Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

March 19, 2025

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

Montana 1915: Adelaide Henry is a "lone woman," a single woman who purchases a plot of land and becomes a homesteader. She leaves everything behind in California, especially her family, her sins, and her past, travelling only with a large heavy steamer trunk. She purchases a desolate plot far away from any neighbors, yet they find her anyway, and Adelaide gradually becomes part of a community. She soon realizes that many people come to Montana to escape the past and start over. Yet Adelaide is hiding something far worse than most of the and when her secret comes out, people start to disappear.

Genre blending fiction, part well-research historical fiction, part horror. Good descriptions of survival on a lonely homestead near a small town. In the early 20th century, Montana was one of the few places where a single woman could own land and homestead without a man to co-sign for them - even Black women like Adelaide could own land. Like others, I kept reading to find out what was in the trunk. A look at the American frontier like you've never seen it before, a suitable if unusual choice for Women's History Month.

Montana homestead, 1915

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

April 28, 2024

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

Long before he became the fabulous RuPaul, international drag superstar, he was a gay Black child with a mother who suffered from depression her entire life and a father who was largely AWOL. This is a memoir of growing up poor, Black and queer in San Diego and Atlanta, always feeling different and trying to find a place where he belonged. RuPaul discusses candidly his dysfunctional family, his struggles with drugs and alcohol, and his journey to find and accept his identity. If you're expecting a book with celebrity anecdotes, life as a drag queen, and behind-the-scenes dish, this is not that book.

RuPaul in character - I should have legs like that

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

March 21, 2024

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

A family gathers for their granddaughter's coming of age party, and each family member reminisces about the past. Told from multiple POVs, the storyline follows three generations of a middle-class African American family.

Someone recommended this to me, but damned if I can remember who it was. Let me just say that Jacqueline Woodson is a wonderful writer, but this was just okay. I know a lot of readers really loved it, but I found it sad and depressing. Even a celebration of a grandchild reaching the age of 16 has very little joy, since everyone seems to be remembering only the bad times. Even the events of 9/11 get dragged in. Ultimately I found the story to be very unsatisfying.

The Great Mrs. Elias by Barbara Chase-Riboud

March 19, 2024

The Great Mrs. Elias by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Hannah Elias was one of the richest Black women in America in the early 20th century. She started her life as Bessie Elias, a domestic servant wrongly accused of theft. She was sent to prison, and when she was released, she was unable to find a job as a domestic, so she became a courtesan at a high-level brothel. There she met a number of wealthy men, mostly bankers and real estate barons, who taught her how to invest her money and accumulate wealth. She enjoyed her affluent lifestyle, until one of her long-time lovers decides Hannah duped him into giving her money and accuses her of criminal activities.

This is a portrayal of a strong Black woman, born in the 19th century, who rose to wealth, power and fame (or infamy), based on her real life. Hannah was a light-skinned Black woman, and for much of her life, passed for white, claiming to be Cuban. Women do what they need to do to survive, to feed themselves and their children. While I don't think it's as good as the author's previous book Sally Hemmings, it will appeal to readers of historical fiction and is a good choice for Women's History Month.

Hannah Elias

What You Leave Behind by Wanda M. Morris

February 20, 2024

What You Leave Behind by Wanda M. Morris

Lawyer Deena Wood's life is in tatters: her marriage has gone down in flames, she lost her prestigious job in Atlanta, and she is still reeling from her mother's death. She returns to her hometown of Brunswick, Georgia, where her father married her mother's close friend Ruth a few months after her mother's death. Trapped in a dead-end job, living in her childhood home, Deena is trying to re-make her life, when she encounters an elderly man living on one of the islands off the Georgia coast. When he goes missing, she feels compelled to find out what happened to him.

I don't particularly care for mysteries with a supernatural element, but if that's your jam, you'll probably like this one. For me, it was just okay. I did not find Deena to be a likeable or sympathetic character: she is almost completely self-focused (which she should have grown out of, since she's almost 40), and has little empathy for anyone else. She views her dad's second wife as someone who always coveted what her mother had. It doesn't occur to her that her dad is lonely after his wife's death, or that maybe her mom's best friend misses her too. Unbelievably, a GUY has to explain this to her. 

The plot focuses on the difficulties of lower and middle income people (particularly in the South) when it comes to proving ownership and inheritance of property that has been in their families for years, yet there is no paperwork to support their claims. The author's plotting can be complicated at times. There are also a lot of characters, and it's hard to keep them all straight. I figured out about halfway through the book who the real mastermind was. 

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Brunswick, Georgia

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

November 29, 2023

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

In 1972, just before Hurricane Agnes sweeps through, the Pennsylvania State Police find a skeleton at the bottom of an old well in the Chicken Hill district of Pottstown, PA. They question Malachi, an old Jewish man who lives near the site and has lived in the area since the 1930s, because some Jewish artefacts are found with the bones, but he claims to know nothing about it. After the hurricane destroys most of the neighborhood, Malachi is gone and the police never learn who the skeleton is.

Loved the author's two previous novels The Good Lord Bird and Deacon King Kong, and I greatly enjoyed this novel as well. Set between the two world wars, the story focuses on the residents of the Chicken Hill neighborhood, a low-income area populated mainly by Jews and African Americans but with a recent influx of Italian immigrants, and how they manage to co-exist and interact, helping each other out. The story reads almost like a collection of short stories, where a character is the main actor in one story, but may be a peripheral character in another (think Olive Kitteredge). It's the neighborhood of Chicken Hill that is the connecting factor that brings them all together. Some readers have complained about the large number of characters, but that didn't bother me at all. Be advised, the mystery of the skeleton plays very little part in the story (although you do find out at the end who it is) - I had a good idea about halfway through. One of the best books of 2023. Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Pottstown, PA - I couldn't find a good picture of Chicken Hill, although there are some online archives

The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan

May 10, 2023

The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan

Follows the lives of three families living in Springfield, IL, from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, and their different experiences. The Lincolns are Abraham Lincoln's family; the Donnegans are a free black family who assist escaped slaves to freedom; and the Ferreiras are a family of Portuguese immigrants who left their home seeking religious freedom and settled in Springfield. All are affected by Lincoln's presidency and assassination, the Civil War, and emancipation and restoration following the war. 

I enjoyed Horan's previous books so I was looking forward to reading her latest novel. While well-researched, the author tried to cover too much territory historically, and there are too many characters for good character development. She tried to include too many important topics, such as slavery, the Civil War, Lincoln's presidency, the race riots in the early 20th century, Mary Todd Lincoln's life as First Lady. I think the title is also incorrect - I went into the book thinking it was about the Lincoln family, but they really play only a small part. There is much more about the Donnegan family and slavery than either of the other families. Needed a good editor - disappointing.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Springfield's main street and business district, mid-19th century

Pomegranate by Helen Elaine Lee

March 30, 2023

Pomegranate by Helen Elaine Lee

After four years of incarceration on a drug conviction, Ranita is about to be released. She longs to return to her two children, but release means leaving her partner Maxine behind. Once back in Boston, Ranita finds it increasingly difficult to avoid old habits and old companions. Ranita remembers her father giving her a pomegranate once. A pomegranate has chambers like a heart that are filled with beautiful jewel-like seed, full of juice that is sweet and tart at the same time, much like life.

Really slow moving story. I liked Ranita's visits with Drew but would have like to know more about why Geneva was the way she was, also about Maxine other than she is a militant black woman. I found the characters to be largely stereotypes. The characters and setting have been done before - nothing new here. Depressing.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

July 12, 2022

Black Cake by Charmaine Williamson

When their mother dies suddenly, siblings Byron and Benny meet after many years. Their mother left them her secret black cake recipe and an eight-hour audio recording about her life before she met their father. With the help of their mother's lawyer, Byron and Benny try to make sense of what their mother is telling them.

I like the first 2/3 of the book, then it lost me. Too many new characters were introduced in the last third. The two main characters irritated me - they were whiny, self-centered, and immature. The author also tried to address every social issue she could think of, which got boring. This book needed a good editor to whack out at least 100 pages and improve the narrative. Disappointing.

Traditional Caribbean black cake, a dense fruitcake-type of spice cake - every Trinidadian family seems to have their own recipe - some look more like chocolate cake than fruitcake

The Queen by Josh Levin

October 15, 2022

The Queen by Josh Levin

Linda Taylor (not her real name) was a mysterious African American woman who lived on Chicago's South Side. She had mink coats, drove a new Cadillac, wore designer clothes, and owned expensive jewelry. She was married multiple times and at various times, reported having as many as eight children. She used multiple aliases. Even her age and her race were uncertain. When she reported a robbery at her south side home (claiming a burglar had stolen her refrigerator and removed it from the house through a small kitchen window), the detective assigned to the case recognized her as a woman he had arrested for welfare fraud in Michigan. As he investigated her claims, he realized that Taylor used a number of aliases to commit a variety of crimes in several states, including welfare fraud, kidnapping, con games, and possibly murder. The Chicago Tribune dubbed her the welfare queen and the title was picked up by then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, who made her story a national legend and a disgrace.

This is an unusual narrative about a shadowy figure who learned how to work the system and not get caught. Part of the reason behind her success as a con artist was the reluctance of government agencies and law enforcement to investigate. It took a crusading journalist at the Chicago Tribune to bring the case to the public's attention. This is an issue that really pisses off working people: our tax dollars going to people who don't work, smoke cigarettes, drink liquor, party, gamble, and frequently have a large number of children. While there are certainly recipients who fall into that category, many welfare recipients are going through a bad time and need help to temporarily bridge the gap until they can get back on their feet. The author is sympathetic to Linda and welfare recipients in general, but Linda was definitely a con artist of the first rank.

Linda Taylor (center) with her lawyer and (I think) her daughter Sandra

Three Girls from Bronzeville: a Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by Dawn Turner

March 11, 2022

Three Girls from Bronzeville: a Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by Dawn Turner

Three African American girls grew up on Chicago's South Side in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood in the 1970's. They attend a good school and spend their childhood with the promise of greater opportunities, rights and freedoms than their parents and grandparents had. But as they begin high school, they go off in wildly different directions that include loss, displacement, drugs, alcholism, teen pregnancy, and murder.

The author is a journalist and novelist and the book is well-written. She published her novels under the name Dawn Turner-Trice, but when her marriage broke up, she began using her family name for her nonfiction writing. Turner went on to graduate from the University of Illinois, marry, and have a child, while her sister died young of alcoholism and her best friend went to prison for murder. It may have been a very different story if one of the other girls two had written it. 

Historic homes in Bronzeville

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

September 7, 2022

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

George and Isabelle Walker and their son Caleb live a quiet secluded life on the outskirts of Old Ox, Georgia. George has always been an eccentric man: he inherited a large tract of land from his father and he preferred to sell off the land piece by piece rather than work. He spends his time reading and taking long hikes in the forest that he owns. Isabelle loves her husband but has never understood him. Caleb enlisted in the Confederate Army, just like all the other young men in Old Ox. Near the end of the war, Caleb's best friend August brings them word that Caleb has been killed in the war. Following General Lee's surrenders, Old Ox is living under military rule. A short time later, Caleb comes home but by that time, August's father has spread word throughout the town that Caleb is a coward and a deserter. His face is damaged but he is otherwise unharmed. But Caleb and August have a secret - they have been lovers since before the war.

George suddenly decides that rather than sell off more of his land, he will begin to farm peanuts. He hires two former slaves, Prentiss and Landry. His neighbors reset that the two ex-slaves are working for George for wages while so many returning soldiers are unemployed (not that many of them would have worked as farmhands), feeling that it goes against the centuries-old social order. Even though it doesn't affect anyone except the Walkers, all the whites in the community have an opinion. But when Landry stumbles on Caleb and August having a tryst in the forest, disaster follows.

An exceptional book, one of the best books that I've read this year. This title was chosen for Oprah's Book Club, President Obama's reading list and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. How does a community make peace in the wake of civil war and emancipation? Why do so many people feel it's their place to judge others and decide what's right for them? Until God gives me the administrator's passcode, I'll leave that up to Him/Her/Them.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

September 7, 2021

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Belle da Costa Greene was the librarian of J. P. Morgan's personal library. But Belle was hiding a secret that could have spelled disaster for her if it was revealed: she was born Belle Greener, daughter of the first black man to graduate from Harvard. She passes as white, claiming to be of Portuguese descent to account for her darker complexion. 

As a librarian, I expected to enjoy this historical novel more than I did. I was looking for more details about the materials that Belle sourced and curated. But most of the emphasis is on the artwork that she acquired: she was more of an art dealer than a librarian. There was also a lot more about society and Belle's difficulties in passing for white. I skimmed the last half of the book. I usually like Marie Benedict's books since they focus on largely unknown women, but I felt the writing here was mediocre. Belle's story deserved better.

Belle da Costa Greene

The Last Dreamwalker by Rita Woods

August 29, 2022

The Last Dreamwalker by Rita Woods

Layla Hurley and her mother Elinor never got along. From childhood, Layla was plagued by strange and destructive dreams that her mother choses to ignore. After a final argument, Layla and her mother hadn't spoken for' a long time. Then Elinor died suddenly, and Layla regretted never having resolved their conflict. Her mother's two sister (who Elinor was also estranged from) show up at the funeral, bringing Layla an unexpected inheritance, an old rice plantation called Ainsli Green, on an island off the coast of South Carolina. The envelope also contains information about the family "gift," the ability to invade other people's dreams. As Layla looks through the information, she recognized a picture of a woman who is the same one who haunts her dreams. She resists accepting the truth, until one of her brothers also begins experiencing the same type of destructive dreams.

Meh. Needed a good editor (one of my favorite criticisms) since there are a lot of scenes that don't advance the plot or the characters, and the book could have been at least 50 pages shorter. Scenes are repeated sometimes more than once. The narrative flips back and forth between two time periods and two narrators. Layla spends a lot of time wandering around in a fog and vomiting. Too many dreams, too much drama. Might appeal to YA readers.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC.

Nightcrawling by Lelia Mottley

July 24, 2022

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

After their father's death and their mother's incarceration, Kiara and her brother Marcus are left to fend for themselves. They struggle along for a couple of years but eventually both drop out of high school to work at minimum wage jobs. When their uncle Ty makes it big as a rap artist, Marcus quits his job to chase a fantasy of becoming a rapper, too. With no way to pay the rent or buy food, Kiara resorts to selling herself on the street. At first she only works as a prostitute to make enough to pay the rent and the bills, but when the Oakland police catch her in the act, they force her to work as a prostitute for their fellow officers, even though they know she's underage, threatening to arrest her if she refuses. At the same time, Kiara is trying to protect a neighbor's child whose mother has abandoned him.

While this is really well-written (especially considering the author is a young adult herself), it was hard to read. It's gritty, sad, and yet compelling. Just about nothing good happens to the kids in the book: prostitution, trafficking, drug dealing, grinding poverty, rape, prison, single parenthood, foster care, abandonment by the adults who should have been caring for them, as well as by the systems that should be in place to protect them. About the only good thing that happens to Kiara is her friend Ale (who has her own grief to deal with). If you give yourself to the streets, it's as good as planning your own funeral.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

December 12, 2020

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

In the courtyard of a Brooklyn housing project, a middle-aged church deacon shoots one of the local drug dealers at point blank range.  Even though there are at least 16 witnesses, nobody sees nothing.  The balance of the story focuses on what led to this event and the overlapping lives connected to the neighborhood.

Heartfelt and humorous, characters include project residents, church ladies, prostitutes, local cops, drug dealers, mobsters, and even a ghost or two.  There is a mystery, a romance, a treasure hunt and plenty of secrets. The main themes are what makes up a family and a community.  

The plot is really hard to describe - suffice it to say that I loved it. This is one of the best books that I read in 2020.

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

July 28, 2020

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

In an unspecified City in a racist American South, set in a slightly futuristic time, the unnamed narrator works as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm.  As an African American man, he has been hired mainly to help the firm improve their multi-cultural image.  The narrator and his Caucasian wife Penny have a son, Nigel, who is born with light skin that gradually begins to darken.  Neither Nigel nor his mother are bothered by this, but the father see the darkening (which he refers to as “birthmarks”) as a racial defect.  He becomes convinced that Nigel must have a new extremely expensive (and painful) demelanization procedure which will turn his skin white permanently.  To increase his income, the father agrees to become the new multi-cultural face of the law firm, forcing him into increasingly hypocritical behavior and increasing his need for illegal drugs.

Although classified as a satire, there is nothing amusing about the book.  At what point does trying to protect your child through extreme measures cross over into doing harm?  There are some interesting plot twists, but overall, the story felt disjointed to me.  There were definitely aspects of the absurd and a number of surreal episodes.  The library nominated this title for the 2020 IMPAC awards, which was why I read it, but I’m not sure I would have picked it up otherwise.  It does have a rather cool cover.

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

June 16, 2020

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

As the Civil War rages, slaves Hannie Gossett, her mother, and siblings are sent by their owner from Louisiana to his property in Texas, as a way to protect his assets.  But the relative sent to safeguard the slaves on their journey begins selling them off at the Texas towns they pass through.  Ten years after the end of the Civil War, Hannie still lives at the Gossetts’ Louisiana plantation, but as part of a group of sharecroppers who have worked to gain ownership of their land.  But the plantation owner has gone missing, and the sharecroppers fear that if he dies, his wife will burn the deeds to the sharecroppers’ property.  Hannie breaks into the main house, determined to find the deed, only to find that Mr. Gossett’s mixed race daughter Juneau Jane is there as well, searching for documents that will protect her and her mother (Mr. Gossett's mulatto "fancy woman").  Determined to track down Mr. Gossett or his business partner, Hannie disguises herself as a boy and travels with Gossett’s two daughters from Louisiana to Texas to try and locate one of the men, or at least find out what happened to Gossett.

Along the way, the girls discover a newspaper column called Lost Friends, which prints letters for people (mostly former slaves) seeking lost family members.  They begin to collect more stories from the people they meet on their quest, and Hannie vows to help as many of them as she can, while searching for her own lost family.

In a parallel story, Benny Silva takes a job as an English teacher in Augustine, Texas, the town founded by the Gossett family.  The school is woefully short of supplies, and she contacts Nathan Gossett, the heir to the Gossett house, about donating books from the Gossett library to the school.  Little do either of them suspect that they are opening up a long-sealed chapter of local history.

Like her previous novel (Before We Were Yours), Wingate shines a spotlight on a hidden or forgotten piece of history.  The newspaper excerpts printed between the chapters really humanize the true horror of slavery even among those who treated their slaves "well":  of men owning other people and selling them off with no more thought than they would their cattle, often being sold repeatedly; of the separation of families; of the lifelong desire and need to find those families again, with the search sometimes lasting over 40 years; and of the injustices that former slaves continued to suffer, even after freedom.

Moving and at times gut-wrenching, I highly recommend this historical novel to anyone who wants to learn more about unknown history and injustices that last to this day.