Sweetest Hallelujah by Elaine Hussey

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Racism in the south is like another character in this story of love and two women- one white and the other black.  But calling it a story of love makes it sound sappy and predictable - and that is to short change it.  This is a story of worlds crashing and reshaping in the midst of deep heart break!  A story of strength and frailty.

Betty Jewel is a washed up jazz singer who burned brightly with Saint a famous trumpeter. But drugs and fame soured everything and Betty Jewel fled from her marriage to Shakerag, Mississippi to be with her mama and raise her daughter. In a last ditch effort to save that daughter, she takes out an ad in the local paper looking for someone to adopt her girl after she passes from cancer.

Cassie is the lily white widow of a much beloved local coach. Since his death she has floundered her way through life barely living and depending on her job at the local newspaper to keep her going. She notices the ad and decides it would make a wonderful human interest story.

And thus the worlds crash.

But - this is not a touchy feely feel good story.

At the heart of this story is a 10 year old girl who will soon be without a mama.  Billie, who sneaks around listening at keyholes, can not imagine a life without her mama - unless she is able to find her papa - Saint - and life with him.

Laid across the top of this story is the busted history of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the south.

There were times this felt like a different version of The Help.  But, Betty Jewel and Cassie are not merely telling a story  - they are living it.  Their lives are interwoven in a way that the south can not rip apart.

I really liked this book.  I especially liked Billie. After teaching 10 year olds all those years - I felt like I knew her innocent and bare face.  Her bravado and her depth of pain were real to me!  The fantasies that she creates and believes in even while she knowing they can't be real - rang true!

I would recommend this!!

March by Geraldine Brook

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This is our August Book Club book.

It has been a long time since I read Little Women...a really long time. I remember the movie much more than the book.

Because of that, I came to this book as much more of a stand alone. I didn't know what to expect and I think that helped. I can't say that I enjoyed the book - it took me quite a while to get into it. But I was intrigued. March actually tried to live what his ideals called him to do. I got tired of his pie in the sky attitude and his inability to really engage in the world around him. It especially irritated me when he was in the hospital at the end.

But, it is in the midst of that scene that I found my very favorite part. Marmee was really giving it to March for wanting to go back to the war and single handedly right all his imagined wrongs. Her comment, "You are not God. You do not determine the outcome," resonated with me.

I think this is one of those little blips in my soul that I keep forgetting. Every time I think it is my responsibility to remake the life of a child, to be the one to break through a difficult shell or to make the leap that brings the understanding of reading to a 4th grader, I have forgotten this fact. I am but one. It's not all up to me...instead it's up to all of us to do our part.

I couldn't help but ponder the Iraqi war we are embroiled in. What do my ideals call me to do? March joined the cause with one set of ideals - faced something completely different as he tried to work within the army and then came against a new set of realities working on the plantation with Ethan. So much that he thought he knew and understood was false. Is that the way war still is? I can imagine the soldiers coming home from Iraq are faced with the same turmoil that March was as he tried to connect with the far away world of his family.So, although this is a story about blacks and whites - I think many parallels can be drawn between Muslims and Christians.

Would I say this was one of my favorite books? No - but I'm glad I read it.

The Friday Night Knitting Club

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It's been a while since I've been into a book. This was a great book to lose myself in! When I started reading this I thought I had it all figured out. Self-suffecient Georgia - single mom, business owner, beautiful and focused. She doesn't really need anyone. But, there is a big hole in her heart created by James the absent father of her wonderful daughter Dakota. Georgia plays it safe and carefully creates a place where she is in control of everything...

Georgia has an amazing mentor named Anita. She met her on a park bench in Central Park when she was pregnant and sad and scared and knitting. With Anita's encouragement she began knitting for hire, opened a successful knitting store in New York City instead of running home to her parents in Pennsylvania. She surrounded herself with interesting friends - but she was always the one in control, always the one they went to.

So, I expected James to come back break her heart and leave her to depend on the other women of the knitting group...

But, things didn't go that way. Kathy - the best friend turned back-stabbing, college spot stealing Cat - shows up and wants to make up with Georgia.

Slowly that happens. Very slowly

Then something awful happens that made me sob and sob!! And I'm not telling you anything!
Just read the book!!

The View From Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik

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This is WONDERFUL!! I laughed and I cried and I couldn't put it down. It's a classic Landvik!!

This is the story of Joe Andreson and finding his view of Mount Joy!

He's your typical high hockey star - a good kid whose father was killed and whose mother is trying. So, the story opens with Joe moving to Minneapolis as a senior in high school. Joe becomes fast pals with Darva, the girl who is amazing, but doesn't quite fit in and Kristi Casey the girl who is everything and will let you know that. Joe and Darva have a deep friendship that stays a friendship for a lifetime. Kristi is a user of everything: drugs, people, money, prestige, and most of all Joe. She pops in and out of his life at her whim. Joe falls under her spell for brief moments and then comes back to his real life.

And it's Joe's real life where the story actually is. He fills his life with friends - Ed Haugland being one. Ed is the saddened middle age man who owns Haugland Foods. Joe works for him and plays keyboard for him and stays with him as he slowly dies of MD. And Joe inherits the store he doesn't really want, But, it is the store where Joe finds his joy! On a slow day he decided to start odd little contests - all the groceries you can gather in two minutes for free, a free pie if you are buying eggs, a box of books if you can recite a Walt Whitman poem. The contests are often rigged to share with the less fortunate (grocery run) or to meet a newcomer-eventually to be wife (eggs) or to get others to meet.

As the grocery store becomes more successful, Joe's family grows and thrives and Kristi's star shoots across the sky as the voice of God. Her radio and then TV personea hidden by the layers of makeup and the talk that she spews. Yet, when she is really down and out - it's Joe she calls and Joe who is her friend.

I LOVED this book. Why? The fake of Kristi is so perfectly played against the reality of day to day joy of Joe's life. What we think we want way out there is not what we need close to home. Joe finds his Mount Joy right beside him as he watches his two sons and Darva's daughter who is now his daughter, as he stands close to Jenny the love of his life whose flute playing enchanted him the night he discovered his mother was an amazing teacher and his aunt was gay.

By the way, Mount Joy was named for the spot where Kristi and Joe stood and watched the most amazing northern lights in a drug induced state. Later, Kristi claimed that was the moment she first heard God speak her name. Joe remembers it as a time they stood in awe of nature and the pure happiness of friendship.

So, what is the view from your Mount Joy? Is it a place where secrets are shared and stories are told? Or is it the amazing view of a life lived well? Hmmmm.....

World Without End by Ken Follett

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I must admit I was a little disappointed. I feel like sort of a traitor admitting that.

I so loved Pillars of the Earth!
 I've had World for quite a while and have saved it until I had the time to really sink into it....

I did like it, but World was almost the same as Pillars - just 200 years later.

The deep love relationships are thwarted again and again.
The pompous, hypocritical church tries to control events again and again.
The main characters are the only town members with vision and common sense - again.
The nobility are cold, heartless, twisted and only cared about appearance and money - again.

There were chapters I felt like I was watching a traffic accident. I was too curious to stop, but it was so painful to read the details.

Had I read this first - I think I might have called it my favorite.
I cared about the characters more than Pillars. The plague and the 'witch' accusations are a part of history that I've actually heard of - so it made it all more plausible.

But - I also need to admit that I read into the single digits of the night more than once with this story.

Bottom line - I really liked the story, the characters, the whole plot. But, standing on this side and looking back - it felt too much like a rerun for a wholehearted recommendation.

Shucks!

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

This was one of those books I just couldn't put down. It's a historical epic about the building of a massive cathedral in 1100 England.

The book follows four different characters and their families as they cross paths over many years. It opens with a disturbing hanging and a curse called down by a distraught woman....

From there it follows the path of Tom Builder and his family as they travel on foot from town to town looking for work as a stone cutter and builder. Times are difficult and the family experiences terrible tragedy when Tom's wife Agnes dies. But, their luck seems to change as they happen into Kingsbridge the same day the wooden roof of the old tumble down church burns down. The church is completely destoryed and Tom helps Father Phillip, the head monk of the small village, decide what to do to begin to solve the church's problem. So begins the building of the most amazing chuch rural England has ever seen.

Follett makes the reader appreciate the intricate detail and incredible work that the ancient builders experienced when creating their masterpieces. I'm not a builder, but I enjoyed the description of the hand labor that was required.

This incredible creation of beauty is surrounded by the squalor of the living conditions of many peasants of the day. The dicotome ( great word, right) of these two lives comes into play as Aliana enters the tale. She is the spoiled daughter of an Earl who loses his position when his castle is overtaken by William, a bully and a thug. This is allowed because of the political times. As William comes to claim the castle he also claims Aliana for his own by brutally raping her. Aliana and her brother Richard are penniless and lost. Yet, Aliana is resourceful and devises a way to regain some of their wealth by gathering the wool of the local farmers and taking it to market. Only to find that the sellers will not deal fairly with a young girl. Enter Father Phillip, he becomes the go between for the wool. And both Aliana and the Prior at Kingsbridge become very wealthy.

All of that takes about the first 100 pages of a 900+ page book.

It is so worth it!! I was enthralled from beginning to end! This is one I would gladly recommend for those who want to be lost in another time and life. It made me appreciate my hot shower, warm food and privacy!!

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

Traveling Mercies is one of the first books that I read with a pencil in my hand, by choice. I underlined and wrote quotes on the inside of the back cover because there were so many things that I wanted to remember.

This is a book of essays taken from Anne's life. That in itself is not remarkable - what is remarkable is the way she interacts with the Lord as she walks through her life. It isn't the pious, everything is peachy relationships that authors sometimes portray. Instead - it's life. She is messy and real and jealous and negative and nasty and profound all in the same moment. And God is there too!

Her honesty was what slapped me in the face again and again. I have stayed away from most churchy books, because I read them and fall so short of the way the writers see God. Anne seems to see the very same God I do!

The other thing I kept thinking about is - she was a writer before she was a 'christian author.' That seems to take her essays to a completely different place..

Here are some of my random quotes...

"After we jump into the darkness of the unknown, faith lets us believe we either land on solid ground, or learn to fly."

Talking about making the decision to become a christian..."I held my breath- and then I crossed over."

Recalling a story of a childhood friend who had become lost - a policman was driving the little girl around town and she didn't recognize anything until she saw her church...
"This is my church and I can always find my way home from here."

"Church is a path and a little light to see by."

Her pastor's words on faith...
"We in our faith work stumble along toward where we think we're supposed to go, bumbling along, and here is what's so amazing---we end up getting exactly where we're supposed to be."

"I can't imagine anything but music that could have brought about this alchemy. Maybe it's because music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add teneder hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way."

I loved her irreverant talks with God - her notes written on scraps of paper and placed in God's in box - and replaced when he hadn't gotten around to answering her. It all made God so real - so here - so now.

Hers is a faith that wraps in and around herself and is her - not one that is shined and looked at and admired on the shelf. Hers gets a bit dirty and scuffed from throwing it on the ground in moments of frustration. But, the dents and scratches guide her on to new places. That's the faith I want to learn to wear!!

I would strongly recommend this!!