Books Set in North America, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

My Sunshine Away, by M.O. Walsh (2015)

My Sunshine Away is a coming-of-age novel that is set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  The title is a reference to the song You Are My Sunshine, the state song of Louisiana that was written by Jimmie Davis, the 47th Governor of Louisiana.  

As a resident of Baton Rouge, I can attest to the fact that the author perfectly captures the heat and flavor of the city.  He also captures the difference between Baton Rouge and its better known Louisiana city of New Orleans.

The novel opens up in the care-free summer of 1989 before there were cell phones.  We also know in the first chapter that fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson was brutally raped.  Twenty-plus years later, the narrator looks back at this summer when he was just a thirteen-year-old boy.  He was just a naive child, who didn't fully understand the meaning of rape.  He had an enormous crush on Lindy.  At the time, there were four suspects to the crime, including the narrator because he had pictures and drawings of Lindy.

The narrator describes his neighborhood and its neighbors.  He perfectly describes his impressions of the events and the people around him.  In the years following the summer, he is awakening to his own sexuality and continuing his obsession with Lindy.

This book as beautifully written.

4 Stars

Read:  June 22, 2026

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 North America: New York State

The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham (1995)

The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham, is a coming of age story told from the perspective of a young Hasidic girl.  Rachel Benjamin is the daughter of a visionary rabbi of a very small community somewhere in New York State.  She is the eldest of 7 children, and as the eldest, is expected to tend to the younger children.

Also, as the daughter of a Hasadic rabbi, she is expected to be an example in the community.  She loves to read secular books, especially gothic romance novels.  She knows that her parents would disapprove, and so work out a scheme to get a library card so she can check out her beloved novels.

She finds ways to rebel against the stringent rules imposed by her father.  Although she attends a religious school, her classmates wear clothing that is more “modern”.  Rachel develops a scheme allowing her to wear shear stockings at school, instead of the thick, seamed opaque tights that her parents insist are more modest.

When her mother goes to Israel and her father goes to South America, 15-year old Rachel is left in charge of the household.  She and her younger sister, Leah, decided to take a class in lifeguarding so that they can work and earn money over the summer.  (Somehow, they had learned how to swim and were strong swimmers).  Their only concern is whether or not they will be able to continue the class once their parents return.  They decide that their best course of action is to remind their father that lifeguarding will, indeed, save lives.  The parents, however, are more concerned about the girls wearing bathing suits.

As Rachel nears her 18^th birthday, she knows she is expected to marry.  From her readings, she has fantasies of being with a man.  She isn’t eager, however, to step into the life of an arranged marriage that is expected of her in her restrictive community.

Her rebellion and struggles are what all young women go through, except that her family is deeply religious and have certain expectations that she is not sure she is able to meet.

Read:  March 15, 2020

3 Stars