race relations – The Dusty Jacket

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (Adult Fiction)

The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros (Adult Fiction)

The house on Mango Street wasn’t what Papa had talked about when he held up a lottery ticket or what Mama had dreamed up for our bedtime stories. Instead, it was small and red with crumbling bricks and no front yard. Even a nun, who was passing by the house one day, couldn’t believe that it was actually the home of little Esperanza. It was at that moment that Esperanza knew that she had to have a house. One with stairs on the inside and a front yard with grass. One that was filled with quiet. Quiet like snow. A home all her own.

Published in 1984, Cisneros’s celebrated The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age story about 12-year-old Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Comprising of 44 vignettes and being just a squeak above a novelette, Cisneros introduces us to several memorable characters who are the color, texture, and fabric that make up Mango Street. We meet the rotten Vargas kids, Alicia who studies to avoid a life in a factory or behind a rolling pin, Darius the philosopher, Sally with the Cleopatra eyes, and Geraldo who was so much more than a shiny shirt and green pants. But as is the nature of vignettes, our knowledge and connection with these and other characters are superficial and barely scratch the surface. Like a movie trailer, we get the highlights, but not the heart.

In her introduction—which I loved and wished that the rest of the book had been this immersive and rooted—Cisneros wrote that she wanted to write a book “that can be opened at any page and will still make sense to the reader who doesn’t know what came before or what comes after.” I think that was the biggest barrier for me to overcome. While accomplishing her goal, Cisneros sacrificed a connectedness that would have given readers more than just a superficial glance at characters who did have a before and, more importantly, an after. I wanted to know Sally’s after, who married to be free yet ultimately found herself in a different prison. I wanted to understand Geraldo’s before in hopes that someone would miss this charismatic young man who loved to dance.

Although I miss the richness of the novel that could have been, I can’t deny the beautiful and artful way Cisneros evokes raw emotion and vivid images with just a few well-placed words. She describes a family who enters a garden area between her building and a brick wall as “a family who speak like guitars”, equates the entry into womanhood by describing the sudden development of hips as “One day you wake up and they are there. Ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition. Ready to take you where?”, and recalls meeting her three aunts as “one with laughter like tin and one with eyes of a cat and one with hands like porcelain.”

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a Danish businessman and the former CEO of the Lego Group, said, “Any creative people are finding that creativity doesn’t grow in abundance, it grows from scarcity.” Now, he was talking about Legos and how having more doesn’t necessarily equate to more creativity, but it does show how a novella, not quite 18,000 words, is beautiful and creative because of its scarcity rather than in spite of it.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.abebooks.com

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River Season by Jim Black

River Season

River Season

Jim Black (Adult Fiction)

I think my mom’s patience with Charles, Gary, and myself stemmed from years of working on the pediatric floor at Methodist Hospital in Lubbock. Maybe seeing so many sick and dying kids makes you look at your own in a different light. I don’t know. I do know she was not overly protective or strict back then. I really think she just wanted us to enjoy the privilege of being kids, and I’ve always loved her for that. It was easier back then, too, because times were different. In our small town, we really did sleep with doors unlocked and windows open. I know now those were the best of times.

Jim Black was thirteen in the summer of 1966. Growing up in Archer City, Texas with his two best friends, Gary Beesinger and Charles Luig, life was great. This summer, Jim had big plans: playing baseball, mowing lawns, and hanging out with his friends. What he didn’t plan on was meeting Samuel “Sam” Joseph Washington, an older black man from the other side of town. This man, who decided to take up residency at his favorite fishing spot, would not only grow to be a father figure to Jim, but would also become his friend and would show Jim the value of acceptance, generosity, and love.

In an interview with Brothers Judd (brothersjudd.com), Jim Black explained that There’s a River Down in Texas (which, after the addition of fifty pages, would later become River Season) is largely autobiographical with the remainder being pure fiction. River Season gives us a warm, sometimes bittersweet, and nostalgic look at growing up in small-town America during a time when the only things on a boy’s mind were baseball, pretty girls, hanging out with friends, and getting into just enough mischief to make life interesting but not enough to get you arrested. It was a simpler time when you knew who your friends were and, more importantly, who your enemies were. Bullies were never anonymous and disagreements were settled swiftly resulting in either an inflated ego or a black eye.

I picked up River Season at a secondhand book store and after visiting Black’s website (jimblackbooks.com), this may be the only way for interested readers to obtain copies of his books. Black explains that all contracts with his publisher have been cancelled and his books are no longer being produced. I hope lightning strikes twice and I am able to find his sequel Tracks so that I can follow a fifteen-year-old Jim as he tackles high school, bullies, and a broken heart.

Although River Season does touch upon the racial tensions that occurred in the 1960s South, Black is not overly preachy on the subject. He could have easily made this the focal point of his story, but he instead concentrates on the friendship between himself, Charles, and Gary, as well the touching bond he shared with Sam. American author and businessman, Arthur H. Glasow, once said, “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” Most of us would be fortunate to have just one friend like this. Jim Black was blessed to have found three.

Rating: 5/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.publishersweekly.com

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The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew

The Dry Grass of August

The Dry Grass of August

Anna Jean Mayhew (Adult Fiction)

In August of 1954, we took our first trip without Daddy, and Stell got to use the driver’s license she’d had such a fit about. It was just a little card saying she was Estelle Annette Watts, that she was white, with hazel eyes and brown hair. But her having a license made that trip different from any others, because if she hadn’t had it, we never would have been stuck in Sally’s Motel Park in Claxton, Georgia, where we went to buy fruitcakes and had a wreck instead. And Mary would still be with us.

It’s 1954 and Jubie Watts, her mother, brother, sisters, and their maid, Mary, are embarking on the ultimate road trip from Charlotte, North Carolina to Florida. They’re traveling without father and there’s talk of the Klan in Georgia. “We’ll be fine,” Mama assured. She needed this trip and nothing was going to change her mind. So with that final word, the six of them headed out in the family’s Packard for a journey that would have unforeseeable impacts on them all.

Several reviewers noted that fans of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel The Help (I read it and count myself as a fan) would also enjoy this book. “A must-read,” one went so far as saying. But other than the story being set in the South during segregation, the parallels stop there. Mayhew’s story does deal with the atrocities of racial and social injustice, but—through the Watts family—she also delves into the darkness of infidelity, alcoholism, and physical abuse. This is a story about both a country and a family being torn apart from the inside out. The ugliness of racial disparity and the effects of substance abuse are on full display and is authentic in their depiction and raw in their detail. What’s perhaps most disturbing is the fact that in this place and time in American history, these behaviors were indeed the status quo and viewed as socially acceptable.

In the back of the book, there is an author Q&A section where Mayhew is asked if her novel is young adult fiction given that her protagonist is thirteen years old. Mayhew answers, “My novel is literary fiction; however, I hope young adults will read it, because it’s set in a time long before their lives and can give them a look into history through the eyes of someone of their age.” I searched Penguin Teen for iconic YA heroines and pulled up such descriptions as “sharpshooter, ancient beast tamer”, “futuristic Resistance fighter”, “post-apocalyptic survivor”, “female gladiator”, and “dress-wearing demon destroyer”. After reading The Dry Grass of August, it was refreshing to see just an ordinary young girl standing up for principles she feels are worth defending and standing beside people she feels are worth protecting. Jubie Watts is such a person and a heroine that any reader—young or old—can learn a thing or two from.

Rating: 4/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

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The Distinguished Guest by Sue Miller

The Distinguished Guest

The Distinguished Guest

Sue Miller (Adult Fiction)

“It is probably fair to ask to what extent Lily Maynard is conscious of the effect she makes, but it’s not a question you’ll easily find the answer to.”

Lily Roberts Maynard reached literary fame at age seventy-two with The Integrationist: A Spiritual Memoir. She’s had moderate success with various fictional short stories that followed, but nothing to the scale of her memoir. Now Lily, who was once celebrated and sought after, finds herself living in relative seclusion with her architect son, Alan, and his wife as Parkinson’s disease slowly consumes her body and mind. Finding themselves once again under the same roof, both Lily and Alan confront decisions made in the past while trying to find a way to move forward.

This is the third book by Sue Miller that I’ve read (the other two being The World Below and Lost in the Forest) and I continue to find myself underwhelmed with her work. The Distinguished Guest is described as a “moving story of a mother and son”, but in reality, Miller gives us a story of a mother and son…and her late husband…and her deceased parents, as well as a son…and his wife…and his two siblings…and his two sons. Throw in a visiting journalist who has her own messy backstory and you have a novel simply overburdened and overwhelmed with relationships. This might be the reason I have trouble connecting with Miller’s books. She inundates her stories with too many character profiles, backstories, and conflicts that spread the reader’s focus entirely too thin and leave little or nothing left to hold onto. Just as “too many cooks spoil the broth”, Miller gives us far too many relationships that ultimately spoil the story.

I wish I liked this book more since there are several interesting and important issues that Miller encounters head on: race relations, religious faith versus spirituality, social conformity, and infidelity. But these subjects are not enough to lift The Distinguished Guest from its own emotional saturation and social mire. Ayn Rand once said, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.” In this case, a few less cooks would have made for a much more pleasing broth.

Rating: 3/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

the beautiful things that heaven bears

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

Dinaw Mengestu (Adult Fiction)

Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled his home and the revolution in Ethiopia for the United States. He shares an apartment with his uncle, attends college, and pursues the American dream. Years later, Sepha owns and operates a grocery store in a poor and crime-ridden part of Washington, D.C. As dilapidated buildings are bought and renovated and later occupied by affluent professionals, the neighborhood begins to experience a rebirth while Sepha experiences his own sense of awakening when he befriends his white neighbor Judith and her biracial daughter. But as racial tensions rise within the neighborhood, Sepha soon finds that family and stability are once again threatened by forces beyond his control.

Mengestu is a talented writer whose words dance across the page and read like a finely-crafted poem. When describing Judith’s house, he writes, “Its elaborately tiled roof, flaking like dried skin, was echoed in the shutters that still clung out of stubbornness to the delicately molded windows arched like a pair of cartoon eyes on both sides of the house.” Unfortunately, the beauty of Mengestu’s prose isn’t enough to overcome an unsympathetic protagonist, as well as a tedious storyline that offers a wonderful description of the streets, sights, and sounds of the District of Columbia, but little else. Had this novel been a memoir, I would understand and almost excuse the depressing and despondent nature of this book. But since this is a work of fiction, it’s not clear why Mengestu made Sepha so unlikeable and unrelatable. For example, Sepha has been in America for 17 years, but has managed to make only two friends (both fellow African immigrants). Also, this same individual—who can wax Dante, Dickinson, and Dostoevsky with the best of them—is at an utter loss as to why his business is doing so poorly when he keeps inconsistent store hours (he opens the store when the mood strikes him) and stocks expired food on dusty shelves that sit atop dirty floors.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears began like Sepha’s expectations when he came to America: full of hope and promise. But as Sepha once said to his friend Kenneth, “Once you walk out on your life, it’s difficult to come back to it.” That was almost the feeling I had with this book. The constant self-pitying and overabundance of defeatism that can be found on just about every page made it difficult to come back to this book and to Sepha…and he deserves much better than that.

Rating: 3/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.textbookstar.com

A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo (J Historical Fiction)

A Medal for Leroy

A Medal for Leroy

Michael Morpurgo (Juvenile Historical Fiction)

Michael has no father, brothers, or sisters. Just his mother, Maman, and two aunts: Auntie Pish and Auntie Snowdrop. It is 1940s London and right after the war. Michael’s friends call him “Poodle” because of his frizzy hair and French ancestry. But Michael doesn’t mind much. In fact, he likes being different, being special. Regarding his father, Michael knows only what his mother has told him: his father’s name was Roy, he was a Spitfire pilot, and he was killed in the war. But when Michael’s aunt passes away, she leaves behind a clue that will not only shed light on his past, but also finally reveal who he is.

A Medal for Leroy was inspired by the true story of Walter Tull, the first black person to serve as an officer in the British Army. Like his fictional counterpart in this story (Michael’s grandfather, Leroy), Tull grew up in an orphanage, played soccer, served heroically in battle, and has no known grave. Both Tull and Leroy deserved a medal for bravery, but were denied because of the color of their skin. Morpurgo is a master storyteller (author of the spectacular novel War Horse) and provides his characters with a surprising amount of depth given that his book is only 130 pages. He delicately tackles the ugliness of racial intolerance and inequality while showing young readers the value of having dignity in the face of disgrace and showing love without reservations or conditions.

In a world that still seems divided by so many factors, it is worth looking at the words that Michael’s aunt, who served as a nurse during the First World War, wrote to Michael: “It was while I was with those poor wounded soldiers that I first understood, Michael, that when all’s said and done, it’s what we all want and need most: to love and to be loved.” Words lovingly passed along to a beloved nephew that would serve us all to remember today and always.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.goodreads.com

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Susan Crandall (Adult Fiction)

“Whistling past the graveyard. That’s what Daddy called it when you did something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear…”

Starla Claudelle is nine and growing up in 1963 Mississippi. At the age of three, she is abandoned by her mother, who is busy chasing dreams of country music stardom in Nashville. Her father works months on end on an oil rig in the Gulf, which leaves the responsibility of her care and upbringing to her strict and overbearing paternal grandmother, Mamie. On the fourth of July, Starla decides to run away from home—convinced that if she locates her mother, she will have a real family once again. Along the way, she gets a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white infant. Together, they embark on an extraordinary road trip that will change both of their lives forever.

Not since Francie Nolan (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith) have I delighted in a literary heroine so thoroughly. Starla is sassy, plucky, loyal, reckless, and fearless. Because of her youth and naiveté, she often makes decisions based on her heart rather than her head, ultimately leading her into some precarious situations. However, Starla’s spunk and spirit are endearing and allow the reader to readily forgive her of these seemingly foolish transgressions. The story has a nice and steady pace, the main characters have heart, and Starla’s narration is full of honesty, humor, and charm. A truly enjoyable read that will undoubtedly find a spot on our Best Of list at the end of the year.

Rating: 5/5