Stepping in the Write Direction

The Kind Worth Killing by Pete Swanson is one wild weird ride of a book! Weird in a good way, as you might say to an author who wrote a book that was full of surprises (including even limericks written by a character), “I like your weird brain very much!”   The ending is unexpected, and It looks like Lily’s plea deal is about to get bulldozed  along with her favorite meadow which holds some of her deepest secrets, a result of the new property owner’s landscaping project.  The book opens with Ted Severson and  Lily Kintner having a chance encounter in an airport, discovering they’re to be on the same flight which has been delayed, and having a drink in the lounge. He’s attracted to her, “ She was beautiful—long red hair, eyes a lucid greenish blue like tropical waters, and skin so pale it was the almost bluish white of skim milk.” They begin a conversation, “‘What are you reading?’ she asked. ‘The newspaper. I don’t really like books.’ ‘So what do you do on fligh...

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper turned out to be an amazing and fascinating book filled with stories and history spanning a century, artfully woven together. The narrative, like a large plane heavy laden with archeological finds and treasures, taxied down the runway, slowly increasing its speed until liftoff was achieved. Once it was airborne, I didn’t want to set it down, and the only things that distracted from the story were watching the end of the FSU vs UVA game, and a few hours of Ryder Cup play! The book has dual but related characters and storylines that range from early through late 20th century to present day. As the alternating narratives unfold, a great deal of history from those time periods is shared, including wars, the changing roles of women, art and the crafting of miniatures, living authentic lives, love stories,  and learning the truth about family secrets.  Author Elise Hopper writes, “Until the dollhouse maker delved into the world of keepi...

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez is a book that really touched me on so many levels. It deals with growing up with a broken parent, and the emotional carnage that leaves in its wake. It is about what love is, and what it isn’t. It is about accountability, building strong relationships, and the joy of raising healthy families. In the book Emma has memories about living with a foster family but her mother re-enters her life periodically, and the hurt lingers: “Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks. You don’t know how broken she was or what she was trying to do to fill those cracks. Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make good choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal.” We are not just a divided socie...

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward is a very powerful memoir. She called it the hardest thing she’d ever written. It’s not a book you read, and then a few weeks later, can barely remember what it was about. The American Dream was hard won by many amidst the racism rampant in every state and institution, while others’ dreams were crushed by their sheer struggle to survive in a world where opportunity didn’t come easily, depending on the color of your skin. Jesmyn Ward and her siblings were raised in Mississippi during the 70s and 80s. Few who never saw a drinking fountain or bathroom labeled “colored” can understand there was a time when the income tax rules were the same for all races, the military cemeteries were filled with all races, but the benefits derived from freedom and tax revenues were not allocated equally because racism existed. The expression separate but equal, was, in reality, separate and unequal. It was a social crucible that burned hot, and those who came through it to reac...

Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman is a wonderful short story. Hoffman has such a gift for conveying the emotional map of a character in subtle but powerful ways. The book is primarily about a daughter, Adeline, and her acutely self absorbed young mother in the early 1900s. The author starts the book out with this passage, “There are those who insist that mothers are born with love for their children and place them before all other things, including their own needs and desires. This was not the case with us.” Adeline remembers, “She had told me often enough to keep my mouth shut, and now I did exactly that. I abolished all language on the day of my father’s funeral.”   After her father dies Adeline and her mother mother move to Thatcher Island on the tip of Cape Ann in Essex County, Massachusetts to work in a lighthouse alongside two couples. Adeline never speaks on the island, and when asked at one point whether she ever could speak, she writes an answer about not spe...

If Upton Sinclair’s purpose in writing his exposé of the meat packing industry was to “set forth the breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and women for profit,” No More Tears, Gardiner Harris’ staggering revelatory book, shines a bright light on Big Pharma, focusing on Johnson & Johnson’s and their competitors’ hunger for industry dominance, power, and profits with barely an afterthought for the health and lives of men, women, children, and the elderly who were prescribed their products, and if the almost unbelievable story doesn’t just break readers’ hearts, it will ensure skepticism for feckless government regulatory agencies and their problematic revolving door of appointments with those they have been charged with regulating.   Reading No More Tears may well create outrage at the legacy of powerful “careless people” that makes this F. Scott Fitzgerald Gatsby passage shimmer with the shared theme of zero accountability: “They were careless peo...