Books Set in the United States

The Book of V., by Anna Solomon (2020)

The Book of V. is a novel of three women, loosely related, in three different time periods, each of which has a miserable life with the men in their lives.  The book is a re-imagination of the Biblical Esther and her life as Queen of Persia.  Jump forward to the 1970s and the beginning of the Women’s Movement and we meet Vivian Kent.  She is the 2^nd wife of a United States Senator.  On the surface, she would seem to have the perfect life, but for her cruel husband.  When she leaves him, she goes to stay for a while with her friend, Rosemary.  Rosemary has 3 children and a husband.  The husband wants Vivian out of the house.  Finally, we see Lily, a young stay-at-home mother struggling to raise her young daughters.

I didn’t care for any of the characters.  All seemed so self-centered.  The only reason I can give this 3 stars is for the final 3^rd of the book, which brings together a moment of clarity.

Read:  July 30, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Burundi

Small Country, by Gaël Faye (2018)

Small Country is a semi-autobiographical novel of Gabriel, a young boy growing up in Burundi in the 1990s.  He had an idyllic childhood, living in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi to a French diplomat father and a Tutsi Rwandan mother.  Most of his closest young friends also had white fathers and Black mothers.  His life is sheltered from the politics brewing in his country.

As a 10-year old boy, he spent his days stealing mangos from neighbors’ trees and selling them back to tree’s owners.  He is oblivious to the rising tensions erupting in Rwanda, other than the whispers he hears from his parents.

His mother is a Rwandan refugee and has family still living in her home country.  She worries about her native country.  Her younger brother decided to return to Rwanda to fight for the Tutsi, who are being slaughtered by the Hutus.  Gabriel becomes aware of conflict when his family visits their Rwandan family to attend his uncle’s wedding.  While there, he eavesdrops and hears his aunt describing the violence and genocide of Tutsis.

The violence knows no borders and erupts in Burundi, too.  Gabriel recalls the first democratic election of the country’s president in June 1993.  He was the country’s first Hutu president and had hoped to smooth relations between the Hutus and Tutsi in the country.  When he was assassinated 3 months later, the country erupted into a civil war.  The political climate had a profound impact on Gabriel.  His young friends are anxious to take up the “cause” and defend their neighborhood.  Gabriel retreats into books and befriends and elderly Greek widow who has a house filled with books.

The civil war forced its citizens to choose sides.  Violence and death are all around and curfews are in place.  Young Gabriel is suddenly faced with a terrible choice that will end his childhood with which ever option he selects.

This is a small novel, but very powerful.

Read:  July 25, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Israel

Waking Lions, by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (2014)

Dr. Eitan Green is a young neurosurgeon who had been transferred to a remote hospital in the Negev because he refused to participate in a bribery scheme in his hospital in the city.  While driving home one evening after a long day at the hospital, he ran over and killed an Eritrean immigrant on a lonely stretch of the desert road.  He got out of his SUV to investigate, and, although the man was still alive, it was clear that the man was fatally injured.  Eitan got back in his vehicle and drove home to his wife and two young sons.

The next morning, the dead man’s widow, Sirket, knocked on Eitan’s door and handed him his wallet.  She told him to meet her late in the evening in a garage nearby.  Thinking that she wanted money, Eitan withdrew a large sum of money to bring to their rendezvous.  Sirket took the money, but she wanted so much more.

Illegal immigrants from Eritrea have been flooding into Israel and are in need of medical care.  Sirket quickly saw that she could blackmail Eitan into treating these people in return for his silence.  She demanded that he go to the garage each night after his daily rounds are over.  In order to do this, Eitan must begin a web of lies with his wife and with his boss at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Eitan’s wife, Liat, is a police detective.  She was assigned to investigate the hit-and-run.  Her fellow officers, however, were disinterested in tracking down the driver, since the victim was “just” an illegal.  Furthermore, they blamed the hit-and-run on young Bedouin boy, who refused to participate in his defense after he was arrested.

This is a novel of secrets.  As the layers of the characters are peeled back, the reader learns of the secrets each one carries and the price of those burdens.  The novel also investigates the complex relations between the Israeli, Bedouins and Eritreans.

The title of the book comes from an Eritrean proverb that says once a lion has woken up and tastes human flesh, it will never eat anything else again.  As we learn more about Sirket, we realize that she has become the woken lion.

Because Eitan is a neurosurgeon, the first few pages describe medical conditions.  I was struck by the description of the hit-and-run victim because my mother was also struck and killed by a car (although not a hit-and-run) and suffered a similar injury.

This is the best book I have read this year.

Read:  July 21, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

The Book of Lost Friends, by Lisa Wingate (2020)

The Book of Lost Friends follows two stories:  One story takes place in the 1870 in post-Civil War Louisiana, and is told from the voice of young Hannie, a recently freed slave from the Gossett Plantation.  The other story takes place nearly 100 years later, in 1987, and is told in the voice of a first-year English teacher who finds herself in South Louisiana and living in a house on the former Gossett Plantation.

After the Civil War ended, many of the freed slaved stayed on the Plantations working as share-croppers hoping to earn enough money to acquire some land.  That was Hannie’s position in 1875.  She had a strong memory, however, of having been separated from her mother as a young girl.  She had dreams of reuniting with her family.  Before the Civil War, Gossett Plantation had been a thriving and wealthy place.  The owner, William Gossett, kept his (white) family on the plantation, but kept a secret Creole mistress in New Orleans, with whom he had a free-born daughter, Juneau Jane.  William Gossett favored Juneau Jane, and she was highly educated.  His white children were spoiled and self-centered.

After the Civil War, William Gossett left the family in search of his wayward son.  His daughter, Lavinia, got it into her head to seek her father, and dragged Juneau Jane along with her.  Juneau Jane had her own reason for seeking out William Gossett.  She wanted to be sure that she would receive her promised inheritance.  Hannie disguised herself as their male driver and the three of them took off for Texas.  Along their journey, they discover the list of Lost Friends, where former slaves would have their story seeking their family members published in a newspaper.  The stories would be read and posted in black churches throughout the South.

Jump to 1987.  Benedetta “Benny” Silva found herself in the small rural town of (fictional) Augustine, Louisiana to teach English.  She was running from her own past.  Augustine was the home of the Gossett Plantation.  The Gossetts still hold sway in the town.  They own a major industry in the area and have a lot of political influence.  They send their children to the school across the lake.  Most of the students in Benny’s class were impoverished black students.  They were disinterested in learning until Benny got them interested in researching the town’s history.

Every other chapter was in the voice of either Hennie or Benny.  I found Hennie’s story to be a bit too disjointed.  Her chapter would end in a cliff-hanger, but then, when the her story picked up again, the author would have moved on.

I moved to south Louisiana in 1987.  Later in my career, I did a lot of real estate title work, and researched the lands that were former plantations.  Her depiction of the town of Augustine rang true.  Her brief description of the town’s plans for the unmarked cemetery, however, would not have been permitted under Louisiana law.

As I read the novel, I thought I knew where the author was leading us with respect to Benny.  I did not, however, see the ending as it was written.

The author of this book also wrote the historical novel, Before We Were Yours, which I also read.

Read:  July 15, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe: Paris, France

The Room on Rue Amélie, by Kristin Harmel (2018)

The Room on Rue Amélie reads like a young adult sanitized version of Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II.

The novel focuses on Ruby Henderson Benoit, a young American woman who meets the French Marcel Benoit in a coffee shop in New York and marries him 6 months later.  They move to Paris in the late 1930s against her parent’s objections.  She is determined to become a true Parisian.  (She had learned French in school and can apparently speak a passable version of the language, albeit with an accent.)

Her marriage soon sours.  Marcel spends long hours away from their apartment and never explains his absences.  Since his character was not developed, we don’t know why Ruby fell for him in the first place, other than he was very handsome.  We do learn, however, that he is involved in the French resistance and has been hiding downed Allied pilots in a secret room in the hallway of their apartment building.  Marcel doesn’t want his wife to be involved in the Resistance, she wants to feel useful in the War effort.  She learns of the secret room and becomes involved in the escape line for downed pilots.

When the RAF pilot, Thomas, appears at her door, she falls head-over-heels in love.  The author doesn’t explain the attraction.  Why this pilot?  She harbors numerous downed soldiers.  We learn as much of some of the other soldiers as we do Thomas.

A Jewish family lives in the apartment next door.  Young Charlotte befriends Ruby.  When the French police round up Jewish families, Ruby promises Charlotte’s parents she will take care of her should anything happen.  Soon young Charlotte, who is forced to grow up very quickly, becomes involved in the resistance as well.

This was a very quick read, and something that I could see myself enjoying when I was about 12 years old.  The characters were not fully developed and the book did not depict the actual horrors and fears of living in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Read:  July 6, 2020

3 Stars