Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Nevermore: Black Like Me, An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, Oona Out of Order



 Reported by Garry

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin is a groundbreaking 1961 non-fiction book recounting the author’s journey through the Deep South of America during segregation.  Griffin, who was a white Texan, underwent medical treatment to darken his skin so he could pass as Black.  He then travelled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, documenting his experiences.  According to our reader, Griffin was treated better in New Orleans than elsewhere in the South, but event that is a relative term, as he was still routinely at the receiving end of “hate stares” from white people, and was not able to use restrooms, public transportation or be seated at restaurants.  Our reader was saddened and shocked by the lack of progress that our society has made since Griffin undertook his journey in 1959, but very highly recommends this book for its historical perspective.  CD

An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten is the first in her Elderly Lady series.  Maud is an 88 year old grump with no family, few friends, and even fewer qualms about offing those she deems need it.  Maud lives by herself (which is the way she likes it) in her family’s apartment in Gothenburg, spending her time traveling the world and surfing the net, and dabbling in murder, which she not only easily justifies, but gets away with – after all, who would suspect a little old lady of being a cold-blooded murderer?  Our reader loves this book for its quirky irascible leading lady, and her darkly humorous, matter-of-fact ways of deciding who should live and who should be disposed of.  SC



Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore.  New Year’s Eve, 1982 - Oona Lockhart will turn 19 at the stroke of midnight, and embark on her adult life.  As the clock counts down, Oona faints and wakes up 32 years in the future, in a now 51 year old body, in a house she is told that she owns, and to the news that every year on the strike of New Year she will jump at random to another time in her body.  Where in her life will she jump to next and who will she be?  Our reader really loved this book and noted that even though Oona may be “old” on the outside, she is still 19 in her mind, a state that many of the Nevermores echoed is the case for them right now.  MH

Other books mentioned:

Southwest Saga:  The Way It Really Was by William C. McGaw

The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor

Emily’s House by Amy Belding Brown

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Marmee by Sarah Miller

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder

Three Visitors to Early Plymouth by Emmanuel Altham

They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sarah Kendzior

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

Theft of an Idol by Dana Stabenow

How it Went by Wendell Berry

Deliberate Cruelty:  Truman Capote, the Millionaire’s Wife, and the Murder of the Century by Roseanne Montillo

Defending Alice:  A Novel of Love and Race in the Roaring Twenties by Richard Stratton

War by Sebastian Junger

No comments:

Post a Comment