Be Frank with Me by Julia Claib0rne Johnson

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When Alice was asked by her boss and mentor, Mr. Vargas, to move out to California from New York to assist the renowned M.M. Banning with the writing of her new book and the care of the author’s son,  she is eager to be of help to him.  It seemed a perfect fit – she’d been an assistant elementary school teacher – she was good with kids.  And if she had to push the author a bit, so be it.  Bring it on!

Little did Alice know that she’d be entering the world of Frank, a 9 year old eccentric genius who was known to wear top hat and tails to school, to quote lines verbatim from old Humphrey Bogart movies, and to share long lists of random facts with anyone he may meet.  As Alice was brought into the life of this extraordinary and heart-wrenching boy, she does her best to keep this little family together and oversee what she hopes will be the author’s next brilliant novel.

This heart-warming novel really brings to light the value and uniqueness of every individual.  While Frank has difficulty with fitting in with any of his peers, he does worm his way into the hearts of the adults to bother to get to know him well.  He certainly has his quirks, but he has his charms too.  In addition, his mother, Mimi has her own quirks, but when we learn where they come from, we feel a tenderness toward even her, with her hard edge.

With the currently growing awareness of bullying in schools – and with our current bully-in-chief as a frightening example to all – this book has a timely message.  We all need to appreciate the beauty in everyone and to teach our children – by example – that although others may be different, that does not mean they do not deserve respect and kindness.  Poor Frank is rejected not only by the other children, but by his teachers and eventually his principal (!) and it is only through the kindness of the grown-ups around him that he is able to survive and flourish.  We learn that everyone can be seen from many different angles and through many different lenses – and each individual can contribute something special to the world around them.

As Alice slowly falls in love with little Frank, so too does the reader – and it carries the book through all of the outlandish circumstances that befall them all.

This is a special book – entertaining and meaningful all at once…

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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We meet Count Alexander Rustov in June of 1922, as he is pronounced guilty of having written a poem that was felt to incite potential action against the Kremlin.  He is sentenced to house arrest, but as it happens, his “house” is the Metropol Hotel, one of Moscow’s finest international hotels.  As he is resettled into a much smaller room than the one to which he’s grown accustomed, he adjusts his life and his expectations to the confines of his restricted quarters.  When he very soon meets a young girl of 9 years named Nina, his life changes dramatically and he learns that life can lead you in very unexpected directions even when you cannot leave the very confines of your home.

The writing in this book is absolutely gorgeous.  While the story is related with the lofty verbiage to which a count of Rustov’s caliber and sophistication is accustomed, Amor Towles blends wit and warmth  with such mastery that the result has the reader smiling throughout the many pages of this book.  Here is an example of the imagery that is used so brilliantly:

“Like the wheeling of the stars…  That is how time passes when one is left waiting unaccountably.  The minutes relentless.  And the seconds?  Why, not only does every last one of them demand its moment in the stage, it insists upon making a soliloquy full of weighty pauses and artful hesitations and then leaps into an encore at the slightest hint of applause.” (P 353)

In addition, each of the characters adds much color to the palate of this book.  As Alexander insinuates himself into the inner workings of the hotel, he befriends staff and guests alike, and the reader has the pleasure of their company as well.  The setting inside the hotel also gives the reader an appreciation of the interplay between Russian international relations and the insular attitude of communism.

I don’t often categorize books as “Must Reads” because I feel this should be kept exclusive, but I’m doing it here.  A Gentleman in Moscow is absolutely a “MUST READ!”

My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh

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One evening in the summer of 1989, Lindy Simpson, was raped on her own street in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Her story is told from the voice of her neighbor, friend, and devoted admirer, our narrator who lives across the street from her.  As he tells her story and the story of each of the suspects (himself included), he also reveals his own fascination with her and how their history unfolds.

Much teenage angst and struggle pours out in the telling of this story in a very authentic delivery.  There are apt descriptions of very awkward scenes that kids inevitably encounter and the mention of certain moments in history, such as the explosion of the Challenger and the national horror of Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes, that enable the reader to directly relate to the feelings the characters feel.  What appears to the outside world as a typical, suburban, upper middle class neighborhood is shown to have a diversity of characters, with shaded pursuits and emotional scars – which is likely what is true of most neighborhoods.

An interesting look at love and family and teenage obsession.

 

Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams

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Another absolute winner by this gifted writer!

Pepper Schuyler certainly has her reasons for selling the 1936 Special Roadster Mercedes Benz she’s been working on restoring, but she can’t imagine why the mysterious Annabelle Dommerich was so intent on buying it, and for such a small fortune.  To learn why, the author takes us back and forth between the relative “present” (1966) and the past (1935-) in the telling of the story.  We learn that Annabelle has had to navigate a passionate love for a Jewish German man at the start of the Nazi uprising.  Her complicated history has lead her inextricably back to this car and to Pepper, with whom she will share more in common than Pepper would have ever predicted.

 

Beatriz Williams has a way of creating characters whom you just want to invite over for a drink and conversation.  Her female characters are smart and sharp-witted and yet hopeful and strong.  In addition, she crafts her plots with twists and turns and actually keeps the suspense maintained throughout the pages.  This is a book that you can’t stop but yet don’t want to finish reading, because you just want to stay in the world of these real-life, endearing characters.

Highly recommend this and can’t wait to read other books by her!  (This is my 3rd by her,  I believe.)

Lasting Impact by Kostya Kennedy

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

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So the bottom line, here, is that my friend, Kostya Kennedy must be a good writer to get me to read – and actually enjoy! – a book about football.  While I love some sports, football is not one of them and being a pediatrician experienced in treating concussions, I am really not a fan.  But in this non-fiction account of Kostya’s shadowing the New Rochelle High School football team for their 2014 season, Kostya manages to impress upon even me (a true cynic) why many tolerate the risk for the game.

In the course of the season, Lou DiRienzo, the NRHS football coach takes on the role of coach, teacher, mentor, father-figure, even therapist to many of the boys and he leads them with a kindness and honesty and integrity that earns their trust and respect.  Right from their intensive camp experience at the start of the season, the boys bond and their lives are knitted together as a family.  The team becomes an anchor for those with family issues and a sort of home base for all.  Even at the advent of the Ray Rice scandal, Coach D reiterates that no matter what kind of trouble the boys ever get themselves into, the NRHS football family will always have their back.  And even though the players are injured one after another, there is still an undying devotion to the game.  So even though I am one of those mean mothers who won’t let my son play football, I do see, through the reading of this evenly researched account, its allure.

On the other hand, the negative side is presented quite clearly, too.  The statistics about sudden death from the game, about the potential long- lasting cognitive and emotional deficits, not to mention the broken bones and orthopedic surgeries, are exposed.    This feels to me like a high price to pay for something that another team experience might lend itself to.Still, what is conveyed here is that football, maybe because of its physicality, achieves gains for its players that transcend the immediate physical injuries.

So for all of you football fans, this one’s for you; however, even if you’re just human, you will feel the warmth and compassion of the writer toward the sport and the young people playing it.

 

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

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Love seems to actually trump hate in this frighteningly timely novel by Jodi Picoult.   It begins when a Black labor and delivery nurse, Ruth, begins to care for the baby of a White supremacist couple and the couple insist that she be removed from their case because of her race. As it would happen, Ruth is alone with the baby when the baby stops breathing.  Should she touch the baby and save him, as she is trained to do?  Should she abide by the racist rules the hospital has imposed at the request of this repugnant couple?  What happens next sets Ruth and the couple and ultimately, Ruth’s lawyer, Kennedy, on a road to grappling with race as it is seen from all perspectives.

Little did I know that I’d be reading this amidst the worst campaign and most devastating election outcome in the history of the United States.  The spillage of racism, misogyny, and bigotry that has poured out of the mouth of the Republican party nominee and his bedfellows has unleashed the underbelly of this country and its darkest side.  The election result has spawned a crippling shadow over my whole universe and I know this has been true for over half of this country.  We are embarrassed to call ourselves American, as it associates us with this new, evil and mean rhetoric in the eyes and ears of the rest of the world.  This is not the country I have known to be the home of the free.

And so it was, amidst my deepest disappointment that has sent me into a physical nausea that I cannot shake, that I read how Kennedy, seeking to defend Ruth in her ultimate trial, really tries to understand the day to day psychological beating that Ruth endures as a Black woman in a white man’s world.   The small slips, the subtle differences in perception, and the more overt signs of difference from which Kennedy is protected because of the color of her skin.  And while the 2 butt heads, they also come together because of the genuine efforts to try to understand each other, which is the foundation of the beginning of actually understanding each other.

Unfortunately for this story, love trumps hate in sort of a too perfect way by the end, so that it becomes a little fairytale-like as an ending.  I pray for this country, though, that we can reach an understanding that even remotely approximates this ending – for the good of our present and the good of our future.

The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows

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As the country is still reeling from the Great Depression, Layla finds herself ousted from her privileged life because she refused to marry the man chosen for her by her father.  As punishment, she’s banished to an assignment through the Writers’ Project to research and write the history of the tiny town of Macedonia,Virginia.  Not believing she will survive in such a backward town, she quickly finds herself living among and becoming entrenched with the family that is at the center of probably the most significant and tragic  segment of Macedonia’s history.

This book is written by the author of one of my all time favorite books, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  In that former book, the characters jump off the pages and into your heart.  The characters here are not quite as striking, but they are certainly vivid and endearing.  The author also utilizes a change in voices to tell the story, sometimes from the perspective of Jottie, Layla’s landlord and head of the household and sometimes from the perspective of Willa, Jottie’s niece whom she’s raised.  The varying perspectives round out the story to give it a great, 3-dimensional feel.

There is a bit of suspense, there is a bit of romance, but there is mostly just the telling of an emotional story about colorful characters about whom you can’t help caring.

An absorbing read, worth every word!

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton

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It is the late 1960’s and Frankie has just moved to Palo Alto with her husband and two children.  While her husband has found his dream job, her own dream of going to college and becoming a writer has gone unfulfilled.  That is, until she meets the “Wednesday Sisters.” While watching her children play in a park near her new home, she meets a group of women who become her closest friends, her confidantes, and her literary critics!  And as the 60’s roll into the 70’s, they see each other through their writing struggles as well as their personal struggles, and they evolve with women all over the country, supporting each other as they each begin to pursue their own interests and passions just as their husbands have done.

This is a sweet story, with the 1960’s as a subtle backdrop.  The women have a wonderful relationship and bring out the best in each other.  The respect that they show for each other, in spite of their individual quirks and conflicts, is what most would aspire to in a friendship and their solidarity, expressed most fully at the end (I won’t spoil it for you!) is truly beautiful.  It is a little far-reaching as “realistic” goes, but it works anyway.

A fun, mostly light read…  definitely a chick book!

 

 

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

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Elsa’s granny is certainly “different” –and Elsa knows how complicated, even burdensome, that can be.  But Elsa also knows that even while she can argue for hours, even days with her granny (mainly about the fairytale world they’ve constructed), she always knows that Granny has her back.  So what happens if something happens to Granny…?

Utilizing the world of fantasy, Elsa’s Granny helps Elsa escape a world in which she feels alienated and lonely because she is “different.” Unfortunately, because of how closely this is entwined with the actual storyline, there is vast description of this fantasy world, to which I personally felt disconnected.  These parts lost me a little.  On the other hand, the parts that were real pulled me back in.  And while I was not crazy about the fairytale parts, I do appreciate the brilliance of the author’s use of this as a vehicle to show Granny’s eccentric but steadfast show of love for Elsa.

What is most beautiful about this book are the characters.  They are real, imperfect, temperamental, sweet, and human.  And all are portrayed with such grace and subtlety in the course of the telling of the story.  The way the story is constructed, there seems to be a wall of characters built around Elsa, who function as a fortress to protect her and love her.  It is very moving and I have to confess that I did choke up at times.

All in all, it’s a beautiful story that slowly and very definitely works its way into your heart.

 

Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

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On Hemlock Street, in a small town on Long Island in the year 1959, all the houses looked the same.  In fact, even those that lived inside those identical model homes had difficulty finding their own because the streets all looked the same.  The mothers were all homemakers and shared recipes and gossip, the fathers all worked and bonded in the hardware store, and the children all fell asleep to the sounds of the Southern State Highway.  So when Nora Silk, divorced and juggling multiple jobs with the care of her 2 young sons, moved onto the street, she could not have appeared more different from the others.  It was only after time, acts of tragedy and kindness, and the communal realization that no one has a perfect family, that Nora was able to work her way into the hearts of the families on the street.

The first thing I loved about this book was the capturing of an iconic generation and its details.  The description of suburban life in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s is perfect – from the clothes to the foods to the very way of thinking at the time.  It was a simpler time but still fraught with normal human experience, both sweet and sad.  I am dating myself by saying that I could relate.

The story, as it very subtly unwinds, though, is really about bullying in its many forms.  Whether it is adults who are unfriendly to someone who they judge to be different, or kids who pick on the awkward new boy, or teenage boys who treat a “loose” girl like she doesn’t matter, the story revolves around the evil that comes from judging others and acting mean.  Some learn their lessons while others just run away.  But ultimately, kindness rules.

This is a beautiful, real-life story that will very gradually and quietly warm your heart.