Nevermore: The Premonition, Imperial Woman, A Map of the World, Sold on a Monday

 

Reported by Garry

 

The first new book this week was The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis.   This non-fiction book traces the unravelling of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  This is an unflinching look at the men and women who trace, predict and fight disease outbreaks and how the US government turned a willful blind eye to their findings and recommendations.  Our reader found this to be a both heartening and disillusioning book:  heartening in that the author points out the everyday heroes who risked their professional lives to bring attention to the growing threat of Covid and disillusioning in how he lays out how very badly our public health system has been politicized to the point that hundreds of thousands of people suffered and died needlessly.  Our reader highly recommends this book if you want a look behind the scenes of what went on during the past year fighting the novel Covid-19 virus.

 

 

Our next reader reviewed The Imperial Woman:  The Story of the Last Empress of China by Pearl S. Buck.  Written in 1956, this novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Empress Dowager Cixi, spelled Tzu-Hsi in this book.  Born into poverty, Tzu-Hsi moved into the Forbidden City at age 17 to become a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor.  She became the de facto head of the Qing dynasty after his death, and remained so until her death in 1908.  Tzu-Hsi reigned for 47 years and guided China through a turbulent time of modernization unparalleled in China’s history.  Our reader was fascinated with the details of the daily life in the Forbidden City and the structures and strictures of daily life in a world bound by tradition and ceremony, and the portrait of a woman who had the vision, tenacity and ruthlessness to guide an ancient society into the modern world. 

 

Next up is the gripping novel A Map of The World by Jane Hamilton.  Set in modern day Wisconsin, this story follows the Goodwin family and focusses on Alice, a nurse in the local elementary school.  Disaster strikes the family when a local child drowns in the Goodwin’s pond while under Alice’s care.  Subsequently, Alice is accused and charged with the sexual assault of one of the students at the school.  Our reader highlighted Hamilton’s writing style as particularly engaging and liked the ambiguities and nuances of the characters in this novel.

 

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris was the next book reviewed this week.  This historical novel uses as its foundation the story of a 1948 photograph of four children for sale in Chicago.  McMorris used that starting thread to weave a new story, set near Philadelphia in 1931.  Sold on a Monday follows struggling reporter Ellis Reed who captures a gut-wrenching photograph of two small siblings and a “2 Children for Sale” sign on a farmhouse porch.  Ellis’s newspaper story and photograph rock the nation and make him a star reporter, but he now has to deal with the fallout.  Our reader did not want to rush through this book, pointing out the poignant and heart-touching prose in this novel, which she highly recommends.

 

Also mentioned:

The Sunday Times Travel Book

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Messina

Catwad by Jim Benton

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

Caste:  The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon

Animal, Vegetable, Junk by Mark Bittman

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson Brown

The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair

Ripped From the Headlines: The Shocking True Stories Behind the Movies' Most Memorable Crimes by Harold Schechter.

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Schechter is the author of several true crime books, including Hell’s Princess:  The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men, which Christy reviewed previously.  Obviously, he has a way with titles.

This book is a collection of 40 essays listed by movie which have some connection to a true crime case.  Some are more easily connected than others, but all are fascinating.  Some are well known and obvious—Psycho and Ed Gein, for example—while others are less known.  I was intrigued to see Arsenic and Old Lace listed, so of course I had to read that one first and found that there was a case of a woman murdering boarders by poison, though she wasn’t nearly as charming as Cary Grant’s aunts in the film.  I didn’t know that Scream was influenced by Danny Rolling’s murderous rampage in Florida.

Some of the movies listed are sensational and with only a slight connection to a crime such as Eaten Alive!

Usually the essay begins with a recap of a movie, and then describes the real life crime behind it. Some of these have some graphic detail which I could have done without, but for the most part they are restrained and informative.  I was more interested in the movie aspect, and for that part Schechter offers both description and a bit of a critique.  There were a lot of movies I was vaguely aware of—I recognized titles, such as Butterfield 8—but really didn’t know much about the movie itself.  Now I want to see Double Indemnity, a movie written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray.  I’m also curious about M, the 1931 Fritz Lang movie based on a child murderer which was a breakthrough role for Peter Lorre.  I wish I had read this book before stumbling on Shadow of a Doubt, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller starring Joseph Cotton; it would have given the movie an added dimension.

While one movie is highlighted, there are some crimes which inspired several films.  Some of those are also mentioned in sidebars.  The Leopold-Loeb crime was the basis for both the movies Rope and Compulsion, for example, and the notorious Burke and Hare were the basis for The Body Snatchers, The Doctor and the Devils, and at least two entitled Burke and Hare.

There is an index, very handy for checking which Hitchcock films made the list, or if a specific movie shows up in a chapter headlined by a different film.  I was surprised by how often Theodore Dreiser’s name came up. His book An American Tragedy (based on a real crime) influenced more than one film.

I intended only to browse this book, but ended up reading the whole thing.  The short chapters made it easy to put down and pick up again later. Overall, I would say this is more a book for film buffs than for true crime people, but that’s just my perspective: I read it more for the movie info than the murders.  Catalogers seem equally conflicted: our copy is in the true crime section, while another library has it in their film section.

A Glimmer of Death by Valerie Wilson Wesley

Reviewed by Jeanne

Recent widow Odessa Jones is trying to make ends meet by working at a realty office.  It’s stressful work, especially for those who aren’t the top sellers. Charlie Risko runs the place, and he enjoys making people squirm.  His volatile temper flares up on a too regular basis, leading to tirades and threats against employees. There’s also the undercurrent that some of his business transactions might not be quite on the up and up, to say the least.  And he certainly has an eye for the ladies. Sometimes that even includes his wife.

So it’s not really a surprise when Charlie ends up dead.  There’s no shortage of suspects, given Charlie’s abusive behavior and his penchant for unsavory deals.  The problem is that Dessa’s nice young co-worker Harley is arrested on suspicion of murder and she can’t believe that he is guilty.  There are a lot of others who had just as much motive and opportunity.  Besides, Dessa sometimes has a sort of sixth sense about people.  Call it a glimmer, an aura, but she occasionally sees things—colors, feelings-- that give her insight into a person’s emotional state.  It’s not sure-fire: Dessa certainly regards it with distrust but there does seem to be a bit of truth to it.  And it doesn’t seem to indicate that Harley is a murderer. But if not Harley, then who?

I found this book to be quite enjoyable.  I liked that Odessa isn’t an impulsive twenty something, but a woman struggling to put her life back together after the loss of her beloved husband.  She’s methodical and knows when to ask for help, such as seeking advice from ex-cop Lennox who runs a diner.  As a first in series book, the author handled the set-up and character introductions smoothly, without bogging down.  Dessa’s lively aunts brought a bit of fun to the book with their unwanted advice and I enjoyed learning more about her co-workers.  I hope some of them will show up in subsequent books.

The plot was well done, and the hint of the supernatural was appropriately handled—in other words, Dessa put the clues together without otherworldly intervention. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy having some otherworldly touches in cozy mysteries but I also like for the protagonist to figure things out.  I liked the possibility of a romance, and of course I adored Juniper the cat who serves as comforter and companion.  It’s a treat to have a genuine adult sleuth handle a case, someone who understands that life is not fair and bad things can and do happen to good people.  I’m looking forward to Dessa’s next adventure, but alas!   A Fatal Glow isn’t due out until February, 2022.

Nevermore: Yellow Wife, Maus, Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, Sunday Times Travel Book

 

Reported by Garry

 

This meeting was the first in-person meeting that we have had since March of 2021, and it was wonderful seeing everyone in person.

 

The first book discussed today was The Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson.  This historical novel follows the story of Pheby Delores Brown a young mixed-race woman who lives in Charles City, Virginia in 1850.  Promised her freedom at age 18, Pheby instead is incarcerated in Devil’s Half Acre, an infamously sadistic slave prison in Richmond, Virginia, where she must fight to survive against all odds.  Our reader said that this enthralling, extremely well written book is an important look at the lives of enslaved African Americans and what they had to both endure and undertake in order to survive.

 

Next up was Maus by Art Spiegelman.  This graphic novel recounts Spiegelman’s father’s time in Poland as a Jew during World War II, and Spiegelman’s difficult relationship with his father.   Maus depicts the Jews as mice, German Nazis as cats, and the Polish as pigs.  This graphic novel was the first long-form comic that was taken seriously in academia and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and to this date remains the only graphic novel to have won a Pulitzer Prize.   Our reader highly recommends this groundbreaking book.

 

The intriguingly named The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Messina was the next book reviewed.  This international best-selling book tells the story of Yui, a Japanese lady who lost her mother and sister in the March 11, 2011 tsunami that devastated costal Japan.  Consumed by her grief, Yui learns of a local man who has an old crank style telephone in a booth in his garden.  People can come to his booth and speak to the dead, and in doing so, start their healing process by saying goodbye.  Our reader found this touching and heartwarming book to be very relevant to anyone who is dealing with grief, and highly recommends it.

 

Our next reader reviewed the Sunday Times Travel Book and found it fascinating, hilarious and mortifying.  This collection of stories was gathered by the British Newspaper the Sunday Times.  They held a contest asking their readers to share their most memorable travel stories, and boy did they deliver!  The Times had initially only planned to publish the top three stories, but they received so many outstanding ones that they decided to publish the top 50, which are collected in this book.  This first book, published in 1986, was so well received they have released two other books.  Our reader thought the stories published in this collection were definitely standouts in travel writing, and especially liked the forward by Paul Theroux – her favorite travel writer.

 

Also mentioned:

Maisie Dodd series by Jacqueline Winspear

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear

Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass and Other Works by Frederick Douglass

The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien

Before and After: The Incredible Story of the Real Life Mrs. Wilson by Alison Wilson

The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

Between Sisters by Kristin Hannah

The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Caste:  The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It by Alex Riley

America on Fire by Elizabeth Hinton

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay

Reunion Beach:  A Story Collection based on Dorothea Benton Frank

When A Stranger Comes To Town edited by Michael Koryta