A Week at the Shore

I've always enjoyed Barbara Delinsky novels as a sort of easy-reading, escape. Her latest, A Week at the Shore, was no different. I enjoy her writing style and in this case, I especially loved the way she evoked the beach in this novel. Her writing about the beach and Mallory's memories about the beach brought me right back to my memories of the beach. Even though my memories aren't much like Mallory's.

In A Week at the Shore, Mallory returns to her home on the beach after 20 years away. Twenty years during which she started a new life in New York City. Twenty years in which she tried to stay neutral after a break in the family that occurred when her father was witness to the disappearance of her best friend and next-door neighbor's mother. Twenty years after which her mother finally got the strength to leave her father.

Mallory is a professional photographer and she tries to make sense of the world through the lens of her camera. I'm a photography enthusiastic so that totally struck a chord with me. I also love the beach more than most places on earth. As I've already stated, bringing me back to my memories of the beach was what I loved about this novel.

The plot was just okay. A bit trite and predictable. The mystery that is the subplot is never resolved. That would have made for a more interesting storyline. However, the real weakness of this novel and what gave me pause as I assigned my 4-star review on goodreads was character development. I don't remember feeling that Delinsky's characters were so flat in other novels. The only character that I liked in this novel was Mallory's daughter, Joy. Yet I still wish that I knew her better. Understood a little more about what made Joy tick. And it's not because I didn't like the characters. I felt they were all so shallow. There was a lot more "tell" than "show" in explaining the family relationships. I wish Delinsky had looked back a little bit more, given more of a back story. And then shown character what made the girls, especially Mallory and Anne, grow into the women that they are in the novel. Their father was pretty flat as well.

And imagine, Mallory's mom and dad met at the University of Pennsylvania, where I went to school, probably at the same time as Mallory's mom.

One thing bothered me as I was reading the novel and that had to do with the title. When people go to the beach in Rhode Island, do they say they're going to the shore? Or do they say they are going to the beach? In New York City, where I grew up, we said we're going to the beach. But where I lived in New Jersey as an adult, people said they were going "down the shore." I haven't really figured out what people say where I'm living now in Florida. But I still "go to the beach."

Circe

Circe by Madeline Miller is a book selection for my community book club. It's the book we'll be discussing next month. It was the only book for that book club that I hadn't even started.  I hadn't even requested it from the library until the members selected that for next month at our June Zoom meeting. I'm not a fan of mythology, but others who are not a fan of mythology have raved about it.

Apparently Circe is a famous mythological goddess. Her father is Helios, her mother is Perses. The names sounded familiar but I knew nothing about them. In fact, Icarus, who was in this novel, was the only character I was even remotely familiar with.

I didn't love this novel. And thank heavens I read it on the kindle app so I was able to just look up a character's name as I was reading. That helped a lot. Had I read a hardcover book, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much out of it.

What did intrigue me was the way Miller seemed to seamlessly weave together the stories of gods, demi-gods and mortals. I'm anxious to discuss the book, to find out if they are combined together in actual mythology.

It was also a novel about a woman's struggle to fit in. About motherhood. About friendship. About feeling like you belong. That aspect I found most engaging.

Seductive Poison

Last week I read Of Mice and Men to be able to discuss it with my son. This week, I read Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple by Deborah Layton alongside one of my daughters. I think it's time for a family book club! I bemoaned the fact that of my three children, only one has become a reader in adulthood. Staying safer at home during a pandemic now has all three of my kids reading and I am thrilled! We keep joking about family book club, but maybe someday, it might happen. I tend to read lighter material than my kids, but I think we should be able to find a book that all three of us might enjoy.

I remember the horror of the Jonestown mass suicide, but until I read Deborah Layton's memoir, I didn't really know much about the Peoples Temple, about Jim Jones, or about his colony in Guyana. What I knew was that the Peoples Temple was a cult, Jim Jones was the cult leader, and a bunch of people committed suicide by drinking Kool-Aid.

The Peoples Temple started out as a church with Jim Jones as the leader. Was Jim Jones inherently deviant? Or did something make him that way? That's something I wondered as I read the book.

Deborah Layton had a happy enough childhood thanks to her older siblings and a loving father. She never felt like she connected with her mother who seemed to be keeping secrets. Things got terrible for her as one after another her older siblings left for college and their adult lives. She started getting into trouble at school, was sent to live with her sister-in-law's family for a short while and was eventually sent to boarding school in England. When she returned to California, her brother Larry introduced her to charismatic Jim Jones and the Peoples Church, an organization connected with the Christian Church. Jim Jones was anti-racist and anti-capitalist. He was for the people. Debbie was seduced.

The Peoples Temple, for how horrible it turned out to be, allowed Debbie to turn her life around. She was a responsible, hard worker who learned a lot. Every once in a while, it seemed like she was questioning some of the premises of the organization and her role in it. But she stuck with it. She spent less time with her family and had no outside friends. She worried about how she would be treated if she ever left the organization. Over time, it lost its association with the Church, but continued as an anti-capitalist organization. Jones had a desire to find a place outside of the US, away from capitalism, to create a utopia for his followers. It was once he settled Jonestown in Guyana that things really began to unravel.

Layton's story gives insight into how cults grow and what it's like to be part of a cult. She was one of the lucky ones to escape in time to avoid being a part of the mass suicide. Her telling her story was a way for her to come to terms with all she had experienced. She didn't want to carry on the pattern of secrecy that haunted her relationship with her mother... and her grandmother before.

My daughter was a sociology major in college so our discussion gave a nod to social deviance. Because I wanted to understand my daughter's point of view, I learned a few new things about what it actually means to be socially deviant. Reading this book with my daughter became a huge learning experience.

Of Mice and Men

Add John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to the list of classics that I'm finally getting around to reading in my old age. I'm somewhat surprised that I've never read it before (and am racking my brain trying to figure out if I've ever read The Grapes of Wrath). During the pandemic, my adult son is on a reading tear and Of Mice and Men is one of the few fiction books that he's read. I decided to read this one along with him and I look forward to discussing it with him later today. If anything noteworthy comes out of my discussion with him, I will surely add a postscript to this blog post. I am sure his ideas about the plot, the setting, and the characters... and their underlying meanings... will be quite thought-provoking.

In case you aren't aware of what this book is about, it's about migrant farmworkers, George and Lennie, in the Depression-era short novel. George is the brains of the pair of friends while Lennie is the brawn. They are saving for a stake. They hope to own a house and have some land. Lennie, in the dream, will take care of the rabbits. I read this novel not knowing how it ends, another thing that's kind of surprising considering how many high school and university reading lists include this title.

This is a story about outsiders. About those who don't belong to mainstream society. It's a story of how outsiders can come together and then how they end up apart.

Living with the racial unrest brought to a head by the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the following really struck a chord within me. Over 80 years after the writing of Of Mice and Men, things couldn't be more similar.

     Crooks stood up from the bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comin' in a colored man's room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus' get out, an' get out quick. If you don't, I'm gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more."

     She turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"

     Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.

     She closed on him. "You know what I could do?"

     "Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. "Yes, ma'am." 

Steinbeck experimented with something he called a "playable novel." It was meant to be a sort of cross between a novel and a screen play. It's been on Broadway and there have been three film versions of the story. I'm considering watching one in the next few days just to see how true it is to the actual words of the novel.

This novel is under 100 pages so if for no other reason than you want to add a classic to your list of books you've read, this is a good classic to pick up.

P.S. I was surprised by how on the same page my son and I were after reading this book. My older daughter, rather than reading the book, watched the movie. Some of her observations were a little different from ours.

The Rent Collector

My third Camon Wright novel in about 3 weeks was not a disappointment! The Rent Collector is a story of literacy, of hope, of love, and of friendship.

Sang Ly and her husband, Ki Lim, life in the largest municipal dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Yes, they live at the dump. They scrap together a living by pulling things from the dump that can be resold. One day, a picture book is found and brought home and that changes the lives of Sang Ly, her family, and some of her friends. It also changes the life of "The Cow," the unpleasant woman who comes around to collect the rent from those living in the dump.

I really don't want to give away any part of this story as the way it unfolds had me completely captivated. The only thing I will say is that the voice of Sang Ly wasn't how I would imagine the voice of someone illiterate. I also wonder in which ways Sang Ly's life intersected with the mainstream culture of Phnom Penh. She seemed more worldly than what I would expect from someone living in a dump. Those could just be my prejudices, though, although I have seen that as a common complaint about the novel.

I knew little about Phnom Penh prior to reading this book. I knew the Viet Kong were there during the Vietnam War. I recognized the term Khmer Rouge, but really wasn't sure what that group was all about. Both of those have relevance in the storyline.

I still think my favorite of the three novels was Letters for Emily, but this one was a very close second. I'd highly recommend it.

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris got very mixed reviews on goodreads.com. After reading it, I totally see where the differing reviews make sense. I was in the camp that really liked this novel about two Orthodox women. One, Chani, a young woman just beginning her married life, and the other, Rivka, an older woman contemplating her own married life.

I think what really drew me into this book was that I was able to relate to the Rivka character. Rivka, previously known as Rebecca, spent her gap year between high school and university in Israel which is where she met her husband, Chaim. I spent the second semester of my junior year of college as an overseas student at Tel Aviv University. I'd be lying if I said I never wondered from what my life might have been like had I fallen in love with an Israeli - or a religious Jew - while studying in Israel. Rebecca feel in love with Chaim and that completely changed her life path. She was in Israel just a few short years after I was. Could my life have been anything like hers? That's the thought that kept popping into my mind as I read this novel.

I was totally okay with the ending of the book, but I do wish that the Rivka's parents had played into the storyline in some way. What did they think of her marriage to Chaim? What did they think of her becoming an observant Jew, the wife of a rabbi? That's my only real criticism of this novel.

This novel isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy reading books about the observant Jewish community, you might enjoy this one.

The Orphan Keeper

Little did I know that I'd go on a Camron Wright rage after reading Letters for Emily, hmm, was it just last week? I'd posted about Letters for Emily, a friend asked to borrow it and offered to loan me her copy of the The Orphan Keeper in return.

This is a fictionalized version of a true story about a young, poor, Indian boy who was kidnapped, sold to an orphanage and eventually adopted by an American family.

Born Chellamuthu, the boy's name was changed to Taj, an easier name for his American family and classmates to pronounce. And for most of his life, he felt like he didn't belong. He looked Indian, but he was American. He was the only dark face in his community growing up.

Unsure about what he wanted to do after high school, a guidance counselor suggests that Taj might want to attend a study abroad program to help him get his head on straight. That starts Taj's real journey into discovering who he really is, where did he come from and what of his family in India.

I don't think that any novelist could have come up with such a story if it wasn't an actual story. In this case, truth is definitely much stranger than fiction. Wright took the most pertinent events in Taj's life and condensed them into a highly readable story. I gave this 5 stars on goodreads.com.

As I was finishing up The Orphan Keeper, with tears in my eyes, I got an email that Wright's most recent novel, The Rent Collector, is available for me as an e-book right now. I look forward to reading it.

The Star and the Shamrock

I learned about this delightful book from Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. If you can say that a Holocaust novel is delightful. What was especially nice about The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger was that the kindle version was free! How nice is that.

This is a historical fiction novel about the Kindertransport in the early days of World War II. Ariel Bannon, a Jewish woman married to a non-Jew who was arrested and taken away in Germany, feels that the salvation of her children rests on sending her children to Ireland, to her husband's Catholic cousin, Elizabeth... who just happened to have been married briefly to a Jew who was killed on the last day of World War I. Elizabeth was living in Liverpool, England, when Ariel's letter arrives via a circuitous route.

Liesel and Erich Bannon's arrival in Elizabeth's life causes major changes. A bombing in Liverpool forces Elizabeth back to her home in Northern Ireland where she and the children meet a large group of other Kindertransport children - and their protectors.

Back home, living in her mother's house, Elizabeth comes to terms with her relationship with her mother. And she is able to open her heart again, something she thought she would never be able to do after losing her husband and her baby many years before.

There is a sequel available on Amazon about Ariel's story. And then there's a third installment coming out later this summer.