Necessary Lies

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain is a powerfully moving story set in rural North Carolina in 1960. It tells the story of a young woman, Jane, newly married to a pediatrician, who wants her own career helping others. She has recently graduated from Woman's College and gets a job as a social worker in the welfare office overseeing clients in a rural, poverty stricken county near Raleigh.

On the job she meets the Hart family: two teenage girls being raised by their grandmother in a small tenant house on a tobacco farm owned by Davison Gardiner. The younger of the two, Ivy, basically oversees the household as her aging grandmother has serious health issues and her feeble minded sister, Mary Ella, has a two-year old son that needs looking after.

Jane is warned by her superior, Charlotte Werkmann, not to get overly-invested or personally involved with her clients. The hallmark of good, effective social work among the county's population is to stay detached in order to keep the proper perspective on the needs of the children and families she serves.

Jane learns that North Carolina's "eugenics" program--the routine sterilization of not just those who are institutionalized, but any and all who fall below an IQ of 70, those who have epilepsy, or those who are deemed unlikely to ever get off the welfare rolls--has already sterilized Mary Ella without her knowledge or consent, and now have their sights on doing the same to younger sister, Ivy. The better she gets to know the Hart girls, the more outraged she becomes at the system which seems to offer these girls no choice.

What ensues is the story of lives forever changed by one person's stubborn challenge to a system which may or may not serve the best interests of those most vulnerable in society.

Some of the things in Chamberlain's book shock my sense of what it means to be a woman in 2013 in the United States. The fact that a doctor would not write a birth control prescription for her unless she had a signed permission note from her husband felt like a huge slap in the face. Yet, I have no doubt that thinking existed in the past. How far we have come!

It was also quite a shock to realize that involuntary sterilization of people occurred at such rates! I knew that it has happened to people who lived in institutions, such as the severely mentally handicapped and those in psychiatric care in the past. I assumed that these procedures always had the ok of nearest living relatives or guardians.

To discover in the Afterword that 7,000 people in the state of North Carolina alone, into the 1970s!, were being sterilized based on intelligence, their use of the welfare system, or even because they were epileptic remains shocking to say the least!

I read Necessary Lies in a matter of hours because it was such compelling reading. I felt myself getting entwined in the lives of the characters. I also really enjoyed Chamberlain's technique of writing every-other chapter from Jane and Ivy's perspectives.

I would highly recommend reading Necessary Lies. Chamberlain has done an outstanding job depicting the time and place and presenting us with characters you feel are standing right behind you, looking over your shoulder as you read. Get your book club to consider this one--you will find a plethora of things to discuss!!

Stark, Vivid, Heart Rending Reads

Two books I have read in the past few months may strike some readers as bleak.

Yesterday I finished Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

What do you think of convicted killers? How do you feel about public execution? How would you like a convicted killer who's been sentenced to death living with your family?

Agnes Magnussdottir knows death is coming for her. What she doesn't know is when.

Sentenced to death for taking part in the killing of two men at a remote farmstead in Iceland in 1828, Agnes is sent to live out her remaining days (the number of which has yet to be determined) with the family of a government official at the Kornsa farmstead. Kent's novel narrates the final months of Agnes' life: her conversations with the priest she has chosen to offer her spiritual guidance and the women who inhabit the same space and shape her last days.

Agnes feels that her voice, her story were not heard during the trial. As one of three people convicted for the bloody, vicious murder (along with a young woman and a male neighbor), she is desperate to be heard and understood. Her need to tell her story becomes even more urgent when she learns that officials are working toward eliminating the death penalty for the younger woman.

It is an intricately woven story, as vivid as it is stark in details of the landscape, the characters, the period, and the social situation. Kent's storytelling draws you in, gets you involved in the lives of these people. I began to wonder exactly for whom the burial rites were taking place: Agnes? The priest Toti? Margret? her daughters? the community? the reader?

Will Agnes be heard? Will the tale she tells, the confession she makes be enough to save her from meeting her death?

If you enjoy historic novels this will be right up your alley. It is a rich study of character, personality and spirit. There is much fodder in here for book club discussions as well. What an extra surprise to discover Kent's end notes that the novel is based on historical people and events!

The other story I read which also had somewhat bleak circumstances but rich, unforgettable characters is Amanda Coplin's The Orchardist.

Set at the turn of the twentieth century in Pacific Northwest, the novel is the story of William Talmadge--a solitary man with an apple and apricot orchard who tends not only his trees with gentle care, but also the two runaway girls who have escaped the horrors of the sex trade to seek refuge in his orchard.

The girls are scared, battered and pregnant. Slowly they learn to trust Talmadge. A kind of family forms until one day when a group of men appear in their orchard with guns and the shattering tragedy forces everyone to face the the ghosts and baggage they have been carrying all along.

I found Coplin's characters rich and complex. Once I started reading it was impossible to stop! It reminded me of Kent Haruf's Plainsong novels with the common thread being making family out of the people around you rather than relying on blood relatives to fulfill that role.

The Orchardist is also another period piece (historical fiction) which I have become a fan of. I admire the amount of research that both these authors did into the time and place of their settings. In both cases the environment and social setting are hugely important and in both novels these details are superbly executed.

While a colleague of mine felt Coplin's novel was depressing, I saw in it several moments of hope in the midst of bleak realities. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have recommended it to many people!

Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant

I believe that every person alive carries with him or her the wounds inflicted by life.

For some people, those wounds are gaping, festering sores which never seem to heal. They are obvious to the bearer who either tries to hide the wounds or flagrantly displays them for all to see.

For other folks the wounds are now barely visible scars—rarely noticed by themselves or others unless the light shines on the exact spot in just the right way. Then, in that moment, it might be remembered as something which has helped to make that person who he or she is.

The Tulls, parents and children alike, are no different. Anne Tyler’s characters in Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant reminded me of my own extended family of origin in many ways. Like Pearl, my own grandmother raised her three children, two boys and a girl, as a single parent back in the day when that sort of thing still had a negative social stigma about it. I have seen the sorts of behaviors and attitudes that result when one parent abandons a family—the sorts of questions and longings that result.

Tyler writes each chapter from the perspective of a different family member. I enjoy this style of writing and the way it allows an author to develop characters. I find it allows readers a certain knowledge and intimacy with the family, their relationships, and what makes each person in the novel “tick.”

After my book club read Tyler’s novel, Digging to America, about two families whose lives become intertwined when they meet each other at the airport where their adoptive children arrive, I knew I wanted to read more of her work. Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant rose to the top of my list when the first hints of autumn floated across my senses last week. Autumn has always been my favorite season. For me, it carries with it a certain amount of homesick longing—the exact type of longing experienced most by Ezra Tull. He spends a lot of time throughout the novel preparing food and arranging for a family dinner that will likely never measure up to his expectations because he longs for the idea of a family gathering. My homesick longing is, the older I get, for that nostalgic idea of family as well—the type of family and belonging which I imagine more as a feeling than a real, physical entity could capture.

Bravo to Tyler for another outstanding and enjoyable novel which was so easy to identify with!

Starting Up Libraries

Just checking in to let you all know that I am still reading, however my pace has slowed a bit of late due to my involvement with getting a library project up and running in my city.

Perhaps you have heard of the Little Free Library movement. It started in Wisconsin in 2009 and has spread like wildfire across the United States and across the globe.

After ruminating on it for a couple of years, I put it out there to some community leaders a couple of months ago. The idea caught on here too! And so Fort Dodge Little Free Libraries has taken off.

I've been working to get the first few libraries placed and opened for the past couple of weeks which has slowed my own personal reading time. I WILL, however, be returning to book reviews ASAP! In the meantime, here is the first Little Free Library that is up and running in town. Enjoy!

The Last Child

John Hart's crime thriller The Last Child is a great read! I should have known when Jeffery Deaver was one of the people who endorsed the novel that it would be a book I could not put down.

Full of twists and turns in the plot, Hart weaves together the story of Johnny Merrimon, a thirteen year old boy whose twin sister disappeared a year ago. Johnny's best friend, Jack, is the only eye-witness to Alyssa's last known moment--the moment she approached the white van that stopped beside her on her walk home from the library. The moment that changed everything about Johnny Merrimon's life.

His mother blamed his father for failing to pick Alyssa up at the library. Unable to cope with shouldering the blame and bitter resentment from his wife, Johnny's dad abandoned them. The town's richest bully comes to his mother's "rescue" by providing a run-down rental home and all the booze and pills she needs to slip away from the pain of life into a haze of oblivion, addiction, and abuse. Johnny, trapped in the middle, is the fragile thread holding everything together.

Methodical, jaded, and determined to find out what happened to his sister at any cost, Johnny uncovers more than he bargained for when he witnesses the murder of a local college professor who's dying words to Johnny are "I know where she is. The girl who was taken."

If you are a fan of fast-paced, who-dun-it thrillers, you will love this book. As a huge fan of Jeffery Deaver, I am so glad to find someone who does an equally excellent job with the crime thriller genre.

Hart kept me on the edge of my seat with The Last Child. I found myself reading as fast as I could to see if my own hunches about the characters and their fate would be accurate or not. I thoroughly enjoyed the twists in the story as well as the characters. I will read more by this author I'm so glad to have discovered. I think it will be a great discussion at my book club meeting!

Silence (Paranormal Thriller)

Michelle Sagara’s novel Silence is the first in her Queen of the Dead series. It is the paranormal “coming of age” story of Emma Hall, a high school student who’s paranormal abilities extend beyond the ability to simply see the dead.

The story opens with one of Emma’s after-dark walks with her dog, Petal. They follow their usual routine and head to Emma’s favorite place of quiet refuge, the nearby cemetery. Readers quickly discover that Emma has recently lost her boyfriend Nathan who died in a car accident. On this night, however, they find someone else who has made a habit of spending time among the tombstones–the new student at her school, Eric. When Emma is overcome by a ghostly presence bearing a brightly burning lantern, Eric steps in to help and Emma’s life takes a turn she had never imagined.

What follows is the story of Emma’s amazing true identity and the conflicts that arise between her and those who want to stop her from realizing her full potential. Fortunately for her, Emma has a group of friends who have her back in this life and some who are looking out for her from beyond the grave. Which camp will Eric fall into–friend or foe? And what might it mean if Emma Hall embraces her full paranormal potential?

I found Silence to be a quick and engaging read. To me it felt like it would fall into the category of Young Adult (perhaps even teen) fiction. Perhaps this was simply because the cast of main characters are all high school students. If you are a fan of paranormal thrillers, you are likely to enjoy Silence. If you have issues with the word/idea of “necromancer” or necromancy, you may not enjoy this novel.

Goodnight Mind: Turn Off Your Noisy Thoughts & Get a Good Night's Sleep

If you are embarking on a new journey of self-help in regards to difficulty sleeping, Goodnight Mind: Turn Off Your Noisy Thoughts & Get a Good Night’s Sleep by Colleen E. Carney, PhD and Rachel Manber, PhD is a good place to start.

The small (4.5"x 5.75") and succinct (only 181 pages) tome offers solid, basic knowledge to readers who may not have studied or read anything from a scientific point of view about sleep. If you have read anything else in regards to sleep patterns and how to make sure you are getting good, healthy sleep, you likely will find this book repetitive and lacking in the way of new insight.

The authors offer readers several “introductory” chapters about what makes for a good night’s sleep physically. The first five chapters of the book provide a good refresher of quite basic information. Since I believe there is a connection between the body and the mind, I was not quite as frustrated with this as some other reviewers who wondered whether the title of the book (which implies help with the specific problem of racing thoughts/busy mind in preventing sleep) was misleading. One would hope with the body relaxed and tuned for sleep, the mind would follow. Chapter Six offers advice for relaxing the body. I was disappointed that there was nothing in the suggestions that I had not heard or read before. (Perhaps there is simply nothing new to add and a review of the standard advice (PMR, guided imagery, focused breathing, yoga, massage, meditation, etc.) was all there is to offer readers.

As far as specific advice regarding worrying and rumination as the problems of the mind that prevent sleep, I did not find anything new: schedule a time to worry well before bedtime; write it out; practice mindfulness; be in the now; occupy your mind with other thoughts; rethink how you think about having gotten less sleep (it’s not the end of the world); don’t watch the clock; get out of bed when you can’t sleep. All of this is stuff I would consider to be standard advice. It’s good advice; I’ve simply heard it all before.

In the end I’m thankful to GoodReads’ First Reads for the free copy of Goodnight Mind. I would recommend it as a good place to start for people who are wanting to learn some strategies for overcoming sleep difficulties. It’s not for those who are already well-read on the topic.