When i flipped the first pages of Gabrielle Zevin’s novel TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW I hesitated. Why would I be interested in a young group of MIT stereotypes creating video games? The answer came quickly. The novel is MUCH MUCH MORE! Life is complicated and even more so among a group of brilliant young high achievers. There are love stories among the code writers and keyboard clicks that follow convoluted paths of happiness and sadness. My guess is that like me, you will be quickly drawn in by Zevin’s characters.
Put TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW on your list. You won’t be disappointed.
As I finished the last chapter of Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel DEMON COPPERHEAD, I reflected sadly that this could well be a work of nonfiction. Demon Copperhead ( David Copperfield of another generation) is born and raised into the institutional poverty that to this day prevails in southern Appalachia.
Kingsolver spares no evils of abject poverty upon the young. Children abandoned, often times at birth, through death and despair. Those surviving ( Demon Copperhead) face the blight of Foster Care, a failed educational system, ineffective social services, bad choices of relationships and the pervasiveness of the drug epidemic that today sweeps through the hills and hollers of the backcountry.
The New York Times review was correct in writing, Kingsolver creates images that stay with the reader.
No happy endings and no joy in this read but the NYT was on the mark about Kingsolver’s lasting images.
Colson Whitehead’s novel, NICKEL BOYS is the real story of a 111 year old State of Florida “Reform School. ” Colson’s characters live the story of the NICKEL ACADEMY, which is actually a chamber of horrors, brutality, sexual abuse and racism. Children disappear into a hidden cemetery located behind the what is in reality a children’s prison.
Elwood, a black youth abandoned by his parents and raised by his grandmother is a teenager with great potential. He becomes a NICKEY BOY by inadvertently riding in the wrong car as he heads off to college. But Elwood is a reformer, a believer that things can change even from inside an abusive and racist ” Reform School.” He must first survive and then set about his work.
Colson weaves reality into an enormously compelling and emotional narrative as can only be accomplished by a great novelist. From within the decadence of NICKEL ACADEMY and the plight of those incarcerated there comes a glimmer of hope for reform from a determined Elwood.
Colson’s novel is representative of numerous ” Reform Schools” operating throughout America during the early to mid twentieth century. Fortunately most were closed but the stories of hundreds of “missing” youths remain to be discovered.
Netflix has made a great new series titled Transatlantic based the novel The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer. The streaming service has done an excellent film creation of this WWII story by staying close to the book. The seven part series released in April 2023 stars Cory Michael Smith as Varian Fry and Gillian Thomas as Madeline. Great casting!
Check our our overview of The Flight Portfolio and our review her novel The Invisible Bridge right here at GGR.
I always felt that The Invisible Bridge was also worthy of a screenplay but thrilled to see The Flight Portfolio now streaming. Orringer is a terrific writer.
INFANTICIDE. A black mother suffering human bondage for her lifetime says, “Not for this daughter, this Beloved, no life for her.” Sethe felt the last breath drain from her infant daughter. Her spirit returns.
Toni Morrison captures the depth of America’s Slave narrative in Beloved, her eleventh novel. So worthy of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. There are libraries filled with works on this subject but Belovedis complete, deep, emotional an overwhelming accomplishment by a brilliant storyteller. The book stands alone. Do you believe in ghosts, spirits? You will. Beloved is a careful, considered, committed read but the library of slavery is not complete without these emotionally crafted pages by Morrison. The author, who also wrote The Bluest Eye died in 2019 at the age of eighty eight. I almost feel that an apology is necessary for not having read Morrison sooner in my personal quest for understanding the depth of slavery.
Hear the words that rang out for years after the Emancipation Proclamation. “They had a single piece of paper directing them to a preacher on DeVore Street. The war had been over four or five years then, but nobody white or black seemed to know it.”
” Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes, eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky, four colored schools burned to the ground, men whipped like children, children whipped like adults, black women raped by the crew.”
If you think you have read enough of this story. You have not. Beloved has much to say. Read on.
It is amazing to me that HORSE by Geraldine Brooks is not high on the New York Times Best Seller List! I place it among the two best novels I have read this year and yes the Boston Globe, ( Brooks lives in Massachusetts), lists it as number #1.
HORSE, weaves its central characters across two centuries. By definition Horse is a novel but the storytelling is so well researched for me it falls into the historical novel category.
You will be enthralled with a story set in both the 19th and 21st centuries. Brookes ties her characters and the story line across generations and social issues of the time. Lexington, the greatest thoroughbred that ever lived. The Black Slave horse groom Jarret, generations of bondage, racism, wealthy southern dandies, the Civil War, Quantrell, Jim Crow, 21st century police violence against Black men, the world of equine art and a love story between a Smithsonian scientist from Australia and a Nigerian American art historian. The storyline blend is simply perfect. Indeed a page turner in every good sense of the term.
Whether or not you love horses this novel tells a story wherein every word, scent, event, every social issue and injustice could very well be non-fiction.
And yes, with all of the wonderful major roles in HORSE, watch for Clancy. You’ll see.
I think there is much of Geraldine Brooks in this book.
Also by Geraldine Brooks The Secret Chord and Caleb’s Crossing. ( Search gordonsgoodreads.com)
Another great addition by Colson Whitehead. HARLEM Shuffle by the author of Pulitzer and American Book Award winners THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD and THE NICKEL BOYS, is a great add to Colson’s collection.
This work by Whitehead reminds me of the of the people and places of New York written by the great Pete Hamill. This entertaining novel is a trip through the topography and Harlem Society of the 1960s. Shuffle is a crime story and so much more because like Hamill’s writing of Downtown in Shuffle you see and smell the vivid sights of the city. ” No new frontier stretched before him, endless and beautiful-that was for white folks-but this new land was a few blocks at least and in Harlem a few blocks was everything. A few blocks was the difference between strivers and crooks, between opportunity and hard scrabble. ” In Colson’s book some characters often merged into a fixating combination.
Shuffle is well worth the trip. Great humor and a crime story fit for Carl Hiaasen’s library. Lucky You comes to mind. Summer isn’t over. Shuffle is a good fun read by one of America’s great writers.
The historical novel genre trumps non-fiction in Honoree Fanonne Jeffers‘ incredible work, THE LOVE SONGS of W.E.B. DuBOIS.
From slave ship to the 20th Century, a family story that evokes memories of Alex Haley’s ROOTS. However, the impeccably researched detail, characters and story telling in LOVE SONGS goes beyond that classic work.
In reading LOVE SONGS I was called to events reported in iconoclastic The 1619 Project. However in LOVE SONGS, storyteller Jeffers is supreme. Like ROOTS, the events are personified and the story line captures the reader not just through the extraordinary events but for generations. Jeffers does not miss a single important issue that has faced African Americans both within society and individual familial generations. Her protagonists carry indelible images of the individuality within her race. Sub-themes tell stories of differing shades of black skin, and there is a strong feminist substance throughout her work that is deeply personal and often explicit. The W.E.B. Dubois connection will unfold but reading his The Soul of Black Folks will add great depth.
At seven hundred ninety pages LOVE SONGS is no quick read but Jeffers’ story telling, dialogue and imagery flows beautifully through every turn of the page. If I had a vote LOVE SONGS would warrant a Pulitzer and an American Book Award.
I loved Towle’s A Gentleman In Moscow and Rules of Civility, ( Search Gordon’s Good Reads) but his new novel THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY dropped me by the side of the road. Based on its ranking on the NYT’s best seller list, I may be in the minority. The character development and the structure of the book left me wanting for that clear story-telling that I have come to like from Towles. Your take may be the opposite but of the three books, this is surely a departure.
I recommend another very good “HAMILTON” read in addition to Ron Chernow’s popular biography. MY DEAR HAMILTON, A NOVEL OF ELIZA SCHUYLER HAMILTON by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie is an excellent work of well researched historical fiction. If you have not seen either the Broadway production or the movie HAMILTON read this novel first as a guide through the nuances of the story line. Additionally, it is an excellent stand alone summer read offering insight not only insight into Eliza’s and Hamilton’s relationship and the Revolutionary War but also the life style of 18th century New York City and the wealthy Dutch plantations along the Hudson.
The entire cast is in the book: Eliza, Hamilton, Angelica, Washington, Burr, Lafayette, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Lauren’s, Jefferson, King George, the Schuyler sisters and Hamilton children. A painless, enjoyable lesson in American History.
Dray and Kamoie also authored America’s First Daughter.
Another excellent Hamilton biography is ALEXANDER HAMILTON, A LIFEby Willard Sterne Randall.
Gordon's Good Reads 