Other People's Pets by R. L. Mazies

La La has crime in her blood as surely as the Flying Wallendas have acrobatics, and the Kennedys, politics. ~from Other People's Pets by R. L. Maizes

I adore Other People's Pets! It is fresh and heartfelt, a perfect read during stressful times. La La and her father Zev will win your heart.

Even if they are burglars.

LaLa's mother ran off when she was nine. She wasn't a very good mother. When they were ice skating, LaLa fell through the ice and her mother didn't notice. LaLa was rescued by a large black dog. The near-death-event left her an animal empath.

Zev was a locksmith by day and a burglar by night. He homeschooled LaLa and took her on his heists, isolating her to protect himself. He couldn't risk his daughter giving away his secret life. LaLa has a special relationship with a veterinarian who notices her insight into animals and takes her under his wing.

LaLa is in vet school, living with her fiance, when her father lands in prison, unable to make bail. He was caught after calling 911 to help the man he was robbing. LaLa makes the hard decision to put her dad first.

As LaLa's life stray further from her dreams, she takes comfort that she only robs houses with ailing pets she can help.

LaLa and Zev have never recovered from their abandonment. Zev still carries a torch for his wife and LaLa dreams of gaining her mother's approval, which brings them to a fatal meeting.

LaLa faces a series of heartbreaking losses, including her beloved dog, Black. In the end, LaLa realizes the true meaning of family and finds her place in the world.

I love Mazies humor. Descriptions like, "The pores on his nose are big enough to house a fly" and "ears grown large from listening," and Zev's business name of "Honesty Locksmith," kept me laughing out loud.

I loved R. L. Mazies book of short stories We Love Anderson Cooper, filled with memorable, flawed, yet loveable characters.

Read an excerpt from Other People's Pets here.

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Other People's Pets
by R.L. Maizes
Celadon Books
Pub Date July 14, 2020 
ISBN: 9781250304131
hardcover $26.99 (USD)

R.L. Mazies

about the author

R.L. Maizes was born and raised in Queens, New York. She now lives in Boulder County, Colorado. Maizes's short stories have aired on National Public Radio and have appeared in the literary magazines Electric Literature, Witness, Bellevue Literary Review, Slice, and Blackbird, among others. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Lilith, and elsewhere. Maizes is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop. Her work has received Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open contest, has been a finalist in numerous other national contests, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of the short story collection We Love Anderson Cooper.

from the publisher

R.L. Maizes's Other People’s Pets examines the gap between the families we’re born into and those we create, and the danger that holding on to a troubled past may rob us of the future.

La La Fine relates to animals better than she does to other people. Abandoned by a mother who never wanted a family, raised by a locksmith-turned-thief father, La La looks to pets when it feels like the rest of the world conspires against her.

La La’s world stops being whole when her mother, who never wanted a child, abandons her twice. First, when La La falls through thin ice on a skating trip, and again when the accusations of “unfit mother” feel too close to true. Left alone with her father—a locksmith by trade, and a thief in reality—La La is denied a regular life. She becomes her father’s accomplice, calming the watchdog while he strips families of their most precious belongings.

When her father’s luck runs out and he is arrested for burglary, everything La La has painstakingly built unravels. In her fourth year of veterinary school, she is forced to drop out, leaving school to pay for her father’s legal fees the only way she knows how—robbing homes once again.

As an animal empath, she rationalizes her theft by focusing on houses with pets whose maladies only she can sense and caring for them before leaving with the family’s valuables. The news reports a puzzled police force—searching for a thief who left behind medicine for the dog, water for the parrot, or food for the hamster.

Desperate to compensate for new and old losses, La La continues to rob homes, but it’s a strategy that ultimately will fail her.

This I Know by Eldonna Edwards

I don't think there's a bushel big enough to hide the Knowing. It keeps getting bigger and stronger, like a storm cloud before it grows into a tornado. I've spent most of my life holding it by the tail.~from This I Know by Eldonna Edwards

In 1969, eleven-year-old Grace is heir to special abilities that allows her to know things others cannot perceive.

She communes with her twin brother who died at birth, warns about impending crises, and healed a newborn sister's heart. It has been an unwanted gift passed down through her mother's family--until now. Grace stands up for the goodness of her insight.

Grace's mother is suffering postpartum depression, her eldest daughter taking on her tasks. Grace's father is a non-denominational church pastor with a nominal salary that requires his taking part-time jobs. He does not trust that Grace's gift is godly and commands her to turn from the Knowing.

Grace's life in Cherry Hill along Lake Michigan is filled with the beauty of nature and the suspicion of townsfolk. She befriends a drifter and is taken up by the daughter of hippies. On the verge of becoming a woman, Grace must make the decision to bend to her father's will or suffer rejection and isolation.

Grace's enchanting voice captures the innocence of childhood coming to an end.

I have not read many books with pastors and pastor's kids as main characters. Immersion baptism at the lake, communion and worship services are a part of Grace's life. Edwards, a PK herself, captures the experience.

I got a kick out of "Daddy's talking about idols and graven images, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah." Or about Vacation Bible School, "I think most of the parents send their kids to get rid of them for a while because they're bored and sick of each other."

Grace turns to her predeceased twin Isaac to help her understand the big questions, particularly the nature of God and the source of evil in the world. It is the perennial struggle for people of faith. If God is good, why is there evil and suffering in the world? If God is all powerful, why does he allow it?

Grace's friend Lola introduces alternative lifestyles, a freedom from social conventions. Grace is able to accept people for who they are, to see their goodness.

Edwards has given readers a sympathetic character in a vivid setting on a journey of self-realization, standing up to a narrow world view. 

I received a free book from the author through an American Historical Fiction Facebook Group giveaway. My review is fair and unbiased.

This I Know
by Eldonna Edwards
Kensington
$15.95 paperback
ISBN: 9781496712875

American Follies by Norman Lock

Norman Lock's American Novels have historical settings and characters but they are more than 'historical fiction;' America's character and development is revealed in his books, shedding light on the issues that we still struggle with today, including the treatment of African Americans and women's continuing struggle for equality.

I have been lucky to have read a number of Lock's seven books in this series. His newest installment, American Follies, is startling and disorienting, the characters morphing into action heroes, reality twisting into a nightmare.

A pregnant Ellen Finley seeks employment as a typist for the infamous suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Ellen tells them her husband has gone to California to start a newspaper, but noting their displeasure at her married state, Ellen weeps crocodile tears and admits she is unmarried. The women sweep Ellen into their household as their latest pet project.

Ellen meets Harriet, a diminutive woman from Barnum's circus. Harriet takes a shine to Ellen and introduces her to the other circus performers, contortionists and clowns and sideshow acts whose differences excluded them from society.

After the birth of Ellen's baby, her world becomes unrecognizable. Her child is discovered to be mulatto and the KKK steals the babe. The suffragettes and Ellen, aided by Barnum and the circus folk, set on a journey across the country to save the child.

Ellen's postpartum delirium reveals the sickness at the heart of America. The poor are the enemy, filling the asylums and workhouses. Walls are built to keep out the Mexicans. Women seeking self-determination are to be burnt as witches. And the child of miscenegration is to be sacrificed at the altar of White Supremacy.

History is one smashup piled on top of another, the shards glued together with irony.~ from American Follies by Norman Lock 

"I wrote of the nightmare that was, and is, America for the disenfranchised and powerless," Lock writes in the Afterward.

American Follies takes us into the madhouse that is America, tracing the serpentine and insidious illness of hate that has infected our 244-year history.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.

American Follies
Norman Lock
Bellevue Literary Press
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Trade Paperback $16.99 USD, $22.99 CAD, £12.99 GBP, €17.99 EUR
ISBN: 9781942658481, 1942658486

Read Lock on his series here
Read my review of previous books in the series
 A Boy in his Winter here
The Wreckage of Eden here
The Feast Day of the Cannibals here

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

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

This is a story of mothers.

There was the mother who would not protect her daughter and the mother who abandoned her daughter.

The daughters become mothers, one by mistake and the other through great endeavor.

And there are the other Mothers, the Greek Chorus women of Upper Room Church, the women who pray and get things done--and spread the rumors.

There is the First Lady, the pastor's wife, mother of Luke, the handsome and thoughtless boy who grows to be a handsome and unreliable man.

It is the story of two girls and one boy, the tangled web of their silence and secrets.

It is the story of gender and power, the double-edged sword of ending an unwanted pregnancy, the way we categorize people as good or bad when good people do bad things, too.

These deeply flawed characters are each in their way heartbreaking as they break each other's hearts.

The audiobook is excellent. I only wish I could have marked special sentences and passages!

I received a free audiobook from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Mothers
by Brit Bennett (Goodreads Author), Adenrele Ojo (Narrator)
ISBN0735288267 (ISBN 13: 9780735288263)

Night.Sleep.Death.The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates

An 800 page book doesn't scare me. Some of my favorite books are whoppers.

The number of pages are irrelevant when one becomes immersed in detailed characters, propelled by foreshadowing through their actions and weaknesses, touched by universal truths of human nature.

Oates latest novel explores the impact of death on a family.
I was sucked into the story, eagerly looking forward to reading and learning more about these characters. To discover if I was right about what would come.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. begins with the sudden death of a family patriarch. Whitey stopped to investigate what appeared, and was, a case of police profiling and brutality. He was their next victim. He did not survive.

Whitey was 67---my age. He was his wife Jessalyn's reason for existence, her lodestone; he defined her. In deep shock, she plummets into a private despair hidden behind her self-effacing thoughtfulness for others.

The children, as children do, decide what must be done, how their mother should 'be', and when her actions do not conform with expectations, they reel off into obsessions and fears and anger.

The family balance is thrown off. The children carry their individual burdens. Some believed they were 'favorite' sons or daughters, while others strove to gain their father's approval. One had given up trying.

After many months, a man enters Jessalyn's life who takes her under his care. She rejects his attentions in horror, but allows him to slowly change her, alter her, and bring her back into the land of the living.

The children are incensed, complain to each other, demand someone do something. Mom has been acting incorrectly. Mom has chosen the wrong man. Mom has a feral cat in the house.

Oh, I have seen this! The children who resent the second spouse. I myself scared off a woman who had set her sights on my newly widowed father! Yes, I did!

I was increasingly horrified as the novel got darker and darker, delving into the black hearts of these children. They are murderers and self-abusers and suicidal misfits and long-suffering, angry wives.

Each sibling must find their way out of their despair and illness. I expected Jessalyn to change into a 'modern heroine', evolving into her own woman. To leave passivity behind. She finds happiness, but not growth.

This story disturbed my sleep. It was an emotional journey.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
by Joyce Carol Oates
HarperCollins Publishers/ Ecco
Publication Date June, 9 2020 
ISBN: 9780062797582
hardcover $35.00 (USD)

from the publisher: 

The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers.

Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. 

Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

How Beautiful We Were by Mbolo Mbue

One angry woman did everything, and she failed.~from How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

I read Imbolo Mbue's first novel Behold the Dreamers as a galley and for book club. I jumped at the chance to read her second novel, How Beautiful We Were. 

Was money so important that they would sell children to strangers seeking oil?~from How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

The novel is about an African village struggling for environmental justice, powerless, caught between an American oil company and a corrupt dictatorship government. 

They are a proud people, connected to the land of their ancestors. They have lived simple, subsistence lives, full of blessings. Until the oil company ruined their water, their land, their air. A generation of children watch their peers dying from poisoned water. Their pleas for help are in vain. 

School-aged Thula is inspired by books, including The Communist Manifesto, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and The Wretched of the Earth. "They were her closest friends," spurring her into activist causes when she goes to America to study. In America and becomes an activist. Meanwhile, her peers in her home village lose faith in the process and take up terrorism. 

How could we have been so reckless as to dream?~from How Beautiful We Were by Mbolo Mbue

The fictional village, its inhabitants and history, is so well drawn I could believe it taken from life. The viewpoint shifts among the characters.

We wondered if America was populated with cheerful people like that overseer, which made it hard for us to understand them: How could they be happy when we were dying for their sake?~from How Beautiful We Were by Mbolo Mbue

The fate of the village and its country are an indictment to Western colonialism and capitalism. Slaves, rubber, oil--people came and exploited Africa for gain. The village loses their traditions and ancestral place as their children become educated and take jobs with Western corporations and the government.

This story must be told, it might not feel good to all ears, it gives our mouths no joy to sat it, but our story cannot be left untold.~from How Beautiful We Were by Mbolo Mbue

This is not an easy book for an American to read. It reminds us of the many ways our country has failed and continues to fail short of the ideal we hope it is. And not just abroad--we have failed our to protect our children here in America.

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

from the publisher:

We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price.

Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.

How Beautiful We Were
by Imbolo Mbue
Random House Publishing Group - Random House
Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 9780593132425
hard cover $28.00 (USD)

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

Holy Week. When the enemies have decided to gather at the gate. Attack is on. I think I will stay home. Someone should stay battle-scar-free. To care for the wounded. ~ April 16, 2014

Six years ago, I wrote that on my Facebook timeline. A few months later my husband retired after spending over 30 years of his 38-year career as a parish minister.

We are different people now. I can be outspoken when I want to be, although diplomatic phrasing of my opinion has become a force of habit. Our home is a private sanctuary without yearly walk-through inspections and we can repair and upgrade without trustee approval. We are not required to attend social gatherings or bring a casserole to potluck dinners.

Our roles had run our lives. And my husband bore the weight of hundreds of souls, and the bickering and power plays, the groupies and the critics.

It is a life that few write about realistically. The narrative is dominated by idealized, charming stories and cult horror memoirs.

"A minister," she said. "It seems useful, doesn't it? It seems like a pleasant way to spend a day."~from The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

I was interested in reading The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall when I learned it concerned the relationship between two pastors and their wives.

Wall's characters come from different backgrounds and experiences.

There is the scholarly Charles who accidentally stumbles upon faith and holds it without question. Suffering a devastating loss, Lily angrily rejects the idea of God or 'a plan,' and the reliability of happiness rooted in others. Charles pursues Lily, in spite of her rejection.

There was only circumstance and coincidence. Life was random, neutral, full of accidents...the prerequisite for love was trust; and Lily did not trust anything. ~from The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

Nan is a Pastor's Kid with a naive and untested faith. James escapes his dysfunctional environment with a scholarship to university. His interest in Nan brings him to church. He struggles to believe while embracing the pastoral call as a vehicle to address societal problems.

"I may not believe in God, but I believe in ministry." ~James in The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

Charles and James represent the pastoral and the prophetic roles and are hired by Third Presbyterian Church in a coministry. They balance each other. When parishioners complain that James was "asking us to change views we've held all our lives," Charles replys, "That's what you hired him to do."

The wives are a different story. Lily pursues a PhD and academic career and leaves the traditional, constricted role of pastor's wife to Nan. Their differences are further shown when Nan is devastated by miscarriages and Lily struggles with an unwanted pregnancy--twins.

One of the twins is born with autism, leading Charles to depression while Lily crusades to find the best life for her son. James steps up with a life-changing idea.

The couples become a remarkable community, learning from each other and changing each other. Their story is a microcosm of how the church should work.

****

There was only one call. They were, the four of them, married to each other, in a strange way.~ from The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

Casey Cep's review in the New York Times wrote, "Rather than seeming like two ministers, James and Charles sometimes read as if the pastoral teachings of Henri Nouwen and the political theology of Reinhold Niebuhr were fighting for control of one parish..."

I was intrigued by the identification of the characters with the theologians Nouwen and Niebuhr, both of whom I have read. 
But I did not see Charles and James as 'fighting' for control as much as the parishioners splitting over their differing messages and styles.

In our experience in the itinerant ministry, where pastors with differing styles follow each other, some section of the parish will reject the incoming pastor for not being the previous pastor. Humans have a preference for leaders who align with their set of personal beliefs and reject those who offer a different perspective.

I have known pastors like James. We joined the Methodist Federation for Social Action in the mid-1970s. Some pastors  took controversial actions. Ending the nuclear arms race was an important issue at the time and people were chaining themselves to the gates in protest. Men who became pastors during Vietnam and the Civil Rights era carried their message throughout their career, even when the church had become more conservative politically and religiously, resulting in rejection.

I do not agree with Cep when she writes, "Instead of discussing soteriology or theodicy or even Jesus, they talk in the blanched terms of bad things and good people, even with one another."

Sure, at seminary classes we talked about soteriology and eschatology and all the other 'ologies'. (I audited six classes over three years.) But real-life pastoral ministry is about leadership, team building, financial planning, budgeting, pastoral care, listening, crisis management, and the nuts and bolts of running a nonprofit organization run by volunteers. People want answers to real life issues not theology talks. Like why does God allow bad things to happen to good people.

****

I had to wonder how Wall came to understand the 'inside story' of ministry.

In an article, I learned that Wall’s small town, Nazarene,  parents moved to New York City where they became a part of the First Presbyterian Church, the model for the church in her novel. The church had a history: it was here that Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick's radical ideas riled dissent and led to his resignation. He moved on to Riverside Church.

First Presbyterian had two ministers. “The ministers I grew up with at First Presbyterian were very dynamic and charismatic,” Wall says. “We were close to them."

Learn more about the novel here, where you can listen to an excerpt and hear Walls speak about her novel. 

I purchased an ebook. 

Little Family by Ishmael Beah

Khoudi was invisible in her beanie and boy's clothes. Elimane was the intellectual, always with a book, his past life a secret; he is also street-smart, a hustler. Young Namsa suffers sleep terrors rooted in some unspoken past while Khoudi watches over her. Ndevui and Kpindi play marbles for ganja.

These bright young people have been dealt horrible blows. They have banded together as a little family to survive life on the streets. They know how to blend into the crowd, tag along with a family to pass, and pocket food which they share at their secret hideout.

This makeshift family will break your heart.

Through these characters, Ishmael Beah's novel Little Family paints a picture of the social and economic disparity in an African country..

Eliname assists a stranger who then employs him and the family for undercover operations. The money they earn changes their lives.

Khoudi is a beautiful girl blossoming into womanhood. She uses her money at a hair salon and steals clothes from the beach. Self-contained and independent, her beauty attracts the attention of a wealthy girl who unknowingly helps her pass into the upper echelons of society.

A line had been crossed. Something had come to an end.~ from Little Family by Ishmael Beah

Survival comes at a cost. Feelings make you weak. When the family allows jealousy in, a series of events destroys the family and Khoudi's fantasy of a different life.

The setting is specific and foreign, full of local color, the exotic foods and the red caps daily inventing another "exercise in dehumanization."

Yet this is a story that is repeated across the world, in every city. How many children are unprotected, how many fine minds are untapped, what beauty lies hidden beneath rags? Every state holds these lost children.

I will be haunted by this little family.

I received a free book through Goodreads. My review is fair and unbiased.

About the author:

Ishmael Beah is the Sierra Leonean and American author of the novel Radiance of Tomorrow and the memoir A Long Way Gone, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and has been published in more than forty languages. A UNICEF Ambassador and Advocate for Children Affected by War, and a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Advisory Committee, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their children.

Little Family
Ishmael Beah
Riverhead Books
Publication Date April 28, 2020
$27 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1177-3

Country by Michael Hughes

Fury. Pure fury. The blood was up. Lost the head completely.~from Country by Michael Hughes

Hughes begins his story in the middle of a conflict between two members of an rogue IRA terrorist cell group.

Achill and Pig, the 'trigger man' who killed eight Brits and the Officer Commander of a terrorist cell, clash over a girl whose father wants her back home. She had willingly come to Achill and he won't give her up. Pig insists the teenager will return to her da.

Achill capitulates but throws in the towel. He knows it is his reputation that keep the Brits scared. Let them see what happens without him. He was done. He was going home.

And that was the start of it. A terrible business altogether...Wait now till you hear the rest.~from Country by Michael Hughes

A tenuous truce has brought temporary peace, but the cell group won't give up the fight. This time, they are sure they have the upper hand with inside information about British plans. Independence is theirs, if they have the heart for it.

The tale is violent, gritty, filled with passion and tears. It is an engrossing read, a timeless and compelling story.

I was attracted to the novel as a retelling of The Iliad, Homer's story of the falling out between Achilles and King Agamemnon during the Trojan War. It's been a very long time since I last read Homer. The plotline and themes are there to be found, but readers will enjoy this novel if you don't know Homer.

Hughes novel has the feel of the epic in the narrative voice, the high passions, the rhythm of the language.

I won an ARC from LibraryThing a year ago. After it didn't arrive, I contacted the publisher in the fall and they sent me the published edition.

It was worth waiting for.

from the publisher:

Northern Ireland, 1996. 

After twenty-five years of vicious conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed to an uneasy ceasefire as a first step towards lasting peace. But, faced with the prospect that decades of savage violence and loss have led only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country question whether it really is time to pull back—or quite the opposite. 

When an IRA man’s wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their comrades for an assault on the local army base. But old grudges boil over, and the squad's feared sniper, Achill, refuses to risk his life to defend another man’s pride. As the gang plots without him, the British SAS are sent to crush the rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce and drag the region back to the darkest days of the Troubles. Meanwhile, Achill’s young protégé grabs his chance to join the fray in his place… 

Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, Michael Hughes’s virtuoso novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict, the cost of Ireland’s most uncivil war, and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the dream of country.

Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

She had me at Jock of Hazeldean.

Simon the fiddler had passed for fifteen years old, traveling from Paducah to Texas while evading the Confederate conscription men. People valued his gift of music and protected him.

Simon played Jock of Hazeldean at the barbecue party, a Scottish ballad of a girl who refuses the hand of a Lord to run off with her true love.

He "had a bottomless supply of waltzes, jigs, reels, hornpipes, and slow airs", the last "could bring men and women to a standstill" as the music raised memories of love and homeland, life before the war.

I personally loved the references to the music Simon plays. MacPherson's Lament tells the story of a condemned man who breaks his violin rather allow anyone else to play it. Lorena was a sentimental ballad, the most popular song of the war and was featured in Ken Burn's series. Doris asks Simon to play The Minstrel Boy, an Irish tune beloved by soldiers throughout time. Other songs mentioned include Shenandoah, the slow air Death and the Sinner, The Red River Valley, and Robin Adair (the song that gave my grandmother, mother, me and a cousin our middle names).

It was in the last days of the war Simon was found by the Confederates who take him for the regimental band. At war's end, Simon and other musicians traveled together, "servants of music and not of the state," seeking their fortune.

So it came that Simon played at a barbeque and saw the dark-haired girl in the audience who becomes his lodestar. To escape Ireland, Doris Dillon had signed a contract as an indentured servant to an elegant family ruled by a corrupt Colonel.

Every choice Simon makes afterward is rooted in his goal of becoming a man who can support Doris as his wife.

Texas was a shifting battleground for years, and after the Civil War vast areas were outside the arm of any law. The musicians traverse the state, living in abandoned places while entertaining polite society. They struggle to earn money for essentials and yet Simon saves up to purchase land of his own.

Throughout their adventures, Simon tries to avoid trouble, but he is undaunted in seeking to win Doris's love. He risks everything to save her from the unhappiness of her situation, for the Colonel preys upon the girl, whispering she will succumb to him in the end.

The climax involves music. While Simon is playing the Flowers of Edinburgh a disgruntled former band mate cries out for the lewd Shanty Hog-Eye Man. Simon finds himself in a fight for his life.

Simon the Fiddler is a romantic tale of a knight in homespun who saves an immigrant girl from the clutches of a drunk predator. It is a tribute to the power of music in our national and personal lives. And it is a vivid picture of a world broken by a devastating war.

I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

Read a sample and hear an audio excerpt here.

Simon the Fiddler
by Paulette Jiles
William Morrow
Publication April 14, 2020
hardcover 27.99 USD
ISBN: 9780062966742
ISBN 10: 006296674X

from the publisher

The critically acclaimed, bestselling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart. 

In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.
Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can’t help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter. 

After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel’s family to finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.
Incandescent in its beauty, told in Paulette Jiles’s trademark spare yet lilting style, Simon the Fiddler is a captivating, bittersweet tale of the chances a devoted man will take, and the lengths he will go to fulfill his heart’s yearning.

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker

What I was reading repulsed me but I could not put down Chelsea Bieker's debut novel Godshot. Lacey's narrative voice drew me in, her conflicted nativity and faith struggling to survive as her family and community fails to protect her. The novel reaches into the deepest questions of life and illustrates the limitations of love and faith.

The tragic series of events and abuse endured will be hard for some to follow; this is a dark story. But just when it seems that Lacey has lost everything, including control over her own life, she finds salvation.

Drought has hit the town of Peaches, the orchards turned to dust. Pastor Vern finds the community ripe for hope and promises to deliver rain if they believe in him. Isolating the community from the world, believers allow him total control.

Pastor Vern brings good to some. Lacey's mother found strength to overcome her alcoholism. Pastor Vern also destroys as he wields his total power. His plan to create a perfected church involves assignments, special purposes that believers long to be given. They want to be Godshot. Lacey's mother's assignment takes her on a downward spiral until she abandons Lacey to run off with a man filled with false promises.

Lacey is taken in by her grandmother, one of Pastor Vern's unthinking believers. Lacey desperately misses her mother and endeavors to track her down, her search to learn taking her into the world beyond the Godshot.

Lacey's assignment begins her journey of doubt. Would God require such things?

The novel touches on so many hot-button issues relating to the social status and role of women, the persistence of human hope placed in unreliable leaders, the love of a child for her mother, and the awakening of a young woman to see beyond her community’s  teachings.

Lacey's journey from darkness into light, from powerlessness to self-determination comes to a satisfying conclusion.

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

Godshot
by Chelsea Bieker
Catapult
Pub Date April 7,  2020 
ISBN: 9781948226486
Hard cover $26, $38.95 (CAD)

SIn Eater by Megan Campisi

Orphan May stole a loaf of bread and when arrested expected to die a horrible death. The Recorder stared hard at her and sentenced her to be branded as a Sin Eater. The teenager would be shunned for the rest of her life but would never again starve. She was to hear the sins of the dying and eat the proscribed foods to take their sins upon herself. The dead would fly to heaven; a locked collar kept May chained to hell.

Being a sin eater is a constricted life, alienated from society, yet May has unlimited access to the darkest secrets of the human heart for the the dying are eager to shrug off their worst sins before judgement.

The Queen's ladies in waiting are dying. May hears their confession but is given foods for sins never confessed. Something is afoot in the palace, and illiterate, powerless May is the only person who can cipher out the truth. 

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi is set in a familiar Elizabethan-inspired alternative world with the virgin Queen Bethany jealously guarding her favorite while lords present themselves as suitors. 

The stench and inhumanity of the times are vividly described, as are the consequences of the quest for beauty and power.

May is a remarkable and sympathetic heroine whose story arc takes her from powerlessness to embracing her destiny. The story winds up to a tense climax.

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

Sin Eater
by Megan Campisi
Atria Books
Pub Date April 7, 2020 
ISBN: 9781982124106
PRICE: $27.00/$36.00 (CAD) hardcover
$12.99 ebook/$19.99 audiobook

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

For whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was?~from Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

I am old. I am older than my mother and her brothers and two grandfathers were when they died. I am two aunts away from being the eldest on my mother's side of the family, and an aunt and a cousin away from being the eldest on my father's side. I have become a living keeper of memories of times that predate most of my family's birth.

I am also the family genealogist, a role inherited from my grandfather along with his papers after his death. I know things. I know things no one else knows, things that I have kept mostly to myself. I debate about making public this knowledge but am reluctant to cast a dark shadow on the memory of beloved relatives.

I understand why Cassandra Austen was adamant about obtaining Jane's private letters, culling out those too personal, that revealed too much about her beloved sister's life. For as small a footprint as our lives may leave, some things should remain unknown, private, sacred.

And Cassandra saw now, understood for the first time, the immensity of the task she had lately set herself: How impossible it was to control the narrative of one family's history.~ from Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

Miss Austen is the story of an aging Cassandra Austen on a mission to retrieve her sister's letters from the estate of a beloved friend. For in these letters Jane had poured out her despair and depression following her father's retirement and later death, her hasty acceptance of the marriage proposal she soon broke, and the startling story of Cassandra's rejection of a marriage proposal, which had she accepted would have entailed breaking her vow to marry Tom Fowle or no man.

Church tradition allowed the relicts of the family two months to vacate the house for the next incumbent.(...)Poor Isabella. The task before her was bleak, miserable, arduous: just two months to clear the place that had been their home for ninety-nine years!~from Miss Austen by Gill Hornby 

Tom Fowle's family included three generations of clergymen who inhabited the vicarage, but the chain had ended. The widow of the last vicar, Isabella Fowle had to pack it all up, distribute family heirlooms to her brothers, and find herself a place to live--all in two months. The new vicar was pressing for an even earlier removal.

--to leave a vicarage was to be cast out of Eden. There were only trial and privation ahead.~from Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

Cassandra Austen arrives to 'help' out, but really to locate the letters she and Jane had sent to Isabella's mother Eliza, their dear friend.

The trip brings back memories. Tom was one of Rev. Austen's boarding scholars and had known Cassandra since she was a young child. When Cassandra agreed to marry him, he was impatient to gain a position to support them. When Lord Craven offered Tom a living if he accompanied him as his private minister to the Caribbean he readily agreed. Yellow Fever claimed his life.

Reading the letters she finds takes Cassandra back to when her family had to leave Stevenson. After their father's death, Jane and Cassandra and their mother had no permanent abode, little income, and no place for Jane to flourish and write her novels. Their society of beloved friends was replaced by a turnstile of acquaintances and vapid conversation.

Oh, how deeply I felt for these removals from a parsonage home! After the birth of our son, living in a parsonage became problematic for me. If anything happened to my husband, I had one month to move out! I had no job or income, a baby, a house full of belongings. It terrified me to know how vulnerable I was because of the parsonage system.

The scenes in Pride and Prejudice with Mrs. Bennett agonizing over the Collinses inheriting her home mirrors what Jane must have known, losing the only home she had ever known, the piano, the library, friends, everything that made life enjoyable.

Gill Hornby's portrait feels probable but upset me because I wanted Cassandra to have a happy ending, not the one she chooses.

Miss Austen is a dark novel, like Persuasion which Cassandra reads aloud in the book. Jane appears in flashback scenes with the wicked wit we love her for, but also in her darkest days, the Jane we would prefer to forget.

The coverlet made by Jane and Cassandra Austen and their mother

I also have to mention that during her visit to Manydown, Cassandra works on a patchwork quilt. With swollen fingers, she plied her needle intermittently.

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

Miss Austen: A Novel
by Gill Hornby
Flatiron Books
Pub Date 07 Apr 2020
ISBN 9781250252203
PRICE $26.99 (USD)

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

"You, who quite truly knew him, can quite truly continue in his spirit and on his path. Make it the task of your mourning to explore what he had expected of you, had hoped for you, had wished to happen to you...his influence has not vanished from your existence..."~from The Dark Interval by Rainer Maria Rilke

Reading about the death of a loved one during the time of Coronavirus is difficult. I feel the cold blade of fear which I daily push back down into my subconscious, then "tie my hat and crease my shawl" to perform my tasks and obligations.

Afterlife is the story of Hispanic retired literature teacher Antonia who mourns the loss of her husband Sam. She struggles to understand how to now live. Her sisters are calling her to join them in confronting their sibling's bipolar illness. An illegal immigrant employed by her Vermont farmer neighbor implores her to help him bring his girl to join him.

All these demands! Antonia just wants to tend her own garden and live with her sorrow. But knowing Sam has changed her. His compassion remains an example of how to live in this world. Sam"seems to be resurrecting inside her," and she wonders, "is this all his afterlife will amount to? Saminspired deeds from the people who love him?"

Antonia's mind is filled with the books she loved and taught, including Rainer Maria Rilke. Last year I had read The Dark Interval which shares Rilke's letters of condolences. Alvarez's novel embodies Rilke's philosophy.

Against her nature and inclination, Sam leads Antonia to risk becoming involved in the lives and problems of other people. "Living your life is a full-time job," a sister justifies. Isn't that the truth? Then, a therapist reads Rilke to the sisters: "Death does not wound us without, at the same time, lifting us toward a more perfect understanding of this being and of ourselves."

Antonia's students always responded to Rilke's poem 'Archaic Torso of Apollo" which ends, "you must change your life." It is a line that has haunted ever me since I first read it. The question, Antonia wonders, is how and when do we change it?

It is a question to be asked over and over. There is no end to such a consideration. We read a book and what we learn reminds us that we must change our life. We see a work of art, Rilke his Greek torso, Antonia Landscape with The Fall of Icarus, or when hear a symphony, or observe a beautiful spring flower or a deep woods filled with birdsong--

All the world is life-changing if we allow ourselves to truly live and open our senses and hearts and minds. To be alive is life-changing. To die is life-changing.

Antonia accepts the challenge to be Saminspired.

Alvarez is a brilliant writer who has combined a deep reflection on existence with timely questions. There is no better time for this message.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The publisher blurb offered,

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

Read an excerpt from Afterlife
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781643750255_be.pdf?1584638362

Read Alvarez's essay Living the Afterlife
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net/downloadable/asset/original/9781643750255_ae.pdf?1584637610

Afterlife
by Julia Alvarez
Algonquin Books
Pub Date April 7,  2020
ISBN: 9781643750255
hardcover $25.95 (USD)

Johnny One-Eye : A Tale of the American Revolution by Jerome Charyn

"Where should I begin my unremarkable life?"~Johnny One-Eye

Johnny One-Eye proclaims to have led an unremarkable life.

Don't believe it.

Born John Stocking, age uncertain, as is his sire; son of Gert, madame of Queen's Yard, and raised with her nuns; King's College educated and former classmate of 'Ham' Alec Hamilton; lost an eye serving under Benedict Arnold; employed and threatened by patriots and redcoats alike; a scribbler, a pirate, an innkeeper, prisoner, changeling, divil---and "a man who hid beneath a madrigal of words."

"Are you soldier or civilian?" the general asked John when they first meet. John is bound and with a rifle against his side, caught in the act of adding a purgative to the general's soup.

"Both. I'm a secret agent," Johnny quips.

Major Treat, Washington's chief of intelligence, calls Johnny a frog "who leaps back and forth between the royals and us." Which makes him a brilliant character to bring readers behind the scenes, patriot and British.

Johnny is buffeted by the shifting tides of war, depending on which army is in control of New York. He is only loyal to the people he loves.

John loves the king for his education at King's College. He loves Benedict Arnold, even after his acts of treason. He loves Gert. He loves George Washington who finds solace with his beloved red-haired Gert--and in games vingt-et-un at Queen's Yard. And sometimes he finds solace with Johnny, a tenuous connection to Gert.

Most of all, Johnny loves Clara, a foundling octoroon who is more than a nun for hire, even more than an Aristotle-reading uncommon beauty. Imperious and defiant, Clara dominates unforgettable scenes, including ministering to the African soldiers abandoned by the British after the battle of Yorktown.

Charyn's war novel takes readers through history in the style of the 18th c novels with stories adventurous and bawdy, panoramic in scope. Yes, it is "rollicking" and "picaresque" as the cover contends. Perhaps it is this time of Covid-19, but I also felt the hangman's noose and cold rifle against my ribs, the losses and the desperation.

***

Like so many civilians caught up in times of war, Johnny serves at the pleasure of those in power. He is surrounded by men desperate to gain advantage over the enemy. Everyone can be forced to become a spy--an orphan boy, a desperate widow, an octoroon whore.

I think of my own ancestor conscripted into the Confederate militia although he came from pacifist Swiss Brethren who did not believe in oaths to the state. Or my German nationalist Baptist great-grandfather who left Russia to escape serving in the czar's army. The winds of war drove my husband's Palatine ancestors to leave their once verdant homeland, some to England and America, and some to Poland then Russia and finally to America. My ancestor's grave marks him a Revolutionary War veteran, but he was conscripted. We little people are nothing but chaff buffeted by the wind.

Our true stories are about who we love.

***

This 'tale of the American Revolution' includes all the history I have read, Benedict Arnold despised as a traitor by patriots and loyalists alike, John Andre and Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton and Peggy Shippen and the British generals and admirals appear.

As do the major moments.

George Washington, his leadership threatened, shocks and softens the hearts of men when he dons his spectacles and admits, "I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind..."

I get a lump in my throat. He was not perfect. But he did forgo personal power for an idea--a country ruled by the people and not a monarchy. A republic, if we can keep it.

"But this war cannot go on forever. One side will win," Johnny says to Mrs. Loring, 'war wife' of General Howe of the redcoats. She responds, "I am not so certain. Both sides might also lose." Johnny considers that perhaps both sides had already lost, "with killing and plunder as a permanent language."

George Washington won the war and a nation was born. At the end of the novel he is lionized, his errors overlooked. But he is a ghost after seven years of war, wandering his farm, peacetime "but a sweet deception."

Johnny survives the hurricane. He gains the reward of true love. It is all any of us really want in this life. Survive the battle anyway we can and cleave to those we love. 

The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow

All any of us want is a little attention, she thought...~from The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow

Poor Mary Bennett, the 'ugly duckling' sister, the comic foil, the forgotten and ignored child! Portrayed in film as squinting, clueless, socially inept, pseudo-intellectual, and plain.

Her story must be depressing. She watches her older sisters marry well for love, and her silliest, youngest sister at least snags a handsome rake. Even Charlotte Lucas gets her ever after--happy to have a home if not Mr. Collins as a mate.

Janice Hadlow's debut novel The Other Bennett Sister channels Austen's character Mary Bennett, imagining a worthy character who lives into a richer life. The novel shows inspiration from Austen's story and themes yet Hadlow develops the story in an original way, true to the historical time and setting.

Themes of self-realization, self-recreation, learning through error, prejudice and pride, sense and sensibility are all a part of Mary's path.

The first part of the book follows Pride and Prejudice from Mary's perspective. Those of us familiar with Austen's novel must be patient; the best is to come. We do learn that Mary had taken to reading theology and philosophy hoping for her father's approval.

After her sisters, including Kitty, are married and Mr. Bennett has passed, twenty-year-old Mary and Mrs. Bennett are dependent on the rich sisters. Miss Bingley takes out her disappointment on Mary with whispered jabs. And the Darcy household is too happy and perfect to easily allow her room. In desperation, Mary turns to the Gardiners. They offer Mary the example of a happy marriage, value her for herself, and provide good counsel.

When Mary is convinced to select a new wardrobe to better suit London society, I loved the descriptions of spotted and stripped and sprigged muslins, the fad colors of coromandel and jonquil, the green dress that will replace the dull colors that had allowed Mary to previously disappear into the woodwork.

In her simple elegance, Mary takes her place in society and attracts the attention of several men. One combines good sense and steadiness with a love of poetry. The other embraces free-thinking and prefers the pursuit of sensation as life's goal.

She meets men with a love of the novel. I love the many references to the literature and poetry that arises in conversation:

William Godwin's Poetic Justice 
Mary Wollstonecraft 
Lord Byron and Shelley
Tintern Abbey and We Are Seven by William Wordsworth; also his Guide to the Lakes
Evelina by Fanny Burney
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Pamela and Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson

I loved how the Romantic Era makes its impact on her life with Mary's (unsuitable) beau extolling feeling and sensation and rejecting cultural expectations and values, especially concerning the role of women and marriage as a socio-economic compromise.

Our lives are so brief and yet we spend so much of them obeying rules we did not make.~ from The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow

Mary early prefers the steady man. But his reticence leaves Mary to be persuaded into unwise decisions.

This landscape gives us a proper sense of perspective. It shows us our smallness in the great scheme of things.~ from The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow

The Lakes

The Gardiners take that trip to the Lake District they had once planned for Elizabeth; Mary's preferred beau accompanies them while the other just shows up.

Before she came to the Lakes, she had read a great deal about the subline--sights so extraordinary they could not be adequately described, only felt and experienced. She had never expected to feel for herself such an extraordinary consummation.~ from The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow

...they caught sight of the great lake at Windermere; then they were quiet, for it was a sight magnificent enough to silence anyone.~ from The Other Bennett Sister

The group decides to walk up the second largest mountain in England. It is a rocky climb that will last all day--and threatens Mary's future happiness.

hikers on Scafell

The romance has enough twists and turns for any Austen lover, with the satisfaction of a happy ending. This is not a plot giveaway--any Austen fan fiction must have it's happily ever after.

Hadlow has given us a fantastic read.

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Other Bennet Sister
by Janice Hadlow
Henry Holt & Company
Pub Date 31 Mar 2020 
ISBN 9781250129413
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

In Hoboken by Christian Bauman

In Hoboken by Christian Bauman centers on a returning army vet and folksinger "born fifty years too late."

The novel is a study of a group of diverse friends bound by a shared history and a love of music and is informed by Bauman's experience as a vet and "itinerant guitar player." (You can hear the author sing online, including Waiting for the Fun here.)

The novel is set in 1995 in Hoboken, NJ and the city comes alive through the characters and story. I was reminded of Seinfeld or Friends, how the story keeps your interest because you like these characters.

The focus is on Thatcher, army vet and son of a famous mother and secretly the son of a famous folk singer. His old bandmates are forming a new group. They have day jobs so they can live, but music gives them life. Thatcher finds work at a mental health clinic, friending the patient Orris.

Bandmates include Thatcher's old friend James and the older, talented but crippled Marsh. Thatcher has a warm relation with the talented female singer Lou.

Even the supporting characters are terrific such as the landlady Mrs. Quatrone with her memories of Hoboken in the 1970s and 1980s, the decline and resurrection of flowers in the window boxes signifying the economic and social changes.

Bauman has a subtle wit that brought chuckles.

By the time first rounds were drunk and guitars tuned it was 1:30 A.M. They put themselves into a loose circle in the middle of the room, eyeing one another. Thatcher couldn't decide whether it reminded him of Old West gunslingers or lonely hearts at an eighth-grade dance.~ from In Hoboken by Christian Bauman

Crisis moments come to my favorite characters with a death and near death and accident. In the end, Thatcher must face his demons.

Tell me, what part of any of this isn't disturbing?~from In Hoboken by Christian Bauman

Thanks to the 'Net, I was able to find a copy of this 2008 novel. Bauman's other novels include The Ice Beneath You and Voodoo Lounge.

 book description:

The son of a feminist icon and a folk singer whose suicide gained him cult status, Thatcher Smith was born potential royalty in New York’s music scene. Instead, he keeps his parentage secret first by disappearing into the army then by taking his guitar across the river to working class Hoboken, New Jersey to form a band. There, amidst the dive bars and all-night diners of 1995, Thatcher and his friends struggle to make meaningful music in a culture turning away from it. A wicked sense of humor is key for the motley crew: Marsh, the beloved, polio-stricken local rock and roll kingpin; lesbian songwriting chanteuse Lou, to whom Thatcher is both deeply attracted and loves like a sister; James, guitar virtuoso, daytime World Trade Center employee, and owner of the floor Thatcher sleeps on; and locals like Orris, the overweight, half-blind, mad prophet of Hoboken’s west side, and patient at the mental-health clinic where Thatcher is a clerk. As in Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, music is the heart of the story, but in In Hoboken the place and the people are what make it vibrantly come alive.
 
“While the book is a work of fiction, it aptly captures the early music scene—namely the musicians who came to Hoboken with little else but a dream and a guitar strapped over their shoulders.” —Hoboken Reporter

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Foreshadowing began with the opening sentences, narrated in a voice that brought to mind Rod Serling introducing a Twilight Zone episode, setting up the story.

A girl sitting beside a swimming pool behind her newly built home. The neighbor boy welcoming her to the neighborhood. A typical day in a typical good neighborhood, upscale and friendly, a place where women gather for book clubs and teenagers can safely run in the local park.

But underneath the 'tenuous peace' simmers the possibility of fracture, the conflict of class and money and race and values. For some, conspicuous wealth is the goal. For another, environmental concerns are primary.

And probing deeper, there are secret desires and blooming love and the blindness we hold on to for self-protection.

Lives will be destroyed.

"No. Yes. Of course. I am going to be a good neighbor."~from A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Xavier was good looking, a National Honor Student. He had won a scholarship to study classical guitar. He was also biracial. His white father died tragically. His mother Valerie was a professor whose hobby was more than 'gardening', it was environmental restoration and preservation. She was especially proud of the towering oak tree in her back yard.

The oak tree whose roots had been harmed when the house behind was torn down and replaced with a showcase McMansion.

New girl Juniper never knew her dad. Her mom Julia struggled before she lucked out, catching the attention of a self-made man with a lucrative business. Brad Whitman set 'his girls' up in a sweet deal of a life. But Brad's easy-going charm hid his motivation of self-interest and sick obsessions.

Valerie includes Julia into the neighborhood while Xavier and Juniper discover friendship is turning into something more.

Valerie cannot allow development to destroy the environment--she must make a stand and decides on a lawsuit. Juniper doubts the Purity Pledge her parents shepherded her into taking and secretly meets Xavier. She knows something is wrong with her dad's attentions but Brad justifies his obsession and plots ways to take action.

I will tell you this: the culmination will make you shudder and you will cry.

A Good Neighborhood is a reflection of the social turmoil of our time.

I had to consider my own 'good neighborhood,' a two-square-mile city highly rated on lists, with quick selling properties, a safe neighborhood. A predominately white neighborhood with a small demographic of foreigners and split in half politically. A city that voted out a mayor who used tax money to dig up dirt on her opponent and fired long-time city workers who would not cooperate with her plans.

And yet...every tree-lined avenue may shade secrets.

I received access to a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read an excerpt here.

A Good Neighborhood
by Therese Anne Fowler
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 10 Mar 2020 
ISBN 9781250237279
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Last summer my husband and I met with the Blue Water Indigenous Alliance to donate an heirloom bible given to my husband's fourth-great-grandmother by John Riley, Ojibwe chief of the Black River Band. The bible is currently on display in the Port Huron Museum and will become part of a new museum highlighting native heritage in the Port Huron area.

The 1826 New Testament had been published by the American Bible Society without a binding. Someone encased it in thick, rich brown leather held together with coarse thread. The book has a gentle curve as if kept in a back pocket for a long time, the edge of the book worn away.

My husband's great-great-grandmother read that volume daily until the day of her death, and that made it special to her family, but to hold an artifact that once was in the pocket of their ancestor and kin was even more sacred to those of Native heritage gathered to accept it.

I have often thought about that meeting. For all my research on John Riley and my reading about Native American history, after that meeting I felt my otherness and my ignorance. I read the white man's histories and think I know Riley. What arrogance.

Reading The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich reinforced my awareness of ignorance born of privilege in a European dominated society. I had never heard of the Indian Termination Policy being carried out just after the time of my birth. Natives were to be assimilated with all the rights of an American citizen. It was intended that individuals find work and become self-supporting and pay taxes. Reservations were taken out of Native control, health care and education no longer provided. Life was harsh before termination; it got worse after termination. It was 'extermination' under a new name.

Erdrich's novel is based on her grandfather's life and his successful endeavor to block the termination of the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

The night watchman is the hardworking hero of the story, a family man who works nights at the new factory that employs Ojibwe women to perform the delicate job of creating jewel bearings. He is determined to protect their reservation and people from termination, working around the clock and raising money to travel to Washington, D. C. to present their case before Congress. Their way of life, their community is threatened. They feel a deep connection to the land that supported their ancestors since time immemorial.

Patrice is one of the young Ojibwe women working at the factory. The job allows her to support her mother and brother. She dreams of going to university to study law. She tries to blend into European society but encounters racism and sexual harassment. Two men vie for her attention, unaware of her naivety about relationships and sex and desire.

When Patrice's sister Vera goes to the city disappears, she goes takes all her savings to look for her. It is a nightmarish trip into the depravity of the underside of the city, a place where young native women are vulnerable prey. She returns with Vera's baby.

It is hard to write about this novel. It left me with strong feelings, including deep shame for how the prevalent European society has treated Native Americans since we landed on these shores. Erdrich does not exploit our feelings, there is no melodramatic writing when describing chilling scenes of exploitation and abuse.

The courage and strength of the characters is inspirational. I loved how one love storyline was handled, showing that true love is communal and not about personal desire.

Fiction can educate and enlarge our limited experience. And I thank Erdrich for furthering my understanding.

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

The Night Watchman
by Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins Publishers
Pub Date 03 Mar 2020
ISBN: 9780062671189
PRICE: $28.99 (USD) hard cover