I am remembering my summers of childhood and adolescence when I journeyed on foot up and down the hill to the town library for my week's stash of books to read. I would check out the limit and bring them home and start reading on the front porch. I had extremely advanced reading skills and if left alone, not bothered for chores by Mom, I could finish a book in a day or two. We never bought books in my family, only the occasional comic book but the library was my resource and free. Today I have a massive home library and buy books here and there readily. One woman in my book club asked me what I did with all the books I buy and this does get to be a dilemma because I cannot keep them all; I donate to our local library book sales where we raise funds for the library, I pass along books to friends, and I donate to the library at the church where our book club meets. There is never a book sale to be passed by and there are many older books worth reading. I still read rapidly but also can absorb the information rapidly and to scan over drivel.
I am so into my summer reading swing once again and just finished two more books, both excellent stories, both novels. While I prefer non fiction, I do appreciate a novel that teaches me something and both these books did; well if the research that goes into the book is good, there is often something to learn. That is why James Michener is my all time favorite author. It is unique today to find authors who research their subjects so thoroughly as both these authors did.
First "
The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom, published by Simon and Schuster in 2010, 377 pages, selected by our book club, a story set in post colonial (1790's) Virginia about Lavinia, an Irish orphan girl who becomes an indentured servant to the tobacco plantation owned by the captain of the ship on which she'd been migrating with her parents and brother. When both parents die the children are separated and sold off. A seven year old girl is alone, that is Lavinia who is sold to the captain. Lavinia is raised with the black slaves particularly by Belle who runs the kitchen house where the meals are made for the family. True to the history of the era, there was a separate house behind the plantation where meals were cooked. The novel spans the life of the Captain, reaches back to the time of his parents and then forward to his son and is narrated alternately by Lavinia and Belle. It is a good tale with many intriguing characters, Mama Mae, Papa George, Uncle Jacob are all slaves to the household and compared to the field slaves, they are better off. The captain's wife and mother of Marshall and Sally battles opium addiction and finally loses herself in it after Sally's tragic death. The story calls attention to some of our nation's history that I had forgotten, that of the indentured servants, mostly white Europeans, many Irish who lived on the plantations and were part of the slave community despite their white skin. This is not a pleasant story in many parts but it is well written and compelling reading. The characters do not always do what the reader thinks they will and that draws us along.
Grissom is a new author to me, but I would read other of her books; she explains in her extensive Author's Notes and Conversation at the end of the book that she felt guided by voices from the past to develop this tale while she was researching the history of the area. Pg. 368, " I tried on a number of occasions to change some of the events (those that I found profoundly disturbing) but the story would stop when I did that, so I forged ahead to write what was revealed. I am forever grateful to the souls who gifted me with their sharing." She explains that she wrote the prologue in one sitting after being inspired by a map she found while renovating an old plantation tavern in Virginia. When asked if she will write a sequel she says perhaps. She took the names of the slaves found in her research for the numerous characters. She offers advice to aspiring writers, first to read and to have an excellent foundation in reading and then to persist. I am sorry that I will miss our book club discussion about this good read, but we will be gone. I give this 4 ****
"Beside a Burning Sea" by John Shors, 429 pages, published in 2008 by the New American Library, sat alongside my evening reading chair for a few months while I read other books; I'd start and then go onto another read for the book club or another book I just had to read. So I determined I would complete it soon and I am glad I did. This is a World War II novel about the survivors of a hospital ship, Benevolence, that is torpedoed in the Pacific by the Japanese. The survivors reach an island and strive to stay alive. Excellent characters are developed including the ship's Captain and his nurse wife, Isabelle, her sister Annie another nurse, Jake, Ratu, a villain, the nefarious and traitorous Roger, and Akira, a Japanese prisoner of war who bonds with his captors striving to survive on the island. Akira is a poet who was conscripted for the Japanese army and the author weaves this theme through the tail by introducing each chapter with a haiku, such as this one for Day 11, The Island, "Man thinks himself strong,
Until the sky reminds him.
Ants explore green trees"
Annie is engaged to another back home but finds herself drawn to the quiet depth of Akira. There is a reader's discussion guide at the end of this book making it useful for discussions. Evidently Shors first wrote, "
Beneath a Marble Sky" which I shall seek out at a sale and may have since released his third novel, "
In the Footsteps of Dragons."
He writes very descriptively, pg. 237., " The rain came not long after dawn, dripping from a somber sky as if a trillion wet towels hung above. A schizophrenic wind started and stopped and changed directions. The wind's uncertainty seemed to infect every creature on the island with a similar sense of bewilderment. Birds flew toward distant horizons and then flew back. Frogs ceased to croak. Insects were suddenly nowhere to be seen. Even the fish that usually darted about the shallows sought deeper water." On Friday evening we had tornado style winds at 60 mph, and then a power outage that lasted all night until Saturday at 8:30AM; it was a humdinger storm right about the time I was reading that paragraph.
