The Invention of Exile by Vanessa Manko

(If receiving this via email, please click on the title above to read the entire review, and check out other reviews on my blog at rawlesreads.blogspot.com!)

A very different writing style here - broken, gauzy, flowing.....not much dialogue but I think that is on purpose - really suits the story.  The story is Austin's - a Russian immigrant to the US who because of a language misunderstanding, ends up deported to Russia, then flees to Mexico, and begins the process of trying to legally enter the US.  His American wife takes their three children home to wait for him.

Begin Heartbreak.

This was a bit too depressing for me this summer - lots of themes here including family, loss, mental breaks, and lots of stubbornness!  Because Manko based this story on the true story of her grandfather, there is a certain poignancy as well.  But I was bored.  I skimmed.  Nothing much happened.  Which, as another reviewer pointed out, might be just exactly what the author was going for in atmosphere.  

I appreciated that Austin was so determined to enter the country legally, and was dogged in his efforts to make the Consulate hear him.  My husband is foreign as well (citizen now), and we went through all the hoops to get him into the US legally.  But this is 1934 and things are different.  Reds are the enemy; they will not listen to Austin.  So he keeps up with his inventions, his drafts, his brilliance, just knowing that they will see how much his work will help the US so they have to let him in to be with his family.

Bless his heart.

I expected the ending to be tragic.  Or at least hopeful.  But I did not feel either of these things.  I felt like I was missing the last chapter, it was that sudden.  I found myself even WISHING for the tragic ending over that.  Sigh.  What I will say is that the title makes a lot more sense at the end.  That, at least, was brilliant.  I think this author is worth watching as well.

In Another Life by Julie Christine Johnson

(As always, please click on the title to be taken to the blog for the entire review!  Please leave me a comment if you decide to read this one too!)

I actually really liked this book!  I frowned at the cover's statement that this book was in the vein of Outlander - you know that is my favorite series EVER, right?  So, nothing compares to Outlander.  

However, this was a good twist - more modern, no time traveling back and forth, but only the idea that a soul lost in one life can find comfort and closure through another.  So, yeah, you have to have an open mind here.  I liked the parallels to a previous time and the flashbacks that explained what might be happening. I liked that the flashbacks contained real life historical figures, and a real life "yes it happened but maybe not the way history said it happened" murder.  I liked how well fleshed out our main character is, even if the men in the story remained sketchy (double entendre, I love it).  This is a passionate love story too, but not racy.  A perfect beach read, if anyone is actually going to the beach........

Hanging Mary by Susan Higginbotham

Very pleasantly surprised by this book!  I am a fan of historical fiction, but I don't read much US history.  (Shame on me)  But after finishing Dan Abrams' Lincoln's Last Trial (about Lincoln's law career before he became President) earlier this year, I felt it fitting to read this book that has been on my shelf for a year or two about Lincoln's assassination.  And it is not even about the assassination itself - it is about the people involved and not involved and partially involved in the plot to bring the South back into the war and get revenge on Lincoln.  Specifically, Mary Surratt, John Surratt, Nora Fitzpatrick and of course, John Wilkes Booth.  Very strange to read a story about Booth as a man rather than just a wicked assassin.  But the focus really is on Mary and her part in the plot.  Higginbotham imagines things from Mary and Nora's (a young boarder in Mary's boarding house) alternating perspectives in the months leading up to April 1865.  Was Mary guilty of conspiring to kill the President?  Was she complicit or an innocent bystander, or somewhere in between?  How guilty was her son?  Students of history know there is no spoiler here regarding the ending; this story is more about the journey to that end.  Very well done!!!

Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet by H.P. Wood

What a delightful surprise this book was!

My sister in law started giving the same books to my mother and me (and her own self!) for Christmas a few years ago so that we could do a family book club.  This is one of those books!  She gave me all sorts of disclaimers - she had not read it, wasn't sure it would be any good, etc etc.  I always feel like with a random selection like this, you win some and you lose some.  Well, this one was a winner.

In further full disclosure, this is also a fictional account of a black plague like disease hitting Coney Island, NY, so that was also a surprise considering I picked it up to read during 2020's Pandemic Quarantine.  Truth is stranger than fiction, eh??

In 1904, 19-year old Kitty Heyward is newly arrived in NY from England after a traumatic discovery, only to be traumatized again by being mysteriously separated from her mother.  Enter a con man, a half man, a machine man, and a half and half, among other Colorful Carnival Characters.  Kitty and the others begin to form a new family while facing an unknown assailant in both the illness and the city's reaction to it as well as the "normal" and now increased discrimination towards the carnies.

The author debuts tremendous talent and potential with this book in my opinion.  She tackles so many issues with kindness, education, humor, tenderness and honesty.  The book alternates narrators so we get a view of life on both sides of the economy, while several of the characters also come to a new understanding of their own prejudices - and that works both ways.  No matter which character's head we are in, the reader feels fully invested and the characters are fully fleshed out.  Everything from automatons to leopards to gender fluidity to politics to fleas are covered here.

After all, real life is circus, too. 


PS - even with a handful of f-bombs, I would let my older teenagers read this one.  Not really historical fiction as there was no plague in NY at that time, but the other themes of acceptance of physical deformities, differing lifestyles, working together, and forming families are really well done here. As is the writing, which sometimes for me overrules all else.  I will definitely be searching up this author!!!

The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg

I am a bit conflicted on this one.  So really, 3.5 stars.

At first I was like - YES!  A journal-ed story about a woman (like me) over 50 (like me) who feels a bit lost from her younger self (like me sometimes) who has a grown daughter (like me) and who runs away and just drives off on a road trip by herself with no warning to her husband.

Wait, what?

Now, the writing here is stellar.  Very lyrical, and heartfelt and brutally honest as only a woman can be about herself and her life when she is writing in her journal.  She also writes letters to her husband to assure him she hasn't left HIM, she just needed to go explore and get away and find herself.  I was with her until about half way through (plus I kept thinking, where is your cell phone???).

Half way through I felt like she was just whining.  She starts telling her husband in her letters what she really wants in life, and how he should get ready for when she comes home.  She is very sure of herself that he will still be there waiting when she does decide she is ready to go home, and she is very bossy.  And while I certainly connected with her feelings of sometimes being invisible and always on someone else's schedule, never her own, I really lost my sympathy for her as well.  This is a short novel, and I think it would have been interesting to have a bit of the husband's perspective.  He gets a good bashing here - but it is all about how he doesn't notice her, the real her  - which she herself has admitted she has lost as well.  So how is he supposed to notice what is no longer being shown??  And seriously, how many husbands would truly appreciate all those letters when you LEFT HIM??  If he is still there, she better hope he didn't change the locks.

Now, if I am also brutally honest - how WONDERFUL would it be to actually do what this woman did?  She just got in the car and drove.  Stayed where she wanted to stay, ate when and where she wanted to eat, stopped and talked to random people - just because she could.  She actually made the pipe dream happen.  She took control of the remote, so to speak.  She traveled with the best travel buddy ever - herself.  Maybe I am just jealous.  Women get like that when they look over the fence at that grass for too long.  And in the end, our yard is just fine, thank you.  Because I made it myself.

Not that my husband noticed.  ;-)

Lincoln's Last Trial by Dan Abrams and David Fisher

I do not usually read nonfiction.  I like to be entertained, taken to another place or time, etc. Not that I don't like learning, I just usually find nonfiction to be a bit dry.

Not so here, my friends!  Maybe because this book literally puts you in the midst of history with the very words spoken by our 16th President!  Dan Abrams, best known as a legal analyst on the news, has put together along with David Fisher a fascinating account of a court trial, a community divided and stirred up by the prospect of watching Mr. Lincoln do his thing, and history in the making.  I didn't even mind that there is absolutely no suspense - we know how the trial ends - but I found myself in anticipation of what Lincoln would do or say next.

It is 1859 in Springfield, Illinois.  Two local boys have a brawl and one ends up dead.  Is it murder or self defense?  And did you catch the year?  There will be a Presidential election in 1860 - one that will change the world.  And the lawyer hired to defend this case will be the one to do it.

As a lover of history myself, it was incredible to read Lincoln's actual words.  The book takes a lot of information from the transcriber at this murder trial who was familiar with Lincoln and was a consummate professional himself.  You really do get a personal feel for the man behind the tall hat.  The research here was immense and thorough - and even with all the subplots and flashbacks, I never felt that anything was superfluous.  The authors did a grand job of filling in the detail while pushing the trial story forward.  All the little details do come together like puzzle pieces to make a fascinating picture.

And seriously, all law students should be required to read this book.  A deep dig into the genesis of a self-defense approach and many other tidbits of original law in our country.  Indeed, this would make for great required reading in high school.  Will it win a Pulitzer?  Nah.  But that is not the point.  The point here is to bring to light a historic moment in the life of a great American, and in America itself.

I am charmed too, Dan Abrams.

Lockdown IV - Namecalling needs a vaccine

Today's rant:

Can we PLEASE STOP with the name calling???

Y'all.  Seriously.  Bring back the #begentle memes.  Everyone is affected by this virus - EVERYONE.  And everyone has their opinions on reopening, on staying home, on whether or not we should do this or that.  On what people should be allowed to do, and on what people should do even if they are "allowed."  It is more than a little bit complicated.  I change my mind daily!

But can we please refrain from calling people STUPID because they have a different opinion?  {And can we also please stop literally wishing death on those people you are calling stupid?  I am so sick of seeing that whole Darwin thing - "let's weed out the stupid people who want to go back to work because then the world will be a better place."  REALLY??}  Maybe they don't have a choice about going out and about.  Maybe keeping their homes depend on them getting back to work.  Maybe their mental health depends on getting out of the house.  Maybe their mental health depends on NOT leaving the house.  Maybe, just maybe, they have different problems than you do.  This year, it is the virus.  Next year, it could be suicide rates or homeless rates or real estate crises or yes, unemployment rates which can lead to both of the former and more!  Extremely complicated, and we don't even KNOW all the ramifications yet!

I am a stay at home mom with two teenagers.  I got nothing to worry about.  The part time job I had was unpaid because we owned the company.  Now, we don't.  And I don't really miss the job even if I miss connecting with the people. I don't mind staying home, I can craft and read and "piddle" in my house all day long.  Yesterday I enjoyed an unplanned hour or so sitting in our living room with my two kids, just chatting and laughing.  I really had a Be Still My Heart moment.  And did I mention they are teenagers???  It was the biggest blessing.

HOWEVER COMMA (as one of my teenagers says), not everyone can stay home.  Not every business owner or worker can literally AFFORD to just stay home.  The domino effect is going to be devastating.  And far reaching - so far that we cannot even see down that rabbit hole yet.  And business owners are in the same place as their workers - it is no different for Landlords or bosses or workers - we have all lost income.  Unless you work at Home Depot, are a Landscaper, or work for one of those yard sign companies, they are killing it!!!

And listen, we all know the truth, right?  We are not on Lockdown to avoid getting sick - the only reason we are on lockdown right now is to make room in the hospital for when we DO get this virus.  Or else we are waiting on a vaccine which won't come until next year.  2021.  Or 2022.  We do not know.  And more to the point, even when we do start reopening, it is UP TO YOU whether you choose to leave your house.  The law is not going to force you outside!  Stay home if you feel you should - no problem!  I probably will stay home for a while.  This is not about one person.  Which means there is not one solution.  Not everyone has to do the same as their neighbor.  Will we spike cases once people venture out?  Probably.  Can we avoid it forever?  Probably not.  Some will try, and that is fine.  People like my dad, immunocompromised,  should still not leave the house (sorry, Mom).  What about those hundreds of people who have already recovered?  Do they still need to quarantine?  We are getting reports now that you actually can get it twice.  Or can you?  Again, we do not know.

What we DO know is that we need each other.  It is bad enough that this is an election year; do we have to spill over along party lines into how to handle COVID-19 too??  Perhaps that is the lesson here.  All of us are facing getting sick.  Everyone has a different physical reaction to it - that is what makes us individuals I guess. The one reaction we need to avoid is the one where we react with spite, hate, disgust, and name calling while we wait.  It is not helpful.  We need a vaccine for name calling!  Stop it!!!  It is not stupid to go outside anymore than it is stupid to isolate indefinitely.  Both can have negative, even sometimes fatal, effects. Most current cases are from people who are actually "staying home."  So if you do go out, take precautions, of course. Wash your hands, wipe your steering wheels and doorknobs, wear your mask. That is not my point here. My point is that we should focus on what we can do, not what others should do.

And eventually, even I will need something else to do.  But don't worry, I will NOT run out of craft supplies or books to read.  As if.