Wolf Whistle

Wolf Whistle by Lewis Nordan was the latest book read for my book group. We met this week to discuss it and the book was a great one for discussion. It is the kind of book that before joining the group, I would have wished that I had a group to discuss it with. My book group is so good; it is amazing to hear all that each person gets out of each book. We have great discussions!

Wolf Whistle is based on the true story of Emmett Till, a young black boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman. The two men responsible were acquitted for the murder. Lewis Nordan grew up near the place that all of this occurred and the story is about the murder.

The character's name who is killed is Bobo, who has come to Arrow Catcher, Mississippi to visit from Chicago. He carries a picture of a white woman in his wallet and tells the boys that it is his girlfriend in Chicago, buy it is really a picture of Hedy Lamar. "Bobo said 'That's some good white stuff.'" trying to impress his new friends. Being from Chicago, he did not realize that down in Mississippi there is no joking around about blacks and whites being together.

One day, Lady Montberclair ("she was modern") went into the Red's Goodlookin Bar and Gro to buy tampons. Apparently, Bobo's friends dared him to ask her out or something and he went on in there.

"Everybody else heard it, though, what that spotey little shine did, dared to have did. Runt Conroy sure heard it. Runt heard it and wondered if he could teach his parrot to say hubba-hubba. His parrot couldn't say a word, only sound that durn retarded parrot could make was a noise like a cash register. Maybe it could learn hubba-habba.

Gilbert Mecklin heard it, the housepainter, just about the time he was helping his blind daddy come back up the steps. Gilbert didn't have time to pay it no mind, but he heard it. Heard him whistle, too. Wolf whistle, real low."

Solon Gregg had just arrived back in town and he heard it too. He began confronting Bobo, when Lady intervened and told Bobo to go get into her car.

Solon Gregg is protrayed as the trashiest of all white trash. He sees an opportunity to make some money and goes to Lady's husband with information that she was seen riding around with a young "buck" in her car. Lady's husband is who decides that Solon needs to take care of the situation for him.

This book is somewhat difficult to read because of the violence and just plain ignorance that is portrayed. It is quite horrifying, yet the real story is also, so I don't think that it should be down-played.

There is a great deal of symbolism in the book and quite a bit of humor. It's an interesting read. It was written in 1993 and won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

I recommend it!

Two Books Read!

I finished Jodi Picoult's book, Handle With Care, over the past weekend, then read No One You Know by Michelle Richmond.

It took me quite a while to read Handle With Care. The main topic of the book was quite disturbing/distressing to me. The main story of the book is about a "wrongful birth" lawsuit that the mother of 6 year old Willow decides to pursue against her OB-GYN, who is also her best friend. Willow was born with "brittle bone" disease. The story is divided into chapters narrated by the mother, the father, the OB-GYN, the older sister, and the attorney handling the lawsuit, so you get several different takes on the whole thing. As you can imagine, many different themes of love, loss, friendship, etc. are presented. Right from the beginning of the book, I was bothered by the message that the lawsuit gave to the child: the premise of the lawsuit was that if the doctor had informed the mother early in her pregnancy that the child had the disease, the mother would have aborted the child. It did help that the child's father recognized the message and refused to have any part of the lawsuit. The mother's contention was that the money from the lawsuit would be needed to care for the Willow as she grows up, and after her parents are no longer around to care for her.

Meanwhile, the older sister begins to act out in her own adolescent way, with no one really noticing, because they are all caught up in the lawsuit. The parents are having serious marital issues because of their opposing views about the lawsuit. The mother and doctor are no longer speaking after years of being best friends. The attorney is dealing with her own adoption issues and trying to locate her birth mother. Many things going on in this book.

The book is very long, and, as I said, because of the subject, difficult to read, but I stuck with it, knowing that Ms. Picoult usually has endings that are totally unexpected and I was curious to see if that would be the case. It was. And I cried at the end. And I thought about the end of the book for days.

So then, I read No One You Know, by Michelle Richmond. I had read her earlier book, The Year of Fog, last year and liked it. I thought this book was better. It is about a woman whose sister was found murdered twenty years ago. The author did good job processing how the loss had affected the remaining sister over the years. It ends up that the sister runs into the prime suspect when she was in Nicaragua for a few weeks for work. After they talk, she begins to question his assumed involvement in her sister's death. She begins to investigate people that had been involved with her sister back then. I thought that the end of the book was wrapped up too conveniently and quickly, but all in all, it was a good, quick read.