"The Girl Who Fell From the Sky" by Heidi Durrow

Published: 2010
Read: 2011
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 1980's; Chicago, Portland
Rating: 4
Awards: Bellweather Prize for Fiction
Review: The Prairie Library
Author's book web site
Heidi Durrow's "Light-skinned-ed Girl" web site




A short book and therefore a quick read but the characters and topics are disturbing and haunting.  I saw this in a Washington Post book review a while ago and since the topic appeared to be about suicide, I wanted to read it.  Glad I did.  It is a story of surviving.

Characters: 
Rachel - survivor
Nella - Danish mother "mor"
Roger - Black father, military
Robbie - brother
Grandma - Roger's mother
Aunt Loretta - Roger's sister
Charles - brother
Jamie/Brick
Laronne - boss

Topics:
Suicide and surviving suicide
Grief/anger
Bi-racial marriage and children
Alcoholism
Abuse
Depression/despair
Coming-of-age
Family tragedies

Quotes:  I wrote the quotes and thoughts in my journal and will probably write a post on Josh's blog

How Rachel deals with her grief and anger:
"When something starts to feel like hurt, I put it in this imaginary bottle inside me.  It's blue glass with a cork stopper.  My stomach tightens and my eyeballs get hot.  I put all of that inside the bottle."   Then later: "I open the blue bottle.  Mad goes in there too."

Last time things:
"I am caught in before and after time.  Last-time things and firsts. Last-time things make me sad like the last time I called for Mor and used Danish sounds.  I feel my middle fill up with sounds that no one else understands. Then they reach my throat.  What if these sounds get stuck in me?"

Do I have lines or an edge in my smile?
"It's easy to smile just to make other people feel better.  But when a person fakes happy, it has edges. Regular people may not see, but the people who count, they can see the edges and lines where your smile ends and the real you, the sadness or the anger, begins....You shouldn't hold onto things that give you edges."

Keeping sadness company
"The sadness is coming over me....I can't get rid of the sadness."  "Well...then we'll just keep it company."

The other side of the story:
"If there's no one else to tell another side - the only story that can be told is the story that comes true."

Grief as a barrier in relationships:
"We live in the same house but we both feel lonely.  We and lonely don't belong in the same sentence.

Dreams with low skies:
"The way Grandma paints her dream for me, there's a low sky."

Author inspiration for the story:
On the author's personal blog, she talks about how the book is based in part, on her life, but also on a true story.  This quote is taken from the site, posted on June 28, 2006.

the story is autobiographical only insofar as it is about a biracial and bicultural girl growing up in the northwest.  i guess that is to say: the confusion of the character is a confusion i experienced.  but, the story--the girl who survives the family tragedy--well, that's inspired by a real story i read about in the news many years ago.  so, as i think about the story of the story: i realize that i wrote this novel because i wanted to imagine the young girl's life--but now, the young girl must be going into puberty--and teenager-hood.  i think i will try to find her.

"Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Published: 2008
Read: 2010
Genre: historical fiction
Setting Island of Guernsey, off England during and after WWII
Rating 5
Review: A Guy's Moleskine Notebook, Sarah Reads Too Much, Stuck-In-A-Book, I Write in Books






Loved it, loved it, loved it.  My favorite topics: a love of books, reading and writing with a little history thrown in.  The story is told via written words: letters, notes, telegrams, etc.  So many POV which gives insight to the writer and also recipient.  Interesting question - would this work today?  Email, FB messages, texts?  Our communication these days are so short and terse.

Authors are not British - could have fooled me.  I was a bit disappointed when I found this out.  Could the story have been even "more British" than what it was?

Characters:

• Juliet - writer of letters, newspaper articles, books.  Very clever, funny, self-depreciating. 
• Sophie - her best friend who lives in Scotland.  Married with 2 children
• Sidney - Sophie's older brother and her editor/publisher.
• Mark - Wealthy American publisher who wants to marry Juliet

People at Guernsey:

• Dawsey Adams - has a book previously owned by Juliet on Charles Lamb.  He makes initial contact with her. 
• Ameliea Maugery - hid the pig and hosted the pig roast
• Elizabeth McKenna - came up with the idea of the society, after being caught post -curfew.  Was caught assisting a refuge and was sent to camp.  Has a daughter, Kit, via a German doctor.  She is shot at the camp, after aiding a poor woman who was being beaten for having her period.  This was days before being set free. 
• Isola Pribby - loved Bronte sisters.  Eccentric. 
• Will Thisbee - came up with the Potato Peel Pie
• Eban Ramsey - grandson is Eli.  Fisherman. Loves Shakespeare.

Quotes:
"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."     Isola

I could use this as a quote for Josh's blog
"When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein - side by side with Eli's father, John - visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on."  What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't.  It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever.  There's no end to that.  Be perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.  Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede.  But already, there are small islands of - hope?  Happiness?  Something like them, at any rate."      Amelia


"All these people I've come to know, and even love a little, waiting to see - me.  And I, without any paper to hide behind.  Sidney, in these past two or three years, I have become better at writing than living - and think what you do to my writing.  On the page, I'm perfectly charming, but that's just a trick I learned.  It has nothing to do with me."           Juliet

"The Red Tent" by Anita Dimant

Published: 1997
Read: 2010
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Based on Dinah in Genesis
Rating: 4
Reviews: Old English Rose Reads







Suggested by my sister-in-law.  Very quick read - in two nights. Sucked into the story immediately. Drawn to Dinah and her life.  Really liked the extrapolation and interpretation of her story - believable. Not only her story but of Jacob and his family.

Story Synopsis

Historical fiction published in 1997 about Dinah, daughter of Leah, first wife of Jacob. 

Expands on the bible story where Jacob deceived this brother Esau, out of his birthright and has to flee for his life. At his mother, Rebecca’s urging, he travels to her brother, Laban to find a wife. He falls in love with Rachel, the beautiful one but is “tricked” into marrying her older sister, Leah.

He has children via Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah.  These are all mother figures to Dinah.  She falls in love with a prince from Shechem. In order for his son to marry Dinah, the king agrees that all men will be circumcised. While recovering, Jacob’s sons murder all the men. Dinah, heartbroken, breaks ties with her family and goes to Egypt once her mother-in-law realizes that she carries a child. She give birth to a son who becomes her mother-in-law’s son. She becomes a renowned midwife and ends up delivering a child of her estranged brother, Joseph. Through him, she goes back to where Jacob’s tribe is.


Memorable Quotes:

The importance of remembering

“I wish I had more to tell of my grandmothers.  It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.” (3).

Remembering Josh is a holy activity - I believe it - can put this on his blog.