The Women of Copper Country by Mary Russell

I am always amazed to learn of women who changed their world.  When I read the book, The Whip, I learned of a real life woman who was the first to drive a supply wagon across the west during the Gold Rush days.  This was an amazing story of courage and strength in a world that did not encourage women to step outside of their “box.” In The Women of Copper Country,  Mary Russell enlightened me about a time and place in American history that I was totally unfamiliar with—the 20th century copper mines in the UP of Michigan and the strikes that began the labor unions that improved their lives.  Most of us are blissfully unaware of the horrific work conditions in the early 1900s done by many poor, undereducated men and women in support of the industrialization of our country.  Russell tells the story of the plight of the miners in Michigan.  The working conditions were beyond dangerous and the living conditions were clearly set by the mine owners to keep the workers in near slave conditions.  The divide between the “Have” and “have nots” was wide and the attitude of the wealthy was that those who worked for them were simply there to keep the wheels turning. The wealthy owners had little desire to help the workers to improve their living conditions or to move up in the world.  Russell tells the story of the copper strike of 1913 in Calumet led almost entirely by Annie Clements and her faithful followers.  Up against the power and money of the mine owners the strikers were doomed to be defeated and left in worse shape than when they began.  Because strikes, by their nature, are collective actions and thus require workers to leave their jobs, these workers had to be willing to risk what little they had and hope they would survive on the generosity of strangers.  Annie and her team were able to support their strikers by bringing in money from other unions around the country as well as collect money sent because of publicity from well known strikers like Mother Jones and Ella Bloor as well as the coverage from news writers like Mike Sweeney.  Annie was simply a housewife, but somehow she was able to mobilize 10,000 miners and she kept the strike going for months.  It cost her dearly, but she was eventually rewarded with the passage of the Clayton antitrust act in 1914 which came to be known as the Magna Carta of Labor.  If you liked the movie Norma Rae, you will enjoy this book.  It is inspiring and uplifting to read about those who are willing to sacrifice everything to win independence and respect for themselves and their community.

American Dirt by Jeannine Cummings

Try to imagine the feeling of dread you have when watching a horror movie.  You watch with your hands over your eyes because you know the monster is coming; you just do not know when and from which dark corner.  Jeannine Cummings managed to capture that panicky feeling on each and every page of her novel, American Dirt.  The book opens in Acapulco at a family barbecue where a sudden, brutal massacre kills 16 family members leaving one mother and son alive, hidden in the bathroom, listening to the murderers laughing and eating the chicken rather than letting it go to waste.  We learn that the murders were in retaliation for a scathing article written for the local paper by Sebastian, an investigative journalist, in which he “outs” the cartel leader and his cruel gang and the take over of Acapulco by his drug cartel. The article truthfully describes the murders of locals, the flight of people from the city and the fear felt by the citizens as a result. The twist comes when we also find that the Jesé of the cartel, Javier, has become a friend of Sebastian’s wife, Lydia, and that she convinced her husband to publish the article reassuring him that “her friend” would not harm the writer and his family because of the relationship that he and Lydia have developed in their weekly get together at her bookshop.  Lydia realizes her grave mistake too late.  Her husband, her mother and all her family except Luca, her son, are dead because Javier is a killer despite his attempts to appear cultured and well read.  Thus begins the long, perilous journey of Lydia and Luca to el Norte.  We live the pain and the desperation of the mother and son as they join other migrants trying to make it to the only place they will be able to find a new life, the United States.  Cummings’ descriptions of the unimaginable risks these people take to get on the Beast (the boxcars of the many trains moving products north) and the unspeakable hardships and tortures such a rape that the migrants face every day are heartbreaking and eventually exhausting.  By the end of the journey the characters are whittled down to existence mode.  They have given up all pretense of sophistication; they just want to survive and as a reader you feel that way too.  Just get there; just finish the journey; just make it through the day.  American Dirt has faced backlash from the Latino community who complain the author is “stealing” their story and that Cummings descriptions of places and events is not factual.  The book is eye opening and given that much of literature is written about people and places the author has never seen, it seems that awareness is a positive result.  We rarely hear the story of migrants from a migrant point of view and even if this one is what some have described as “trauma porn”, the conversations that will arise are important.  I recommend you read this book, but do not expect to be comfortable as you do.

The Sweetness of Forgetting by Kristen Harmel

Long lost love, mysterious connections to France and Jewish holocaust victims and a family stunted by an inability to give or accept unconditional love is the recipe for success in Kristen Harmel’s The Sweetness of Forgetting.  Harmel slowly unravels the life of Mamie, the grandmother/matriarch of her family.  We learn early on that Mamie is sinking into the haze of Alzheimer’s, but she is not so far gone that she does not realize that she needs to right the wrong she has done to her family since coming to America when she was 19.  Living a lie her entire life has ruined the happiness that could have been hers.  Choosing to hide her true identity has only caused Mamie to live a half life.  Plagued by guilt, she is convinced that it is because of her failure to make her parents believe the Nazis were coming that they and all her siblings perished.  She is convinced that it is because she begged Jacob, her secret husband, to go back for her family when she made her escaped that he was taken and killed in the German camps.  And sadly, because of this hidden pain, she is convinced that she is to blame for the emotional wall that existed between her and her daughter.  So before it is too late, Mamie decides she must get her granddaughter, Hope, to go to France and find out what happened to all her relatives and especially Jacob. In a lucid moment, Mamie writes Hope a letter explaining all that she has kept hidden for 60 years.  So begins Hope’s journey to piece together her family’s history.  Through some almost unbelievable connections, Hope is able to find a long lost uncle and Mamie’s long lost soul mate, Jacob. This is a touching story where we are shown the harm that is caused when you shut yourself off from emotional connections for fear of failure or pain.  Harmel wove the story together through Mamie’s flashbacks and through the wonderful characters and their revelations and dialogues.  As a reader, the happy endings were heartwarming and uplifting.  This is a good book for book clubs.

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

Wow, wow, wow, wow and wow!!  There are few books that stop me in my tracks and cause me to really think about who I am and what I believe about the human race and our treatment of each other, but Sarah Blake’s The Guest Book did just that and more.  As a former English teacher, I often come across books that I believe would be great novels to read and discuss and write about, and Blake’s book is one in that catagory for sure.  The interesting thing about this book is that there are so many themes, so many great characters, so many social issues I would hardly know where to begin if I tried to use it in a class.  There are at least 7 characters who are deserving of in depth discussion.  These characters are so real it is easy to find yourself thinking about them long after you put the book down wondering if you are like them or how you would react to them if you met them face to face.  Likewise, there are so many social issues that beg for illumination and exam.  The rise of Nazi Germany, capitalism, racism, class distinctions, sexuality are all integrated into this story of three generations and are all handled with a deft hand by the author.  And certainly there are themes such as feminism, family dynamics, and racial inequality that are ageless and which demand discussion and reflection.  This book was not one that I would describe as an easy read.  The author spent eight years writing it and clearly it was a act of love.  I was struck many times by the way Blake interweaves three different generations within one page of writing.  Truly a magnificently drawn story.  This is the book I will recommend throughout this year.  Great read!!

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Tamari Jones’ book, An American Marriage, is certainly about marriage, but it is so much more than that relationships are difficult and expectations are often not met.  The central characters, Roy and Celestial, are a young married couple struggling with many of the typical issues of young, upwardly mobile people trying to negotiate normal problems with money, jobs, insecurities and infidelities.  Their difficulties are compounded by the fact that they are a black couple tackling the social injustices that are abundant and real.  Supported by their strong parents, this couple would appear to have everything they need to make it to their goal of prosperity and success.  Unfortunately, the planned life never happens for Roy and Celestial.  On one ill fated night while staying at a roadside motel, Roy is falsely identified as the man that raped another guest.  Wrongly accused, Roy was tried and sentenced to prison.  For five years Roy languishes in jail waiting for the truth to be found out.  Celestial works tirelessly to get Roy’s sentence overturned, but she also continues on her path to a successful career through her art.  Happily she succeeds but at a cost.  She draws further and further away from Roy who spirals farther and farther into the stereotypical role of a convict.
This story is heartbreaking on so many levels.  This vibrant couple is broken by Roy’s conviction even though they both know, he is innocent.  Roy is broken at least in that he loses his sense of determination and optimism about what his life could be.  But to me the biggest loss is to the reader who is forced to face the reality of the plight of many people who are denied the benefits most of us take for granted. This is a disturbing snapshot of lives forever changed simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This novel has a satisfying ending, but it certainly is not happily ever after.

The Story of Arthur Trulov by Elizabeth Berg

  Maybe The Beatles had it right after all.....”All we need is love!”  It certainly appears Elizabeth Berg believes this to be a universal truth as it is a central theme in her novel, The Story of Arthur Trulov.  Berg quietly but beautifully details “love” in different forms allowing the reader to come to their own revelations or understandings.  The story centers around Arthur an elderly widower and Maddy a lonely, love starved teen.  The two meet in an unlikely way when they strike up a conversation in the cemetery where Arthur visits his deceased wife’s grave every day and Maddy hides out when she cannot face school or the taunts of her classmates.  Both characters are searching for a way to deal with the loneliness with which they live.  Their friendship is unconventional, but it is lovely to watch develop.  We appreciate that they come into the relationship with an open mind and accept and enjoy each other as they are.  Juxtaposed to this unique relationship are the other characters in the novel who demonstrate the more negative attitudes of “love.”  Maddy’s father we learn has been remote and unreachable her whole life and it seems this is due to the debilitating loss he has lived with since her mother was killed in an accident when Maddy was just a baby.  It is clear he truly loved his wife, but the loss of that love broke him and as a result nearly broke Maddy.  Arthur’s neighbor, Louise, demonstrates another extreme of lost first love and the consequences of the loss that have shaped her entire life. Fortunately, the author gives us a beautiful picture of “true love” with Arthur and Nola and it this picture that makes all the difference to Maddy.  This is a lovely story and one that warms you from the inside out.  These are characters you want to know and would love to spend more time with just to feel the warmth and joy that their love brings.  If you enjoyed A Man Called Ove, then you will love The Story of Arthur Trulov.  If you cling to the hope that love is all you really need, then this book is made for you.

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner

  Yes, this is another book about WWII but  The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner is developed in a much different way than others I have read.  The story begins when we meet our elderly narrator, Elise, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, a disease she personifies and refers to as her childhood nemesis “Agnes”.  However, if not for “Agnes”, Elise would not have been given the iPad to help her remember people and contacts and without the iPad she would not have learned that a Google search would find people anywhere in the world and if not for the search she would not have found Mariko her oldest and dearest childhood friend.  Memories of Mariko have been a constant throughout Elise’s long life, but more so now that “Agnes” had come to steal everything that was important, especially her memories. Elise realized that if she was ever going to see Mariko again, she needed to go find her now before Agnes destroyed her ability to do so.  Finding Mariko, even if it meant traveling across the country, was the only thing Elise could think to do in order to fill this hole in her life story.  Seeing Mariko and finishing their “book” would allow Elise to feel that her life was complete and that it had meaning.  Of course, this journey would not easily be accomplished.  Elise was old and she was not well and she was sure to be thwarted by “Agnes”.   Even with all these obstacles, Elise was determined and so her quest begins.
  Traveling to California, Elise’s memories of childhood emerge.  We learn she was born and raised in Iowa where her father had come to work after leaving Germany as a young man. There she was living the life of any ordinary American teenager when WWII began.  But this conflict was far away and nothing that really impacted her life.  All this changed suddenly when the FBI agents arrived at her home and arrested her father after accusing him of being a German spy.  Nothing could have been further from the truth, but much like with Japanese Americans, German immigrants and their families living in the USA were shunned and in some cases sent to internment camps without trials or even to chance to defend themselves.  Elise and her family were eventually sent to the internment camp at Crystal City, Texas and it was there that she met Mariko and they became best friends.
  The story about these two teenagers and their ordeal in the internment camp is eye opening and disturbing because we learn that the families in this camp were not released at the end of the war but instead were exchanged for prisoners of war being held in the parent’s home country. This country was Germany in Elise’s case, a country she had visited once, knew little about and that was nearly destroyed by the war. The reality was that these American girls were sent to foreign countries to survive the devastation of the war even though they were born in America and were citizens here. This piece of US history is not one that makes me proud even though I understand that the fear that permeated the time brought on decisions that can only be seen as cruel in hindsight and that would not normally have been tolerated.
  This story within a story is a unique look at WWII; it is engaging and and informative, but more than anything it is a story of friendship and redemption and one that reinforces the idea that regardless of time and distance and even people who make terrible decisions, life will find a way and the heart will find its home.