Nevermore: Paper Girl, Eleventh Hour, A Death in the Family

Reported by Rita

 

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by Beth Macy

 

From one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America's social fabric, her most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown Urbana, Ohio, was not a utopia when Beth Macy grew up there in the '70s and '80s--certainly not for her family. Her dad was known as the town drunk, which hurt, as did their poverty. But Urbana had a healthy economy and thriving schools, and Macy had middle-class schoolmates whose families became her role models. Though she left for college on a Pell Grant and then a faraway career in journalism, she still clung gratefully to the place that had helped raise her. But as Macy's mother's health declined in 2020, she couldn't shake the feeling that her town had dramatically hardened. Macy had grown up as the paper girl, delivering the local newspaper, which was the community's civic glue. Now she found scant local news and precious little civic glue. Yes, much of the work that once supported the middle class had gone away, but that didn't begin to cover the forces turning Urbana into a poorer and angrier place. Absenteeism soared in the schools and in the workplace as a mental health crisis gripped the small city. Some of her old friends now embraced conspiracies. In nearby Springfield, Macy watched as her ex-boyfriend--once the most liberal person she knew--became a lead voice of opposition against the Haitian immigrants, parroting false talking points throughout the 2024 presidential campaign. This was not an assignment Beth Macy had ever imagined taking on, but after her mother's death, she decided to figure out what happened to Urbana in the forty years since she'd left. The result is an astonishing book that, by taking us into the heart of one place, brings into focus our most urgent set of national issues. Paper Girl is a gift of courage, empathy, and insight. Beth Macy has turned to face the darkness in her family and community, people she loves wholeheartedly, even the ones she sometimes struggles to like. And in facing the truth--in person, with respect--she has found sparks of human dignity that she has used to light a signal fire of warning but also of hope. 

A really interesting read filled with really good information and research sources.     -KM       5 stars

 

The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, experience private tragedy against the backdrop of national calamity. Revisiting the Bombay neighbourhood of Midnight's Children, a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire. In an English university college, an undead academic asks a lonely student to avenge his former tormentor. These five dazzling works of fiction move between the three countries that Salman Rushdie has called home: India, England and America, and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life. They are the reckoning with mortality that we all must one day make, and speak deeply to what the author has come from and through. 

The writing is really good, interesting, and entertaining.     -WJ      5 stars

 

 

A Death in the Family by James Agee

Published in 1957, two years after its author's death at the age of forty-five, A Death in the Family remains a near-perfect work of art, an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written. As Jay Follet hurries back to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, he is killed in a car accident--a tragedy that destroys not only a life but also the domestic happiness and contentment of a young family. A novel of great courage, lyric force, and powerful emotion, A Death in the Family is a masterpiece of American literature.

The beauty of this book is the love in it. It is beautifully written.      -AH      5 stars

Other Books Mentioned: 

Crosscut: An Evan Delaney Novel by Meg Gardiner

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

Runaway: Stories by Alice Munro

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

Country Vet: Thirty Years of Treating Animals and Trying to Understand Their Owners by Randy L. Skaggs

A Child in the Forest by Winifred Foley

 

New Books: 

Homeschooled: A Memoir by Stefan Merrill Block

Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer's Guide Through the Sleeping Mind by Michelle Carr

Simply More by Cynthia Erivo

Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases by Lydia Kang

Underfoot in Show Business by Helene Hanff

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

 

I first encountered Helene Hanff’s writing in the delightful 84, Charing Cross Road which was composed of letters she wrote to a bookseller in London and his responses.  They formed a fast friendship, one that was later portrayed in the movie of the same title and starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft. (I can’t resist adding that I was not the only one charmed by the book.  Anne Bancroft loved it, and so her husband Mel Brooks bought the screen rights for her as a birthday gift.)

 

While that is by far her best-known book, she did write others including Underfoot in Show Business. I love this book for many different reasons.

 

First and foremost, Hanff has a wonderful way of telling a story.  As the book opens, it’s the end of the Great Depression. Helene has had to drop out of college and go to work as a typist in the basement of a diesel-engine school for twelve dollars a week “and all the grease I could carry home on me.” She wants desperately to become a playwright, so she writes plays in her spare time. She enters a contest for young authors with a $1500 fellowship as a prize, and ends up moving to New York where she writes plays, takes odd jobs, and scratches out a living among all the other aspiring actors and playwrights. Helene budgets very carefully, figuring out not only rent but the prospect of attending functions where free food is available.  And, of course, cigarettes.

 

What could have been a dreary tale is instead a comedic adventure in Hanff’s capable hands. Her first garret turns out to a be in a red light district, a fact she discovers only when a man knocks on her door at 1 a.m. and asks if she’s open for business. Her second apartment is more respectable but caters to elderly women.  This means one needs to get used to seeing men carry out black body bags at regular intervals.  On the plus side, it also means that there’s a steady flow of merchandise for sale, cheap.

 

This book let me learn a bit more about the ultra-private Helene, as well as giving me insight into the way theatre works. It’s not all opening nights and reviews, but hard work behind the scenes for plays that may be a hit or a flop. When Helene does find lucrative work, it’s in the new medium of television where she writes and edits scripts for some of TV’s Golden Age shows. She drops some famous names but she’s no gossip; she guards their privacy as she does her own.

 

This may be one of my favorite books of the year.

Cat’s Claw by Dolores Hitchens

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Rachel Murdock is an apple-cheeked, white-haired little old lady who lives with her prim sister Jennifer in Los Angeles. You’d think these elderly ladies would be quiet and staid, and in Miss Jennifer’s case you’d be right.  Miss Rachel, however, has become quite the fan of crime solving, much to her sister’s mortification. 

 

When a man is hit by a car nearby and the incident is not reported, Miss Rachel contacts the police—namely, her friend Lt. Mayhew—to investigate.  The people living in the rented house next door have vanished, leaving behind few clues except for the painting of a mountain in California marked San Cayetano.

 

Miss Rachel, being Miss Rachel, decides that she’s going to take a little vacation. 

 

In San Cayetano.

 

This is not a series to everyone’s taste, but I love it.  The books were written in the 1940s and 50s (this title came out in 1943) and haven’t been edited to suit modern tastes. Miss Jennifer turns positively pink at the mention of “petticoats” or (gasp!) any other undergarments. Samantha, the black cat of the title, has to be let out at intervals because the invention of cat litter is still a few years in the future. And despite the elderly protagonist, the crimes aren’t genteel at all.

 

Miss Rachel is a movie fan and, for me, the books read like one of those old black and white detective tales.  I can see Lt. Mayhew in his broad shouldered coat and the pale blonde of a woman’s hair.  Some of the scenes are theatrical indeed, and again I can see those play out as if in a movie.  World War II is firmly in the background, though there are mentions of men enlisting or going to work in war-related industries, which again reflects the escapism of the time.

 

For some readers, Miss Rachel is just a nosey old woman who ought to mind her own business.  I see Miss Rachel as someone who is determined to live life while she can and who enjoys the excitement. She’s also very independent, and while she gets herself into some scrapes, she also gets herself out of them.

 

The series doesn’t need to be read in order, but the first book is The Cat Saw Murder. There were twelve titles in the series, originally written under the more masculine  name D.B. Olsen, but which are now being reprinted under the author’s real name.

Nevermore: March 10

 What Nevermore is Reading

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek by Daniel Levy 

The Little Book of Secret Societies 50 of the World's Most Notorious Organizations and How to Join Them by Joel Levy

 

Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases by Lydia Kang

The Lower River by Paul Theroux

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

The Devil's Bones by Jefferson Bass

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

 

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash 

Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue

Six Feet Deep Dish by Mindy Quigley

 

NEW BOOKS

  

Let's Call Her Barbie:  A Novel by Renée Rosen 

The Mysterious Death of Junetta Plum by Valerie Wilson Wesley 

Wolf Hour by Jo Nesbo 

Before It's Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America by Jonathan Vigliotti

The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy by Susan Wise Bauer

Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters by Edward J. Larson

100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife by Ken Jennings

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

After the initial reaction of “Wait, what?” I found this to be a clever and engaging book.  Jennings, best known for his gig as host of Jeopardy!, has compiled many, many different versions of an afterlife from many different sources. Of course, mythology and religion lead the list, with Jennings describing many different beliefs from Native American to Norse, but he moves on to other versions of the afterlife as depicted in books, films, television, music, and more.

It’s a fun book to dip into at any point, though a handy index is provided in case you’d like to find out what the afterlife is like in, oh, Marvel Comics or the movie Beetlejuice. Books include not only Dante’s The Divine Comedy but The Five People You Meet in Heaven  and The Lovely Bones. Visions of the afterlife are also depicted in shows like The Twilight Zone  and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jennings even remembers My Mother the Car.

While this is a lighthearted book, I enjoyed a lot of the miscellaneous information Jennings tosses in, such as titles of several stories in which ghosts think they are still alive, or the origins of the image of death as a carriage ride. (Emily Dickinson I knew, but the Coen Brothers?) That’s the real delight of this book: the connections Jennings makes across centuries and genres. Well, that and his sense of humor.

This paperback edition comes with a bonus: the “Afterlife Planner,” a flowchart which starts “You have died.  Sorry for your loss.” Then you decide what you want to do next—stay on earth or move on? Each decision brings up more decisions, until you reach a destination page number that describes the afterlife you have chosen. For example, if you want to stay on earth but not in your old house, you have several choices from there. Pick-up baseball? You’ll find yourself in Iowa in Field of Dreams. Want to move on and face judgement? From whom? God or gods? Are you Klingon? Then go to page 234 for descriptions of Klingon afterlife in Sto-vo-kor or Gre’thor.

Whether you want just read selections or entire categories or play “Choose Your Own Afterlife Adventure,” this light-hearted book is a good way to spend an hour or maybe an eternity.

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney, edited by Ted Widmer

 

Reviewed by Kristin

How many books have been written about The Beatles, individually or collectively, and/or about their post-Beatle musical collaborations? A quick Google search (scroll past the AI overview, because that is likely to be generalized and somewhat inaccurate…) tells me that it is at least thousands, and possibly tens of thousands.

I believe it, because I have read quite a few. Not a thousand, but I have at least 20 on a bookshelf at home. In fact, a friend just gave me a vintage book containing letters written to each Beatle in their heyday, appropriately titled Dear Beatles and compiled by Bill Adler. One I must count among my favorites is Mark Lewisohn’s first volume in his comprehensive trilogy, The Beatles: All These Years: Tune In, published in 2013. We’re still waiting for volume two. Since it took him over a decade to publish the first one, I’m holding out hope. Tune In is worth the read, all 932 pages.

The book I’ve just finished reading is a much shorter 550 pages; Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is told through a variety of voices as an oral history. Paul McCartney is prominent, of course, but every member of Wings and various people who knew them also have their words recorded. Linda McCartney, Paul’s late wife and Wings member, is quoted many times. Right after Ted Widmer’s editorial introduction, the “cast in alphabetical order” is listed. From photographers to sound engineers to other musicians to family and more, their thoughts are woven together to create a narrative about a band, well, in the famous words of Paul himself, a band on the run.

Interspersed between these voices are descriptions of projects and timelines placing Wings’ work amongst other major world events. Black and white photos are included throughout with a glossy color photo section in the middle. Appendices include band biographies, Wings’ discography, Wings’ gigography (a term I’d never heard, but loved seeing every public appearance Wings made from 1972-1979), and finally a Paul/Wings specific timeline from 1969-1981.

As you may have guessed, I really enjoyed this book. Another amusing thing that ran through my head while reading was my then two-year-old child singing “Band on the RUG” . . . repeatedly. At least we influence our kids’ musical tastes for a while.

Nevermore Books

 

Under the Tulip Tree by Michelle Shocklee 

The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis 

Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks by Ben Goldacre

Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings by Paul Theroux

 

The Librarian Spy: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 

Tangle All Around: Our Art, Our Journey by Alice Hendon

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

 

The Award by Matthew Pearl 

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Near Witch by V. E. Schwab

 

A Death in the Family by James Agee 

The Amalfi Curse: A Bewitching Tale of Sunken Treasure, Forbidden Love, and Ancient Magic on the Amalfi Coast by Sarah Penner

 

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek by Daniel Levy

 

NEW BOOKS

  

How to Build Your Very Own Little Free Library: 11 Mini Structures You Can Build by Little Free Little Free Library

The Central Appalachians: Mountains of the Chesapeake by Mark Hendricks

99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them by Ashely Alker, M.D.

The Little Book of Secret Societies 50 of the World's Most Notorious Organizations and How to Join Them by Joel Levy