The Sunday Salon: August and September in Review

Books Read in August or September
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer: "This novel is simply brilliant, although there is nothing simple about it."
The Healing by Jonathan O'Dell: "If you liked such novels as The Help and The Kitchen House, you'll love The Healing!"
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman: "if you can handle a grisly murder and the frightening possibility that we aren't who we say we are, you should read it."
The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis: "Author Amy Franklin-Willis knows tiny towns in Tennessee, but rather than make her characters fat, dumb, and full of snappy comebacks—which happens all too often in books about the south (as opposed to Southern Lit), she made them real."
Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott: "Some books are so hard to read, not because they are poorly written or tedious but because the subject matter is just plain frightening."
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Multiple re-read. Taught this to my American Lit class in September.
The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harmon (not yet reviewed)

Best Books of the Months
August: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
September:  Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott 

Currently Reading:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (multiple re-read for American Lit class)
Tea-Olive Bird-Watching Society by Augusta Trobaugh

Movies-from-Books Watched:
The Scarlet Letter: Excellent movie version of the book! My students found it hilarious in some ways, but they had a great time watching it.


Added to My Ever-Growing TBR List
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
The Quilt Walk by Sandra Dallas
Love Anthony by Lisa Genova
Slaves, Women & Homosexuals by William J. Webb

Book Review: Imperfect Birds

Some books are so hard to read, not because they are poorly written or tedious but because the subject matter is just plain frightening. David Sheff's Beautiful Boy —a memoir of his son's meth addition—comes to mind. Anne Lamott's Imperfect Birds, though a novel rather than a memoir, had the same effect on me, that uneasy mix of "there but for the grace of God" and "what do I really know?" (And, to be honest in full realization that this is illogical thinking, "whew! I'm glad I am not raising kids in California!")

Elizabeth knows her 17-year-old daughter, Rosie, isn't perfect. Rosie has toyed with all kinds of typical teenage things: drugs, drinking, partying, sex. But Rosie's grades are fantastic and she always reassures Elizabeth that those were things she "tried once," but never again. Rosie convinces her parents that they are way off track whenever they express suspicions about her behavior. Elizabeth believes that she herself is way too suspicious and even borderline crazy. She tells herself that her own battle with alcohol and prescription meds makes her an ultra-vigilant, overprotective, suspicious parent.

Elizabeth doesn't trust her own instincts and continues to bury her fears, and Rosie's drug use continues to escalate. This isn't a shocking, "that could never happen to us" novel. Elizabeth and James are regular parents, trying to figure out the balance between being authoritative and permissive. Rosie is a master manipulator, and yet the reader always really likes her and is even lured into believing her—just as her parents do.

Lamott is a beautiful, insightful writer and a wonderful storyteller. If you have teenagers, this book will probably scare you and leave you wondering what kind of secret life your own teens have. Highly recommended.

Book Review: The Lost Saints of Tennessee

This was one of those books I pulled off the "to be shelved" shelves in the library—the first place I always check at the library. Living in Tennessee, I was attracted by the title. Books about Southerners can go either way: they can be unbelievably beautiful, or unbelievably stereotypical and tacky.

The Lost Saints of Tennessee definitely is not on the tacky end of the scale. Author Amy Franklin-Willis knows tiny towns in Tennessee, but rather than make her characters fat, dumb, and full of snappy comebacks—which happens all too often in books about the south (as opposed to Southern Lit), she made them real.

Zeke Cooper is a sad middle-aged man who had never recovered from his twin brother's death. His ex-wife recently remarried, his daughters are drifting away from him, he is utterly estranged from his mother, and he feels like an utter failure. He just can't figure out why he should go on living. But his suicide attempt is thwarted, and he tries a different angle.

After his failed suicide, Zeke drives from Tennessee to his cousin's house in Virginia, where he spent a happy semester while he was in college. It is there that Zeke finds healing, reconciliation, and redemption.

Much of the story takes place in flashbacks to Zeke's high school years, through both his mother's eyes and through Zeke's point of view. I loved the whole story of Zeke and his brother Carter and how different the stories are from the two points of view.

This is the author's first novel, and I look forward to what she has next.

Book Review: Blue Diary

Why haven't I read more Alice Hoffman? She's a prolific writer, and I have loved everything I have read so far, but somehow she just isn't on my radar. I need to change that.

Recently a friend said that I must read Hoffman's The Dovekeepers. It was checked out at the library, so I pulled  Blue Diary off the shelf instead. And wow! Alice Hoffman can tell a story. First off, this is a slightly gory and pretty disturbing book; but if you can handle a grisly murder and the frightening possibility that we aren't who we say we are, you should read it.

Ethan Ford is the town's sweetheart. Everyone loves him. He rescues kids from burning houses, coaches Little League like no one else, is incredibly handsome, and is madly in love with his wife and son. And then his face shows up on America's Most Wanted one evening, and everything changes instantly. Who is Ethan Ford? And did he really do it?

The novel mainly focuses on Jori and Collie, his wife and son, as they try to figure out the truth—and if there can possibly be two truths. Or one Ethan. Or  no Ethan. And can you—must you—keep loving someone who may or may not exist?

Highly recommended but definitely a bit grisly.

Book Review: The Healing

My friend Julie, who ranks high on the coolness factor, said I must read this book ASAP. Amazingly, I had "go to library" on my to-do list for that day, went to the library, and actually found the book on the shelf! It was a very good library day.

Jonathan O'Dell's The Healing is a can't-put-it-down kind of book. The story flashes between old Granny Satterfield and an orphan girl she inherits, and Granny's life as a slave, first as a pet to the grief-stricken, crazed landowner's wife and then as the plantation's reluctant healer.


Old Granny tells the traumatized orphan girl the story of her life in bits and pieces, hoping to bring healing to her through words and connections. Old Granny was torn from her mother's arms as a newborn at the demand of her mistress, whose own daughter had just died. Mistress dresses the girl, whom she names Granada, in her dead daughter's outfits and keeps her by her side. She doesn't love Granada but needs her as some sort of comfort item or plaything. The mistress also insists on keeping a monkey as a pet, and she becomes a laughingstock of the community, with her slave girl dressed in frills and her pet monkey climbing on her shoulders.

The young Granada, however, is convinced that the mistress sees her as a daughter. She is bewildered and horrified when she is yanked from her comfortable life in the big house to become the new healer's apprentice. The master purchases Polly Shine to cure his slaves of a terrible disease, and Polly immediately sees a kindred spirit in Granada. She insist on having her as a helper, and Granada's life becomes a nightmare. She does learn from Polly, in spite of herself, but her obstinate nature causes more than one disaster.

As Granny narrates her stories to the orphan girl, she finds healing in herself and release from the burden of the poor choices she made during her days as Polly Shine's apprentice.

If you liked such novels as The Help and The Kitchen House, you'll love The Healing! Highly recommended.

Book Review: The Invisible Bridge

Stunning, sweeping, heartbreaking, uplifting: these are the first words that come to mind as I review Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge. This novel is simply brilliant, although there is nothing simple about it.

Based on the author's own family story, The Invisible Bridge begins in 1937 with a young and excited Andras Levi, who is on his way from his home in Budapest to study architecture in Paris. The world is wide open before him. He quickly rises to the top of his class, and he falls in love with an older woman with a mysterious past. The reader gets as wrapped up in Andras and Klara as they are, not realizing the incredible danger that surrounds them. Andras and Klara are Jewish, and the war is about to change their lives forever.

The novel takes Andras from Budapest to Paris, back to Budapest and then to the horrors of labor camps. But I don't want to reveal too much, so let me focus on Orringer as a writer. First, there is the  poetry of her writing, the striking images that I had to read over and over:

"He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the time when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard."

"The hills east of Buda had come into their young leaves, insensate to the dead and the grieving. The flowering lindens and plane trees seemed almost obscene to Andras, inappropriate, like girls in transparent lawn dresses at a funeral."

And I was constantly amazed by Orringer's attention to detail—to following each story through to its end. Orringer's characters are so vivid, so multidimensional, I could swear I really know them. And what a tremendous amount of research the author has done as far as the WWII itself. Unbelievable.


I'm really quite astounded by The Invisible Bridge. The last 50 pages or so I read in a doctor's office while waiting for a friend, and I embarrassingly wept now and then. I was slightly numb when I closed the book, stunned by human resiliency as displayed in the character but also stunned by Orringer's ability to craft such a novel.

The Sunday Salon: June and July in Review

Books Read in June and July
The Inquisitor's Key (Jefferson Bass): "So, I loved Body Farm book #1 and found Body Farm book #7 to be tedious and poorly written."
Left Neglected (Lisa Genova): "I loved everything about this novel."
Arranged by Catherine Mackenzie:  "… too much was missing for this to be particularly memorable and engaging for me. Maybe you'll like it more."
Saving Ruth by Zoe Fishman:  "As it is, it's a nice beach read that will take you back to your own coming-of-age days."
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks:  "The novel brings up an array of issues: the European conquest of the New World, the role of religion, gender, race, education, societal and cultural expectations, and even child rearing. Brooks is a beautiful writer and captivating storyteller."
The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen: (Haven't yet reviewed)
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer: (about 50 pages left to read!)

Best Book of the Month(s)
No question: Caleb's Crossing. Left Neglected would come in second.

Added to My Ever-Growing TBR List 
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength by Laurie Helgoe
Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert