The residents of Jackson, a quiet county in the North Carolina mountains, are happy believing racism is largely in their past. Until that is, reality intervenes in David Joy’s new novel, Those We Thought We Knew. Joy uses the perspectives of three local characters: two white law enforcement officers and one Black woman to strip the veneer from a place and people who thought ... Read More...
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
I’m not sure I’ve ever started a review with an apology to the book and, possibly, the author. There’s a story here, so please be patient. I’ve always enjoyed Ann Patchett’s books, both fiction and nonfiction so I thought I was ready for her latest, Tom Lake, when it came out in August. A friend kindly loaned me their print copy. I tried it and loved its beginning, but print ... Read More...
Day by Michael Cunningham
A single day revisited for three years is the scaffolding that supports Michael Cunningham’s new novel, Day. The years are significant as they bracket the pandemic and lockdown, but this is not a COVID novel of suspense, terror, or disaster. Rather it’s snapshots of one family at three critical points in their lives as individuals and as a family unit. Dan and Isabel live in a ... Read More...
The Berry Pickers: A Novel
For one Mi’kmaq family summers in Maine have always been about sunshine, campfires, and reunions with old friends amidst long days of picking blueberries as migrant workers. Until 1962 when Ruthie, their youngest daughter, disappears, irrevocably changing the lives of the two main characters in Amanda Peters’ stunning debut The Berry Pickers. For Joe it begins a cycle of loss ... Read More...
October Reading
October, what a month. So much chaos in the world and the U.S. and none of it is positive. For your sakes, I’ll stick with books here. Suffice it to say, all the madness in the world in the last two weeks of the month left me with the attention span of a gnat so I have fewer low rated books and more I didn’t finish. But even with that, there were some real standouts this ... Read More...
Talking at Night
Talking at Night is a love story about Rosie and Will, two young people impacted by a guilt-inducing tragedy when they’re in their teens, but whose feelings for each other continue to push them together and pull them apart throughout their lives. The two couldn’t be more different. Will is the rebellious sort—no interest in school, mysterious. The type of guy high school girls ... Read More...
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