I Shall Not Hate, by Izzeldin Abuelaish

“Let my daughters be the last to die. Let this tragedy open the eyes of the world.  Let us ask each other, ‘Where are we going?  What are we doing?’  It’s time we sat down and talked to each other.”

Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian physician who lives in Gaza and who works in an Israeli hospital.  In this magnificent book, he chronicles the difficulties of those who live in Gaza, from lack of water and civic works to massive restrictions on movement to the physical dangers of the violence that is perpetrated on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

As the above quote implies, Abuelaish’s three daughters and his niece all perished when his home was struck by shells from an Israeli tank. He says, “Anger is fine, but we must all find the inner strength not to hate.”  This remarkable man is not blind to the violence that is committed and sustained by his own people and how that violence affects those in Israel.  But he also clearly and careful documents that there is hatred and violence on the other side as well.  And that the violence and the hatred that is engendered by this violence must cease.

In his Epilogue, Abuelaish states, “This book is also about freedom. We all must work toward freedom from disease, poverty, ignorance, oppression, and hatred.  In one horrifying year, my family and I faced tragedies that mountains cannot bear.  But as a Muslim with deep faith, I fully believe that what is from God is for good and what is bad is man-made and can be prevented or changed.”

May all of us, Muslim, Christian and Jew, come to this same understanding, and with that understanding become committed to work for freedom.—Jeanie Smith

Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue

Imbolo Mbue, herself an immigrant from Cameroon, has written a story focusing on two couples, one an immigrant family from Cameroon and the other, their upscale employers in New York City.  Mbue starts her story in the fall of 2007 and weaves a tale that combines the difficult decisions that many immigrants must face with the looming financial crisis.

As the book opens, Jende Jonga has just been hired as a chauffeur by Clark Edwards, a top executive for Lehman Brothers.  This job enables Jende to bring his wife, Neni, and their 6-year-old son to New York, where Neni finds temporary work for Edwards’ wife, Cindy, at their summer home in the Hamptons.

All, of course, does not go smoothly.  Jende does not have his green card and has been assured by his “cousin,” acting as his immigration lawyer, that it is only a matter of time.  Together they craft an exaggerated story to document Jende’s claim of dire danger to himself – from Neni’s family in Cameroon -- that will, hopefully, convince the immigration authorities to grant him asylum status.  In the meantime, Neni uncovers and documents Cindy’s drinking problem.

At the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Jende loses his job and with it, the Jongas’ ability to pay the rent on their modest apartment.  The financial squeeze leads Neni to take steps of her own that come as a surprise both to the reader and to Jende.

Throughout, Mbue shines her light on how these marriages work, and don’t work. Cultural differences play an important part, as we watch the Jongas through the lens of a strongly patriarchal background against the Edwards in a modern America where Cindy finds herself as a very wealthy stay-at-home mother/professional volunteer not quite in step with the times. Patterns of communication and non-communication, honesty and deceit, and saving face are woven together to craft a compelling story.

 The ending was both disappointing to me and, strangely at the same time, inevitable. But however I was feeling at the time I read the conclusion of this book, I found the whole book eminently readable and insightful.  Mbue has a strong voice and her characters are well drawn and true to human form, with their flaws and strengths, their compassion for one another and their casual disregard.  I cared about these people.  And, for me, that’s one mark of a good novel. — Jeanie Smith

An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones

Celestial and Roy have been married a little over a year when he is falsely accused of rape and sentenced to 12 years in prison. They’re both smart, educated, ambitious, highly focused, and African-American. He’s a marketing pro, she’s an artist. He’s her muse, she’s his inspiration.

            In An American Marriage, Tayari Jones follows the couple through Roy’s incarceration, building up layers of background stories to question just what marriage is and how being American, especially African-American, defines it.

            We learn about both sets of parents and their jagged paths toward one another, and we begin to understand how and why Celestial and Roy chose one another. Andre, who has loved Celestial since they were babies, is always a bit on the sidelines, adoring her even while introducing her to Roy and celebrating their marriage.

            Eventually we meet Roy’s “Biological”—the ne’er-do-well drifter to whom he is biologically related, even though the man he calls Big Roy has always been his real father. Jones deftly shows us that there is more than one way to be a father.

            Why do people choose who they marry? What draws people together and why do some marriages last and some not? Do we choose the partners we want or those we need? Does that matter?

            This is a story of affluent Americans who face challenges typical of many couples, but who also have the issue of race as a threat in the shadows. Roy is clearly innocent, yet it takes his lawyer five years to work past the bigoted local justice system to get him cleared. Then he returns to find what home now looks like, to deal with a brittle spirit that has endured evils he never knew existed, and a life without the mother he adored. 

              Celestial has moved on and, in her defense, she asks Roy, “Would you have waited for me for five years?”

            “This wouldn't have happened to you,” Roy replies. She is, after all, not a black man. But what Roy doesn't understand is the way in which being a woman has forced Celestial into a style of thinking and acting that confines her at the same time it defines her creative spirit. She is also broken.

            Ultimately, they both find a level of comfort and, perhaps, end up where they should have been in the first place. 

            Celestial and Roy are alternately charming and annoying, selfish yet giving. An American Marriage offers plenty of questions but no easy answers. It’s worth reading twice—once to get the story, once to get the characters. —Pat Prijatel 

Foolish Church, by Lee Roorda Schott

Pastor Lee visited with the Books, Brews, and Banter group this April. We talked about her inspiring book and how we might apply her wisdom to our own lives.  Below are three individual reviews of her book, which are also posted on Amazon's page for the book.

This powerful book is somewhat scholarship (footnotes and an extensive bibliography), somewhat how-to (discussion questions at the end of each chapter, plus helpful, practical appendices), and somewhat a memoir of Pastor Lee Roorda Schoot's leading a church inside a women's prison. But most of all, it's a passionate argument to make our churches really real—not just shiny, happy places where the nice people go periodically.

In a well-paced, anecdotal style, Pastor Lee convinces the reader (at least this reader) that if we open our churches (with wise and necessary boundaries) to ex-offenders, we also open our hearts and minds in a way that benefits each of us and the whole community.

FOOLISH CHURCH: MESSY, RAW, REAL, AND MAKING ROOM isn't just a book about welcoming ex-offenders. It's a book about welcoming ourselves and the worst things we have ever done. About acknowledging life's messiness. And making room.—Sharelle Moranville

  

"Pastor Lee," as the inmates at the Iowa Correctional Facility for Women at Mitchellville call her, gets down to the raw and messy sides of being part of a church today. Are we welcoming? Inclusive? Judgmental? Do we accept one another's scars (and our own), or are we looking for a sanitized community that's an idealized version of ourselves? In clear, direct and inspirational prose, Schott shows us the way to the church community we could be, using her relationship with women inmates as a model. A book well worth reading for any faith community. — Pat Prijatel

Foolish Church is a relatively short book that is long on wisdom about how to build more caring communities with room for people the church has often overlooked. Her message is a powerful, yet simple message that applies to all of us.  It is a plea to move beyond an assembly of the upright and proper, to make room for those on the edges of respectability. 

One quote that really resonates is “how do we become churches that build boundaries, but not walls.” Are we welcoming, inclusive, judgmental, or looking for a sanitized community? I believe that those are also questions that should be heeded by our President in making our country one that builds boundaries, not walls. —Ken Johnson

News of the World, by Paulette Jiles

In today’s world, we get our “news of the world” instantly, and literally, at the touch of our fingers—on computers, iPads, iPhones, TVs, car radios, and if you still read them, newspapers.  

But a century before all that sophisticated, fun and sometimes overwhelming communications technology worked its way into our modern world, citizens were hungry for news of their states and of the world.  

Enter Captain Jefferson Kidd, a grizzled elderly widower who has lived through three wars and  fought in two of them.  He made his living in Texas as a printer until he lost his business during the War Between the States.  In 1870, at the age of 71, the Captain finds a new way to make a living and enjoy the freedom of the road.  He travels from town to town and state to state, giving live readings from newspapers to audiences who are hungry for news of the world and who are willing to pay 20 cents to have him read it to them.   

He enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.Then in Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a fiesty, 9-year-old orphan girl to her family.  Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed her parents and sister, but spared the little girl and raised her as one of their own.  She was recently rescued by the U.S. Army.  Now the grizzled old man and the lost little girl both have to learn to take care of each other and find their place in the world. Joanna tries to escape every way and every chance she gets, including throwing her shoes away. But slowly they begin to form a bond during their 400-mile journey, and begin to trust each other.

Jiles is a wonderful writer, telling an imaginative story. Her descriptions make both characters and their environment alive and believable.  I loved every creative twist and turn of this book and couldn’t wait to see what happened to the Captain and Johanna.  — Gail Stilwill   

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard

The book group took on this 2011 book with the reluctance of several members.  It deals, after all, with that somewhat distant period of American history between the civil War and World War I and focuses on the assassination of President James Garfield, one of the string of presidents thought of today as non-entities.  As we got into the book, however, all were taken by the immediacy of the political situation and assassination and by Candice Millard’s skillful weaving together of the political intrigues before and after Garfield’s election, the insanity of the assassin Charles Guiteau, the medical treatment of the President, and Alexander Graham Bell’s frantic efforts to perfect a device to locate the bullet.  

The years following the Civil War were marked by deep political divisions and rapid technological change.  On the political side, reconstruction was ended in 1877 leaving civil rights issues unresolved, as they would remain for decades longer.  It was a time of enormous industrial expansion, with railroads, electricity, telephones, elevators, photography, and many other life-altering technologies becoming commercialized.  Millard brings some of this to life in a way that made us feel at home in the 1880s.  

Garfield himself comes as a surprise.  From a log cabin background in frontier Ohio, he proved an able scholar and was president of a small liberal arts college in Ohio while still in his 20s.  He served with distinction in the Civil War, securing Kentucky as a part of the Union, and becoming a Brigadier General. Meanwhile, he had been elected to the Ohio legislature and the US Congress where he served until his compromise nomination by a stalemated Republican convention in 1880.  Millard presents him as a centrist politician, committed among other things to merit-based civil service appointments that would have ended the spoils system where a newly elected administration could replace the entire federal work force from top to bottom.  Garfield’s personal integrity and respect may have offered a bridge across political divides, and might have reconciled the post-reconstruction south, African-Americans, the conservative branch of the Republican Party (the “Stalwarts”), and Garfield’s own progressive branch of the Republican Party (the “Half-Breeds,” later exemplified by Theodore Roosevelt).  We can only speculate how the destiny of the Republic was altered by his assassination and whether later controversies might have been lessened or avoided had Garfield been able to complete his presidency.  

Millard also portrays very real personalities, including Garfield’s likeable family, the venal Senator Roscoe Conkling, the arrogant Doctor Bliss, the utterly crazy Charles Guiteau, and the hyperactive Alexander Bell.  There are other characters we would have liked to know better, such as Doctor Susan Edson, a woman physician who was allowed only a subordinate role in treating the wounded Garfield, and Julia Sand, whose letters gave remarkably salient political advice to Vice-President Chester Arthur as he assumed the presidency. 

Millard’s excellent telling of these interrelated stories won over all the members of the book group. A remote period became very immediate. Millard gives lucid clinical descriptions of the medical treatment of the wounded president by American practitioners who still resisted antiseptic practices that had gained acceptance in Europe, and that would probably have avoided the sepsis that ultimately killed Garfield after ten agonizing weeks of highly questionable treatment.  Though we know the outcome, Millard lets us feel the suspense as flawed characters pile tragedy upon tragedy to undo an admirable hero and change American destiny.  — Bill Smith

Glass Houses, by Louise Penny

For the thirteenth time, Louise Penny has written a number-one best selling mystery novel. And once again, Superintendent Armand Gamache (now promoted to Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec) plays the leading role.  But this time Penny’s plot weaves two seemingly un-related stories together into an intricate mystery full of twists and turns, juicy details and humor. It’s a great read.  And, like all Penny’s Gamache mysteries, it is beautifully written.

The book opens on a steamy July day in an uncomfortably hot Montreal courtroom. Surprisingly, Gamache is the one on the stand.  We see a whole different side of his character as we watch and listen to his testimony about drug trafficking.  We learn that he is the courageous, behind-the-scenes leader of a secret, one-man very dangerous war against drugs.  It’s a war that could cost—or save—hundreds of lives. Including Gamache’s.

The second, seemingly un-related, story begins three months later on a cold, rainy November day in Three Pines with the sudden, mysterious appearance of a masked, cloaked figure.  He stands unmoving for hours, then days, on the Village Green thorough rain and sleet, staring at someone or something in the village. 

Villagers come to believe that the figure is a Cobrador, a debt collector. According to history, they act as a conscience for someone who has committed a terrible crime.Villagers are curious, but soon become wary.  Gamache suspects the creature has a “dark purpose.” But he can do nothing but watch and wait for days, as his fears continue to mount. Then the creature vanishes as quickly and quietly as it arrived.  But the villagers’ relief quickly turned to fear when a body is discovered. And another murder mystery begins. 

Penny toggles between the two stories, between the courtroom in Montreal and the village of Three Pines, putting her readers inside Gamache’s head as he slowly and meticulously unravels the mysteries.  She weaves an intricate plot, taking readers scene by tantalizing scene to the truth that finally solves the mystery.— by Gail Stilwill