The People We Keep - Allison Larkin

Have I ever mentioned that I am in a book club?  I think it has been almost eight years or so.  I don't have many things in my life where I have made that length of commitment, so it feels like a big deal.

Anyway, I was surprised when I found out it was my turn to host.  That means I get to choose the book, and everyone comes to my place to discuss it.  I didn't have anything in mind, so I went to the NY Times Best Sellers list and if you must know...I simply chose this book by its cover.

It's beautiful.

I am a little worried my fellow book clubbers will tell me that they found it like torture to finish it and they only did for the purpose of book club.  We all have different tastes in literature so it feels a little daunting to find a book you think everyone will enjoy.

For starters, this book is so sad.  From the beginning to the end.  I am anxious to hear what my friend Michelle has to say as a mental health therapist.

Quick overview, April is an abandoned child who becomes independent and believes she is not worth caring about.  Throughout the book, she would leave every relationship/situation before she got left.  I can relate to this.

To be honest, I found the book draining and very depressing.  It needed a few more people who actually enjoyed living.  I mean...the cover is a sunbeam...it's happy and well...the book is not.

I do think the book meets typical book club criteria...it will generate some discussion.  Yes, we eat, drink, and catch up but we do talk about the books we read.  Almost everyone who hears I am in a book club asks me this, so I felt the need to clarify that we do in fact discuss the book.

The book depicts the profound power of "found family", the quest to find inner peace, and to follow your passion...the very thing that ignites you to live, love and breathe.

It is a story that asks: What is home? Who is really your family...the one you were born into, or the one you collect on your journey?

And then there is the bigger question:  Who do you keep...and who do you let go?

April's character makes me want to grieve all of the children like her who really don't have a chance unless someone makes a point to grab her, help her, and refuse to let her go.

Throughout the book, I was concerned, frustrated, and sad for her.  Mostly, I wanted her to grow and find happiness.  Larkin ultimately allows her to do both.

I've moved all over the country during my lifetime.  I was not abandoned or in the foster system however, I thought of that old adage...wherever you go there you are...

April ran from one person to another...one place to another.  She chased cities...her hopes and her dreams.  

From experience, I can say that it is in fact true...wherever you go...that is just exactly where you are.  You might just be next to an ocean instead of the mountains but who you are and what you are running from is still there.

Who do we look for...what do we look for...connection.  Finding people who make you feel like home.  

That to me is worth chasing.

"We have people we get to keep, who won't ever let us go.  And that's the most important part."

The Women by Kristen Hannah

 

The Women – Kristen Hannah

I read the Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, and it was intense. It was about surviving the Holocaust and it was my favorite book of last year.  I never wrote about it because…well…I wasn’t writing. 

I was talking to a co-worker about ‘core pursuits.’ He asked what mine were. I don’t know anymore, I said.  I guess reading…I used to write and take pictures.  What happened? I think I just got lazy.  So, I cancelled cable and have been reading more…still hope the writing will follow. 

In an attempt to not be lazy and since I LOVED the Nightingale, I grabbed her latest, The Women. 

"The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn't quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. - We were there."

This novel is of the Vietnam War and its effects in America. A novel of horrors, of love, of courage and of betrayal, and the friendship of three Army nurses. 

I love Frankie’s character. Knowing that the world was changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. She went in thinking that she needed to be on her father’s “Hero Wall”, but little did she know that she would become her own hero.

This book was brutal and yet sometimes beautiful. The way Frankie shows up and is in way over her head and yet gradually turns into a total BADASS over time. It is divided into two parts. Frankie's experience during the war and when she comes home.

I loved the first half of the book.  I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.   Then it became a story of…now what? Just what does come after the adrenaline rush of serving in a war?  It is hard to read and understand the deafening silence about the role women played in the war and then how they were treated on the other side of it.

Growing up, as a family, we would watch this TV show called MASH.  It depicted Army doctors and nurses in Korea.  I thought of this show a few times while reading this novel. 

Overall, it felt like a love letter to women…to nurses.  I enjoyed it and won’t forget all of the things we still need to do for our veterans…and for the women who served. 

Sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful.  They were there.

 

 

HORSE 

Geraldine Brooks

 My good friend Cindy chose this book for our book club.  

I didn’t ask her why she chose this book, but knowing her, I would guess it was because she loves animals, art & history. 

Horse is a true story of long buried facts and the ugly truths of horse racing, racism, art, greed, slavery, betrayal & ego.  The narrative goes back and forth in time from the 1800’s to present day.  I think I would have enjoyed the book so much more if the present-day portion of the book had been eliminated entirely. 

I opened the book and the very first paragraph is: the deceptively reductive forms of the artist’s work belie the density of meaning forged by a bifurcated existence.  These glyphs and ideograms signal to us from the crossroads freedom and slavery, White and Black, rural, and urban.

What?  I kept running into words I had never even seen before…for example: deshabillement, ferruled, addlepated, obduracy, subfusc…uh…standby while I go grab my dictionary.

The novel begins present day, Jess is an osteologist. I heard you just ask yourself…what does an osteologist do?  Without going all Geraldine Brooks on you, I’ll keep it simple.  It is someone who studies bones. 

Jess finds the bones of the greatest racehorse of all time.  Theo, a Nigerian American, is studying the art of horses as his PhD dissertation.  He digs a painting of a horse out of his neighbor’s trash which over the course of several chapters he finds out it is a very valuable piece of art.  As you may have guessed…this turns into a love connection and their story has a tragic ending.  In fact, this tragic ending of the story is the last 20 pages, and it ruins the book for me. 

Jarret, a slave on a southern plantation, finds his soul mate in Lexington, the GOAT of horse racing.  He has a short-lived racing career due to an unusual bone growth which causes him to become blind.  His career as a racehorse is over and then he is deemed the GOAT for being a stud sire.  To this day, people pay thousands of dollars for horses with Lexington’s bloodline.

I was fascinated by the thoroughbred, Lexington and Jarret who loved him.  That horse was his life. I don’t know anything about horse racing or raising a horse.  But after reading this…I feel like I have read the ugly underbelly of equine and greed in the industry.    

Overall, Brooks delves into the depiction of southern America slavery and the real heroes of the racing world back then…the black horseman. Racism played a central story in the lives of Lexington and Jarret; how could it not also play a role in the story of our modern protagonists? Combining the story of a legendary racehorse in the past with racial injustice that was rampant then, with the racial injustice that is still present now.  Jarret’s story colliding with Theo’s over generations, however, both as targets of racism in completely different times and circumstances.

Horse is so much more than a fascinating story about a racehorse.  It is a powerful story of history, the anatomy of Kentucky horse racing and breeding…the burial and rebirth of art and most heartbreaking…the reality of the victories and defeats of racism.  There is a lot of sadness in these pages…but there is also ambition, hope and the greatest of these…. love. 

Overall, I loved the book until I didn’t.