Books Set in North America: United States: Arizona

The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver (1988)

This is a very quiet novel about everyday life of love and friendship.  The novel is mostly narrated by Marietta Greer, a young woman who reinvented herself and changee her name to Taylor when she left her home in Kentucky and headed for adventure.  When she made a stop in Oklahoma, near a Native American reservation, a Cherokee woman dropped a toddler into her beat-up VW Beatle and asked Taylor to take the baby.  Taylor did so without question.

Taylor knew nothing about the toddler and the child was in a catatonic state.  Because the baby clung to Taylor, Taylor began calling her Turtle.

Taylor drove on through the American West until she landed in Tucson, Arizona when her car broke down.  In Tucson, she became friends with Mattie, the woman who ran the auto repair shop and fixed up Taylor’s car.  After some time, Taylor began to realize that Mattie had a secret ~ that she was assisting undocumented immigrants find safe havens out of the State.

In the meantime, Taylor befriended Lou Ann, another young woman with a baby and an abandoned husband.  The two women shared a house and took turns taking care of each other’s respective children.

When the State became aware that Taylor was not the legal guardian of Turtle, Taylor must make a critical decision.

This is a short book, but it didn’t hold my interest.  

Read:  February 12, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Oklahoma and California

Mary Coin, by Marisa Silver (2013)

The cover photograph is the famous photograph by Dorothea Lange entitled Migrant Mother ~ the mother and baby taken during the Depression in 1936.  At the time, Dorothea Lange was working for the United States’ Farm Security Administration and taking pictures as part of the work program.

Mary Coin is a novel based on this photograph. In the novel, Vera Dare is the photographer, and Mary Coin is the mother.  Mary was of a poor family living in Oklahoma in the 1920s, shortly before the Dust Bowl.  She falls in love with Toby Coin, and at age 17, marries him and begins her family.  Toby was of poor health and quickly dies, leaving Mary with a growing family.  She moves from place to place finding work in farms so to feed her family, ultimately finding her way to California.

The novel spans nearly 100 years, from Mary’s early life to the present day.  The novel opens in present day with Walker Dodge emptying his father’s house after his father died.  Walker is a history professor with little knowledge of his own family’s history.  He meticulously goes through his late father’s possessions in hopes of learning more of his mysterious grandfather.

Then we switch to Mary and her life.  The book describes the life of the migrant worker. One day, Vera comes across Mary as she is holding her new born, pondering how to get her broken down car started.  Vera asks to take her photograph.  Mary agrees, but doesn’t really know what she is agreeing to.

Soon the photograph is plastered in all the papers. Years later, Mary locates the photographer and, thinking Vera made money off the picture, makes a plea for funds. This briefly touches upon ownership issues of work done at the behest of a governmental entity.  It would have been interesting to have explored this issue in more detail.

The novel does, however, explore how lives touch and become intertwined.  It was interesting, but not one of my favorite books.

Read:  June 15, 2019

3 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Oklahoma

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann (2017)

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann recounts the calculated murders of members of the Osage tribe in the 1920s solely for their oil rights in Oklahoma.  By the 1890s, the Osage had been relegated to a rocky area in Oklahoma, basically deemed uninhabitable for the white families moving and settling west.  In the early 1890s, oil was discovered and, because the Osage owned the land, they quickly became very, very rich.  The United States Government determines that the Osage need white guardians to protect them and their money.  Many of the “guardians” however, actual use their status to deprive the Osage from their wealth.

By the 1920s, the Osage begin to die under mysterious circumstances.  The book focuses on Mollie Burkhard, a young Osage woman married to Ernest Burkhart, a white.  In 1921, Mollie’s sister, Anna, was found shot and killed and left in a ravine.  She was the second of Millie’s sister to die.  The first sister died of a “wasting” disease shortly before Anna’s death.  Then, Mollie mother died.  Within a year or two, Mollie’s remaining sister and husband were killed when their house was bombed.

Within 4 years, over 20 Osage were known to have been killed or died unnatural deaths.  There was no single method of the killings.  Local law enforcement was corrupt and offered little hope to the Osage.  Finally, the killings reach the attention of the United States government and the matter is handed over to the nascent agency that would later be known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, headed by a young J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover desperately wanted a win, so he handed the case over to former Texas Ranger Tom White.  The book describes how Tom and his team laboriously searched through records and documents looking for clues.  What he finds was a truly cold and calculated scheme to steal the wealth from the Osage.

The author also provides insight into an era of US history that was not taught in my school growing up.

The book is a real page-turner.

Read:  May 28, 2017

5 Stars