Hillbilly Elegy

I had wanted to read Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance for quite awhile, but just hadn't picked it up. It was chosen by one of my book groups, so that was my chance!



I was surprised how easily this book read.  It is the story of J.D. Vance and how he lived and survived his upbringing.  It is a story of success for the author's life, but is also a stunning look at what the lives of "hillbillies, rednecks or white trash" are, how they deal with what life has given them and how society works against their chances of getting out of the poverty of their lives.  The book tells the real story of what it is like to be born into poverty and the difficulties that come with that.

Vance was essentially raised by his grandmother, herself being a survivor of poverty. She was a hell-raiser and a strong influencer and proponent of her grandson.  Vance completed high school, joined the Marines, then went to college, graduated and went on to Yale Law School. He wrote "I was one lucky son of a bitch."

The book is full of interesting characters (who are real people), and Vance does a good job talking about what is needed to begin to eliminate the poverty that so many are in.

I found this to be a very readable, informative, and, at times, entertaining book.

Two more by t. greenwood

Ok, I think that these are the last two books by t. greenwood that I will read for awhile!  Both were quite good stories and were tied together by some characters and location.

Breathing Water was written in 1999 and is the story of Effie Greer. Effie had left Lake Gormlaith after no longer being able to remain in a relationship with her boyfriend Max after a terrible tragedy occurred at the lake.  Max was a drug addict and abusive and Effie had thought that she could save him.  When she left, she wandered across the country, never staying too long anywhere so that Max could not find her.  Finally, after three years of running, Effie felt safe to return to Lake Gormlaith.  She went to her grandparent's rundown cottage where and began renovating it.  She slowly allowed others, including her widowed grandmother Gussie, to enter her world and hope and forgiveness began for Effie.



Bodies of Water was written in 2013.  This is a story about Gussie's sister, Billie.  Billie was married at eighteen to Frankie, a verbally abusive alcoholic.  Together they had two daughters.  One day, in the summer of 1960, Billie's world changed when Ted and Eva Wilson and their children moved into the house across the street.  Very quickly, Eva and Billie and their children spent all their time together. Billie and her children always spent time at Lake during the summer, providing Billie with some reprieve from Frankie. After Eva moved in, Billie invited her and her children to come for two weeks. During that time, Billie and Eva acted upon their feelings for each other.

Later, after Billie and Eva's secret relationship was revealed, all hell broke loose.  Ted moved his family away and Billie had little contact with her.

Fifty years later, Eva's son contacted Gussie looking for Billie.  He wanted to meet with her.  Eva reluctantly flew across the country at Gussie's urging and there Billie learned some surprising secrets from the past fifty years.

Both of these books are beautifully written and both use water as a metaphor.

"Memory is the same as water.  It is a still lake bathed in moonlight, a vast ocean, a violent river ready to carry you away.  It can calm you or it can harm you; it is both more powerful and weaker than you'd think.  It is a paradox."

The Golden Hour

As promised, I read another book by T. Greenwood, this one being The Golden Hour.  I usually really like her books and this one was no exception.


This novel is about Wyn Davies.  Wyn was a young girl when she went on a shortcut in the woods and was harmed.  Twenty years later, Wyn was living in New York, working as an artist and married with a four year old daughter.  She and her husband were recently separated, when Wyn learned that her assailant may be released from prison based on new evidence. And that she may have to testify and tell what really happened that day.

Wyn's best friend had recently purchased an old cabin in Maine and needed a caretaker for it, so Wyn agreed go up there and stay for awhile.  The cabin had been empty for years and was in pretty bad shape.  While cleaning up in the basement of the cabin, Wyn came across a box full of old film canisters.  The box was labeled "Epitaphs and Prophecies".  Of course, Wyn was both curious and fascinated, so she began having the film processed and as she examined the photos and/or negatives, she began to put together the story of the former owner of the cabin.  In that process, Wyn also began to piece together her own life.

Another good book!  I love finding good books!

Two books: At the Edge of the Orchard & The Hush

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier was a book I picked up while on vacation last month.  I wish, once again, that I had read the author's notes at the end of the book to learn that some of the characters were based on real people.  If I had known that I would have enjoyed the book a little more.  The novel is divided into several sections, going back and forth in time.

The novel began telling the story of James and Sadie Goodenough who settled in Ohio in 1838.  James was determined to grow fifty apple trees so that the family could stake a claim on the property.  He was also determined to attempt to grow hybrid apples. Sadie loved the applejack (alcohol) which brought out a mean side of her.  James and Sadie had ten children so along with the struggles of trying to grow apples in the black swamp land, they had a large family to provide for.  James and Sadie ended up not caring for each other much.

By 1840, the youngest son, Robert, was traveling from Ohio to Canada, then to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Texas, until he finally settled in California in 1850.  He spent a few years gold mining there, then worked dozens of other jobs until one day he heard of the big trees in Calaveras County.  When he got there, he happened to meet William Lobb who made his living selling seeds and saplings to people in England.  He and Robert became friends, and William recognized that Robert knew about working with trees and hired him.

I don't want to give anything away, but there is a lot that happens in this novel.  It's a good read.  I recommend it!

The Hush by John Hart was a book that I was very anxious to read because I usually like his books very much.  I had a harder time liking this book because it has some mysticism in it (which is an element I usually enjoy in a book) and it just didn't seem true to his novels.  However, I still am finding myself thinking about parts of the book, so I think that I liked it better than I first thought.  The novel is based on two characters that Hart has written about before: Johnny Merrimon and Jack Cross, ten years later. 


Johnny and Jack had always been best friends, although their lives went in different directions.  Johnny lived on six thousand sacred acres, in a cabin, but sometimes up in the trees.  He was removed from other people and some were afraid of him.  Jack had gone to college and then law school and was a brand new lawyer starting a new job in a law firm.  Johnny showed up at Jack's office asking for help.  He had inherited his land when he turned eighteen, but it was sacred land and now the Indians who had come from the land wanted it back.  Johnny wanted Jack to act as his attorney.

This sacred land had many secrets, some considered it magical.  It was certainly mysterious. And dangerous.  Unexplainable things happened in the Hush.

It's a good mystery.  Another book I would recommend.

Johnny and Jack had always been best friends even though their lives took different paths.  Johnny was living on six thousand acres (Hush Arbor) of his family's sacred land.  He was fairly removed from others and had a reputation as being rather strange.  Jack had gone on to college and law school and was a brand new lawyer just starting out in a law firm. n

The Broken Girls

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James was a book group choice for March.  It was a good mystery. I liked the way it was written, going between 1950 and then to 2014.  It also was not predictable (to me, at least, nor to any of the book group).


The Broken Girls is really two stories connected and intertwined with each other.  Part of the book is about a four girls living in a boarding school called Idlewild Hall in 1950.  It was where the "unwanted girls" were sent. Those girls who caused trouble for their families in various ways were sent there.  Even in 1950, it was said that the school was haunted. The other part of the book is set in 2014, when Fiona Sheridan, a journalist, learned that the school was being restored.  Her sister had been found dead on that property twenty years earlier.  Fiona decided to write a story about Idlewood Hall, not realizing, of course, that she would be opening up all kinds of secrets.

It's a good mystery!  I recommend it!

Some Beach Time Reading

Just spent two and a half weeks at the beach and got lots of reading in sitting by the pool!  Oh, what a life!  Anyway, I loved the books that I read! I recommend all of them!

1) Cemetery Road-by Greg Iles.  Iles is one of my very favorite mystery authors, so I was at the bookstore the day this came out.  It didn't disappoint!


The first paragraph of the book sums it up:

"I never meant to kill my brother.  I never set out to hate my father.  I never dreamed I would bury my own son.  Nor could I have imagined that I would betray the childhood friend who saved my live, or win a Pulitzer Prize for telling a lie."

In the story Marshall McEwan, a journalist, returned to his hometown, Bienville, Mississippi, to help with his terminally ill father.  Marshall never wanted to return there for a variety of reasons, including that he felt that his father had always blamed him for his brother's death and that his lover from years before had stayed there and married his best friend. Shortly after his return one of his old friends and mentor was found dead under suspicious circumstances.

The old Southern town held many secrets and as Marshall begins to investigate, the secrets began to emerge.

Another great read by Iles.

2) The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough.  I'm not sure that any review of this book is necessary, but I wanted to add my impressions after reading it again after forty-two years (it came out in 1977).


What struck me the most is that usually most people's impression when they hear the name of the book remember it as a great love story between a priest and a younger woman.  Reading it this time, I was struck with how little that love story was a part of the whole book.  It really is a story of three generations of the Cleary family and their struggles on the ranch in Australia. The love story of Meggie and Fr. Ralph is like a thin silk thread running through the book.


I was also struck by how really good the book is.  It certainly stands the test of time.  Excellent writing.  Each chapter is centered around one of the main characters as the book goes from 1915 to 1969.



3) Inheritance by Dani Shapiro.  This was a fascinating book.  It is a memoir about identity, love, ethics and forgiveness.

Dani was raised as an Orthodox Jew.  She was blonde haired and blue eyed and had been questioned about her Jewishness every once in awhile, but she did not have any reason to question her appearance.  She had grown up very close to her father, practicing the faith religiously with him.



Years later after her parents were dead and Dani was fifty-four years old, Dani's husband decided to do a DNA test and casually asked her if she wanted to order one also.  She said that she would, even though her half-sister had done one several years before. Then pretty much forgot about it.  Until the results arrived.  Dani learned that her father was not her biological father.  She began researching the family history and eventually found that she had been conceived by artificial insemination.  Of course, Dani then felt as if her entire life had been based on a lie...the ancestors in all the pictures were not her family.

Eventually, Dani was able to learn who her biological father, contacted him and began a tenuous relationship with him and his family.

I found the book so fascinating as Dani worked through the mysteries of her family and the clues that had been forgotten in the back of her mind.

where i lost her

T. Greenwood's novel, where i lost her,  is one that I have been waiting to read for a long time.  It came out three years ago and I never saw it in paperback, so I finally ordered it through ebay.  It was a quick read and, while I didn't think that it was the best of her novels that I have read, I found myself thinking about it for days after I finished it.



The novel tells two stories about Tess Waters, a married woman, who several years earlier had attempted to adopt an infant from Guatemala.  The story of that failed attempt is told in the italic chapters of where i lost her.  In the present time, Tess and her husband Jake had gone to visit longtime friends, Effie and Devin and their two daughters, at their cabin in Vermont.  Late one evening, Tess left the cabin to drive to the local liquor store and on the dark lonely road, came upon a young girl standing in the middle of the road.  Tess thought that the girl was three or four years old.  When Tess got out of the car to check on the girl, the girl ran off into the woods.  Tess tried to follow her, but lost her.  When Tess returned to the cabin, police were called and a search was begun for the young girl.

After a few days, the girl had not been located, nor was there any report of a missing young girl.  Her husband and their friends wondered if Tess was having a breakdown similar to what happened to her when the adoption had failed several years before.  Her tenuous marriage with Jake had been falling apart over the last few months also.

Tess persevered and continued to search for the young girl.  Her friend Effie continued to support her in any way she could as Tess began to uncover bits and pieces of illegal activities going on in the area.

I thought that the story kind of came together too easily in the end, but it still was a good read.  I will continue to seek out more of the author's works.