Faye, Faraway

I enjoyed Helen Fisher's Faye, Faraway so much more than I anticipated that I would. It's a time travel fantasy about a 37-year old woman who sorely feels the loss of her mother who died when she was 8-years old. She was taken in by loving neighbors who eventually adopted her. At 37, she's in a loving marriage with a guy whom she adores and two kids who are the world to her. 

We're given little information about what Faye's life was like as a teenager or young adult. The fact that two of her best friends are from her college days makes me think that, although she missed her mother, she didn't have too terrible a life.

An old photo and a beat-up cardboard box stir up an intense longing in Faye for her mother. Somehow, thru fantastical means, Faye is transported back to the 1970s where she has the opportunity to meet her mother as well as her younger self.  In the beginning, I wondered how hokey the book was going to be. But because Faye finds time travel as fantastical as I did as a reader, it really works.

There were some wonderfully written passages in the novel that I've bookmarked so I can read them again. And again. And again. They were thoughtful and loving and they really spoke to me as if they were written for me.

It's a novel about faith, friendship, mother-daughter relationships and love. It's a story of guardian angels.

After my mom was hospitalized at what turned out to be the end of her life, we kind of wondered where her engagement ring was. My dad said she often hid it when she left the house so we were looking in what we thought might be "great" hiding places. No luck. At all. On the night of her burial, I was sitting in the dining room of my childhood home. My 104-year old house. People were walking around and the floors were creaking more than with just my dad, my brother and I tottering around. A hollow glass heart that I don't think we'd noticed tumbled down from the top of a secretary desk kept in the corner. It rolled across the floor. As I picked it up, my mom's ring fell from the hollow part of the heart and into my hand. It was a sign that my mom was looking over me. This morning, after I put down Faye, Faraway, the first thing I spotted was the hollow heart which now sits on my dresser. To make me feel the love of my mother in a more concrete way than just through memories. Not related to the novel... or is it?

This also confirmed that while I say I really don't like the genre of fantasy, I do like the sub-genre of time travel when the themes of the story of themes I enjoy reading about. I loved The Time Traveler's Wife, 11/22/63, and most recently Kindred.

I'd highly recommend Faye, Faraway.

The Personal Librarian

Having grown up and lived in and around NY for most of my life, I'd heard of the Pierpont Morgan Library and was familiar with stories about JP Morgan. I was, however, totally unfamiliar with the story of JP Morgan's personal librarian. But apparently so were many other people.

Marie Benedict had the idea for The Personal Librarian but felt that a white woman would have trouble doing justice to the story of black Belle da Costa Greene. Her agent found her Victoria Christopher Murray to work as her co-author. The story about their partnership in the authors' notes at the end of the novel was very interesting.

JP Morgan was a financier and collector. He hired a librarian away from Princeton University on the recommendation of his nephew, Junius, to help him curate his collection.

Belle da Costa Greene was a woman working in a high powered position in the early years of  the 20th century. She had extensive knowledge, impeccable taste and was a shrewd negotiator. But Greene also had a secret. Her name at birth was Belle Marion Greener and she is the daughter of "colored" civil rights activist, Richard Greener. As difficult as it was for Belle to hold this position as a woman, she never would have been able to hold this position had anyone, most especially JP Morgan, known that she was a "colored" woman.

Belle's parents were up and coming in the 1870s. Richard Greener was the first colored person to graduate from Harvard College. He went on to graduate school and was teaching at the University of South Carolina when the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was overturned in 1883. The couple and their one child moved to the family home of Belle's mother. Eventually they moved to NYC with their enlarged family because they sensed that racial discrimination in the south and in Washington, DC was going to get worse than it was. Belle's mother decided that the only chance her children had for a future was to pass as white. Belle's father who had built his career on advocating for the rights of blacks was unable to go along with this way of life. The parents separated. Belle's, her mother and her siblings changed their last name and hinted towards Portuguese in their lineage to account for their olive skin coloring.

The book had two big story lines. One was about Belle's rise as JP Morgan's personal librarian and the building of his world class collection. The other was about Belle's life as a colored woman living as a white woman. At first I thought that Belle, who tells the story in first person, harped a lot on her secret. Until I realized how huge it must have been for a colored woman to live as a white woman. It was and is something that I can't imagine. This aspect of the novel gave me lots to think about.

There were other subplots focusing on women's suffrage, anti-Semitism, and the whole upper class art scene. Readers of historical fiction and those who enjoy reading about women who were ahead of their times will enjoy The Personal Librarian.

Now I need to remember that I'd  like to see the library the next time I'm visiting New York City, whenever that might be.

Hazel's Theory of Evolution

I was reading a novel about books that deal with journaling and Hazel's Theory of Evolution by Lisa Jenn Bigelow was mentioned. I hadn't read a middle grade novel in quite a while so checked the library. It was available. I borrowed it and read it, really not knowing what to expect.

Here is the description from goodreads.com:

Hazel knows a lot about the world. That’s because when she’s not hanging with her best friend or helping her two moms care for the goats on their farm, she loves reading through dusty encyclopedias. But even Hazel doesn’t have answers for the questions awaiting her as she enters eighth grade. How can she make friends in a new school where no one seems to understand her? What’s going to happen to one of her moms who’s pregnant again after having two miscarriages? Why does everything have to change when life was already perfectly fine?

As Hazel struggles to cope, she’ll come to realize that sometimes you have to look within yourself—instead of the pages of a book—to find the answers to life’s most important questions.

Hazel’s Theory of Evolution is a genuine, thoughtful, and ultimately uplifting novel about learning to flourish no matter what changes life throws your way.

What a truly thoughtful novel that might not be appropriate for all middle grade readers. Or younger middle grade readers. Yet this is a novel I would highly recommend. It deals with friendship in a way that really touched my heart.

Due to a bussing issue, Hazel is at a new school for eighth grade, separated from her best friend. One of her moms is pregnant again and Hazel is having a very difficult time dealing with her worry, after the mom's previous two miscarriages. Her brother should have started Stanford but has deferred for a year for reasons that Hazel is not quite sure about. That's a lot for a young teen to deal with on her own, without her best friend by her side.

I loved Hazel's smartness. I loved Hazel's love of family. I loved reading about Hazel's family's life on a farm. And I loved reading about Hazel's developing friendships with Yosh and Carina. The book deals with contemporary issues of race and sexuality and gender identity and disability as well as children caring for their parents. All are handled in a very sensitive, honest way.

I'm not sure that I'd say that this has anything to do with journal writing. Hazel doesn't keep a journal, but rather starts working on a book modeled by one of her favorite science books.

While George was about the challenges of allowing others to accept you as transgender, giving me a better understanding of the struggles faced by transgender youth,  Hazel's Theory of Evolution has such an inclusion of characters. They add to the story, but that isn't what the story is about. Quite a different novel than George.