Muskrat Ramble

“Muskrat Ramble” (Sequel to “A Sparrow Alone”) by Mim Eichmann 311 pages

After I finished “A Sparrow Alone,” I hoped that Hannah’s life get better. While “Sparrow” wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, I did come to care about the characters and was eager to see what would happen.

Author Eichmann pickups the story in 1913 after the African-American school Hannah founded in Kansas closes. Hannah and her daughter, Alice, move to New Orleans as job opportunities abound there, but mostly, Hannah wants to find Emma. There are only two people in the world who know that Emma is Hannah’s biological mother, while Alice is a rescue.  Hannah took and raised Alice after her biological mother died.

Emma is now thirteen years old. She has no idea who Hannah is. Emma is concerned with becoming a jazz singer. Jazz dominated this novel and the greats of the time were minor characters. People like Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Sissieretta Jones, Honore Duetry and Jelly Roll Morton. The real person who was actually part of the novel was Edward “Kid” Ory. 

I’m sorry to say that this novel doesn’t feel like it was written by the same person. The style was completely different. It didn’t take long for me to not care about the characters any more when the storyline became redundant.  However, I had invested a lot of time with these people so I continued to read. I was dismayed when I reached one of the last chapters, at which time there was synopsis of what happened to the real folks, which was the most interesting part of the novel. 

The other, fictional, main characters lives were also explained, but the story read like a bunch of facts strung together.  And the final chapters read as if the author was tired of the story and wrapped it up. Therefore, “Muskrat Ramble” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow 304 pages

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I requested this book from Bookishfirst.com. Like most everyone else in the world, I adored Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” and was excited to see what author Morrow would do with it.  Well, the cover gives part of it away, but, still, I was curious as so what Morrow would do with the story.

The timeframe was consistent, the American Civil War (1863-1866). But instead of a poor Northern family with their father serving as a chaplain in the Union Army, the March family is living in North Carolina in the Freedpeople’s Colony of Roanoke Island. As a history nerd, I was confused. Every time I read Roanoke, I immediately thought of the attempt by the English to establish a colony on the island in 1587. I had no idea that after the English settlers disappeared, the island became a haven for freedpeople of color. Some background would have been nice, but the story structure really didn't lend itself to a backstory of this nature.

Another thing that confused, and somewhat irritated me, was the title the sisters used to refer to their mother. In the Alcott version, it was Marmee, but in this version, it was Mammy. The first time I read it I was offended, but then quickly realized the timeframe of the story. However, the etymology of “Mammy” is “black woman having the care of white children.” That didn’t fit the story to me at all, but in hindsight, maybe that was what Mammy did before they escaped to the Freedpeople’s Colony, but it’s unclear to me.

The girls seemed both different and alike to Alcott’s version. However, there was something about them that didn’t allow me to care much about them. There was a lack of tension throughout the book, no compelling reason to turn the page---and that is what prompts me to say that “So Many Beginnings: ‘A Little Women Remix’” receives 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

The Man Who Lived Underground

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright 240 pages

When I was in graduate school, I read “The Man Who Lived Underground” as it was published in author Wright’s posthumous collection, “Eight Men.” In that collection, the work had been “drastically condensed and truncated.” I thought highly of it then but knowing that it wasn’t the complete work left me unsatisfied.

Now, the complete work, the one that Wright was unable to publish in his lifetime, has landed on bookshelves. This work meant more to him than any of his other publications: “I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration.”

The story is heartbreakingly simple. It’s 1941-42.  Fred Daniels, a Black man, is on his way home after collecting his week’s wages (a whopping seventeen dollars!) to his wife who is due to give birth any time. As he walks along, happy with his place in the world, he notices a police car with three police officers, just sitting there. As he approaches the police exit the car and arrest him for the horrifically vicious double murder that occurred at the neighbors of his employer’s home.

Although he proclaims his innocence, his words fall on deaf ears. The cops need a perpetrator. and Fred is their man. The police haul him to the station and torture him until he signs a confession. Case closed.

However, Fred is able to escape (or was he allowed, I was never really sure) and heads for the sewers beneath the Chicago streets. There he traverses the systems. As Fred wandered, he was able to view other lives by removing some of the bricks tht led into basements. There he gathers some food, robbed a bank from which he plastered the money to the walls of the main tunnel, heard a church choir sign, etc.

The novel is more of  stream of consciousness than I like, but what stood out to me the most, that eighty years later, not much has changed for the African Americans. They are still the first ones suspected of a crime.

The work also contains the essay, “Memories of my Grandmother,” which a companion to Fred’s story. I didn’t care for it. To me, it didn’t have that immediacy of Underground.  “The Man Who Lived Underground” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

Saving Ruby King

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West 320 pages 

This novel could not have come at a more appropriate time with the Black Lives Matter movement at the forefront of our national consciousness.  And it’s wonderfully written! I loved that the church, Calvary Hope Christian, has a voice---it added to the sinisterness underlying the novel’s mysteries. 

Ruby King and her family are trying to pick up the pieces of her mother’s recent murder, tragically inside their family home. The people in their Chicago South Side neighborhood believe that Ruby’s father, Lebanon, is responsible for Alice’s death. He had served time for killing a man and he had a hellacious temper. The neighbor’s know that Lebanon abused Alice and fear he is taking his rage out on Ruby.

Ruby’s best friend is Layla. Their mothers were close and their grandmothers even closer. Layla and her mother do what they can to protect Ruby. However, Lebanon is best friends with Layla’s father, pastor of the Church. Rev. Potter forbids Layla to interfer, yet readers get to watch him giving Lebanon large sums of money.

At the heart of this story is secrets and mysteries and the repercussions they inflict on the two families and the neighborhood.

I felt the novel got off to a slow start, but that was okay. It really ramped up about of the fourth of the way through.  As Author West began to foreshadow the deepest and ugliest of the secrets, I think she gave away too much, as I had it figured out, without trying, before it was revealed. That diminished the climax somewhat for me.  Therefore, “Saving Ruby King” gets 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

THE HOUSE YOU PASS ON THE WAY

The House You Pass On The Way By Jacqueline Woodson 114 pages

https://slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/893772116

 

Staggerlee is different.  Her father is black and her mother is white.  Her paternal grandparents were famous African American performers. And then there is her budding sexuality.   When her adopted cousin Trout comes to visit, Staggerlee finally has someone she can talk to.  (And yes, her name is from the legend of songs and snaps/dozens, THE Staggerlee. )

This is a beautifully written book that brings the fictional town of Sweet Gum to life, from the statues of Staggerlee’s grandparents, to the thick mud that clings to Staggerlee’s boots and ruins Trout’s loafers, to the easy talk and laughter of the men that work for her father.  Staggerlee is complex and very self-aware, very in touch with her feelings, and very observant.  This story resonates with her emotional honesty.

(Warning: some of the following might be considered “spoilers”.)

One thing I really liked about this book was how the question of sexuality was not decided.  Neither Trout nor Staggerlee knew if it was a phase or permanent.  Since many teenagers go through a homo-emotional (if not sexual) stage during early puberty, I liked how this was left open-ended.

One thing I found a bit jarring was that Staggerlee did not feel comfortable telling anyone about her feelings for a girl, until she met Trout.  While Trout had confessed to her aunt, Staggerlee had felt intuitively that she could not tell anyone.  This was never fully explored.  Even in a bi-racial family, and a family that had suffered such losses during the Civil Rights era, was sexuality was still closely guarded? Or was it the town of Sweet Gum? We will never know. 

I recommend this book to anyone who likes Judy Blume, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Mildred D. Taylor, in addition to all Woodson fans.

Juba!

Juba! by Walter Dean Myers     208 pages

This engaging historical novel is based on the true story of the meteoric rise of an immensely talented young black dancer, William Henry Lane, who influenced today's tap, jazz, and step dancing. With meticulous and intensive research, Walter Dean Myers has brought to life Juba's story.

A nice, short, historical-fiction read about the life of William Henry Lane, or Juba, a young African-American man who loved dance and wanted to practice it as an art form. Though his life is short, it is fascinating and I was surprised I hadn't heard of him before picking up this book, especially since he caught the attention of Charles Dickens and was even mentioned by Dickens in one of his books, "American Notes." 

Myers really captured the spirit and passion of Juba for dance and for making more out of his life through art. It was interesting to trace Juba's path through various productions and see him grow and yet still not make it as big as he should have. There is some really important discussion of race in early America. One of Juba's friends, who is a free African-American, gets captured and sold back into slavery. Juba is continuously confronted by his skin color and often asked to "coon it up" when he dances because that is the expected idea of what an African-American is like, that is what the audience wants to see. This would be a good school read, I think, to show a particular slice of American history and to teach about race relations in America.

All in all, it was very illuminating and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in African-American history and to anyone who is not familiar enough with African-American history. This is a very important read, in my opinion. Please give it a look.

The Sellout

The Sellout by Paul Beatty   304 pages

The black narrator, Bonbon, grew up in a “disappeared” L.A. suburb, once an “agrarian ghetto” called Dickens, where he was subjected to his father’s sociological, and abusive, experiments about race.  Despite his father’s attempts to indoctrinate him into ‘black’ thinking, Bonbon is ultimately also called the Sellout because his character, although himself an African-American, does not espouse African-American stereotypes, he just doesn’t get the ‘black’ thing. As a grown man, Bonbon discovers one day that his town has ceased to exist, and he sets about to rectify the situation.  He elicits help from his friend, Hominy, the last surviving member of TV's Little Rascals (he was Buckwheat’s understudy). Help is really not the appropriate term as Hominy insists on being enslaved and Bonbon suffers through his role as massa. Part of the solution to making Dickens visible is to reintroduce segregation, first on buses, then in the schools. As one can imagine, imposing voluntary slavery and apartheid onto an American community eventually causes a legal nightmare, and the case ends up in the Supreme Court.

This novel is a daring satire about race relations in contemporary America. Nothing is sacred - politics, pop culture, the media's portrayal of African-Americans - so many aspects of U.S. life are targeted and turned upside-down by Beatty's razor-sharp musings. This book is often very funny, and full of ideas and snipes at deserving targets, but not an easy book to read if you are easily offended. The plot is clearly ridiculous, but it does allow a very full discussion of race - the stereotypes, the archetypes, and array of attitudes from subtle to extreme.

Posted By:  Regina C.

Copycat

Copycat by Kimberla Lawson Roby Book 181 pages

This is a book about a woman named Simone, who as a result of her troubling past, mimics the lives of certain successful people around her. This causes no end of drama and so goes the story. This book was not Roby's best, but it was still an okay read. I felt like the ending wasn't as conclusive as it could have been, there were a few too many "maybes" for my taste. I am glad it wasn't a long book because I"m not sure it would have been as easy to read as a longer book. Really the one word that comes to mind with this book is fine. The plot was fine, the characters were fine and so on. There were some page-turning moments, but I wouldn't say the whole book is that way. For me, I like when characters go to the very edge of sanity, the crazier the better. That was not the case in this book. Don't get me wrong Simone did some crazy things, but it could have been crazier. I'm from the "go big or go home" school of thought and I know Roby is capable of some very "big" writing (see Curtis Black series). I would recommend this book, but with the caveat that it isn't as dramatic as other books by this author.