Recent Reviews
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
In anticipation of Ann Patchett’s newest novel, Tom Lake, I reread Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Though Patchett’s book is set in a Michigan cherry orchard, Wilder’s Our Town is more thoroughly integrated into the plot of Tom Lake. Like many people, I had read Our Town in high school. Though I enjoyed the play, my comprehension was narrow, and my feelings were limited. Now in my 60s, I was thoroughly moved by Our Town and its focus on life’s gifts and the passing of time.
Thornton Wilder wrote this play in 1938. The setting is a fictitious town in New Hampshire called Grovers Corner. This three-act play begins in 1901 and depicts the circle of life: childhood, adulthood and death. In Act 1, babies are born. In Act 2, two young people, Emily and George, marry and in Act 3, Emily dies in childbirth and joins the other Grovers Corner community members buried in the town’s cemetery. The narrator/primary character is the Stage Manager, representing God. This central role makes it feel as if God is explaining the play and life to the reader.
Wilder’s intent does not seem to be morbid or even judgmental. Instead, he seems to be saying something both prosaic and profound. Pay attention to this miracle of life. Time goes by quickly. Enjoy the blessing of being alive. He wants people to pause and absorb both the banal and breathtakingly beautiful moments of life. Wilder was interested in human memory and said that he was interested in “the difference between the matter-of-factness and almost the triviality of life as we live it and the emotion and beauty of the same life when we remember it, looking backward from years later. “
In Act 3, Emily dies in childbirth and joins the other town members who have previously died, I was so moved. Emily says, “We don’t have time to look at one another? Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it every minute—every, every minute?”
Our Town encourages people to stop and celebrate the miracle of our humanity. The New York Times says, “Wilder cautions us to recognize that life is both precious and ordinary and that these two fundamental truths are intimately connected.” Maybe that is why it is still one of the most-performed plays in the world each year. Our Town reminds people to appreciate their time on earth and evokes a sense of spirituality.
I highly recommend reading the play or watching one of the many productions available on video. (It should be noted that most productions cast white people in all the roles including the Stage Manager.) Our Town has been characterized as being too simple; there are no explosive scenes of conflict or chaos. For this reader, the play felt ambitious in its simplicity. The stark and straightforward narrative allows readers/viewers to become absorbed in the larger meaning. Our Town is a profound play that continues to remind readers to embrace their lives. 4.5/5
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store byJames McBride
James McBride’s newest novel, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” is filled with warmth, kindness and even humor. This story illustrates how communities can be empowered and enriched when they accept each other’s differences. In the 1920s and 30s, Chicken Hill was a poor neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania comprised of African-American residents and immigrant Jews. McBride’s brilliant writing captures both communities’ voices, dialects, phrases, and idioms. Though McBride calls out the prejudice and discrimination directed at Blacks, Jews, and other immigrants, the novel still feels joyful and inspiring.
The primary characters are Moshe and Chona Ludlow, a Jewish couple who own the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, and their Black employees, Nate and Addie Timblin. Chona’s commitment to improving her corner of the world is strong. Chona Ludlow does not charge her predominantly Black customers when they cannot afford to pay. In the beginning chapters, we learn the background of many characters. At first, these profiles seem unrelated, but eventually, their lives link together and connections become clear. Several characters, including Chona, have a disability. Yet they are not shunned, In fact, when the State seeks to institutionalize a Black and deaf boy named Dodo, the Jewish and Black neighbors join together to save him.
McBride, a National Book Award winner, is deft when describing persistent and systemic bigotry. In this novel, he directs his attention to the corrupt white Christian political and business leaders of Pottstown, PA. The town’s caste system is not hidden. A sign at the Pottstown ice-skating rink had said, “No Jews, No Dogs and No Ni*****.”
“The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” illustrates the power of community when people from different backgrounds acknowledge their differences and unite to oppose injustice. McBride’s understands the limits of human beings, but this story offers a vision of hope. In the words of Chona Ludlow, we can all "tikkun olam” - improve the world. 4.5/5
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie’s 2017 novel Home Fire won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Prize, was longlisted for the Man Book Prize and short-listed for the SSC Prize for South Asian literature. These well-deserved accolades acknowledge Shamshie’s poetic prose and skilled storytelling. ‘Home Fire’ is intense and intimate as the story explores identity, secrets, immigration, ambition, love, and family loyalty. Shamsie’s writing is evocative, the characters complex and the suspense slowly builds toward a stunning ending.
The story is about two British Pakistani families navigating their Muslim identity in a post-9/11 world. Each of the characters is bound to their family by love and loyalty. And yet, each holds a different perspective about expressing that identity in a world that discriminates and demonizes Muslims. Sophocles’ play ‘Antigone’ serves as the basis for this book, and echoes of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ permeate the plot.
The novel begins in 2005 and takes place in England, America, Syria, Istanbul and Pakistan. Three siblings, Isma, Parvaiz and Aneeka, were raised by their mother in Wembley, England. Their father, a famous jihadist, was captured and died in Afghanistan, and his family has been under constant surveillance by the British. When the siblings’ mother and grandmother died within a year, the oldest daughter Isma raised her younger brother Parvaiz and sister Aneeka. When Parvaiz is in his teens, he struggles to find his identity. ISIS members recruit him to become a jihadist like his father and he leaves England for the Middle East. Soon Parvaiz regrets his decision.
His sister Aneeka works to free Parvaiz from ISIS’s grip. When Aneeka meets Eamonn, the influential British Home Secretary’s sophisticated son, she initiates a relationship with him. Eamonn and Aneeka fall in love, or so one might think. Maybe Eamonn’s father could help save Parvaiz. But in his political speeches, Eamonn’s father implores his fellow Muslim citizens to assimilate into British culture. He says, “I hate the Muslims who make people hate Muslims.”
The plot thickens: the assimilationist Home Secretary’s son and the sister of a jihadist are in a relationship. The fates of both families are now intertwined. Each of the three siblings, Eamonn and Eamonn’s father, each take turns narrating the story. This structure provides constantly shifting points of view. Readers must determine who and what to believe about each character’s choices. All people have multiple motivations.
Home Fire is an intellectual and emotional experience. In these times of increasing nationalism and simple generalizations about ethnic or religious groups, Kamila Shamsie’s characterizations cause readers to grasp how political passions tyrannize individual lives. Highly recommend. 4.5/5
