The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

I first came across Nguyen Phan Que Mai when she hosted The American Historical Fiction Facebook Club for a week to introduce The Mountains Sing, her first novel written in English. Administrator Kari Bovee interviewed Nguyen.

" I researched for this novel my whole life: first by listening to the elderly Vietnamese people. A lot of Vietnamese history is untold (due to censorship reasons) and I wanted to document it. I spent a lot of time at my parents’ villages talking to people about their personal experiences. I interviewed countless people who fought on different sides of the war. I grounded my research through reading fiction and non-fiction books, watching movies and documentaries as well as visiting museums, libraries, special document archives…"~Nguyen Phan Que Mai

I was quite charmed by Nguyen and I ordered her novel from Algonquin Books.

Through her fictional family, the author takes us into the history of Vietnam across the 20th c. Tragic and heartbreaking losses pile one upon another. At the heart of the story is a woman of infinite courage and resilience who, against all odds, gathers her scattered family home.

"The challenges faced by Vietnamese people throughout history are as tall as the tallest mountain..." Grandma tells her granddaughter Huong. "The war might destroy our houses, but it can't extinguish our spirit."

Grandma is an educated, progressive thinker who is horrified by the extremists and their propaganda. Born to an enlightened land-owning family, under Land Reform she and her children flee for their lives. On the road, Grandma finds places to shelter her children, vowing she will return once she establishes a safe haven.

For Huong and her Grandma, books offer companionship, escape, and enlightenment. From American books Huong learns that Americans were "just like us," people who loved their families and worked hard to earn their food. To understand why the Japanese were so brutal toward her people, Grandma turned to books. "The more I read, the more I became afraid of wars. Wars have the power to turn graceful and cultured people into monsters." She has seen how citizens were "nothing but leaves that would fall in the thousands or millions in the surge of a single storm."

The novel's family are North Vietnamese. This perspective will shake some American readers with references to "American imperialism" and America's Southern Regime.

"I had hated the American and their allies so much before that day. I hated them for dropping bombs on our people, killing innocent civilians," Uncle Dat tells Huong. But after witnessing the massacre of teenaged American soldiers who were bathing and playing in a stream, Dat's hatred turned toward war.

After hearing her uncle's war experiences, Huong thinks, "Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth."

Nature can also save. The rice plants "rustling their tiny, green hands," the perfume of a rice straw bed, the song of a bird.

The Mountain Sings is the name of a bird whose song can reach heaven and return the souls of the dead through its song. Huong's father and uncle had heard these birds traveling to the front lines, and her father carved a wood bird which her uncle gives her.

It is a lovely image, centering the novel. The novel is a song, an ode to the memory of the millions who died, and a bridge that connects our cultural gap.

Read an excerpt at
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781616208189_be.pdf?1584638143

Read the author's essay at
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781616208189_ae.pdf?1584637834

Resources are available to help reader, including
The family tree
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781616208189_ft.pdf?1587145622

Historical timeline
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781616208189_ht.pdf?1587146238

A book club kit is available
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781616208189_dg.pdf?1582824144

The House of Broken Angels

Oh, my--this book! I was overwhelmed by this boisterous, complicated, colorful family gathered for the funeral of their matriarch and the last birthday of her son Big Angel, who is dying of cancer.

As I read, this family took residence in my heart. They were not so unlike my own family. I remembered the large family gatherings of my childhood; we have our 'colorful' characters, too. My cousins and I are are too quickly becoming the oldest generation--the next to die.

Through the story of one particular Mexican-American family, The House of Broken Angels recalls what it means to be family. Through the life and death of one man, we grapple with the purpose of our own life and death.

Big Angel's grandfather came to America after the Mexican Revolution, tried to enlist for service during WWI, then in 1932 the family was deported back to Mexico. He was First Angel.

Big Angel's deceased father, a cop, is still a powerful presence in the lives of Big Angel and his half-brother, Little Angel. He was feared, he was idolized, and he was hated. Big Angel's dad abandoned his family for an American woman,"all Indiana milk and honey" with "Cornflower-blue eyes." He had 'forgotten' he had a son named Angel in his first family. The half-brothers have had an uneasy relationship.

At his seventieth birthday party, Big Angel is surrounded by his beloved Perla and their children, Perla's sisters who he helped raise, his half-siblings, and grandkids. Those who have died, and a son who has been estranged, are present in aching hearts.

As Big Angel struggles with how to die, how to atone for his sins, and the legacy he wants to leave his family, we learn the family's stories, the things that have divided and alienated them, and the things that bind them together. They will break your heart and they will inspire you with the strength and love of their family bonds. The revelation of this purpose is the climax of the novel, a scene that you will never forget.

Author Luis Alberto Urrea was inspired by his own family in writing this book. His eldest brother was dying when a day before his birthday he had to bury his mother. The family put on a 'blowout party, the kind of ruckus he would have delighted in during better days."

Urrea also wanted to tell the story of Mexican-American families, about immigrants and the American dream, living on the border between two countries and cultures, the hopes and dreams and cruel realities.

Reviewers use the word exuberant in describing this book. It is!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Little, Brown & Co.
Hardbound: Price: $25.98
ISBN-13: 9781478915812

Gateway To The Moon: Rediscovering A Family's History

In 1478 the Spanish Inquisition was established. The year that Columbus went on his first voyage of discovery, 1492, was also the year that all Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain. Unless they converted to Christianity--or preferred to be burned at the stake.

The Christian Jews outwardly lived like Christians, attending mass, but secretly clung to their way of life, lighting candles on Friday, avoiding pork, and circumcising their sons.

So, the Conversos were targeted, massacred, imprisoned, tortured, and burned. The Jews fled to the New World, but the Inquisition followed to Mexico and the Jews moved into New Mexico.

Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris imagines the story of one Jewish/Converso family whose ancestor, Luis de Torres, came to the New World with Columbus, following the Torres family through the 15th and 16th centuries and into the 20th century.

Living in Entada de la Luna, the Torres are good Catholics who traditionally light candles on Friday night, disdain to eat pork, and circumcise their sons. The cemetery holds generations of their ancestors. The townsfolk know that their ancestors came from Spain but no longer remember what brought them there.

The story is told in two timelines, telling the contemporary story of Miguel Torres, a teenager with a passion for astronomy, and that of his ancestors beginning with Luis de Torres, a secret Jew born Leni Halvri before the Alhambra Decree.

The horrific history of the Inquisition is revealed through the lives of the Torres family, providing drama and intrigue to the slower, more introspective story of Miguel. Miguel's world has also has its violence and sorrow.

Morris's beautiful writing is a pleasure to read. Miguel is a wonderful, memorable character. And it was interesting to learn about this part of history. I very much enjoyed this novel, a combination of historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and family history.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Find a reading group guide at http://knopfdoubleday.com/guide/9780385542906/_/?ref=PRHC04BC8369A03&linkid=PRHC04BC8369A03&cdi=169C16BF8CF47BCCE0534FD66B0A6668&template_id=8912&aid=randohouseinc23295-20

Gateway to the Moon
Mary Morris
Doubleday Books
Publication Date: April 10, 2018
$27.95 hardcover
ISBN: 9780385542906

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: What Rends Asunder

"Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Mark 10:9

My first fiction read of 2018 is the highly anticipated An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. It is the story of a young marriage tested by the husband's incarceration for a crime he did not commit. It is an exploration of what endures and what holds us together.

The novel is told through the voices of the couple Roy and Celeste and Roy's best friend and Celeste's childhood soulmate Andre.

Roy and Celeste were married only a year and a half, ready to have a baby. Roy was first generation college, a handsome and charming man on the up-and-up, his whole world ahead of him. Celeste was committed to being an artist when Roy swept her off her feet and into marriage. Roy was glad to "set her down" and supported her art.

All their plans were crushed in an instant when Roy was accused of rape, convicted, and imprisoned. In a series of letters we follow their relationship through the early days of separation. Celeste's lawyer uncle works for justice for Roy. Celeste does not divorce Roy or stop depositing money into his account. But she does break off with him.

Roy's college friend Andre grew up next door to Celeste and has always loved her. Celeste loved Andre like a brother, but kept him at a safe distance. Between their childhood houses is Old Hickey, a centennial tree that represents what lasts. Several years into Roy's sentence Celeste and Andre finally consummate their love into a solid relationship, each still living in their childhood homes next to each other. Celeste has moved on, but feels the guilt of abandoning a man who has lost everything.

These characters are vital and real. And so are the supporting characters, their parents and people who raised them. There are many forms of love, marriage, and families in the story, covering a whole range of human experience. Each reveals what lasts and does not last, the nature of love,  and the many ways love is torn asunder.

The long, simmering set up peaks when Roy is finally released after five years and returns home to see if he has a marriage. It culminates in a desperate scene of conflict and Roy's realization of who he is and is not, and what has and has not endured.

The story is set against the reality of the mass incarceration of black men. I wish that Jones had included more about Roy's trial and prison experience as a black man caught in a justice system stacked against him. It would have helped set up the change in Roy, for I had trouble connecting the dapper ladies man to the violence of his later actions. Still, for readers from a background of white privilege, what is in the book may be enough to open eyes. African Americans already know.

What really sunders Roy and Celeste? Was their love too green? Was their love built on sand and not solid ground? Was Celeste to blame, or Andre? Was it society--racism and a justice system--that failed Roy? Or was it the woman who recognized Roy's face and confused him with the rapist in the dark who attacked her?

In the end, each finds a place to belong, a love that lasts. And that is all any of us really wants from life. To be one flesh in the arms of love.

I received a free book from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway.

An American Marriage: A Novel
by Tayari Jones
Algonquin Books
ISBN: 9781616201340

“Tayari Jones displays tremendous writing prowess with An American Marriage, an enchanting novel that succeeds at every level. From the very start, An American Marriage pulls the reader in with gorgeous prose. Even beyond its plot, the story soars. It doesn’t just focus on one instance of a marriage; it explores philosophical and political quandaries, including generational expectations of men and women, the place of marriage in modern society, systemic racism, toxic masculinity, and more. It does so in a gentle, subtle way, avoiding didacticism as it nudges the reader to question their own conventions and ideals. There are rarely novels as timely or fitting as An American Marriage. It brings abstract ideas about race and love down to the material level. The story is gripping, and the characters are unforgettable.”
—Foreword Reviews, starred review

State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee

As I was reading the last pages of this uncomfortable and upsetting novel, my eyes were streaming. My grief was overwhelming.

What story set in India is easy to read? E. M. Forster's Passage to India, depicting British racism and the confused heroine nearly destroying a native Indian man's life because he was more attractive than her fiancé? Or Rumor Godden's novels and stories set in the India of her childhood, and where she returned to live with her children, their cook adding ground glass to their food? I have never forgotten her short story Mercy, Pity, and Love where a man of privilege is thinking about this thesis as his wife is on a buying spree, while on the street an starving woman holds her dying baby.

No, India holds such poverty and cruelness next to its beauty and exotic attractions that it is not easy to encounter it.

"...but then he was hopeful and it's hope that kills you in the end"--from A State of Freedom

A State of Freedom is a novel in five stories that are interconnected by characters, each story revealing that character's life and challenges. The characters include native Indians crushed by poverty and desperately hoping for a better life, and those who have gone abroad and return to their homeland to see it with new eyes, the eyes of an outsider.

Can we go home again? We leave and the world changes us so that when we return we can not become again who we were. We know too much, we have assumed new values, or perhaps we just see with fresh vision what we had ignored before, familiar things we once accepted become horrors.

The first story concerns an native Indian who has brought his child to see the land of his nativity, and then is appalled by what they see, starting with a man falling from a tall building. He us upset knowing his child is being exposed to the harsh realities of poverty.

The second story concerns a man visiting his family who becomes overly friendly with the staff; invited to visit the cook's home village he realizes he "had failed to imagine how other people live."

The third story I could not read through; children find a bear cub and ask a man to teach it to be a dancing bear--which the father and son in the first story encounter. When they found the cub they were concerned for it, but the training is cruel and inhumane; the ending is horrifying.

The fourth story concerns Milly who works for the wealthy family in the second story, Her mother sent her away at age eight to be a domestic worker. When she asks when she will return home again, her mother tells her, you won't come back. The girl is desperate to learn, to find a better life. Every few years she is moved to a new position. She finds herself virtually imprisoned in never-ending work. Until rescued from her tower by a clever man.

The last story is stream-of-consciousness, the thoughts of an ailing construction worker desperate to complete his job, his mind wandering to the boy in a car he had seen, wishing he could be "the pampered son of a rich man." But he is betrayed, for neither he or the boy escape their mutual fate.

The novel is dark and painful. Why would I choose to endure such unhappiness? Why should one read this book?

One cannot change the way of the world, or the workings of a foreign society, but one can learn to see beyond the narrow limits of our comfortable world. We can understand how others live, we can learn mercy, pity and compassion.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A State of Freedom: A Novel
by Neel Mukherjee
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Hardcover $25.95
ISBN: 9780393292909

From the publisher:

A devastating and powerful vision of a people defined by that most unquenchable human urge, the striving for a different life.

Can we transform the possibilities we are born into? A State of Freedom wrests open the central, defining events of our century: displacement and migration. Five characters in very different circumstances—from a domestic cook in Mumbai to a vagrant and his dancing bear—find the meanings of dislocation and the desire to get more out of life. Set in contemporary India and moving between the reality of this world and the shadow of another, this novel of multiple narratives—formally daring, fierce but full of pity—asks the fundamental question: how does one imagine the ways one can live in the world, or even outside it?

About the Author: Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta. His first novel, A Life Apart, won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for best fiction, among other honors, and his second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Prize.

The Perils of Sudden Wealth: The Windfall by Diksha Basu

I love a good comedy of manners. A little social satire mixed with a light romantic comedy is the perfect pick-me-up between more weighty tomes. And I loved Diksha Basu's first novel The Windfall. It was a delightful read that had me laughing out loud, calling out, "listen to this one!"

Mr. Jha has sold his website for an $20 million and after two years has decided it was time to be "movin' on up" to a modern home in a posh upscale neighborhood.

For twenty-five years The Jha family has lived in an apartment building with the same neighbors with whom they have their little tiffs and warm friendships. But why wash in a bucket with a cup when they can have walk-in showers? It is time to buy toilet paper and install squirting water guns near the toilet. Mr. Jha has caught the conspicuous wealth bug, buying a Mercedes and ordering a Swarovski-studded couch. He wants to live according to their income.

Mrs. Jha is content with their old life. She enjoyed her job seeking our craftpersons and promoting their traditional hand crafted items. She sees no need to put aside her bucket and cup or to wear flashy diamonds. She is glad their son Rupak in America is studying for an MBA; she wants him to be a self-made man like his father. His family does not know that Rupak is failing his classes and is conflicted over having an American girlfriend, believing his parents would disapprove.

When Mr. Jha meets their new neighbor Mr. Chopka it sets off a war of who has the best toys. Mr. Jha is driven to assume the lifestyle of the wealthy, and Mr. Chopka needs to keep proving he is on the top rung of the ladder.

At first Mr. Chopka assumes Mrs. Jha is the maid, and later when the Jhas are at the Chopka home the maid appears dressed similar to Mrs. Jha! Mrs. Chopka is addicted to her iPad and Angry Birds, and thinks nothing of loosing a diamond earring.

I loved the characters. And I especially loved Mr. Jha's inner dialogs. He ponders the summer Delhi heat and wonders, "what was the point of all this new money if he couldn't escape the blistering midday temperatures? It should be possible, Mr. Jha thought, to have a small portable air conditioned Plexiglas cubical built to walk around in." He imagines a portable cooled environment, "perhaps with wheels. But then that would be a car."

The Jha's old neighbor Mrs. Ray meets Mr. Chopka's brother. The Jha's old neighbors the Guptas are pushing their niece, also studying in America, to meet up with Rupak. Mrs. Ray and Rupak struggle with convention, expectation, and love as they weigh their choices.

Through the Jha family I learned about modern India, the old and the new, the class struggle, and the battle between the West and traditional for the souls of its youth. It is a very funny novel about issues that are universal, while also allowing Westerners to appreciate and better understand Modern India.

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Windfall
By Diksha Basu
Crown
$26 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-451-49891-5

It Takes a School by Jonathan Starr

Somaliland is a separate country from Somalia, though they share Somalian people in common. Jonathan Starr's uncle is from Somaliland so he knew about the country and its problems. After running a successful hedge fund firm, Starr retired and earmarked a half a million dollars with the intention of establishing a boarding school in Somaliland.

He planned an education system based on critical thinking skills and preparing students for higher education abroad. The Abaarso school faced many obstacles, from identifying teachers willing to work for room and board to learning the intricacies of clan-based social systems. That he was able to establish the school at all, nonetheless be a success, is a testament to his ideals and ambition and unfailing belief.

It Takes a School is the story of Starr's struggles to build and run the school.

But the book's heart is the stories of the students. Children who were goat herders with little education or English pass the admission test, and then give 100%, achieving remarkable success in a short time. Starr was able to place his graduates in MIT, Harvard, and a host of top-tier liberal arts colleges.

I kept remembering the old commercial, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," for these children, boys and girls, were doomed to lives as goat herders and teenage brides. And what a loss it would have been for these children of such high intelligence, dreaming of becoming a doctor or an engineer, had they never had a chance. We root for them and are inspired by them.

I received a free book through a giveaway by the publisher.