first of a quartet of books about the lifelong friendship between Lila Cerullo and Elena Greco, focuses on the girls' childhood and adolescence—that emotionally volatile time when girls make decisions about their grownup lives while wondering all the while how they could be so ugly and stupid and inept. Who would ever love them? Where will they work? Who will they BE? Although the book is narrated by Elena, the real star is Lila. Naturally brilliant, Lila is forced to quit school at age 12 and work in her father's shoe repair shop along with her angry brother, Rino. Her best friend, Elena is allowed to go to the private middle school and high school, and Lila does her best to keep up with Elena by actually teaching herself Latin and Greek on her own. They are smart and bookish in a world that wants them to just be pretty, silly, and marry young. Still, both girls are caught up in the little neighborhood's social scene, learning to dance, meeting boys, and falling in love. Their friendship is truly based on love for each other, but like adolescent girls from time immemorial, they have deep conflicts and complicated lives, which take very different paths by the book's end.

This is a literary novel about a deep and abiding female friendship that relies on characters instead of plot to propel the story. I was captivated by the novel, delighting in the wisdom, wit, and insight of Lila and Elena as they navigate growing up and becoming young women. (less)

The Arrivals: A Novel
by Meg Mitchell Moore

Selfish, Whiny, Entitled Characters No Plot = A Boring Book (4/13/2023)

This is summer ChickLit with a big ol' helpin' of whining and complaining. Enough already!

Written by Meg Mitchell Moore, this is the story of William and Ginny, sixty-somethings who are happily retired in Burlington, Vermont on the shores of picturesque Lake Champlain and …more still living in the home in which they raised their three children. Those three now-grown kids each have problems they think are so insurmountable that they rush home to Mom and Dad. But here's the weird part: The kids show up on the doorstep one-by-one, but it takes seemingly forever for each of them to actually reveal to the others why they are there and why they are suffering so.

• Lillian is living in a beautiful home near Boston with husband Tom and their two children Oliva, 3, and Phillip, three months. The home is decorated from the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog. Soon after baby Phillip's birth, Tom has a drunken one-night stand with his very young secretary at an out-of-control office party, and of course someone immediately calls Lillian to squeal. In a fit of anger, she flees with the kids, yelling at Tom not to contact her—ever again.
• Stephen, a mediocre freelance editor lives in a tony New York City loft apartment with his MBA-credentialed wife, Jane, who makes the big bucks. Jane is pregnant and very moody, so Stephen decides the best way to cheer her up is to whisk her off to his family's home for a long weekend. This is puzzling because Jane and Ginny are like oil and water. THIS is going to cheer up the moody pregnant wife? But then there is a medical emergency, and Jane is ordered to bedrest in Vermont for 10 weeks.
• Rachel, who just broke up with her live-in boyfriend because he won't marry her, is failing at her job as a casting agent for one reason only: She has given up trying. Meanwhile, she can't afford the rent on her New York City apartment since the boyfriend walked out. Instead of trying to make the job work out, she flees to Vermont in emotional and financial distress.

That's the set-up. Everyone is home in Vermont in a house that isn't big enough for all of them. Chaos ensues. There is much rage and resentment. The problems take a long, long, long time to come to light before they resolve, which only happens because Ginny and William finally have had enough and force the "kids" to act like the adults they are. (But first they blame themselves that their children are so unhappy. Sigh.)

What bothered me the most about the book—in addition to nothing happening except a lot of noise and laundry—was the unrealistic expectations and actions of every character. They are all wrapped up in their own little world and can't see past themselves to reach out and help the ones they love the most. Instead, they just whine and complain. I had little patience for the characters because they were ALL so selfish, spoiled, and entitled. The result? A boring book. (less)

Booth
by Karen Joy Fowler

Original, Imaginative and Ingeniously Plotted: A Riveting Story That Is Also a Warning for Our Times (4/13/2023)

A warning. That is what this book is. A chilling, daunting and, perhaps, prophetic warning. And you don't even have to be a particularly astute reader to see that.

This is the personal life story of one of the most despised and reviled assassins in American history, but …more instead of being told from the point of view of John Wilkes Booth, it is told from the perspective of three of his siblings. This is a brilliant and compelling historical novel that is firmly grounded in prodigious research and sweetened with an imagined rendering of the Booth family daily lives, thoughts, and conversations.

Written by Karen Joy Fowler and longlisted (as of this writing) for the prestigious 2022 Booker Prize, this is the story of one American family that mirrors the divisions and hatreds that consumed our nation in the mid-1800s. Junius Brutus Booth is a highly revered and hugely popular Shakespearean actor. Even without the benefit of mass media, he is a celebrity. Junius is harboring a big, dark secret, so he moves his wife, Mary Ann, and their children—eventually there are 10 children, although four die in childhood—to what he considers a secret farm in Bel Air, Maryland. Junius is away touring with his theater troupe nine months of the year, leaving the family on their own and often without money. The ninth child in this brood and the obvious favorite of everyone is John Wilkes. He is charming, brave, and daring.

This novel is told through the eyes of three of John's siblings: sisters Rosalie and Asia and brother Edwin. The siblings are so different from each other! Rosalie is a slightly physically deformed spinster, growing more bitter by the years. Asia is beautiful but can be coldhearted and even cruel. At one point in the book, she is described as "all ice and iron." Edwin is the only one in the family who makes money, but he is a raging alcoholic. The family eventually move to Baltimore, and when Junius's deep, dark secret is revealed, it causes a scandal for the entire family. The children grow up, and Edwin and John become actors. Edwin rises to fame and a bit of fortune; John is mediocre. But John has passionate feelings about the South's position in the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln—feelings that horrify his family. These feelings eventually consume him until he assassinates the president during a stage performance at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865.

Interspersed throughout the book are snippets about Lincoln—what he is doing at the same point in time, as well as brief excerpts from his speeches and letters. It's a subtle and tragic reminder of what's to come.

Even though we all know how this story ends, the novel is still a captivating read. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a page-turner—sometimes Fowler gets bogged down in the historical minutiae—but it is original, imaginative, and ingeniously plotted. Because we know John Wilkes Booth only through his siblings' eyes, we see him as a real human being. His sisters and brothers loved and adored him so it's hard for readers not to do the same—except when we remember his evil, murderous deed.

But this is more than history transformed into story. It is also an unnerving and prescient allegory for today's divisive politics that spark hatred, fear, and dissension both within our own families and our communities. And that hatred, fear, and dissension are what lead to tragedies.

This is not only a good book, but also it's a warning. (less)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story
by John Berendt

A Bizarre Cast of Characters, a Baffling Murder, and Excellent Writing Make This a Must-Read Book! (4/13/2023)

This book is nonfiction. And that's a good thing because it's too unbelievable to be fiction. But…wow. It's (mostly) true.

Ostensibly, this is about the baffling May 2, 1981 murder of a 21-year-old out-of-control, drunk, drug-addicted, kid with a history of violence named …more Danny Hansford by millionaire Jim Williams. Was it a cold-blooded shooting of the boy or self-defense? I say the book is "ostensibly" about this because the murder doesn't occur until just before the halfway point of the book. Until then, author John Berendt gives us a character-driven travelogue of upper- and lower-class Savannah, Georgia circa the early 1980s. And what characters they are!

In addition to Danny, whose violent rampages and extensive sexual conquests with both men and women are enough to give Savannah matrons the vapors, we have:
• a voodoo priestess who wears purple glasses, talks to the dead, and puts curses on the living—for a fee;
• a man who hoards a poison potent enough to kill most of Savannah if he ever dumped it in the water supply (which he sometimes threatens to do);
• a black drag queen named Lady Chablis, who reveals secrets of the drag queen trade that readers will likely find humorous or revolting—or both;
• a man who is (legitimately) paid to "walk" a dog that has been dead for 20 years;
• a professional squatter, who doesn't live in downtrodden, abandoned buildings but rather in unoccupied mansions. And he isn't quiet about it. He opens the mansion for tourists who pay admission for a tour and lunch!

But back to the point of the book: the murder of Danny Hansford. Jim Williams, who owned Mercer House, one of the grandest old mansions in the city that he filled with priceless antiques and paintings, was a bachelor in his 50s who made his fortune as an antiques dealer. He was an outsider who successfully climbed the Savannah social ladder. Many admired him for this accomplishment, especially because he hosted the most incredible parties, but others were envious and even outraged. Williams says he hired Danny because he thought he could help him. Danny had a habit of repeatedly getting so incensed over almost anything that he vented his anger by storming through Mercer House destroying random contents. The reality is that he kept Danny around as a sexual partner, a fact that came to light in his first trial and truly shocked those aforementioned Savannah matrons. Williams was eventually tried four times for this one crime, a record in Georgia.

Just so you know, the title of the book refers to something the voodoo priestess told the author: "Dead time lasts for one hour—from half an hour before midnight to half an hour after midnight. The half hour before midnight is for doin' good. The half hour after midnight is for doin' evil."

In many ways this is a love letter to a historic Southern city by a transplanted New Yorker. It is one of those rare nonfiction books that I couldn't put down. It is a bizarre, strange, peculiar, curious, and incredibly compelling to read. (less)

That Old Cape Magic
by Richard Russo

Classic Richard Russo! A Literary Treasure Filled with Life-Truths, Hilarity, and Heartbreak (4/13/2023)

Oh, this book! This is classic Richard Russo: a really good story written with wit, verve, and so many life-truths that I was nodding my head in wonder when I wasn't laughing out loud or reaching for the tissues. There is a reason this gifted writer won the Pulitzer Prize …more for Literature (for "Empire Falls").

This is the story of a year in the life of 50-something Jack Griffin, bookended by two summer weddings—the first in Cape Cod, Massachusetts where his parents vacationed every summer when Jack was a child and the second on the coast of Maine where his wife's family vacationed when she was a child. Griffin, as he is called throughout the book, is a former Hollywood screenwriter of B-list TV shows and movies who is now teaching screenwriting in a B-list liberal arts college in New England. He is bitter, deeply unhappy, and incessantly questioning his life choices. As he and his wife, Joy, go the Cape Cod wedding of their daughter Laura's best friend, he plans to scatter his father's ashes on the cape. (He's been toting them around in the trunk of his convertible for almost a year.) But the ghost of memories, centering largely on his dysfunctional parents and childhood, echo all around him, dredging up previous hurts that have the unsettling effect of unraveling his marriage of 34 years. The following summer is his daughter's wedding, and it is here that Russo's writing chops are on full display. The scene of the rehearsal dinner where half the guests end up in the emergency room is worth the price of the book alone!

In typical Russo style, the characters own this story far more than the plot. They seem so real, so authentic, and so human that I just couldn't wait to rejoin them each day. This really is an introspective and highly entertaining novel about the meaning of life—what we inherit from our parents, what makes us truly happy, what cuts us to the bone with heartbreak, and how we handle it all to wake up another day and start all over again.

An aside: In 2018, I had the privilege of hearing Richard Russo speak at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and he mentioned that "That Old Cape Magic" started out as a short story, but when he finished writing it, it was a novel. I'm so happy it turned out that way because this novel is a literary treasure. (less)

Horse: A Novel
by Geraldine Brooks

A Masterpiece! Truly Imaginative, Multilayered Story That Is a Gripping, Can't-Put-It-Down Read (4/13/2023)

A book about a racehorse from the 1850s? Well, that doesn't interest me. But a book by Geraldine Brooks? That I cannot resist. She is one of my favorite authors, and this novel is yet again a reason why.

Quite simply, this is a masterpiece. It's a truly imaginative, …more multilayered story that is a gripping, can't-put-it-down read.

The book is several stories in one, but the common thread is the true story of Lexington, a powerful, legendary racehorse in the 1850s that transformed the sport. With Lexington as the centerpiece, Brooks has crafted multiple stories, each of which is riveting:
• Lexington, Kentucky, 1850: Jarrett, an enslaved young man in Kentucky, has a special talent for training horses. At a young age, he is given responsibility for Lexington, and the two develop a special bond that is never severed. One night during the Civil War, Jarrett's courage and passion are supremely tested.

• Lexington, Kentucky, 1850: Thomas J. Scott is an itinerant painter specializing in horses. His chapters are written in the first person just as he would have spoken.

• New York City, 1954: Martha Jackson is one of the very few female art dealers. Although she specializes in modern art, she comes across an oil painting of Lexington of mysterious origin.

• Washington, D.C., 2019: The unlikely pair of Jess, an Australian bone specialist with the Smithsonian who finds Lexington's preserved skeleton in a Smithsonian warehouse attic, and Theo, a Nigerian American PhD student in art history at Georgetown University who finds one of Scott's paintings of Lexington discarded in a curbside junk pile, meet and develop both a professional and personal relationship.

But this is more than a horse story. Throughout the book, Brooks deftly deals with racism—from the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery to the piercing and hurtful racial microaggressions that taunt Blacks today. How Jarrett and Theo feel and how they are treated is as important a part of the story as what they do.

The chapters bounce back and forth in time and place, but Brooks, the consummate storyteller, always has it under control so it's never confusing or disjointed. Rich historical detail, complex characters, and writing that is pitch-perfect together make this an extraordinary novel—even for those of us who know nothing about racehorses.

An aside: The dedication made me cry. Truly. So much that I couldn't turn the page right away. (less)

Jackie & Me
by Louis Bayard

ANOTHER Book on Jackie Kennedy? Oh, Yes! It's Brilliant, Richly Imagined, and a Must-Read (4/13/2023)

ANOTHER book on Jackie Kennedy? Oh, yes, and it's a must-read! This is a delightful twist on the tale we all know about this beloved former first lady. Here's the twist: The "me" in "Jackie & Me" is Jack Kennedy's best friend Kirk LeMoyne Billings, or Lem as he was …more

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
by Clint Smith

This Book Will Make Most Readers Uncomfortable…Very Uncomfortable. And That's a Good Thing. (4/13/2023)

Sometimes the best books are the books that make you uncomfortable. Make you squirm. Make you rethink what you thought was true. Make you realize that myths are not facts and should never be treated as such. Make you realize the harm of not holding history and historians to …more the highest level of fact-checking.

This is that book.

Written by Clint Smith, this is a most unusual book about the history of chattel slavery, and I dare anyone to read it and not feel uncomfortable—as in guilty by association. But don't be daunted by that because this really is a unique way to look at the tragedy and horror of slavery in the United States. And note that I did not write "slavery in the Southern United States." That is one of the surprises of this book. Slavery was also alive and well in the North. Did you know that in 1855, the mayor of New York City pushed for the city to become an independent city-state so it could secede from the Union along with the Southern states to protect the city's slaveholding interests? I didn't.

To write this book, Smith became a tourist, visiting sites in the United States and Senegal that commemorate in some way the slave trade, slavery, and its aftermath, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, Angola prison in Louisiana, Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, as well as Galveston, Texas, New York City, and Gorée Island off Senegal. He also interviewed historians and experts. He interviewed other tourists like himself. He researched in libraries. He validated some myths, while extinguishing others.

Here are some of the many things readers will learn from this most unusual travelogue:
• Find out the extreme dichotomy between the legends and myths of Thomas Jefferson as a benevolent slaveholder and the reality of how he actually treated his slaves.

• The largest slave market in the United States was in Charleston, South Carolina. No surprise there. But this may shock you: The second largest slave market in the United States was in New York City.

• Find out the little-known relationship between the Statue of Liberty and the abolition of slaves. This was one of its first symbolic meanings, but it didn't stick. Why?

• Learn the history of Juneteenth and how Texas, not known for its liberal propensities, led the rest of the nation in establishing this as a federal holiday.

• Find out how spirits and bodies were first broken in the House of Slaves on Gorée Island off Senegal that has now become a place where people of all colors are forced to confront the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

• Learn how modern-day European economic prosperity is directly related to Africans who were enslaved on plantations in the United States 200 to 300 years ago.

One of the distinguishing features of this book is the nearly poetic descriptions of everything from someone's hair, eye color, or trails of sweat (yes, sweat!) to the sunlight's colorful rays on a building. I was so entranced by this that I did a little research of my own and discovered that author Clint Smith is not only a scholar, but also a published poet. Yeah, that makes sense! (less)

Salvage the Bones: A Novel
by Jesmyn Ward

A Must-Read Literary Masterpiece That Is Shocking, Heartbreaking, and an Emotional Sucker Punch (4/13/2023)

This is a book that broke my heart many times over. It shocked me. It was an emotional sucker punch. And it is a literary masterpiece.

Written by Jesmyn Ward, this is the story of the Batistes, a poor Black family living in a rundown house on rundown land peppered with …more rundown junk in the rural Mississippi coastal town of Bois Sauvage as Hurricane Katrina looms at sea, taking direct aim on them. And while that hurricane is churning in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, an emotional hurricane is churning in the lives of this family.

Each of the 12 chapters covers a single day, leading up to Katrina's landfall on day 11 of the book. The novel is written in the first-person voice of Esch, a 15-year-old girl who thinks she does only two things well: She can run really fast, and she enjoys having sex. And while Esch has allowed several of her older brothers' friends to have sex with her since she was 12, she has fallen in love with Manny, who is 19. Now only he is allowed to touch her. But Manny is cruelly using her, which becomes a real problem since Esch is pregnant with Manny's baby. She has no one to tell and no one to help her. Meanwhile, her older brother Skeetah, who has groomed his pit bull, China, as a prize-winning fighter, is doting on the dog as she has her first litter of puppies. Randall has thoughts only for basketball, while the littlest one, Junior, follows Esch and Randall everywhere. Their mother died in childbirth with Junior, and their father is an alcoholic who is obsessed with the coming hurricane. And then that hurricane blasts its wrath over the vulnerable land.

"Bois Sauvage" is a fictional town, meaning "wild wood" in French. It is indeed wild and almost savage. But the love and care that family and friends offer each other is what tames those wild woods where white neighbors shoot at them and the pit bulls viciously tear each other apart for their owners' financial benefit. It's not an easy life, and the characters grab at happiness wherever they can find it, be in a bottle of booze, sex, basketball, or a dog.

Masterfully written in prose that is so lyrical and expressive it is almost poetic, this novel is destined to become a classic read in English classes a century from now. It is a literary gift. The book has everything: a gripping, wrenching plot, authentic characters, the powerful symbolism of the intensity of mother love juxtaposed with brutal, bloody violence, and imagery so vivid you will feel the oppressive heat, the howling wind, and the sting of red ants. Also, it should win an award for the best similes; some were so beautiful they almost made me weep.

Perhaps the most brilliant part of the novel is how Ward has interwoven the ancient Greek myth of "The Golden Fleece" throughout the story. In this myth, Medea killed her two children by her husband Jason for revenge after he was unfaithful. Esch, who is reading Edith Hamilton's book "Mythology" for her summer assigned reading, identifies with Medea as she slowly accepts the fact of her pregnancy and shakes off the cloak of apathy.

Most of all, this is just a really, really good story about the brutal struggle for survival—one that grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go.

Read it while you can! This is one of the dozens of books the state of Texas wants to ban. The specific reason cited for "Salvage the Bones" is the explicit descriptions of 15-year-old Esch having sex. Meanwhile, those defending the book insist it has important literary value and therefore is not obscene. (less)

Cape May
by Chip Cheek

Seduction, Sex, and the Scandal and Sorrow of Betrayal: An Intense, Overplayed Story (4/13/2023)

This debut novel by Chip Cheek is about seduction and sex, as well as the scandal, sorrow, and reverberating effects of betrayal.

It's late September 1957. Henry, 20, and Effie, 18, who are from the rural and somewhat backwards town of Signal Point, Georgia, have just …more

Beautiful Country: A Memoir
by Qian Julie Wang

A Memoir That Reads Like a Novel: Life as an Undocumented Immigrant Through the Eyes of a Child (4/13/2023)

When we make the effort to see so many things in life—joyful and tragic—through the eyes of a child, our viewpoint shifts. Think of the magic of Christmas or the tragedy of death as a child would see these. That is this book.

Written by Qian Julie Wang, this is the story of …more her immigration to the United States from China and her experiences as a little girl living with her parents in New York City in the 1990s. Residing on long-expired temporary visas, none of them has legal documentation. In China, her parents were both professors; her father taught English, while her mother taught mathematics. In the United States, they have the lowest level of jobs, none of which are particularly stable and all of which are boring and sometimes dangerous.

Qian is trained from age seven when she first immigrated to never trust anyone other than her parents. She is to avoid—to the point of running in the opposite direction—all police, as well as anyone in authority. Her father, Ba Ba, sternly instructs her to tell anyone who asks that she was born in the United States. After all, it only takes one unguarded moment, and the family will be deported. They live in poverty in New York City's Chinatown, renting just a single room or later two rooms with a kitchen and bathroom they share with multiple families. Qian doesn't have the basics that other children take for granted, including enough food to eat or shoes that fit her properly. "Shopping day" means scavenging on the sidewalks through trash cans. Qian grows up consumed by adult worries as she learns to survive by lying and keeping secrets. But even with this as the foundation of her life, her story isn't all sad because she tells it as she remembers it through the eyes of a child.

From teaching herself English by reading picture books and "The Berenstain Bears" to riding the subway alone to eating at McDonald's for the first time, this is a memoir of both the familiar and unfamiliar, filled with joy and heartache as Qian is denied so much simply because she is a poor undocumented immigrant. As a child, Qian works in a sweatshop literally earning pennies for her efforts, while she goes hungry most of the day. Still, her world is rocked when she discovers the New York Public Library and all the free(!!) books. After Qian adopts a black cat that she names Marilyn (after Marilyn Monroe), her father blames the cat for their bad luck. When Ma Ma becomes seriously ill requiring a long hospitalization and surgery, Qian's small world nearly collapses. The health and financial strains become too much for her parents' marriage, and when Ba Ba does the unthinkable, Ma Ma and Qian leave him for Toronto where they are considered "legal" and enjoy the opportunities that entails.

The book is focused entirely on Qian's childhood from first grade through sixth grade, but at the end, we learn how she made such a success of her life by first earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Swarthmore College and then her law degree from Yale University. She now works as an attorney specializing in education and civil rights impact litigation meaning this book has the happiest of endings.

Beautifully written in a lively narrative style, this profound memoir reads more like a novel. It is a remarkable story about a brave, smart, resilient, and creative child who grew up in the worst possible conditions. This is a book that everyone should read. (less)

The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding
by Jennifer Robson

A Novel So Good, So Compelling, So Delightful That You'll Be Reading Long Past Your Bedtime! (4/13/2023)

Warning! This book is so good, so compelling, so delightful that you won't be able to stop reading. It is the perfect ChickLit with a gripping, multilayered plot that will keep you turning the pages long past your bedtime.

Written by Jennifer Robson, this novel is a deeply …more

Men We Reaped: A Memoir
by Jesmyn Ward

This Should Be Required Reading! Magnificently Written, This Powerful Tale Scraped My Heart Raw (4/12/2023)

This book by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward scraped my heart raw. She is unflinchingly honest in her portrayal of life on the Gulf Coast, a life of poverty and hardship, a life where Black lives—especially men—are not valued. Raw and brutal though it may be, …more this should be required reading for anyone who wants to know the answers to a lot of questions that begin with "Why?".

The formatting of this memoir is genius. It's essentially two books in one, two sides of the story. Because of the way it is written, the two sides enhance each other, making both stronger than they would be as standalone books. And when the two converge it is brilliant and heartbreaking.

As the title suggests, this is a book about five men in Ward's life, including her brother, who died too young, taken away through violence, drugs, accidents, bad luck, and suicide. Five men in the space of four and half years. All were victims of the poverty and the hardship in which they grew up. Their deaths almost seemed inevitable, and that is the deepest and truest tragedy underlying it all.

Juxtaposed between the chapters about the five young men is a memoir of Jesmyn Ward's life, beginning with her birth. She was born in April 1977, three months premature. The doctors told her parents she would die. She did not. She was a fighter from the start, which served her well. Her parents' marriage fell apart several times before ending in divorce, a younger sister had a baby at age 13, and her brother was killed by a drunk driver, who was never charged with his death. The family may have been poor, but she and her siblings were loved, and they were embraced by a large, extended family of aunts and cousins. Ward broke out of the cycle of early pregnancy and loving men who left their families, by being smart and having lucky breaks. Today she is a bestselling author of seven books (and counting) and a professor of creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is also the youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which was awarded to her in 2022 at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. It is her amazing trajectory in life that also makes this a story of hope.

This is not an easy book to read because of its unrelenting sense of tragedy and doom, of the scourge of racism and poverty, of the plague of drugs and alcohol. It is dark. And it is very disturbing. But it is an important book and one that will make a difference by giving us all a greater sense of understanding, knowledge, and empathy.

Magnificently written, this is a powerful tale that seared my heart and soul and will remain with me for a long time to come. (less)

The Dovekeepers: A Novel
by Alice Hoffman

Historical Fiction at Its Finest: A Novel That Transports Readers to a Brutal, Terrifying Time (4/12/2023)

Quite simply, this novel astonished me.

It's just words on a page, but those words are so powerful, so entrancing, so visceral that they seemingly affected every one of my senses. I felt the searing heat of the desert, tasted the gritty sand in my mouth, smelled the lilies, …more heard the doves cooing, and saw the mountaintop palace-fortress of Masada that was built on a rock cliff impossibly high in the air. This book is a literary masterpiece that will haunt me for some time to come.

Written by Alice Hoffman, this is a novel based on the siege of Masada. In 70CE, nine hundred Jewish rebels occupied the mountain fortress of Masada in Judea that had been built by King Herod. They were holding out against the Romans, who were killing Jews en masse all over the region. The ancient historian Josephus writes that as the Romans prepared to attack Masada, the Jews entrenched there committed mass suicide with only two women and five children surviving. From this spare bit of information, Hoffman has woven a majestic tale of four women of different ages and backgrounds, all of whom care for the doves toiling daily in the dovecotes. Their stories, focused largely on their religious faith and mystical superstitions, the danger and joy of sex, and the brutality and violence of the constant battles of war that surround them, combine to tell the big story of life and death on Masada from 70CE to 73CE:
• Yael, the daughter of a cold-blooded assassin, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father has blamed her for this her entire life.

• Revka, the beloved wife of a baker who was brutally murdered by the Romans in their village. Fleeing into the desert from this destruction, she witnesses the horrific rape and murder of her daughter.

• Aziza, the daughter of a warrior, who carries deep secrets about her true identity.

• Shirah, a wise woman who is labeled a witch for her seemingly magical potions and powers.

The book's splendor is in the tone and voice of the writing, which combine to be so powerful that mere words transport the reader to this ancient time and place.

This is a story of survival and the strength of women who continually suffer in a brutal and terrifying time. This is a story of feminism and friendship. This is a story of love and pain. This is historical fiction at its finest. (less)

Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say
by Kelly Corrigan

Kelly Corrigan Is Courageous! Deeply Private and Brutally Honest Story-Essays About Living Her Life (4/12/2023)

Kelly Corrigan is a courageous woman.

In this collection of very personal essays, she tells deeply private stories about herself, many of which don't cast her in a positive light. As she herself says in the "Reading Group Guide" at the end of the book, the stories show "how …more

Love and Other Consolation Prizes: A Novel
by Jamie Ford

Brilliant and Beautiful: This Is a Haunting and Tender Historical Novel with a Shocking Premise (4/12/2023)

This novel by Jamie Ford is both a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit, especially in children, and a testament to the power of love to transcend so many of life's deepest hurts and tragedies.

Loosely based on something that actually happened, this is the story …more of a boy named Yung Kun-ai, whose destitute and dying mother does something horrific from sheer desperation: She gives him away. Yung is taken on a ship and packed into a cage with other Chinese children where they are transported to the United States. After being tossed overboard, he is miraculously rescued and sent to a Seattle home for orphans and then a boarding school. His life is miserable. But his wealthy sponsor has an idea, and Yung, who is renamed Ernest Young, is given away in a raffle that is a publicity stunt for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. The winning ticket is selected by none other than President Taft. The lucky winner of 12-year-old Ernest is Madam Flora, the owner of one of Seattle's best brothels. And now the story really begins. As horrific as it may sound, Ernest finally experiences the love of a family living and working with the "upstairs girls" and the servants. The only other man in the house is Professor Troubadour, who plays the piano during the parlor evenings. Although he's barely a teenager, Ernest falls in love with two of the servants, Fahn and Maisie. But something happens to both servant girls in this brothel—one of them is given a somewhat dubious opportunity of a lifetime, while the other is forever scarred physically and mentally.

Bookended by Seattle's two world's fairs—the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and the 1962 Century 21 Exposition—the novel digs deep into the culture and lifestyle of the city's red-light district, the life of a working prostitute, and the politics of the early 20th century when Seattle was a hotbed for vice—from brothels to opium dens. The author deftly jumps back and forth in time, primarily focusing on the 1910s and using the chapters that take place in 1962 to show what eventually happened to Ernest, Fahn, and Maisie.

While there is a strong plot, albeit one that is not a page-turner, the primary focus of this haunting and tender historical novel is on the colorful, complex, and unique characters. This richly imagined book is both brilliant and beautiful.

Bonus: Do take the time to read the author's note at the end of the book to better understand the genesis of this most unusual story. (less)

The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi
by Richard Grant

A Southern "Twin Peaks": An Eye-Popping, Almost Unbelievable, and Absolutely Fascinating Book (4/12/2023)

As I was mentally struggling with the best way to describe this book, the perfect line was uttered by one of the younger residents of Natchez, Mississippi: "This whole town is like a Southern Twin Peaks." Indeed.

Englishman Richard Grant was promoting one of his books when …more he met Reginia Charboneau, a cookbook writer and chef from Natchez. She invited him to visit her hometown. He did. And took notes. This is his ultimate outsider-looking-in story of a deeply Southern town that is unlike any other in Mississippi:
• Gays are not only welcome here, but also they are beloved citizens.
• From 2016 to 2020, the mayor of Natchez was Darryl Grennell, a gay Black man who was elected with 91 percent of the vote.
• From 1930 to 1990, a Black woman openly ran a highly successful brothel right in the middle of town until her death at age 87. (An aggrieved customer set her on fire, but that's another story.)
• Oh, the gossip! Devout Christians attend prayer meetings where they actively engage in prayer gossip. As in, "Jesus, I'd like to pray for a dear, dear friend of mine, because I'm just worried sick about her. She's been seeing a married man, and I mean every day. What if her husband finds out?" Of course, everyone knows who the "dear, dear friend" is without her ever being named.

The only way to understand White Natchez society is to first understand there are two garden clubs. The elite White women who join these clubs don't actually garden. (Dirt? Worms? Ew!) Oh, and the two clubs have been in an intense, ugly feud for several generations. These clubs are a big deal. For example, the Pilgrimage Garden Club has 650 members and an annual operating budget of $1.2 million. The competing clubs host the annual event called Pilgrimage in which the grand antebellum mansions open their doors to paying visitors for tours led by Confederate-era costumed guides. To give the out-of-town visitors something else to do, the garden clubs put on a theatrical production about the history of Natchez, a production that is fraught with in-fighting and bad acting and resembles something more appropriate for a middle school play. Oh, and there are lots (and lots!) of libations all the time.

And then there is the other side of this Mississippi town. The Blacks, rightly so, view the segregated garden clubs as bastions of White supremacy. Grant says racial divisiveness is the "ongoing curse of Natchez." Racism means a far lower quality of life and economic prosperity for the town's Black population—from education to jobs. Grant offers an in-depth and very personal discourse on both the history and current situation of what it's like to be Black in Natchez, Mississippi—from slavery to the Civil War and Jim Crow to the civil rights movement.

In addition, Grant intersperses the chapters about modern-day Natchez with some of its colorful history, including the story of a Natchez slave that was an African prince. It's a riveting tale that reads like fiction, but it's true.

Throughout the book, the author discusses the legacy of slavery that built the town and the antebellum homes, as well as provided the economy that allowed Natchez to thrive. He spots overt and covert racism and calls it out. He isn't afraid to ask the White residents the hard questions, including their almost universal denial of slavery and racism, although the answers are often just steely looks.

This is an eye-popping, almost unbelievable, and fascinating narrative about an eccentric small town in Mississippi populated with outlandish characters that has somehow managed to hang on to its Southern charm, history, and tall tales. Grant's observations are pithy, hilarious, and perceptive. (less)

The Sentence
by Louise Erdrich

A Perfect Autumn Read: A Magical, Book Lover's Delight That Doubles as a Ghost Story (4/12/2023)

This enchanting novel is a book lover's delight that doubles as a ghost story. It's magical!

Written by Louise Erdrich, this is the story of Tookie, a Native American woman from the Ojibwe tribe who has just been released from prison (She was set up! It wasn't her fault!) …more and gets a job at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. This isn't any old bookstore. It's the one that is owned (in real life) by Louise Erdrich. Adding to the fun, Louise herself is one of the minor characters in the novel. Tookie spent her years in prison reading "with murderous attention," and she is a wonderful addition to the staff. Tell her the kind of book you want to read, and Tookie can name a title or 10.

The book takes place from All Souls' Day 2019 to All Souls' Day 2020. Flora, who was white and one of the bookstore's best but also most difficult customers, dies. And then something odd begins to happen on All Souls' Day 2019. Tookie realizes that Flora's ghost is haunting the bookstore. Tookie and the other employees hear Flora shuffling through the store, her bracelets clicking and clacking as books mysteriously fall off the shelves, and paper towels in the bathroom are scattered. It isn't long before things turn more sinister as Tookie fears Flora is trying to possess her. Meanwhile, Tookie's stepdaughter arrives on their doorstep in late December with a newborn baby and an eyepopping story she doesn't want her father to know.

And then the story does a sudden, but incredible shift, with the advent of Covid and those scary first months of the virus when we didn't know much about it, including how it was spread. Just as they're getting used to wearing masks and spritzing hand sanitizer all day long, George Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. Protests and violence follow. This is possibly the best part of the book as it fully personifies those tragic, horror-filled weeks, putting the reader in the heart of those protests in a way that transcends news stories and just feels so real, poignant, important, and scary.

What turns this into a literary novel (besides the fact that it's written by Louise Erdrich, which is enough) is the multiple symbolic meanings of the title: "The Sentence." Woven throughout the story are specific references to "the sentence," and they are different. It's fun to keep track.

This is a story of and for our times. It is a novel about everything that can haunt us—not just ghosts—and all the ways the people we love are the ones who exorcise those hauntings so we can keep living our lives.

Bonus: Dozens of titles are mentioned throughout the story, and Erdrich has helpfully assembled them and many other into several wonderful lists at the end of the book. Get ready to add to your TBR list! (less)

The Headmaster's Wife
by Thomas Christopher Greene

Wow! An Extraordinary Novel with a Plot Twist That Will Knock You Between the Eyes (4/12/2023)

This fast-to-read psychological thriller is the perfect book for a cool autumn evening. Light a fire and get comfortable because this novel by Thomas Christopher Greene is so riveting you won't be moving for a while.

This is an astonishing read, and about halfway through the …more

The Souvenir Museum
by Elizabeth McCracken

A Beautifully Written Collection of Short Stories That Explores Family Ties of Love and Sorrow (4/12/2023)

Elizabeth McCracken may very well be the queen of the short story, and this collection is why she deserves that crown. Each story is a little gem with a solid plot, interesting and fully developed characters, and an underlying theme, which is often about the bonds of family— …more