Nevermore: Exiles, Devil's Dream, Lady and the Unicorn, Rebel Sisters, and Scorpions

 

Reported by Garry

This week our readers chose historical fiction and biographies to bring to the club.

 

The first book reviewed was The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline. This historical fiction novel is about the intertwined lives of three young women, Evangeline, Hazel and Mathinna.  Evangeline and Hazel are British citizens sentenced to exile in Australia for petty crimes in England.  Mathinna is a young, orphaned Aboriginal girl who is taken in by the new governor of what was then known as Van Diemen’s Land.  Our reader is enjoying this look at the harsh lives of women in, what was at that time, a frontier land, and recommends it. 

 

Our reader found The Devil’s Dream by Lee Smith to be a very interesting book, which follows the Virginia based Bailey family from 1833 through to the 1960s.   Smith based the Baileys very loosely on the world-famous Carter family, and weaves a story intertwining multiple generations, music, and Appalachia, into an enthralling story that our reader loved and highly recommends.   

 

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier is a historical novel about the making of one of the Cluny Tapestries – seven world-famous tapestries woven in the middle-ages and now on display in Paris.  This novel, by the author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring, follows the fictional story of playboy artist Nicholas des Innocents who is hired by French nobleman Jean de Viste, to design and create a number of tapestries for his great hall showcasing his heroism on the battle field (a situation that de Viste never actually encountered).  Full of detailed information about the processes used at the time to create these great works of art, and its careful examination of the intertwined lives of its characters, this book impressed our reader with its technical writing and story-telling.  Definitely worth reading was the verdict here.   

The Rebel Sisters by Marita Conlon-McKenna was next up.  This best-selling historical novel focuses on the real-life Gifford sisters; Grace, Muriel and Nellie.  These three spirited, unconventional women played pivotal roles in the 1916 Easter Rising – an armed insurrection in Ireland against British rule.   Born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, the three sisters chaffed against the conventions of the time and their mother’s expectations for them.  Two of the sisters fell in love with two of the leaders of the “The Rising”, which culminated in the 1916 Easter Monday rebellion, while the third took up arms in the doomed struggle.  Our reader thought this was a great book.  She loves it and highly recommend it.  

Our reader says that the main message that she got from Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman was the unappreciated genius of Franklin Delano Roosevelt‘s ability to listen and learn from others and take advice.  This biography focuses on the lives, careers and lasting legacies of four Supreme Court Judges appointed by FDR:  Felix Frankfurter (cofounder of the ACLU), Hugo Black (a former member of the KKK who became the leading proponent of absolutist reading of the Constitution), Robert Jackson (who was the chief US Prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials), and William O. Douglas (one of the youngest justices ever appointed to the court, and the longest presiding judge at 36 years and 211 days stretching from 1939 to 1975).  These four judges, who could not be more different from one another, worked together (and against each other) to forge the Constitutional landscape that we still have today.  Our reader found this to be a highly detailed, fascinating book that does take a while to get through, but she recommends it.    

Nevermore: Peach Keeper, Florence of Arabia, Overstory, At the Edge of the Orchard, Hand to Mouth, Poisonwood Bible

Reported by Kristin

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen provided a much-needed light, summery read for one of our Nevermore readers this week. Willa Jackson and Paxton Osgood have known each other for years, having grown up in the same small town although not necessarily running in the same social circles. When Paxton buys and restores the old Jackson family home in order to open an inn, history rises to the present in the form of a skeleton found beneath a peach tree. Allen weaves stories together from generation to generation, creating a captivating atmosphere of friendship.

Following with more fiction, another reader thoroughly enjoyed Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley. Clearly satire, this novel approaches Arab-American relations with a level of irreverence sure to enchant and/or offend its readers. In the country of “Wasabia,” a junior diplomat decides to try to fix the injustices of the Middle East by granting full citizenship and rights to women. Our reader found some references to other countries very obvious and some rather subtle, and altogether funny.

In somewhat more serious fiction, our next reader described The Overstory by Richard Powers, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, as an awesome book. Beautifully written, this novel examines the natural world through a series of connected stories. As nine different characters are moving through their separate lives, they each discover a connection to trees. Our reader was enthralled by the relationships between the people and trees, and how the manner in which trees live, grow, and even communicate with each other mirrors the interdependency necessary for human survival.

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier is a frontier story, with James and Sadie Goodenough settling in Ohio in 1838. Their son Robert escapes his difficult family by moving westward with the California Gold Rush. Trees popped up here again (as you might guess from the title,) as the characters were involved in shipping saplings and seedlings from the West Coast to England. Our reader said that it was a very enjoyable book about starting anew.

The discussion then turned to non-fiction with Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado. This is a real working poor memoir by a woman who details her struggles of maintaining multiple jobs while struggling to keep her family above water. Our reader felt that this was a perspective not usually seen, and that the author had done a good job of raising her children to learn for themselves and to be curious in life. Much discussion ensued, with various readers weighing in with their opinions on how the author had included a running commentary on how important cigarettes were to help her get through another long walk to work or to steal even a moment of

relaxation.

Lastly, another reader admitted that she was still in the middle of but still enjoying The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This epic tale is spun from the perspective of a Baptist missionary’s wife. Nathan Price is dispatched to the Belgian Congo in 1959 along with his wife and their four daughters. Our reader’s main comment thus far was the fact that the wife sees how terribly her husband treats his family, but she still believes in his mission.

Nevermore: Ramp Hollow, Mary Coin, Blooding, New Boy, Paper Bag Princess

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began with another look into the local region with Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll.  From the early European settlers to the industrialization that razed mountaintops and eventually left miners out of work, Appalachia has been a hard-fought place with beauty and resources coveted by many.  Our reader found this to be a very scholarly work with many notes and bibliographic resources.  The perspective Stoll provides in order to look back at those earliest settlers lives was found to be invaluable.

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver is a novel based around the famous photograph Migrant Mother taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936.  Silver has taken the concept of that photograph and re-imagined that mother’s story.  Within the bounds of poverty and motherhood, the character Mary Coin has a heartbreaking story.  The fictional photographer Vera Dare has a part in her tale, as well as a professor of cultural history as he explores the secrets in Mary’s life decades later.  Our reader was touched by this book and recommended it to others.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier takes a Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, and brings it new life with racist undertones in a suburban Washington school in the 1970s.  Describing the middle school drama of four 11-year-olds, romance and betrayal is the name of the game.  Our reader noted that the book shows how all the different personalities affect each other, and that sophisticated maneuvers on the part of unsophisticated characters can really derail someone’s life.

The same reader turned to non-fiction with the Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders by Joseph Wambaugh.  First published in 1989, Wambaugh’s tale describes the first time DNA was used successfully to solve a murder.  Teenager Lynda Mann was brutally attacked and killed near the English village of Narborough.  A lengthy manhunt ensued, with DNA identification being used to ultimately catch the killer.

Another reader ventured into a children’s book with an attitude:  The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.  The story has a stereotypical premise:  beautiful Princess Elizabeth is going to marry Prince Ronald.  Unfortunately, a dragon smashes her castle, burns up her clothing, and carries away the Prince.  Being a resourceful young Princess, she makes a new outfit out of a paper bag and sets off to rescue the Prince.  Being quite the clever Princess, Elizabeth outwits the dragon and neatly puts Ronald in his place as well.  Our reader was charmed by the text and illustrations of this classic picture book.