"Perfume River" by Robert Olen Butler, (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016)

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Robert Olen Butler is a prolific writer – and each time I read a book of his, I’m encouraged to dive into his bibliography and read others.  Perfume River is his latest book.  I chanced upon it in the Portland, MA library, but that’s another story.

Butler’s most famous book, A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, is short stories, many of them about the Vietnam war, from the POV of the Vietnamese, both in Vietnam and in the U.S.  In Perfume River, he returns to the war again, this time from the POV of American families in the U.S. 

We are long post-war.  Robert Quinlan, the main character, is 70, a veteran; his father William a veteran of WWII.  Robert and his wife, Darla have a long and happy marriage, even though she was a demonstrating pacifist in the 60’s.  Robert is still dealing with his father’s attachment to war and killing.  This has affected Robert and his brother Jimmy since childhood.  They took different paths regarding the war:  Jimmy fled to Canada and Robert enlisted so he would not be in the infantry, as his father was.  This rift in the family has never been healed.  William’s illness and unexpected death force the family to deal with secrets that will change their lives.  

Twined throughout the Quinlan saga is the story of Bob, the son of a Vietnam veteran.  Bob is now homeless and suffering from his own PTSD.  Through him, Butler examines the war’s impact on next generations, a fascinating exploration.

This is a beautifully written book—the tale of brothers who chose different paths, their families and their ability to face life’s unpleasant revelations and move forward.  It is also a story of marriage, how it changes with age yet remains a defining source of loyalty.

Highly recommended
 

“Margaret the First” by Danielle Dutton, Catapult, 2016

Visiting the Chicago Public Library branch at Water Tower, I can’t help but peruse the newer releases.  And so, I chanced upon Margaret the First.  The velvety feel of the paperback cover, and its beautiful illustration of Margaret immediately made me feel this was a book above others.  And, an historical novel to boot.

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Margaret is royally born Margaret Lucas, in 1623 in Colchester, Essex, England.  She joins the court as a lady in waiting for Queen Henrietta Maria and goes into exile in France with her and the court of Charles I during the Civil War with Cromwell and the Roundheads.  While in France, Margaret marries William Cavendish, the Duke of Newcastle on Tyne, a fellow exiled royal. This is a love match.  The Duke is considerably older than Margaret and supports her emotionally her throughout their childless marriage. Margaret indulges her interest in writing poetry, memoir, plays, some of the first science fiction—much of which she published in her name.  This was a first for a woman of her time and today Margaret, who was an early influence on Virginia Woolf, is revered by women’s liberation advocates.  

Dutton’s writes in a style evocative of the erratic nature of her subject.  Some chapters are a paragraph, other much longer.  She follows the historical landmarks of the time: war, exile, the restoration and life after the restoration.  Margaret and William lose their fortune in property, regain it after the restoration and eventually leave Margaret a wealthy widow.  Throughout, Margaret writes and writes—her preferred method of expression.  That and her costume, which titillated the masses who could read the first tabloids documenting the exploits of Mad Margaret.  

For my taste, the book was too short, exciting my interest in the historical period and in the characters.  That is a good thing and will lead me to seek other books relating to Mad Margaret.  
Recommended for history lovers.

“All We Shall Know” by Donal Ryan, (Penguin Books, 2017)

This is a sad, but well told story—set in Ireland, home of sad stories.  And Donal Ryan knows how to tell them.  The protagonist, Melody, seems evil, involved in a bitter marriage that she ends with pregnancy by her 17-year-old literacy student from a local community of Travellers (Irish Gypsies).  The pace of the novel follows the weeks of pregnancy, each landmark bringing another reason for spite towards her husband, Pat, his family, the village, the Travellers—and her self-hatred. She lives alone in her house; Pat with his menacing family.

Mary, a young Traveller ostracized by her husband Buzzy's clan because she is barren, befriends Melody as she lurks around the camp.  The troubles caused by Mary’s infertility and Melody’s fertility are the soul of All We Shall Know. Melody keeps her pregnancy secret from the young father, using it only to wound her husband and his family.  Mary's family enters into a protracted battle with Buzzy's clan, who claim he was cuckolded.  Melody’s own father, a passive figure, accepts her situation, and provides a safe home and care as the pregnancy ripens.  Unhappy in his marriage to Melody’s deceased mother, you feel he can begin life again with a grandchild.  

Ryan’s writing is flat-out beautiful.  

“I could still fly to London and end this, and come back and say, Yes, Pat, I was
lying, and he could persuade himself to believe me, and we could take a
weekend break somewhere and be massaged together, and walk along a river
hand in hand, and stand beneath a waterfall and feel the spray on our faces and
laugh, and think about the cave behind the falling water, cut off from the world,
and all the roaring peace to be found there, and have a drink in the bar after
dinner, and go to bed, and turn to one another's flesh for warmth, and find only a
hard coldness there, and no accommodation, no forgiveness of sins; and we'd
turn away again from one another, and lie apart facing upwards and send words
into eternity about babies never born, and needs unmet, and prostitutes and
internet sex and terrible unforgivable sins and swirling infinities of blame and
hollow retribution, and we could slow to a stop as the sun crept up, and turn from
each other in familiar exhaustion, and sleep until checking-out time on pillows
wet with tears"

All We Shall Know is concise, 180 pages, and spell-binding.  Highly recommended.


 

“The Spinning Heart” by Donal Ryan (Steer Forth Press, 2014)

The time is 2008, or so, the early days of the Great Recession in Ireland.  The Celtic Tiger period of the 1990’s through the mid-2000’s was fed by direct foreign investment, a subsequent property bubble and lax bank lending standards.  Unemployment in 2006 was 4.6%, in 2012 it was 15%, and among young workers, it was 33%.  Ireland was hit hard; they could not replace the foreign capital that fled the country.

The Spinning Heart brings this macroeconomics down to the micro world of small town Ireland.  A local contractor, headed by the scoundrel-son of a well-to-do citizen, flees the country in financial ruin, leaving his employees and his customers in a mess.  And what a pretty pickle it is: job loss, broken hearts and marriages, sad stories as only the Irish reveal in literature.  

This is a novel told from multiple points of view.  Each chapter is a character, speaking in the first person.  It takes a few chapters to see the web of plot holding them together.  Even then, it is possible to miss links that would be clearer in a sequential novel.  

The first-person narrative gives Ryan the opportunity to reveal the characters intimate thoughts and private actions.  The writing is terse, with a good deal of Irish patois and grammatical rhythm.  It takes a few re-reads to grasp the full meaning of some sentences, especially the articles and pronouns.  This may be the reason for not seeing some of the plot links.  But, stick with it.  This is a worthy and engrossing read by an emergent Irish author.

Book awards for The Spinning Heart – not bad for a first published book.

•    2012: Irish Book Awards, winner, Newcomer of the Year (The Spinning Heart)
•    2012: Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year (The Spinning Heart)
•    2013: Booker Prize, longlist (The Spinning Heart)
•    2014: IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, shortlist (The Spinning Heart)
•    2013: Guardian First Book Award, winner (The Spinning Heart)
•    2015: European Union Prize for Literature (Ireland), winner (The Spinning Heart)

Recommended
 

“The Essex Serpent” by Sarah Perry (Custom House, 2016)

As the white cliffs of Dover soar above the Atlantic, the Essex shoreline on the English Channel is low and muddy with river estuaries.  This mud sets the tone for the Gothic novel The Essex Serpent.  Mud that clings to clothing; mud that seizes boots and shoes forever lost; mud that pulses with brackish tidal water.

Freed by the death of her husband from an abusive marriage, Cora Seaborne escapes from Victorian London, loses her corset, and her elegant town house to embrace the plain life of Colchester in Essex, a bit northeast of London.  She is accompanied by her adolescent son, Francis, and his nanny and Cora’s companion, Martha. Dear friends from London figure in the story, but the plot develops around the denizens of Colchester.

The novel is full of Dickensian characters including the wry parson and his sprightly wife, old fishermen, curious children, learned physicians.  All spin around Cora and her trip from death and desolation to redemption.  The time is Victorian—London is a bustling, electrified city while Colchester still lives in the dark, lamp-wise and spiritually.  The myth of The Essex Serpent and it’s resolution reflect the seismic change that is coming to rural England with the 20th Century.

The themes of spirituality, demonism, and unrequited love, along with the intense observations of the writer reminded me of A. S. Byatt.  But, as dense as Byatt’s writing is, Perry writes in a flowing manner that quickly moves the story along.

Highly recommended – the best “new” novel I’ve read in several years.
 

"The Nymph and the Lamp", a novel by Thomas H. Raddall (Little, Brown and Company, 1950)

In 2005, Erik Larson wrote an excellent book about Marconi and the invention of transatlantic radio called Thunderstruck.  The secret of the wireless communication involved very tall receiving antennae on shore and electrical generating power at the source to create huge sparks of electro-magnetic energy.  They used the language of Morse Code.  The radio signal, which travels in a direct line, bounced off the earth’s atmosphere creating a curve towards its destination.  It’s far more complex than this; good reason to read Larson’s book.

Marconi stations were built on the most remote extremities of land abutting the ocean.  One of these is Sable Island off the Southeast Coast of Nova Scotia.  From its birth, Sable Island was not used to transmit across the ocean, but was a relay point for ships heading to Halifax, Montreal and Boston. There grew on the island a small population of hearty souls divided into three groups: the civilians who supported the lighthouses at either end, the lifesavers who ranged across the island ready to respond to shipwrecks.  These were established long before the Marconi station. The third group, signalmen, were employed by the wireless company, at the station built on the highest point of the island.  The former were permanent settlers, the later were usually one year and done.

The Nymph and the Lamp, set in the early 1920’s, tells the story of a signalman, Matthew Carney, who loved the island, called Marina in the novel, and stayed far beyond one year.  Finally, he took a three-month shore leave to find his family in Nova Scotia, with whom he had lost contact.  During this unfruitful search, he finds Isabel Jardine, an independent spinster, secretary to the ED at the wireless company.   Sparks fly between these two non-reactive subjects, culminating with Isabel accompanying Matthew back to the island for permanent settlement after knowing him only from his files, his reputation and no more than 35 hours together over three days. 

The story of her acclimatization to the station residents, all men, and the island’s citizens, both men and women, is a fascinating story.  It is hard not to like all the characters in this book, and to feel their anguish as the tale unrolls. 

Within a year, Isabel returns to Nova Scotia and finds a safe harbor in the region of her birth among the apple orchards of the north island.  She joins the roller coaster of boom and bust following The Great War, nurtured by an employer who is smart enough to give her responsibility and authority.  Such a man was a rare find in 1920’s provincial Canada, and a rare character coming from a male author, writing in 1950.

Raddell does a fine job of tying up the stories.  The book is beautifully written, full of glorious similes and descriptions of the nature of sea and shore.  Highly recommended for those who love an old-fashioned novel complete with love, betrayal, sadness, joy and a fascinating setting.  The book is out of print.  You may find it at a library or a used book store.  I purchased through a seller on Amazon.

"Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family" by Kathy McKeon (Gallery Books, 2017)

When Jackie Kennedy died, May 19, 1994, I cried—not the same kind of tears as the death Jack Kennedy, who died when I was 20—the tears of one woman mourning the loss of a great woman who died long before her time.  Jackie should have enjoyed her later life:  the Onassis money, her adult children, her grandchildren, her lovers.  We wanted her to find peace.

So, when I saw that Kathy McKeon, former personal maid and sometimes nanny for Jackie Kennedy, wrote a memoir, it was required reading.  And a lovely memoir it is.  Just enough beans spilled to pique interest, nothing in bad taste.  An homage to a great American family.

Such fascinating things are revealed.  The lives of Irish immigrants who serve the wealthy on the Upper East Side, paid a pittance, but given lodging and meals and a foothold in the U.S. The title, Jackie's Girl, comes from Rose Kennedy who could not remember any names in the throngs that surrounded her.  There was such sadness in Kathy’s telling of the solitary evenings of “Madame” as she rearranged furniture and artwork to kill time.  Caroline is shown to be the blossoming figure of adult responsibility.  John Jr. is shown to be capricious, rowdy, even described as medicated for ADD.  Both children loving and respectful with Kathy and their mother.  

Madame was grateful for Kathy’s talents, which she needed to raise her children in the rarefied air of the truly wealthy.  But she did not respect Kathy’s personal time or needs.  Madame came first, not surprising.  

The story is woven throughout with the trappings of the lives of U.S. royalty (Greek, too): private planes, multiple homes with staffs, summers on the Cape.  But the Kennedy family and Onassis, never seem stuffy, overly demanding or entitled.  Ok, somewhat entitled.  Kathy’s life experience while with the Kennedy’s (She joined them when she was 19 and lived with them for 12 years, until 1976.), at least in her retelling, was touched at various stages by learning, tenderness and inclusiveness.  

Jackie’s Girl reads quickly—large leading on the pages, so it fluffs out to 300+.  It shows the polish of a good ghost writer and editor.  The small photo section in the middle is heart-warming.  Recommended for all Jackie fans.  

“Barometer Rising” by Hugh MacLennan (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941)

Second in the books I’m reading to prepare for my first visit to Nova Scotia in September.  Barometer Rising is an historical novel based in 1917, the First World War as experienced from the Canadian Maritimes.

MacLennan’s first novel (he went on to become a prominent figure in Canadian letters) folds elements of the Canadian experience into a romance set in history.  The reader’s experience is multiple:  how Halifax embraced her key role as the UK’s major port in the West, the jumping off point for convoys heading to the war bearing munitions, arms, lumber, coal, men—all produced in Canada and extracted to support a war effort that was not Canada’s. There is the experience of a provincial city (about 60,000), influenced by the mores of immigrants from the colonial U.S., Scotland, and the U.K., all conservative.  There is a touch of women’s rights, but only because of the war effort.  

The focal point of Barometer Rising is the Halifax Explosion, December 6, 1917.  As I was unaware of this tragedy, it pulled me right into the climax of all the characters’ development according to how they responded.  It is the largest man-made explosion prior to the atom bomb.  Read the book or check Wikipedia if you want the horrible details.

MacLennan did an excellent job of setting up rich characters who harbor slowly revealed secrets and set the story in a time unique to Halifax.  This is an “old fashioned” historical novel. Just a soupçon of sex, lots of conflict—a well-written and easy to read book.  


 

"The Death of a Pope" by Piers Paul Read (Ignatius Press, 2009)

I've enjoyed Piers Paul Read's other books, so thought this would be a good read.  It was and it wasn't.  Quick and easy - sort of a Catholic thriller set around the death of one pope and election of another.  Good setting and Read knows his Catholic stuff.  But, the book needed to be fleshed out more.  Characters lacked depth, and as with most thrillers, the ends tied together all too easily.

The plot centers around the possibility of terrorist activity in Vatican City when hundreds of thousands of Catholics are in St. Peter's Square watching for white smoke.  Nice time to set off a bomb, either by ISIS or others who would like you to think that ISIS in involved.  That situation is not something that occurred to me, but I'm sure it has to the Vatican and the Roman police. We live in such strange times.

The Death of a Pope is a good beach read.

“The Lost Salt Gift of Blood” by Alistair MacLeod (Ontario Review Press, 1988)

Book #3 in my research reading for a trip to Nova Scotia.  These short stories are existential in their presentations of life, choice, decisions, death.  You won’t come away laughing or even smiling, but you will feel that you have experienced MacLeod’s vision of the people of Cape Breton.  Some stories (there are only seven.) have one protagonist, others cover generations.  The atmosphere is always starkly real.  

Nova Scotia had many waves of settlement. The Micmac were the natives when the Europeans took up residence.  First the French, the famous Acadians who were expelled mid-18th century by the British after six wars for domination.  The British encouraged emigration from the New England colonies and 2000 families came in the early 1760’s, both farmers and fishermen. At the same time, Gaelic Highland farmers in Scotland were forced off their crofts (rented land) by the Highland and Lowland Clearance: landowners forcing the change from farming to sheep grazing.  Also, many Highlanders were Catholic and the prospect of more religious freedom in Canada appealed. Many of these Highland farmers settled in New Scotland, Nova Scotia, around Cape Breton at the far eastern end.  It is the descendants of these people, some still speaking Gaelic, who are the protagonists in MacLeod’s stories.  They settled in Cape Breton to be away from others and continue their Highland traditions.

MacLeod’s stories arise from the pressure of more contemporary society on the traditions and the psyche of these settlers.  They are mostly farmers and fishermen; few characters are from the city.  Animals are laborers, not pets.  The older generation cling to their independence despite infirmity.  In the remote areas, there are no phones, no electricity, only bad roads and tight fishing boats.  

In a slightly different vein, the last story, The Closing Down of Summer, is about miners who go “off-island” for the big bucks and the big risks.  Again, it’s about the pressure of change, knowing that you and your mates will likely be replaced by equipment.  And the miner reflects a point of view I’ve not seen expressed in relation to work underground.

“I have always wished that my children could see me at my work…And that they might see how articulate we are in the accomplishment of what we do.  That they might appreciate the perfection of our drilling and the calculation of our angles and the measuring of our powder, and that they might understand that what we know through eye and ear and touch is of a finer quality than any information garnered by the most sophisticated of mining engineers with all their elaborate equipment.”

I am not a short story lover, but I felt fulfilled by MacLeod’s stories because they allow for character development.  All situated in Cape Breton, you begin to understand the nature of the environment, the people and plots from story to story.

Highly recommended, but not light reading.  
 

“Barometer Rising” by Hugh MacLennan (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941)

#2 in the books I’m reading to prepare for my first visit to Nova Scotia in September. Barometer Rising is an historical novel based in 1917, the First World War as experienced from the Canadian Maritimes.

MacLennan’s first novel (he went on to become a prominent figure in Canadian letters) folds elements of the Canadian experience into a romance set in history.  The reader’s experience is multiple:  how Halifax embraced her key role as the UK’s major port in the West, the jumping off point for convoys heading to the war bearing munitions, arms, lumber, coal, men—all produced in Canada and extracted to support a war effort that was not of Canada's making.  There is the experience of a provincial city (about 60,000), influenced by the mores of immigrants from the colonial U.S., Scotland, and the U.K., all conservative. There is a touch of women’s rights, but only because of the war effort.  

The focal point of the book is the Halifax Explosion, December 6, 1917.  As I was unaware of this tragedy, it pulled me right into the climax of all the characters’ development according to how they responded.  It is the largest man-made explosion prior to the atom bomb.  Read the book or check Wikipedia if you want the horrible details.

MacLennan does an excellent job of setting up rich characters who harbor slowly revealed secrets, and setting the story in a time unique to Halifax.  This is an “old fashioned” historical novel.  Just a soupçon of sex, lots of conflict—a well-written and easy to read book.  

"Hidden Ones: A Veil of Memories" by Marcia Fine (L’Image Press, 2017)

I love historical novels that make me dig deeper into the history told in the books.  And such is Hidden Ones, a novel about the Conversos, or Crypto-Jews of the new world.  

Set primarily in the 1650’s in Mexico City, the book traces the lives of Celendaria Crespin and her grandmother, Doña Clara Henriquez de Crespin.  They are victims of the Tribunals of the Holy Office of the Inquisition of the Spanish Catholic Church (and therefore Spanish government, there being no separation of church and state) against heretics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, rationalists and unorthodox believers. The Inquisition was not limited to Spain, but included Italy, Portugal, the Papal States, and Spanish and Portuguese colonies.  It began in 1231 and officially ended in 1834.  

The Crespin family are Sephardic Jews, originally expelled from Spain in 1492 (yes, the same year Columbus discovered the New World) and the from Portugal in 1497.  The resulting diaspora spread Sephardic Jews throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa, Europe and into the New World.  At first, the choice given the Jews was convert to Catholicism or be arrested as heretics.  Later, even Conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) were arrested for their Jewish background and the belief they still practiced in private.  It was a no-win situation, driving Jews into complete denial and occlusion of their heritage.  Today, their descendants, most living as Catholics are amazed to find Jewish ancestors on the family tree.   The Crespins followed other Jews they knew to Mexico, hoping for a better life.  The Inquisition followed the diaspora.  

In Hidden Ones, the Crespins leave Mexico City in the 17th century for parts further north, eventually ending in Santa Fe, New Mexico by the 19th century.  Celendaria marries into a Converso family and they continue to carry on Jewish traditions without rabbis, books, synagogues, or minyans.  They learn to identify fellow Jews and bond with them.  

I was raised in the Catholic Church.  They don’t dismiss the role of the Inquisition in church history, but we learned more about bringing heretics and radicals to trial (think Galileo) than about Jews and Muslims.  It was uncomfortable and enlightening to put sympathetic, though fictional, characters through the gauntlet of accusation, arrest, bribery, torture and imprisonment.  

Until recently, the Crypto-Jews have remained an unknown part of the settlement of the Southwestern U.S.   When I moved to Tucson, part of the fascinating history was the role played by famous Jewish families who settled here to provide supplies for the mines:  Levis, Goldwaters, Drachmans, Appels.  But they came in the 1850’s from St. Louis and points east or west. Little did I realize that Crypto-Jews had been living in Arizona for centuries, immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish and Portuguese colonies.  The University of Arizona website has a page on Crypto-Jews with links to historical research.  http://swja.arizona.edu/content/crypto-jews

Marcia Fine wrote this book in short chapters (a plus) titled to identify the point of view, Clara or Celendaria, and the date.  This enables a different type of dialogue using no quotation marks or attributions, as you know who is speaking. It makes for smoother reading and eliminates unnecessary words.  Initially, I had to make little associative leaps to get the rhythm, but after two chapters, I was into the flow.  

The story of the Crespin family is a solid foundation on which Hidden Ones is written.  The plot is straight forward and linked believably to the historical context.  It’s an easy read and one that may lead you to look more closely at local history and your family tree.

Reviewed by Ann Boland
ann@annboland.com


 

“Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance (HarperCollins, 2016)

I read through the best-seller list in the WSJ every week.  Mostly, I don’t recognize the books, sometimes I do know the authors, but it keeps me in tune with the top of the book market in which I work.  Repeatedly, my eye was drawn to the book Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance which has remained on the non-fiction best sellers for months.  I was attracted by the unique title, but most of all by the author who I erroneously assumed was J.A. Jance, best-selling author of many mysteries set in the states of Washington and Arizona--great recreational reading.  I realized my cognitive error (old age) and looked up J.D. Vance—and ordered the book.

This is a memoir from childhood through early career of a boy born into a hillbilly family in Kentucky who migrates to Middletown, OH.  They move from rural poverty to urban factory jobs, along with other Kentucky families.  J.D. has a miserable childhood:  15 father figures who rotate in and out of his mother’s life, an unstable mother, and eventually, poverty.  But he is blessed with a loving and level-headed older sister, a mentoring aunt and grandparents who, though thoroughly hillbilly (a culture that he defines through example), love, nurture and guide J.D.  

It’s difficult for those of us who are middle-class white to empathize with poor whites.  I saw a bit in the 1950’s Ozarks where my grandparents had a 600-acre rock farm.  They were made poorer by the depression, but the rock farm was originally their hunting lodge, where they were now forced to live full-time.  Compared to our neighbors, the O’Mally’s, the DeVeaux’s, the Hogan’s, we were royalty.  And, since these neighbors owned farms, they were higher on the pecking order than most hillbillies in the book, and they were of a different generation. When U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood opened 20 miles away, many flocked to the steady government jobs and likely upward mobility.  

The kernel of J.D.’s memoir is that lower class whites feel they have been abandoned by both Democrat and Republican politicians and governments.  Traditionally Democrats, lower class whites feel abandoned by elite liberals from the East, much like they have been ignored by traditional Republicans who focus on the role of profitable business to float all boats.  And along comes Trump, who usurped the Republican party and paid attention to lower and middle-class whites and their plight of closed factories and disappearing jobs.  Combine that with distrust of print media and willingness to believe conspiracy theories about Obama, Clinton, health care, voting so enough changed parties to elect a man who really has no substantial understanding of the lower classes, black or white.  

The refreshing point of this memoir is that J.D. does not point fingers at the local, state or national government or the politicians for his childhood problems.  In true conservative style, he proves through his life that we all contain within us the ability to “move up”, make reality of our dreams.  He acknowledges the critical roles played by the mentors in his family, his universities, the Marines, his religion and his wife.  Conversely, he feels there is much more that can be done by government and middle and upper class individuals to focus on the core problems of poverty:  single mothers, a flood of cheap and available narcotics, underperforming schools, and the loss of religion.  

I can’t say I enjoyed this book – most of it is too bleak to be enjoyable.  It is well written; it’s a quick read; it isn’t didactic, and it makes you think.  If you are interested in one man’s insight into why the U.S. is foundering, you should read it.

I recommend that after you finish the book, you read this interview of J.D. Vance with Rod Dreher of “The American Conservative”.  It drills a bit further into Vance’s point of view.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/

And if you want some good reading for a mental holiday enjoy any of J.A. Jance’s books.  
 

“The Illegal” by Lawrence Hill (W. W. Norton & Co, 2016)

I listened to this book and the best thing about it is the narrator, Gideon Emery.  As many great audio book readers do, he created a voice for each character, making a rather dull book into a masterpiece.

Lawrence Hill also wrote The Book of Negroes which I reviewed several weeks ago.  I was interested to see what he would do with a contemporary novel.  

It’s the story of a young black marathon runner from Zantoroland, living illegally in Freedom State.  Why Hill thought it necessary to make this a slightly dystopian plot with fictional national entities, I don’t know.  Why not just use Somalia or Nigeria and South Africa?  Doing so would have required a lot more careful research, but it would have been so much more compelling.

In reading through the Amazon reviews, I noted that one Canadian reviewer thought the book depicted the condition of African-Americans.  That never crossed my mind.  Yes, Hill portrays problems of illegals, but they are universal problems today, and African-Americans are citizens, not illegals.  That said there are significant problems in the U.S. regarding the treatment of minorities and illegals.  Canada has a much better track record. 

I can’t find much to recommend The Illegal.  Not a bad read, just not good enough to merit the investment of time.  Listening to it in my car as I drove around Tucson was the perfect way to fill those boring minutes. 
 

“Any Human Heart” by William Boyd (Vintage International, 2004)

William Boyd rarely disappoints.  This epistolary novel pulls you into the intimate journals of Logan Mountstuart, born in Uruguay in the early 1900’s where his father was a corned beef baron.  It ends in 1991 with Mountstuart’s death at age 85 in France.  

In between, Mountstuart and family move to London and the adventures begin.  I felt that my protagonist was somewhat of a Zelig figure, in and out of every major event in the 20th Century.  But, isn’t that somewhat the point of writing a novel covering 85 years? Your main character gets to do interesting things:  public school, Oxford (Jesus College, a third in history), a moderately successful writer, a bad husband and father, then a good husband and father, a spy in WWII, family lost in the Blitz, art dealer in New York, bad husband again, professor in Nigeria during the Biafrian war, penniless quasi-revolutionary in London, finally a peaceful death alone at his home in France.

There’s a marked contrast between his privileged youth and middle-age and his more enlightened older, destitute days.  He learns to settle, to cope, to need friends, to be a friend and to be at peace.  

Boyd is an excellent writer.  Each of his books is a unique experience—well researched and a pleasure to read.  Highly recommended if you want to lose yourself in the world of Logan Mountstuart for a week or so.  
 

“The Book of Negroes: a novel” by Lawrence Hill (Norton, 2008) originally published in the U.S. as “Someone Knows My Name”

Lawrence Hill’s books were recommended to me by a friend living in Nova Scotia who is directing me to good historical fiction about the Maritime Provences of Canada.  We will be visiting there this summer.  

Hill is the son of a black father and white mother who emigrated from the U.S. to Canada in the 60’s.  Both parents were active in the Canadian civil rights movement and influenced Hill’s life work as a journalist and author.  He continues to live and work in Canada.

The Book of Negroes is the story of the Black Loyalists—slaves in the North American colonies who were promised freedom for remaining loyal to the British during the War of Independence.  They worked for the British in the military and in all sorts of skilled and unskilled trades. The story centers around the fictional life of Aminata Diallo, from her childhood in Mali, through capture, slave life, runaway life in New York, emigration to Nova Scotia, emigration to Sierra Leon, and final emigration to London.  As befits a heroine, Aminata is clever.  She becomes literate and numerate, speaks several languages and manages through a long, difficult and sad life.

There were about 3,000 slaves listed in The Book of Negroes, which is the hand-written list of former slaves given their freedom and transported to various places in the Maritimes of Canada.  They did not flourish.  The British government did nothing for them and the locals hated them.  You can’t say these former slaves would have been better remaining in the new United States.  To even return would have risked capture and re-enslavement.  In the 1790’s, British abolitionists funded a colony in Sierra Leon and invited former Black Loyalists settle there.  Life was ultimately no better, as they were abandoned by the abolitionists.  

When we visit Nova Scotia, we will be able to visit Birchtown, the original settlement of the Black Loyalists.  Because of the upcoming trip, I enjoyed this book immensely. Like most historical fiction, the story had to bend to reveal the events.  So, there is a feeling of a contrived plot, but it is all for a good purpose.   


 

“The Horseman: a novel” by Tim Pears (Bloomsbury, 2017)

Oh, what a lovely book!  The time is January, 1911 through June, 1912.  The place is the estate of Lord Prideaux in south-central England.  The main protagonist is Leo Sercombe, 11, youngest son of Alfred Sercombe, the carter on the estate.  Leo’s stoic, quiet demeanor is enlivened only by horses.  He barely endures school, often truant to be with the horses.  

Leo’s same age is Lottie Prideaux, only and willful child of Lord Prideaux, who is widowed.  She is an excellent horsewoman and hunter – a little tomboy.  This book is the first of a trilogy taking Leo and Lottie from adolescence through the end of WWI.  

What makes this book special is the loving detail with which Pears describes life on the farms of the estate through the year and a half.  We witness the intense labor involving horses, machines and labor pools that expand and contract among the neighbors as needed.  We learn the roles of the carter, the grooms, the wheelwright, the farmers, the gamekeeper and other trade specialists that keep the estate producing.  Woven throughout are the personalities of these people and Leo’s immediate and extended family.  

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy a good historical novel based in early 20th century England.  
 

"The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts" By Joshua Hammer, (Simon & Schuster, 2016)

As part of the history of Spain, we’ve heard how the Muslim conquerors from Northern Africa had a flourishing culture of literature and science—and that much of it was lost when the Arabs were driven out of Spain.  But wait!  All was not lost.  Some of those priceless books, written in Arabic and other North African languages were hidden away by families and clans living in the desert and in the cities.  As were manuscripts written in Africa about astronomy, agriculture, religion, and poetry.  These were considered so valuable they hadn’t seen the light of day for centuries.

From the Simon & Schuster site:
“In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world’s greatest and most brazen smugglers.

In 2012, thousands of Al Qaeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali, including Timbuktu. They imposed Sharia law, … threatened to destroy the great manuscripts. As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali.”

There are three parts to the book:  the first describes the history of the texts and Haidara’s harvest.  The second details the political background for the rise of Al Qaeda in Mali.  The third tells the story of the rescue.  It’s easy reading except for the middle, where the similar Muslim names continue to challenge me.  

The author, Joshua Hammer, spent years in Mali.  In 2014, he wrote an account of the manuscripts in National Geographic.  Here you can see a few photos to enhance the story.  The book itself has only one unreadable map and no photos.  What a shame.  It’s an interesting book that I recommend for history buffs. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140421-haidara-timbuktu-manuscripts-mali-library-conservation/