Someone by Alice McDermott

How would you summarize any one life? A long narrative or glimpses of the best times, the worst times, the ordinary times - sometimes leaping across decades to make the connections?  McDermott has chosen the second alternative to share the life of plain but sturdy Marie Commeford.  Born in pre-Depression Brooklyn she begins her observations from the stoop of here largely immigrant neighborhood.  Her profoundly Irish Catholic family struggles no more or less than most.  The neighbors all share in the kind of tragedy that comes of poverty and disappointment as well as the comfort that comes with the sharing.  It is life daily lived but the language of the novel elevates the telling.  Each of us, it turns out, is someone.  We become someone from observations and life experiences we would often count as inconsequential.  Marie watches the boys playing stick ball in the street and never questions that Billy, blinded in WWI, is called upon to make the calls from his chair outside his door.  Years later it will figure into her understanding of both caring and grief.  So many little details, so often exactly the right word, so many moments of recognition - a very thoughtful read.

Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

This is the second memoir written by Reichl and I thought this one was much more personal than Tender at the Bone.  In 1978,  Reichl was a young married woman sharing a house with her artist husband and a bunch of other struggling young professionals in Berkley.  She had decided to leave her career as a chef to embark on a career as a restaurant critic.  Despite a number of hilarious failed attempts in the beginning, she eventually makes the connections necessary to be taken seriously.  There are affairs along the way, trips to Paris and lots and lots of food (some recipes included).  As delightful and humorous as her professional journey was, her personal life was unraveling with some moments of great sadness.  Still her writing is worthy of an editor at Gourmet and always optimistic at the heart.

These is my Words by Nancy Turner

Subtitle: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901  Arizona Territories
This is a work of fiction based on the authors family history.  At age 17, Sarah and her family leave New Mexico in a small wagon train headed to Arizona.  There are Indian raids, births, deaths and romance on the way.  They finally settle in the area around Tucson when Tucson was not much more than a fort and a small town.  Sarah is one tough independent woman and yet her life is still somewhat constrained by the expectations of women of the time.  Some journal entries are just a day or two apart. Other make larger leaps in time but the story is still easy to follow.  Hers was a life of adventure and danger and family life and all very believable.  I wish Turner had shared more of her real family story just for comparison.

Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom

Jamie Pyke was just a minor character in Grissom's earlier novel, The Kitchen House but his struggle is the focus of this one.  A murder on the Tall Oaks plantation forces him to become a runaway slave.  He makes it to Philadelphia with the help of another runaway slave, Henry.  His light color allows him to pass as a white man but it is a secret that has dangerous consequences for Jamie and the forbidden woman he loves.  Years later, after Jamie has become a successful silversmith, Henry asks Jamie to care for his son Pan.  When Pan is captured by slave runners, Jamie feels obligated to return to the south to get Pan back.  His search leads him back to the Tall Oaks area and many of the characters from the earlier novel appear in this story.  You don't need to read TKH first but it might affect how much you care about what happens to the characters in this one.  This book has all the tension and cruelty of the first book with occasional satisfying revenge.  Not sure that I liked Jamie as much as I liked Lavinia and Belle and Sukey in the first novel but it was a worthy almost sequel.

The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer

Charles Valley is a small town outside of Atlanta, Georgia with all the stereotypes associated with the south.  Dr. Maggie, Li'l Bit, and Miss Peggy are separated by age but are connected by decades of friendship and a dark secret.  For years they have been highly regarded powerful doyennes of their small town - but each struggled with personal demons to get there.  Important to all of them is Lottie and her family.  Lottie was the daughter of a maid in Dr. Maggie's home when they were both young and racial differences didn't matter.  Their friendship is strained for a number of reasons but they continue to respect and care for each other.  Decades later, the death of Lottie's granddaughter causes them to look back on their lives, the decisions they made, and the secret they share.  Many issues to consider in their stories all placed in the context of how southern society works.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The title was chosen for our wonderful library's Big Read.  I guess I was 1 of the few people in American who not only had not read the book but have never seen the movie.  I can't say that I have been a fan of the detective novel genre but it was a fun read.  Of course even though I have not seen the movie, Sam Spade sounded like Humphrey Bogart in my head.  Can't say he matched Hammett's description though - which I think is one of the things that distinguishes the detective novel from the mystery novel.  In this book, we get the kind of details of every individual that would allow us to pick them out in a line-up but little internal dialog or back story.  It's all about the plot - all action - made for the movies - a great escape.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is a letter that Coates has written to his son to help him understand how he is to understand his place in contemporary America.  It is spectacular writing. I had twenty passages identified for book group discussion in the first 44 pages.  I am not sure what I could say that would be a worthy commentary so I will just quote Toni Morrison from the back of the book jacket, "The language of (this book), like Coates journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading."  I agree.