A Week of Reads
Some Good; Some Not So
It was only a week, but it seemed as if I’d been dozing, sneezing, coughing, and bingeing on historical dramas in print and video for forty days and forty nights. Like a baby with its days and nights mixed up, my sleep schedule didn’t help. I drifted in and out of daylight and alertness, with my high-test nasal decongestant spray the only thing that kept time for me, albeit in 12-hour segments.
The week before, I was nearly exhausted from helping my husband, who brought COVID into our otherwise, mostly healthy home. With his athsma, having the humidifier going and plenty of fluids and tissues and cough drops and food on hand in the guest room was critical. I accomplished mostly everything on both our lists, except for retrieving the mail on a few days.
He returned the favor for me the next week, as I spent the majority of my time in or on our bed dozing or reading.
Worried that working on my own historical novel during my bout with COVID might result in major errors that would cause contradictions or questions later, I settled for just reading and soaking up some historical ambiance. Here are my reflections about recent memorable fiction reads.
The Underground Railroad- Colson Whitehead
This Pulitzer Prize winner was a huge disappointment for me. While the descriptions and plot were interesting, I just could not get past the premise that there was a physical underground railway network that slaves used to work their way northward to freedom. Why invent such nonsense? It read like a gimmick to me. Once that element was introduced, I found myself doubting every historical element of the book.
Yellowface- R. F. Kung
Starting out with a bang, this novel revolves around a new author’s angst caused by comparing herself to her best friend, a rising star in the publishing world, and the crime she commits to achieve a similar status. Once she is in too deep to turn back, the story teeters on the edge of being a ghostly thriller. At that point, I was able to push away my teacher background to disregard the offensive inciting incident and read on to see how it turned out.
Two series by Susan Gabriel
The Temple Secrets Trilogy- Temple Secrets, Gullah Secrets and Tea Leaf Secrets
An entertaining series, these three novels are set in Savannah and weave cultural and societal traditions into the intertwined racial history of a prominent Southern family. The conflicts over inheritances and power kick off the series, but later the stories shift to focus on the Gullah background of one branch of the family as they uncover more secrets from relatives. Surviving a hurricane and the challenges of entrepreneurship round out the plots of these quick and entertaining reads.
The Wildflower Trilogy- The Secret Sense of Wildflower, Lily’s Song, and Daisy’s Fortune
Set in Apalachia, this generational series explores the values and challenges of three strong females in one family beginning in the 1940’s. The characters were well developed and likeabale and the plots were realistic and compelling. I especially liked teenager “Wildflower” in the first book who tried to navigate the loss of her father and life thereafter with little help from her emotionally distant mother. The book’s ending compelled me to read the sequel.
Warhorse- Micheal Morpurgo
Told from the perspective of a young horse named Joey, this story recounts how an auctioned-off colt connects with Albert, the teenage son of a drunken farmer, only to be sold to the English army and shipped off to France to serve in World War I. Frightened by the changes, Joey bonds with another cavalry horse who comforts him and helps him survive both in battle and pulling artillery wagons. The two animals eventually are captured by the Germans, who use them to convey ambulances. At the end of the war, Albert has enlisted and finds Joey in a veterinarian corps. Joey is set to be auctioned, rather than taken home by Albert. This Scholastic book is an easy read but an emotional one. Connecting to the horse protagonist is easy, and through Joey, readers see the pointlessness of war. The book was made into a Spielberg movie in 2011 and distributed by Touchstone Pictures. The film version won Film of the Year in 2011 from the American Film Institute. I’d like to see the film version.
The Dream Divided- Nancy Niblack Baxter
An 800-page account of the divided loyalties of Southern Indiana families during the Civil War, this saga follows enlisted men of the Indiana Fourteenth and Eightieth Regiments, as well as their families back home, loyal Unionists, mostly pacifist Quakers, and Hoosier Copperheads bent on ending the war in favor of the South. With rich detail and multiple plot lines, readers connect to several characters as they attempt to survive on the battlefield, in hospitals, in large northern cities, and at home. The book is epic in its survey of characters, Southern Indiana geography and history, and daily life during this era. A whopper of a read!