Books Set in North America, Mississippi, United States

The Girls in the Stilt House, by Kelly Mustian (2021)

Read:  September 18, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, United States, Georgia

The Twelve-Mile Straight, by Eleanor Henderson (2017)

Read: September 14, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: American South: St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee

Marching to Zion, by Mary Glickman (2013)

This historical novel delves into the struggles of Jews and African-Americans in the early half of the 20th Century.  The book begins when Mags Preacher, a young African-American woman, leaves her home in the rural countryside and moves to St. Louis, Missouri.  She has dreams of learning the beauty trade so she can open a salon back in her hometown.  The first person she encounters upon arriving in St. Louis is Magnus Bailey.  The only job she can get is working with Mr. Fishbein, a Jewish refugee who runs a funeral home that serves the Black families in the town.

Fishbein had fled Eastern Europe amid the pogroms that killed his wife and child.  When he left Europe, he brought with him his adopted daughter, Minerva, known as Minnie.  She had lost her family in the violence against Jews.  Seeing her family killed experiences as a very young girl caused her to be a very troubled young woman after arriving in America.

Mags is happily working at the funeral home and eventually marries George McCallum, the manager, and they live in a small apartment attached to the funeral home.  After the violent race riots in St. Louis in 1917, Fishbein’s funeral home is totally destroyed.  Fishbein and Mags barely escape with their lives, but George is killed.  Mags then disappears from the story.

The novel moves from Mags Preacher to the very troubled love story between Minnie, a fiery red-head Magnus.  Interracial relationships were criminal offenses at the time.  Fishbein, Minnie and Magnus move from St. Louis to Memphis to looking for a safer place to live.  The novel describes life for Jews and African-Americans during the Depression through the mid-1930s.  Fishbein realizes that there is no safe place for Jews in America, especially for his troubled daughter and her lover, Magnus.

After I finished the book, I realized that Mags Preacher, the young woman at the beginning of the story had completely disappeared.  What happened to her?

Read: August 8, 2023

3.5 Stars

Books Set in North America: Baltimore, Maryland USA

Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (2019)

 

This is a delightful suspense novel that takes place in Baltimore in the 1960s.  Maddie Schwartz is a 37-year old bored Jewish housewife who suddenly leaves her husband and son to be on her own.  She realized that she needs money, so stages a fake robbery so she can collect the insurance money on her engagement and wedding rings.  This brings her in contact with Ferdie, an African-American police officer.  Soon they find themselves in a passionate affair.  They can’t be seen in public, however, because (1) she is still married, and (2) because interracial relationships are illegal in 1960s Maryland.

 

After a young girl goes missing, Maddie joins a search group and discovers the body.  This sparks her interest in pursuing a job as a reporter.  She wrangles her way into a small job at one of Baltimore’s newspapers. When the body of Cleo Sherwood, a young African-American woman, is discovered in a fountain, Maddie becomes obsessed with the woman’s death.  She relentlessly pursues leads to find out what happened to the dead woman.

 

The story slowly unfolds from Maddie’s point of view, as well as that of several other characters, including the ghost of Cleo.  The novel gently also touches upon many social issues of the 1960s, including racism, classism, sexism, and gender matters.  The solution, once it was revealed, was a surprise twist, but one that fit nicely into the story.  [Spoiler Alert:  Cleo, it turns out, didn't die.  The body in the fountain was that of her roommate, whom no one would miss.  Cleo wanted to disappear so she could marry her lover.]

Read: February 21, 2023

4 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: New York

The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (2021)

 

This novel is a fictional account of Belle da Costa Greene, born Belle Marion Greener.  She was born in 1879 in a Black family, although both parents were very light-skinned as was she and her siblings.  Her father, Richard T Greener, was the first Black graduate of Harvard University and spent his life advocating for racial equality.  Her mother, Genevieve Fleet, came from a prominent family, but didn’t want her children to suffer from racial discrimination.  She made the decision to raise her family as white.  Belle’s parents separated over this difference.

 

Genevieve changed their name from Greener to De Costa Greene, adding a fictional Portuguese grandmother to explain their olive-toned skin.  The family then moves into a white neighborhood and pass as white.

 

Through her friendship with a Morgan relative, Belle landed a job as J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian.  She quickly learned the ropes for acquiring rare books and artwork.  Morgan trusted her vision and she traveled to Europe to negotiate additions to Morgan’s extensive collection.  Along the way, she rubbed shoulders with New York’s elite.  To keep her job and her reputation in this life, however, Belle had to keep secret that she was passing for white.  This is the main theme of the novel.

 

On every page, Belle expresses her anxiety that she might be discovered, and her secret revealed.  For this reason she feels that she can never marry.  She fears that she may give birth to a dark child.  The book notes that her sibling marry and have children, so this fear she has seems a bit unfounded.  Instead, the novel notes that her love interest was the married Italian Renaissance art expert Bernard Berenson.  In the afterwards, the authors note that, while it is known that she did indeed have a relationship with Berenson, much of what they portray is speculation.  I think this does injustice to both Belle and Berenson.

 

I am probably one of the few people who didn’t particularly care for this book.  I didn’t find Belle that likeable.  She comes off as being too good, but is clearly conflicted by her passing as white, especially since her absent father was such an advocate for civil rights.

 

This book did, however, pique my interest in Belle da Costa Green née Belle Marion Greener and I will do some of my own research to learn more of this woman.

 

Read: August 9, 2022

2 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: United States: Mississippi

Pale: A Novel, by Edward A. Farmer (2020)

In 1966, Bernice, a young Black woman whose husband has left her, moved to be closer to her brother, Floyd, who worked in the field at the Kern cotton plantation in Mississippi.  Bernice would work in the plantation house with another Black servant, Silva.  At the house, they would tend to old Mister and his younger, but vindictive wife, Missus.  Neither the old Mister nor his wife seem to care much for each other, or anyone else, for that matter.  Years ago, they lost their young daughter, Elizabeth, an event from which Missus never recovered.

Silva was a widow with two young sons.  One summer, Silva’s sons, Jesse and Fletcher, were hired to work in the field picking cotton.  Missus threw a tantrum when she saw Fletcher and forbid him from working on the property.  She sought out Jesse, however, and began a dangerous flirtation with him.  She convinced Jesse to write her love letters and instructed him what to write.  Bernice tried to warn Jesse, but Missus held a power over him.  And she was trying to get back at her husband, who fathered Fletcher.

Fletcher had plans to go leave Mississippi and obtain an education.  After his first year at school, Missus used the letters Jesse had written to blackmail him into returning to the plantation to work as a field hand.  She insists that being on the plantation is his home and where he belongs.

Dark and twisted secrets hold the servants and owners to the land.

Read:  September 3, 2020

4 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 North America; United States; New York

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride (1995)

The Color of Water is a touching memoir of James McBride’s mother.  The book alternates between McBride, in his voice, telling about his life growing up and his mother’s voice recounting her life.  The author was an adult before he learned of his mother’s background.

Ruth McBride Jordon was born on April Fool’s Day in 1921 in Poland to an Orthodox Jewish family.  Her given name was Ruchel Dwajra Zylska.  When she was 2 years old, she immigrated to the United States with her mother and older brother.  Her father had already settled in the United States.  She became known as Rachel once in America, but later changed her name to Ruth because she thought it sounded more “American.”  Ruth is an interesting choice, since there is a Biblical Ruth who is known for converting to Judaism.  Ruth McBride, however, tried to hide her Jewish roots and converted to Christianity.

When the author finally confronts his mother about her past, she acknowledges that they sat shiva for her 50 years earlier, as she became dead to them when she left her Jewish background and married a Black man.  We slowly learn of her childhood.  Her parents were in an arranged marriage and there was no love between her father and mother.

As a child, he would sometimes ask his mother why she looked different from the mothers of his friends, but her response was simply that she was “light-skinned.”

Life in the McBride home was not easy, but it was filled with love.  The author was one of 12 children.  The author never knew his father who died of cancer shortly before his birth.  Sometime after the death of her first husband, Ruth remarried Hunter Jordan, another Black man, who became a loving stepfather to James and 7 older siblings.  Ruth and Hunter would have another 4 children.  Jordan did like the chaos of so many children, so lived apart from the family except for weekends.

Ruth was a formidable woman and saw to it that all of her children went to college, and many went on to earn graduate degrees.  All the while, James, as a bi-racial child coming of age in the 1970s faced questions of his identity and race.  The author’s initial impression of the Jewish community seems harsh, but he was initially learning of Judaism through the eyes of his mother, who left an abusive and unloving childhood home.  Through his mother and his stepfather, whom he called Daddy, he learns a life of love and the important things in life.

I loved this book and look forward to reading other books by James McBride.

Read:  June 17, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Connecticut

Small Great Things, by Jodi Picoult (2016)

Like so many of Jodi Picoult’s novels, this book tackles social issues that have been in the news.  This time the theme is racism and white supremacy.

Ruth Jefferson is a nurse in the maternity ward in a Connecticut hospital.  She is the daughter of a woman who was a domestic and the first in her family to go to college.  She worked her way through college to earn her nursing degree.  She has worked at the hospital for 20 years and is only African-American nurse on staff in the maternity ward.

While working in the hospital, she is also a widowed mother, raising a studious teenage son.  She is saving her money to send her son to college.

Enter Brittany and Turk, a couple of white supremacists.  Brittany has just given birth to a baby boy.  They name their son Davis in honor of Jefferson Davis.  Ruth meets the couple and performs a routine checkup of the newborn.  The parents are taken aback that a Black nurse would touch their son, so insist that that a note be included in the baby’s file stating that no African-Americans are to treat the baby.  The hospital agrees to the parent’s request and Ruth is ordered not to touch the baby.

Nearing the end of a double shift, and when the ward is short-staffed, Ruth is called in to monitor the baby.  When the baby goes into cardiac distress, Ruth is faced with the dilemma of whether to let her nursing instinct to take over or obey orders not to touch the baby.  Soon other medical personnel are called in and a doctor orders Ruth to perform CPR.  When the baby dies, Ruth is charged with murder of the baby.

Ruth is assigned a public defender (I am not convinced that she would be considered indigent for purpose of being assigned a public defender, but …), a well-intentioned white woman with a young daughter, with no concept of racial prejudice.  The prosecutor, however, is a Black woman.  How will this play out before a jury?

As with many of Picoult’s books, there is a twist near the end.  Maybe I have read enough of her writings to look for clues throughout the book.  At any rate, I guessed the twist.  That didn’t take away from the important conversation of this novel.

Small Great Things was a page-turner.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt the characters really came alive.

Read:  July 4, 2017

4.5 Stars