How far would you be willing to go for a forbidden love? That is the question that Frances Wray must answer in Sarah Water's novel The Paying Guests. The time is post-WWI London, and the
streets are full of returned servicemen with no jobs and no prospects. Things haven't exactly been great for the genteel classes, either. The deprivation of the war years has left some well-to-do families with little money left to support their large houses and estates. Such is the case for Frances and her mother. When her father died, he left them in such financial distress that they were forced to take on lodgers to maintain their home.

Enter Lillian and Leonard Barber, a young newly-married couple just starting out. They rent the small sitting/bedroom area on the second floor across the hall from Frances' own room. Leonard is brash and charming, at first. Lillian is a modern young woman with eccentric tastes who soon becomes something of an obsession for Frances. As their orderly life is disrupted by the new arrivals, Frances' mother becomes more and more frail and depressed. Frances, on the other hand, finds herself falling in love with Lillian, a feeling which is soon reciprocated. This love affair sparks a series of events worthy of any melodrama, resulting in death. In the aftermath, Frances and Lillian will be tested. Will they find a way for their love to survive?

If you are familiar with Waters' work, you know that all of her novels are period pieces, usually set in England between the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Like her novels Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, The Paying Guests does an excellent job portraying post-WWI England. Waters explores themes of class as well as sexuality in this book, contrasting the stuffy, uptight Wray house with the lively home where Lillian's family resides. Waters plays with the prejudices of the time in both her description of Frances' sexual orientation and the way the aftermath of the death plays out. Frances' character experiences the loneliness and social isolation that come from being different, and from having lost social standing due to her reduced circumstances. She is desperate for someone to love her as she is, and this causes her to act in ways that are desperate and out of character. Waters' has created a tragic love story that is doomed, even before it's begun.

Moon at Nine, Deborah Ellis

When I was growing up, the chances of finding any young adult literature with gay or lesbian characters was pretty much zero. And trans characters? Not a chance. Thankfully, in the last 10-15 years, we have seen an explosion of books by and about queer folks written for the YA audience, and they aren't just from tiny independent publishers that you can only find at bookstores in large urban centers. (Dear Middle-Grade Authors-please follow the lead of your YA fellows. Kthnx.)

While books like Rainbow Boys, Luna, and Sparks: The Epic and Completely True, (Almost Holy) Quest of Debbie  (find a complete booklist of queer YA I love here) describe the challenges of being young and queer in America, Moon at Nine, by Deborah Ellis, takes us away from the present day and the familiar American landscape we know, and drops us into the post-revolution Iran of the 1980s. The main character, Farrin, is the daughter of wealthy aristocrats, which in the days after the fall of the Shah of Iran was actually not a point in her favor. While she was accepted into a special school for gifted girls, she is intensely lonely. None of the other students will dare to be her friend, because under the new regime, being wealthy is seen as stealing from the more deserving working poor. One day, a new girl, Sadira, comes to the school, and Farrin finally has a friend, someone who will stand up to the head girl, who bullies Farrin daily. When their friendship turns into something else, their lives are changed forever. It is not safe in 1980s Iran for a girl to love another girl, and when their love is discovered, they are put in more danger than they ever imagined.

This book is so well-written and well-researched. I learned things about post-revolution Iran that I didn't know before. While Farrin and I share nothing culturally or religiously, I immediately understood her; her disdain for her parents, her feeling of being trapped, her desire for love and friendship. I recognized in her the restlessness I remember feeling as a young person; the desire to start living, already! I think most young people feel that at some point. But for queer young people, especially ones like Farrin and Sadira who have to hide that part of themselves away like a dirty secret, there is the added urgency of trying to find a safe place just to exist. Ellis portrays the tenderness of new love, the terror of being found out, the angst of being an adolescent, and the pain of separation in such a way that you can't help but be drawn in emotionally to Farrin and Sadira's story. Which makes the end that much more powerful, and hopefully leaves a lasting mark on the reader; one that urges them to act on the side of love and support justice for all people.

Teachers, this book would be great to pair with the graphic novel Persepolis in an English or world history class. Readability-wise it has a low Lexile (high-interest, low reading level 700L), but the ideas present in the text make it a much more complex read than that would suggest, and you'd need to build some background knowledge about the time period, the fall of the Shah, and Iranian culture in general. Starting with Persepolis, a memoir, would help students have a full picture of the events directly preceding the events in Moon at Nine. If I can figure out a way, I'm going to do exactly that at the school where I am a literacy coach.

The Life She Was Given, Ellen Marie Wiseman

Who hasn't dreamed of running away with the circus? Well, actually, I'm not sure anyone dreams of this anymore, but it's become such a cliche for our desire to escape the everyday world of chores and responsibilities that it feels almost universal. But for some circus performers, running away with the circus was less about escape and more about survival, and for others, the choice to join the circus wasn't even theirs to make.

The history of the circus freak show is long and full of both heroes and villains. The public's fascination with medical oddities has probably always existed, but it came to prominence most strongly during the Victorian era. From small traveling carnivals to huge circuses like Barnum and Bailey, freak shows provided an experience designed to shock the mind and boggle the senses. Many of the sideshow acts were faked, but others capitalized on (and/or exploited) people who suffered from rare medical conditions, or who somehow looked different than the norm (think bearded lady or tattooed man). Depending on which shows and which circus owners you're talking about, freak shows either provided a safe place and a community for people who had been rejected by society, or unending slavery for people who were often sold to the shows by the family who rejected them.

The Life She Was Given tells the second kind of story. Eleven-year-old Lilly has spent her entire life in her attic bedroom, forbidden from exploring the house where she lives, Blackwood Manor, or the gardens and fields surrounding it. Her mother says it's for her own protection; that if people saw her, they would be afraid of her and might hurt her. One night, Lilly sees the lights of a circus in the distance. That night, for the first time, her mother takes her outside-and sells her to the circus sideshow.

A couple of decades later, young Julia Blackwood inherits Blackwood Manor, the strict childhood home she left behind after her father died, fleeing the lonely silence and strict rules of the big old house. When she returns after her mother's death, she hopes to find a way to exorcise the demons of her lonely childhood and bring light into the house, but what she discovers in her explorations of the old manor leads her deep into the mystery of the child who lived in the attic.

I will admit to getting totally sucked into this book. It is a quick read, and much of the story is not hard to predict. It reminded me a lot of Water for Elephants, as an elephant and its trainer have a prominent place in the story. I will say, though, that while I had a pretty good idea that something tragic would happen, the form that tragedy took was not what I expected. The descriptions of circus life are similar to other novels with circus settings that I've read, and Wiseman manages to fit in not one but two love stories, though one is much better developed than the other. Both main characters are well-written, and the story definitely has a strong emotional impact on the reader.

One word of warning: If you are someone who is squeamish about or sensitive to violence against animals, there's a section you might want to skip. You'll know it when you get there. Suffice it to say it turns out for the animal in question the way you'd expect based on what else has happened in the story. Wiseman does not shy away from putting her characters, even the animal ones, through some pretty awful stuff.

Calling Me Home, Julie Kibler

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock the last couple of years knows that issues of race are on the forefront of our nation's conversations right now. Issues of mass incarceration, the school-to-prison pipeline, tensions between police and the communities they serve, and the increasing racial segregation of our society are all being hotly debated throughout all levels of our policial and social institutions. As such, there are been a lot of really remarkable books published that seek to examine the issues of racial justice, and bring us together to combat the continuing systemic racism that plagues our country.

And while there are plenty of really thought-provoking and inspiring non-fiction titles examining these issues (if you haven't already, find The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander or Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates), many times people need to be engaged emotionally before they feel motivated to dive into the complexities of the ways race affects our communal lives. Julie Kibler gives us a glimpse into the ways that race plays into our family and personal relationships in her novel, Calling Me Home. It tells the story of Isabelle McAllister, a wealthy woman in her 90s,  and Dorrie Curtis, Miss Isabelle's hairdresser and confidante. Moving back and forth between the Jim Crow south and the present day, Calling Me Home is both a love story, and a story about the sacrifices we make to protect ourselves and those we love.

Isabelle asks Dorrie to accompany her on a cross-country drive to a funeral. Dorrie, worried about her teenage son and a new romantic relationship, decides that maybe helping Miss Isabelle get where she needs to go will give her enough distance to get clarity on a few things. Miss Isabelle, for her part, uses the drive to unburden herself about a secret she's been keeping for decades. As a young woman in the 1930s, Miss Isabelle had a forbidden love affair with a young black man her worked for her family. Despite the dangers to both of them, but especially to him, they forge a deep bond of love that none of her family's condemnation can erase. Isabelle's youthful enthusiasm, and naivete, lead to tragic consequences that it takes until the end of the novel to truly understand.

The comparison between the past and present in the novel makes it clear that while the openly racist practices of things like "sundown towns" are no longer socially acceptable, the underlying "othering" of blacks, and the unwritten, unspoken boundaries between the white and black communities are in many ways still present. Dorrie spends a good part of the beginning of the novel questioing whether she can really trust a white woman like Isabelle, a sentiment that I am sad to say I have seen expressed by many women of color I love and respect in the wake of the recent presidential election. The story does veer a little bit into the sappy side from time to time, and it is hard to believe that the young Isabelle was really as naive as she appeared to be about the way her relationship would be perceived, but overall this story highlighted how poisonous racism can be, and the way it destroys relationships. And for those readers who like a twist, there is a surprise towards the end that heightens the emotional impact even more. Maybe after reading this story, and realizing that many of the same issues are still present, the reader will decide to pay attention to the ways that race and racism affect their relationships, their community, and the country as a whole. Because until you acknowledge a problem, you can't solve it.

The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah's books are hit or miss for me. Sometimes I am completely swept away by the very human worlds she creates, and sometimes they feel a little bit too much like a Lifetime movie for me (I realize I use "Lifetime movie" as a pejorative a lot, but if sappy sentimentalism is your jam, good on ya!). Since The Nightingale was all over lists of book club picks this year, I figured eventually my book club would get around to it.
When we did, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

The Nightingale tells the story of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the story follows the sisters through the German occupation of France. Vianne, whose husband Antoine has left to join the fighting, tries desperately to keep her small family together. She struggles to provide shelter and comfort to her children, all while staying under the radar of the Germans occupying her small rural village. Fiery Isabelle, on the other hand, joins the resistance, and undertakes the dangerous mission of shepherding downed  Allied pilots out of France. She saves dozens of people through her work, but she soon becomes a wanted fugitive, known only as The Nightingale. The sisters experience love and loss and betrayal and, ultimately, triumph, though in very different ways.

While it is important to tell and tell again stories of the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and dissidents who were sent to the camps, I find that I have developed an appreciation for books that focus on how the average citizen of Germany or France coped with the war. History books give us the major players, and the most important events, but I think that there is much to be learned from hearing about the way that war affects not just those who have been targeted, but those who are forced to live, day after day, under such oppressive conditions. While nothing compares to the horror of the camps, Hannah does an excellent job showing just how treacherous it was just to try and live your life during the occupation. While Isabelle was portrayed as outwardly heroic through her deeds, Vianne's quieter acts say just as much about the human spirit as Isabelle's grand ones. Much like Zusak did in The Book Thief, Hannah shows in The Nightingale that even when things seem the darkest, if you can hold on to even a spark of the light that is in each of us, there is cause for hope.

I think that the most intriguing character, though, is not Vianne or Isabelle. It is the Nazi officer, Capt. Beck, who ends up billeted with Vianne for a time. Hannah creates a character that is clearly struggling with what he is being asked to do. A devoted family man, Capt. Beck is a loyal German, who is also extremely uncomfortable with the way the Nazis treat the occupied French, and with being seen as a monster by the outside world. He ends up being a sympathetic character, even though he doesn't renounce Nazi-ism or help Vianne escape, etc...But he does show another side of the evils of war-forcing basically good men to go against their own nature in the service of an ideal or political goal they may or may not share.

Overall, I enjoyed this read, and it was good for some tear-jerk moments. I'd say even if you haven't been too impressed by Hannah's other work, I'd give this one a try.

Snow Moon Rising, Lori L. Lake

The atrocities committed against the Jewish people in Europe during World War II are well-covered ground in the literary world. The history of the Jewish genocide is well-documented in history books, and the human toll of the war and its depravity are demonstrated through the thousands of fictional accounts that have been written in the decades since the concentration camps were liberated. This is as it should be. The extreme example of xenophobia, greed, and racism displayed by Hitler and his Nazi followers is something that should never be forgotten.

(We often say that the Holocaust should be remembered so that we as a global community can make sure it never happens again. Sadly, we as a human family have failed in this aspiration time and time again-the Rwandan genocide, the crisis in Darfur, and the massacre at Srebrenica are but a few of the examples of modern day ethnic or religious violence.)

While the experiences of the Jewish people of Europe during the Holocaust is very well known, less talked about are the experiences of other groups that were persecuted and brutalized by the Nazis. Physically and mentally disabled children, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Roma people, and homosexuals were some of the groups that were singled out for "special" treatment. It is the Roma, known pejoratively as Gypsies, that are the subject of the book Snow Moon Rising.

The Roma people were a nomadic group, traveling the roads between European countries in large family groups called kumpania. The kumpania, made up of caravans and carts which were both the homes and workplaces of the Roma people, traveled from village to village, finding work when possible, hunting and gathering when work was hard to find. Some members of the caravans became artisans and craftsmen, selling their wares along the way.

Unfortunately, the Roma developed a reputation as thieves and con men. During the early part of the 20th century, many countries had laws banning the Roma people from traveling to certain places, or from being allowed to do certain jobs in the community. There was a deep distrust of the Roma, who were seen as a race separate from the "purer" European people, and were considered inferior, much like the Jews were.

It is into this culture that we are dropped when we read Snow Moon Rising. The book follows two

women, Mischka and Pippi, during the time period from World War I through World War II. Mischka is a young Roma girl at the beginning of the book, already chaffing against the rigid gender expectations of her clan. Pippi is the sister of a young German soldier who is rescued by Mischka's kumpania after he stumbles away from a bloody battle. Mischka and Pippi meet and become bonded in a way that is more than just friendship. Fast forward to World War II, and Mischka ends up in a German labor camp. Pippi, who must pretend to be a a German loyal to Hitler to survive, is sent ot the camp to oversee the production of uniforms for German soldiers. Here, the two women are reunited, and must work together to ensure that the prisoners get out of the camp alive. But the end of the war is not the end of the challenges for these women, because Europe is soon divided between the Soviets and the rest of the western world. Will Mischka and Pippi find a way to be together?

I found the description of the Roma way of life and the persecution they suffered fascinating. It also led me to many a discussion during this Halloween season as to why "gypsy" costumes were maybe not a good idea. Aside from being an exploration of the experiences of the Roma during the first half of the 20th century, this book is a lesbian love story. Mischka and Pippi take turns telling the story, which is actually a series of flashbacks spun out over the course of one evening to their grandson, who has never heard the story of his family's journey to America. Aside from the Roma history I learned, I appreciated an insight into what the life of the average German may have been during World War II. The final scenes of the book left me in tears for all the right reasons.

The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier

I'm a  pretty big fan of historical fiction.  To be honest, I wish that history classes were taught using historical fiction as the hook.  Read Ken Follett, then research the time period to confirm or deny his portrayal. (Of course, I think that literature can teach us just about anything).

For instance, if you were interested in art, say the process of making tapestries, in the 17th century, you could read Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn.  Much as she did in The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Chevalier used a famous piece of art from the past and created an elaborate backstory using characters based on the real artists, artisans, nobles, petty bureaucrats, and common folk who contributed (either in reality or in the fictional world she creates) to the creation of that work of art. In The Lady and the Unicorn, we are introduced to an arrogant Parisian artist named Nicholas des Innocentes (who is anything but).  This womanizer is commissioned by a newly noble patron to design a set of tapestries to be hung in his formal dining room.  Nicholas agrees, though not before seducing the young daughter of his patron.  When he insists on traveling to Brussels to oversee the work of turning his smallish paintings into large tapestries, we meet the weaver, Georges, and his family.  Jumping back and forth between Paris and Brussels, we learn a lot about French society, the social expectations of men and women based on their gender and station, and about making tapestries in the pre-industrial age.

The best parts of the book for me was the descriptions of the tapestry making process.  The process was incredibly painstaking, and could takes months or years to complete depending on the size of the tapestry and the complexity of the pattern.  The plot itself has enough drama to make it an enjoyable read even if you don't care about the art-making parts, with lots of twists and turns.  There is lust, love, betrayal-all of the components of a satisfying read.  The story is old through alternating perspectives, which has become a very common narrative style, and Chevalier does a good job making the story feel cohesive despite the frequent change in narrator.  As historical fiction goes, I suspect this book is longer on the fiction than the history, but either way it is an an enjoyable way to spend a few hours!

The House Girl, by Tara Conklin

The subject of reparations for slavery is a controversial one.  There is no question that this country was built on the labor of African slaves and the bonded laborers from Europe and Asia that came here in the thousands in the 18th and 19th centuries, and there is even some agreement about how to quantify the stolen wages and physical and emotional suffering.  But to whom would the money go?  How does one prove their ancestors were slaves, with so many records incomplete or lost?  And where does the money come from?  So many generations removed from the plantations, how would we even begin to trace where the present wealth came from, and is there any amount of money that can even begin to make up for the tragedy that was the trans-Atlantic slave trade?  Conklin uses this issue as the framework for her novel, The House Girl.

Set alternately in the late 1800s and the present day, the book tells the story of Josephine Bell, a house slave on a declining Virginia plantation.  Her mistress, Lu Ann Bell, is an aspiring artist.  She is also a high-strung woman, with an anxious temperament and poor health.  In a move that is unusual, and indeed illegal, for the time, Lu Ann taught her young house girl to read, and allowed her to draw and paint in her studio when she was feeling generous.  Lu Ann Bell is a capable artist, but Josephine's portraits and landscapes are luminous, capturing the inherent humanity of her fellow slaves while showcasing the lush beauty of the rural south.  Josephine is desperate to run away, has in fact tried to run away before, but she is conflicted about leaving her dying mistress, and her paintings.

The present day story follows lawyer Lina Sparrow.  Lina is tasked with working on a suit, to be brought against the federal government and many major US corporations, demanding reparations for slavery.  In researching a primary plaintiff for the suit, she is introduced to Lu Ann Bell and her art through a controversy brewing in the art world-was the work really done by Lu Ann Bell, or by her house slave, Josephine.  Bell's family is desperate to prove that she painted the works attributed to her, but others in the art world aren't so sure.  Lina discovers a possible descendant of Josephine's who would make a great plaintiff, but while preparing the case she is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about her own past.

A story like this one could become little more than political speech as narrative, but Conklin manages to write an engaging story that highlights the many injustices of slavery, as well as present day controversy surrounding reparations, in a way that does not feel preachy.  I've read plenty of other books about slavery, but the art angle makes this one unique. And it is not just a slavery narrative, not that those aren't important and engaging, as well.  This story is about family connections, loss, motherhood, and identity in a more general sense.  Josephine and Lina both come alive on the pages with an emotional impact that draws the reader in.  The book will appeal to anyone interested in the legacy of slavery, or art, or the modern day reparations movement.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Jesus famously said "The poor you will always have with you" (Mark 14:7).  Two thousand years later, this statement remains a sad truth about the state of the world we live in.  Poverty is a blight on human civilization, rendering huge swaths of the population unable to do more than work tirelessly for subsistence level existence.  The causes of poverty are many and varied, and fighting poverty is made that much more difficult by the attitudes that people have about the poor.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, there are many people around the world who choose a "blame the victim" mentality when thinking about those who live in poverty. They are lazy, or dissolute, or ignorant.  Obviously they must be making bad choices, or they feel a sense of entitlement to government assistance that keeps them from "working hard", "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps", or "climbing the ladder" of economic success.

While some of these prejudices are stated openly by people who seem to have a dearth of compassion towards their fellow human beings, they are more insidious than that.  Often, well intentioned people who believe it is their "Christian" duty to serve the needs of the poor reinforce these stereotypes in the way that they structure their social action around poverty.  Throughout the history of the United States, there are a multitude of examples of churches, governments, or social service organizations who espoused a particular policy to fight poverty that actually caused more harm than good.  "Indian schools", where Native American children were sent after being (forcibly) removed from their families to be re-educated in the "Christian" way are one example.  Another is the subject of the book Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline.  For a period of about 70 years, trains full of orphaned and abandoned children were sent to the middle of the country, where farmers, factory owners, shopkeepers, and yes, some loving families were able to adopt them by signing a piece of paper on a train platform.  The stated goal was to provide for these children, the products of the teeming, filthy streets of cities in the northeast, a fresh start in a wholesome environment where they could learn the values of hard work and clean living that so obviously escaped their vile, low, lazy parents (please read sarcasm into that last sentence).

Orphan Train is the story of two women-Molly, a Penobscot Indian teenager in the foster care system in present day Maine, and Vivian, a 91 year old woman with an unexpected past.  When Molly volunteers to help Vivian clean out the attic of her large seaside home, she discovers that she and Vivian share a history of being judged by people who do not understand who they are, and of being shunted around from place to place, never really feeling secure.  Vivian was one of the children sent west on the Orphan Train, an Irish girl with red hair and freckles.  The Irish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America were looked down upon much like many immigrants of Mexican descent are today (like poverty, this tendency to revile newly arrived immigrants who are coming to "take our jobs and ruin our towns" is always with us).  Her father was an alcoholic who gambles away much of the family's money, and her mother has what would today be diagnosed as clinical depression.  When most of her family is killed in a fire, she is sent from New York City on a train to Minnesota.  Too old to be easily adopted, and her obviously Irish features and name (Niamh), she is not taken into the arms of a loving, Midwestern family, but sent to what is essentially a sweatshop.  The story follows Niamh, who will change her name several times in the course of the novel, through the 20th century and the many times she had to move from place to place, never really feeling as though she belonged anywhere.

The book highlights an important period of American history, and the story is very moving.  What makes it more than just a well-written historical fiction novel is the relationship between Molly and Vivian.  These two women, who have felt alone and misunderstood for much of their lives, find kindred spirits in each other. In Vivian, Molly finds a model of what it can look like when someone decided not to let their past or the prejudices of others define them, and Vivian discovers that family connections can survive despite tragedy, separation, and the passing of nearly a century of time.

A Bitter Truth, by Charles Todd

Charles Todd, the mother-son writing team of Caroline Todd and Charles Todd, first introduced nurse and accidental detective Bess Crawford in A Duty to the Dead.  Ms. Crawford's world is World War I England. The daughter of a British colonel who grew up in India, Bess felt compelled to do her duty to her country by becoming a nursing sister in France.  During her leaves, she often comes home to England, where she shares a flat in London with some other nursing sisters.  When not in London, she visits her parents in the English countryside.  Given the diverse places she find herself (battlefield, gritty London street, or bucolic English field), she has plenty of opportunity to get drawn into drama and mystery.

In this particular story, Bess is home on leave during the winter of 1917.  Struggling from the train station to her flat in London through a frigid rain, she discovers a bruised young woman shivering on her doorstep. Being incapable of ignoring the suffering of any poor soul, she invites the woman into her flat to warm up and dry off.  She learns that the woman is the wife of a wealthy landowner from Sussex, who has run away from her husband after he struck her during an argument.  She wants to return home, but it afraid of what her husband will do.  She asks Bess to accompany her to Vixen Hill, the family's country estate.  Bess, who desperately wants to see her own family, cannot refuse the terrified woman's request.

Vixen Hill proves to be a brooding manor house, surrounded by harsh, windswept countryside.  Bess is grudgingly welcomed by the family, who are mourning the loss of the oldest son in the war.  When a guest at the memorial service is found murdered, Bess and everyone in the house become suspects, and family secrets begin to come out.  Bess' quest to identify the murderer and help the family takes her from England to the devastated villages of France.

I enjoy the Bess Crawford novels for a variety of reasons, from the setting to the strong-willed main character to the rather intricate plots.  Of course, I like all things British, and the fact that the setting of this series closely resembles Downton Abbey doesn't hurt.  I have to say that for the most part I didn't really like any of the characters in this book, other than Bess and the other recurring characters in the series.  But that strangely didn't make it any less enjoyable to read.  Despite their rather selfish behavior, and downright snobbery, I couldn't help but be drawn in emotionally, and found myself empathizing with the grief and sadness that was just below the surface of their family life.  I did feel as though the middle section dragged a bit, but the ending was dramatic enough to make up for it.  If you are a fan of period mysteries a la Agatha Christie, then I think that you would enjoy Bess Crawford's investigatory capers!

The Lost Wife, In Which We Learn Once Again the Evils of the Holocaust

If there is one era of human history that has been well documented and analyzed and memorialized in books and film, it is the Holocaust.  And rightfully so.  The tragic events of that time, perpetrated with such callous disregard for all that is good and right about the world, deserves to be kept alive in our memories, if only to remind us never to let the evils of racism and xenophobia on that scale happen again.  Of course, it has happened again-in Rwanda, and Darfur, and Srebrenica-but most of the Western world at least has heeded the lessons of the Holocaust and has responded fairly quickly and decisively to any hint of the rise of neo-nazism or ethnic hatred.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I belong to a denomination that believes in radical inclusion.  One of our central beliefs is the right of all people to determine their own path to the divine, to search for their own truth and meaning through a variety of theological or ethical beliefs.  And as a youth advisor, I spend a great deal of my time discussing our faith tradition with my youth.  Whenever we talk about inclusion and acceptance, we inevitably get around to "the Hitler Question", as one of my youth put it.  Would we as accepting, radically inclusive Unitarian Universalists accept Adolf Hitler?  The answer, of course, is that we would never be put into that position, as Hitler would not have been likely to associate with a progressive church that loves Jews and gays, but also because everything he stood for was antithetical to the Untiarian Universalist principles.  But Hitler, for all of his evil, was also perhaps one of the most successful manipulators of public opinion in history.  In The Lost Wife, by Alyson Richman, we are offered as proof of this manipulation in the form of the Terezin, a prison work camp for Czechoslovakian Jews that also served as a way station for Jews headed to Aushwitz.

The Lost Wife begins with a recognition-Josef, in his 80s, meets an elderly woman at his grandson's wedding who seems very familiar.  It is not until he sees the numbers tattooed on her arm that he begins to suspect that she could be his long-lost wife, Lenka-a woman he thought died in Auschwitz over 60 years before.  The rest of the novel details their lives in Czechoslovakia, from growing up privileged pre-occupation to the terrible run up to the war, to the camp and to America.  Josef, a doctor, escapes to American, promising to send for Lenka and her family.  Lenka is sent with her sister and parents to Terezin, a work camp that was used as a cover for the Nazi's real agenda-the extermination of the Jewish people.  Because of the chaos that ensued, both Josef and Lenka believed that the other had perished, until that fateful night when Josef's grandson was to marry Lenka's granddaughter.

For me the book was an education in the way the Nazi's attempted to keep the world in the dark about what was happening in the concentration camps.  Built specifically as a ghetto, meant to hold 5,000 people, was home to up to 55,000 at a time.  A film was made about the town, proclaiming to the world that the Nazi's had built a "city for the Jews".  The one time that the Red Cross was allowed to visit, the ghetto was dressed up along the route the officials would take, with prisoners given extra food to make them look healthier, allowed to bathe and given new clothes.  The shop windows were filled with goods, which were immediately taken away when the Red Cross left.

One of the things that made the camp unusual was the incredible number of artists of various kinds that were housed there.  Richman said that part of her motivation behind writing the book was to tell the story of the Holocaust from the point of view of an artist.  Lenka was a painter, and she was given work with other artists making art that the Nazi's sold to help fund their war effort.  But that was not the only art that made it out of the camp.  Many artists stole painting supplies and smuggled out pictures of what was really going on in Terezin.  There were also many musicians in the camp, and there were operas and plays and concerts performed whenever a group could find a secret place to hold them.  The Lost Wife, while being a testament to the enduring power of true love, also shows the triumph of the human spirit and artistic endeavor over pain, fear, powerlessness, and violence.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

There is no shortage of historical fiction that examines the relationship between slaveowners and their slaves in the 18th century.  The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom, takes that theme and gives it a twist.  The novel is told by two narrators-Lavinia, an Irish indentured servant brought to the plantation as a small child, and Belle, the mulatto daughter of the owner, the Cap'n, who lives and works in the kitchen house.  Lavinia is raised with the slave children, but because she is white the Cap'n always had other plans for her.  Having lived in Ireland prior to coming to the plantation, Lavinia does not understand the complexities of the racial boundaries in 18th century America, and in her naivete she often unintentionally creates problems for her "family"-the black slaves that she lived with for most of her childhood.

When Lavinia becomes a teen, she is sent to live with the family of the captain's wife.  There, she is brought into the household as a young woman being groomed for a respectable marriage and the life of a white woman in plantation society.  Despite the kindness shown to her during this time, she longs to return home to her "family", never realizing how different their lives have become.  Through family tragedies, brutal abuse, and failed marriages, the characters of The Kitchen House demonstrate the corrosive nature of oppression and slavery on the men and women affected by it.

I read this novel with a sick sense of inevitability.  Having read many such stories in the past, I had more than enough background knowledge to know that things were not likely to turn out happily for the residents of Tall Oaks plantation.  But the unusual main characters and the seeming reasonableness of some of the white characters gave me a small hope that perhaps this time history would be different.  The fact is that in the end there was tragedy, but there was also hope and at least some peace for Lavinia, Belle, and the other slaves.  Grissom's treatment of the captain's wife, Miss Martha, and Lavinia herself, highlighted the similarities between the oppression of women and blacks in the antebellum south.  Miss Martha may have lived in the big house and been waited on by house slaves, but she had little more freedom than they when it came to making decisions about her life.  I think that Grissom did a good job in showing how the rigid social norms of the slave/slave-owner society negatively affected everyone in some way.  Sympathetic whites were forced to support and promote treatment of slaves that went against what reason and compassion would say was right; the oppressed minorities scrambled daily to forestall the anger and violence simmering just below the surface of the plantation; and other whites-especially white men tasked with "working" the slaves-became brutal and mean as a result of the culture of oppression that led to their unchecked power over others.

The book, while chock full of meaning, was also a page-turner. I had to keep reading to see if my sense of unease really did lead to the inevitable tragedy I imagined was coming..  I described it to some friends as soap opera in a historical context.  The misunderstandings and missed opportunities led to romantic entanglements right out of a Gothic romance.  But unlike historical romance books, which are basically love stories lightly dipped in history, the historical context of the relationships in this book are an integral part of the story.

Lord John and the Private Matter, Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is well-known for writing the Outlander series, a historical/fantasy/romance series about a Scottish nobleman and his time-traveling wife Claire.  Extensively researched, very detailed, the Outlander books are a fun, engaging romp through 18th century Scottish history.  Or at least, the first two are-those are the ones I've read.  At any rate, what the Outlander books are NOT are traditional mysteries.  But it turns out that Gabaldon has a knack for those as well, as she aptly demonstrates in the Lord John Grey series.

The first book in the series is Lord John and the Private Matter.  The main character is Lord John Grey, an important but not always present character in the Outlander books.  Goodreads has this summary of the plot:

The year is 1757. On a clear morning in mid-June, Lord John Grey emerges from London’s Beefsteak Club, his mind in turmoil. A nobleman and a high-ranking officer in His Majesty’s Army, Grey has just witnessed something shocking. But his efforts to avoid a scandal that might destroy his family are interrupted by something still more urgent: the Crown appoints him to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade in arms, who may have been a traitor.
Obliged to pursue two inquiries at once, Major Grey finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery and betrayal that touches every stratum of English society — and threatens all he holds dear. From the bawdy houses of London’s night-world to the stately drawing rooms of the nobility, and from the blood of a murdered corpse to the thundering seas ruled by the majestic fleet of the East India Company, Lord John pursues the elusive trails of a vanishing footman and a woman in green velvet, who may hold the key to everything — or nothing.

And lest you think that I am just feeling too lazy with my summer brain to actually write my own summary, I will tell you that I've spent the last 20 minutes composing and erasing prospective summaries-the plot is intricate and detailed, with many moving parts.  Gabaldon's Lord John reminds me of the William Monk books by Anne Perry, who also writes very well-researched historical mysteries.    But there is one major difference-Lord John Grey is gay.  Since the 18th century was not known for its acceptance of homosexuals, this adds tension to the whole story.  Gabaldon gives us a fascinating look at the gay culture of London in the mid-1700s, and weaves it seamlessly into the story so that it feels authentic rather than contrived.  Because Lord John is also a character from the Outlander series there are a few mentions of Jamie Fraser and Claire, but for the most part this is a stand-alone series that does not require that you read the very loooonnnnngggg Outlander books to enjoy.  In fact, if you enjoy Gabaldon's writing but think the Outlander books are too long, then this series is for you!

Her Name was Mary Sutter...

and sadly, I didn't really care.  My Name is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliveira, details the story of Mary Sutter, a wealthy midwife living in Albany, New York at the outbreak of the Civil War.  Her one dream is to become a surgeon, but she has been turned down by every medical school and doctor in Albany.  When the war starts, she sees her chance to get into the field of medicine by becoming part of Dorothea Dix's nurses corps.  She travels to Washington, DC and bullies herself into a position at the Union Hotel Hospital.  And then there's some family tragedy, and some arguments with the head doctor, and some gruesome descriptions of injuries and disease...and then I gave up.

Everything about this book makes it something I should enjoy.  The genre, the theme, the feminist message-all things that resonate with me as a reader and a woman.  However, I found myself unable to work up much caring about the characters or what was happening to them.  The story was slow moving, the characters all annoyed me at some point or another-and not in a good, "ooo, I love to hate them" sort of way-and the descriptions of the barbaric state of medicine during that time were more disgusting than instructive.  Ordinarily I enjoy reading about the political machinations that lead to major world events, but even the political insights into the disorganization and incompetence that resulted in a greater human toll than necessary couldn't keep me going.  I will admit I stopped about 220 pages in-even though that was 2/3 of the way through,  I have too many other things to read to spend any more time on a book that was clearly not doing anything for me, intellectually, spiritually, or from an entertainment stand-point.  I assume since this book was nominated for the Orange Prize** that other people must have enjoyed it more than me, so give it a try if it sounds good to you.  You can tell me how it ended.

**Apparently, it did not in fact get nominated for the Orange Prize-as Ms. Oliveira herself was kind enough to point out in a comment below.  Darn TBR piles and their lack of appropriate organization!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Good morning, fellow Monday Morning Readers!  It's been a long time since I have been able to participate in a weekly meme of any kind, so welcome to Book Addict Reviews any fellow bloggers who have not been here before!  I'm glad to be back!

This week, I finished When She Woke by Hillary Jordan.  Amazing speculative fiction a la The Handmaid's Tale about a woman's place in society and reproductive choice.

I am also reading The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson.  This young adult novel tells the story of a group of mixed race friends who start a website to sell t-shirts to people with latte-colored skin as a way to raise money for a summer vacation.  What starts as a joke about their shared experiences as people of mixed racial backgrounds becomes a social justice movement, leading to serious consequences for the girls when their school labels them terrorists.

I'm about to start My Name is Mary Sutter, a historical fiction novel about a woman fighting to be recognized for her medical skills in the mid-18th century.  I guess I must be on a feminist fiction kick right now, since the last few things I have read are falling in that theme.  Given the current state of political discourse about women in this country, I guess maybe that makes sense...

Finally, I am listening to The Grapes of Wrath on audiobook.  I'm glad that I decided to listen rather than read it, because I really feel like the narrator is doing a wonderful job with the character's voices and emotions.  It is the tale of the Joad family-chased off their land during the Depression by the landowners and their tractors, the family takes off west in a converted jalopy, hoping to find work and prosperity in the promised land of California.  Heartbreaking, infuriating, filled with moments of quiet grace, this American classic is a must read.

Have a wonderful reading week, everyone!

Fall of Giants, or How to Fit an Entire War in 1000 Pages

One of the reasons that I love historical fiction is that, when well researched and written, it allows me to learn something without actually have to read a history book.  I guarantee that reading the Little House books by Laura Ingals Wilder in elementary school taught me more about pioneer life than anything in my social studies book.  Same with Tudor England-almost anything I know about Henry VIII, his wives, and the various Thomases in his life is the result of the many, many fictional narratives I have read through the years.  It may not be "hard, academic" fact, but then is any history hard academic fact?  After all, it tends to be written by the victors, as they say.

Ken Follet is the master of the sweeping historical novel.  In Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, he showed us the world of 12th and 13th century England in detail both large and small.  World events intermingle with the day to day lives of the people to create a rich tapestry of story and feeling.  As such, I picked up the audiobook of Fall of Giants knowing that I was going to get a great story with interesting characters, and that I would learn an awful lot in the process. (Plus, it is 30 hours long-30 HOURS!  Talk about getting your money's worth for an audiobook)

Fall of Giants tells the story of World War I through the eyes of characters from various places in the social and political hierarchies.  There is Lord Fitzherbert, a wealthy aristocrat and his sister Maud, a feminist and suffragist.  There is Ethel, Fitzherbert's maid, and her brother Billy, who enters the coal mines at age 13.  In Russia we have Grigori and Lev Peshkov, brothers who are trying to escape the tyranny of the czar and find a better life in America.  There is the German Walter Von Ulrich, a friend of Fitz's from school, and Gus Dewar, an American working in Wilson's White House.  As the characters wend their way through events great and small, connections are made and people are drawn into situations both triumphant and tragic.

Follett obviously researched his little heart out for this book, which comes in at a staggering 985 pages.  As in his other books, he related important world events through the eyes of his major characters, of whom there are many.  And as usual, he created compelling personal stories for each character, heroes and villains alike.  He uses Earl Fitzherbert to show the conservatism and entrenched sense of privilege in the English noble class.  He uses Maud and Ethel to showcase the cause of first wave feminism and the suffrage movement.  Grigori and Lev live in a Russia that is cruel and repressive-and about to change the course of the world through the Bolshevik Revolution.  Gus Dewar represents the rising power of the United States in world affairs.  And Walter Von Ulrich is anything but a villain, though he is the "enemy"-he is handled with the most nuanced care by Follett, representing a younger, more progressive Germany fighting against the old guard in the cause of peace, even as he fights as a soldier on the front lines.

If that sounds like a lot to keep up with, it is.  And this is supposed to be just the first in a trilogy!  There is enough information in this book to make a trilogy of its own.  And that length is my only complaint.  I am not afraid of lengthy books-Under the Dome by Stephen King was one of my favorites last year-but the sheer amount of detail in this novel is at times slightly overwhelming.  While the personal stories of the characters are fairly easy to keep straight, I sometimes found my mind drifting through the the pages and pages of minute detail about specific battles and political machinations.  In fact, listening to it rather than reading it is likely the main reason I finished it.  I suspect that fatigue would have set in, and I would have put it aside to read something else, sure I would get back to it-which is something I rarely manage to do.  That said, I am glad that I stuck with it on my daily commute.  I fell in love with some of the characters as much as I despise others, and I am looking forward to seeing where their lives go, and where the fate of the world goes, in the next (I'm sure, hefty) installment.

Poison Spreads-The Book Thief

Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II.  And that is about all I know-neither of my grandfathers would talk about that time.  Perhaps that's why stories about World War II had always held a fascination for me.  In my teens, I read all of James Michener's books about his time in Japan.  I also discovered books like When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Number the Stars, and of course The Diary of Anne Frank.  I've watched countless documentaries and movies about the Holocaust.  And when I think about World War II, the images I have in my mind are of concentration camps and ovens.  But now I have a new vision to add to my understanding of the madness that was Hilter's Germany.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place during World War II, and tells the story of 10 year old Liesel.  Her mother is forced to place her children into foster care.  Liesel's brother dies on the train taking her to Munich, where she is given into the care of a couple on Himmler Street.  Through the tough love of her foster mother, and the sweet compassion of her foster father, she finds a way to cope with not only her brothers death but the quickly declining standard of living in Germany.  Things go along OK, until the dark night that a Jew shows up at their door looking for sanctuary.

Despite the tragedy and the devastation contained within the story, when I think of a word to describe this book I can only say beautiful.  This book is so heartbreakingly beautiful, I could almost weep just from the use of language.  But the story is so compelling that even if it weren't written so beautifully I would have had a hard time putting it down.  So often books about World War II focus solely on the fate of the Jews-and rightfully so.  There is nothing so important as ensuring that the world never experiences that level of genocide-or any genocide-again.  But the fact is that most of the German people were suffering as well, and this book shows so clearly how the poison of hatred and fear spreads, and how it takes an incredible strength not to give in to the despair.  Despite the constant threat of being found out, of starvation, of being killed by bombs, Liesel and her parents held on to their humanity and compassion.

I Still Don't Like Hemingway, But...

...if The Paris Wife is an accurate historical portrayal of his early literary life, then I feel like I can forgive some of his macho, sexist writing.

In case you lived under a literary rock for the last 12 months, The Paris Wife is the fictionalized story of Hadley Hemingway ne Richardson, who was Ernest Hemingway's first wife (out of four total).  Based on extensive research into the Hemingways' time in Paris, the novel starts in Chicago, where a young Hadley meets an even younger Ernest at a party.  Instantly drawn to each other, the two start an affair that eventually leads to marriage.  Despite the disapproval of both families, Ernest and Hadley set off for Paris, the happening scene for writers and artists in the very early 20th century.  Surrounded by such literary giants and Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, Ernest sets about the serious business of writing.  Hadley, left to her own devices most of the time, loses herself in his career.  Over time, their relationship cannot withstand the darkness in his own soul, or his affair with a young editor at Vogue.

I've managed to read one and a half Hemingway novels, and a few of his short stories.  The one I remember best is Hills Like White Elephants,  about a woman who wants to have a baby with her husband but he wants her to have an abortion so he doesn't have to change his rather selfish lifestyle.  Not exactly endearing.  I've always been put off by his very violent ideas about manhood, and his rather apparent disrespect for women.  Having read The Paris Wife, however, I am better able to put his ideas in not just a historical context, but a more personal, emotional one.

What I didn't know about him before reading this book was that he was injured in the first World War, and that he spent most of the rest of his life trying to stare down death, terrified by his own morality.  Constantly afraid of being seen as cowardly or weak, he actively sought out experiences, like the bullfights in Pamplona, to convince himself of his own strength.  His war experiences, coupled with his depressive nature and the history of mental illness in his family, suddenly I see his overly-macho definition of what it means to be a man in a new light.  And while I still don't like his fiction, and I still think that he was a philandering sexist, at least now I have a context to put it in.  I now have compassion where before was only contempt.

The Buddha in the Attic

The experience of immigrant groups in the United States is something that has interested me ever since I took a multicultural education class a few years ago.  I read some really moving testimonials from people of various immigrant groups (beginning with Italians and the Irish and moving on through Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican) describing their experiences (or the family stories passed down by their grandparents) and how their families never gave up on making it in America.

My own family immigration history is fairly recent.  My paternal grandparents came to America in the early 20th century from Quebec.  They settled in New England, in an area where there was already a community for them to join.  While my great-grandparents spoke Quebecois French almost exclusively, it did not take long for my grandmother and grandfather to learn English and assimilate into mainstream American culture.  My grandfather fought in World War II, and was proud to serve the nation he saw as his, even though he had only been in the US for half of his rather short life at that point.

We as a society have never been particularly welcoming to new arrivals, regardless of where they are from or what the words on the Statue of Liberty may imply about how inclusive we pretend we are.  The myth propagated is that as long as immigrants are willing to work-hard and respect American values we will accept them with open arms.  The reality is that every immigrant group has started out on the lowest rung of American society, doing the jobs that no one wants to do, being discriminated against in public services, and being used as a pawn by politicians who want to scare people with the image of being overrun by the "other". Perhaps the most egregious case of this phenomenon happened to the Japanese in America during World War II.  It is this immigrant experience that Julie Otsuka chronicles in her book The Buddha in the Attic.

Otsuka's book is written in the third person plural, from the perspective of women who were brought to the United States from Japan after World War I as wives to Japanese men they had never met.  This rather interesting literary device  is used to highlight the similarities of the immigrant experience for these women, even as it describes the variety of experiences that defined them as farm laborers, shop clerks, maids, and laundry workers.  This very short novel, spare in its language, presents a portrait of women who try to find some way to survive in a world that has turned upside down, taking them away from everything they know to a world where not even the man they are going to marry is familiar.  Through back-breaking, heartbreaking work, they bring children into the world, and watch them become more American than Japanese.  Despite their fear that their children are moving away from them, they are hopeful that their futures will be better-until World War II brings it all crashing down around them again.

Like Otsuka's first book, When the Emperor Was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic is filled with carefully chosen words, meant to evoke specific ideas and feelings without extraneous language.  While occasionally the long, collective paragraphs start to feel a bit listy, the book works because the snippets of women's stories that are elaborated upon are compelling enough to provide a frame for the rest.  By the end I felt overwhelmed by the struggles of these women-and once more furious and regretful that it is my country, whose ideals I revere, that interned so many of our own citizens out of racial fear and prejudice.

Nothing speaks as well to the way that communities changed after internment as the last portion of the book.  Suddenly, instead of the voices of the women, the narrator changes to a collective white American voice.  That voice describes how ignorant and/or arrogant white society was during World War II, when any injustice could be justified if it was for "national security" purposes (Sound familiar?  Patriot Act, anyone?).   What was startling was not just that people seemed to approve of their improper jailing of their neighbors, but that any negative reaction to it came from a selfish concern about who would pick their crops/clean their shirts/scrub their toilets.  As a reader, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the women who's lives I had been invited into, and perhaps that's the most startling thing-that an entire group of people can just be disappeared while the rest of us go about our lives.

What If?

This weekend during youth group at church, my youth played a game where everyone writes a question on a piece of paper, then we crumple them up into balls and have a "snowball" fight.  Everyone reads their question aloud and answers it.  Some of the questions are silly, but some of the questions really cause the person to think, and can start some great discussions.  Here is the question that struck me Sunday morning-"If you could kill someone with the power of your mind, and no one would know, would you do it?"

This question led to a discussion of Unitarian Universalist values, as the activity is supposed to ultimately do.  But it also led to a discussion of whether it is possible to change history.  If you add the ability to time travel to the ability to kill people with your mind, many of my youth said that maybe going back and killing Hitler as an infant would be an acceptable use of that power.  Because you already know what evil he created, and you would have a responsibility to stop it.  This exact idea is the central focus of Stephen King's latest tome, 11/22/63.


In the book, small town high school teacher named Jake Epping is floating through a rather drab existence.  Newly single, he spends his days teaching, grading papers, and eating his meals at a local diner.  One day the diner's owner and chief fry cook, A,l shares a secret with Jake-in the back of his store is an unexplained tear in the fabric of time.  Step through that tear and it takes you back to the same exact time on the same exact day in 1958.  No matter how long you stay or what you do while you are there, stepping through the tear resets any effect you may have had on the past.  Since Al discovered this mysterious tear, he's been travelling back and forth frequently.  His last trip lasted four years-because he had a mission, one that a lung cancer diagnosis is now forcing him to push on Jake.  His mission-to stop the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby stopping one of the most turbulent times in American history.  At least, that's this theory...

What follows is a loooooong history lesson about Lee Harvey Oswald.  Jake studies Oswald like a scientist, trying to discern what kind of man he was, what kind of husband he was, whether he did, in fact act alone...He follows his movements, and as a result we learn a lot about the man who shot Kennedy.

At 849 pages, this is one of King's doorstops of a book, but unlike Under the Dome, which I thought could be shortened by a hundred pages or so, I was riveted every moment of this one.  Maybe it's the historical fiction lover in me, but I actually liked the minute descriptions of Oswald's life, and King provides a personal storyline for Jake that is mildly predictable but very engaging.  Not horror by any means, this genre bending book-part historical fiction part science fiction-evokes the optimism of mid-20th Century America and the tension that builds as Jake gets closer to his goal.  And if he succeeds, will things really be better?  Consider this a novel of unintended consequences...