TWIB: 14th Edition

 

Palabras Bilingual Bookstore sits in an older urban neighborhood
threatened by gentrification, just north of downtown Phoenix

    PHOENIX, Ariz. -- In this desert city in the western United States, I discovered a diverse collection of bookstores.

    Although generally a conservative place, history might give a reason for this -- it was colonized by the Spaniards, became an eventual settlements for many of North America's indigenous populations who were driven from their more eastern or southern lands, and was the migration point of enslaved people after the U.S. Civil War -- by some estimates 25 percent of cowboys were Black.

    Later, as the city's population exploded with white residents, the Latino population continue to lead the pack, with the Black and Asian population also increasing. Today, the non-white population comprises 57 percent of the city's population. 

My TBR stack from Arizona

    My first stop was at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore, off downtown in a place known as Casa Caracol, which includes a small café and Andria's Tienda. It was love at first sight.

    I really had to stop myself after gathering a number of new tomes, including Old School Indian, by Aaron John Curtis, the tale of a Native American -- a Kanien'kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne -- who left the reservation when he turned 18 and returned 25 years later, suffering from a rare disease and a failed marriage, and persuaded to undergo a tribal remedy. I also grabbed The Body Farm, by Abby Geni, a collection of short stories about people's relationships with their bodies.

    I moved on to Grassrootz Books and Juice Bar, a Black- and worker-owned place in Eastlake Park, also near downtown, which includes shops featuring African and African-American art and clothing. It was another delight, full of books I would love to read but know I could find in few other places.

    There, I bought All Eyes are Upon Us, by Jason Sokol, a history of Black life and politics in the northeastern United States, an area often considered amenable to but also showing a hostility to civil rights. A Man Called Horse, by Glennette Tilley Turner, tells us about the life and times of John Horse, who founded and ran the Black Seminole Underground Railroad. Trees, by the superb Percival Everett, weaves a story of magical realism when he tells what could happen if Black men and woman who were brutally lynched and slaughtered throughout U.S. history somehow rose again and turned the tables on their killers.

    I moved on to the Poisoned Pen, a shop over in the wealthy suburb of Scottsdale that specialized in mysteries both cozy and dark. Here, I found tales by two Irish writers. Northern Ireland's Stuart Neville, dubbed "the king of Belfast noir," brings us The House of Ashes, about a hapless family that moves from England back to Northern Ireland into a house with an, shall we say, interesting history. And the always compelling Colum McCann pens Twist, a story that introduces us to the men who repair broken underwater cables, and winds up delving into the sum of human existence.

    My final stop was a place called Changing Hands Bookstore, at the base of Camelback Mountain. It's a bookstore and a bar. Or a bookstore with a bar. Or, perhaps a bar with an attached bookstore. I'm really not sure -- and hell, does it matter? It was a fun place to visit.

    So not only did I but a T-shirt, but I found a few books to add to the collection, inclding The Children of Jocosta, by Natalie Haynes. She is one of the best writers in the re-told Greek myths genre, and this is one of her earlier tales. She's also a scholar, broadcaster and comedienne, but, truth be told, her writings are her best work, including several non-fiction discussions about women in Greek mythology. Finally, The Possibility of Life, by Jaime Green, is a look at the search for and the possibility of finding life out there in the vast universe.

Book Review: Sin Eater

 
By Megan Campisi

• Pub Date: 2020

• Genre: Historical Fiction, Dystopian Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: Bookmatters, Milford, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: The term "Sin Eater" caught my eye 

• Bookmark used: Hell hath no rage greater than a woman scorned

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    Let's get this out of the way: A sin eater is a woman, "unseen and unheard," who hears confessions of the dying and then literally consumes their sins by way of eating symbolic foods. By doing so, she cleanses their souls and takes on their damnations.

     It's not a career one seeks out, nor one that holds a high position in society. Rather, the woman is shunned, neither looked at nor spoken to, and must live apart, to be summoned only when sought out by the dying's kinfolk.

    It's occurred in cultures across time and space, but mostly in Great Britain around the 16th and 17th centuries. That's convenient for this novel, because it can add some kings and queens and palace intrigue, and set in a place that looks like an alternative Tudor England.

    It's an original, imaginative tale, centering around 14-year-old May Owens, an orphan and petty criminal who we first meet while she's in a crowded, dank prison cell, mostly for being poor. She's singled out for retribution by the judge (for reasons that become clear later on), and eventually sentenced to be the town's sin eater.

    An iron collar is locked around her neck; her tongue is burned with her mark, and she is sent off to work. She receives no instructions, and must find her own way and her own home.

    Poor and uneducated, May in nonetheless a resourceful, brave, and cunning character. She finds the older sin eater in town, and starts working and learning from her. But when they hear the dying confession of a royal courtier, and see an unaccounted for food at the eating, they find themselves in the thick of a palace scandal.

    The older sin eater refuses to eat a deer heart, not having heard the sin it represents, and is taken away to the dungeon. May doesn't know what it represents, but having seen the repercussions of refusing to eat it, does so.  But she recognizes that someone is plotting something; she seems to be a pawn in their game, and her life is in danger. So she decides she must, somehow, determine the what the hell is going on amongst the gentry.

    The royals sound much like a certain Tudor king and his court. The deceased King Harold II bears a strong resemblance to Henry VIII, what with his six wives, a new religion, and the lack of a male heir. Instead, his eldest daughter Maris, (Mary?), a Eucharistian, takes the throne and orders everyone to return to the old faith. But then Bethany, who, (like Elizabeth), is the daughter of the second wife, Alys Bollings, (Anne Boleyn, later executed for treason) became the Virgin Queen and returned the people to the new faith.

    As May explains it:

Maris ... was Eucharistian. She made everyfolk go back to the old faith and burned you if you didn't. She was known as Bloody Maris, even though it should as been Ashes Maris, since folk were burned not bloodied. ... (W)hen she died, her sister, Bethany, became queen. And what faith was she? Why, new faith. So she made everyfolk go back again to the new faith. Back and forth, back and forth. But it was no jest. Purgers came house to house to beat you if you didn't go along with the new faith. ... And the fighting's still not done. But now it for which suitor will win our queen, become king, and get his heir on her.

    The best parts of the book show the character of May, her growth, her kindness to the downtrodden, and her desire to tweak authorities. The palace intrigue, not so much.

    May is compared to Eve -- the woman who brings all evil into the world, according to the Christian Bible -- and the book itself has been compared to works such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Alice in Wonderland, and the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. I'm not sure about the first two, and don't know enough about the third, but all contain bloody authoritarian leaders who force women to suffers the sins of others, so maybe there's something there.

Book Review: The Heart in Winter

 By Kevin Barry

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Old-time Western

• Where I bought this book: The Corner Bookstore, New York City 

• Why I bought this book: Kevin Barry is one of Ireland's finest writers  

 *******

  

    Sparse, with tight writing and finely drawn characters, Barry has turned a cliched genre into into a tale worthy of Samuel Beckett.

    Tom Rourke is your basic cowpoke, an Irish immigrant living and drinking in the vast stretches around Butte, Montana, in the 1890s. He drinks too much, likes his dope too much, and tries to avoid working in the mines. Instead, he makes money writing love letters for other lonely men who are seeking mail-order brides.

    But when one of the strange denizens of the town finds a woman, name of Polly Gillespie, to marry him, Tom takes a shine to her. So they run, heading out further west, with a hopeful destination of San Francisco. But Long Anthony Harrington takes exception to his bride being stolen, and sends out a posse to bring her back.

    You see, Tom and Polly had a plan, such as it was

They reckoned up the provisions they had brought. It was enough for a few days. The horse would get them as far as Pocatello if they didn't bake it and from there as unknowns they could move by the rail. He massaged the horse's legs with an expert set to his mouth as if he knew what the fuck he was doing. 

    Such is life in the Old West, and Barry gives it a new shine -- squalid and dangerous, profane and perverse. He describes the couple engaging in debauchery and eating mushrooms on the high plains. There is violence and emptiness. It is dark, with stretches of hope.

They rode on. They rode double. The day was sharp and bright. They were mellow of mood if not entirely at a distance from the sadness natural to both of them, and these they knew were sadness unanswerable. She lay her face to the hollow of his back and closed her eyes a while. She felt his chest swell out and knew it was the fact of her embracing that made him proud.

    There is plainness and a lack of fancy in Barry's writing, which is not to be savored like a fine French wine, but admired and devoured like a shot of whisky and a pint of Guinness. 

Book Review: Sunrise on the Reaping

 By Suzzanne Collins

• Pub Date: 2025

• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Newport, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: Her books are a masterwork of characters and storytelling 

• Bookmark used: The Corner Bookstore, New York City

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    Perhaps it's not a coincidence that 47 children die in a tale that simmers the spark of a revolt that eventually ignited a revolution against a cruel and vindictive totalitarian regime.

    Collins outdoes herself in this timely tale that serves as another prequel to her Hunger Games trilogy, following up a previous prequel to weave detail and storyline into outstanding characters both new and updated. It cannot be easy to write a novel that everybody knows the ending to, but Collins, a master of the art, achieves her aim.

    She gives additional background and insight into characters such as Haymitch Abernathy, Lucy Gray Baird, Katniss Everdeen's ancestors, President Coriolanus Snow,  Effie Trinket, Plutarch Heavensbee, Beetee, Mags, and Wiress, among others.

    It takes place during the second Quarter Quell, the one we already know produced  District 12's only living victor. Indeed, Haymitch, 16 during the 50th Hunger Games, is the protagonist and narrator of the tale, and we hear and feel his every thought, fear, and emotion.

Haymitch's token from Lenore

    Make no mistake -- this is Haymitch's story, and it explains much about the character he eventually became, the broken man we were introduced to in the original Hunger Games. Our learning about him -- before, during, and after his time in the arena -- are the keys to knowing his motives and his future. 

    The only flaw I can find in the book is that Collins's  descriptions of the arena and the games tend to bog down the story. Still, the character interactions in the arena brought out the emotional feels and ripped out our hearts.                   

                          Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow 

                         From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for my lost Lenore 

                 For the rare and radiant maiden -- whom the angels name Lenore                                                          Nameless here for evermore.

    Collins ties it together with liberal use of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, a poem about longing, grief, and loss. Haymitch feels those acutely both inside the arena and afterwards, and the poem gives his young girlfriend her name.

    This may be the best book in the series. It helps us understand what happens in Panem. it shows how ignoring or erasing parts of your history can be devastating. It reaches out to us to understand her characters, their motives, and most of all, their suffering. 

    It's truly a tale of -- and for -- the ages.

Book Review: Heretics Anonymous

 By Katie Henry

• Pub Date: 2018

• Genre: Young adult

• Where I bought this book: The Magic of Books, Seymour, Ind. 

• Why I bought this book: The title gave me a smile, and the bookstore was among the best on my recent bookstore crawl in Southern Indiana

• Bookmark used: Ordinary Equality: Unless all are equal none are equal   

 ***** 

    Katie Henry's debut novel is a light, fun and amusing tale of Catholic school kids who make friends, stir up trouble, fall in love, and try to make the world a better place.

    Michael Ausman is the new kid, a junior, on his first day at St. Clare's Preparatory School somewhere in suburbia (the book may have been more specific, but it really doesn't matter), and he's not happy.

    He's not a Catholic, not particularly religious, and doesn't believe in god. Moreover, he's pissed that he's moved schools for the fourth time, all because his overbearing father is ambitious, and thus Michael has spent a lifetime moving around, making and losing friends, and it's been getting harder and harder over the years. His goal for the first day is simple: To find someone to eat lunch with, so he doesn't have to sit alone in a high school cafeteria. 

    Miraculously, he does, and he soon finds himself in a small group of friends, all with some reason to find themselves not part of the big clique. Lucy is brilliant, devout, and a knowledgeable Catholic. Avi is Jewish -- and gay to boot. Eden has declared herself to be a Celtic Reconstruction Polytheist, who worships Brigit and other ancient Irish goddesses. Then there is Max, a Unitarian who makes bad jokes about his religion, and likes to wear cloaks, which are forbidden by the school's dress code.

    Eventually, they create a group for themselves they call Heretics Anonymous, so they can, among other things, surreptitiously attack the dress code. The story they tell told is funny -- hilarious at times -- and moving in a teenagery sort of way. 

    It also can be quite serious. The group really wants the entire school to change. They squirm under what they see as its oppressive Catholic structure, its hypocrisy, and its selective nature of enforcement. The writing here sometimes mocks Catholic traditions, sometimes gently, and sometimes with scathing denunciations. But included is a defense of some beliefs and works, and the notion that it doesn't always hold up its better ideals.

    The story is told by Michael, but the others get their time in the sun. Eden defends and explains why she thinks polytheism is more likely* than monotheism. Lucy consistently defends Catholic tenants and its god and saints, has read the Bible from cover to cover, and encourages discussion and debate in their theology classes. Her Christmas present for Michael is an annotated Bible, and he reads and learns from it.

    It's not exactly a defense of the religion, but does advise one to understand it. And while it can be serious at times, it's never heavy nor preachy.

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* And a better bet: "If monotheism's true, anyone who doesn't worship that one god is a sinner," Eden says. "If polytheism's true, then any god can be real. You don't have to worship them or think they're good, but they can still exist. I can believe that Brigit's real, and Athena's real, and so is Jesus."