Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan

Winner of the Bellwether Prize, awarded to a first literary novel that promotes social justice.

Two men return to the Jim Crow world of the Mississippi Delta from World War II; one is black, one is white. Both have lived a life far freer than the one they now face. Ronsel Jackson is the son of sharecroppers, and Jamie McAllan is the brother of the owner of Mudbound, the cotton farm that ties the two men and their families together.

It’s a miserable place, the owner’s house little more than a shack, the people mired both in mud and a system of rules that keeps everybody—blacks, whites, men, women— in their narrowly defined space. Ronstel’s father works a grueling schedule to maintain his status as a tenant farmer, which means he gets half of the crops he and his family harvests. When a storm kills his mule, he can no longer keep up and faces returning to sharecropper status, meaning he gets only 25 percent. So a mule is the difference between making a living wage and being forever indentured.

Ronstel’s mother Florence is a midwife who saves the lives of the farm owner's daughters and helps the wife, Laura McAllan, turn her hovel into something of a home.  Yet, her thanks is to be treated as less than, because she is black.

The nonchalant racism of the farm’s owners is chilling. Laura notes that, while she appreciates Florence’s help, she is careful not to let the help cross the invisible line between black and white. She uses Florence’s first name, but Florence must call her “Miz McAllan.” And Florence and her daughter Lilly can’t even use the family’s outside toilet—they have to use the woods behind it. (Hard to see that as anything but an improvement, but rules are rules.)

Laura’s husband Henry is so in love with his land that he ignores the real dangers in his family, primarily those caused by his father, Pappy, who is evil incarnate and the catalyst for the disastrous events that end the novel.

Author Hillary Jordan writes each chapter in the voice of one of the main characters, giving insight into their hopes, fears, and justifications. She does not let Pappy speak, perhaps because he does not survive—which we learn in the first chapter, so no spoiler there. It would have been a challenge to hear such a nasty character explain himself, though. Such is the nature of his personality, however, that we all enjoyed the book a bit more knowing he would not survive.—Pat Prijatel

Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande

In Being Mortal, Gawande tackles a significant challenge of his profession: how medicine can improve life, as well as the process of its ending. In other words, he asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end. 

Being Mortal is a valuable contribution to the growing literature on aging, death and dying.  Despite advances in medicine, he calls for a radical transformation in how we approach the end of life.  He states that nursing homes are preoccupied with safety, pinning patients into railed beds and wheelchairs;  hospitals isolating the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot; and doctors, committed to extending life, continuing to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

His early description of how the body decays with age is nothing if not sobering. From the news that an elderly person’s shrinking brain can actually be knocked around inside the skull to the way a tooth can determine a person’s age, he goes through a litany of descriptions of how the body goes through scary decaying changes.

He states that it is unfortunate that the number of doctors willing to become geriatricians is shrinking, primarily because the field is not as lucrative as most other specialties and because it provides so little instant satisfaction, and requires such work as a detailed, lengthy examination of callused old feet. Patients are usually deaf and forgetful, can’t see, have trouble understanding what the doctor is saying, have not one complaint but fifteen, have high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis. “There’s nothing glamorous about taking care of any of those things," he writes.  But, he contends that patients who receive good geriatric care stay happier and healthier, particularly those who can remain at home and aren’t forced into a nursing home.

At the end of the book, he states that, “The debate is about what mistakes we fear most – the mistake of prolonging suffering or the mistake of shortening valued life.” While posing that there are no perfect solutions, he asks that medicine commit itself to creating better options and making choices with the goal of a purposeful life in mind.

Aside from suggesting it be read by physicians, I also strongly believe it should be read by everyone over sixty, and well as their children who will like be involved in the decisions that need to be made toward the end of life. —Ken Johnson

The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction

Joe, 13, lives with his parents on the Ojibwa Indian reservation in a North Dakota.  When Joe's mother is brutally raped, the family is devastated and the investigation into the crime grinds to a halt when Joe's mother retreats into herself and refuses to talk about the event.

As he watches his mother's slow and agonizing recovery, Joe becomes even more determined to find the rapist and somehow bring him to justice. With the help of his two best friends and some unintended inspiration from a battle-scarred former-Marine-turned-Catholic-priest, they do learn the identity of the rapist.  

But the events that follow are both bittersweet and tragic and will change all of their lives forever.

The book is more than a good mystery.  It also paints a picture of a wonderful, close-knit family and  skillfully weaves an understanding of the Indian culture that is so much a part of the lives of the tribe. This is a wonderfully written story from start to finish. —by Gail Stilwill