The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

...it was at that great moment in adolescence where you throw off what you think you ought to be and start imposing your true personality on the world, a moment of grace and strength and beauty and danger. ~ from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

My 50th high school class reunion was to take place next month but was cancelled because of COVID-19. One of my friends suggested the class post their photos from senior year on the class Facebook page.

I was the first to share, a panorama photo of the senior class trip to Washington D.C. Classmates shared pics from the trip, Senior prom, and the school musical.

Something happened along the way. One classmate talked about her memories of the Vietnam war and civil rights movement, the Detroit riots, the protest sit-ins.

People talked about how they were not in the popular group, were outsiders looking in. They talked about their life after high school. And then, a girl talked about the anxiety that crippled her most of her life, how she hid it in school. We had thought she was popular, pretty, a golden girl.

Suddenly the barriers were falling down. Social class, academic standing, beauty, achievement, popularity were revealed to be false delinations that separated us.

So, here I am in life looking backward to adolescence, those horrible, difficult, eventful years, and I pick up The Brother Years by Shannon Burke as if the stars had aligned to ensure I read this book at this time.

Burke writes about "the weird, poor family in the rich neighborhood' and how their childhood was a crucible that molds and toughens them. Central are brothers Coyle and Willie Shannon and the competition that makes Willie's life hell.

The boys' father strives for success, working multiple jobs and studying for a teaching degree. He works the sons as hard as he works himself, employing The Methods to toughen them for the world. The stress gives him a short temper and violent outbursts. Their mother is a housewife with a college degree who ineffectually tries to keep the peace.

Coyle's academic and sports achievements were a testament to his father's Methods. But there was always the awareness of being the poorest family in the rich 'hood.

...there was that familiar feeling of knowing there was something wrong with us--with our clothes or haircuts of the way we talked. ~from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

Coyle's antithesis is the wealthy Robert. Willie aligns with Robert in his bid to get on the tennis team. Coyle accuses his brother of being a suck-up. Robert and Willie use each other for their own purposes. If that pisses Coyle off, so much the better.

Memories of a friendship with a rich friend came back. Dad was a blue collar worker and mom a housewife. We had what we needed, but my clothes were from KMart and our special eating out treat was buying 15 cent burgers from a local chain. At fourteen, I wore mom's hand-me-down swing coat and dated bathing suit with boy pants and a bra.

When I was a freshman, a girl took me up as a project, much like Emma took up Harriet in Jane Austen's novel. My friend was wealthy, had been to Europe, and lived in a posh house  that her father had designed. Her parents had college degrees. She encouraged me to lose weight, flirt with boys, and become 'cool.' At least, cooler. In the summer I went to her house to swim in her built-in pool. Mom bought me a new swimsuit to wear.

One day this friend told me her mother thought I was not the right sort for her because of our economic status. I don't know if her mom really said that or if it was the start of my friend pushing me away because she soon took up another 'project.'

The energy it takes to rise above one's born class! It takes the Brennan dad years to get that degree. The boys had to be the best in everything to get into a top-notch college and to get the needed scholarships to afford it. Their childhood was brutal, the competition violent.

I was immersed in the story and the characters. The Brennan family is unforgettable.

Burke has given us a powerful coming-of-age novel, a story of class divide and what it takes to achieve the proverbial pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.

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

Read an excerpt here.

from the publisher

"In our family, there was none of this crap about everyone being a winner," says Willie, the narrator, who looks back on his teen years--and his nearly mortal combat with his domineering older brother, Coyle. In the Brennan house four kids sleep in a single room, and are indoctrinated into "The Methods," a system of achievement and relentless striving, laced with a potent, sometimes violent version of sibling rivalry. The family is overseen by a raging bull of a father, a South Side tough guy who knocks them sideways when they don't perform well or follow his dictates. Rivals, enemies, and allies, the siblings contend with one another and their wealthy self-satisfied peers at New Trier, the famous upscale high school where the family has struggled to send them. Evoking their crucible of class struggle and peer pressures, Burke balances comedy, tragedy, and a fascinating cast of characters, delivering a book that reads like an instant classic--an unforgettable story of the intertwining of love and family violence, and of triumphant teen survival that echoes down through the years.

The Brother Years
by Shannon Burke
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/Pantheon
Pub Date August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9781524748647
hardcover $25.95 (USD)

The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell

Having some trauma was called being alive.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell

In one day, the lives of the residents of a New York City apartment building are forever changed.

Caroline lived in the penthouse and had fancy dolls and a beautiful view and a distant, unreliable, father.

The superintendent's daughter Ruby grew up in the basement apartment down the hall from the garbage and laundry and boiler rooms.

Caroline and Ruby played dolls and make-believe as kids. They both studied art in college and graduated during the recession in 2008.

Caroline is supported by her parents as she creates marble sporks.

Ruby must support herself and takes the only job available, working in a coffee shop, her childhood dream of creating dioramas on hold.

When Ruby's boyfriend decides she isn't ambitious enough, they part ways and Ruby has nowhere to go but home, knowing her dad Martin will fume over the waste of an expensive education.

I graduated in 1978 with an English major. Jobs were scarce and I had to work at a department store before 'stepping up' to customer service in insurance and then moving into sales. Our son graduated in 2008 with a creative writing major. It was two years before he got a job, $9/hr work from home in customer service. Ten years later, he is doing well as a data analyst. We do what we have to do.  Ruby's predicament resonated with me!

What would Martin's dream job be? He never had one. He had jobs for getting by.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell

Martin is hard working, stressed, and frankly, bitter. He uses meditation to tamp down the stress. But he is on-call 24-7, asked to do all the dirty jobs. Pull out hair clogs in the bathroom drain, killing the pigeons that nest on the window ledges, kicking the homeless out of the hallway. He hates what he does, but he does it to keep his home. It reminded my of my father-in-law; his dad died of TB when he was a boy and he could not afford college. He worked for the CCC to support his mom. He ended up in a job at Buick in Flint in scheduling. He hated his job. But he supported three boys through college.

Hard times--depression, recession, natural disaster, pandemic--hit most of us in ways that the wealthy don't experience.

People believe they are friendly and supportive with their gifts of  Starbucks and MetroCard gift cards, but who needs coffee house gift cards when you are living in a windowless basement apartment with a discarded 1980s couch with cows on it and your bed is a repurposed elevator box?

It reminded me of all the Christmas cookies we received over the years from parishioners. We needed cold, hard cash, not calories. We wanted parsonage upgrades so I could fit a turkey in the wall oven or a replacement for the kitchen floor that permanently stained when our son dropped a strawberry.

There is nothing worse than living in provided housing, dependent on your job performance and keeping people happy, knowing at any time you could be asked to leave. Knowing how it would disrupt your family's life if you fail.

The tenants pretend to be friends with the super and his family. Noblesse oblige is alive and well. The people upstairs realize their power.

And it is making Martin crazy.

Tensions mount between Martin and Ruby, each desperately seeking the other's approval. They both go a little crazy. Bad things happen.

In the end, Ruby and Martin discover that the worst that can happen can lead to a better life.

The Party Upstairs pries open the doors to reveal the class divide, how the poor hobble themselves to unfulfilled lives out of fear. It is the story of breaking free and allowing oneself to make life choices that may not align with predominate values.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Party Upstairs
by Lee Conell
Penguin Press
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 9781984880277, 1984880276
Hardcover $26.00 USD, $35.00 CAD

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Kiley Reid's debut novel Such a Fun Age offers an original and unique perspective on race and class through a page-turning story that is deceptively entertaining.

The setting was familiar--Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square and Kensington. My husband once worked at the corner of Rittenhouse Square and we spent 1980 living in Kensington. The two neighborhoods could not have been more different. The historic Rittenhouse Square and the upscale shops around it, ethereal sounds of music wafting from the Curtis Institute of Music; and Kensington with its empty factories and yardless rowhouses built to house textile factory workers. Money and privilege and the working poor. After we left, Kensington declined even more.

Reid's character Emira has graduated from my Alma Mater, Temple University, with a B.A. in English--as I did. I often proudly said that I held a degree that prepared me to read intelligently while impoverished. Emira has other complications: she has no idea what she wants to do in life and she is African American.

My first job out of Temple was working Christmas Rush at Strawbridge & Clothier's downtown; my second job was customer service at a Bala Cynwyd insurance company. Emira is a part-time typist for the Green Party and takes a part-time job as a babysitter. She shares an apartment in Kensington and hangs with her friends, wishing she had more disposable money like they do. Emira will soon be 26 and the impending loss of her parent's health insurance looms over her head. She needs a 'real job'.

The woman who hires Emira to babysit is Alix Chamberlain who has built a career as an influencer, married an older, well-off television newsperson, and has two children. She carries the heartache of her first love with Kelly, who dumped her just before prom over a misunderstanding and her ill-formed decision that proved disastrous for Kelly's African American buddy.

Emira has great affection for Alix's child. And, she badly needs the babysitting money. So when she gets a call for an emergency late-night sitting job she leaves her friend's birthday party at a bar. Dressed inappropriately, with a few drinks under the belt, hanging with a white child, Emira strikes the security guard as suspicious and she is nearly arrested. A white man records the incident and encourages Emira to prosecute. She isn't interested. But when they met up again later, they become involved personally. That man is Kelley.

Meantime, the incident causes Alix to take a closer look at her babysitter. She becomes emotionally attached to Emira, losing the boundary between the professional and the personal. This escalates to the point that Alix interferes with Emira's personal life with disastrous results for everyone. Except for Emira; she comes out the better, finally finding herself.

The interactions between races depicted in the novel were startling to me, first because I had not encountered them before in fiction, and secondly because they felt very true.

Do we white people really understand the implications of our behavior when we try to help, endeavor to show we are not prejudiced, are color blind or woke? Do people with comfortable lives really know what those who are struggling want from us? I mean, Alix sends leftovers and wine home with Emira! Is that helpful when what she really needs is health insurance?

Such a Fun Age reads like popular women's fiction but hits on important and relevant issues. It would be a great book club read.

I won a free book on Goodreads. My review is fair and unbiased.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK PICK

Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
G. P. Putnam & Sons
ISBN-10: 052554190X
ISBN-13: 978-0525541905

I Can't Breathe: The Racism of the Justice System

"A masterly narrative of urban America and a scathing indictment of the perverse incentives built into our penal system, I Can’t Breathe drills down into the particulars of one case to confront us with the human cost of our broken approach to dispensing criminal justice." from the publisher's website

Taibbi's book I Can't Breathe explains the evolution of discrimination justified by being 'tough on crime' and how it lead to the death of Eric Garner, which fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Random House sent me an email offering pre-approval to read I Can't Breathe by Matt Taibbi. I downloaded the book to check it out, and realized it was the perfect book to build upon other recent reads about justice and race, including Just Mercy by Bryon Stevenson, Detroit: 1967, Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I had acquired a basic understanding that the justice system was inherently racist. Taibbi's thorough consideration of the death of Eric Garner explained the political and social pressures that changed police culture after overt institutional racism was pushed underground.

Taibbi presents a balanced portrait of a beloved family man who was deeply flawed, as we all are, but whom Taibbi came to truly like. Readers will connect to Eric, a bigger than life, eccentric character. Unemployable because of a prior conviction, Eric supports his family by creating a business selling 'loosies', black market cigarettes smuggled in from states with lower cigarette taxes and sold individually. Eric is jailed and fined over and over. 

When Americans became worried about crime during the tumultuous 1970s politicians began offering promises to be 'tough on crime.' White Americans were afraid of urban African Americans. 

In the 1990s, New York City led the way by pushing for increased arrests. Cops were to stop and frisk first to see if they could turn up anything to justify an arrest! People were targeted by color, attire, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, reaching for their pocket--but the real motivation was racism. Blacks and Hispanics in high-crime neighborhoods were targeted.

Cops publicly humiliated their victims by public cavity searches and the use of unnecessary brute force was common. The system protected the cops.

Garner stood out. He was big, he wore clothes that were literally falling apart, and he stood in the same place day after day. He had asthma. He had been looking poorly and was tired. He was robbed and beaten up, financially always struggling to support his family. 

Garner was an easy catch for a cop who needed to meet his quota. He was stopped and searched hundreds of times and when cops discovered a few packs of cigarettes  he would be arrested and his money confiscated.

Garner's son had just earned a scholarship to college, and Garner was the father of a new baby when he broke up a street fight. Cops who had been watching the fight arrested Garner even though he had not sold a cigarette all morning. Ramsey Orta saw the arrest and filmed it with his cellphone. When Garner countered that he had not done anything wrong and was not going to be arrested that day, four officers went after Garner and pushed him to the ground.

"I can't breathe," he said over and over. And then he stopped breathing and the cops did nothing. 

Taibbi put Garner's death in perspective of how policing changed: instituting 'reasonable' suspicion as a validating a stop and frisk; the adoption of "Broken Windows" and the emphasis on policing as keeping 'order', creating a 'goal setting' culture; zero-tolerance policing and 'predictive policing'. 

Groups rose up to challenge the discriminatory methods but had little success. Eric's daughter Erica Garner worked for justice for her father. Bureaucracy protected the cops and left the families of victims without justice. Orta's cell phone video made him a police target. Politicians got involved for personal attention. Protest groups arose demanding justice, including Black Lives Matter.

I am disgusted by how often I hear people counter Black Lives Matter with "all lives matter." That is true, but not all 'lives' are targeted because of color or where they live.

A few years back I visited a college friend living in Detroit. Driving home I was lost and tense. When I got to an overpass with no cars I sped up a bit and was pulled over by a cop.

The cop said, "don't say anything," and took my driver's license. He came back and said, "I will write this up so you don't have it on your record, but you will pay a fine." I wondered then what it was that caused him to do this? My clean driving record? And today I wonder, if I were a person of color, would he have searched my car and person looking for evidence to arrest me?

I have never felt so protected and cushioned by the accident of my color as I have after reading I Can't Breathe.

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

I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street
Matt Taibbi
Random House
Publication Date: October 24, 2017
Hardcover $28.00
ISBN: 9780812988840

When I opened my Ocober 2017 issue of Quilting Arts I came across Chawn Kimber's amazing quilt dedicated to Eric Garner, "The One for Eric G."

Kimber, Chawne. The One for Eric G. 2015. From Michigan State University Museum, Michigan State University Museum Collection. Published in The Quilt Index, http://www2.matrix.msu.edu/~quilti/fulldisplay.php?kid=1E-3D-2932.
Accessed: 09/18/2017

Find out more about Chawne's art at
https://cauchycomplete.wordpress.com/quilt-gallery/

I Can't Breathe by Matt Taibbi

"A masterly narrative of urban America and a scathing indictment of the perverse incentives built into our penal system, I Can’t Breathe drills down into the particulars of one case to confront us with the human cost of our broken approach to dispensing criminal justice." from the publisher's website

Taibbi's book I Can't Breathe explains the evolution of discrimination justified by being 'tough on crime' and how it led to the death of Eric Garner, which fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Random House sent me an email offering pre-approval to read I Can't Breathe by Matt Taibbi. I downloaded the book to check it out, and realized it was the perfect book to build upon other recent reads about justice and race, including Just Mercy by Bryon Stevenson, Detroit: 1967, Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I had acquired a basic understanding that the justice system was inherently racist. Taibbi's thorough consideration of the death of Eric Garner explained the political and social pressures that changed police culture after overt institutional racism was pushed underground.

Taibbi presents a balanced portrait of a beloved family man who was deeply flawed, as we all are, but whom Taibbi came to truly like. Readers will connect to Eric, a bigger than life, eccentric character. Unemployable because of a prior conviction, Eric supports his family by creating a business selling 'loosies', black market cigarettes smuggled in from states with lower cigarette taxes and sold individually. Eric is jailed and fined over and over. 

When Americans became worried about crime during the tumultuous 1970s politicians began offering promises to be 'tough on crime.' White Americans were afraid of urban African Americans. 

In the 1990s, New York City led the way by pushing for increased arrests. Cops were to stop and frisk first to see if they could turn up anything to justify an arrest! People were targeted by color, attire, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, reaching for their pocket--but the real motivation was racism. Blacks and Hispanics in high-crime neighborhoods were targeted.

Cops publicly humiliated their victims by public cavity searches and the use of unnecessary brute force was common. The system protected the cops.

Garner stood out. He was big, he wore clothes that were literally falling apart, and he stood in the same place day after day. He had asthma. He had been looking poorly and was tired. He was robbed and beaten up, financially always struggling to support his family. 

Garner was an easy catch for a cop who needed to meet his quota. He was stopped and searched hundreds of times and when cops discovered a few packs of cigarettes discovered he would be arrested and his money confiscated.

Garner's son had just earned a scholarship to college, and Garner was the father of a new baby when he broke up a street fight. Cops who had been watching the fight arrested Garner even though he had not sold a cigarette all morning. Ramsey Orta saw the arrest and filmed it with his cellphone. When Garner countered that he had not done anything wrong and was not going to be arrested that day, four officers went after Garner and pushed him to the ground.

"I can't breathe," he said over and over. And then he stopped breathing and the cops did nothing. 

Taibbi put Garner's death in perspective of how policing changed: instituting 'reasonable' suspicion as a validating a stop and frisk; the adoption of "Broken Windows" and the emphasis on policing as keeping 'order', creating a 'goal setting' culture; zero-tolerance policing and 'predictive policing'. 

Groups rose up to challenge the discriminatory methods but had little success. Eric's daughter Erica Garner worked for justice for her father. Bureaucracy protected the cops and left the families of victims without justice. Orta's cell phone video made him a police target. Politicians got involved for personal attention. Protest groups arose demanding justice, including Black Lives Matter.

I am disgusted by how often I hear people counter Black Lives Matter with "all lives matter." That is true, but not all 'lives' are targeted because of color or where they live.

A few years back I visited a college friend living in Detroit. Driving home I was lost and tense. When I got to an overpass with no cars I sped up a bit and was pulled over by a cop.

The cop said, "don't say anything," and took my driver's license. He came back and said, "I will write this up so you don't have it on your record, but you will pay a fine." I wondered then what it was that caused him to do this? My clean driving record? And today I wonder, if I were a person of color, would he have searched my car and person looking for evidence to arrest me?

I have never felt so protected and cushioned by the accident of my color as I have after reading I Can't Breathe.

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

I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street
Matt Taibbi
Random House
Publication Date: October 24, 2017
Hardcover $28.00
ISBN: 9780812988840

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

The Locals by Jonathan Dee

I am an introvert. I can be outgoing and talkative and friendly, but I know I am an introvert because being around a lot of people leaves me ready for a nap and a recharge, while an extrovert would be pumped.

I was in the middle of reading The Locals when I felt that drained feeling. The point of view kept jumping from person to person and there were too many voices and people for me to handle. I took a nap.

It was several days before I pushed myself to pick the book back up. I finished it in another day's reading.

The novel starts out strong with an abrasive con man. His victim is Mark, from a small town in the Berkshires, who lost his money in an investment scam. Mark is an 'easy mark', and loses his credit card to this grifter. The story follows Mark back home, introducing a whole village of characters, each struggling to make it.

A New York City hedge-fund manager moves his family into their summer cottage; 9-11 and 'inside information' has convinced him that the city is no longer safe. Philip Hadi likes his new town and assumes political and financial control, paying budgetary items out of pocket to keep taxes low and home values high.

When the town decides they can't allow Hadi to arbitrarily make laws, he feels unappreciated and up and leaves--taking his money with him. The town has to deal with the hard reality that they cannot cover the budget without raising taxes significantly. They realize that under Hadi they had been living in "a fool's paradise," and must reevaluate what is necessary. The new reality includes closing the library, creating new fees, and requiring citations quotas from police.

Character's thoughts reflect aspects of 21st-century thinking:

"Corruption was a fact of life, on the governmental level especially, and if you didn't find your own little way to make it work for you, then you'd be a victim of it."

"The nation was at war; the invisible nature of that war made it both harder and more important to be vigilant."

"He thought everybody on TV was full of shit--the pundits, the alarmists, the conspiracy theorists--but their very full-of-shittiness was like a confirmation of what he felt inside: that things right now were off their anchor, that the decline of people's belief in something showed up in their apparent willingness to believe anything."

"The best part [of the Internet] was feeling that you were anonymous out there but had an identity at the same time." "...and this internet was like some giant bathroom wall where you could just scrawl whatever hate you liked."

"Some people really come to life when they have an enemy."

"Rich people, he thought. The world shaped itself around their impulses."

I was perplexed and puzzled why I did not have any immediate thoughts about the book. The ending involves a teenager who flaunts the rules and finds empowerment in resistance. Perhaps I am just too dense for subtlety? Or am I confused by too many voices, too many opinions, that I am not sure of what the author is saying?

A Goodreads friend loved this novel, which inspired me to request it from NetGalley. (She is an extrovert.) I agree with her that there are no likable characters. Each is flawed and self-centered, discouraged and angry about missing that brass ring ticket to success and happiness. Well, that could describe quite a few people today.

Perhaps my problem with the book is I don't like who we have become and I don't like the options offered to us. At the end of The Locals, Allerton, the new selectman, realizes that "any sort of collective action was automatically suspect...because if it worked, then we wouldn't be in the mess we were now in."

Once upon a time, we believed in progress and the eternal upward arc into a better world, which now we condemn as the fallacy of fairy tale thinking. And I want to hold to that fairy tale of a possible Utopia, the Star Trek world, the Utopia for Realists. Dee's novel reflects what we have become, but I want to be inspired to consider what we may become.

So I return to the small and strange act of resistance at the end, a teenager who just wants to sleep in a historical home, and is told she may not. It took another night's sleep for me to wake up and think, yeah, that's it--the girl's seemingly small act of resistance is a metaphor, about reclaiming for all what is reserved for those who can pay for it.

I finally saw the light.

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

The Locals
by Jonathan Dee
Random House
Publication: August 8, 2017
Hardcover $28.00
ISBN:9780812993226

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout: Hope for the Hopeless

"But this was life! And it was messy!"

After Elizabeth Strout wrote My Name is Lucy Barton she was moved to tell the stories of the hometown characters Lucy and her mother had talked about, resulting in Anything is Possible.

In Strout's prize-winning book Olive Kitteridge each character is touched by Olive; in Anything is Possible it is Lucy Barton who provides the context for each story.

The suffering behind the stories made my heart ache. Poverty, abuse, deep loneliness, and loveless lives have left their marks on these characters. And yet--and yet--their resilience is rewarded with moments of grace, a nod of understanding, friendship offered unexpected--the small gifts that shed a ray of hope that life can be different.

As I was reading Strout I was also reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I noted similarities between the books: crushing childhood poverty, resilience, and an understanding that being truthful about life isn't pretty.

Lucy's sister Vicky asks Lucy why she doesn't write the truth of what happened to their family. Who'd want to read that story? their brother Pete asks. I would, Vicky replies. I was reminded of a scene from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn where Francie's teacher tells Francie to write pretty stories, not stories about drunkenness and poverty, the stories of Francie's real life. The question always is, do writers tell the truth or 'pretty' life up? Strout has decided that life is messy, and yet, as Pete tells Vicky, we don't turn out so bad in spite of it.

It is Strout's honesty that is unsettling and moving. By entering these character's lives we learn compassion. We walk in their shoes for a while and they become more than a recluse, or a fat lady, or the poor kids who ate from dumpsters.

The best part is the compassion these characters have for each other. Lucy's brother Pete remarks that their mother 'just wasn't made right,' and Lucy agrees but adds, "She had grit. She hung in there."

At a time when Americans are trying to understand the force behind popularism and the political climate, we are turning to literature to understand the experiences of those who are from different backgrounds. Forget some of the over-marketed best sellers. Read Strout.

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

Anything is Possible
Elizabeth Strout
Random House
Publication date: April 25, 2017
$27 hardcover
ISBN: 9780812989403

"Radiant...Class prejudice remains one of Strout's enduring themes along with the complex, fraught bonds of family across the generations...Another powerful examination of painfully human ambiguities and ambivalences--this gifted writer just keeps getting better." Kirkus Reviews

The Underworld by Kevin Canty

Why is it so hard to escape the town of our birth? What keeps us from growing into a new life? Are we trapped in brutal, short lives?

In 1972, Silverton, Idaho is in the middle of nowhere, it's only reason for being the silver mine that needs workers. Men are paid well, trading long lives and their health for good money. They work hard, then play hard, frequenting the bar to drink and brawl. They are proud of their toughness.

Silverton is infused with toxins that ruin skin and health.

"There was arsenic in the smoke, chromium, cadmium, lead. Part of what it cost to live here...people died here after a while, lung cancer, liver cancer, for a few months the other year everybody seemed to have leukemia."

The women think about leaving their men, and do leave men who can't leave the only life they know. And when someone does break out, like David who is in college, they feel alienated and conflicted, resenting the pampered life of green shady lawns and uncalloused soft hands.

"This was never going to be his life, anyways, these leafy maples that meet overhead, a canopy over the street. Shingled houses with white trim, green lawns, third stories, turrets and arches. In a way, it feels good to let go, stop pretending. This place has its membership and he isn't part of it."

The third year of college is ending when David hears there has been a disaster at the mine. He drives his VW home. His father and his brother work in the mines.

The disaster claims 91 lives. David's brother is one of the dead. The stunned town struggles. Widows drown their sorrows in booze but find there is no haven from regret and grief. Two men are trapped for 14 days, and coming above ground reevaluate their lives. David reconsiders his choice to leave for another life.

This is a story about grief.

"Everything in life can be taken from you in an instant. Any minute. She had known this before. But now she understands it."

"Her friend is dead. But she could only forget it or else think about nothing else, and there is nothing to think, nothing to say. It cannot be undone. It cannot be fixed. It cannot be tolerated...Something breaks inside her, a little thing like a Popsicle stick." 

One widow, Ann, who at twenty-two was already weary of her life and childlessness before the accident, now regrets not cherishing her husband more. Ann realizes she had closed the door on so many possibilities when she decided to stay in Silverton and marry. Now she is 'free' to choose again, but the choices seem limited.

Ann goes to a bar seeking a bartender who once seemed interested in her; now he doesn't recognize her and she thinks, "all this just seems so corrupt. A stimulus, a response, a line, a body. People just want to fuck...They see a woman, alone, vulnerable, they move in for the kill. That's how it is. A lonely woman is the devil's playground."

Ann had sung as a schoolgirl and now joins the church choir. She experiences the sense of greater community found in choral singing.

"The third time through the 'Ave Maria' she feels it, that lovely moment in which everything else drops away and she becomes this column of air, supported by the hips, her jaw dropping into the high notes, this physical thing becomes musical, becomes music, and all around her the same thing is happening and  they are singing together, almost beautifully."

Ann becomes friends with David's brother's widow Jordan, whose grief plays out in angry and self-destructive behavior. David is drawn to Ann.

Some don't survive the death of their loved one, some try to leave. Ann and David turn to each other in their grief and in their need reach, again, for love. They have been to hell and back. Perhaps they will yet find some comfort in the world.

The Underworld is fiction based on an actual mine disaster. I loved the writing and Canty's moving characters. I look forward to reading more of Canty's work.

I received a free book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Underworld
Kevin Canty
W. W. Norton
$24.95 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-393-29305-0

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and a Mystery

This month my library book club read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Many of us had read the book as a girl. Smith's novel of a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early years of the 20th c. is based on her own experience. I had wanted to reread this book after reading When Books Went to War and learning it was one of the most popular books among WWII soldiers.

THE NOVEL
As a teenager, I felt kinship with Francie because of her love of books, her vivid imagination, and her dream of becoming a writer.

The story takes place between 1914 to 1918. Francie's grandparents were immigrants. Her father Johnny was a charming alcoholic, a singing waiter. Her mother Katie was hard-working and frugal, determined her children would get an education and achieve the American Dream.

When pregnant with Francie, Katie's mother instructed her on the importance of books in the house. She insisted that a copy of Shakespeare and the Protestant Bible be secured, and a page from each read to the child daily, along with fairy tales from the old country and stories of Kris Kringle.

"Mother, I know there are no ghosts or fairies. I would be teaching the child foolish lies."
"Yet you must teach the child that these things are."
"Why? When I, myself, do not believe?"
"Because, the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination.The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe...Then when the world becomes too ugly to live in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination."

Francie spent a summer "stitching" on a "square of goods for a penny. It was the size of a lady's handkerchief and had a design outlined on it: a sitting Newfoundland dog with his tongue lolling out. Another penny bought a small reel of red embroidery cotton and two cents went for a pair of small hoops. Francie's grandmother taught her how to work the running stitches." Smith continues, "You were supposed to stitch a hundred of so of these squares and then sew them together to make a bedspread."

Penny Square Redwork pattern of Newfoundland dog
on my Presidents Quilt

School taught Francie about class prejudice. She realized that the clean, well-dressed children were given preference. "She learned of the class system of a great Democracy."

When the students are asked to identify their ethnic background, Francie insists she is American. The teacher pushes Francie who finally, in exasperation cries out that her parents were born in Brooklyn.

"Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read!" Books opens the world to Francie. "She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood." Francie vows to read a book a day for as long as she lived.

Francie's imagination brought trouble when she spun stories; her teacher had to instruct her on the difference between a lie and a story. Francie was aware that she "did not report things truthfully, but gave them color, excitement and dramatic twists." She saw that trait in her mother and wondered if imagination "colored too rosily the poverty and brutality of their lives and made them able to endure it" instead of trying to change things for the better.

When Francie writes stories for school accurately reflecting her life the teacher admonishes Francie. The teacher explains, "poverty, starvation, and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exists. But one doesn't write about them." Francie asks, "What does one write about?" And she is told to delve into her imagination and find beauty. "But those stories are the truth!" Francie explains about her work.

Because Francie has pretended to live in another part of Brooklyn to attend a better school her teacher has no idea of the reality of Francie's life. The teacher accuses Francie's stories of being sordid, and after looking the word up in the dictionary Francie bristles with anger. Francie tries to write according to her teacher's wishes, but getting an A for pretty stories based on lies was repulsive to her.

Francie's father dies, leaving her pregnant mother, who worked as a janitor, the sole support of the family. The description of Katie, hugely pregnant, on her hands and knees to scrub floors disturbs me. Francie and her brother, both recent grammar school graduates, proudly work to support the family.

Katie decides that Neely will go to high school in the fall and Francie continue working to support them. Francie excels in every job but watches her hope for education die. Eventually, she takes college-level classes without credit, marveling that her grandparents could not read and here she was in college.

I enjoyed rereading this book on so many levels. Although the novel is episodic and disjointed at points, I was compelled to keep reading. Many of the characters are 'stock' types, and yet Francie and her family elicited my emotional involvement. Our book club members remarked on the disturbing racial stereotypes.

It is amazing how much the world has changed in 100 years! Automobiles, eclectic lights, bobbed hair, voting rights for women, all came in during Francie's girlhood. It is also disturbing how little the world has changed in 100 years: Immigrants struggling to adjust to their new life, class prejudice and xenophobia, the challenge of obtaining an education, the struggle between honesty and integrity and acceptance continues.

MY BOOK

My copy of the book is the seventeenth edition and has a note, "this book is complete and unabridged in contents and is manufactured in strict conformity with Government regulations for saving paper, indicating it was produced during World War II.

There is a nameplate for Norma M. Farrell and written in ink the name Norma Schantz, 711 Ditman, Brooklyn 18, NY.

Add caption

So, of course, I had to search for Norma on Ancestry.com.

First I found her on Find A Grace Index. Norma Marie Schanz was born September 4, 1905, and died January 16, 1990, in Clearwater, FL. Norma was married to George Jacob Schanz, born March 21, 1907, and died September 23, 1963. They are buried at the Long Island National Cemetery in East Farmingdale, NY. George was a veteran whose service started May 6, 1943. He served as a Technician Fifth Grade in the Army.

Norma's father was Joseph E. Farrell, born in Chicago in 1872 and died in 1943. Her mother was Mary Leu, born in Ohio in 1879 and died in 1955. Joseph's parents were William, born 1822 in Ireland and died in 1902, and Annabell Roche, born in 1821 and died in 1874. Mary Leu's parents were Gottlieb Leu and Nanette Kander.

The census records show that Norma lived with her parents on a fruit farm near Kalamazoo. She appears on the 1910 and 1920 census as a girl. A 1919 Kalamazoo Rural Directory shows James and Marie living with children Annbelle, John, William, Norma, Ermond, Majoe and Uriel. James was a farmer and truck grower living in Oshtemo, located southwest of Kalamazoo. On the 1930 census, Norma appears working as a stenographer.

On August 2, 1930, Norma married Edward C. Rynbrand of Kalamazoo. Norma was a stenographer and Edward a shop clerk. Norma divorced Edward on May 10, 1935, for reasons of extreme and repeated cruelty. Edward then married Frances Hays.

In 1940 Norma appears (under her maiden name) living at home with her parents, along with a sibling and three nieces and nephews. She was a stenographer.

Norma and George Schanz were married September 18, 1945, in Kalamazoo, MI when Norma was 40 years old.

Georg Schanz's parents were Mary (or Marie) Weigele and Jacob Schanz, married April 20, 1901, in Richmond, NY.  George was born in 1905.

The 1910 census shows the Schanz family living on Broad Street in Richmond, NY where Jacob and Marie ran a bakery. The family appears on the 1915 Richmond, NYS Census with Jacob was a baker. His son George Jacob went by the name Jacob. They also had a daughter, Katy (Katherine).

In 1930 George lived with his mother Marie at 711 Ditman Ave. George worked as a chauffeur for a beverage company. Their property value was $9000.

The question is--how did Norma and George meet? In 1940 Norma was in Kalamazoo, and in 1945 she was married to George. George was from New York City and in the armed services. It's a mystery.

I loved how this book, which Norma received before her marriage to George, ended up in Brooklyn during Norma's early marriage.

Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford, or Can We Break the Glass Ceiling of Class?

We pretty much know who is in the upper class. They are the beautiful people who show up in the media. Their clothes are a story. Their faces are recognized by millions who have never met them. Or they have a name associated with old money, new money, ill begot money--any kind of money. And they hang with other famous, wealthy, beautiful people doing things and going places the rest of us can only dream about.

We want to find that fairy tale prince (or king or queen) who will marry us and magically make us 'one of them.' We imagine winning the lottery so we can buy the things they buy and go the places they go. Sometimes we even work hard and earn a position of importance with financial rewards that allow us to enter their world. Like Jay Gatsby we think we can buy our way into the right class of folk.

But is it possible to ever really fit in and be accepted into those upper echelons? Or will one always be seen as a wannabe? Can we really change our social status? Can we pass as one of them? Is it money that determines our class, or is it our manners? Or our values? What is class...and how do we get it?

Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford explores these issues.

Evelyn's mother Barbara rues marrying 'down'. Her husband's career as a lawyer may have brought financial reward, but he still thinks like a miner's son. Barbara has stressed that her daughter meets the 'right people', goes to the 'right places' and wears the 'right clothes.' She knows success is about appearances.

Class is not about money; it's all about style. And it's best not to try to ascend to the upper class...Because you'll never get it right. Paul Fussell (http://www.wksu.org/news/features/classinamerica/class-movement/index.html)

For years Evelyn eschewed her mother's advice. After she was sent to a private school and was befriended by some of the 'right' people she understood that the rich were different. She learned the right table manners and social behavior to fit in.

Although he can afford to support Evelyn, her dad insists she make her own way. She takes a job at "People Like Us", a start up social network focused on an elite clientèle, believing she could use her connections with the 'right sort' to advantage. Evelyn had to go to the right places, dress the right way, and hobnob with the right sort in her mission to enlist new members. Along the way she recreates herself, and her past, to advantage. She is selling herself as much as her product, and keeping up appearances costs her her 401K.

Evelyn believes she has been accepted into the fringes of the wealthy, beautiful people. Evelyn is taken up by one of the most beautiful and rich girls in society, whose actions from the get go show she is no beauty inside. Evelyn accepts the misuse and abuse, believing she is really valued.

She sees the glimmer, the shine, and the bling...and it blinds her.

The first part of the novel is slow going, a long build up establishing Evelyn and the main characters. Nothing really happens. One is ready to throw in the towel and move on. But the second part gathers speed as Evelyn loses her head, desperately gambling for a fairy tale ending. She loses her identity, her values, and finally her dignity. The climax is Evelyn's sordid fall and her betrayal of all who really cared for her. The third part concerns her reclamation.

Some of the characterizations don't completely work. Evelyn's boyfriend is mostly an accessory, although his story could have been one of the most poignant. Evelyn's best bud from school disappears; although he is instrumental in Evelyn's final decision he remains off camera and unresolved. Sometimes Evelyn is unbelievably dense.

But I found the premise interesting and after Evelyn starts spiraling down, ignoring all the warnings signs and friendly advice, the book moves along quickly.

The author has signed a movie deal. Most believe the book will make a better movie. I agree. I bet it will be a hit.

Read more about class in America:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/us/class/in-fiction-a-long-history-of-fixation-on-the-social-gap.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-09-12/richard-florida-creative-class/57767522/1

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

Everybody Rises
Stephanie Clifford
St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: August 18, 2015
ISBN-10: 1250077176

• ISBN-13: 978-1250077172

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