Redwood Court by DeLana R. A. Dameron

“You have all these stories inside you–that’s what we have to pass on–all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You have the stories you’ve heard and the ones you”ve yet to hear. The ones you’ll live to tell someone else. That’s a gift that gives and gives and gives. You get to make it into something for tomorrow. You write ‘en in your books and show everyone who we are.”

from Redwood Court by DeLana R. A. Dameron

Redwood Court reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: the story of a girl growing up, set in a particular time and place and culture, but universal in its appeal and wisdom.

The time is the 1990s. The place is Columbia, Georgia. Redwood Court is home to Mika’s grandparents, who proudly purchased the suburban home in the 1960s. It was an achievement of having ‘made it.’ Mika adores her grandfather Teeta, the heart of the family. Her grandmother Weesie shaped the street into a community of mutual support. As Mika’s parents both work, she spends summers with her grandparents.

The novel begins with a homework project Mika is struggling over. She is tasked to trace her family history, but as African Americans, discovering their roots is unlikely. Teeta tells Mika that it’s her job to preserve their stories for the future. And the entire book tells their story, past and present, from the grandparent’s remarkable love story to her uncle’s incarceration. Mika spends time with the women, listening, learning.

This unforgettable family has its joys and losses, holds on to hope and faces the cruel reality of racism. It’s a wonderful debut novel and I look forward to hearing more from this writer.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Redwood Court
by DéLana R. A. Dameron
Pub Date February 6, 2024
Random House, The Dial Press
ISBN: 9780593447024

from the publisher

“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside you: all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.”

So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.

With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.

Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux

You are a creature of the despotism, a pukka sahib, tied tighter than a monk or a savage by an unbreakable system of taboos.

― George Orwell in Burmese Days

“Don’t let us down, Eric,” his father told him gruffly.

Eric had played his role in school and was now playing his role as a policeman in colonial Burma. And he hated it, all of it. He hated the club but forced himself to go, pretending to care about a billiards game. He abhorred the racism of his superiors, how they held the native’s lives so cheaply, their diminishment of the men as savages, their easy use of the women. Eric mimicked their words publicly and privately mulled on seditious thoughts. He took native lovers, against the rules. His bosses held him accountable for his naivety and errors and the failings of the men who did all the work for him. He was imprisoned as much as the men he arrested. And one day, he dropped his facade and cursed his commander.

Eric had an alter ego–George–who broke rules. After he left Burma, he became George Orwell.

I was captivated by this novelization of Orwell’s early life from a nineteen-year-old beginning a career for which he was entirely unsuited to his leaving Burma at age twenty-five.

Colonialism in all its ugliness is revealed. The details change, but human nature does not. The powerful prey on the weak and vilify those who rise up demanding justice and self-determination. The Colonists justify stealing the country’s wealth by claims of bringing ‘civilization’ and ‘order’ and technology.

Eric’s reading takes us into the pivotal books of the time, D. H. Lawrence and Somerset Maugham and H. G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling and E. M. Forster, and he is both inspired by them and critical of their lack of the deep first-hand knowledge he has gained. Eric begins writing his own novel, hoping his alter ego George will use this hard-earned knowledge to pen truths the others don’t know, the cruelty and inhumane business of empire.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Burma Sahib
by Paul Theroux
Pub Date February 6 2024
Mariner Books
ISBN: 9780063297548

from the publisher

From the acclaimed author of The Mosquito Coast and The Bad Angel Brothers comes a riveting new novel exploring one of English literature’s most beloved and controversial figures—George Orwell—and the early years as an officer in colonial Burma that transformed him from Eric Blair, the British Raj policeman, into Orwell the anticolonial writer.

At age nineteen, young Eton graduate Eric Blair set sail for India, dreading the assignment ahead. Along with several other young conscripts, he would be trained for three years as a servant of the British Empire, overseeing the local policemen in Burma. Navigating the social, racial, and class politics of his fellow British at the same time as he learned the local languages and struggled to control his men would prove difficult enough. But doing all of this while grappling with his own self-worth, his sense that he was not cut out for this, is soon overwhelming for the young Blair. Eventually, his clashes with his superiors, and the drama that unfolds in this hot, beautiful land, will change him forever.

Books, Quilts, News

Recent book mail has included A New Deal for Quilts for Janneken Smucker, published by the International Quilt Museum. It is a fascinating study of quilt history, especially quilt mythology used by the New Deal to promote its vision of American self-sufficiency while employing impoverished women. I previous read her book Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon.

From Bellevue Literary Press came To and Fro by Leah Hager Cohen. Two mirrored narratives tell of two girls, one living in a parable and the other in Manhattan. Sounds so intruguing!

I am luckily pre-approved by Little, Brown for their books on NetGalley and quickly snapped up Paradise of the Damned by Keith Thomson, a nonfiction book about Sir Walter Raleigh and his quest for Eldorado. It sounds like a great adventure read!

The suet feeder has attracted flicker and Downey woodpecker, and the starlings and house sparrows have learned how to cling to the cage to eat as well. We added a dish of bird feed which brings the cardinals, blue jay, junco, purple finch, and also the house sparrows and starlings. Most days the patio is busy with birds!

We hung new quilts at the Clawson library. Below is a Sue Spargo pattern made by Theresa Nielson. It features wool applique, embroidery, and beading.

I hung the preprinted panel quilts I have been making. It is a great way to perfect my machine quilting skills.

I finished the farm life embroidered quilt. The embroidered blocks were made by my neighbor Julia Holeton who passed a few years back. The quilt was badly torn from long use and I removed the blocks and reset them into a crib quilt. I used vintage fabric for the outer border.

I also hung a Lone Star quilt I made in a class long ago.

My brother and his girlfriend finished walking the North Country Trail from the Ohio border to the Straits of Mackinac. Martha snapped this photo of the Mackinac Bridge.

The bathroom drywall is being finished and in a few days the tile will be installed. I have finally perfected a vision for decorating the bath, and will make a final paint decision in a few days…after the ice storm is over and it’s safe to go out again!

Our neighbor and his son have been clearing the sidewalk and driveway of snow–three times in one week. My husband thanks them with a loaf of his homemade bread.

It is pretty nasty weather in much of the country. Stay safe. Find your bliss.

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

So the fact that a few stories about adoption are the only ones that ever get told seems like a problem to me.

from Family Family by Laurie Frankel

For a hilarious, joyful read, this novel’s intent is serious: to rewrite the adoption narrative. These complicated, messy characters have made complicated and wonderful choices.

India Allwood was seven when she saw her first Broadway show. She dedicated her life to forging an acting career. Nothing was going to get in her way. Not the fact that she couldn’t sing, or wasn’t the most beautiful person around. Not love. Not a teenage pregnancy. Putting a career first meant giving up her baby and losing her true love. But she knew the adoptive parent was perfect, that she had given joy to someone who wanted to be a parent, and had given her baby a good life, and given herself the freedom to follow her dreams.

Years later, India has adopted twins and has a cult following for her television show. But there is blowback for her portrayal of a pregnant teenager in a movie made during the Covid pandemic. It threatens to end her career.

Her children, though, have set into motion a series of events that are revelatory and healing for all involved.

It’s all about family and ‘family family’, how love is not always enough, and how adoption can be joyful and positive. It’s about the challenges of parenting and growing up as an adopted child, and how a decision that can be right for a child affects the parents. It’s about love, and the limits of love, and how love sustains and never ends.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Family Family
by Laurie Frankel
Pub Date January 23, 2024
Henry Holt & Company
ISBN: 9781250236807

from the publisher

“Not all stories of adoption are stories of pain and regret. Not even most of them. Why don’t we ever get that movie?”

India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero.

Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do — she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.

Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help – and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…

The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn’t blood. And it isn’t love. No matter how they’re formed, the truth about family is this: it’s complicated.