Nevermore: Lee Smith, Country Doctor Writes, Alexander Hamilton, Affairs of Honor, Matters of Choice, Anne Tyler, Soul Full of Coal Dust, The Switch

 

Nevermore reviewed a wide range of books ranging from presidential honor to small town Appalachia.

First up was the locally set Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. Our reader was prepared to like this book but ended up loving it. In particular, she cites the wonderful description of the dynamics of the family who are at the center of the story. This is a sweet, intimate look at the details of a difficult life. Set in the local coalfields with locations both fictional and real, this book is easy to read and gets into the details of peoples’ lives.

The small-town America theme continues with A Country Doctor Writes:  Conditions: Diseases and Other Life Circumstances by Hans Duvefelt. This memoir by the Swedish born, Maine based doctor really captured the attention of our reader. She was particularly struck by his candor – he does not hesitate to write about his mistakes and the things that he puzzles over and learns from other people. Dr. Duvefelt lives in northern Maine, almost into Canada, and this book of one hundred short essays chronicles his life and work in a small, northern American town. Our reader was fascinated by this book, and highly recommends it.

 

The next book reviewed was Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic by Joanne Freeman.  This political history book examines how the idea of honor guided the Founding Fathers. They knew that because the country was so new, if it was not respected and honored, that it would not succeed. Their honor was wrapped up in their reputations, but the honor of the country came first and foremost. Some of the ways they dealt with honor was through gossip, or ghost written columns. More shocking to modern audiences was the fact that you could physically beat, or cane someone if you were senior to them in Congress. Duels were reserved for the elite, but if you turned one down your reputation would be hurt as you were considered a coward. The honorable way out was to negotiate an apology by using a Second, or emissary. One of the most famous duels in American history is the Hamilton/Burr duel. The author agrees with the historical consensus that Burr was the one who was truly defeated in that duel, because while Hamilton was killed, Burr’s reputation was destroyed forever. Hamilton got the honor; he had the biggest funeral that the country had ever seen, and Burr had to flee to the American West and then to Europe. The emphasis of the book is about how much the founding fathers relied on honor, well above their personal reputations.  Nevermore agreed that would be a nice thing to have today (besides the caning and the duels.)

 

The same reader recommends both Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, which clocks in at a hefty 800 pages, and Richard Brookhiser’s Alexander Hamilton:  American – a shorter book at 217 pages, but packed with plenty of details about the Founding Father and his legacy.

Our next reader tackled Matters of Choice, the third book in the Cole Trilogy by Noah Gordon. Set closer to present day than the first two books, this story weaves women’s rights in as a central theme. The book is set in Boston where the main character is a woman physician performing abortions, and being chased by antiabortionists.  In the midst of getting a divorce, and reeling from professional rejection, she goes to her country house in the mountains of Western Massachusetts to get away from it all, and finds an unexpectedly rich life in the small town. The doctor does not like abortion, but feels that she must be involved to save women’s lives. This book was not the reader’s favorite, but it does wrap up the trilogy, which she highly recommends, beautifully.

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler has been passed around and enjoyed by several readers. This charming, witty book is about a man named Micah who is very set in his ways. He does everything perfectly – he cleans something every day and feels that he is a failure if there is even a spot of grime on something that he has just cleaned. Every day he has his specific things that he does and follows his routine strictly. In contrast, his sisters all have normal families and households. Micah has a woman-friend who is gently trying to get Micah to marry her, to which Micah is clueless. Micah’s vision is also bad and he keeps seeing things that aren’t there. On top of that, one day a teenager shows up at the house claiming that Micah is his father. Overall, our reader thought this is a great book and recommends it highly.

 

Our next reader took on Soul Full of Coal Dust by Chris Hamby.  This investigative journalism book was reviewed by another reader a few weeks ago, and like that reader, this one recommends the book highly. What she was taken with was the story of how the coal companies had found lawyers and doctors loyal to the company and stacked the decks against the miners. The coal companies were undermining the laws passed to keep the miners safe, even gaming the air quality readings. They had taken this tenet of the law to mean that they should do whatever they should do to win, which included choosing only the reports that support their viewpoint. The lawyer at the center of the book put in for discovery which the coal companies fought as it would force them to divulge all of the information that they had. The story is about how gradually the laws changed over years, and in particular how the litigation by the miner, Gary Fox, became a rallying point for change. In the end legislation was introduced that made mandatory air quality monitoring black boxes that were harder to tamper with.  The Labor Department also passed a regulation that everyone on both sides of black lung cases had to release all of their reports/documents. After these changes, many of the cases started to go in favor of the miners. Our reader was struck in particular by the quality and depth of the research that went into this book. She found it was incredible. 

 

On a lighter note, the same reader breezed through The Switch by Beth O’Leary. The main character is Leena Cotton, a young, London based professional whose sister has just died of cancer. Leena is overworking herself in order to forget the tragedy until she is forced by her employer to take time off. Leena’s mother and grandmother, Eileen, live in the small Yorkshire town of Hambly and Leena decides to go there, and soon becomes friends with the surly neighbor. Eileen decides that she would like to take another stab at the single life, and takes Leena’s place in London. Grandma teaches her young roommates how to cook, while at the same time learning about the single life in a big city. Our reader found this novel to be light and fluffy, but rather fun.

 

Nevermore: First Frost, Never Have I Ever, Book Charmer, Redhead by the Side of the Road, Rodham, My Lovely Wife

Reported by Kristin

Our first Nevermore reader reported on the joys of using Tennessee R.E.A.D.S. for ebooks. From the historical sage of A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan, a multigenerational store of the Orchire family, to a story collection entitled Strange Trades by Paul Di Filippo, a look at humanity through their daily work, the world of ebooks has opened up many more reading possibilities as many readers stay safe at home. Our reader effused the joy of jumping back and forth between different genres, and especially noted as “absolutely fabulous” the Virginia mountain tale of Ivy Rowe in Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith.

Another reader continued with her enjoyment of Sarah Addison Allen novels, this time with First Frost. The Waverley sisters were first seen in Garden Spells, and the tale of the family with a mischievous and moody apple tree has captivated several readers in the group. Set in Bascom, North Carolina, Claire Waverley has begun a new business, creating candies with herbs and a hint of magic. Our reader said that this entertaining tale was exactly what she needed.

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson took our next reader a little further south to Florida. When Angelica Roux arrives at a suburban book club, she quickly turns Amy Whey's world upside down. Amy has created a normal life which some might even call boring and blasé, but she loves it—raising her baby son and her stepdaughter, being a loving wife to her husband. But Roux knows something about Amy's past, and she has her own agenda of destruction. Our reader said that it kept her on the edge of her chair waiting to see what would happen next.

Next up was The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins, featuring Sarah, a librarian in a small southern town called Dove Pond. With her particular gift, Sarah is able to hear the books whispering to her as she matches stories to readers. This quirky little book was touted as a happy, nice story.

Another highly recommended novel was Anne Tyler's newest release, Redhead by the Side of the Road. Micah Mortimer is the very organized manager of his Baltimore apartment building and is rather set in his ways, some might even call him rigid. His life is thrown into more confusion than he likes when his “woman friend” may be getting evicted and needs a place to stay and a teenage boy shows up on the doorstep claiming to be his son. Our reader found this to be full of beautiful writing, and well worth reading.

This day full of fiction also included a title which sounds like it should be non-fiction, but isn't. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is a speculative novel which asks the simple question: What if Hillary hadn't married Bill? Taking Hillary Rodham's potential as a law student, activist, and proponent of women's rights, this novel imagines what could have been if she had diverged from her real life path. Our reader enjoyed the novel and recommended it to others.

Finally, My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing is a debut thriller told from the point of a husband who really loves his wife and their nearly perfect life. Millicent feeds her family healthy food and maintains their high social standing in their upper middle class community. Their fifteen year marriage seems perfect, except that to spice it up, Millicent has begun to murder people. Our reader said that she really wasn't sure how to feel about this book because of this extremely unusual premise, but that it was amusing and unique. 

Nevermore: Clock Dance, Lilac Girls, Salt Lane, Before We Were Yours, Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, Treasure Island

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began with a touching novel, Clock Dance by Anne Tyler. Willa Drake is a middle aged woman looking back over the decades of her life, from her mother’s disappearance in 1967 to decisions as a college student in 1977 and on to 2017 as she watches her family continue to evolve. Our reader said that she found this to be a strong, wonderful book, and that Tyler writes in such a way that you feel all the emotions of all the characters.

Another reader had picked up the bestseller Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly, a novel based on a true story about medical experimentation on young women during Nazi Germany. Opinions on the novel were mixed, with the current reader finding it distasteful even as she skipped to the last chapter to decide whether or not it was worth finishing. (She decided it wasn’t.) Another reader agreed that she did not like the characters, but another thought that it was very well-written.

Salt Lane by William Shaw was appreciated as having a good plot and interesting characters. Alexandra Cupidi has gone from the London police department to being a sergeant in the Kent countryside. Bodies buried in the salt marshes, or “lanes,” begin appearing and Alexandra must investigate. While this is the first in a series based around the policewoman, some characters from the stand-alone novel The Birdwatcher do appear.

Two storylines intertwine in Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, one of a young woman prosecutor born into modern day privilege and one of a young girl wrenched from her family in 1939. Based on a true story of a corrupt Memphis adoption agency, this novel kept our reader riveted to the pages. The characters were vivid and believable, coming to life in alternating time periods to create a memorable story.

Stepping into non-fiction, Pulitizer Prize-winning author and historian Walter A. MacDougall made an appearance at the table with The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest. Describing the idealism that United States citizens have often displayed since our earliest days, MacDougall attempts to define how our relatively young country has been different from other world countries. One example given by our reader was that the U.S. did not try to colonize other territories until the 1890s when the leaders tried to control Cuba, which then led to claiming a stake to the Philippines and more. After World War I, the U.S. attempted to return to an isolationist stance, but was forced back into the world arena by World War II. Our reader did an excellent job thoroughly explaining the complexities of history presented by the author.

Finally, another book club member decided to read the classic Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. She had never read it, but was fascinated to learn that the story was originally presented as a serial in the children’s magazine Young Folks in 1881 and 1882. The adventure novel captivated our reader, who even though she had to look up some of the old fashioned vocabulary used, found it very interesting.