Patriot Number One, Fighting Chinese Corruption

Journalist Lauren Hilgers was covering a story of Chinese villagers protesting the land-grab by local authorities and demanding democratic rights when she met Zhuang Lienog, son of a fisherman and tea shop owner. When the corrupt local government decided to crack down on protesters, Zhuang and his wife managed to leave China for Flushing, NY to join a community of Chinese immigrants.

Journalist Lauren Hilgers was covering a story of Chinese villagers protesting the land-grab by local authorities and demanding democratic rights when she met Zhuang Lienog, son of a fisherman and tea shop owner. When the corrupt local government decided to crack down on protesters, Zhuang and his wife managed to leave China for Flushing, NY to join a community of Chinese immigrants.

Zhuang's story as the activist Patriot Number One and his continuing activist work in America reveals a great deal about the situation in China. At the same time, readers learn about the challenges of immigrant life, finding work and adapting to a new world. Readers get to know Zhuang and his wife Little Yan, their friends and neighbors.

As Zhuang continues his protests in America, his Chinese family is targeted as a way of silencing him. Zhuang's commitment to his home village and for democracy truly makes him Patriot Number One.

I enjoyed the insight into modern China and the plight of immigrants. The author keeps a journalist's objectivity. This is not a fault, but the story may feel flat to readers used to more emotional bias.

Read an author interview at
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540901/patriot-number-one-by-lauren-hilgers/9780451496133/

Patriot Number One
by Lauren Hilgers
Crown
Publication March 20, 2018
$27 hardcover
ISBN 9780451496133

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthonty Ray Hinton

Last year I read Bryan Stevenson's book Just Mercy. It was crushing to read about a justice system based on the number of convictions and political gain at the expense of innocent men.

That book led me to read I Can't Breathe by Matt Taibbi about the death of Earl Garner, and then to Michelle Ko's Reading with Patrick about her experience teaching and later work with a former student who lands in jail. Each book is a moving account of the stories behind the Black Lives Matter movement.

So when I saw that one of the Death Row inmates  Stevenson had represented had written his own book I had to read it.

Ray Hinton had a record and had paid his dues. He was working in a guarded facility when a murder took place, but a romantic rival told police that he had seen Ray at the crime scene.

Ray was poor. Ray was black. Ray had a record. With lousy representation, a partially blind munitions expert witness, and a system stacked against him, he was sent to prison for murders he did not commit.

The Sun Does Shine tells of his struggle for justice, his decline into anger and hatred, and how he found hope and acceptance. He became a model prisoner, befriending the other inmates and helping to improve their lives. He asked for their food to be covered to keep out dust and insects. He asked for books to keep the inmates from dwelling on their problems. He started a book club. He kept up morale.

Ray changed lives. A former KKK member who killed a black teenager called Ray his best friend.

It was the continuing love of his mother and support of his best friend that kept Ray going for thirty years. Even after his mother passed, he heard her inspiring voice to keep fighting. Ray knew he had what many others on Death Row had lacked: a loving family and abiding faith.

Bryan Stevenson was overworked but took on Ray's case. They had to fight the Alabama court system that would not accept the evidence that would prove Ray's innocence.

When Ray was finally released he had been on Death Row longer than he had been free. It was a shock; the world had changed. The first night of freedom he slept in the bathroom because the bedroom was too large and strange. He was given no compensation. He had no Social Security or pension or savings built up. He would have to work to support himself the rest of his life.

I was devastated and I was inspired by Ray's story.

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

Watch a powerful video with Mr. Hinton at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6bvANcfflM

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
by Anthony Ray Hinton; Lara Love Hardin
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 27 Mar 2018 
ISBN: 9781250124715
PRICE: $26.99 (USD)

I Have Lost My Way: A Story of Reclamation Through Friendship

Three teenagers in crisis are brought together in an Act of God moment when Freya falls off a bridge onto Nathaniel and calls for bystander Harun to help her get him to the hospital.

By helping each other during an eventful morning, they each discover they are not alone. By day's end, each character will overcome what has been holding them back and find a new lease on life.

I read the first 100 pages through a Bookish First Look sneak peak, and was given an ARC based on my first look review. When the book arrived, I finished it off in a few hours.

Freya is an aspiring singer who has lost her voice. Her father left many years ago and she is alienated from her sister, once her best friend and singing partner. If she loses her Twitter followers and chance at fame, who is she?

Nathanial was close to his dad, an irresponsible dreamer whose unreliability drove away Nathaniel's mother. Nathaniel feels out of sync with his peer group, isolated and alone. After his father's death, he has come to New York City with suicidal thoughts.

Harun's parents barely accept his brother's Caucasian, Christian wife. As an obedient Muslim son, he can't bear to come out to his folks and introduce them to his secret lover, James. It has caused a breech in their relationship.

The book is a quick read, with interesting and diverse characters, their issues reflecting contemporary concerns of young people: depression, abandonment by parents, the search for love, how to reconcile personal and family needs, how to determine life choices in career and mates. It is a book that can teach compassion. It is a hopeful book. These young people find support and friendship in each other, and are able to overcome the obstacles that threaten them.

This is my first read by Gayle Forman, author of the best-selling novel if I stay.

I received a free ARC through Bookish First.

I Have Lost My Way
by Gayle Forman
Penguin Teen
Paperback
Publication: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 1471173720 (ISBN13: 9781471173721)

From the publisher:
“A powerful story of empathy and friendship from the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of If I Stay. Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plansto run away from everyone he has ever loved, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City with a backpack, a desperate plan, and nothing left to lose. When a fateful accident draws these three strangers together, their secrets start to unravel as they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in help­ing the others out of theirs.
An emotionally cathartic story of losing love, finding love, and discovering the person you are meant to be, I Have Lost My Way is best­selling author Gayle Forman at her finest.”

1952 Good Housekeeping

I have collected vintage magazines for years. I enjoy them for the nostalgia of remembering Mom buying magazines at the grocery lane checkout, and how I read the stories included for children and cutting out Betsy McCall paper dolls. Plus, they offer a glimpse into the world of my birth and childhood, providing an insight into women's history.

Recently I picked up this 1952 Good Housekeeping magazine. The cover is so cute and family friendly.

Then you find the fiction section...

Yes! this issue included Daphne DuMaurier's short story The Birds, the inspiration for the famous movie by Alfred Hitchcock!

I remember Mom had a ponytail when I was a tot and she was in her early twenties. And when soda pop only came in bottles and was a reasonable size.

Beauty Counselors, Inc, from Grosse Point, MI suggests using Q-tips for trying cosmetics. The company was founded in 1931.

Canned veggies, especially peas, never appealed to me. But the idea of a giant man in the kitchen to do the cooking? I'm cool with that.

 As if a bride didn't have enough to worry about. She had to use up a cake of Camay beauty soap before the wedding.

Beauty was hard work and involved discomfort. I wore a girdle and stockings for a year before pantyhose came along. Worse year of my life--Seventh Grade.

Celebrities were used to sell products, same as today. Betty Hutton appeared in two ads.

Mamie bangs or a pompadour?

 The classic 50s face: dark, arched eyebrows, red lips, white face.

 My mother-in-law only ever used Noxema to cleanse her skin, into her nineties.

Co-ed reveals all: she broke the rules at a football game...forgetting her GLOVES.

But Jergen saved the day!

May all your problems be so easily solved.

The Italian Party: No One is What They Appear To Be

The Italian Party is a smart, sharp, and satiric take on 1950s American culture and politics.

The newlyweds were picture perfect American ideals in the flesh: Michael, twenty-four, a handsome, well-dressed man who shaved four times a day, and twenty-year-old Scottie, Vassar educated, beautiful, blond haired, and dressed in pearls, heels, gloves, hat-- and girdle and underarm perspiration guards.

Their whirlwind courtship and quick marriage was secretly a marriage of convenience for them both. The bride was pregnant and the husband was told a wife was good for his new job. Neither knew much about the other, and they liked it that way.

They are beginning their lives together in Siena, Italy.

"They seemed to have stepped right out of an advertisement for Betty Crocker, Wonder Bread or capitalism itself."

Post-war Italy was still rebuilding after WWII--both its infrastructure and its political structure. American cultural imperialism was in full swing, hoping to lure Italy away from the Communist Party and Soviet influence. The CIA and the Communists covert operations have converged on Siena's mayoral election.

Michael works for Ford and has been sent to Siena to sell tractors, hoping to lure farmers into modernization, but the locals are not very receptive.

The newlyweds try to live up to the glossy ideals of advertising, being the kind of husband and wife seen in on a magazine cover. But each is living a lie.

Glamor in 1958

Meanwhile, they are surrounded and befriended by people with hidden agendas, secret liaisons, and complicated backgrounds.

All that is hidden eventually is outed, taking the newlyweds into surprising and very non-Norman Rockwell territory.

I enjoyed the satire and the historical background. The story had lots of twists and complications. The ending felt far-fetched to me in terms of how Michael and Scottie resolve their marital challenges. But the characters are quite happy and eager for new adventures.

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

The Italian Party
by Christina Lynch
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 20 Mar 2018
ISBN: 9781250147837
PRICE: $25.99

Jingle Bell Jack Comes to My House

A few weeks ago I picked up a vintage Ding Dong School book, Jingle Bell Jack. I was nostalgic for a toy I never had.

This past weekend I went to the Royal Oak Flea Market and right off came across a vintage Jingle Bell Jack yo-yo doll. He came home with me.

My doll has a children's sock head with an embroidered face. The yo-yos are all midcentury.

 He is only missing the bell on his hat.

When I saw this kitten fabric I sure wished to see more of the original!

 I think there is a hint of bunny ears and nose on this fabric!

 It may  be sixty years late, but I now have my own yo-yo doll.

Read about the book Jingle Bell Jack at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/03/jingle-bell-jack-1955-yo-yo-clown-doll.html

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman

The Italian Teacher is destined to be one of my favorite reads of the year.

Tom Rachman's character Pinch is the son of a philandering, larger-than-life artist, Bear Bavinsky. Bear is charming and unreliable.

Pinch spends his entire life trying to get his dad's attention and approval. He imitates his dad, smoking a pipe early. In a one day lesson Bear teachers Pinch the fundamentals of painting and Pinch dreams of following in his father's footsteps.

Bear abandons Pinch and his mother, once his model, for the next model to pose for him; he leaves a string of women behind him and seventeen neglected children.

Bear routinely destroys any canvas he deems subpar. And he decides to stop selling or showing his art, a plan to drive up the values of his canvases. He becomes a legend, a tantalizing mystery in the art world.

Pinch feels a failure, unable to get what he needs from Bear. He flounders through his life, searching for an achievement that would finally elicit real love and approval from his father. His dissertation is on Caravaggio because his father once praised him; his dad doesn't remember doing so. Pinch ends up teaching Italian and foreign languages in London.

Not only is he unable to settle on a career, he loses his college girlfriend when she agrees to pose nude for Bear, which drives Pinch crazy: he knows his dad too well. He later marries a woman and again is too possessive and loses her. He finally moves in with a coworker, sharing a house.

His college friend Marsden comes in and out of his life, but is always reliable and can be counted on.

Too late, Bear corrects Pinch: he never said Pinch was a bad artist, just that he didn't have the personality and selfishness to BE an artist.

Pinch's life is sad, miserable, and heartbreaking. So, you ask me, why would you ever want to read this book about a loser? The story has an unexpected turn and a truly comedic ending

Of all his children, Bear chooses Pinch to be his confidence man, even leaving his estate and paintings to him. He believes Pinch understands and supports his intention.

 Pinch hatches a scheme that is the greatest scam of all time, a joke on the whole world of art, a way to keep his seventeen half-siblings happy, and still keep his promise to his dad.

And then...another reversal gives Pinch a place in the art world he so desperately desired. The novel left me laughing. It is a brilliant reversal.

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

The Italian Teacher
by Tom Rachman
Viking
Publication Date: March 20. 2018
ISBN: 9780735222694
Hardcover $27.00