BOOK REVIEW: Case Histories

British author Kate Atkinson is hard to put into a genre. My guess would probably be "literary detective, mystery with touches of dark humor". If such a catagory does not exsist, it should.

CASE HISTORIES opens with the disappearance of three-year-old Olivia. Olivia was the youngest of four daughters and the favorite of their mother. Their father ignored all four of them. The novel jumps to Laura Wyre's murder by an apparent madman while she is working at her father's law office. The next person we meet is Michelle, the mother of an infant and living on an isolated farm. Michelle snaps and we leave her sitting on the floor holding an axe beside her murdered husband.

Several years later Jackson Brodie, ex-policeman now in private practice, is approached by three different people, each with a relationship to the victim in these cold cases.

Two of Olivia's sisters have found a clue that makes them want Brodie to look into the whereabouts of the sister whose body has never been found. It has been 35 years since her disappearance and the recent death of their father has brought a new twist to their case.

Laura Wyre's father has been obbsessed with finding his daughter's murderer. For the ten years since her death, he has been working on his own to solve what appeared to be a randon act of violence. Now he is getting older, his health is bad and he feels that Brodie can help.

Shirley Morrison is Michelle's sister. She does not want help concerning the murder;she wants Brodie to find her now twenty-five -year-old niece.

Kate Atkinson is a master of the non-linear story line. It is the appearance of Jackson Brodie that pulls these three stories together. It seems that the only thing that they have in common is Brodie himself. Each story does come to a conclusion. Maybe not one that purists would approve of, but a conclusion just the same.

This is an author who will not appeal to every reader. She takes what could be a straightforward story and adds twists and turns that do not always make sense at the time and leads the reader into surprising territory. I like the fact that she gives that reader the compliment of taking for granted that he or she will keep up. She never writes down to her audience.

Jackson Brodie appears in several later books by Atkinson. CASE HISTORIES gives us a view of his own history and he is an old friend when we meet him again. This is an author that stays on my regular look - for - list.

BOOK REVIEW: Never Change

Once in awhile a book comes along that turns out to be very personal. A book that makes you want to sit down with a good friend and a good glass of Pinot Grigio to talk about the book and life in general. NEVER CHANGE by Elizabeth Berg was one of those books for me.

Fifty-one years old Myra has never married. She explains herself as the girl in high school who sat on the folding chair selling tickets to the prom, but never having a chance to attend it. Her only relationship seems to be with her dog Frank.

Myra works as a home nurse, visiting patients who need help with changing dressings, giving insulin shots, and similar medical situations. Her new assignment is a former classmate who has been her secret love since their high school days. Chip was the perfect young man, handsome, popular with the girls as well as the boys, a star athlete; the boy who would do well all of his life.

Chip has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has come home to die. Myra and Chip are now in a situation where their roles have done a reversal.Now they share old memories and new discoveries, sometimes from very different points of view.

Elizabeth Berg takes what could have been a very trite plot and weaves a beautiful story. The book's strength is mainly in her cast of characters. Myra should be a pathetic, lonely, middle-aged woman. Instead she shows that she is a hero, a quiet hero full of warmth, wisdom and capabilities. Her attitude keeps us from seeing her as a pitiful creature, instead, we find ourselves admiring her.

We also see the depth of the golden boy Chip. Their memories of high school remind us how we neglect to look beyond the surfaces of our classmates.The perfect person in our English class may have things going on that would surprise us.

I loved how well Berg created Myra's patients. There was a feeling of honesty in their depiction. We met Grace, a fourteen-year-old new mother, DeWitt, a bitter, middle-aged black man who does some dealing in drugs, Rose, a victim of dementia who lives in poverty, blind Fitz who likes to go to the strip clubs. Each of Myra's patients become very real to the reader and as important to us as they are to Myra.There is a mini story in each person.

Author Elizabeth Berg has taken a simple story and fleshed it out with a sharply drawn wry observant eye. Her use of language, her pull on the readers' emotions, her character sketches are all done beautifully without  being over sentimental. NEVER CHANGE is a book that you will want to share.

BOOK REVIEW: The Weight of Water

Author Anita Shreve's THE WEIGHT OF WATER captures the reader's attention in much the same way that watching a train accident does. It is hypnotizing and you know from the start that all is not going to end well.

Jean is a photographer who has become obsessed with the 1873 murder of two women on Smuttynose Island, a small, barren island off the coast of New Hampshire. Jean has been given the assignment to take the photographs that will illustrate a magazine article on the horrific murders.

Jean, her husband Thomas, their five-year-old daughter Billie, and Rich, Thomas's brother, with his new girlfriend, Adaline set out in Rich's boat to help with the photographic assignment planning on a leisurely vacation. The tension on the boat becomes evident very early. Jean and Thomas are having marital problems and Jean believes that Adaline may be involved with Thomas. The best thing on the boat is Billie.

While searching for documents on the murder trial during one of their land excursions, Jean finds an old letter written by Maren Hontvedt. Maren had been on the island the night of the murders and, as an old woman, near the end of her life, she feels obligated to tell the whole story.

This is a novel written as a story within a story. Jean has become so immersed by Maren's letter that it colors everything that is happening in her own life. At one point she asks, "I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" This question may overlap the centuries and apply to Jean as well as Maren.

Each woman's story is told in the first person, giving the book a very intimate feel. The author is excellent at capturing the moods of the people as well as the locations. We feel the cramped quarters of the boat that holds four adults and one little girl as well as the isolation of Smuttynose Island and the small house that at times held too many people.

Author Anita Shreve dovetailed the two stories together perfectly. At times we could see similarities between Jean and Maren and it was easy to see why Jean became so fascinated by Maren's life and the murders. This is more than a murder mystery, but more a study of people, people of 1873 as well as today.

This was my first Anita Shreve book. She really does pull you in until you can not look away. Her characters are complex, her moods compelling, her plots complicated.  THE WEIGHT OF WATER was an excellent choice as a title. The water plays many parts in each of the character's lives.

I have heard so many mixed comments on Shreve as an author that I will have to try another book by her. I would be interested in hearing which book you think it should be. Let me know. Good or bad.

BOOK REVIEW: Black and Blue

BLACK AND BLUE is not my normal type of reading. Domestic violence is rarely the subject for light, romantic novels, but author Anna Quindlen is such a skilled writer that I picked it up. The main character, Fran/Beth so captured me that I read straight through the night.

Fran Benedetto is married to a local policeman. When the beatings started she felt that things would change, besides, she loved him. Then she told herself that having a baby would change things; then she felt that their son deserved a family, a father. The police were no help. He was one of their men. Plus, she loved him.

One day, after a particularly bad beating, she saw the look in ten-year-old Robert's eyes and knew that she had to get the two of them away. At the hospital where she worked, she had listened to a woman who worked with an organization that helped women find a new identity in a new place.
Now, know as Beth, she and her son have started a new life, always aware that one slip up and her husband has the resources to find them.

Anna Quindlen does an excellent job of getting us into Beth's head. Her son does not understand why his father is no longer part of his life. It is difficult for Beth, let alone Robert, to keep her new story straight and the difference in their new lifestyle is difficult. On top of the new hardships, there is always the fear that they will be found and the death threats will become real.

This is not a happy book. Domestic violence is not a happy subject. It takes an author of Quindlen's skill to keep it human and suspenseful. This is not a story that the more lurid talk shows would appreciate. It is a study of a woman with a terrible secret. It is a book to be shared with girlfriends with the prayer that none of them need it.

BOOK REVIEW: Go Set a Watchmanl

It is impossible to talk about Harper Lee's GO SET A WATCHMAN without referring to To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact,if it has been awhile since reading Mockingbird, it might be a good idea to watch the movie at least. The background is important.

GO SET A WATCHMAN finds a twenty-six- year-old Scout returning to Maycomb, Alabama to visit her aging father Atticus. She has been living in New York City and now prefers to be called by her real  name, Jean Louise. Again we meet most of the well known characters from Maycomb, with some sad and surprising changes.

The almost twenty years have brought political tensions to Maycomb. Especially the race situation has become ugly and  Jean Louise is not prepared to find people that she thought she knew filled with bigotry and hatred. When she learns that her father is a member of an organization that is associated with the Klan, she is sick. She feels that this makes everything that she believed that he had taught her to be a lie. The man who stood for fairness and honor has betrayed her.

I do not agree with the many reviews that vilify Atticus. He was and is a man who lives for the fairness of the law. Again, he is willing to defend a black man who is accused of murdering a white man. Although it was an accident that was more the white man's fault, Atticus knows that it will bring the NAACP and national attention to the trial.

Considering that GO SET A WATCHMAN was supposedly written in the mid-1950's, Harper Lee had a very good understanding of the time and place of her characters. The ladies at Aunt Alexandra's Coffee Social and their cliche statements on the blacks were so well drawn that the scene gives us a glimpse of how far Jean Louise has grown from her home town. Henry, Jean Louise's old boyfriend, knows that he has to go along with the current feelings of white superiority in order to fit in. Even Calpurnia is now a stranger and not willing to cross black/white lines.

But it is Atticus and his feelings on the racial situation that make Jean Louise feel that she has been lied to and betrayed, that all that she believed Atticus had stood for has been a lie.

GO SET A WATCHMAN is not a particularly good book. Lee's style of writing is more appropriate for Scout than for Jean Louise. The flashbacks to Scout, Jem and Dill in their Mockingbird days are the only spots of charm in the novel. I can not picture it becoming required reading or of being made into a classic movie.

The publisher that had originally turned the manuscript of GO SET A WATCHMAN down and told Harper Lee to write  about Scout as a young girl was right. Because of his insight we have To Kill a Mockingbird, a book that stays on top of my list of all time best books written. I have always felt that if an author has decided that one of his works is not good enough to be published, we should listen to him. GO SET A WATCHMAN will never get the acclaim that To Kill a Mockingbird so richly deserved, but it still makes for an interesting quick read if only to see how life changes in a small Southern town from the 1940's to the 1950's and what happens to some of Scout's old friends.

BOOK REVIEW: Flowers from the Storm

The downsizing of my library is complete. I now have a better understanding of Hercules and the Augean Stables. The difference is that he probably did not find some hidden gems nor have I ever heard that he hid those gems under his bed.One of the gems that I found is FLOWERS FROM THE STORM by Laura Kinsale. Kinsale has taken the Regency Romance to a slightly different level.

Maddy Timms is a quiet Quaker living with her blind father. Her only contact with the Duke of Jervaulx is when she delivers her father's mathematical paper to the Duke's home. The brilliant duke and Mr. Timms have been working on proof of an obscure mathematical solution with hopes of presenting the paper to the Analytical Society of the  Royal Institution on Albemarle Street.

Unfortunately, before this important meeting, the Duke, while leaving the bedroom of his present mistress, feels an unpleasant tingling and numbness in his right hand and a weird overall feeling. As he descends the staircase in his mistress' home he meets her husband at the foot of the stairs.

The next time Maddy goes to the home of the Duke, she finds the place in an uproar. The Duke has become a dangerous lunatic and is being taken to an institution for the insane. What follows is Maddy's attempts to save Jervaulx against his family's insistence that he be found incompetent so that his vast wealth can be turned over to them. So far, we have the makings of a typical romance novel.

What made this book so fascinating was the Duke's illness and how it was treated. Naturally, it was never stated that he had suffered a stroke. Little would have been known of aneurysms or hemorrhaging of the brain during the early 1800's.  All that the people around him could see was that he had lost his ability to communicate and that he became violent when his attempts were frustrating.

The conditions of the "hospital" where Jervaulx was institutionalized was probably better than most, but still filled with what a modern reader would only see as inhumane treatment. The fact that a duke would expect very special privileges did not help his relationships with his caretakers.

It also was to the author's credit to be able to keep Maddy true to her Quaker beliefs. Her conflict of her attraction to Jervaulx, her horror of his life style, and her loyalty to her father and the Society of Friends were never glossed over. Instead, we worried for her and her Calling to help this man who was so far out of her experience.

FLOWERS FROM THE STORM appeared on my nightstand at the perfect time. I needed a read that was not too deep of a medical study and yet, not too fluffy. Thanks to author Laura Kinsale, I found a little gem.

BOOK REVIEW: Whistling in the Dark

There is something about an author using a ten-year-old protagonist that attracts a reader. It has been done often. Maybe it is the combination of innocence and wisdom that captures our imagination; or maybe it is that loss of innocence itself. Whatever the reason, Lesley Kagen has done it beautifully in her WHISTLING IN THE DARK. It is impossible not to get involved in young Sally O’Malley’s life.

Sally’s beloved father has died causing Sally, her two sisters, Troo and Nell, and their mother to move from their farm into town. Shortly after the move, the mother remarries. She becomes ill and has to go into the hospital. The new stepfather proves to be a cruel drunk who leaves the girls to fend for themselves.

Thus starts Sally’s story. She had promised her father before he died that she would take care of Troo and would tell their mother that he forgave her. Older sister Nell is busy making out with her boyfriend and stepfather Hall is soon out of their lives. This leaves Sally and Troo on their own.

The year is 1959. A time when children were free to play outdoors until after dark, neighbors’ doors were always open, two extra mouths at the dinner table was accepted and winning a coon skin hat was a big thing to a young girl. It was also the year that people on Vliet Street started locking their doors. Someone was molesting and killing young girls. Sally is not only sure of who the murderer is, she is sure that she is going to be the next victim.

The plot of WHISTLING IN THE DARK sounds as if it would be fairly straightforward, but author Lesley Kagen has some neat surprises for the reader. The residents of the town came very much alive and as we learned about them we felt that we also were residents of a small town in the late 1950’s.

My idea of who was the guilty person kept changing (though I never agreed with Sally’s choice). No sooner would I have my suspect than the author would throw a new twist  into the plot.

The identification of the murder is only one of the reasons that you will have trouble putting this delightful book down. The underlying secrets of people that you thought that you knew are revealed slowly throughout the story making this a warm page-turner. It also gives me a new author to keep my eye out for.

BOOK REVIEW: Orphan Train

Between 1854 and 1929 over two hundred thousand children were transported from cities on the east coast to small towns across the country. These “orphan” trains would stop, the children would line up and people would pick the children that met their needs. Some of these children ended up in loving homes; some ended up as indentured servants to be badly mistreated.  

In her novel, ORPHAN TRAIN, author Christina Baker Kline tells us of Vivian, a woman who experienced the reality of being one of these orphans and Molly, a modern day teenager who might have been one if she had been born in an earlier time.

Molly has been bounced from foster home to foster home most of her life. After being caught stealing a book from the library, she is given the choice of community service or time in a youth detention center. She reluctantly chooses to help an elderly woman organize an attic that has gone untouched for years.

The boxes in Vivian’s attic are full of the memories of a young girl taken from New York City to the Midwest where she faced a strange and sometimes brutal life alone.

Vivian’s story was moving and kept my interest, but it was the relationship that grew between Molly and Vivian that made this book. The story line shifts from the late eighteen hundreds to modern times as Vivian and Molly each tell of their lives. Author Christina Baker Kline did a very subtle job in showing the similarities of the two characters. Their backgrounds were so much alike, considering the age difference.

I have felt that recently some of the best things that are being published fall into the Young Adult category.  ORPHAN TRAIN should be listed in this classification. The story is simply told and some of the side characters are rather stereotyped. There were few surprises in the people that were responsible for young Vivian. I am sure that in reality, the cruelty that was inflicted on these orphans was much more brutal than described by the author.

I did like that we were able to hear what happened to some of the children who shared Vivian’s train trip. The historical notes and pictures at the end of the book were also very worthwhile, very informative and personal.

ORPHAN TRAIN was an enjoyable read because this is a subject that fascinates me. It  is one more piece of our history that often gets overlooked. We would like to think that modern society has come up with a better way to treat children who are abandoned or orphaned. I hope so.

BOOK REVIEW: The Doll Maker

Richard Montanari writes thrillers. He builds his action as carefully as his lead characters, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano build their case. In Montanari’s latest offering, THE DOLL MAKER we follow the action through the eyes of not only Byrne and Balzano, but through the eyes of the killer as well.

The first body, a young schoolgirl, is found sitting primly on a freshly painted bench at a deserted train station. Under the bench is a formal invitation to a tea dance. The second murder, in this case twin boys, is found similarly staged with another invitation to an upcoming tea dance. This time though a doll is placed as in witness to the scene. The doll is an exact duplication of the park bench victim.

As the murders continue so do the appearances of the very lifelike dolls. Even though part of the story is told from the viewpoint of two mysterious people, we have to keep up with Kevin, Jessie, and the Philadelphia police force as they work to solve this odd case.

There is so much to like about THE DOLL MAKER. The history of dolls is touched on briefly, but enough to help give some valuable clues as well as to give a short history lesson. I liked that there is some local color throughout Pennsylvania. Montanari places his books in Philadelphia, but his characters do get to other parts of the state. In this case we make it to Rockview State Penitentiary, which happens to be in my backyard.

It is hard to beat a Montanari book for interesting characters, but Anabelle and Mr Marseille are exceptionally well done. At first I thought that I was hearing the voice of a doll, and in a sense, I may have been correct. Their background was fascinating. I also love getting to know characters who make short appearances but become very real. This adds to the suspense when they are the next victim.

Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are the protagonists of Montanari books and you will enjoy getting to know them. I found that once I had met them that I wanted to know them better, hear more of what made them who they are.

This does not mean that THE DOLL MAKER can not be read as a stand alone book.  It only means that once you pick up a book by Richard Montanari, you will want more. This is “thriller” at its best.

BOOK REVIEW: The Bone Tree

NEWS FLASH: I just finished THE BONE TREE and am dying to tell you all about it... but, I can’t. It would be doing you a terrible disservice.

You have to understand that THE BONE TREE is the middle book in Greg Iles’ trilogy that started with Natchez Burning and neither of these books is a stand alone novel. Usually, I find that the middle book in a trilogy is a disappointment, but I could not put this book down. It is full of surprises and fast action as well as character development of people that I thought  I knew.

THE BONE TREE is actually the fifth book by Iles to feature Penn Cage and his family. That means that Penn, his fiancee Caitlin, his parents and daughter, as well as many of the people around town are old friends of ours. Now we are learning secrets and seeing sides of them that give them even more depth. Some things are not so pretty.

Natchez Burning gave us some background of the terrible racial situation in the 1960’s. An offshoot of the KKK that called themselves the Double Eagles were responsible for horrific acts of racial violence and the recent murder of Doctor Tom Cage’s African-American nurse brings the past and the present too close together. Doctor Cage has been accused of the murder and is on the run from a corrupt police system as well as the remaining Double Eagles.

Caitlin and Penn have reason to believe that the head of the Double Eagles may have played a big part in the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and that Doctor Cage knows more about the details of these murders than is healthy for any part of his family.

So far, each of the first two books in the trilogy have come to somewhat of a conclusion, but has left the reader waiting, not too patiently, for the third and final explanation. (I wish I could tell you more!)

Greg Iles is very high on my favorite author list and he has not disappointed me with his latest offering. If he is a new author to you, I would recommend some of his earlier books while waiting for the third Natchez Burning book.  (It is not due until April 2017!) The Devil’s Punchbowl is very good and the action happens just before the start of Natchez Burning. If you like action that gets gritty at times and is written by an author who has an ear for dialogue and character, you will get hooked.

BOOK REVIEW: Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel OLIVE KITTERIDGE. Many times it has seemed a mystery to me how a book gets selected for a Pulitzer. OLIVE KITTERIDGE may have given me a clue.

In thirteen short stories, author Elizabeth Strout tells us of the people living in a small coastal town. We learn how their lives are tangled together and how lives are influenced by the people of the past, as well as the present. The stories are not in chronological order and the protagonist may change but this gives us a chance to see the action from different perspectives.

Olive Kitteridge, a retired high school teacher, plays a part in each story, sometimes as the main character, sometimes in a very small supporting role. The first story, “Pharmacy” is told through Henry, Olive’s pharmacist husband. Henry comes across as somebody who likes his fellow man and lives a bit vicariously through the newly wed young woman who works for him. Olive comes across cold and uncaring. This set her character for me and the author had to work to make me see anything likeable about her.

As we meet each member of the small town and see the infidelities, the obsession with suicide, the bits of sadness mixed with an occasional piece of happiness, we see intimate glimpses of humanity. We can feel the close, almost suffocating, atmosphere of living in a small town.  

The stories are full of people suffering from deep pain, pains that are very relatable to the reader. Elizabeth Strout has the touch to save it from being overwhelming oppressive.

My biggest problem with the book was the number of named characters, ninety, and some names were shared by several characters. I had trouble keeping them straight. Several of the stories will stay with me to ponder over and worry about what happened next. The people were real, dealing with very real, human situations. Olive and Henry will be with me for a long time. Maybe this is what makes a book worthy of winning the Pulitzer Prize.

BOOK REVIEW: Fun Home

A while back I reviewed a book titled FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel in a newspaper column (and, unfortunately, not on my blog). I had originally picked it up because I knew Alison’s mother, a talented and fascinating woman. To put it mildly,the book was not at all what I expected.

Sub-titled A Family Tragicomic, FUN HOME is a graphic novel (hence the “comic” in “tragicomic”) that tells the coming of age story of Alison and her rather unorthodox family. The father was an English teacher who was also the  town’s funeral director; the mother also taught English and was active in local theater.

Alison knew from an early age that she was gay but did not find out that she had this in common with her father until she was in college, shortly before his questionable death.

The book is is brilliantly done. It is hard not to get caught up in the family dynamics and the artwork is especially well done. Although the story is told in cartoon fashion drawings, one portrait of the mother is beautifully executed. I was really impressed when I read FUN HOME.

Now to the present: No matter what is on my schedule, life gets put on hold the night of the Tony Awards. I knew that FUN HOME had been made into a musical and had been nominated for an award. It was almost with personal pride that I watched the show win five awards including Best Actor in a Musical (Michael Cerveris) and, in my opinion the top prize, Best Original Musical.

FUN HOME is also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. (We could have titled this post “Local Girl Does Extremely Well”. ) Alison’s most recent book is Are You My Mother; A Comic Drama. Also a  collection of her comic strips has been published, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, taken from twenty five years of the popular strip.

PS. You young women may be familiar with the Bechdel Test, a test to determine how women relate through conversation in movies. Check this year’s winners and losers.

BOOK REVIEW: Tallgrass

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order led to the assembly and incarceration of over 120,00 persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. These American citizens were forced from their homes to live in detention camps under very primitive conditions . Sandra Dallas uses this part of our history for her book TALLGRASS.

Thirteen-year-old Rennie lives on a sugar beet farm near the small town of Ellis, Colorado. She is in town with her father when the first busloads of Japanese arrive from California to live in the camp, Tallgrass, built near her home. The nasty remarks of some of the townspeople do not make sense to her. Nor does the fact that her father has to walk away from an angry confrontation when he goes to the defense of these newcomers.

Rennie herself has to learn to walk away from fights at school when her father hires several of the young men from Tallgrass to help with the planting of his beets. Rennie’s brother, along with most of the young men of the community, are serving in the military and the farmers need help. Having these “foreigners” in the community does not sit well with some of the people and when a young girl is raped and murdered the blame falls on the young men working for Rennie’s family.

TALLGRASS blends an uncomfortable part of American history with the coming of age of a young girl, a murder, and maybe some lessons in honesty and being human. Full of complex characters and some gritty scenes, the book never loses a touch of innocence, due in most part to the age of the narrator and the fact that it is told from her viewpoint.

The father/daughter relationship in TALLGRASS may remind the reader of To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, Rennie, like Scout, learns that bad things can happen to good people and that people are not always what they seem to be. The theme may be similar, but TALLGRASS stands on its own laurels.

Sandra Dallas is definitely one of my favorite authors and you will find her books mentioned in POV quite often. She is not afraid to tackle sensitive subjects with honesty and develops characters that draw the reader into the story until the fact that this might be a new way to see something out of your comfort zone is forgotten...and there is always someone to root for--- a very important element in a book.

I have enjoyed many of Ms. Dallas’ books, but TALLGRASS will stand out. The author says that she was inspired in part by the comparisons with Guantanamo Bay, but as I was reading it, I could not help but notice the similar acts of prejudice resulting in violence in the current news.

BOOK REVIEW: The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

Several years ago, on one of our trips to The Outer Banks of North Carolina, I discovered the author Diane Chamberlain. Her Keeper of the Light trilogy was the perfect read for an area known for its lighthouses. Since then, she is one of the authors that I like to bring on our vacation to Hatteras Island. Some of her books have been good some not so much. THE SECRET LIFE OF CEECEE WILKES was good.

Sixteen year old CeeCee Wilkes has been alone since the death of her mother four years earlier. She had spent most of those four years in various foster home, but is now on her own. She is working as a waitress in a college town diner, saving money to start college.

When grad student Timothy Gleason becomes her boyfriend/lover there is nothing that she will not do for him. He makes her feel important and loved, the first that she has felt that way since the death of her mother.

Twenty years later, CeeCee is now Eve Bailey and is happily married with two grown daughters. Her life has been good, until the day that she sees on the news that Timothy has been arrested for the murder of a woman and her infant. Eve knows that she is the only person who can save Timothy from the death penalty . She had been there when the woman died;Timothy had not. Telling the truth may save Timothy, but it will destroy the new life that she has so carefully created for herself and the family that she loves.

THE SECRET LIFE OF CEECEE WILKES is a good book for vacation reading. The heroine is a young girl who quickly arouses our sympathy. The early chapters begin with a section from the letters that her mother had written to her before she died. We are on CeeCee’s side even when she is responsible for the unthinkable.

Many people in the book have secrets of their own, some that we never learn, We meet people who live lives completely off the grid making us wonder how easy it would be to develop a new identity and go on with a regular, normal life.

Author Diane Chamberlain makes us take a look at what constitutes family love and what do you do when loyalty and the sense of right and wrong clash with that love. Her books may be a hit or miss thing, but if you need a light vacation read, she might be worth the gamble.

BOOK REVIEW: Strength in What Remains

Geography is not one of my strong points nor would I ever win in the category of international politics. I had never heard of the country Burundi nor had any idea of the wave of genocide that took place there in the early 1990’s. Pulitzer Prize winner author Tracy Kidder’s STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS not only made me aware of the horrors of that time in Burundi, but introduced me to some of the people who lived through it.

Deogratias has arrived in the United States with two hundred dollars, no friends and no English. He had escaped the horrors of his native Burundi through a series of what could only be called miracles. He had been a medical student with good grades and a bright future.

In New York he found himself homeless and at times in situations as dangerous as the ones that he had left back home. The only job that he could find is delivering groceries, but fortune brings him to the notice of several people who help him get on his feet.

One of the people that he meets is Doctor Paul Farmer. Doctor Farmer was instrumental in organizing Partners in Health and a personal hero of mine. His influence helped to open more doors in the medical field for Deo and gave him the means to eventually follow up on his dream of opening a health clinic in Burundi.

Deo also came to the attention of Tracy Kidder and he brings us to the heart of the story. Over time, the author was able to get Deo to open himself to talk about the horrors that he had lived through. In time, they were able to make several trips back to Deo’s native village. On a pilgrimage that followed Deo’s journey to stay alive, we,too, are subjected to the atrocities that happen in parts of the world that we never notice

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS is a brutally honest book, but Tracy Kidder has the talent to keep the reader involved.  Kidder gives us real, live heroes, heroes who should grace the covers of our magazines. I first became aware of Paul Farmer in Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountain. (This book should be on everyone’s must read list.) Now and then his name will appear in a buried article about brave and dedicated people of our times and I feel that I am reading about an old friend. I will feel that way about Deogratias as well’

It is important today that we know that atrocities are happening in parts of our world, in countries that have no commercial importance to the United States - those countries we seem to be aware of. We need to also know that there are many of us who have the courage not only to be survivors, but to do their part in helping to make the situation a little better. Tracy Kidder helps us to know some of these people.

BOOK REVIEW: When the Heart Waits

I said to my soul, be still and wait...

So the darkness shall be the light,

and the stillness the dancing,

T. S. Eliot

This fragment from a T.S.Eliot poem is the appropriate introduction to Sue Monk Kidd’s personal journal, WHEN THE HEART WAITS. Ms. Kidd is best known for her bestselling novels, The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings. I loved both novels, but as an inspirational writer, she hits a personal chord with me.

WHEN THE HEART WAITS is the author’s year long journey during a midlife crisis, going from the depths of feeling that life has no meaning to starting to find the unique person she was meant to be. In a world of quick fixes, Ms.Kidd learns the lesson of active waiting from a found cocoon.

The use of the cocoon as a metaphor for rebirth is not uncommon, but Ms. Kidd puts the emphasis on the fact that the larva is waiting, alone, in the dark. The waiting during a dark period of life is the important part of the growth.

The book is filled with relatable literary references. Naturally we see quotes from Thomas Merton and Henry Thoreau, but Frank L. Baum’s Tin Man is an example of how we can shut off our physical feelings and Rapunzel teaches us that we have the power to help ourselves. (Why didn’t she cut her hair and use it as a ladder to climb down. She allowed other people to.)

Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus is often quoted. I have used this charming, little book as a simple explanation of death. Ms. Kidd uses it  to illustrate how frightening growth can be, but also how rewarding.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes from the author herself:  

“People who want life hammered down into tight, legalistic certainties seem to me to be the people most insecure inside. Frankly, the folks who frighten me the most are those who are dead certain about everything, who have all the answers and no questions.”

 We are reminded that the creature that emerges from the cocoon is unique onto itself.

Contemplative spirituality should be an important part of our lives, whether we are at the morning, afternoon or evening phase of life. As we age we are changing. Sue Monk Kidd points out that  quiet, self reflection helps us to become the being that God has planned for us. WHEN THE HEART WAITS is an inspirational book written by an author of great talent and spirituality.

William Blake summed it up perfectly:

                      “To see the World in a Grain of Sand                         And Heaven in a Wild Flower,                         Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,                         And Eternity in an hour.”