The Pecan Man

The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Looking back Ora, now in her 80s, decides to set the record straight on what happened back in the summer of 1976...

In 1976, widowed and childless Floridian Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless black man, named Eddie, to mow her grass and tinker in her garden - which causes an upheaval both in the community and with her friend and maid, Blanche. Eddie, nicknamed the Pecan Man, lives in a wooded area off of downtown and is not trusted by the white Floridian ladies in her small town. But Ora sees something in Eddie and still does, even when he's charged with killing the police chief's son. Ora also finds out a lot about her own character...

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The Silver Star

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writer of bestsellers, The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, has penned a coming-of-age book of fiction about two sisters, 12 year old, precocious, say it like she means it Bean and 15 year old, quite brilliant Liz who are used to being on their own in Cali as their mom, Charlotte, leaves them alone for days while she searches for musical stardom. But when the police start snooping around, the girls hop a unsettling Greyhound ride to visit an unknown eccentric uncle living in a once booming mill town in Virginia. Liz and Bean start to fit in and adjust to the sleepy town's ways but desegregation, bullying, and even worse await the girls, who have had to grow up too fast. Young Bean, who was once sheltered by Liz, now will need to be the protector.

I fell in love with Bean, who tries so hard to make everything right and who gets so angry with her mother for leaving them to fend for themselves. Her sense of black and white honesty and justice is perhaps just what we need...



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You are the Love of my Life

You Are the Love of My Life by Susan Richards Shreve
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lucy Painter has always kept secrets - it had been well taught to her by her mother after Lucy's beloved and famous father committed suicide in the Summer of '51. Now in the Winter of 1973 Lucy, single mom of teen Maggie and cuddly, sweet Felix, is moving back to her hometown of DC and the same house her father hanged himself. With her, Maggie will still carry all the shameful secrets, hauled back and forth across country, secrets that have become larger, secrets that even her children do not know. While hanging ever tighter to her encumbered baggage, Lucy continues to push people away, even her own daughter until it's almost too late....

A very interesting novel - I liked reading about DC in the early 70s. 12 going on 13 in 1973 and just getting ready to enter our 9-12th school here in Western Maryland, I remember hearing about the Watergate scandal and President Nixon and watching coverage on our B&W TV. (I won't mention how my father became agitated watching the only three channels we could get!) Another turbulent time in our lives...

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The Clothes on Their Backs

The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An unusual story of love and loss in many ways, The Clothes On Their Backs is a novel of great depth - Vivien Kovacs is the only child of Hungarian refugees. Timid and mousey, her parents had fortunately escaped their home country only months before the war. They only want to assimilate themselves into the quiet London neighborhood where lonely Vivien grows up - the only child on the block. When a neighboring spinster passes away, Vivien and her mother scoop up the clothing that has been left behind and Vivien begins to identify herself through the material worn on her skin. To her surprise, she also finds a scandalous uncle that her parents never told her about - but then, they never told her anything about their younger days in Hungary or even of other family members. Questioning the boring, quiet lifestyle of her parents, Vivien searches for this outlaw of an uncle that has been labeled a monster of a slumlord - a criminal that has spent many years behind bars, and begins to write his life story - and Vivien finds truth - the reasons for her parents mousiness and her uncle's greediness.

Vivien says, "The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in. We are trapped with these thick calves or pendulous breasts, our sunken chests, our dropping jowls. A million imperfections mar us. There are deep flaws we are not at liberty to do anything about except under the surgeon's knife. So the most you can do is put on a new dress, a different tie. We are forever turning into someone else, and should never forget that someone else is always looking."

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