A Girl Named Tommi

THE BOOK WOMAN OF TROUBLESOME CREEK – Kim Michele Richardson

“How many times had the hunger pangs tempted him? Set his belly afire for the wanting? Yet, his love for words and books was stronger.”

Kim Michele Richardson’s The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (Sourcebooks 2019) is historical fiction set in the 1930s in Troublesome Creek, Kentucky – deep in the heart of Appalachia. The novel centers around two points of US history that I was unaware of until rumors of plagiarism brought this novel and another one, one written by a more well-known author, to my attention. (The fact I’m reviewing this one and not the other tells you where I fall in that discussion.) The Pack Horse Library Project was a Works Progress Administration program that delivered books to remote regions of the Appalachian Mountains between 1935-1943. The program often employed women, called Book Women, who would traverse rough terrain on horse or mule back, encountering dangerous animals (and people), to bring books to their patrons. These Book Women brought books to over 100,000 people. This novel follows one such woman, Cussy Mary Carter, who initially rode as a single woman and then again as a widow. (Married women could not work at the time.)

Cussy is unique in another way in that she’s one of Kentucky’s “Blue People.” Cussy and her family are based on the Fugate family of Troublesome Creek. Martin Fugate came to Kentucky from France in the 1820s and local legend says he was blue. He married and four of his children were blue. This blueness continued to be passed down, and in the 1960s, it was finally discovered that the Fugate family had a genetic condition called methemoglobiemia, which is passed through a recessive gene that flourished due to incest within the region. Richardson plays with the timeline a bit as it relates to the medical discovery as she has Cussy serve as the subject that helps uncover the root of the blueness and the cure.

A person with skin the color of a blueberry wasn’t within the realm of understanding for most, and the superstitions and discriminatory nature of those in Troublesome Creek made life quite difficult for both the real Fugates and the fictional Carters. Cussy’s father is a miner, and his goal is to see her married to someone who will take care of her after he is gone. Cussy has no desire to wed, and the only men who express interest in marrying a despised “blue” are those intrigued by the promise of land and the promise of her very attractive but still blue body.

While the heart of the story remains with books and the bridge they build between “a blue” and the residents of Troublesome Creek, the novel is peppered with tragedy after tragedy. But Cussy, through Richardson’s writing, focuses more on the books and the good and glosses over the bad. For example, more time is spent discussing the pineapple Lifesaver candy a starving student gives her in thanks for the books that won’t keep him fed or alive than is spent discussing her rape, assault, and subsequent abortion or the numerous deaths. It’s a choice, but I do wish we’d seen some of these things fleshed out a bit more.

The story-telling element is extremely simple. There are some hiccups – repetitiveness, inconsistent dialect, and some small plot holes – but these hiccups aren’t that damning, and the simple style makes it a palatable, quick read.

Read this book.

ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS – Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

“I would not have knowingly allowed even the image of a bird into my home, however beautiful. But I lived for and loved a bird-heart that summer; I only knew it afterwards.”

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s All the Little Bird-Hearts (Algonquin Books 2023), my tenth read of the 2023 Booker longlist, is a peculiar and unsettling read. Set in 1988, our protagonist, Sunday Forrester, is autistic. We’d barely scratched the surface of our understanding of autism and the full spectrum in the 1980s, and Sunday is undiagnosed. This is the second book on the longlist with a character with undiagnosed autism, and it’s interesting to compare the two. How to Build a Boat featured a young, neurodivergent boy, and All the Little Bird-Hearts focuses on a woman with a teenage daughter. I do not believe the author of How to Build a Boat is autistic, whereas Lloyd-Barlow is. And while I loved How to Build a Boat, it was very much outside looking in. All the Little Bird-Hearts is raw in its authenticity, and it lets the reader inside Sunday’s mind. It’s a peculiar read because of the unsettling, psychological thriller aspect. I was on edge while reading the novel. There are certainly witty moments as well as extremely devastating ones, but from the first line there is a hint of bad things coming. And how Lloyd-Barlow carries that hint throughout the entire novel is brilliant but makes for a very unsettling read.

Sunday hasn’t had the easiest life. Her sister died when she was young, and her parents blamed her and died soon after. Sunday lives in the same house she grew up in, and she works the same job she had as a teenager at the greenhouse on the farm run by her ex-husband’s family. She recognizes that her mind works differently, and there is a lot of masking in her life, but she largely keeps her circles small and avoids triggers – at least until Vita and Rollo move in next door, and then there is a summer of noises and brightly colored foods and clothes. Sunday is smitten by Vita, wanting to be in her light, and relishing the love and attention Vita puts on her. Vita doesn’t treat her differently. She isn’t offended by her bluntness or preference for silence; she includes Sunday the way Sunday is. But her attentions soon turn to Sunday’s teenage daughter, and Vita’s brightness draws Dolly like a flame. And Sunday can just watch it unfold, wondering if she’s jealous of Vita or Dolly, as Vita attempts to claim Sunday’s daughter as her own.

I didn’t have much sympathy for Dolly. I understand that she is a self-absorbed teenager, but she is just so mean to her mom. My favorite relationship, and one I wish there had been a bit more of, was that between Sunday and her deaf coworker, David. But that storyline wasn’t what this was – this was Sunday and Vita’s story, or rather the story of the summer Sunday’s life changed forever.

Read this novel.

Booker count: 10 of 13

FOUR TREASURES OF THE SKY – Jenny Tinghui Zhang

“There is something about her that can be rewritten over and over again.”

Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s Four Treasures of the Sky (Flatiron Books 2022) is a novel that I had to have when it was released, and a novel that’s sat on my physical TBR since. When curating my “ten before the end,” I pulled several selections from the older TBR (I have multiple stacks), and this cover, with the face in the waves and the shades of blue was an easy selection. I just didn’t expect it to be one of the more heartbreaking reads of the year.

Daiyu is named for a tragic heroine who dies of heartache when her beloved marries another. “They named me after a tragedy,’ I would complain to my grandmother.” “No, dear Daiyu, they named you after a poet.” And the novel brims with both tragedy and poetry – gorgeous writing that whispers in your ear like a lover and pulls you close only to cut your heart to shreds and leave you still bleeding out by the novel’s closing.

Daiyu is forced to rewrite herself over and over. When her parents are imprisoned, her grandmother cuts her hair and tells her to disappear into the city as a boy. She becomes Feng. As Feng, she works for a calligraphy teacher, learning lessons after her chores are done. She is smitten with the art and has a natural talent. As Feng, she is kidnapped at a fish market and trafficked to the United States, where, at 13, she is sold to a brothel that operates as a Chinese laundry during the day. She becomes Peony. She escapes with a young boy who, like every other man in her life, will let her down. But she leaves him behind, becoming Jason Li and making a home in Pierce, Idaho with two Chinese grocers and a Chinese violinist who was born and raised in Pierce. As anti-Chinese sentiment grows, even existing as boy becomes dangerous.

Struggling with her identity, Daiyu must reconcile the parts in her. She must find her name to claim her story, and this novel is that reclamation. Daiyu, like her namesake, is a beautiful and tragic character, one so tenderly depicted yet in sharp and bold strokes. And while the ending of the novel shattered me, leaving me whimpering for a page that was surely missing, for a happily after all that I wanted for her so much, I knew it hurt more because of how historically accurate it is.

Read this novel.

FAMILY LORE – Elizabeth Acevedo

“I knew there was no safe home in the world for the violence I felt in my body in that moment.”

Clap When You Land, Elizabeth Acevedo’s young adult novel in verse, was pure magic. When Acevedo’s first adult novel, Family Lore (Ecco 2023) was published, I wondered if Acevedo would be able to sprinkle some of that magic on it. Admittedly, the first half didn’t spark, and I’ll confess to having some doubts early on. For me, the novel was a bit The Fortunes of Jaded Women meets The Divine Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (Interestingly enough, all three of these novels are BOTM books!), and I was worried I’d be disappointed in it as I was with The Fortunes. But the second half ignited the pages, bringing that magic and finding me unable to put it down.

The novel follows the Marte women, blending past and present, weaving in and out of deeply guarded secrets and desires, and traveling from Santo Domingo to New York City. The novel is framed around Flor. Flor can predict the future, primarily when a person will die. When she decides to plan her own wake, her family readily accommodates her but moves in worried silence. Has she seen her own death?

Flor’s sister Pastora can read a person for truth – that is her gift – and she will not ask Flor about the wake and what she’s seen. She is afraid of what the truth will be. She, along with the other sisters, Matilde and Camila, begin to prepare for this family gathering – Flor’s living wake. Matilde’s magic is one of movement; she could move heavens and earth on the dance floor. Her curse is one of a barren womb and a philandering husband who has impregnated a much younger woman. Camila is the youngest and was raised as if an only child – but she’s the one who inherited their father’s understanding of herbs. The family’s lives, magic and madness are forever intertwined.

Flor’s daughter, Ona, and Pastora’s daughter, Yadi, cousins as close as sisters, join their mothers and aunts in preparations. Ona’s magic is in her vagina, the siren song between her legs a powerful testament to the strength and control of woman. But it’s failing her as all her attempts to get pregnant have been unsuccessful. Yadi’s power is in food, and her concoctions feed the mind, body and soul. While some people inherit family jewels, Yadi’s inheritance became a taste for limes and those limes completely turned her life around.

This is novel of sisters, daughters, and mothers – of family built on sisterhood. Of the secrets we hold for each other, the spaces we make for each other, and the choices we make for each other.

Read this novel.

STOLEN – Ann- Helén Laestadius

“The reindeer were biekka oapmi, belonging to the wind.”

Ann- Helén Laestadius’s Stolen (translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, Scribner 2023 – originally published by Romanus & Selling in 2021) came to my attention in January when Fredrick Backman recommended it. I made a mental note to check it out and promptly forgot. This summer, Backman mentioned it again. This time I didn’t forget, and I purchased the trade paperback with the beautiful wintry spine. It made my “ten before the end” list, and while this book is likely best read with a blanket of snow on the ground and a brutal chill in the air, I live in North Carolina. Despite lacking in snow, Stolen is one of my top reads of 2023.

The novel opens with nine-year-old Elsa, the daughter of a Sámi reindeer herder, skiing down to the corral by herself. She wanted to surprise the rest of her family by having the herd fed by the time they arrived. Instead, she stumbles onto a crime; a young man from the neighboring village, a man she knows, has just murdered a calf, her calf with her mark. He cuts off the calf’s ear to remove evidence of the mark and is planning on taking the calf when he sees Elsa. He threatens her and her family before fleeing. Elsa pockets the dropped ear of her beloved reindeer, Nastegallu, and never tells.

Ten years later, the moment at the corral and the secret she’d kept still haunts her. There have been well over a hundred police reports about reindeer being slaughtered, but the police view this attack on the Sami livelihood as “theft of property” and not a priority – each case is closed without charges. But Elsa isn’t 9 anymore. She begins to speak out, facing threats and slurs and more dead reindeer. Despite being a woman, she will stand next to the men to defend her herd, her family, and her way of life. And she will use the voice that refused to name the culprit when she was nine.

When I say this feels like Beartown you may think me crazy, but it does. And if you loved Benji, you’ll love Lasse. And this novel will claim your heart and your tears, especially the ending.

Read this book.

THE END OF WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC – Louise Kennedy

I called Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses a “weeping wound of a novel about womanhood, love, and family” in my 3/30/2023 review, and her collection of stories, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Riverhead 2023, expected 12/5/2023; first published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2021) is a series of festering wounds that one can’t resist picking at, even when it hurts.

The fifteen-story collection is populated by women you can’t forget. They are raw and broken, bitter and beautiful as they juggle the broken bits of the lives they thought they’d led. From cheating spouses to abortion to infertility to cancer, these women bare their teeth to the world – half feral in their survival.

My favorite of the collection is either “What the Birds Heard,” “Wolf Point,” or “Beyond Carthage” – it’s too hard to pick one as they all leave mark – a welt, a bruise, a split of skin, a taste of metal in your mouth.

Read this collection.

*A huge thanks to Riverhead for sending this advanced copy to me!

ALI AND NINO – Kurban Said

Next installment of Tommi Reads the World – the last of the As.

Country: Azerbaijan
Title: Ali and Nino, A Love Story
Author: Kurban Said
Language: German
Translator: Jenia Graman
Publisher: E. P. Tal (1937), First published in the US by The Overlook Press (1999)

“I, your Nino, I too am a tiny piece of this Europe that you hate, and here in Tiflis I feel it more than ever. I love you, and you love me. But I love woods and meadows, and you love hills and stones and sand. And that’s why I am afraid of you, afraid of your love and your world.”

“Other people will probably say I stay at home because I do not want to leave Nino’s dark eyes. Maybe. Maybe these people will even be right. For to me those dark eyes are my native earth, the call of home to the son a stranger tries to lead astray. I will defend the dark eyes of my homeland from the invisible danger.”

Published in Vienna in 1937, Ali and Nino was forgotten during WWII and fell out of print. Jenia Graman found a copy in a used bookstore in postwar Berlin and translated it in 1970. The history of the novel and its authorship is its own story. Kurban Said is a pseudonym, and there has been a bit of speculation and even claims made as to authorship, but nothing has been confirmed. Despite not knowing for sure the identity of the author, I elected to include it in my “Tommi Reads the World” challenge because it is set in Azerbaijan, and because the most likely author is Lev Nussimbaum (a Jewish man born in Baku who converted to Islam – he adopted the name Essad Bey after he converted) along with the Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels, an Austrian with whom Nussimbaum had a very intense friendship with – the romantics will say they were writing their own love story with Ali and Nino.

The novel follows Ali, an Islamic boy “of the sand” with a lion’s heart. He loves the desert. He loves his culture. He loves his people. He loves his home. But he also loves Nino, a beautiful Georgian Christian, who craves trees and meadows, and who has European tastes. Against all odds, their relationship grows. Ali is willing to give up certain traditions for Nino, and Nino is also willing to give up some of her own dreams for him. But she will not convert. Ali’s family doesn’t really protest the match – they are men who don’t believe women have souls or opinions, and they believe she would have beautiful children. Ali is a bit disgusted at how they discuss his future wife, but that is the constant battle that rages within him as he tries to position who he is and his beliefs with his love for Nino. Nino’s family takes a little bit of convincing – ultimately, they agree, thanks to an Armenian who convinces them that the merging of Ali and Nino will have far reaching positive implications.

But a Russian Revolution and world war come to Azerbaijan, and Ali will fight for his home. While the novel is written as a love story, and it has been compared to Romeo and Juliet, and the novel itself even draws that comparison between Ali and Nino, I’d argue that the true love story is between Ali and his home.

Ali and Nino is a slim novel with an epic story. It is heartbreaking and infuriating, and also really funny. Both Ali and Nino are quick witted with delightful senses of humor, and there are scenes, even during very tumultuous and chaotic times, that had me laughing out loud. I am very glad that the novel was rediscovered and that it continues to be published.

Read this book.

HOW TO SAY BABYLON – Safiya Sinclair

“With echoes of Educated” is not a selling point for me; I, in a very unpopular opinion, found that book overhyped with a narrator I neither trusted nor liked. Other than some fuzzy timelines and a focus on the power of learning, I’m pleased to say Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon (Simon & Schuster 2023) is authentic, genuine, and full of a roaring heart – in short, it’s nothing like Educated.

Safiya Sinclair is a poet. While it may have taken Derek Walcott to make her believe it, she was a poet long before he said it. What she does with words, how she molds them, strings them, hums them, is an artform. This is her mother’s doing, lit with the fire of her father’s anger and power become her own. The memoir chronicles her rigid Rastafarian upbringing with a father who became increasingly more controlling the older she got, and a mother whose spark dulled with each passing year. Sinclair found solace in words. No. That’s not right. Sinclair found rebellion in words. Rage in words. Freedom in words. Her father sought to lock her in a cage; her mother gave her the gift of words to escape.

Sinclair is unflinching in her portrayal of a father whose voice was like warm honey or the sharp blade of a machete, unflinching in her portrayal of a mother who sacrificed her to his wrath, unflinching in her portrayal of a country that eagerly lapped her blood. It’s raw, unfiltered, and broken – like her.

How to Say Babylon is the story of a woman healing her inner child, standing strong next to memories that could destroy, finding forgiveness for a love that was never severed and a past that cannot be excused, listening to the water that defined her younger years, and knowing where her heart beats loudest. Even still.

Read this book.

SILVER ALERT – Lee Smith

After I finished Backman’s novella, I still had several hours left of travel. Enter Lee Smith’s Silver Alert (Algonquin 2023), which I downloaded on Libby. A North Carolina resident, Smith’s writing vibrates and roars with the Southern gothic and grotesque – the voices her writing bring to life echo Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, loud and unforgettable on the page (or in this case, in my ear). It’s been a few years since I’ve read any Smith, but this was a no-brainer.

I’ve read some less than favorable reviews of the novel, which were written by folks who either aren’t familiar with or don’t enjoy the genre, and who clearly didn’t actually read the novel. I’d advise that you ignore them (and me) and decide for yourself.

The novel is one of dark humor. Herb Atlas, a wealthy man on wife number three, is struggling with overbearing adult children who want him to put his beautiful wife into a facility. Susan, his younger wife, is suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s, and Herb is trying to take care of her the best he can, but she keeps running off the home health nurses. Enter Dee Dee (or Renee as she introduces herself to Herb), a young woman running from a childhood of abuse, human trafficking, assault, and addiction. She’s a manicurist, and a rather hot one at that, and Herb hires her for Susan. (Despite having not seen his penis in years, he is still a bit of the womanizer.) Susan gravitates to the young woman, a peace settling on her that Herb hasn’t seen in a long time.

Dee Dee is dedicated to making a different life for herself, a new life. She’s taking on new clients, making money, and has fallen in love with a rich but strange young man. But the past rears its head when her dear friend begs for help, a type of help that isn’t exactly legal. It’s a past that becomes a present that is going to catch up with her. Before it can, Herb’s family swoops in. He’s been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and can no longer provide for himself, let alone Susan. Despite his protests, the children are moving both of them to a facility. When Dee Dee comes to tell him goodbye, he decides to take her for a spin in his yellow Porsche – a car he’d bought for his beloved Susan, and a car whose keys had been hidden from him. He’s not supposed to be driving, and Renee/Dee Dee is not supposed to be with him. But the pair take on the Keys together, the silver alert flashing as they drive.

It’s a quick read of found family, dark humor, and second and third and even seventh chances. Read this book.

AND EVERY MORNING THE WAY HOME GETS LONGER AND LONGER – Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman is a hearthug of an author, someone I can expect to break my heart while still wrapping me in a hug. I was looking for an audio book to read while travelling for Thanksgiving, and when I saw Backman’s And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (Simon & Schuster 2016), a slim novella, on Libby, I decided it was perfect. I didn’t realize until I was several minutes into listening just how perfect it would be for a day of family and giving thanks.

No one is better than Backman at understanding and presenting human nature and how perfectly imperfect life is, how perfectly imperfect we are. His full-length novels hum with that spirit and heart, and this novella is no different that the longer works.

The novella opens with Noah, a young boy, talking about his experiences with his grandfather, how he’d take the young boy out to various locations, hand him a compass, and tell him to take them home. How he’d shared a love of math with the young boy, promising him that math would always lead him home. But the grandfather is failing, his memories are falling out of his grasp, merging and blending and some simply disappearing, he’s confusing his numbers-loving-grandson, Noah, with his words-loving-son, Ted. He’s afraid of this loosening grasp on life, and this novella is his world flashing before him. The smell of hyacinth, a boat, the cigarettes he stopped smoking when she told him she was pregnant but he finds himself suddenly craving, his favorite joke that he’s forgotten the punch line to. He’s fading in front of son. In front of his grandson – and the memories are flooding the eyes and hearts of all three of the men.

The novella is one of mortality and memories and lives worth living, loving, and mourning the light as it fades from those we’ve never known a day without.

Read this book.