Talking with Joan Dempsey, Author of This Is How It Begins

I had the privilege to converse with author Joan Dempsey whose first novel This Is How It Begins was published October 3, 2017.

By sharing the story of Holocaust survivors whose gay grandchild loses his teaching position over his sexual orientation, Dempsey addresses relevant issues: How can conflicting belief systems learn to live together? What does it mean to be protected under the law?

In the novel, we meet Professor Ludka, an artist who hid Jews in Poland under the Nazis, and her Jewish spouse Isaac. Their son Lolok rose to be the first Jewish State Attorney General, a man who championed gay marriage rights. Their grandson Tommy one of thirteen teachers fired on the same day. The only thing the teachers have in common is their sexual orientation. A local popular Christian pastor and radio show host have plotted to make public education a 'Christian friendly' place. But their careful plans go awry as escalating violence against Tommy reaches his grandparents.

Nancy: When I read your blog post about your personal encounter with bigotry I was very moved and sad. Then I thought about how you had to research radical Christian groups for Pastor Royce and Warren Meck, et. al. And your portrayal was generous.

Joan: Thank you. Warren Meck was the most challenging character to write, but I ended up feeling really good about him. So far I am hearing from readers, especially Christian readers, that I did a good job with the balance. That was certainly my goal.

Nancy: He seemed to have a core value that allows self-judgment and to see the evil in violence used for 'righteous ends.'

Joan: Yes, exactly right. Meck has all the right intentions, and I wanted to really get inside and understand him. It was mostly hard because, like any character, I had to find what made him tick.

Nancy: So there is an objectivity in writing when you are delving into a character?

Joan: Yes, definitely an objectivity. I feel it is critically important to understand the characters on their own terms and keep myself completely out of it.

My closest readers told me at some point that he would have a wife and children. And they were exactly right! Once he had a wife and kids, he came fully alive. Before that, he was eluding me. I think he was just waiting for his family to show up!:-)

Sometimes I need to find something we have in common in order for me to understand more deeply, But that's as far as our similarities go. It's simply a way to enter into the character more deeply.

Nancy: So characters are to be discovered, as opposed to being invented?

Joan: I would say characters are equally discovered and invented. It is a rare character that shows up fully formed. I have had several characters who have done that and it's always a gift. Others are harder work and take longer to figure out. For Warren Meck in particular, what he and I have in common is our love of lobbying and legislation.

Nancy: There are a lot of legal discussions going on, which isn't often encountered in fiction that is not 'crime' oriented.

Joan: This novel started out as a political novel starring Lolek, the state senator. I knew I wanted to write about politics of the Massachusetts Statehouse. I was a lobbyist there for many years, and loved that job. So this novel gave me a chance to relive some of that work and those exciting times.

Nancy: That is something I enjoyed about the novel, there are so many 'sides' that are all part of the story: the Polish/Jewish/Nazi experience; Ludka and the stolen painting of Chopin; the legal battle with Tommy and Lolek--it was very rich, but I did not feel it slowed anywhere.

Joan: I absolutely adore looking at all sides of issues. I am a shades of gray kind of thinker. And as a lobbyist, it's really important to understand where everyone is coming from. I was known for being able to bring disparate groups of people together and find common ground, even when it seemed impossible. I loved doing that!

I'm so glad to hear you feel like it did not slow down. With all that legislative detail, it was definitely a concern. Lots of paring back of prose!

Nancy: We need more people like you, especially in religion and government!

Joan: Thank you. It does drive me crazy to see the dogmatic divisions. Politics is not about drawing a line in the sand but figuring out how you can come to some common understanding. I think we forget that at our peril.

Nancy: How long did you spend writing the first draft; how long to edit?

Joan: I revise as I write. So my "first" draft is really more like a 20th! I cannot pinpoint when I finished the first draft. The whole book took seven years to write.

Nancy: Wow, a labor of love for sure.

Joan: Most of that time I was working full-time and writing in the margins. The final year I focused almost completely on finishing the book. And the first year-and-a-half were largely research.

I sometimes wished that I wasn't so dogged on this book. Think of all the short stories I could have written and published in that time! But seriously, I love the form of a novel and loved spending so much time with these characters

Nancy: Did you have the plot outline before you started?

Joan: No plot outline. I knew that towards the end of the book I would find Ludka crawling through smoke with a canvas under her arm, But I have no idea why. The rest of the plot evolved as I wrote and rewrote.

Nancy: I wanted to mention that early on I noted Ludka had these spiked galoshes. She was so careful about hiding the Chopin. She kept secrets even from Isacc. But I noted those spiked galoshes and then there came the time she went outdoors on the ice without them. That told me something about her. It may be small, but I just wanted to mention it.

Joan: How wonderful that you noticed those galoshes! It's all the small things that add up to a whole novel, and it's a real treat for me to have readers noticing the little things.

Nancy: I thought, so many of these characters had protective secrets. Oskar [whom Ludka had hidden from the Nazis], his son Stanley [who tries to steal the painting of Chopin]. Pastor Royce knowing his followers are using violence. Isacc's needing to pose as a Christian under the Nazis.

Joan: It's funny, because I didn't set out to write about secrets, But that's the magic of fiction. Several readers have mentioned "all the betrayals" and I have found myself thinking, "really?" Ha ha ha! But there you have it. That's what's wonderful about the book getting out into the world.

And of course I do know about all of the secrets and all of the betrayals, but I wasn't so much focused on those. Except of course for Oskar's.

Nancy: Of course under Nazi Germany there was a need for secrets, hiding the Jews, the Chopin, adopting alternate identities. And Pastor Royce and his group had to hide their real motives for firing the teachers.

Joan: Yes, absolutely. You may remember in the opening scene, I wrote that "Ludka was keenly aware of how she appeared to others, not because she was vain or insecure, but because she was long accustomed to the consequences of casting particular impressions."

Nancy: Yes. She and Isacc have a form of PTSD, learned behavior.

Joan: I'm delighted you see all of these connections.

Nancy: I just finished reading The World Spit in Two by Bill Goldstein about 1922 and the birth of Modern Literature, with T. S. Eliot, Woolf, and Forster. And of course, Forster could not be honest about his orientation. Even thirty years ago, twenty years ago, there was pressure to assume a false identity. And so it is wonderful that Tommy is who he is, so healthy.

Joan: There you are! I know. We really have come an awfully long way! And yet... In fact, several agents who really liked the book passed on it because they felt that after gay marriage passed, the dangers would not seem as real. The backlash, against people of color, other religions, sexual orientation. People hate change. And here we are ... they didn't anticipate the backlash!

Nancy: So, seven years ago you would not have anticipated how relevant your novel would be--

Joan: No, I didn't realize quite how prescient I would be. But I did know that bias and prejudice still clearly exist, and likely will never go away. It's so important to be vigilant about this kind of thing.

The Anti-Defamation League has something called the Pyramid of Hate. I will find a link for you. I thought about this a lot while I was writing.

https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/education-outreach/Pyramid-of-Hate.pdf

Interestingly, the title of this novel for most the entire seven years I was writing it was Prelude!

But then a literary agent who is a friend told me that was a terrible title and I went back to the drawing board. It didn't take long at all before I came up with This is Tow it Begins. I mean, it's right there in the book, staring out at me!

Nancy: When I was reading the ebook of your novel I was also reading David Samuel Levinson's Tell Me How This Ends Well, in which the near future world is Anti-Semitic. I laughed about how I was reading This is How It Begins and Tell me How This Ends Well at the same time! And both involve gay couples and hate crimes.

Joan: Oh wow! That's fascinating. I just checked it out on Amazon and can tell by the "cartoon" cover that it is a dark comedy. Interesting.

Nancy: What are some of your favorite books? Or, what books made you fall in love with fiction?

Joan: Oh boy! The big question! I fell in love with fiction as a kid. My favorite gifts to get for any event was a stack of books. One of my all time favorites was Harriet the Spy. Like so many other kids of my generation, I was Harriet! I have the notebook and the toolbelt and the desire to spy just like she did. And of course that book is all about learning about other people by spying on them. Which is what fiction writers do.

Nancy: Another thing I have thought about was the role of art in the novel. It brings Ludka back to her home in Poland, and there her illusions about Oskar, the "myth of a man forged from long memory," is broken.

Joan: Yes, her art brings her 'fame' late in life. It brings her home. And most of all it shatters "the myth of a man forged from long memory" as fake.

I was so happy that she came back to her art and began to draw again. I really wanted her to do that, and was so glad when she did. I'd love to see what happens after the end of the book with her drawing! I am not an artist, but I think I might have been one in another lifetime, because pieces of art come to mind fully formed and I just write them down. I love that. Like Alexander Roslin's most famous painting, Prelude 1939. I've had readers Googling it and feeling frustrated that they can't find it! Maybe I should commission someone to paint that painting.

Nancy: And that is where the first title came from--Prelude?

Joan: The first title came both from that painting, and the idea of that bigotry can be a prelude to war. You will see a hint of that on Page 2 in the first full paragraph

Nancy: I like that, bigotry as a prelude to war. And how the students reacted to that painting, what they saw in it, foreshadowed...

Joan: Exactly. The students could see what Roslin intended them to see when he painted it.

*****

You can find Joan Dempsey at
http://www.joandempsey.com/
https://www.facebook.com/joan.dempsey
https://twitter.com/LiteraryLiving
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16485006.Joan_Dempsey

"Beautifully written ... an ambitious and moving debut novel." —LILY KING, author of the award-winning national bestseller, "Euphoria"

“In a time when religious liberty is on trial, [this] is an extraordinarily pertinent novel dripping in suspense and powerful scenes of political discourse … a must-read ....” — FOREWORD (starred review)

“… Dempsey’s fine first novel [is] notable for the evenhanded way it addresses hot-button issues. The result is a timely and memorable story.” —BOOKLIST

“A gripping and sensitive portrait of ordinary people wrestling with ideological passions.” —KIRKUS

This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey

"Compulsively readable, This Is How It Begins is a timely novel about free speech, the importance of empathy, and the bitter consequences of long-buried secrets." from the publisher

Only six years ago I saw a Christian church undergo a vicious split. It involved attacking the denomination for a social creed they deemed too liberal and the pastor as heretical for not leading their withdrawal from the denomination. Their main point of contention was over abortion, although they also were vocal about homosexuality.

A majority of the church members left the denomination to start a community church, but first, they tried to take over, then destroy, the church they had been members of for many years. It was shocking how individuals viciously attacked others while
professing a Bible-based faith.

My husband was the pastor of that church. It was that experience that prompted me to request this novel.

This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey was an emotional read, full of believable and fully realized characters, doctrinal idealists and victims of prejudice and hate. I loved how characters showed themselves to be different from what we expected from them.

Art professor Ludka Zeilonka had survived Nazi Poland while saving Jewish children and hiding drawings documenting the occupation. She immigrated to America with her husband Izaac, who became the first Jewish attorney-general in Massachusetts. Their son Lolek is the state's most powerful senator, and his son Tommy is a well-liked high school English Teacher, married to lawyer Richard.

Tommy, along with thirteen other teachers, were all fired on the same day. The one thing they have in common is their sexual orientation. Tommy and his family become the target of hate crimes of increasing violence.

Influential Pastor Royce has an agenda and political ambitions. He is supported by radio host Warren Merck in a campaign to restore America to its Christian roots. They are behind the mass firing of teachers. Politically savvy, their defense is that Christian students feel marginalized and pressured against expressing their beliefs while being forced to accept the 'homosexual agenda' promoted by the fired teachers.

Merck is appalled by the rising violence, Tommy beaten in front of his house and his grandparent's home set on fire.

Ludka and Izaac return to their hometown in Poland, an emotional journey into a past they have tried to forget. Lukda finds the Jewish boy her family had protected and learns his devastating secret.

Ludka suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. What is happening to Tommy is too much like what she experienced in Poland, too much like how the Holocaust began.

The topic of the novel, sadly, is more relevant today than ever: How can conflicting belief systems learn to live together? What does it mean to be protected under the law?

This is an amazing novel.

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

This Is How It Begins
by Joan Dempsey
She Writes Press
Publication October 17, 2017
ISBN: 9781631523083

The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow

What makes me love a book? Gorgeous writing. Great characters. An intriguing plot. Insights into our common humanity. Historical perspective. Encountering joy and love. Encountering horror, war, and villains. A story line that grabs me so I want to know what happens next.

Some books have one or two of those attributes. To find a book that wraps up all of these things is a happy day indeed. Bradford Morrow's The Prague Sonata offers the whole package.

The story is rich and complex, and full of musical and visual references that made me think, "I can't wait to see the movie."

Protagonist Meta Taverner had dedicated her life to becoming a concert pianist when a fatal accident damaged her hand. Therapy has restored her ability to play, but only with "competence." When Meta performs at an outpatient cancer facility she attracts the notice of patient Irena who summons Meta to visit.

Irena has held the partial score of a piano sonata since her friend Otylie gave it to her to protect during the Nazi occupation of Prague. Irena tasks Meta with returning the score to Otylie, hoping the entire manuscript will be reunited.

Mesmerized by the sonata, and hoping to find the missing sections and perhaps solve the mystery of who composed it, Meta takes up the quest. She puts aside her job and boyfriend to journey to Prague. There, she learns the tragic history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi and Soviet regimes, encounters threats and intrigue, and discovers love.

The novel expands with reading, moving from the narrow academic world of musicologists to the deprivations of war and the occupation of Prague, to the refugee experience. What starts as a mild mystery turns into a quest with elements of a thriller at the end.

Flashbacks fill in the story. Otylie's father was on leave from The Great War for her mother's funeral when he gave her the piano sonata. He told her, guard it with your own life; one day it will bring you great fortune. He soon after died.

Otylie was grown and newly married when Prague gaves the keys of the city to the Nazis. Otylie wanted to keep the score out of the hands of the Germans so she divided it into three parts, distributing a section to her beloved husband, who was a part of the underground resistance, and another to her dear friend Irena. She kept the first section for herself. At the end of WWII, Otylie's husband is dead and Irena has left the country. Otylie first immigrates to England and then to America.

The sonata's beauty and innovation is amazing. In a copyist's hand, the score appears to be a true antique, but there is no indication of the composer. Is it a lost work by Mozart, or C.P.E. Bach, or Hayden? The score ends with the beginning measures of the next movement, a Rondo.

Thirty-year-old Meta is naive and honest. She is driven by love of music and her pledge to reunite the sonata with it's rightful owner. Her mentor has connected her with Petr Witman, a musicologist contact in Prague who endeavors to undermine Meta; he tells her the sonata is a fake, hoping to get his hands on it. He sees fame and dollar signs. Witman is a man with shifting allegiances, doing whatever it took to stay afloat under the Nazis, the Soviets, and the new Federal Republic. He has no moral code.

Meta is supported by many people in Prague, including a journalist who falls in love with her. On their quest to find the third part of the score, they must keep one step ahead of Witmann. Meta's journey takes her across America, too, pursued by Witman.

I enjoyed learning about Prague and Czechoslovakia. In the 18th c it was the hub of culture and music, a city that loved Mozart. So many brilliant composers are associated with the city.

I loved that music informs the novel and musical language is used in descriptions.  Meta knows that the sonata represents a new chapter in her life. "If her own thirty years constituted a first movement of a sonata, she sensed in her gut that she was right now living the opening notes of the second." Morrow describes the second movement of the sonata given to Meta so well, one understands its "staggering power and slyness," the "quasi-requiem tones of the adagio" followed by the promise of joy indicated in the opening measures of the rondo in the second movement.

When I started reading The Prague Sonata I was unhappy I had requested such a long book. What was I thinking? As I got into the story, I was actually drawing out my reading, unwilling to end the experience too soon. And that's about the best thing a reader can say about a book!

(Read more about Mozart in Prague in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt concerns Czechoslovakia after WWII. The Spaceman of Bohemia is sci-fi that also addresses life under the Soviets.)

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

The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow
Grove Atlantic
Publication Oct 3, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN:  9780802127150

“A musical mystery set against the backdrop of a nation shattered by war and loss . . . sonically rich. . . an elegant foray into music and memory.”—Kirkus Reviews 

In Her Own Voice: Dimestore by Lee Smith and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

I love reading memoirs and biographies and diaries that allow me to hear the author's authentic voice.

Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith, author of Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies, and On Agate Hill s a beautiful memoir consisting of essays on aspects of her life.

Lee paints a warm and nostalgic portrait of growing up in a loving, supportive, yet dysfunctional family in Gundy, Virginia. Her father ran the dimestore in town. A later visit to the city reveals the changes that occurred over the years. Grundy, on the flood plain, had been literally moved to high ground. Wal-Mart was invited in, and was followed by other chains. Her beloved mountain where she ran wild as a girl had been top-mined, now a naked mesa with a city park.

The essays are far ranging, from her mother's recipe box, which included Pine Bark Stew and Cooter Pie, to her father's bipolar illness and mother's recurring depression and anxiety, learning to be a 'lady' at her aunt's city home, love life, and teaching career. Lee tells about hearing Eudora Welty read A Worn Path, then reading all her works until "a lightbulb clicked" about writing what you knew.  I was enchanted to meet Lou, an eccentric but gifted writer who showed up at a writing workshop,

I was especially moved when she wrote about her son, a brilliant musician who developed a mental disorder that required medication to keep him stabilized for a diminished life, but still one that mattered.

Lee writes about books and reading, writing and teaching, love and the end of love. It was a lovely read. I read a chapter each night before bed, never more, drawing out my pleasure.

I received a free book in a giveaway from David Abram's blog The Quivering Pen.

*****

This month one of my book clubs read The Diary of Anne Frank. It seemed a fitting choice considering the rise of hate groups, and that it is Banned Book Week. Almost all had read the book as a teenager.

Anne's optimism and ability to find beauty and joy under duress can teach us all.

Anne's small community was in extraordinary circumstances that put normal family and community bonds under abnormal stress. They were in fear every day. There were no external activities and relationships to diffuse negative energy, no ability for a nice walk and have friendly conversation with neighbors. Normally, Anne would have had girl friends undergoing the same changes. She only had her diary Kitty.

"It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary...because it seems to me that neither I--nor for that matter anyone else--will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." Saturday 20 June, 1942 from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Early in the diary Anne admits her life would not be particularly interesting. And several book club members, both male, admitted that it was tedious for them to slough through all the petty family drama Anne wrote about. Had it not been for the special circumstances and Anne's tragic end they would not see the point of reading a teenager's diary.

I reflected on those comments in the back of my mind as the group shared their thoughts.

Anne addresses universal experiences with no self consciousness about what she exposes. Readers can connect their own experience and realize how 'normal' we all are. For such a young writer, she had an extraordinary self-awareness, a masterly command of language, and an unusual drive for personal growth.

Her discussion of her sexual growth and awareness she anticipates the feminist attitude of the 1970s when women were encouraged to explore their own bodies and accept their sexuality. Here is Anne discussing anatomy with a boy at a time when my mother was given no real information about sex, except advice that 'boys give love to get sex, and girls give sex to get love." Mom went on her honeymoon in total ignorance. Anne knows she is not 'in love' but finds pleasure in physical closeness and will not call it wrong.

When I had finished reading the diary I watched My Daughter, Anne Frank which I enjoyed very much. Anne's childhood friends talked about Anne, including 'boyfriends'. One saw her through the fence when she was at Bergen-Belsen, emaciated and shivering.

The diary and the film left me somber and sad. The next day I was reading about the U.S. army liberating the concentration camps in Germany, with descriptions of the number of dead and dying, the piles of bodies. Anne's face came to mind, and the sheer horror was too much to bear.

This is what the book club readers most commented upon. Anne is the face of the tens of thousands who died under the Nazi regime; she humanizes the cold statistics and makes us understand that which we would rather not know.

Anne Frank's diary has been banned, and yet everyone at the table agreed that this is one book that should be universally read.

All in a Row Again

All in a Row Again. Note Pat Sloan's retro camper row!!!

MODA All-Stars have returned in All In A Row Again with 23 more row-by-row quilt patterns! Motifs include flowers and trees, critters and creatures, buildings and houses, and classic patchwork.

Your favorite designers offer patterns in their signature styles to inspire you to create your own quilts, combining rows and "blender rows." Just look at the samples below to see the possibilities!

Evening Stars by Jo Morton, an embroidered bird from Kathy Schmitz, and Tricolor Stars by Lisa Bongean

of Primitive Gatherings. Note the 'blender rows' used in the border and as a spacer.

Whooo doesn't love those owls from Deb Strain! Other rows include Flitter Flutter by Stacy Iest Hsu,  Picket Fences by Sandy Gervais, Springtime by Corey Yoder, and Stars in Bloom by Sherri McConnell.

The quilt above demonstrates the use of blender rows, the narrow rows of repeated motifs.

Kathy Schmitz contributed this embroidered bird pattern. Her new book is Stitches from the Harvest, which you can read about here.

The rows can be used to make wall hangings or table toppers. This beach hut row from Sandy Klop of American Jane Patterns is so colorful and fun!

And so are these Barn Quilts from Kate Spain!

There are traditional patterns as well.

Stars and Geese from Betsy Chutchain 

I love Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill, and she contributes a pattern with her signature Hedgehog.
Other contributors include Jo Morton, Janet Clare, Laurie Simpson of Minick and Simpson, Lynne Hagmeier of Kansas Troubles Quilters, Alma Allen of Blackbird Designs, Brenda Riddle of Acorn Quilt & Gift Company, Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs, Karla Eisenach of Sweetwater, and Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms.

Pollen by Jen Kingwell has a modern vibe

Each All-Star answers questions so we get to know them better. Most address concerns to quilters, like thread color used for piecing and favorite marking tools.

The instructions are top-notch, and there are links to print-ready patterns found online.

In case you need any more motivation to get this book, the royalties from the book are being donated to Give Kids the World Village which helps children with life-threatening illness to enjoy week long, cost-free family vacations.

See the first All in a Row book here.

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

Moda All-Stars - All in a Row Again
By Lissa Alexander
softcover $26.99
ISBN: 9781604688979
Publication Date: October 3rd, 2017

Dear Fahrenheit 451: Librarian Annie Spence Tells Books What She Thinks About Them

Back in my late twenties I considered returning to school for a degree in library science. My BA in English was not getting me very far in the late 1970s economy.

It made sense, after all, for when I was a girl hanging around libraries I imagined being the book answer person. Patrons would shyly come to me, uncertain and lost, and I would give them instructions on how to find that end-of-the-rainbow treasure of The Perfect Book for their reading pleasure.

I dreamt of being intimate with books, knowing them deeply, freely dispensing of my fount of wisdom.

Over the years I have known many librarians in many small Michigan communities. But I never joined their numbers.
Instead, I grew up to blog about books. I still get to freely dispense my fount of whatever, but sans salary.

When Dear Fahrenheit 451 appeared on NetGalley, it caught my eye right off, and I put in a "Wish For It" request which, I am grateful, Flatiron Books granted. I was happy to learn that author and librarian Annie Spence is a Michigan native who grew up in Metro Detroit and who currently is a librarian in Metro Detroit. I do love supporting Michigan and Detroit area authors!

Subtitled, Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, a Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life, this bookish memoir includes letters to specific books and short essays on "Special Subjects" including Books about Librarians, Good Books with Bad Covers, and Turning Your Lover into a Reader. Spence adopts a casual writing voice, dealing out jabs and jokes, gushing paenes and sage advice, never boring or dull. Spence's love of books and what they have given her is celebrated, but she also reflects the truism that we fall out of love with some books and others leave us flat.

The books Spence addresses are varied, many of which I have not read and frankly, I skimmed some letters to books I don't know at this time. This is not a book you must read cover to end, you can pick and choose, returning to it now and then. At other times she piqued my interest in a book I had not read, like Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, set in Detroit; I have only read the author's Middlesex and The Marriage Plot.

There are letters to Color Me Beautiful and The Hobbit, Wicked and Cannery Row, Blood Meridian and Matilda, the Harlequin Spinner Rack at the library, and the Public Library Children's Section. She addresses problems all readers share: I'd Rather Be Reading, Excuses to Tell Your Friends So You Can Stay Home With Your Books, and He's Just Not That Into Literacy: Turning Your Lover into a Reader. Book suggestions are offered with short reviews of books on a theme, and the Books I'll Never Break Up With includes her "forever bookshelf" loves.

Spence has written an extended love letter to books and libraries, extolling the joy of reading. It was great fun to read.

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

Dear Fahrenheit 451
Annie Spence
Flatiron Books
$18.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9781250106490

Mini-Reviews: Hot-Button Topics: Freedom to Marry, Immigrants, and Walls

Wild Mountain is set in the mountains of Vermont, a place of uncivilized natural beauty, where generations have come to commune with nature and the gods (and goddesses). The town of Wild Mountain is comprised of folk with deep roots and newcomers attracted to living simply in a beautiful place.

It is the story of Mona Duval's several battles which encompass her personal growth. She must let go of the past and her abusive ex-husband to embrace the future and the possibility of love. She stands loyal to old friends besieged by prejudice.

Mona's story is well developed with enough tension and conflict to keep readers of romance and women's fiction interested. The political issues the town struggles with, including the rebuilding of a historical covered bridge and the Freedom to Marry bill, highlights the division in the town, as well as in our world.

I was disappointed that the expected climax of the town meeting and voting on these issues takes place off camera. The issues drop out of center stage. Instead, the story line sifts focus to a (previously) minor character's death. The ending consists of an idealized gathering around an ancient stone circle on the solstice, with Wiccan and Christians celebrating together.

Learn more about the background of the book at  https://nancyhayeskilgore.wordpress.com

Wild Mountain
by Nancy Hayes Kilgore
Green Mountain Press
Publication Oct. 1, 2017
$19.95

*****

"The end of the world can be cozy at times."

After hearing so much about Exit West by Moshin Hamid I borrowed it from the library and fit it into my heavy reading schedule. It is a wonderful book, fiction about the refugee/immigrant experience.

Nadia and Saeed have just met and would, perhaps, fall in love and marry and have a normal life. Except militant radicals take over their unnamed city. They turn to each other in the crisis. When all normalcy is ended, they seek the 'doors' that have popped up allowing escape to other places.

"... that is the way of thing, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind."

As they travel through doors to other places they encounter all the immigrant experiences, from refugee camps to nativist mobs. The stress pulls the couple apart. 

"and when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same house our whole lives, because we can't help it. We are all migrants through time."

The magical realism of the doors allows an exploration of the totality of why people leave their homeland and the experience of being a stranger in strange lands. It is a sad but tale, beautifully told.

Find a Reading Guide at
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549017/exit-west-by-mohsin-hamid/9780735212176/readers-guide/

Hardcover | $26.00
Published by Riverhead Books
ISBN 9780735212176

*****

In future days when America is divided into walled enclaves, those inside the walls are addicted to tablets and enjoy a sheltered life, while those outside live in a world of deadly ticks. Between the two is the Salt Line, a burnt out wasteland and immense garbage dump. Thrill seekers risk their lives to see the natural beauty on the other side of the walls.

The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones follows a tour group of the rich and the famous going over the Salt Line. They think they are on a three week experience of sights few inside the walls ever see. Yes, there are those gruesome ticks and the horrible death they carry. Protective suits offer some comfort, and there are tools to kill the ticks through extraction and burning eggs out of the tissue, leaving circular battle scars.

The tour group is taken hostage by an outer-zone insurgency group based in Ruby City, a functioning village populated mostly by people of Cherokee descent. The community is without fear of the ticks, thanks to The Salt. The hostages create alliances and discover what the out-zoners want from them.

I was hooked by the time the tour group reached the Salt Line. I enjoyed the characters with their various backgrounds and relationships: a gangster businessman with political ambitions and his wife who will do anything for their sons, a scrappy nobody with a big heart, and a entrepreneur looking for meaning.

Ruby City is peopled with characters who seem both admirable and well meaning, but are also willing to do whatever it takes to protect themselves.

There is a touch of mystery, intriguing motivations, and riveting action. And the whole issue of the Wall, who gets to be on the inside and who is left outside to fend for themselves in a lawless wilderness, can invite thoughtful consideration of the many walls being built today.

The ending is a bit weak, but only because it is obviously a set-up for a second volume. I along with many others will look forward to following these characters on their journeys.

You can find a Book Club Kit at  https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/yavenpwz7lc34r3fmptx34pkn630icfw

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.