The final Thanksgiving casualty report

Thanksgiving: a time of year we gather together with friends and family to offer thanks for all the blessings in our lives. It's also a time to lose two of the good knives from the knife block, tear through three filthy, disgusting garbage bags looking for them before the trash gets collected, and still discover that they are nowhere to be found (but I did find part of the nutcracker set so the great dig was not entirely futile). It's a time when the pumpkin pudding does not come together, staying liquid and unappealing until after you cook it in the oven ala custard, at which time it tastes a bit like the scrapings of a pumpkin flavored ashtray. It's a time when D. sets a hot pot directly on the dining room table and expresses surprise when it takes the finish off said table. It's a time when all of the side dishes are cold or at best luke-warm because the cook hasn't mastered the art of timing. It's a time when the orange buttermilk rolls come out with the consistency of hockey pucks (but if you can crack the carapace, the insides are hot and fluffy). It's a time when guests mean that computer access is limited given that the computer lives in their room. It's a time when the dirty dishes teeter higher than the kids and the laundry pile threatens to smother anyone trapped underneath it when it topples. It's a time when the amount of leftovers rejected by your children would feed an entire third world country for a week. It's a time when you give thanks that the holiday is finally over and gird your loins for the next one!

Review: The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin

When you think of the civil rights movement, it is more than likely you're firmly planted in the South, correct? It seems as if southern-set fiction generally has one of two (or both) characteristics. Either it is set during the civil rights movement (or in some way connected to it) or it is rife with quirky eccentric characters like the southern gothics populating Flannery O'Connor's works. As much as I say I enjoy Southern fiction, I am getting a little tired of these two inevitabilities. Enter Gwin with The Queen of Palmyra, the novel everyone was raving about and which I was leery of reading, knowing in advance it was another civil rights novel.

Narrated by Florence, who was 12 years old during the significant events of one summer in 1960's Mississippi, this novel is actually told through the memories of a much older Florence looking back on her naive and innocent self with knowledge that she never had or never understood at the time. Most of the narration seems as if it is coming from a young girl but the perspective of memory gives the reader tantalizing glimpses into the deep and terrible truths that escape 12-year old Florence.

The Forrest family is one shattered by ugliness and illness. When the story opens, Florence's mother, Martha, is the town's cake lady, baking cakes for special occasions and to supplement the family income. She is also an alcoholic. Florence's father, Win, is a burial insurance salesman who has terrorized the black population in town into buying from him. He is also a ranking member of the local Ku Klux Klan, a nasty man who tries hard to instill his own thinking and reverences in his daughter. But Florence spends more time with her educated and more liberal thinking grandparents and with their black maid Zenie, named for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, than she does with her dysfunctional parents, thereby escaping the full brunt of Win's evil.

During the slow, hot summer of the novel, racial tension and violence mount even as Florence practically lives at Zenie's home, unable to understand why she is not easily welcome there, amongst the people so brutalized by her father and his cronies. As her mother's small defiances against her father lead to a family crisis at home, Florence spends more and more time in Shake Rag, the black section of town so she is already installed at Zenie's home most days when Zenie's progressive-thinking niece Eva arrives and brings tensions to a head trying to sell burial insurance policies that would compete with Win Forrest's policies.

Telling the story through the eyes of a child but also including fleeting instances of that child's adult perspective allows Gwin to round out Florence's incomplete story and to inform the reader of the importance and scope of events. The method of narration ratchets up the horror of the events because of, rather than in spite of, Florence's uneducated perspective. While this is the case, however, the pace of the narrative is sleepy, dreamy, and slow, lulling the reader into a suspended state. The characters are generally fairly well-rounded although Win and Eva come off as less real and more stereotypical than the others.

As lauded as the novel has been, I have to admit that I didn't love it. I felt like it was a bit too derivative to be wholly satisfying. This feeling might be a function of my having read a lot of Southern literature, some of it even quite recently. There were gaps in the narrative that would make sense from 12 year old Florence's perspective but not given the framing technique of an older Florence looking back on that seminal summer. The climax of the story was less shocking than expected and older Florence's final thoughts on the summer, her actions as a result, were like a deflating balloon, leaving the novel to just peter out. Lukewarm, I liked the novel, thinking it competent and fine enough, but many, many folks have called it one of their favorites of the year. Lovers of Southern lit, folks with an interest in the civil rights movement, and fans of the other big southern book making the rounds of bookclubs this year, The Help, will want to form their own opinions of this one.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's definitely been a better reading week for me this week, even with all of the cooking and cleaning and shopping I've been doing. (Okay, maybe not so much cleaning but cooking and shopping, definitely!) This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Waking Up in Eden by Lucinda Fleeson
Stay With Me by Sandra Roriguez Barron

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Vagabond by Colette
Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float by Sarah Schmelling
A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Reviews posted this week:

Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Laments by George Hagen
Smart Girls Think Twice by Cathie Linz
Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson
A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis
Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Sex, Drugs, and Gelfilte Fish edited by Shana Leibman
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson
Daughter of the Bride by Francesca Segre
Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis by Robyn Harding
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Half Empty by David Rakoff
She's Gone Country by Jane Porter
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Huck by Janet Elder
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee
Never Trust a Rogue by Olivia Drake
After the Fall by Kylie Ladd
Heart With Joy by Steve Cushman
The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
The Known World by Edward Jones
Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
Web of Love by Mary Balogh
Pure Dead Frozen by Debi Gliori
The Best American Travel Writing 2009 edited by Simon Winchester
The Concubine's Daughter by Pai Kit Fai
The Forbidden Daughter by Shobhan Bantwal
The MacKenzies: Cole by Ana Leigh
Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Running the Books by Avi Steinberg
The Time in Between by David Bergen
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
Destiny Unleashed by Sherryl Woods
Grayson by Lynne Cox
What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen
While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
Hollywood Ending by Lucie Simone
Falling in Love Again by Cathy Maxwell
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Semper Cool by Barry Fixler
City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Waking Up in Eden by Lucinda Fleeson
Stay With Me by Sandra Rodriguez Barron

Monday Mailbox

Just when I think the mailbox is likely to be forlorn all week, goodies arrive and perk my day up instantly! This past week's mailbox arrival:

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown came from Amy Einhorn Books via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Three literarily named sisters come home to take care of their sick mother and are horrified to find each other. A nutty family of readers and the secrets they have hidden, this sounds like a great one, doesn't it?!

Shoes Hair Nails by PosiDeborah Batterman came from the author.
A collection of short stories centering on relationships, Batterman says the book "bridges the boundaries of literary women's fiction and chick lit" and that right there sold me on it.

Island Girl by Lynda Simmons came from Elizabeth at Berkley.
A book about family dynamics in the face of early onset Alzheimer's, this one sounds like it could be one of those books I should read when I need a cathartic cry. Regardless of when I read it, it sounds enthralling.

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt came from The Dial Press.
I'm interested to see how Mr. Chartwell and the darkness of depression connect Winston Churchill and a young House of Commons librarian in this intriguing novel.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Julie of Knitting and Sundries as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and Kristi at The Story Siren who hosts In My Mailbox and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: November's final tally

I have been resisting doing this because I figure it will be eye-opening in a bad way but I finally gave in. (I hate showcasing my lack of restraint around books.) In the spirit of Nick Hornby's former Polysyllabic Spree columns (but with a tweak or two), here's the final tally on my November, give or take the last two days of the month:

Books bought:
Passions of a Wicked Earl by Lorraine Heath
Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley
A Groom of One's Own by Maya Rodale
Never Less Than a Lady by Mary Jo Putney
Rushed to the Altar by Jane Feather
A Gentleman Always Remembers by Candace Camp
Remember You by Harriet Evans
The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker
The Phone Book by Ammon Shea
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Drawing in the Dust by Zoe Klein
July and August by Nancy Clark
The Fox in the Cupboard by Jane Shilling
Passion on the Vine by Sergio Esposito
The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane
At Home on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball
Fetching Dylan by Stephen Foster
Silence and Noise by Ivan Richmond
How I Learned to Cook edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan
Under the Table by Katherine Darling
Deaf Sentence by David Lodge
Questions to Ask Before Marrying by Melissa Senate
Bloody Confused by Chuck Culpepper
A Supremely Bad Idea by Luke Dempsey
In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh
Paris Times Eight by Deirdre Kelly
Darcy's Voyage by Kara Louise
Catch of the Day by Whitney Lyles, et al.
Journey of the Pink Dolphins by Sy Montgomery
Civil and Strange by Clair Ni Aonghusa
Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? by Louise Rennison
The Craggy Hole in My Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It by Geneen Roth
I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume
Hungry for Happiness by James Villas
Come Back, Como by Steven Winn

Books otherwise acquired:
Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately
Stay With Me by Sandra Rodriguez Barron
Salting Roses by Lorelle Marinello
Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Pursuit of Happiness by Douglas Kennedy
The Dressmaker by Posie Graeme-Evans
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Shoes Hair Nails by Deborah Batterman

Books actually read:
Corked by Kathryn Borel
Falling in Love Again by Cathy Maxwell
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately
Semper Cool by Barry Fixler
The Naked Gardener by L.B. Gschwandtner
City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
The Little Giant of Aberdeen by Tiffany Baker

I don't always keep such good track of the differences between what I buy and acquire and what I actually read but I suspect that it's fair to say that I almost never manage to read the things I bring into the house the same month they arrive. But I always have a stash for whatever mood I might find myself in on any given day. For instance, I clearly had a romance craving this month, even if I didn't end up reading these particular titles. And I am fairly partial to a good Regency-set romance so they tend to be the bulk of what I buy in that genre. One of the other books I bought was a book club selection and I wasn't terribly psyched about it. Of course, our November book club never occurs in November since it always conflicts with Thanksgiving so I have leeway on when to actually get that one finished although usually bookclub books hold the distinction of being the only books to *always* get read the month I buy them (unless I already own them). As for the other books I picked up this month, they were purely on a whim. Very few of them were on my (obscenely large) wish list and I can't recall having read any reviews of any of them either (which doesn't necessarily mean I didn't what with this fading memory of mine!). They just piqued my interest the day I was in the bookstore. I do have to defend myself here with the appalling list of books I bought by saying that one of the local bookstores is going out of business and when I popped in there to do some early Christmas shopping, they were having massive sales. I did buy for others but my own stash grew enormously as well. Shame they won't be around to continue to benefit from my complete lack of restraint around books!

Review: Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji

There has been quite a profusion of books set in the Middle East in the past 5-10 years. It seems we are trying to fill in our regrettable knowledge gaps about this part of the world through our reading and specifically through fiction. And many of the books I have read which are set in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan do indeed shed some light on the mysteries of cultures so different from my own but also continue to remind of the similarities of people the world over. We are all bound by our cultural and religious systems and so face different challenges but underneath, our basic wants and needs are not so very different at all.

Jiji tackles the different cultural and religious groups in Iraq in the 1940's in this historical novel. The main character, Kathmiya, is a Marsh Arab who has been sent away by her unfeeling, alcoholic father and who must work as a maid to a wealthy family in the city of Basra. Kathmiya longs to be married and to live in the marshes with a husband like her sister and she doesn't understand why her father will not arrange this for her. Several abortive trips to matchmakers leave her knowing that this option, for some hidden reason, is not likely to come true any time soon. So in her loneliness, Kathmiya strikes up a friendship with Shafiq, the young brother of her mistress. Their friendship would be forbidden if it became known as Shafiq is an Iraqi-Jew and Kathmiya a Marsh Arab. But their budding relationship is not the only cross-cultural relationship in the book. Shafiq's family is also very close to their Muslim next door neighbors and in fact Shafiq's best friend is Omar, the son of that family.

As World War II and its ideology starts to invade the Middle East, the balance of political power shifts, leaving Shafiq's Jewish family, with one son an ardent Zionist and another a Communist, vulnerable. Jiji has drawn a convincing picture of individual people who look beyond religion and tradition to the human-ness of friendship and love without drawing unrealistic outcomes. The tension of the growing feelings between Shafiq and Kathmiya are reflected in the growing tensions of the political situation. But the story is not about the overall politics, it is about the individuals, Shafiq and Kathmiya, Shafiq and Omar, Jewish family and Muslim family, and there is no way to stop the unraveling dictated by culture and difference. The ending is earned and the exposed secrets, while personally explosive, haven't changed the time-honored way of life. It is clear, in reading this book and being given a peek into the diverse cultures in Iraq, just what some of the still smoldering tensions are and how their roots extend deeply into the past.

This novel doesn't, perhaps, have the power of several others set in the Middle East but set at such a different time frame, which might account for the muting of the impact, it adds to the understanding of what comes afterwards. There are quite a few characters to keep track of in this. And in the beginning it is rather difficult to keep them all straight and to understand their relationship to each other but the difficulty eventually eases as the story focuses in closer on the major plotlines. Kathmiya is definitely the best developed of the characters and her motivations are all clear as a bell whereas the other characters remain murkier. Overall, a good story, this is one that will appeal to book clubs wanting to read about the Middle East beyond The Kite Runner.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: 13 rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro. The book is being released by Reagan Arthur Books on February 2, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts from World War I as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters, and objects in the box relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a feisty, charming Frenchwoman who lived through both World Wars.


As Trevor examines and documents the relics the box offers up, he begins to imagine the story of Louise Brunet's life: her love for a cousin who died in the war, her marriage to a man who works for her father, and her attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13 rue Thérèse. The more time he spends with the objects though, the truer his imaginings of Louise's life become, and the more he notices another alluring Frenchwoman: Josianne, his clerk, who planted the box in his office in the first place, and with whom he finds he is falling in love.