A Pure Heart by Rajia Hassib

A PURE HEART by Rajia Hassib received well-deserved starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus. This is the contemporary story of two Egyptian sisters.  One, Fayrouz, chooses to be called Rose and is an archeologist who marries an American journalist, studies at Columbia University and eventually works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other sister, Gameela, is more obviously religious (for example, she wears a hijab), harbors a number of secrets, and is killed in a suicide bombing. Hassib uses flashbacks to develop the characters and motivations of both sisters. She deftly weaves in questions of fate and identity: [Rose] “thinks that maybe there are multiple versions of her, too, just as there are multiple versions of him and multiple versions of Gameela, and that her different Roses will have to learn to co-exist, that Gameela’s sister and Mark’s wife cannot go on believing they are enemies …” and of faith: “so much of faith as she [Gameela] understood it lay in a constant struggle to improve oneself, in the true meaning of jihad as an ongoing striving to be better, to do better, to let go of egotistic, selfish notions….”   A PURE HEART is very informative about Egyptian culture and history; plus, this novel explores so much more, including family relationships, sibling jealousy, dissent, poverty, privilege, religion, the role of women, guilt, after-life and death. This would be an excellent title for our Global Voices students as well as adventurous book groups.  

Dopesick by Beth Macy

DOPESICK by Beth Macy is a fascinating work of non-fiction that deals with “Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.” Macy, an award-winning journalist and author of Factory Man, explores the opioid crisis through the lives of four families whose teenage children’s addiction resulted in devastating emotional and economic costs. As she tells it, this is a story of rehab and prison, of recovery and relapse, of “the crushing and sometime contradictory facets of an inadequate criminal justice system often working at cross-purposes against medical science.” Macy argues that “the flood of painkillers pushed by rapacious pharma companies,” particularly Purdue Pharma, began in isolated and politically unimportant places. A resident of Roanoke, Virginia, she attempts to “retrace the epidemic as it shape-shifted across the spine of the Appalachians, roughly paralleling Interstate 81 as it fanned out from the coalfields and crept north up the Shenandoah Valley.” In addition to the collapse of work, she points to denial coupled with fear and ready stereotypes (“affliction of jobless hillbillies”) plus the lack of resources for local papers to cover the enfolding story as several reasons for why it took so long for this epidemic to be widely recognized. 

The abuse of opioids is a high interest topic for our students, both in Health classes and for Junior Theme and they will find much valuable information in Macy’s work, as well as other titles such as Sederer’s The Addiction Solution and Quinones’ Dreamland (to which Macy refers). DOPESICK is extensively researched, with more than twenty percent of the book devoted to notes. Chosen as an Amazon Best Book of August 2018, DOPESICK also received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

I just finished reading A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, the latest (August 30 release) in her Chief Inspector Gamache stories set in the tiny village of Three Pines in Quebec. By chance, I came across some notes and an appropriate quote from Penny’s earlier work, When the Light Gets In:

“Armand Gamache had always held unfashionable beliefs.  He believed that light would banish the shadows. That kindness was more powerful than cruelty, and that goodness existed, even in the most desperate places.  He believed evil had its limits.” A Great Reckoning describes yet another test of those beliefs, as Gamache takes on the responsibility of leadership at Quebec’s Surete Academy, seeking to reform the educational experience of future law enforcement officers.

In the process, he has to solve a murder and protect four young cadets, one of whom seems to despise him and another for whom Gamache seems to have a strong connection.  All four young people spend time with the inhabitants of Three Pines and all struggle to find themselves as adults and professionals. A mysterious map of Three Pines offers insight into the village history and provides additional twists for the reader.

While A Great Reckoning is another terrific story about Armand Gamache, it was made even more special by the author’s note and recognition of the personal difficulties which Louise Penny has faced while continuing to write about her beloved character.  I would recommend this series to mystery fans and since A Great Reckoning is one of my favorites in the series, I am pleased to note that this new title received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus AND Library Journal. 

Mystery fans may also want to mark their calendars since Julia Keller (Sorrow Road) and Elsa Hart (Jade Dragon Mountain) will be appearing locally at the Bookstall next Thursday, August 25 at 6:30pm. 

Although Sorrow Road is one of at least a half dozen novels in the Bell Elkins series, it is the first one I have read. Keller skillfully fills in the background about the characters: prosecutor and Georgetown Law School grad Bell Elkins, her much younger boyfriend Clay Meckling, her daughter Carla and other West Virginia residents.  However, I was disappointed since based on the title’s description, I expected much more about WWII and felt that the pace was a bit slow. Professional reviewer opinions were split:  Kirkus says that Sorrow Road “isn’t the best of Keller’s deeply nuanced, beautifully written examinations of life and death in hardscrabble coal country” while Booklist gave it a starred review.  Jade Dragon Mountain is set in the mountains of China and Tibet in 1708 and features Li Du, a former imperial librarian who works to solve a murder. Hart’s debut novel (a second work about Li Du will be released soon) is on my “to read” list and has received generally positive reviews, including one from Louise Penny.