Books Set in North America: United States, Madison, Wisconsin and Seattle, Washington

This Is How It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel (2017)

 

When Dr. Rosie Walsh is pregnant with her fifth child, she hopes for a girl.  Her four other children are all boys.  Her fifth child is also a boy, whom they name Claude.  By age 3, Claude announces that when he grows up he wants to be a fireman, a truck, a girl.  All the things that young children imagine they will be when they grow up.  By age 5, however, he is wearing dresses and wants to be a princess.

 

The family takes Claude’s quirks in stride.  Then they realize that Claude is transgender.  He decides his name is Poppy.  To her older brothers, Poppy is just another sibling.  In kindergarten, her classmates just treat him as another kid in the class.  All is well until the father of a classmate freaks out and threatens the family.

 

The family moves from Madison, Wisconsin to Seattle, Washington where they feel the environment will be more welcoming to a transgender child.  Once in Seattle, however, Poppy’s birth gender is kept a secret.  A secret that the whole family keeps, but one that can’t be hidden forever.

 

This novel dealt with the issue of raising a transgender child.  It provided a lot of research in the trials and tribulations that the family and the child encounter.  In this book, the family was loving and accepting, but the author also emphasized problems trans children encounter when their families are not so accepting.

 

Sadly, for me, this book fell apart in the last section when Poppy and her mother travelled to Thailand where Rosie would temporarily be practice in a remote clinic in the Thai jungle.  I understand why the author took us there, but it just didn’t seem in keeping the the tenor of the rest of the novel.

 

Read:  May 25, 2021

 

4 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: United States

Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933 ~ 1934, by Bryan Burrough (2004)

In the late 1980s, the files on the activities of the early years of the FBI were released.  The author, while watching a documentary on the Barker Gang, became intrigued by the first spate of criminals deemed Public Enemies.  This book is the result of his interest.  He poured over FBI files and wrote this comprehensive look at the FBI’s pursuit of four groupings of criminal gangs that were active in the early 1930s ~ Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and the Barker Gang.

Although the FBI had been in existence since 1908 (as the Bureau of Investigation), in the early years, the agents were forbidden to carry weapons.  The philosophy was that they were an investigative branch ~ the arrests were to be accomplished by the local jurisdictions.

This changed in the 1930s.  The Great Depression brought with it a new kind of criminal ~ bank robbers.  It was the deadly Kansas City massacre of a number of law men that changed the face of the FBI.  In June 1933, a criminal gang led by Vernon Miller set out to free fellow criminal, Frank Nash, who was in Federal custody and was being transported in Missouri.  Miller’s gang ambushed and opened fire on law officers, killing four.  Nash was killed in the ensuing gunfire.  This massacre got the attention of the J. Edgar Hoover. It has been speculated that Pretty Boy Floyd was involved in the massacre, but this has not definitively been proven.

The FBI had few trained agents, and none with any really experience with weapons and very limited jurisdiction.  At the time, robbing banks was not under the jurisdiction of the Feds.  The FBI had to work with local law enforcement officers, some of which were also ill-equip to handle major crimes, or were not willing to work with the federal officers.

This book shows the growing pains of the early years of the FBI.  Homer Cummings, the United States Attorney General, had to convince Congress to expand the power and authority of the FBI.  Soon after the Kansas City massacre, the FBI was training its agents to use weapons.  Some of their interrogation procedures, however, left much to be desired.

The book delves into the activities of Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang.

Dillinger came from a middle-class background.  He was good looking and was known to jump over bank railings when he robbed banks.  He was exceedingly polite.  He captured the public’s attention and was seen as a Robin-Hood figure in robbing banks. It was not his aim to hurt anyone during his crime sprees.  When he was ultimately betrayed and killed outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, he had achieved near national folk hero status.

During this same period of history, Bonnie and Clyde were ruthlessly crossing the country, leaving a bloody path in their wake.  During their lifetime, they were largely unknown, except for the locales of their robbing and killing.  The FBI sought the couple, but bungled their investigative efforts.  In the end, it was a posse of local law officers who ambushed the two criminals.

The author also followed the exploits of the Barker Gang.  Although Hoover publicized that the “brains” behind the Barker Gang was the criminal’s mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, the FBI files showed that she was actually more concerned with jigsaw puzzles and had little before-the-fact knowledge of the gang’s criminal activity.

The FBI had a tip that Dillinger and his gang were holed up in an inn called Little Bohemia in northern Wisconsin.  The FBI agents, still without expertize in weaponry, badly misjudged the situation. In the dark of night, in a raid lead by Melvin Purvis, came upon the inn.  The FBI, mistaking local patrons leaving the inn for the Dillinger gang, began a shootout, killing the innocent patrons.  One federal agent was also killed, but Dillinger slipped through their fingers.

Baby Face Nelson was one of the most brutal criminals during this era.  He seemed to delight in terrorizing and killing victims during his robberies.  Agents trailed him all across the country before he was finally killed in another shoot-out in Illinois.

By the end of the 1934, the FBI had gained its footing and overcome the fumbles of its earlier year and was well on its way to the power and prestige is has today.

A fascinating and very readable book.

Read: August 2, 2019

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.

American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfled (2008)

This novel is a not-so-thinly disguised fictional account of Laura Bush’s life before and after meeting George Bush, although in the book, they appear as Alice Lindgren and Charlie Blackwell. The novel is written in 4 parts. In the first part, we meet Alice Lindgren as a young girl who comes from a working-class background.  In Part 2, she meets and marries Charlie Blackwell. Charlie is the buffoon of his family and a drunkard.  In Part 3, Charlie is pushed into politics and Alice learns to be a politician’s wife. By Part 4, Charlie has been elected President of the United States and Alice must learn to navigate her political convictions and beliefs while not compromising her husband’s policy positions.

The first part was an interesting view into young Alice’s life.  She is a likable and moral character.  She has a crush on young Andrew Imhof.  Throughout high school, Alice has her eye on Andrew.  Later, when she is in high school, she is driving the car that causes an accident that kills Andrew.  This is a turning point in Alice’s life.  The decisions she makes within the next few months will impact her life and have repercussions years later.

Alice becomes a librarian and meets Charlie. He comes across as a jerk.  What the smart, articulate Alice sees in Charlie strains the imagination.  After having been together for a mere 6 weeks, they become engaged.  He is from a rich, privileged family from Wisconsin whose family is in the meat-packing business.  Charlie has no flair for business, so goes into politics.  Alice isn’t so enthused about this, but thinks that it will be a one-shot trial into that field.

When Charlie becomes President, Alice has learned to keep her political opinions to herself, although she is a Democrat and her husband has Republican values.  She keeps things to herself until forced to confront an important issue.  Will her actions, she wonders, jeopardize her husband’s career.

I found the first and fourth part of the novel to be interesting.  The middle sections were just plain frustrating.  Charlie was such an unlikable character.  What was the attraction between to two.  They seemed to have no intellectual common interests.

It was somewhat interesting to read this book in today’s political climate.  Although written in 2008, the issues raised in this novel are the same as what we are reading today.

Read:  June 28, 2019

2 Stars