Laila Lalami| Fiction,  2019

301 pages

The Other Americans begins when a Moroccan immigrant named Driss Guerraoui is killed by a hit and run driver one evening while leaving his diner, near California’s Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree National Park.  Driss’s American born daughter Nora opens the book by telling the story of the death of her father, as she enters as the main character.

After Nora’s initial recounting of the news, Lalami introduces her other narrators.  There are nine in all, including Jeremy, an old school friend of Nora’s, who is white; Efrain, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who witnessed the hit and run; Maryam, Driss’s Moroccan wife; Salma, Nora’s overachieving sister; and Coleman, the black woman detective working Driss’s case.

This is a mystery, a love story, a family saga, and a commentary on American culture.  The Other Americans is our community read this month, presented by the county library.  This is the 18th year our county has enjoyed a community read, called “A Novel Idea.”  The book was chosen by both my book clubs to read this month, and so my expectations were high.  And dashed.

Moroccan-born Laila Lalami introduces so many cultural components, including xenophobia, undocumented immigration, race, opioid abuse, PTSD from the war in Iraq, family expectations, and more, that she does not cover any of them with particular depth, clarity, or expertise.  I felt she did an especially poor job of writing about race and culture.  She mentions these elements only casually, and without an exploration of either her character’s internal experience, or much depth in the relationships among the characters.

That being said, her development of Nora’s character is very strong, and the mystery storyline (who DID kill Driss, and was it an accident or murder?) make the tale readable and engaging.  But it was neither the social commentary nor the learning I was hoping for.

April 2021

Hannah Rothschild

Fiction  2015 | 406 pages

If it were winter, I would recommend this book for a long, cold, winter weekend.  It is a novel that you just want to lose yourself in. A cup of hot chocolate at your side, you will eagerly turn the next page.  Rich with story, character development, and depth, an improbable tale weaves together centuries of art, Naziism and Jews, culinary delight, and the beginnings of love.

The Improbability of Love is not what you likely imagine right now ... it is actually the title of an 18th century oil masterpiece. The painting is fictional; the painter, Jean-Antoine Watteau, is not.

Annie McDee, a struggling chef, buys this painting at a junk shop for a man she met at a speed-dating event.  He stands her up and the painting becomes hers.  Annie’s alcoholic mother Evie has an intuition that this painting is important and urges Annie to research it.  Thus begins a tale of London’s outrageous art scene, with dealers, museum curators, art auction houses, authenticators, art authors, restorers, socialites, and a delightful gay “fixer.” We follow all these characters through the discovery of the real provenance of this dirty and smudged lost painting.

The most delightful chapters are those written by the painting itself, as it informs us about how it feels about all these shenanigans, as well as a bit about all the walls it has hung on over the centuries.

Yes, there are a few discontinuities in Ms. Rothschild’s writing, but not enough to upset.  This is Rothschild’s first novel, though she has written non-fiction in the art scene. The book integrates passion, power, violence, loyalty, intrigue, mystery, love.  And yes, you can read it in the spring in your back yard as the daffodils begin to bloom, just as well as on a wintry eve. I recommend you do so.

Thank you, Claire, for a gratifying recommendation.

April 2021

Mary Oliver

Poetry 2013 | 121 pages

Someone I dearly love gave me this book of poetry by the infamous Mary Oliver.  I read it.  And then I read it again.  It is a book about a woman and her dogs.  But, of course, it is also much more than that.  Here are two favorite stanzas:

• You may not agree, you may not care, but
• If you are holding this book you should know
• That of all the sights I love in this world —
• And there are plenty — very near the top of
• The list is this one: dogs without leashes.  (pg 5)

AND

• A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
• Smells of the world, but you know, watching her,
• That you know
• Almost nothing. (Pg 27)

Yes, take 15 minutes to read this book, if you love dogs.  Or freedom.  Or life.

March, 2021

Bridgett M. Davis

Biography 2019 | 308 pages

I cannot disentangle my (suburban) Detroit upbringing from my assessment of this book as a biography, as a tale to be told.  So, please recognize my bias when I tell you I love this book!  You never know when someone writes a memoir or autobiography or biography ... even if the story is wonderful, is the author?  Both work exceedingly well in The World According to Fannie Davis.

Davis writes about her mother Fannie, who ran an entrepreneurial and illegal numbers business (a community-based precursor to state lotteries; more on that when you read this book) in Detroit, from the 60’s to the early 90’s, keeping her family firmly in the black middle class of the Midwest, and avoiding poverty.  There were illegal numbers being run in many cities in the Midwest and East, so her memories also make a statement about what it was like to be black in big-city America, in the 60’s and 70’s especially. This is the story of family, but also it is an education on race, survival, thriving, secrets, and consciousness.  In Detroit in particular, this story includes the unionization of black workers in the automobile industry, racial unrest, white flight, police brutality, community love and connection, discrimination, riots, family loyalty, graft and corruption, the mafia, JL Hudson and Maurice Salad, and, nearest and dearest to my heart, the rise and pervasive influence of Motown.

I didn’t cry at the end, but I did have a lump in my throat.  This biography is intimate and draws you right in.  I will remember this book for a while, I think.  If you read it (which I suggest!) I will be interested to share this story with you and to read or hear your reactions.

Mary (another Detroit woman), thank you for suggesting this fine biography.

March 2021

Kimiko Tobimatsu

Nonfiction Memoir 2020 | 101 pages

At the tender age of twenty-five, Kimiko is diagnosed with breast cancer.  This graphic memoir explores what she encounters as a mixed-race, young, queer woman, but I found its real value in how she explores life after treatment.  If you have had cancer, or know someone who has, this beautifully illustrated novel will offer insight into what happens for months and perhpas years after treatment is complete.  It will take you about 30 minutes to read and is absolutely worth your time.

March 2021

Elly Griffiths

Fiction, 2009 | 303 pages

Well, I made it all the way through.  And that’s about the biggest praise I can muster.  Bad writing, in my opinion, with very shallow characters; even the main character, Ruth Galloway.  Too many men characters for some bizarre reason, and I couldn’t keep them straight.  The ending of this mystery was good, however ... written in a manner to make my heart pound.

Ruth Galloway is an archeologist who lives alone on a saltmarsh in England and becomes embroiled in amateur sleuthing when some children are lost and presumed murdered.  There are 14 Ruth Galloway mysteries, so someone likes Griffiths’ writing.  I personally am going to forgo 13 of them.  Sorry, Jan D.

March, 2021

Brit Bennett

Fiction 2020 | 352 pages

“Brilliant, stunning, eloquent, gorgeous, thought-provoking, intricate, moving.”  These are just some of the words reviewers have written, and for good reason.  The Vanishing Half is a novel about identical twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, born in 1952, in a minuscule Louisiana town that prides itself on breeding light-skinned Black people, some of whom are light enough to pass for White.  And Stella does, separating herself from her twin and her family for 25 years.  They each have a daughter ... Jude, who is so black they call her “blue black” and Kennedy, a blond violet-eyed beauty.  The daughters’ lives eventually intersect and, of course, all their lives are irrevocably altered.

The story is exceptional and difficult to put down. I was often reading pages this last week at 3:30 in the morning.  The writing is simply superb. Brit Bennett was listed by Time magazine on March 8 as one of the next “100 Most Influential People in the World.”

There is no hesitation on my part.  Read this four-heart book as soon as you can get your hands on it ... there is already a long wait for it at your library!

March 2021

Jaqueline Woodson

Nonfiction autobiography,  2014

325 pages

I am disappointed in this book.  It is the story of author Jaqueline Woodson’s life, told in poetic form.  It feels to me forced and artificial.  “Now, for interest, this time I am going to write my autobiography in poetry.”  It is contrived.  What we lose is a coherent emotional story.  What we lose is artful writing with images and compelling turns of phrase .... which I would expect from true poetry.  A waste of effort on both the author’s and the reader’s part.

March, 2021

Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele

Nonfiction memoir 2018 | 257 pages

At first, I wasn’t all that thrilled about reading When They Call You a Terrorist.  I am not sure what I expected.  Some sanitized ... or perhaps glorified ... biography of the woman who first posted #BlackLivesMatter ... that is what I thought I was about to read. But it is not. It is her personal memoir.  It is the story of Kahn-Cullors' childhood and her youth, growing up poor and Black in LA County, with her two brothers and one sister, raised by a mother who works three jobs, and still does not rise about the poverty level.  It is the story of her two fathers.  It is the story of unjust prison sentences and unrecognized and untreated mental illness.  It is the story of immeasurable discrimination, violence, assumptions, injustice, and more.  It is the tale of lives gone awry, with no possible redemption.  Her narrative is personal; her writing is easy to read; but the content of her story is profoundly disturbing.  Reading this memoir left me with a single question .... how could she NOT start the Black Lives Matter movement?  With her intelligence, wisdom, compassion, passion, and history, it is inexorable.

Yes, read this book and learn about a woman whose name we should all know, but don’t.  Which, in itself, is part of her story.

March 2021

Sophia Segovia

Fiction, 2020 | 461 pages

The Murmur of Bees is a gorgeous story.  When you are ready to lose yourself in a novel that is artistically written, with deep and complex characters, find yourself a copy of The Murmur of Bees.

Set in the small town of Linares in Mexico, south of Monterey, the story begins when Nana Reja discovers an infant, abandoned under a bridge, disfigured (harelip?) and covered with bees who do not harm him.  He is named Simonopio.  He goes to live with the Morales family, landowners who take him in and raise him as their own. We follow the Morales family though many decades, deaths, and, in the first half, the great plague of 1917/1918.

The tale is narrated by Simonopio’s younger brother, Francisco, who is born when Simonopio is 12.  The bind between these two brothers is intense and unbreakable during their early years, though Simonopio cannot speak except in his own self-formed language.  And there is magic.  Magic that is imbued with wisdom, wanderlust, safety, communication, adventure, prediction of the future.  Simonopio is intimately linked with bees, in their mutually beneficial relationship.  It is with the bees, following the bees, learning from the bees, being protected by the bees, that he develops into a man.

The first of Segovia’s novels to be translated from Spanish into English, it is well worth your time, sitting on the couch with a cup of tea.  I recommend it highly.  Thank you, Carolyn, for this luscious read.

March 2021