amyb
Senior Insider
It is a joy to finish out a year with a really good book. This latest from James McBride, (THE COLOR OF WATER, DEACON Kong) is a winner,. In fact it did actually win the fiction prize, the National Book Award.
This story takes place during the 1920s and 30s in a rural poverty stricken area in Eastern Pennsylvania.The main characters are a kind hearted Jewish shopkeeper and a troubled black man whose lives revolve around the poor side of town and her little grocery. We meet the neighborhood's resident bigots, Jewish immigrants, poor whites and the 90% struggling to survive Afro American population.
The themes touched are many:greed, corruption, graft, fortune telling, water rights,synagogue and church politics and difficulties, mayhem,madness, love, and a friendship between a woman with 11 children and her neighbor who is barren.
And one can never forget, at least I won't, the two little boys that stole my heart.
This story takes place during the 1920s and 30s in a rural poverty stricken area in Eastern Pennsylvania.The main characters are a kind hearted Jewish shopkeeper and a troubled black man whose lives revolve around the poor side of town and her little grocery. We meet the neighborhood's resident bigots, Jewish immigrants, poor whites and the 90% struggling to survive Afro American population.
The themes touched are many:greed, corruption, graft, fortune telling, water rights,synagogue and church politics and difficulties, mayhem,madness, love, and a friendship between a woman with 11 children and her neighbor who is barren.
And one can never forget, at least I won't, the two little boys that stole my heart.
