The Old Neighborhood

After reading two heavy, heavy books about racism, I was at a loss over what to read next. (I think my library hold list is the longest it's ever been, but nothing is coming available.) My first thought was to look for a rom-com. I started scanning the online catalog and I just liked the sound of title, The Old Neighborhood. I wasn't paying very close attention so I didn't even realize that Avery Corman was also the author of Kramer vs. Kramer.

The Old Neighborhood is the story about Stevie, growing up in the Bronx in the 1940s. The first part of the novel reads much more like a memoir than a novel. The first half of the novel also really just sets the scene for the major part of the story which comes in the second half of this fairly short book. The first half is kind of "ordinary" for lack of a better word. But when you finish the book, you realize how truly impactful it is.

Stevie is kind of aimless as a teen. His parents don't have the best relationship. He's a great athlete, but his parents never go watch him play sports. It seems like the only guy who takes an interest in Stevie and his life is Sam, the bookie.

I don't want to give anything away, but this is a novel about reinventing yourself several times. It's about self-discovery.

I'm not sure if the novel appealed to me so much because I'm Jewish, because I'm from New York City, because I did have a little stint going back to the old neighborhood to live. I found a lot to like in this novel and I'll be thinking about it for some time to come.

 

Horse

I'm a big Geraldine Brooks fan. In the past (pre-dating this blog), I've enjoyed her novels: Year of Wonders, March, People of the Book, and Caleb's Crossing as well as her memoir, Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pals Journey from Down Under to All Over. When her latest, Horse, was released, I was in no rush to read it. Even after I kept seeing recommendation after recommendation. I mean... I don't love horses. Even after I heard it was about so much more than just horses, I wasn't getting my name on library waitlists. Until I finally took the plunge. After waiting about 16 weeks, the book became available.

I had a hard time getting into Horse. There were three timelines told from multiple perspectives. Some chapters were short, some were very long. But the novel did capture my attention early on. I wanted to learn what happened to Jarret, Darley (later Lexington), Jess and Theo. So kept on reading.

The book is too complex for me to give you a synopsis. Check out goodreads or the publisher's website for that. There were so many themes. Art. Thoroughbred breeding and racing. Slavery. Racism. Self-discovery.

Brooks excels at developing all the characters, not just the main characters, so you really do care about each one, even if you don't like them and it's only to care about what happens to them.

After reading two books dealing with serious racism, I think I need a break. Maybe it's time to read a rom-com?

Winter's Reckoning

A member of my Books & Beer Club has a friend who wrote a book, she's going to be in Florida in February. "How about if we pick this for our February book?" I didn't hold out much hope, but sure, I love to meet with authors and so I was totally game. Even better when I was able to get an e-book of Winter's Reckoning: A Novel by Adele Holmes from the library.

Wow! What a book. It never would have crossed my radar if not for this book group. It's a novel about the power of women during a time when the races were still being separated in nearly every single way. Jim Crow was very much alive in Jamesville.

Maddie, a Yankee, is a healer in a dying southern Appalachian town in the early 1900s. Her husband who was always accepting of Maddie's open mindedness, unlike most of the rest of the town. Maddie is training two other young women to become healers, too: Ren Morgan, a black woman, and her granddaughter, Hannah. Most of the town can't stand the close friendship between Maddie and Ren.

A new church reverend comes to town. He preaches about the importance of the separation of the races. The KKK which had been quiet in Jamesville comes back full force, threatening Maddie, Ren, and many others who fall within their orbits.

The book was engaging from start to finish. It was a very powerful story that I've recommended on Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. I was so looking forward to meeting Adele Holmes and discussing the novel. Life happens. I have the opportunity to visit my daughter out of town on book club night. I can't pass up a chance to see my daughter and to stay in her new house. Still, I'm sad that I won't be at my next Books & Beer Club meeting.

The Magnolia Palace

After reading The Lions of Fifth Avenue, I really wanted to revisit the New York City Public Library. After reading The Address, I really wanted to get inside the Dakota (apartment building). Now, after reading Fiona Davis' most recent novel, The Magnolia Palace, I really want to check out the Frick Collection. Why have I never been there?

The Magnolia Palace, as with the other two novels I read, was told in two stories during two different moments in of history: the period in New York after the 1918 flu pandemic and during the turbulent 1960s.

The main character in the earlier time period was Miss Lily who, running from a scandal as Angelica, the artists' muse, becomes personal secretary to demanding Helen Frick, daughter of the industrialist, Henry Clay Frick. It really does seem like the perfect fit for Lily considering her knowledge of art. There's romance, mystery, intrigue in the story. This storyline gives a real taste of New York City society during the post WWI years.

The latter time period is 1966. The Frick Mansion has been a museum for  years. Novice model Veronica is on a photo shoot at the museum. The shoot doesn't work out well for Veronica and she gets locked into the museum... in the middle of a blizzard... with a young black museum intern. With nothing better to do, Veronica explores the museum and comes across what appears to be a scavenger hunt. To pass the time, Veronica and Joshua, the intern, try to solve the scavenger hunt. In doing so, it's possible they might solve one of the mysteries left over from Helen and Miss Lily's days.

Of the three Davis novels that I've read, I probably liked this one the least. But I still enjoyed reading it. And I really, really want to go to the Frick on some future visit to New York.

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

 

I love Judy Blume so I'm still amazed that I lived so long without reading her semi-autobiographical novel, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. It wasn't until I came across the title on a banned book list - and why it was being banned - that I knew that I had to read it. (It took me until a year ago to read probably her most frequently banned book, Forever.)

Sally is a young girl living in New Jersey in the 1940s when her brother gets sick and the family needs to move to Miami Beach for the winter, for the sake of her brother's health. Her dad needs to stay back in New Jersey to work so Sally moves to Florida with her mother, brother Douglas and their grandmother, Ma Fanny.

My earliest memories of Miami Beach were in the mid-1960s but there was a lot more similar about Miami Beach in the late 1940s that I'd chuckle over. There was one scene about having to wear a bathing cap into the pool that could have easily been written 20 years later about my cousin sitting by her grandmother Fanny's pool on Miami Beach.

Sally is hesitant about the move but between the new friends she makes, both in her apartment building and at school, and her wild imagine, Florida turns out to not be so bad after all.

Why is this book being banned? Because Sally imagines that Hitler is living undercover as a Jewish old man in her apartment building? And because she imagines him captured - or dead? That is so objectionable - how? Or by whom? I just don't get it.

Anyway, I loved the book and I'd recommend it. Especially to little girls with wonderful imaginations.

Lucy by the Sea

 

I finished reading Lucy by the Sea, the 4th in the Amgash series by Elizabeth Strout, nearly 3 weeks ago and am just now finding the time to update the blog. Of the four novels in the series, I definitely loved this one the most.

The first three are:
My Name is Lucy Barton is about Lucy's relationship with her mother and about her upbringing
Anything is Possible follows up on characters introduced in My Name is Lucy Barton and their relationships to Lucy
Oh William! delves into the continued connection between Lucy and William

Lucy by the Sea is a current novel about pandemic living. I found so much to relate to in this novel. William spirits Lucy away from New York City at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic up to rural Maine. Being so isolated up there (mostly together, just talking long walks apart from each other), Lucy is able to take the quiet time to reflect on her life. She struggles with the distance between her and the daughters she has left behind in New York City. She deals with the deaths of people she knows from Covid-19. She makes some new friends. Her relationship with William needs to be redefined.

I live in a rural area and was home and very much isolated for many months at the start of Covid. Just like Lucy.

I escaped into reading while being stuck home so much, similar to William. Lucy, who can't concentrate enough to read, finds William's ability to read confounding.

Lucy and I would contemplate the mask wearing or non-mask wearing of every person we encountered.

Lucy meets a black woman who tells Lucy "You don't want to be a Black woman alone on some desolate road down here." Yes, this story takes place in Maine. But move it to rural Florida and you can substitute "Yankee" for Black woman. Well, you get the idea.

Lucy reflects upon how your kids grow up without you really realizing. Like you can never know the last time you've picked up your child. I can totally relate to that. Isn't that a thought every parent has? And the missing of your kids so desperately just because you know you can't see them.

Hours turned into days turned into weeks turned into months without much division in the time periods. Something I thought about a lot during Covid is something that Lucy reflects upon.

When my husband would suggest we go for a ride, I was rarely game. I mean, what's the point of being a passenger in a car just driving around when there's nothing beautiful to see and no place where you're comfortable getting out of the car to walk around. William suggests a drive to L.L. Bean, even if they don't have to go in. Just the drive there and Lucy was willing. She was always willing to go anywhere because there was so little to do.

Many of my fears were similar to Lucy's fears. I could not stop feeling that life as I had known it was gone. And neither one of us had imagined a retirement like what we ended up with. I thought of how my life had become so different from what I had ever imagined for myself during these - my last - years. Wow!

I remember the relief of getting my second vaccine in 2021. Thinking that perhaps life would go back to something I'd consider a new normal. And then I had both my vaccines, three weeks apart. When the woman put the needle into my arm for the second shot, I almost wept. I thought: I am free. I thought: I will see New York again. I have yet to see New York City again. That's coming. But I did get to see my kids shortly after that second vaccine.

Lucy deals with the state of the country. How they're dealing with Covid. And the impact of January 6th on Lucy's physique. She's full of questions and thoughts as was I. Never did I expect those two events to be stories I'd follow in my lifetime. And at the same time?

The one thing that I could not relate to at all was the thought of having to spend lockdown isolated anywhere with my ex-husband. That would never ever happen. Thank goodness!

Do I recommend this novel? I realize that some people are ready to read about Covid-19, some are not yet ready to read about. And some will never care to read about it. If you recall, in the early days of Covid I wondered on here about "the novel about covid." How would it end? Who would tell the story? I never sat down and got pen to paper. But if I had written my story, it would have been very similar to Lucy by the Sea.