One Book a Week-31: “Miracle At St. Anna”, James McBride

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The third novel I’ve read by McBride in the last year, “Miracle At St. Anna” brings to life a little know part of WWII. Toward the end of the war, the US sent the Army’s Negro 92nd Division to Tuscany. Due to the ineptitude of one of their superiors, several soldiers find themselves behind enemy lines. This is their story–they sneak through dangerous mountain passes and ravines and find themselves in the tiny village of St. Anna di Stazzema where the peasants take them in and treat them more respectfully than they had been treated at home. It is also the story of this village, the residents there, and an orphan boy one of the soldiers rescues, a story of the tragedies of life and war and the miracles the villagers, the soldiers, and the boy experience.

While heart wrenching, it also inspires.

Note: I read this book last week and started on two others, one of which is the original “The Little Review ‘Ulysses'” which is how the first copies of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” were published. From March 1918 to December 1920, the Little Review published chapters of “Ulysses” in serial form. They had to quit because the material was considered obscene and censored. My reading of this is a long work in progress. This copy is not edited; the original spelling and other mistakes remain.

One Book a Week-30: “Deacon King Kong”, James McBride

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It takes genius to write a novel about serious topics, e.g. racism, poverty, addiction, drug dealing, crime, which is also very funny. This is the first book I’ve read this year where I found myself frequently laughing out loud. In the projects of South Brooklyn in 1969, an elderly church deacon shoots a young drug dealer, who is also a star local baseball pitcher. Thus begins a saga about the Black and Hispanic residents who live there, the cops who patrol the area, the Italian mobsters who control the docks, and the church where the shooter is a deacon. The “New York Times” listed this as one of the ten best books of 2020. Indeed it is. This is the third book I have read by this author, and I will soon progress to another one.

One Book a Week-29: “We Are Not Like Them”, Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

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A heart wrenching Prologue begins this contemporary novel about race, family, and friendship. Two children, one white (Jen) and one black (Riley), became best friends in kindergarten. Their close friendship endures to adulthood and through distance. Finally, once again in the same city, their bond is tested when Jen’s husband, a police officer, shoots an unarmed 14 year old black boy. Riley, a TV reporter, is assigned to interview the boy’s mother.

Their story, told from the viewpoints of both women, covers the effects of such a tragedy on family and fellow police officers and the community, illustrates the trauma of current events, and demonstrates how such a disaster tests all involved.

One Book A Week-28: “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane”, Lisa See

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My view of this book remains somewhat mixed. I know it was a best seller, but some parts of the storyline seem extremely contrived rags to riches stories without evidence to back them up. Nevertheless, it is a powerful novel about the ritualistic Akha tribal people of the southern Chinese region of Yunnan who were viewed as backward and remained mostly unknown until their superior Pu’er tea was discovered. Additionally, the novel explores Chinese adoptions, issues Chinese children experience when adopted by white people, and how so-called primitive practices, e.g. killing twins and banishing their parents, can change over time even in remote areas.

I prefer to read books that provide me the opportunity to learn something new. This book definitely provided that. Before reading this novel, I knew nothing about the Akha people, even though I have visited tribal areas not too distant, nothing about Pu’er tea or tea processing and how tea can be as valuable a commodity as gold. Pu’er tea is different from other teas because of the types of trees from which it is harvested and its unique fermentation process which makes it a probiotic.

One Book A Week-27: “Lucy By The Sea”, Elizabeth Strout

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A short, honest, realistic view of life, this book by Strout, written from the viewpoint of Lucy
Barton, continues the story started in her book, “Oh, William”, where Lucy and her ex, William, go to Maine to seek out his long lost sister whom he did not know existed until he took a DNA test. Once again they head to Maine, but for a much more stressful reason, the Covid pandemic. They both live separately in NYC where Covid hit early and hard. After accurately assessing the danger, William finds a large, old house to rent on the Maine coast and convinces Lucy to go with him there to save their lives. He convinces one daughter to leave NYC but the other insists on staying.

The book addresses the issues of isolation brought on by the pandemic and how people deal with stress and isolation differently and with the difficulties which arise when once close families can no longer see each other. It also shows that isolation can bring the positives that can be found in a more quiet life. Strout’s uniquely simple style emphasizes the emotions and stresses as well as the joys life can bring to all of us.

One Book a Week-26: “Holding Fire: A Reckoning With The American West”, Bryce Andrews

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If you LOVE the West, but sometimes struggle with its violent history, this is the memoir for you. Here is a quote from page 178: “I’m embarrassed at how long it has taken me to notice that a rancher’s view of the natural world is blindered in comparison to the hunter’s perspective; that driving livestock from one field to another is nothing like stalking free-ranging herds; that finding, gathering, and preparing a hundred different wild plants bears no resemblance to growing alfalfa or oats…”

Andrews also discusses the difference between sustainability and reciprocity. Before reading the book, I had never thought about this. He notes that sustainability is taking without damaging. Reciprocity entails giving back, e.g. nature, asking, “What can I give back? What can I do to take care of this place that feeds and shelters me?” This is quite different from “How much can I sustainably take?”

Andrews grew up in the West. However, after cowboying on several ranches in Montana, hunting annually, and later inheriting his grandfather’s Smith and Wesson revolver, he begins to question the gun violence and destructiveness of Western culture. This book details his journey. He continues to live on a farm in the Montana mountains, slowly transforming the land to make it profitable but also a place for nature, for wildlife to prosper.

One Book A Week-25: “The Daughters of Madurai”, Rajasree Variyar

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The first sentence of the book reads: “A girl is a burden. A girl is a curse.”

In India in early 1990s, Janani lives with her abusive mother-in-law and an alcoholic husband who is often absent, chauffeuring people here and there. Although she is allowed to keep daughter number one, the fate of the next daughters is death. She, who is Tamil lower caste, is lucky enough to work for the same higher caste family for whom her mother worked and with whom she spent most of her childhood. They treat her much better than her husband and mother-in-law who hate her for not bearing a boy baby.

The book goes back and forth between this time period and 2019 Australia where the fate of Indian girls and women is far different. The family returns to India for the funeral when the family patriarch dies. Those who know little about their family history learn some shocking revelations.

In the Afterward, the author discusses female infanticide. Although many educated families oppose it and national laws prohibit the practice, it remains so common in parts of rural India that in those places there is a shortage of women for marriage. As a consequence, men resort to kidnapping women from other areas.

I thought it would take me a while to read this 326 page novel. However, I became so engrossed, I finished it in two days while also engaging in several other activities.

A Book a Week-24: “The Water Museum”, Luis Alberto Urrea

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What an amazing story collection!! As I read these incredibly diverse stories featuring so many different types of people, I kept wondering how does he know so much about different sorts of individuals:

-An older white lady in a tiny town in Idaho who runs a little restaurant.

-Chicanos in San Diego–this one I “get”; he grew up near there in Tijuana.

-A divorced white guy, wandering aimlessly cross country.

-A teen in Arizona who loves a nice girl from a dangerous family.

-A “weird” old man in a Mexican village.

-A young man trying to save his dead dad’s possessions from questionable friends.

-A strange magical realism Mexican story. I love magical realism so if I think it strange…

-A kids’ trip to a water museum ( the title) in the drought ridden plains.

-A sad South Dakota story of a white man married to an woman from Pine Ridge.

-In Iowa a widowed farmer trying his best to befriend and understand his Mexican neighbors.

One Book a Week-23: “The Devil’s Highway”, Luis Alberto Urrea

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Even though the events described in this non-fiction work occurred exactly 22 years ago in May in southern Arizona, not much has changed except the nationality of the immigrants. Few Mexicans try walking across the Arizona desert these days. Now it’s mostly people from certain Central American countries, Venezuela, and various other countries, generally places where the climate of the Sonoran Desert is unknown.

In 2001, a group of men, mostly from the state of Veracruz, tried it. More than half died and the coyote who led them remains in prison. This book tells their story. It also describes in detail the networks that lure immigrants to attempt the long journey to the US border, who benefits, who gets paid, the geography and climate of the desert–a true tale of deceit, disillusion, desperation, and loss.

4000 migrants have died in the last two decades trying to cross the Arizona desert. This number equals bodies found; many tell tales of others whose bodies remain lost. 2021 saw a record number of deaths. 2022 data is not yet published.

Note: I like Urrea’s books and have read most of his novels. I recommend starting with “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”.

One Book a Week-22: “The Neuroscience of You”, Chantel Prat, Ph.D

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The subtitle of this book is “How Every Brain Is Different and How to Understand Yours”. Prat explains in detail and with humor how every brain is different. Little quizzes and tests help readers explore their own brains. The results of most of the quizzes did not surprise me except possibly one. I do not think I am as extraverted as the test indicates. You can find some of the tests and quizzes on her website, CHANTELPRAT.COM–without reading the book.

Research details how brains differ and how this difference controls individual behavior. Two people faced with the same potentially threatening situation react differently because their brains differ. Although many of these differences are genetic, brain research also suggests that the ability to understand others and comprehend social cues is learned. For better or worse, brain research also reveals that people with brains that work in a similar way are more likely to spend time together. However, people can learn to understand others whose brains are quite different. She calls this mind modeling (reverse engineering the minds of others)–sort of like what is commonly called walking in another person’s shoes. Being able to “read” correctly another person’s nonverbal cues helps with this and it can be learned. So the next time you find someone behaving in what you consider an idiotic manner, try thinking this: they have a different brain shaped by their own unique genetics and experiences. This might help me at least come to some understanding of behavior and views I consider intolerable.