Author: Marsha

French Braid: Another Tyler Treat

French Braid

By Anne Tyler

Published 2022

Read July 2022

As usual Anne Tyler gives us an interesting story of family relationships, this time a family saga spanning from 1959 to late summer2020.  Yes, it does include the impact of COVID -19 on these family relationships.  Each of seven sections focuses on a different family member and their perspectives of what’s happening in the particular time frame of the section.  The sections generally move forward in time although there is some overall.  It may seem at times a little disjointed since there is sometimes substantial time between sections but this reader took this in stride and just enjoyed Tyler’s wonderful gift for looking inside people and how they influence the relationships they are in. 

This reader hopes Anne Tyler keeps writing!

Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Interesting View of a Family

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

By Kate Atkinson

Published 1995

Read July 2023; November 2023

Our book club is going to discuss this book soon so this reader decided to become refreshed on the details. (Our book club meets for 2.5 hours and the discussions are quite extensive so it’s good to be prepared.) 

This reader’s first reading left the impression of a story of women generally until The Pill became available—your lot was either spinsterhood with the hope of living with a family member or going into service, or teaching, or an unhappy life being married with too many children and a household to manage.  Several of the books this reader has happened upon lately show this same story in a variety of ways.

This reader’s second reading was informed by the first.  But fortunately, there was much more to the book.  Some topics covered:  The difficulties of the brothers of those sisters when faced with being a solider and dying in the war or surviving it but….  The hopes of the various women for an exciting life or at least a life they like living. How mean young children can be and the consequences of their abrupt actions.  And more and more. 

The narrator, Ruby Lennox, provides us vivid scenes from many parts of her life from the moment of conception through to the end of her mother’s life.   She is convinced at birth that her mother isn’t really her mother and she retains that feeling through most of her life.  But perhaps it’s a feeling enabled by her mother’s surprise at living a life she didn’t intend, having a husband who isn’t who she thought he was, and having children that she didn’t plan to have but did have as a consequence of the marital bed. 

In between thirteen chapters narrated by Rudy are “footnotes” that tell the story of Ruby’s mother Bunty, Bunty’s mother Nell, and Nell’s mother Alice:  their pre-marriage situation, how they became a married woman, and how they dealt with that situation.   There are also “footnotes” about the Nell’s brothers including scenes from their pre-war days and while in the war (The Great War). 

Alice is the only one of these women who escapes her married life—by running off with the travelling photographer—but eventually has regrets about this.  Nell’s sister Lillian has a child out-of-wedlock and leaves the country — an extreme way of leaving town.  She does eventually marry but clearly has a different grip on life than her sister, mother, or niece.  Although Ruby gives us a lot of detail about her early years and her sisters Patricia and Gillian during these years, she gives us little detail about her married life although she does indicate she and her friend Kathleen eventually divorce their respective husbands. 

In summary this book gives an interesting look at womanhood in working-class England through a number of generations showing the similarities of their challenges and the variety of ways these women face them. 

This reader definitely began to savor the book on second reading and was glad the second reading was undertaken.  The richness of the writing approach and the characters was much more evident the second time through for this reader.  I now look forward to the discussion and am now glad the book was on the season’s schedule. 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: relationships and videogames

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

By Gabrielle Zevin

Published 2022

Read Aug 2023

Like many readers of this book, this is the first Gabrielle Zevin book this reader has read.  Apparently, she has had some big hits as well as some books that haven’t achieved commercial success even if the critics liked them. Based on this book, this reader looks forward to reading more of her work.

This reader is not a gamer but that doesn’t matter because the book is really about people, their relationships, and product development. 

Product development leverages current technologies and creates new ones as necessary to create a design that will be appealing to its customers.  Fast product development is universally desired by owners of companies so that revenues can be generated as fast as possible.  In small start-ups like the one described here—owned by two college dropouts who are the product designers/developers and their friend who is “producing” it—everyone pitches in to do all the stuff needed beside the actual product development.  The descriptions of the intensity of the work to get it to market is pretty believable given the need to generate revenue—they are starving otherwise—and the intensity of the market they are in.  The book also nicely describes the evolution of companies as they move into second generation products—how the relationships between various starting members can and perhaps must change.

Reading about the games that the characters play and develop was actually quite interesting to this reader.  As a non-gamer it was a rare glimpse into this world.  Two aspects of particular interest:  1) The complexity of the computer programming required to create the video games of our times—players moving around in complex landscapes, interacting with various “artificial” characters in the game and interacting with various other players that are on-line and in the game at the same time.  2) The male dominance of video game production.  This was accented in the book by the female protagonist who deals with the condescending way non-company members treat her but not her colleagues with whom she has equal importance in the organization as a primary programmer. 

This glimpse of gaming has been useful as this reader has read other books recently (particularly The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith and The Three Body Problem by Cixin Li) that involve gaming in one way or another. This reader anticipates this will be increasingly common in current modern fiction.   Video games, although not a part of this reader’s life, is a huge component of society so having some understanding of the culture is as useful to non-gamers as having an understanding of recorded music would have been to the generation who was raised before its popularity.

The characters are great—each has attributes that make them deserving of a reader’s interest and empathy while also having flaws or attributes that make them real and believable.  This reader’s opinion of and warmth towards each of the main characters varied substantially at different parts of the story—something this reader greatly appreciates. 

This reader may be reading more of this author.  Certainly, this reader would really enjoy discussing this book with others—also something this reader greatly appreciates. 

Abraham Vergeshe: The Covenant of Water

The Covenant of Water

By Abraham Vergeshe

Published 2023

Read June 2023

It’s fitting that the first literature blog I’ve written in almost a year is for this book.  It’s long.  It’s full of medical details.  It may be exasperating to some because the main characters are all so fundamentally good.  But it is so well done.  After nearly a year of reading lots of books but few “serious” ones this book definitely engaged me thoroughly and left me unable to start a new book for several days.  Perhaps this is a strange criteria for categorization of books but a real one for me.  When a book leaves me in a state of savoring and digesting and waiting for those actions to be thoroughly over before I start a new book, it’s definitely in a winner’s circle for me. 

We start in 1900 when one of our protagonists is twelve years old and being married off to a man of forty.  We are ready to hate him but can’t.  He needs a mother for his son.  He needs someone to cook and clean and make a home for him and his son as he works hard to create something from nothing on this growing piece of property on a river— a river he avoids with a passion we slowly come to understand over the next 700 pages.  Only when our protagonist—now known as Big Aimichee— is sixteen and has past puberty, learned to cook and clean well, has firmly become JoJo’s mother, and has begun to appreciate her husband, does this husband invite our protagonist into his bedroom. 

She first bears him a daughter, who they learn will remain a child in thoughts and actions, but a beloved one to both her family and this reader.  She later bears him a son when she is older, Philopose, who doesn’t know his father who dies. 

There are other characters in this sprawling book whose stories eventually connect.  None of the characters are “bad” or “evil” some certainly have more flaws than others. 

This reader prefers this book to the author’s earlier “Cutting for Stone” although this reader nominated that book for her book club which discussed it with vigor.  The characters are rounder and most win your affection and have you cheering for them when they are facing adversity tough choices.  They don’t always pick the route you would choose for them but that of course makes the book engaging and believable.  Read and relish this book. 

Ann Patchett—The Patron Saint of Liars and Run

The Patron Saint of Liars

By Ann Patchett

Published 1992

Read April 2022

Run

By Ann Patchett

Published 2007

Read May 2022

This reader is putting comments on these two books together as the comments are quite overdue. 

This reader is a fan of Ann Patchett.  Each novel tells a unique and interesting story.  Each novel provides the reader interesting characters.  Often the story is told through the perspective of one or more characters, but only some of the character is revealed through this approach, much is left unsaid and untold.  That makes the novel both engaging and rich for this reader.

The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett’s first novel, tells pieces of the overall story through four sections, each focused on one of the characters, human and otherwise.  The first section is about the origins of Hotel Louisa in the small town of Habit, Kentucky.  By the time this story starts in 1968, the hotel has become a home for unmarried pregnant women, run by a Catholic order of nuns.  Rose’s section is second and tells us about a woman who leaves her husband (with only a note saying she is leaving and he shouldn’t try to find her) when she discovers she is pregnant and decides she can’t go through with the pregnancy.  She winds up at the home for unwed mothers in Habit, KY, installs herself as an unpaid member of the staff, keeps her child, marries Son, another person who ended up a member of the staff, and raises daughter Cecilia in a non-standard way.   The third section is told through Son’s perspective which gives some background regarding why he is there and why he didn’t want “their” daughter to be named Cecilia.  The last section is told through Sissy/Cecilia’s perspective.  Some things are explained, much isn’t.  This reader found the balance perfect.

Run tells a story about an unusual family.  Bernadette Doyle expected to have a large Irish family like her own but she and husband Bernard succeed in having only one biological child, Sullivan.  They adopt a pair of brothers forming a biracial family (the twins are black).  Bernadette dies when the “little boys” are 4 and Sullivan is 17.  The story is focused on a time 17 years later when the little boys are in college (remaining in Boston per their ex-Boston Mayor father’s wishes) and Sullivan only occasionally interacts with the family.  The boys (once again) reluctantly accompany their father to a lecture on campus that their father wants them to attend.  An incident that occurs after the lecture sets into motion a more complicated story about their family than they could have imagined (and which won’t be divulged here).  As usual Patchett slowly develops the characters but leaves some things unexplained.   Once again, the balance was fine for this reader. This reader will continue seeking and reading Patchett novels and hopes she has a very long run of writing. 

Books—How They Mattered to Me This Year

Sept 1, 2023

If you have followed me in the past, you may have noticed I haven’t posted since July 2022.  Often in the summer I get behind making posts about books and I was nine books behind on Aug 31, 2022 when my mother fell and broke her hip.  That fall set off a number of events including hospitalization, hospice, and her death—-on the day of hurricane IAN that damaged both her home and mine.  This led to hurricane issues on top of the usual grief and work associated with death of your remaining parent and the work of getting a club, for which I was president, back on track following COVID complications. 

A year later I am ready to start posting again and begin with this short post about books.

Since that fateful day in August 2022, I have read forty-six books and re-read 3 books (one very long), averaging a little under one per week.  I read (often by listening to audiobooks) while driving, cleaning, preparing things for disposition, and while trying to quiet my mind for sleep.  Sometimes this meant two books a week, and sometimes less (those longer books about family sagas etc).  A number of these were parts of two different series that combine mystery with learning about culture or history.  For each of these series, the same person read each book in the series and this was interestingly comforting.  Some books were non-fiction, but most were fiction.  Some books were for book groups to which I belong that gave focus to preparation for discussions and provided fellowship of shared learning about the book we discussed. 

My main point here is that reading books was an essential part of my life during this time.  Books carried me through this difficult period.  Perhaps it could be called “escape” but I prefer to think of it as “enabling me to deal productively with tough stuff”.

And I continue to read.  And now I will restart writing about what I read.  I will try to minimize the backlog of blogs but it’s tough because the reading is so wonderful.

I wish you all Happy Reading.   

American Nations–A Useful and Sobering View of the History of the USA

American Nations:  A History of the Eleven Regional Cultures of North America

By Colin Woodard

Published 2011

Read May 2022

May 2022 is when this reader finished reading this enlightening and sobering book.  This reader has been working on reading this book for about a year.  Why so long?  The book is very approachable but simultaneously packed with historical information that takes time to digest.

Woodard starts with an Introduction that is very valuable to the reader.  Woodard explains his use of the term “nation”: “a group of people who share—or believe they share—a common culture, ethnic origin, language, historical experience, artifacts, and symbols”.  This differs from a “state” which he describes as “a sovereign political entity”.   He introduces the eleven nations with a brief summary of their characteristics and founding.    Having this initial snippet of each nation prepares the reader for what follows.

Part 1:  Origins 1590 to 1769 gives details of the founding of each of the following nations in order of their founding:  El Norte, New France, Tidewater, Yankeedom, New Netherland, The Deep South, the Midlands, and Greater Appalachia.  It’s sobering to note that between Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence there were about 160 years of waves of people arriving and settling in the New World with very different intentions for coming to the New World and with very different sets of values.  Those different intentions and values and intentions continue to permeate the values and aspirations of the people that live in those different areas—nations– of the country today.   

Part 2:  Unlikely Allies 1770 to 1815 is extremely interesting and helps dispute a concept we tend to have that the thirteen colonies were well unified in fighting for independence from King George.  It seems that is very far from the truth.  This account shows the waves of fighting for independence by the various nations, sometimes even their initial reluctance to do so, and sometimes actually warring against each other.  This section also covers the writing of the Constitution which is considered an amazing achievement.  It was amazing considering the very divergent views of the various nations.  In fact, some of the nations considered seceding from the union because of essentially anti-democratic aspects pushed by many we consider the Founding Fathers (who were from Tidewater).  In fact, these Founding Fathers did have an intention to suppress democracy and retain power for those like them—the elite.  It’s becoming more common knowledge that the Constitution not only allowed for slavery but prevented its abolishment for twenty years.  This was clearly a period of substantial conflict between the nations. 

Part 3:  Wars for the West 1816-1877 covers yet the continuing turbulent time, this section lasting over fifty years.  Yankeedom, the Midlands, The Deep South all spread westward with different intentions consistent with the values held by each of the nations.  Yankeedom needed more land for farming so communities of families headed west, just as communities of families had first come to the New World.  They established new towns, taxed themselves to build needed infrastructure, especially schools.  Overtime the religious orthodoxy of Yankeedom was eroded but the values of serving community remained well entrenched.    The Midlands moved west as well and recreated the towns and communities from which they migrated.  They were accompanied by a large immigration from Germany.  Although they shared the community-focused trait of Yankeedom, The Midlands were more heterogeneous in religious practices and were untroubled by diversity although “skeptical of slave labor, warfare, and the cult of the individual”.  The Borderlanders of Appalachia travelled west largely to live beyond the effective reach of government.  They left not in communities but rather as individuals or very small groups.  An interesting comparison of Yankeedom and the Borderlanders is given. Only a small part of it is recited here:  Yankeedom Midwesterners put their homes on the road, used written contracts, and buried their dead in town graveyards. Appalachian Midwesterners built their homes in the middle of their plots, negotiated verbal, honor-bound agreements, and put their relatives to rest in family plots or isolated graves.  The Borderlanders also preferred candidates who advocated for ordinary people and perceived Yankee neighbors as meddlesome and threatening to their individual freedom.  The slave culture of Tidewater was mainly hemmed in by Appalachia and lost some of its power over time.  It and the second/third-born sons of English gentry that founded it had been a dominant force when the Constitution was written.  The slave culture of The Deep South spread westward expanding its cotton economy which required a substantial slave population and which fed the demands of textile mills in both  New England and Old England.  “What others regard as an authoritarian society built on an immoral institution that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, Deep Southern oligarchs viewed as the pinnacle of human achievement.  Theirs was a democracy modeled on the slave states of ancient Greece and Rome, whose elites had been free to pursue the finer things in life after delegating all drudgery to slaves and a disenfranchised underclass.”

An extremely interesting chapter in this section “War for the West” details the build up to the Civil War and describes it not as a struggle between “the North” and “the South” but rather a conflict between two coalitions.  One side was the Deep South and Tidewater.  The other side was Yankeedom.  The other nations considered breaking off and forming their own confederations “freed from slave lords and Yankees alike.”  The United States nearly broke into four pieces.  But for the attack on Fort Sumter which coalesced the coalitions, history might be very different.

Part four:   Culture Wars:  1878 to 2010 covers the topics of the Founding of the Far West, Immigration and Identity, Gods and Missions, Culture Clash, War/Empire/Military, and two chapters on the Struggle for Power—the Blue, Red, and Purple Nations.  Viewing these topics through the lens of American Nations gave this reader a new perspective on this part of our (always turbulent!) history as well.

The Epilogue chastens us to recognize that the United States is actually fairly fragile.  “A time might come that the only issue on which the nations find common ground is the need to free themselves from one another’s veto power.  Perhaps they’d join together on Capitol Hill to pass laws and constitutional amendments granting more powers to the states or liquidating may of the functions of the central government.”  (The author doesn’t suggest the Supreme Court might expedite this but over the last few days it seems that’s its intention.)  The author indicates a few paths that might be followed as the country splits into parts, consistent with the “respective national heritages”.   To remain the United States, “The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it’s one of the few things binding us together.”  

While we may think the current state of our government is unusual and that we’ve had stability for two hundred plus years, this book actually highlights how turbulent the history of the United States of American has actually always been and continues to be.  The path forward is not easy to predict but the author’s call to “respect the fundamental tents of our unlikely union” is very relevant. 

This reader is recommending this book to friends and family—it should be read by all those wishing to understand the current state of the USA.

A Canticle for Lebowitz: A Timely Classic

A Canticle for Leibowitz

By Walter M. Miller Jr.

Published 1959

Read Feb 2022

It is not surprising to this reader that the book has never gone out of print since its first publication in 1959.   This reader listened to an audiobook version and read a hard copy.  This reader was in college when she first read this book which was coincident with negotiation of SALT II—a treaty to reduce the likelihood of annihilation of the world by nuclear weapons.  As this reader finished reading the book this time, the world is working again to avoid nuclear war while the Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues. 

Miller’s remarkable book has three parts, apparently originally written separately and then rewritten a bit to draw them together into one novel (1).  The first part, Fiat Homo (“Let There Be Man”) takes place 600 years after a global nuclear war (The Great Flame Deluge) that was rapidly followed by a backlash against knowledge and technology known as The Simplification. Shortly after The Simplification, the Albertian Order of Leibowitz was founded by Isaac Edward Leibowitz, an electrical engineer who had survived the war and who became a monk after he was unable to locate his wife who was presumed dead.  600 years after its founding, the monks residing at the abbey continue to work tirelessly to carry out the mission of their founder—to preserve books via memorization, copying, and careful storage of said Memorabilia.   The second part—Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light”) is set 600 years later as the world is beginning to come out of the dark ages following The Simplification.  Both outside and inside the abbey there are people who are rediscovering fundamental knowledge necessary to build such things as arc lamps.  Simultaneously, war between nation states is brewing.  The third part—Fiat Voluntas Tua (“Let Thy Will Be Done”) is set another 600 years later.  Much of the technology present during the Great Flame Deluge, including space flight and nuclear weapons, again exists.  As the section opens, there has been 50 years of potential nuclear war but the brink hasn’t yet been breached. 

In each part there is an interesting set of characters—the Abbott of the Abbey, a Brother in the Abbey, and someone else.  In Fiat Homo, the story opens as Brother Francis Gerard of Utah is enduring a Lenten vigil in the desert near some ruins and a “pilgrim with girded loins” comes by.  The unidentified old man identifies a rock for Brother Francis to use in building a shelter to protect him from the wolves while he sleeps.  Behind the rock is a metal door that leads to a bomb shelter.  This section then follows what happens after Brother Francis reveals his findings and his encounter with the “pilgrim with girded loins” to the priest visiting vigilantes to receive their confessions.  Much speculation springs up in the Abbey regarding who the pilgrim might be (is it Isaac Edward Leibowitz himself??)  Abbot Arkos works to mitigate the impact of the encounter on the canonization of Isaac Edward Leibowitz who had previously been beatified.  Monsignor Aguerra (God’s Advocate in the canonization process) and Monsignor Flaught (the Devil’s Advocate in the canonization process) join the cast of characters and visit the Abbey from their home base in New Rome (in an unidentified part of North America).  

In Fiat Lux, Thon Taddeo, a scholar and a bastard cousin of Hannegan, leader of Texarkana, wishes to review the Memorabilia at the Abbey of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz.  He engages Marcus Apollo, diplomat from New Rome to Texarkana, to beseech Abbot Dom Paulo to have the Memorabilia transferred to New Rome so he can study it.  Of course, that request is denied and Thon Taddeo eventually goes to the abbey to study the documents.  Brother Kornhoer demonstrates an arc light that he has built in the basement based on his study of the Memorabilia and some of Thon Taddeo’s writings.  Thon Taddeo is quite amazed that a mere monk could create such an invention but is certainly happy to use it to see the Memoribilia by the arc lamp’s light vs only candles. 

Much of this second section involves intrigue around Hannegan’s intentions to expand his empire.  The author also, however, spends a chapter on a discussion between Abbott Dom Paulo and an old hermit, known as Benjamin and whom Dom Paulo calls an Old Jew.  Apparently the two men have enjoyed spirited discussions over the years.  In this chapter they speak about the differences in their spiritual faiths (the Three and the One), whether or not a new Renaissance is going to dawn, and what a new dawn might mean to the Abbey.   Benjamin claims to have been waiting for Him to come for thirty-two centuries which Dom Paulo doesn’t believe.  But, Benjamin also claims to be the man Brother Francis met six centuries previous and who buried him when he was killed on the road from New Rome and who told the abbey where to find his remains…..so who is he really? 

In Fiat Voluntas Tua, Abbot Zerchi oversees the greatly expanded Abbey.  The modern addition is across a busy highway from the original Abbey and there is an underpass that allows foot travel between the two.  Two superpowers have been in a cold war situation for the last fifty years and the brink of war is being crossed.  Abbot Zerchi receives an order from New Rome to proceed with a plan to send the Memorabilia and persons from the Abbey to join others who will all go to Alpha Centuri to start anew.  He works to convince Brother Joshua to agree to become a priest and spiritual leader for the trip. 

While there are some pretty dark moments in the book, including violent deaths of individual characters, the need for Mercy camps to identify individuals whose exposure to fallout means certain death, and Zerchi’s regular encounters with Mrs. Graves who has a second head growing from her shoulder, there are some wonderful bursts of comedy as well.  In section one, Brother Francis’s bumbling confessions and his discussions with Abbot Akros are quite funny at times.  In section two, the dinner Abbot Dom Paulo gives for Thon Taddeo is crashed by the Abbey’s not fully welcomed guest, The Poet, which provides wonderful comedy.  In the third section, Abbot Zerchi’s attempts to use the “Abominable” Autoscribe (which automatically translates input to the desired language) to dictate memos are quite amusing as are the Q&A sessions between reporters and the defense minister as he fields questions about rumors of nuclear tests. 

Some of the themes are quite universal and enduring including:  1) man’s desire to seek knowledge and create new technologies; 2) the desire of some to hold power over others and expand their empires at all costs; 3) man’s general inability to learn from the past despite the magnitude of the lessons; 4) religions, here in the form of the Catholic Church, will be ever-lasting and add value to the world despite their imperfections.    Miller’s work is quite impressive.  It was commercially successful as he uses engaging characters, wonderful dialog, occasional humor, and overall great writing to weave these ideas into a story that attracts a wide range of readers.

Miller (2) was trained and worked as an engineer.  During World War II he was a radioman and tail gunner and flew over fifty bombing missions in Europe.  The Benedictine Abbey at Mount Cassino was founded in AD529 and was suspected to be a garrison and ammunition storage area for the Germans so it was a target taken out in a mission that Miller flew.  After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism (2).   He wrote over three dozen short stories published in science fiction magazines.  After the success of A Canticle for Leibowitz, he withdrew from public and became a recluse.  A book he was working on when he committed suicide in 1996, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was finished as he requested by a friend and published in 1997.  It’s likely that Miller suffered from PTSD as a result of his bombing missions and especially the one involving the Abbey at Mount Cassino (1). 

This reader wonders if this book should be on (or return to) the reading list for high school students.

The Color of Water

The Color of Water:  A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother

By James McBride

Published 1995

Read Feb 2022

The Color of Water is this reader’s first exposure to James McBride, mainly because it was the only e-book or audiobook by McBride that was available for take out in this reader’s library system.  All of the other McBride books had waiting lists. 

The Color of Water is partly a biography of McBride’s mother, partly a memoir of McBride’s life, and certainly meant to be a tribute to his remarkable mother as noted in the subtitle.  This reader listened to this book which was a great way to read it as McBride wrote chapters that are in his voice and chapters that are in his mother’s voice and the audiobook used a man’s voice for McBride and a woman’s voice for his mother. 

James McBride knew his story.  He knew he was the eighth child born to Ruth McBride of twelve total and the last one whose father was Dennis McBride.  Dennis McBride died of lung cancer before he was born.  He knew his mother subsequently married Hunter Jordan, who raised Ruth’s children as his own and with whom she had four more children.  He knew his mother embraced Christianity and that Dennis McBride and his mother started a church.  He knew his mother valued education and the (Christian) church above all else and while they lived in Red Hook, a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn. She had sent her children to public schools in Jewish neighborhood where she was sure that learning was a priority.  He knew his mother mourned two husbands and somehow managed to keep all the children in school and food on the table despite great obstacles.  He knew all of his siblings went to college and half of them went to graduate or professional post-grad school.  He knew his skin and that of his siblings was dark, that they lived in black neighborhoods, and that his mother had light skin.  He knew she never spoke of race and, when asked, said God was The Color of Water, neither white nor black.  He knew she never spoke of her parents or family.

What James McBride didn’t know was who his mother really was.  After he had graduated from Oberlin College and was a journalist, he convinced her to talk to him about her past.  He anticipated the exercise would take a few sessions but it actually took eight years—her story was only very slowly revealed to him.  He eventually learned that his mother was the daughter of a failed Orthodox rabbi who did not successfully keep a job as a rabbi in a synagogue.  He opened a store in the last town in which he was employed as a rabbi.  The town was an anti-Semitic and racist small southern town.    He set up the store in a black section and overcharged and otherwise misused his patrons.  McBride learned that his mother’s father was sexually abusive to his mother and her sister.  Her mother’s father mistreated his wife, cheated on her, and raised a second family while remaining legally wed to his mother.  We learn that Ruth’s name was actually Rachel but she gave up that name when she gave up her family to live in New York City.  He learned that she felt most at home in the company of blacks and she embraced her husband’s Christian religion, both of which fully separated her from her family.  McBride tells a moving story of his mother’s challenges and of her triumphs and how she set twelve children on exceptional paths. 

James McBride eventually became a successful writer and musician but only after narrowly escaping a life of crime and drugs that he started towards while a teenager.  He landed an acceptance to Oberlin College.  After graduation he tried his hand at journalism for several years but eventually decided he could be both a musician and a writer.

While this reader is not usually a fan of memoirs, this is a very special one.  McBride found a truly engaging way to reveal his story, that of his mother, and how he worked through his identity as a mixed-race person.  In the end he comes to understand that his mother’s relentless focus on education and church instilled in him and his siblings that learning and finding a way to serve others is really much more important than the race box you are required to check on too many forms.  This reader looks forward to getting notification that his books are available for me to read. 

The Most Fun We Ever Had—Great Family Saga

The Most Fun We Ever Had

By Claire Lombardo

Published 2019

Read Feb 2022

Lombardo’s long (~550pages) debut novel is a winner in this reader’s opinion.  It’s a family saga covering about four decades in the lives of Marilyn Connelly and David Sorenson and their children.  Marilyn and David meet in 1975 in Chicago when both are undergraduates (making them contemporaries of this reader).  When David learns that he’s been accepted to medical school in Iowa, he proposes marriage to Marilyn and she accepts.  She intends to finish her undergraduate degree in Iowa but loss of credits in the transfer process, loneliness as David is consumed in his studies and she knows no one, and ultimately a pregnancy ahead of their schedule mean Marilyn drops out of college.  Her career as homemaker/mother is solidified when their second daughter arrives less than a year after the first.

The “Irish twins” Wendy and Violet are clearly sisters—both best friends and fierce competitors– and as different as can be imagined. Wendy is caustic, turbulent, seemingly strong but tending towards self-destructive.   Wendy refuses to go to college, moves out of the house, meets the love of her life whom she marries and loses him to cancer at a young age after their son dies as a baby.  Violet is a type-A personality who gets her law degree, marries another lawyer, has two children, has a seemingly perfect life, but suffers from depression.  Violet’s lack of appreciation for the apparent wonderfulness of her life infuriates Wendy whose life has been so disrupted by the deaths of her baby and husband. Younger sister Liza has a long-term partner who is in a very deep state of depression.  Liza becomes pregnant and her partner leaves her when he learns she’s had an affair.  Nine years after Liza’s birth Marilyn and David decide to take another spin at parenthood and generate Grace whose nickname evolves from “gosling” to “goose” as she grows up although she feels no one in the family will ever realize she’s become an adult.  The daughters are convinced their parents have a perfect marriage and that they can never attain such perfection in their own lives.  Actually, while David and Marilyn have an enviable relationship, it is, of course, far from perfect. 

Wendy and Violet share a special secret.  When Violet found herself pregnant, Wendy took her in and helped her hide from the family during her pregnancy.  Fifteen years later, Violet’s son comes into the family’s life providing an interesting view into the family and the relationships between the various members of it. 

The structure of the book is interesting if complex.  The author shifts back and forth in time and between various characters as she gives their perspective on various events/scenes in their lives.  The story of David and Marilyn’s relationship is the only thing told chronologically; the author heads these chapters with the dates that the chapter covers.  The complexity of the structure and the varying points of view emphasizes the complexity of the life of any family.  No two children have the same childhood, even when they are separated in age by less than a year, and especially when they are separated in age by over a decade.  The parents’ persona each vary by year and even by month with respect to their level of exhaustion from caring for their children, their home, their work, and their own relationship with each other.  The author captures this evolution with accuracy despite her own relative youth.  Being the “gosling” in her own family likely gave her some help in depicting this. 

The author beautifully captures some great parenting moments.  One in particular is the scene when Violet questions her mother about her decision to leave college, a possibility Violet can’t fathom; Marilyn’s responses are not satisfactory to Violet.  This scene so nicely highlights that many of the choices we face in life aren’t the ones we anticipated having but they are the ones we have and we have to make decisions nonetheless. 

This debut novel is long, but so nicely done that this reader didn’t mind the length at all.  This author was reminded of Anne Patchett in her ability to draw the reader into the lives of her characters so that the reader enjoyed every word spent with them.  This reader was well satisfied with the author’s approach to the book’s closure.  This reader hopes that Lombardo’s next offering is as rich and beautifully textured.