BAD FEMINIST

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Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay, HarperCollins, 2014, 282 pp

Note to my blog followers: I hope I don't wear you out as I double up on posts for the rest of the month. The reason is I have been finishing so many books this month and don't want to get hopelessly behind on posting my reviews. Most of the reviews are somewhat short so there is that. Also next month's reading is going to include longer books=less books read=less posts. 

I have been reading this collection of essays over many months. I have followed Roxane Gay on Twitter for a couple years. If you have not heard of her, you live under a rock. I wanted to see what all the excitement was about.

First of all, the title is brilliant for our times when no one is sure what feminism is anymore or if anyone even needs to be a feminist these days. Having been one since about 1972, I can tell you it is a process and yes, the world is still badly in need of advocates for women. But we don't need anyone defining it for us.

I have lots of admiration for Roxane Gay, a woman of color who has overcome much adversity and with sheer hard work and no reticence about speaking out, has carved a place for herself in the world. She embodies and explicates the ambiguity and hypocrisy of the modern world.

I found the collection a bit uneven but since essays are not my go to reading genre I may not be qualified to say that. Her movie and book reviews and her takes on pop culture reminded me of James Baldwin. The female James Baldwin. Has anyone else felt that way? I have not heard that said about her.

The personal essays in which she recreates pivotal moments in life show equal parts naked self-analysis and sophisticated thinking.

I have owned a copy of her novel, An Untamed State, for a couple years. I am almost afraid to read it because of what I have heard about the rape scenes, but I know I should. For me at least, my fear of rape is stronger than my fear of death. Perhaps I will first read Ayiti, her collection of short stories set in Haiti where her family is from.

Forgive me Roxane. You are almost too much for me. You have however earned a place in my personal pantheon of bad women! 

(Bad Feminist is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

PACHINKO

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Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, 2017, 485 pp

I loved this saga of a Korean family spanning three generations and almost 90 years. It touched me emotionally, as both the female and male characters had to face hard challenges. It enlightened me as to Korean history and like several books I have read this year, the history is filtered through the lives of the characters. I enjoy learning this way.

If you look at a map, you see that Korea is a peninsula jutting out from the east coast of China between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. Just 120 miles further southeast lies Japan. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, making it their protectorate. From that time until the late 1980s, Koreans were first under Japanese rule and then, after WWII, either under Soviet or Chinese influence in the North or American in the South. The Japanese ran a protracted campaign to exterminate Korea as a nation, banning the language, religion and culture. Koreans were forced to take Japanese names and to support the Japanese war effort during WWII, either providing soldiers or "comfort women" for the military.

The upshot of all this was to make Koreans into second-class citizens and causing them to live under stereotypes not unlike what African Americans are subject to in the United States. The story opens with a quick look back at the married life of a Korean fisherman and his wife, how they came to run a boarding house for fishermen, how they found a wife for their only surviving son despite his cleft palate and twisted foot. This couple, Hoonie and Yangin, lost three babies in infancy but finally Sunja, a daughter, survived, thrived, and becomes the heroine of the novel. The guiding principal was survival.

So you see that nothing came easy for anyone and the struggle continues throughout the story. Even after Sunja relocates to Japan, hardships are ever present. The women work from daybreak to bedtime, and though the saying is that women are born to suffer, the truth is that almost all Koreans suffer.

This is not however an unrelentingly sad tale due in large part to Sunja and her sister-in-law who form a strong bond and are the backbone of two famililes. Because of their position in society there are inevitable questionable connections made with the underworld and in fact one of Sunja's two sons achieves success with a chain of Pachinko parlors, where people play pinball and gamble. The son is not a gangster but Pachinko was traditionally associated with crime, so people assume the worst. When this man's son reaches adulthood he finally assimilates into Japanese culture but home, Korea, and identity are lost and gone.

Pachinko tells the history of 20th century Koreans in the far east with a sweeping style and a passionate force. I could not stop reading it once I started.

(Pachinko is available in hard cover and audio by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)  

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE

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The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick, G P Putnam's Sons, 1962, 274 pp

This was Philip K Dick's breakout novel. It won the Hugo Award in 1963. It is not science fiction but alternate history. I have read six of his earlier novels and pronounce that his writing has more polish without having lost any of his signature wackiness.

The United States in 1962 is occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan, because the Allies lost the second world war. Slavery is legal, Jews hide behind assumed names, and almost everyone consults the I Ching before making any major moves in life or business.

The country is divided into regions: Pacific States, Rocky Mountain States, etc. American handcrafts from the 1940s are collectors items and upwardly mobile Japanese purchase and display them in their homes as status symbols.

In San Francisco, political intrigue rules the day with the Japanese and the Germans in uneasy alliance. It is a convoluted story fraught with tension for each main character. The madness and fear felt not unlike the times we live in now.

I have not watched the TV series adapted from the book, mostly because I do not have TV in my house. Actually I would prefer to reread the book at some point, perhaps after Trump is no longer President. 

(The Man in the High Castle is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

THE NOISE OF TIME

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The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes, Alfred A Knopf, 2016, 197 pp

Any novel about music is a novel I want to read. This one is a fictional biography of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. I had planned to read it since I heard about it last year. Meanwhile, earlier this year I read Madeleine Thien's astonishing Do Not Say We Have Nothing. In that novel, the young radical Chinese musicians disdain Shostakovich because he declined to leave the Soviet Union but continued to live and compose there, compromising his integrity as an artist in order to survive. I was even more intrigued.

The Noise of Time is a novel but Julian Barnes read just about everything he could find about the composer, including the man's own memoirs. One could say that Barnes interpreted all the conflicting facts and added his own artistry, much like a performer interpreting a composer's music. Perhaps it is a justification when he says in the Author's Note: "truth was a hard thing to find in Stalin's Russia." I thought he succeeded in extracting and teasing out as much truth as possible.

Shostakovich comes across as a brilliant composer but a weak and insecure human being. The more I got to know him the more I understood the choices he made. He could not have been all that weak because he lived and worked under constant fear of imprisonment or death for decades. As long as he remained free though, he cravenly gave in to pressures from Stalin and other Soviet officials. Reading about it is heartrending. 

His first opera, acclaimed and successful, was rejected by Stalin after attending one performance. Therefore all reviewers and musicologists reversed their opinions and the composer himself was forced to issue an apology for composing "degenerate" music. What must that do to a man's soul?

The novel shows what it does in compact chapters, with humor and compassion and without missing a step as concerns the effect of power on the creative arts. Chilling! I was as absorbed as I expected to be. Despite all, the composer continued to compose and many of his works survived Communism to become acknowledged as masterpieces today.

(The Noise of Time is available in various editions by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

FALLEN INTO THE PIT

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Fallen Into the Pit, Ellis Peters, Mysterious Press, 1951, 246 pp

Oh no! I have discovered a new (to me) mystery writer, as if I weren't already following enough of them. I blame it on My Big Fat Reading Project. It just keeps getting fatter, but better my project than me!

Ellis Peters is a pseudonym of Edith Pargeter, a British author who is best known for her Chronicles of Brother Cadfael historical mystery series. Both that series and her Inspector Felse series are set in Wales. I don't recall reading any mysteries set in Wales before.

In 1963, the author won the Edgar Award for the second book in the Felse series. Being, like my fellow blogger Dorothy, incapable of starting a series anywhere but at the beginning, I had to read Fallen Into the Pit before I read the Edgar winning Death and the Joyful Woman.

In a Welsh mining town just after WWII, a German ex-POW and ex-Nazi, a cruel coward and anti-semite, was found murdered in an area of deserted mine shafts. No one in the village is particularly sad to be rid of the man, who had never fit in there, but it was after all a murder and had to be solved. Because he was universally disliked, anyone could have been the murderer.

Sergeant George Felse must detect the murderer but since his son, 13-year-old Dominic, found the body, the boy keeps butting in on his father's investigation where he is not welcome. And that is not the only unusual aspect of this book.

It took me a good while to get into the story. Ellis Peters had been writing novels under various names since 1936, so I could not blame my reading difficulty on it being a first novel. I think it was partly the setting, not a familiar one to me except for some King Arthur novels. I also found the quite literary style of Ms Ellis's prose a bit daunting.

Eventually I was hooked and it turned out to be a good mystery. It was hard to figure out who the culprit was, the story was filled with fascinating characters and situations, and except for a slight tendency to fall into the pit of lulls in the action, it provided plenty of increasing tension.

One last unusual thing: that the murder victim was allowed to stay in Great Britain instead of being sent back to Germany once the war was over. Though that oddity fit with the time period and added to the tension in the village, I wonder if such a circumstance is historically accurate. Does anyone know?

I now look forward to the next book in the series, Death and the Joyful Woman. What a title. 

(Fallen Into the Pit is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.  It is also available in eBook form from Open Road at your favorite eBook vendor.)

THE ESSEX SERPENT

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The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry, William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2016, 418 pp

Summary from Goodreads: Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.

They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart. 

My Review:

I enjoyed this novel as much as I expected to. It suffers from a slow start but then picks up and brings the satisfaction of a well-written historical novel.

I especially liked the female characters. Cora Seaborne, released from a terrible marriage by the death of her husband, becomes a free-ranging woman in several ways. She reminded me a bit of Alma Whittaker in The Signature of All Things. Cora's companion Martha is an exquisite creation, a 19th century socialist/feminist, possibly bi-sexual creature who surprises at every turn. Stella Ransome, the consumptive wife of Reverend William Ransome, was glorious in her open hearted love for just about everyone but especially for her oxygen deprived ravings and preference for all things blue.

As far as the eponymous serpent goes, that was a bit of a bust once its true nature was revealed but served well to show what fear and superstition can do to a small village. The setting of Essex, the Blackwater River, the many moods of its estuary, and the almost haunted feel of the forest are much more scary than the monster. If you don't like a lot of description of the natural world though, be warned. You will get plenty.

I could say more but much of the pleasure in the novel comes from discovering it as one reads. I was drawn to it because of the supposed conflict between science and religion stressed in the marketing. In my reading experience, that was the least impressive aspect, more of a prop than an engine. What happens to the characters mattered most to me and that was all wonderfully unpredictable.

The reading group that indulged me and agreed to read it was split right down the middle and yet we could not stop talking about the book. And thanks to this being the May 2017 selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club, I got the hardcover with its beautiful dust cover at a darn good price. 

(The Essex Serpent is available in hardcover on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE SAND PEBBLES

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The Sand Pebbles, Richard McKenna, Harper & Row, 1962, 597 pp

This very long but extremely interesting novel was the #9 bestseller in 1963. I have completed the bestseller portion of that year's list. Now I am on to the Award winners of the year, of which there are six.

The Sand Pebbles are a nickname for the crew of the San Pablo, an old US Navy gunboat whose job is to patrol the Yangtze River, show the US flag, and protect American missionaries and businessmen. The story covers the years 1925 to 1927. Chiang Kai Shek was in those years a fairly young Chinese communist fomenting a revolution to do away with the power of the ruling dynasty, the war lords, and the unequal treaties that foreign businesses benefited from in China.

Jake Holman, a machinist, as the central character, is a maverick and loner who loves machines more than people. He ended up in the Navy as an escape from incarceration in his poverty-stricken small hometown. He hates authority figures and has no use for military regulations and procedures but he excels at keeping the San Pablo's steam engines running.

This is a big sprawling book but McKenna does an excellent job of melding story lines, building characters both American and Chinese, and keeping the excitement and tension high. As the political scene heats up, the San Pablo and its crew face danger, ridicule and even heartbreak. Jake grows into a man who does find many kinds of people he can relate to and possibly a way to deal with life.

According to the Introduction, the research is accurate. I was glad I read that first because I knew very little about that period of Chinese history. Thanks to the novel and a bit of internet study, I now know much more. My husband says he remembers seeing the novel on his mother's bookshelves when he was a kid. A movie starring Steve McQueen as Jake Holman came out in 1966.

Sailors, whores, coolies, communists, missionaries, warlords and what a plot! One of the best of the 1963 bestsellers.

Some of my blog followers have inquired about these bestseller lists I am reading, so for you, here is the list from 1963. You can find reviews of them all here on my blog.

 

1.    The Shoes of the Fisherman, Morris L West

2.    The Group, Mary McCarthy

3.    Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour, J D Salinger

4.    Caravans, James A Michener

5.    Elizabeth Appleton, John O’Hara

6.    Grandmother and the Priests, Taylor Caldwell

7.    City of Night, John Rechy

8.    The Glass-Blowers, Daphne du Maurier

9.    The Sand Pebbles, Richard McKenna

10. The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, Rumer Godden

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS

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The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson, Random House, 2010, 538 pp

I read this as part of my continuing quest to understand racism in the United States. It is an impressive work of history. The Great Migration of its subtitle refers to the period between 1915 and 1970 when 6 million black southerners left the region to resettle in the North. The repercussions of this migration would influence the country in many ways. The author calls it "perhaps the biggest under-reported story of the 20th century." I would say, after reading the book, that it has also been the biggest misinterpreted story until now.

Once again, I learned so much. I don't know if this part of American history is taught in high school these days. It certainly was not in my day.

The book is dense with facts and because it covers over 50 years of time it is dense with incidents. In order to bring human interest into such a vast body of research, the author follows the lives of three different characters who left at different times (1937, 1945, 1953) and settled in different cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.) 

Through their experiences she brings to life the sordid details of Jim Crow discrimination in the South. Though slaves were emancipated in 1863 by President Lincoln's executive order, former slaves and all people of color in the South had barely any rights. When they came north of the Mason/Dixon line, they could drink from the same water fountains, eat in the same restaurants, ride in the same bus seats and railroad cars as whites, sometimes, but a more subtle racism crowded them into city slums. All of this plays out in the lives of those three individuals and their Northern families. It also plays out in the social order of our land.

Some readers and reviewers have complained that the book is repetitive in an annoying way. Since I read it over a period of many weeks, I was grateful for that because there is so much information to keep track of. I thought Ms Wilkerson did an excellent job of organizing all that material.

One-hundred-fifty-four years have passed since the Emancipation Proclamation; fifty-three years since the Civil Rights Act. Many blacks have risen above discrimination and lack of good education to become successful members of American society but the fact remains that among much of our adult population, racism still operates. I ask myself how much longer it will take to right the wrongs of slavery and to correct the injustices of both slavery and current practices. I can't predict how long but I can predict that if Americans were better informed about our true history as a nation the time could be reduced.

The Warmth of Other Suns might not be a beach read, but if you are looking for answers to the puzzling times in which we live, you will find some of them here.

(The Warmth of Other Suns is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

A LITTLE MORE HUMAN

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A Little More Human, Fiona Maazel, Graywolf Press, 2017, 346 pp

As my fellow readers know, I like to read all kinds of books in all kinds of genres. I especially like the younger female authors who are taking on the world-in-flux where we now live. Ever since I read her second novel, Woke Up Lonely, Fiona Maazel has been right up there near the top of my list.

The Los Angeles Times reviewer of this current novel said, "Imagine a situation comedy written by Philip K Dick or a telenovela penned by Thomas Pynchon." I didn't want to write down what I thought as I read the book (she writes likes a man) because that seems so conflictedly sexist, but Jim Ruland did it for me.

Fiona Maazel does the magic trick of creating completely unlikable characters that I grow to almost love. Phil Snyder and his equally wonky and hapless wife are two of those. Phil works as a nursing assistant at his parents' bleeding edge biotech research and rehabilitation center, SCET, where wounded soldiers and sufferers of brain disease receive experimental surgeries. On the side, Phil also has a weekend gig impersonating Brainstorm, star of a movie about a telepathic crime solver. The joke is that Phil can actually read minds but he can't solve the many crimes encircling his life.

Why did his wife turn to SCET for artificial insemination without telling him? How did his mother die? Is his current BFF Ben a true friend? And how the hell did he wake up one morning on the back of a horse, hungover, and covered in blood and semen? Did he really rape a woman while drunk?

This is a deep dark thriller that mines some of the horrible crimes going on at the fringes of modern society. The humor is black. The prose is relentless, jagged as a rapier in rapid action. As in her former novel, I spent the first half of the book crippled with doubt about why I was reading it, but I finished the book in awe. On Twitter I said I was left mentally gaping. 

(A Little More Human is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

JULY READING GROUP UPDATE

The year is half gone, the sun is bright and hot, and another month of reading groups is starting. Only four again this month but an exotic selection of novels. I have already read two of the books some years ago, but I am going to reread one of those. Can you guess which one?

Laura's Group:

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One Book At A Time:

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Bookie Babes:

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Tina's Group:

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If you happened to be in Los Angeles this month, which book(s) would you like to discuss? You are welcome any time!!

BOOKS READ IN JUNE

June was a hot month in Los Angeles. The traditional June Gloom did not occur, though we had plenty of May Gray the month before. My reading pace was only so-so. I only read 7 books, including the very long but great The Warmth of Other Suns (review coming soon.) 

Stats: 7 books read. 5 fiction. 6 by women. 3 for My Big Fat Reading Project. 2 non-fiction as research for my memoir.

Favorites: The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks, The Shadow Land

Least favorite: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

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How was your reading in June? Any favorites you would like to recommend?

If I am going to meet my personal reading challenge for the year, I need to speed it up. I am already 12 books behind. It's just a game, I know. But I am going to read now!!

THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, Rumer Godden, The Viking Press, 1963, 312 pp

 

 

This novel is the fourth bestseller from 1963 that includes infidelity as a major element of the plot: The Group by Mary McCarthy, Caravans by James Michener, Elizabeth Appleton by John O'Hara, and now Rumer Godden's novel at #10 on the list. If that doesn't presage the sexual revolution of the late 1960s and the 1970s feminist movement, I don't know how else to account for it.

 

Of course, women have been leaving their lawfully married husbands for someone better or more exciting for centuries. In fact I have come across the topic fairly often in my reading. I have the idea that Rumer Godden has a religious bent, possibly because the only other book of hers I have read is In This House of Brede which features nuns. I wondered how she would handle infidelity.

Fanny Clavering, mother of three and wife of Darrell, meets a dashing and renowned movie director, Rob Quillet, and falls head over heels. Darrell, being a British Army colonel, is forever being sent on diplomatic missions. He has been gone more than he has been home for their entire married life.

Rob woos Fanny away with secret dinners in restaurants and lovemaking that clearly is nothing like what Fanny ever got from Darrell. So after much dithering, Fanny divorces Darrell and takes off with Rob to the glamorous Villa of Fiorita, Italy.

Her two younger children, 14-year-old Hugh and 12-year-old Caddie, are devastated by the breakup of their home. They scrape up as much money as they can and travel alone to Italy, intending to "rescue" their mother and bring her home.

Thus ensues a tragicomic encounter between the two generations made even more complex by the arrival of Rob's love daughter from Paris. Does anyone remember The Parent Trap where Haley Mills plays both of the twins who scheme to get their parents back together? Rumer Godden's book is a bit more serious and of course it is British.

She creates wonderful child characters and makes you feel their confusions, their torn loyalties, and all the growing up they suddenly have to do. The adults do not come off as well and I was dismayed by the ending.

Really? Must a woman pay so dearly for following her heart, for pursuing pleasure? Does her life belong to her children? Tough questions and readers, I have lived them.

(The Battle of the Villa Fiorita is out of print but can be found in libraries, at used book sellers and in e-Book form.)

THE SHADOW LAND

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The Shadow Land, Elizabeth Kostova, Ballantine Books, 2017, 476 pp

Summary from Goodreads: An engrossing novel that spans the past and the present and unearths the dark secrets of Bulgaria, a beautiful and haunted country.

A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes.

As Alexandra sets out to locate the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by oppression and she will find out all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger.
 

My Review:

If you loved The Historian as much as I did and even if you didn't love The Swan Thieves to the same degree (I loved it in a different way from Elizabeth Kostova's first novel), you will probably love The Shadow Land. In each book, we have a literary writer who also never fails to include mystery, romance and the sense of a thriller while covering parts of history that at least I did not know before.

Alexandra Boyd is similar to other female characters in Ms Kostova's books. At first I found her a little too bewildered and passive, but then at the beginning of the story she had just arrived in Bulgaria after more than 24 hours of air travel, jet-lagged, under slept and a stranger to the country. As the novel progressed she proved to have a strong sense of what she felt was right and to follow that sense despite fear and doubt.

The ashes she mistakenly came to possess on that groggy morning in Sophia turn out to be the remains of the talented violinist Stoyan Lazarov, who was prevented from living the life of a celebrated touring musician because of the political turmoil of his home country. He spent years in Communist work camps where his hands were ruined and his dreams destroyed.

In order to return the musician's remains to his family, Alexandra must learn the history of Lazarov's life and penetrate a great deal of secrecy and fear. She turns out to be a determined young woman with an abundance of courage.

Once again I learned the history of a country I could barely find on a map. There is so much to learn about the world that I don't like to spend time berating my ignorance. A novel that can teach me so much in under 500 pages while keeping me on the edge of my seat the whole time as well as introducing me to such vivid characters is something extra special. I even got some insight into the current political scene in the world.

Highly recommended. 

(The Shadow Land is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

 

THE REBELLIOUS LIFE OF MRS ROSA PARKS

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The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis, Beacon Press, 2013, 244 pp

Although this book was only 244 pages, short for a biography, it took me quite a while to get through it. I had wanted to read it ever since it was published and I learned much I hadn't known before, so I can only think that it was something about the writing style which made for a somewhat dry read.

The premise put forth by Jeanne Theoharis is that Mrs Parks has been relegated to being thought of as only a nice little lady who refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1955. The resulting year-long bus boycott by Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama, brought Martin Luther King to nationwide recognition and positioned him as the leader of the Civil Rights movement but left Rosa in the background. The biography recounts her earlier full decade of activism before the bus incident. Instead of suddenly deciding to stay in her seat after a long day at work, her resistance was in fact the product of long discouraging hard work as she and her husband tried in many ways to fight against Jim Crow segregation in the South.

We get the whole history of her life which went on for another 50 years after the day on the bus. Due to decisions made by predominately male civil rights leaders and due to developments in the movement, she was converted into a symbol of non-violent protest. She was a soft-spoken and somewhat shy person but actually held strong beliefs about freedom and rights for all people. She never stopped working to bring those beliefs into reality.

Though she willingly traveled the country for years to speak at rallies and events, she also spent countless hours, days, and years at a desk, managing civil rights offices, making phone calls, and writing letters. Much has been written about how the male leaders of various civil rights groups were reluctant to put power in women's hands. Rosa comes across in this biography as a women who cared deeply about others' rights to equality and freedom but had difficulty claiming her own rights.

She suffered from dire financial insecurity after the bus boycott because no white business would hire her or her husband following the arrest and trial she endured. She was fired from her job as an alterations seamstress at one of Montgomery's fine department stores. She also had health problems and no money for treatment, while daily hate calls came through her phone and bricks through her windows. In her political views she was closer to Malcolm X and the Black Panthers in the 1960s than she was to Dr King. Mainly she was tireless, determined, and not given to petty disputes.

I am so glad I read the book as it added to my understanding of those times. The author's research goes deep and felt sound. The racism encountered by Mrs Parks and her husband after they moved to Detroit in 1957, though not as outwardly virulent, was nearly as bad as it had been in Alabama. Rosa called it "the Northern promised land that wasn't."

When I read about women as strong as Rosa, as dedicated to her beliefs, as filled with hope and faith that change is possible, it becomes impossible to complain about any single thing in my life. (Of course I still do.) Change is not the result of one memorable deed. It is the result of long, hard, persistent work. I thank Jeanne Theoharis for resurrecting the real Mrs Rosa Parks from the oblivion of having been made into a political symbol and giving anyone who takes the time to read her book the full picture of an amazing female.

(The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

GRANDMOTHER AND THE PRIESTS

Grandmother and the Priests, Taylor Caldwell, Doubleday & Company Inc, 1963, 469 pp

 

 

Whenever I see a Taylor Caldwell novel on one of My Big Fat Reading Project bestseller lists, I sigh and groan and gird myself to suffer through another wordy, melodramatic, sometimes religious tone layered in with her odd political views. (You may ask, why do I read them then? For the answer, see my post on My Big Fat Reading Project.) This one was the #6 bestseller in 1963 and turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It does have a strong religious theme but was much more palatable for me than The Shoes of the Fisherman. I will explain why.

The grandmother of the title is a rich Irish widow who gave up the Catholic religion at a young age. She likes to dress up, drink, and throw parties. For no explained reason, she regularly hosted dinner parties for a group of priests. Is it a cliche that priests love good rich food and fine wines, brandy and whiskey? I seem to have run across this trope in many novels ranging from mid 20th century bestsellers to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall series. 

What made this an enjoyable novel was the tales told by these priests as they sat around the fire after dinner, well fed and certainly a bit drunk. All of them are Irish and another cliche is what good storytellers the Irish are. That storytelling gift is also evident in all of Taylor Caldwell's books and I decided she was almost the Danielle Steele of her era.

The tales were entertaining as each priest looked back at his younger days, usually spent at some poor parish in off-the-beaten-track Irish towns. The housing was often shabby, the food spare, the weather beastly, and the nuns controlling. Yet these priests became father figure, judge, psychologist and just plain problem solver for their parishioners. 

Every tale includes a moral conundrum demanding the young priest to think outside the box while maintaining a grounding in Catholic doctrine and needing to save as many souls as possible. Though a couple of these stories went on a bit too long, I actually loved the ways these holy men overcame doubt and fear and sometimes downright criminal behavior. In each case, it was their humanitarian urges that brought them through hardship to create better conditions for all involved.

We could use a few more men like them today!

DREAMING IN CUBAN

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Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia, Random House, 1992, 245 pp

 

From the French Revolution in The Glass-Blowers I went directly to the Cuban Revolution. In light of recent developments in the United States relations with Cuba, the Tiny Book Club decided to read a novel set in Cuba and written by a Cuban. Cristina Garcia was born in Havana on July 4, 1958, just about six months before Fidel Castro's revolution ousted dictator Batista. So even though her family fled Cuba when she was only two years old, we thought her first novel would fit the bill.

It is a wonderful novel and like The Glass-Blowers, deals with the impact and consequences of revolution on a family. For various reasons I have lately been thinking about the consequences of divorce on families with children. There are numerous parallels between the two. The bottom line is upheaval accompanied by the necessity to take sides, the emotional turmoil, the economic disruption, and the fact that nothing will be the same as it was before.

The viewpoint in this novel is decidedly female and each female is her own unique person. My favorite character was Celia, the grandmother, who remained in Cuba and was a supporter of Castro and his hopes for the country. She is a complex character who harbored a life long love for her first boyfriend, who had a difficult relationship with her husband, who went crazy at the birth of her first daughter and was sent to an asylum by that husband where she was given shock treatments. Good God!

That first daughter, Lourdes, moved to New York after her marriage. She purely hates Castro and is a complete piece of work with not one gentle emotion in her makeup, but I liked her too. A second daughter remained in Cuba and is a wild woman who dabbles in a Cuban mystical religion originated by slaves and succumbs to it in the end.

Then there is Pilar, daughter of Lourdes and an example of a 1970s daughter of immigrants in New York's art scene. She is Celia's favorite granddaughter and they long for each other. She was my second favorite character.

Basically every character is fractured in some way, even the men, and if you are looking for exemplary mothers you won't find a one. But you will find fierce mothers and strong emotions and wild behaviors. The lushness of Cuba, the magical realism that is just part of the country, and the search for identity in an essentially broken society are all brought to full and vivid life.

Though one of the Tinies had some trouble with the way the story jumps about in time, we all felt we got what we were looking for. I had no idea Cristina Garcia has written so many books. I read The Aguero Sisters about 20 years ago but now I want to read them all.

(Dreaming in Cuban is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE GLASS-BLOWERS

The Glass-Blowers, Daphne Du Maurier, Doubleday & Company, 1963, 348 pp

 

 

Daphne Du Maurier has two distinct voices as a novelist. One is the gothic, psychological voice of Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and others. The second is the one she uses for her historical fiction, as in The King's General or Mary Anne. The Glass-Blowers, #8 on the 1963 bestseller list, is in the historical fiction mode. The author was descended from a family of glass-blowers and honors them with her novel.

Some readers are more pleased with the gothic novels but I like both of her genres, especially because in the historical ones I always learn pieces of history I didn't know. This one takes place in several renowned glass-blowing establishments, operated by the Duval family and situated south of Paris. It covers the period of time leading up to the French Revolution through to Napoleon becoming emperor. The political upheaval of those times causes great disturbances for the family including loss of business and division between family members who sided with the Republic and those who were Loyalists to the King.

Though it was sometimes tricky to keep all the family members, locations, and political factions straight, I was never less than captivated by the story. It is full of intrigue, heartbreak, and hardship. As in any family saga, there are heroes and heroines alongside less admirable characters. I loved the ways the family dealt with all the problems and divided views. Several awesome female characters are central to the tale.

Best of all, the novel gave me another side of the Revolution than the one taught in school. It showed the daily and yearly challenges that such political turmoil brought to the livelihoods and history of families, especially families who were intrinsic to the character of the society and nation that was France in the late 18th century.

I finished the book with the realization that my knowledge of the French Revolution and its outcomes is rather thin. I have decided to read A Tale of Two Cities (how have I gone through the majority of my life without reading that?) and Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund, which has lingered on my shelves for years.

LITTLE NOTHING

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Little Nothing, Marisa Silver, Blue Rider Press, 2016, 333 pp

This is the third novel I have read by Marisa Silver and it is amazing, definitely a contender for my top 25 of the year.

Pavla is born a dwarf in an unnamed Eastern European country on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. Her small village is steeped in superstition. At first her mother, who has at last had a child, cannot accept what she views as a freak. But both parents come to love this late life child, so that even though Pavla is tormented by the kids at school who call her Little Nothing, she has a loving family.

Eventually that love takes a weird turn as the aging parents worry about Pavla's future after they are no longer there to protect her. They begin taking her to doctors, one of whom claims that if he stretches the girl, she will grow. Thus ends the good part of the little person's life and thus enters horror.

At that point the novel takes a weird turn and becomes a dark folk tale. I will not say more except that there is a fractured love story, that Pavla is an admirable character of many levels, and that in Marisa Silver's hands the story takes you to places you will not expect but you will believe.

This is a novel about transformation, about how people deal with trouble and are changed by it. It is hard to put down and if you can suspend your disbelief it will bring you gifts.

(Little Nothing is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE SNOWY DAY

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The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats, Viking Books, 1962, 28 pp


THE SUNDAY FAMILY READ

In 1937 the American Library Association  created The Caldecott Medal to recognize the preceding year's "most distinguished picture book for children." It is awarded to the illustrator. As part of My Big Fat Reading Project, I read the major award winning books of each year's list. In 1963, there were only six major awards in the United States. (As of 2017, I include 21 award categories!)

Ezra Jack Keats won the Caldecott Medal in 1963 for The Snowy Day. In keeping with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, it was the picture book that broke the color barrier in children's publishing. Keats wrote the prose and created the illustrations.

Peter, a black child, wakes up one morning to find that snow has fallen. He has breakfast and then dons his snowsuit and ventures out to see the snow. He observes his footprints, he knocks snow off tree branches with a stick, he watches the big boys having a snowball fight but feels too young to join them, slides down a mountain of snow, and so on.

I have read this book to many toddlers including my sons. I grew up with snowy winters. It was a pleasure to revisit the story on a 90 degree May day in southern California.

Ezra Jack Keats was born in 1916 in the Jewish quarter of Brooklyn, the son of Polish immigrants. He grew up to make his living as an illustrator. He created Peter saying, "None of the manuscripts I'd been illustrating featured any black kids...My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along." The Snowy Day made him famous.

(The Snowy Day is available as a board book on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. It is also available paperback and hardcover by order.)

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

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The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes, Alfred A Knopf, 2011, 104 pp

 

 

This was my first Julian Barnes novel and I liked it overall; the writing, the way he created the characters, and the theme about how our memories are subject to change as life goes on. After three earlier nominations, he finally won the Booker for this one.

 

Tony Webster was one of a tight group of friends in his school days, so tight that they vowed to stay in touch for the rest of their lives. Adrian Finn, the latest addition to the group, was the brightest of them and Tony developed quite a bromance with him. 

 

The novel is narrated by Tony who is looking back over his life. He has been divorced for many years but is still "friends" with his wife and in pretty good touch with their daughter. The news that Adrian committed suicide after stealing and then marrying Tony's first girlfriend has kept the other three men in touch, though more sporadically than they had planned. When the mother of the lost girlfriend dies, she leaves a sum of money and Adrian's diaries to Tony in her will even though she and Tony only met once. 

 

As an older man, Tony is the quintessential English man, unadventurous with suppressed emotions. The bequest sends him into all manner of uncharacteristic behaviors and stirs up memories he had completely blocked out.

 

The old girlfriend was a mean, heartless bitch who toyed with the young Tony, especially sexually. She is one of the most unlikable characters I have met in a novel. As the stories of these characters unfold, the reader becomes as obsessed with finding out the truth as Tony is.

Then comes a completely unexpected reveal at the end which left me unsure of how much I liked the novel. We discussed the book at length at the Bookie Babes reading group meeting. I decided that as a novel, it was actually excellent, especially because I didn't see at all what was coming and was made to reevaluate each character. 

How do you react as a reader to surprise endings? The kind that make suddenly make you realize that the book you thought you were reading is something else entirely. I felt a bit like I had been tricked but without that ending I may have found the story somewhat boring and predictable.

Has anyone seen the movie? If so, did you find it good?

(The Sense of an Ending is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

 

 

JUNE READING GROUP UPDATE

It must be summer, at least almost. I only have 4 reading group meetings this month and I have already read all the books. That means I get to see all my favorite reading people while I read what I want to read for the next several weeks. I think I have got this down!

Molly's Group:

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Tiny Book Club:

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Laura's Group:

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Bookie Babes: 

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So I know by now that most of you who follow this blog are not in reading groups. But, if you were, what book that you have read lately would you most want to discuss with other readers?

MISSING PERSON

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Missing Person, Patrick Modiano, David R Godine, 2005, 168 pp (translated from the French by Daniel Weissbort, originally published in French, 1978, by Editions Gaillimard as Rue de Boutiques Obscures)

Patrick Modiano was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2014. He was virtually unheard of in the United States before then. According to our stated purpose to read only Nobel Prize winning authors or Pulitzer Prize winning novels, my Literary Snobs reading group of two members chose Missing Person, said by several reviewers to be one of his best novels.

The author was born in July, 1945, less than a year after the liberation of Paris from German occupation. His mother was a Flemish actress who worked for a Nazi film studio in Paris during the war. His father was a Sephardic Jew who worked the black market and may have been a collaborator for his own protection. These parents neglected their two sons, leaving them with relatives much of the time. The Occupation became Modiano's obsession and most of his books are concerned with it.

Missing Person is an atmospheric mystery about Guy Roland, a man who lost his memory during the war and is searching to find out who he was. He had been given a job 10 years earlier by a successful private investigator in Paris, who took Guy under his wing. Knowing about the man's amnesia, the detective procured for him a new identity complete with papers and trained Guy as his assistant.

Now this mentor has retired and moved to Nice, but he left the keys to his office to Guy. The novel is the story of Guy's search for his past. He makes use of the voluminous records of persons and incidents in that office, follows up on leads, and gradually begins to piece together who he may have been.

Guy moves around from place to place both in Paris and it outskirts, meeting various individuals who keep giving him collections of photos and other memorabilia. I became more and more intrigued with his journeys into shadowy years lost in the general Parisian amnesia about that German occupation.

I already knew from reading Simone de Beauvoir's memoirs, that it was a shameful time in Paris. So many collaborated with the Germans, for protection and sometimes simply for enough to eat, but afterwards the collaborators were hated by those who formed the Resistance to the Nazis. Simone de Beauvoir and her lover, Jean Paul Sartre, were part of the Resistance. A decade later, which is when this novel takes place, many just chose to forget all of it.

The writing is an expression of the disjointed fragments of Guy's memories. It has a poetic noir feel. Guy, having nothing to lose, is relentless and unafraid though naturally swinging between hopelessness and exhilaration as certain details begin to come back to him.

Perhaps Guy's experience would not mean much to readers who never experienced those strange years in France, but the novel won the Prix Goncourt, the French equivalent of the Pulitzer, the year it was published. I was riveted and not even disappointed by the ambiguous ending. It is all about the search.

(Missing Person is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

  

BOOKS READ IN MAY

I had another great reading month in May. I read 12 books, partly because more of the books were short. The shortest was a picture book! I kept to my resolution to read one 1963 book each week so next month I will finish the top ten bestseller section of that list and move on to the award winners.

Stats: 12 books read. 12 fiction, 5 by women, 4 for My Big Fat Reading Project, 1 translated.

My favorites were Outline, The Wonder, Little Nothing, and Dreaming in Cuban.

Least favorite was Bad Sex.

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How was your reading in May? Any recommendations for me?

Happy reading in June!!