It’s a sunny morning in 1797 London when Mrs. Blankinsop, a midwife, arrives at a home to assist with a birth. The mother-to-be greets her at the door, cheerful and excited about welcoming her second child. The two women settle in and spend the ensuing hours before the birth talking about all manner of things. After the birth there are complications and Mrs. B spends extra days ... Read More...
One Two Three by Laurie Frankel
Bourne has always been a small town, but after the chemical plant polluted its waters, killing off citizens with cancers and producing a generation of children all impacted by carcinogens and other destructive pollutants, the town drew further into itself. It’s been seventeen years since that disaster and for 16-year-old triplets, Mab, Mirabel, and Monday nothing of interest ... Read More...
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
I often talk about fiction that evokes strong emotion, but I’m not as likely to find it in nonfiction. Until now. Patrick Keefe’s Empire of Pain has left me angrier than I’ve been in a long time. The book’s subtitle should clarify things: The Secret History of the Sackler Family Dynasty. If you’ve never read Dopesick or any news on the opioid crisis in America the name Sackler ... Read More...
The First Day of Spring
“I am here. I am here. I am here. You will not forget me.” These are the words painted on a wall by 8-year-old Chrissie, a girl so desperate for attention in a world that gives her none that she commits a reprehensible act. She lives alone with her mother and everything, including love, is in short supply. She is starving for the things a child needs to thrive, powerless to ... Read More...
What Comes After
When a novel begins with a shocking act of violence it often indicates more dramatics, more action, to come. In the case of What Comes After, author Joanne Tompkins opts to go a different route, turning the novel inward to the lives of the characters left behind. A small Washington town is rocked when childhood best friends are found dead in a murder-suicide. The murdered ... Read More...
The Mysteries by Marisa Silver
Set in the early 1970s The Mysteries by Marisa Silver is about Margaret Ann (Miggy), the only child of Julian and Jean Brenneman. They married in their early 20s so he could avoid the Vietnam War draft and Miggy was born when Jean ran out of birth control pills. Not necessarily an auspicious beginning for a marriage or having children, but they’ve settled into their own version ... Read More...
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