Review: The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen

The pain that a human being can inflict on their fellow being is mind boggling. Can you imagine giving birth and then having that child sold to another person for a life of cruelty and hard work? I can't get my mind around that. Such is the story that author Leveen tells us. Mary Van Lew Bowser, born a slave to the rich Van Lew family of Richmond, was able to stay and work with her mother, Minerva, at the Van Lew mansion.  Her father, Lewis, was owned by another Richmond slave owner, so she saw him only on Sundays. She had more of a "family" life than most slaves. Bet Van Lew was the abolishionist daughter of the Van Lew family, and so bought the slaves from her mother and freed them. Which created a dilemma for the parents of Mary Van Lew. Freed slaves had to leave Virginia within one year of their freedom,they could never return. Bet Van Lew sent Mary to Philadelphia for an education, supplied her with living expenses and spending money. Her mother Minerva, stayed behind and kept secret her freedom so she could stay with her husband. 

When Mary learns that her mother has passed and that a war will break out between the north & south over slavery, she heads back to Richmond and life as a "slave". She has to keep her freedom secret. She ends up working in a mansion, the Southern White House,  for Jefferson Davis and his wife and she ends up working with her former owner, Bet Van Lew, as a spy for the Union Army. 

Leveen has created a rare look into the world of slavery, the Civil War and the toll it took on human life. Real people, in a true story of bravery. This book is well written, and well worth your time.

Review: In One Person by John Irving

John Irving is one of my favorite authors. I think for the same reason I love indie films. There are great actors in indie films and they tackle the scripts that big movie houses won't. Not enough money in them. Irving writes like an indie film plays. Does that make any sense?
William Abbott, grew up with a single mom,  in a house surrounded by family members. Grandmother & Grandfather, Aunt , Cousin....he certainly wasn't a lonely child. But..he didn't know his father.
He attended the private boys school in town. Most of the story centers around the school and the town with it's many "indie" characters. Most of his family was involved in the town's drama productions. His mom was an off stage prompter, his aunt an actress and his grandad, well, he was an actor who consistently played  female roles.
This story is told by Billy Abbott, after all, it is his story to tell. He tells of his family's resistance to telling him about his father. He knew snippets, he remembers someone telling him a very funny story of a man reading Madame Bovary and something about sliding across toilets on a  rocking ship.
Eventually, his mom meets and marries his step-father who also happens to be a Shakespearean actor and so the town has a new drama teacher. Billy develops  a crush (one of many) on his stepfather and at the same time, a crush on the town's librarian. By the time he reaches high school, he is a "sexual suspect". ( If you have read Irving, then you recall him using this phrase in 'Garp') Billy is a bi-sexual male, at a time when the new mysterious illness we now know as AIDS becomes an epidemic.
As Owen Meany gave us Irving's thoughts on the Vietnam War, so is One Person his thoughts on the 80's & 90's AIDS crisis. This novel is full of  love, loss and secrets. It is an eye opening story, filled with unforgettable characters. Ten Thumbs Up.

Review: The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul

I hadn't read Saul's first book, Light of Day, but it did get good reviews. In this novel, there is a main character, Geoffrey Tremont, who was a child actor and now did voice overs. Lives in NYC, runs with a sophisticated crowd, has a girlfriend who he sees when he wants, comes and goes as he pleases. He receives a  letter from a lawyer, who tells him of the death of a childhood friend,Laura, who has asked that he be executor of her estate.

He takes a few days off, heads to Shady Grove, a little town in the country, and so the real story begins. He meets a friend of his old pal Laura, Marian is a widow. A widow not looking for a different life, happy with her greenhouse and nursery/landscape business, happy with her boyfriend, happy with her life. Or so we think. 

If you are thinking that this story is hokey or sounds contrived, it's exactly what I was thinking as I kept reading. I kept saying this is crazy, this would never happen this way. Life would never happen this way. I would put the book down, and then I would pick it up again and continue reading. It is one of those kind of books. It is a book that would be a good Nicholas Sparks movie. 

Having said all of that, I think I do recommend this book. It was an easy read and as long as you don't "read" too much into it, you will be glad you picked it up. 

Review: Jackie After O by Tina Cassidy

I, like everyone else on that fateful day, remember where I was when President Kennedy got shot. I was home sick from school, my mom had gone to tea next door with our neighbor Arlene. I was sitting there watching TV, when the news bulletin came on. I went running next door to tell my mom.  Camelot was no more.

I was very interested to see if this author could add anything new to what we already knew about Jackie O. As I understood the book to be about one year in the life, I was pretty confused when the first half of the book  was jumping back and forth. I could not figure out what year the author, Cassidy, was writing about. When she finally started telling us about Ari Onassis, I figured it out, 1975. The year Jackie took on the City of NY over the proposed demolition of Grand Central Station. The year Jackie became a book editor for Viking. The year Aristotle Onassis died, and left her a widow once again.

I am not sure that this book gave me a whole lot more insight then I already had by reading newspaper & magazine articles. There were plenty of news stories on TV, telling us all about the fight over Onassis' millions.

Unfortunately for Cassidy, Jackie O's life played out in the press. I kept reading, wanting to read something that was new and unpublished. I didn't get what I wanted. What I did get was a reminder of how Jackie could twist people around her finger, and got what she wanted. How powerful she was in that regard ! She did have some fine victories in the fight to save historical buildings. She had great success at Viking and then again at Double Day. She did finally come into her own. But I am sad to say, that the mystery that was Jackie Kennedy Onassis, went to the grave with her.

I recommend this book if you would like to refresh your memory about the sometimes glamorous, but mostly tragic life of Jackie O. 

 

 

Book Review: Postcards by E. Annie Proulx

I happen to think Proulx is a great writer. Just read the short story, Brokeback Mountain and you will have to agree. Postcards, Proulx's first novel, is a very rambling story..much like it's main character, Loyal Blood.
This is the story about the Blood family and life on a farm in Vermont. Although, most of the story is played out far from Vermont, the reason for the story is buried quite close to the farm.
Loyal Blood had to run from the family and the farm, when he  killed his lover, a woman named Billy. Billy had asked Loyal over & over to leave Vermont and find a more exciting life elsewhere. He loved his farm and he was the glue that held the farm & the family together. He did not want a different life.
Once Billy was buried in a cave near his family's farm, he took off and never returned. Hmmm....
He travels all over the western part of the country, picking up odd jobs, working in the mines, working with an archeologist and trapping for fur. Along the way he finds a stash of postcards. One by one, he mails the cards home, never leaving a forwarding address. Never staying long enough in one place to let anybody know where he was. The mailing of postcards, by all sorts of people,  plays a big role in this book.
The rest of his family moves on with their lives. They lose the farm, the father, Mink, hangs himself in jail. The one armed brother, nicknamed Dub, moves to Florida and gets rich. The sister, Mernelle, marries a man that she meets through a want ad and lives a perfectly normal life. Until her mother, Jewell, dies in a weird car accident and her beloved husband leaves her a widow.
All the while, Loyal is moving from one town to another for years, sending these postcards back to the family as if nothing had changed on the farm. Oblivious to all that has happened.
Although this book gets a little slow at times, and sometimes I was waiting for the scene where Billy was killed and why (which never really came), I liked it. It was Proulx's first attempt at being a great writer.
She succeeded.

This Will Make You Smarter edited by John Brockman

Each year, the Edge Foundation poses a question to the world's scientists; people that lead the world in various fields. The answers get edited and then printed and bound as a book. A very interesting book I might add. When I first chose to read this book, I wondered if I would understand the question , let alone the answers. I think that scientists talk amongst themselves and are understood, but talking to a layman is another thing completely!

The questions for 2011 was: What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?  (So I understood this as a concept that would improve our powers of reasoning)

The thing I liked about this book was that you didn't have to jump in and read uninterrupted the many different answers. Each answer is given it's own chapter and title, each is a short essay. Some answers will be useful in your everyday life, some may be useful with something you are struggling with but all will provoke thought. Isn't that what a good book does?

I found some insight into fear/risk with two essays on uncertainty. Another essay , "Each of us is ordinary, yet one of a kind"  by Samuel Barondes is particularly interesting. By being ordinary, we find compassion for others. By being one a kind, we find creativity and pride. 

So, I can easily recommend this book, it will definitely make you smarter. 

Review: Between a Rock & a Hot Place by Tracey Jackson

....or ...Why Fifty is the New Fifty.  Oh, come on, not the new thirty? I am so guilty of saying this. I think I say it so often as to convince myself !! Tracey Jackson tells it like it is and I don't really want to hear it, but I am listening. She is right, though. No matter how great my hair, skin & makeup look for "someone my age", there is no way I could keep up with a thirty year old today. Some days I can't even get out of my own way ! 

Turning fifty was a life altering experience, as will be turning sixty. Forty didn't bother me in the least. I wasn't ready to change my life back when I was forty. I was just barely ready at fifty proper. Jackson tells us to get ready for the change, but not our mother or grandmother's "change" ! At fifty it is time to change the way we think , more than anything else. 

Jackson tells us about her experience with hormone replacement, do I or don't I? Eye lifts..what if I end up looking like a cat?  Most of it is hilarious , some of it is poignant but mostly it is honest. 

I whole-heartily recommend this book for woman who are approaching fifty and those of us that have gone beyond. It is time to enjoy life and to have a few laughs.