Edgerton’s knowledge about music is on full display, as is his understanding of the subtleties of race relations as the...
James Brown connects two boys, white and black, in a light novel about North Carolina in the tense 1960s.
Veteran novelist Edgerton (The Bible Salesman, 2008, etc.) is profoundly skilled at taking on some of Southern literature’s most difficult themes—race and religion especially—and addressing them with both respect and humor. The hero of his latest, set in 1963, is Larry Lime, a black teenager whose musical talent is nurtured by the Bleeder, the star pianist at a club on the outskirts of a small North Carolina town. Larry takes what he's learned to his job at a furniture shop, where he advises Dwayne, who's trying to get his band to play a note-for-note version of James Brown’s iconic Live at the Apollo album. Southern mores demand that Larry support Dwayne (who's white) without attracting attention, and Edgerton deftly shifts from intimate looks at their growing friendship to wide-angle shots of the racial divides among businesses and residents in the area. And he smartly merges social commentary with comedy: As Larry and Dwayne concoct a ridiculous plot to toss a chicken from a movie-theater balcony during a tense scene in The Birds, Edgerton gently highlights how the theater’s segregation policy inspired the idea in the first place. Various subplots involving Larry's extended family underscore the point that the color line was more porous than anybody wanted to admit at the time, though in the closing chapters Edgerton strains to sound an uplifting note without coming off as mawkish. Still, the command of Southern idioms and culture that earned him his reputation remains solid, and his affinity for simple sentences and clean chapter breaks give this slim novel an almost fable-like power.
Edgerton’s knowledge about music is on full display, as is his understanding of the subtleties of race relations as the Civil Rights Movement picked up steam.Pub Date: July 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-11759-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
None of the characters shine enough to inspire or enlighten readers.
A tale of several generations of women cursed to love men who love other women.
As the book opens, Gabriela Siton relates the story of her mother Luna’s death, and in describing her final year, Yishai-Levi, a journalist and nonfiction author, captures the family dynamic and lays out the drama—Luna doesn’t get along with Gabriela; she’s unhappy with her husband, David; she didn’t get along with her mother, Rosa; and all this has left Gabriela at loose ends. Gabriela seeks answers from her Aunt Allegra in Tel Aviv, trying to understand the family “curse,” and then the book shifts mostly to Rosa’s and Luna’s viewpoints. It abruptly shifts back in the end to Gabriela’s, skipping over years, when earlier, the narrative plodded slowly through days. There are so many characters that we only get a brief look at some of them, and so many disappointments and heartbreaks that they begin to lose their impact. Ordinary lives can be made beautiful, but when they belong to characters who are either unsympathetic or rudimentary, they are rendered ineffective. The characters’ faith, which influences so many of the important decisions in their lives, mostly comes across as routine, habit, or even superstition. Some of the characters become involved in the struggle for modern Israel, and their political fervor is similarly underdeveloped.
None of the characters shine enough to inspire or enlighten readers.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07816-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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