Mary Coin

Finished August 31

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver

This novel was inspired by the cover picture. Taken by Dorothea Lange, and called Migrant Mother, the photograph of Florence Owens Thompson became famous and opened many doors for Lange. The author creates a fictional woman, Mary Coin, as the subject of this photo and the novel follows Mary from her childhood through her marriage, her travels in search of employment, up until the moment of the photograph. It also follows the photographer, here named Vera Dare Everett, as she too marries, has children, and tries to create her own career through her art. 

Staying relatively closely to the real facts of the women's lives, Silver brings them to life by letting us see inside their thoughts, their motivations, and their drive to live as they want, as they must. She tells the larger story of the Depression in America and the desperate search for jobs to feed oneself and one's family, from a uniquely female viewpoint.

Tying it all together is a man in the current day, an anthropology professor named Walker Dodge. Walker's specialty is the study of common people and their lives. He looks at diaries, official records, ephemera, and relics of their lives as he pieces together how they lived. Walker loses his father near the beginning of the book, and as he cleans out the house, he finds boxes of papers in the basement and begins to treat the situation as a case study from his own work perspective. His research leads him to these women, and that key connection point with its resulting fame.

She also looks at the aftermath, Vera's fame and further career, what happened to Mary and her children, and how that small connection became an important moment in both their lives. 

An amazing story of two women forging their lives during a difficult time, told with realism and compassion, and the serendipity of life and the chance meetings that change lives.  

Tomb Song

Finished July 29

Tomb Song by Julián Herbert, translated by Christina MacSweeney

This novel, a debut novel from this Mexican author, is a tale told in first person by a narrator by the same first name as the author. It moves back and forth in time, between the present, the narrator's childhood and other earlier times in his life. 

Julián's mother Guadalupe, was a prostitute, although she tried to shield her children from much exposure to this life. To escape debt, they moved often, and each of the four children has a different father. In the present Guadalupe is in hospital, near death, and he finds himself resurrecting memories from his past, grappling with his own identity, and dealing with anxieties around being a writer. 

This is a book about the margins of Mexican society, along with the darker issues of sex, drugs, violence, and poverty. Julián is also about to be a father himself, and this adds to his feelings. He talks not only of his life, but also of strange dreams that he has had. 

This is not an easy read, or a happy one, but it is one that is well written and has the feel of experience in his in the author's knowledge of his subject matter. A very original work. 

Free Day

Finished June 23
Free Day by Inès Cagnati, translated by Liesl Schillinger

This is a heartbreaking story. The narrator Galla is a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl who has been able to attend high school in a nearby town due to a scholarship her teacher put her down for. Her father does not support this endeavour, but her mother does to an extent. She misses Galla's help with the other children. She boards at school and returns home to visit on a regular basis. The visit on this day though is an unplanned one, and it doesn't go well.
Galla's family is poor, making a subsistence living. Her family is not accepted welcomingly in the community, and it's hard to tell whether her father's attitude is due to this or the community's behaviour is a result of his attitude. Galla is the oldest of many children, and she has often been left to look after them by her parents. Her father is prone to rages which affect everyone from his family to community members.
On this trip Galla is hoping to surprise her mother, and her story is told through memories that arise as she travels the twenty miles by bicycle to her family home in the marshes. She also talks to herself about what she sees now, about her feelings about things from her family to her situation at school where she can't even afford to purchase appropriate supplies. She deeply cares for her mother and her siblings, particularly her sisters, and this becomes clear by her actions and the memories she brings forward.
Galla's father is not welcoming to her and she is unable to see other family members on her visit, and it only becomes clear what is happening towards the end of the book.
One leaves this book with a desperate hope that Galla will be able to escape this life for a better future and bring her siblings along with her.

Fat City

Finished June 1
Fat City by Leonard Gardner

The introduction to my edition of the book is by Denis Johnson and he talks of his discovery of and obsession with this book when he was young.
The writing here is exquisite and the story sad and haunting.
There are two main characters here, both boxers in Stockton, California in the 1950s. As the book opens, they meet for the first time at the YMCA. Billy Tully is an ex-boxer, whose wife left him after his boxing career didn't go well. He is thinking about getting back into shape, and winning her back, a pipe dream as he heard from her brother that she's remarried. At the YMCA he sees a young man, Ernie Munger, hitting a bag. They spar for a bit, and Billy directs Ernie to his old gym, the Lido Gym, and his manager Ruben Luna.
Ernie does go to the Lido and work with Ruben, and start boxing. As he grows from a young man living at home, into being married and supporting his wife, he goes pro for some money.
Both men are poor, and Billy drinks too much. Billy gets by getting up before dawn and going out on one of the trucks with other men like him to pick produce. He lives in a room in a walk-up motel and changes hotels often.
The fieldwork is hard work, and pays very little, but enough for a room, a meal and some alcohol. There are many men like Billy in Stockton, and in the bars and hotels in the area. Ernie has more of a chance at a future, but he still struggles to get by.
Their stories are told simply, but well, and you get a real sense of the their lives and the hopelessness they try to escape through dreams of a better life and through other distractions.

My Drowning

Finished October 4
My Drowning by Jim Grimsley

This reminiscent novel has a woman looking back on her memories growing up in extreme poverty.  The woman's name is Ellen Tote, and throughout she describes the dreams she's had of her past, and her memories as they are triggered by different elements, from geographical to physical to more ethereal. Ellen had an older sister and three older brothers, one of whom was disabled. She also had younger siblings and we see how she reacted to their arrival as she remembers various events from her earlier life.
Ellen's father was lazy and a drinker. He was also the main one who took in a brother who'd been disabled during an accident. Her mother wasn't a proud housewife, letting the house fall into bad repair and Ellen's older sister doing most of the cooking.
Occasionally Ellen was able to get away: helping her paternal aunt look after her grandmother in the last months of her life, having a friend whose father owned land. She became exposed to things beyond those at home: from house-proud women to church to pretty things one took care of.
This novel is sad, yet because we know that Ellen did better in her life, also hopeful.
The title comes from a recurring dream that Ellen has of her mother slowly drowning. She returns to the old places they lived in as she looks for answers to the meaning of these dreams.

Girl of the Southern Sea

Finished July 18
Girl of the Southern Sea by Michelle Kadarusman

This story is about Nia, a girl who lives in the slums of Jakarta, but hopes for a brighter future. Nia's mother died a few years ago, and her father has been drinking the money away since then, leaving Nia unable to afford to go on to high school as she can't afford the fees. Her mother died giving birth to her younger brother Rudi, and Nia has cared for him since then. Her father makes a living by selling banana fritters from a cart at the train station, but the situation now, with him drinking too much, and owing money to the local alcohol supplier can't continue. Nia is determined to find a way forward that will allow her to do as her teachers and principal urge her to and go to high school so she can become a writer.
Since she was small, Nia has been fascinated by the legend of Dewi Kadita, a Javanese princess who was cursed by her stepmother in jealousy, and found a new home as the Princess of the Southern Sea, Queen of the Southern Ocean. Nia makes up her own stories about Dewi Kadita, giving her a pet monkey and adding more adventures to her life. She tells the stories to Rudi and other local children, and writes them down.
Nia has a good friend her own age, and is friendly with many other locals, including the lady who runs the fruit cart next to her father's at the station. When Nia survives a terrible bus crash, she comes to the attention of others, not all of whom have her best interests at heart, and when she finds that her father has promised her in marriage without even consulting her, she takes things into her own hands.
I liked her strong character, and her unwavering ambition.
This book opens children's eyes to another culture, the more difficult choices and situations faced by children in other countries, and an interesting legend.

Hillbilly Elegy

Finished April 14
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

I had this book on my shelf at home for a while, and finally was prodded to read it by it being my book club read. It is a personal book, about the author's own experience of an absent father, an addict mother who wasn't often there for him, two grandparents that raised him for the most part, and an older half-sister who tried to do what was right for him as much as she could.
It is a story of being raised in both the factory towns of Ohio and the hills of the Appalachians. It is about those around him who adjusted well to the urban life, and those who did not. It is about poverty, and the rise and loss of American manufacturing jobs, about how education and home life combine to keep children on the path towards a happy and fulfilling life.
I enjoyed it, but also was aware from other reading that I've done, that it only shows part of the story of America. The more stories we learn from the many different experiences, help us to understand what is right and what is wrong with the current situation, and hopefully those that set policy read and listen and learn from stories like this.

Before We Were Yours

Finished May 3
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

This novel is inspired by real events. The general historical story is true, but the characters in this book are not. However what happened to the historical characters here really happened to people and is a part of history that needs to be brought to light.
This novel has two timelines. One begins in 1939 and takes place mostly in Tennessee. It is the story of a poor family, who lived on a riverboat. Rill is the oldest child in the family and the narrator, and as her story begins, her mother Queenie is in labour. The labour is a difficult one, and the midwife says that it is beyond her skills. As Rill convinces her father Briney to take her mother to the hospital, she is left in charge of her younger siblings: Camellia, Fern, Lark, and her toddler brother Gabion. This family is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the children end up being taken from the boat under false pretences, and brought to an orphanage. Because most of this family is blond, they are more highly prized than some of their fellow victims.
As we see the terrible actions and conditions at the orphanage, and learn of the tactics involved, we understand and Rill, try as hard as she can, will not be able to keep her family together.
The true story of the society woman Georgia Tann, and her children's homes, which was supported by those in power for years, and had assistance from social agencies and lawmakers, is a terrible one. Hundreds of children were taken from their homes, and communities. Some were taken walking to school, some from their homes directly, but all were taken to group homes where they were abused, fed inadequately, and separated from their siblings. Many had loving parents that had no chance to recover their children against the powerful woman who had stolen them.
As Rill tries to fight for her siblings, and another young boy taken at the same time, she learns fear and distrust, and yearns for her river life.
In the present, another young woman, Avery Stafford, a lawyer and daughter of a senator in South Carolina, is home to support her father who is fighting a cancer diagnosis, and accusations of other types. Avery also takes the opportunity to visit her grandmother Judy, who has been placed in a secure care home as dementia gradually takes away her knowledge of the world around her. After a chance encounter with another nursing home resident, Avery begins to dig into both that woman's past and her own grandmother's to find out what connects the two.
This is a story that brings another sad historical experience to light, in a way that lets the reader experience the heartache and loss that these victims dealt with.
Highly recommended.

Swimming to Elba

Finished March 27
Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone, translated by Antony Shugaar

This novel surprised me by being quite different from what I expected. It centers on Anna and Francesca, two barely teen girls in a poor area of Piombino, Italy, just across from Elba. The girls live on the Via Stalingrad in one of a group of apartment buildings.
The girls are just becoming aware of their sexuality and the power it brings. Anna lives with her mother, Sandra, who works outside the home and is a social activist; her father Alessio, who has lots of charm and is always looking for a way to make a fast buck; and her older brother Mattia, who works at the local ironworks and is a very good looking young man.
Francesca lives with her father Enrico, a man with a strong temper, a limited intellect, and a suspicious nature; and her mother Rosa, a meek woman who puts up with a lot.
Anna and Francesca are the prettiest and most popular girls in their age group, and Anna is often doted on by the older girls interested in her brother. She is aware of Francesca's difficult home life, but doesn't really know how to help.
As we see the girls through one summer and into the next school year, we see how the changes affecting their lives also brings change to their relationship.
Because of the environment and social class, this is different from other books I've read about girls this edge. Life is more difficult, and more uncertain for these girls.

A Killing in the Hills

Finished November 24
A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller

This mystery novel features Bell Elkins, prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, West Virginia. Bell is a native of the county as is her ex-husband, also an attorney. They moved to Washington, D.C. for years, but Bell felt that something was missing and coming back to her home county and trying to make a difference there was what called her.
As this book opens, Carla, Bell's teen daughter, is sitting in a cafe in town on a Saturday when someone walks in and shoots three older men sitting together at a table. For Bell, the professional has become personal. Carla is traumatized, but also motivated to do something to help her mother.
Bell works closely with the sheriff Nick Fogelsong, and one of their targets is the drug business. There have always been drugs around as far as Bell remembers, but the business has become more professional, and the poor in the county more targeted.
This latest murder though doesn't seem connected to that. As Nick and Bell dig into the men's backgrounds, Carla also starts digging, looking to connect a face to a name. Carla and Bell have been going through some typical mother-teen daughter disagreements as Carla begins to assert her independence, and Bell is careful to give her space while still trying to keep a protective eye.
We also see the situation from the point of view of the young man who committed the crime, with his situation and struggles a big part of the story.
Bell also has another case she is preparing for trial, a case that seems cut-and-dried, but that Bell has a feeling that there is more to than meets the eye. As she interviews family members, she begins to realize the asserts her two assistants bring to the job as well.
Keller was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist before venturing into becoming a novelist and her writing skills are evident here. This is a story about community, about a struggle for survival and about the difficulties of life in America today. A great read.

Behind the Beautiful Fovevers

Finished April 12
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, read by Sunil Malhotra.
This nonfiction book is a tale of the lives of the residents of a Mumbai slum, Annawadi, located near the Mumbai airport and near luxury hotels. Boo was inspired to tell about life in the slums after marrying a man from India. She picked Annawadi because of its size, one small enough to go around and talk to all the residents. Her research took three years and the lives of many of the residents change significantly during that time. We see the struggle to survive, the daily living conditions, the jealousies and rivalries, the corruption both between residents and at police and government levels. Money equals prosperity and everyone is trying to get ahead, and get a better life. Some use substances that help them escape from their lives, and some take it out on their families. Boo spends a lot of time here describing two families. 
One is a Muslim family, where the father has health issues that force the oldest boy, Abdul into the role of family provider. The situation also forces the mother into a less subservient role that is typical of Muslim women. The family recycles garbage, paying other garbage collectors by weight for their gatherings. When a fight with a neighbour women results in drastic actions by the women, the family's creep upward is stalled and reversed. 
The other Hindi family also has a strong women at the head, Asha. Asha sets her sights on politics, with the first step gaining the status of slumlord for Annawadi. She curries favors, accepts and pays bribes, settles disputes and makes enough to send her daughter to college. 
An ongoing story that brings the existence of the lowest class in India to light and shows how the system doesn't work for them, and how they are viewed by those above. 
Fascinating and heartrending.

A Secret Gift

Finished May 16
A Secret Gift: how one man's kindness - and a trove of letters - revealed the hidden history of the great depression by Ted Gup
I saw this book on the new book shelf at the library and it intrigued me. It continued to do so throughout. When Ted's mother was moving, he came into possession of a suitcase full of documents including a bunch of letters addressed to a Mr B Virdot. At first Ted was distracted by other things, but when he began to examine the letters and ask his mother questions, he discovered a family secret. Mr B Virdot was a name his grandfather used in 1933 to make small donations to needy individuals in the town of Canton. The letters sent in response to a newspaper advertisement explaining their circumstances and why the recipients would be grateful for any money sent opened a window onto the experiences of the Great Depression. Ted's grandfather, Sam Stone, only kept the letters from the recipients of money sent. Ted tracked down the descendants of the letter writers and found out the rest of their stories. Linking the letters to the larger stories of the writers was eye-opening and particularly significant in light of the current economic situation.
The stories are touching, sad, and hopeful, and the honesty of the writers comes across. Most were embarrassed to admit need, proud of the hard work they were trying to do, and many wanted to pay the money back at a future time. Some lives ended sadly, but others were stories of success. Many showed how the offer gave hope in a difficult time.
This is a really interesting bit of history.