Alice Cary

NonfictionMemoirAnimals

Horse Crazy

Review by Alice Cary

Horses have always been the salvation of Sarah Maslin Nir, who grew up having “the conversations with horses I longed to have with my family.” She felt like an outcast both at home and at her tony Upper East Side prep school, where, she says, “my accomplishments with horses were not currency of value to my high-pressure, high-power mother and father; horses weren’t Harvard degrees or newspaper bylines.”

With horses as her anchor, Nir eventually earned more than stellar bylines. As a New York Times reporter, she became a Pulitzer finalist for her yearlong investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry. Now, in Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love With an Animal, she turns the investigative lens on herself, exploring why she and so many others share this equine obsession. Not surprisingly, her writing is energetic, exquisite and enthralling enough to appeal to both horse fanatics and more casual readers alike.

Reminiscent of Susan Orlean’s ‘The Library Book’ in its fascinating examination of a singular topic, this is an expertly crafted, wrenchingly honest memoir.

With chapters named after important horses in her life, Nir traces a love affair that began at age 2, when family lore has it that her parents put her on a horse in an attempt to get their frenetic little girl to sit still. Her Jewish father had escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Catholic child in Poland and later became chief of child psychiatry at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, among his many other accomplishments. Her psychologist mom became a TV personality, chatting with Oprah and co-writing books with her husband. With such busy parents and half brothers who resented her very existence, Nir turned to horses in both loneliness and awe.

As a city kid, Nir’s horseback riding experiences were far from typical. She honed her skills at Claremont Riding Academy, a vertical four-story stable in the heart of Manhattan where horses and riders trudge up and down ramps between riding rings and stalls. In high school, Nir served a stint as a mounted patrol officer in Central Park. Seamlessly woven among these personal accounts are a variety of additional narratives, such as Nir’s trip to watch the annual pony penning at Assateague Island, Virginia, a chat with horse whisperer Monty Roberts and a mind-blowing horse show for plastic Breyer horses. Nir wears her heart on her sleeve for anything equine-related but also keeps it real, admitting she tries hard “to avoid cat lady status when it comes to horses.”

A series of accidents, broken bones and chronic pain hasn’t kept Nir away from riding, which she says is discounted as an extreme sport because its participants are predominantly female. “I’ll never stop,” she writes. “I’m extreme too.” For her, the sport creates “an interspecies bridge that . . . leaves the two halves greater than a whole.”

Reminiscent of Susan Orlean’s The Library Book in its fascinating examination of a singular topic, Horse Crazy is an expertly crafted, wrenchingly honest memoir.

Horses have always been the salvation of Sarah Maslin Nir, who grew up having “the conversations with horses I longed to have with my family.” She felt like an outcast both at home and at her tony Upper East Side prep school, where, she says, “my accomplishments with horses were not currency of value to […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Something to Say

Review by Alice Cary

Jenae is content in her social solitude, having already realized that “the world is full of people . . . who think fitting in is more important than being yourself.” However, her first day at John Wayne Junior High presents a challenge when her teacher announces that students must pair up to debate in front of the class.

Something to Say, like Jenae herself, is quietly commanding. Lisa Moore Ramée’s breezy chapters fly by as she thoughtfully explores friendship, activism and other serious issues.

The heart of the story is the budding friendship between Jenae and Aubrey, a new boy in school and her partner in the debate challenge. They bond over a fictional superhero but are otherwise total opposites. Aubrey is loud and energetic, and he couldn’t be more excited about the debate assignment.

Aubrey helps Jenae navigate her worries about her brother, whose athletic career has been sidelined by injury, and Jenae begins to appreciate the value of their friendship. But Jenae’s life becomes more complicated when her beloved grandfather, Gee, has a stroke, and her absentee father lets her down again.

Meanwhile, Jenae’s community is deciding whether to change her school’s name because of white supremacist comments made by the school’s namesake, an actor whom Gee admires. Community leaders want to rename it to honor Sylvia Mendez, the girl at the center of Mendez v. Westminster, a 1947 school desegregation case that set a precedent used in Brown v. Board of Education. Ramée weaves this conflict into the story skillfully, avoiding didacticism while acknowledging why many people resist change.

As Jenae discovers her own powerful voice, she must overcome her fear of using it in order to spark positive change in her community. The book’s message about the importance of righting the wrongs of history and taking a stand for what you believe will resonate loud and clear.

Jenae is content in her social solitude, having already realized that “the world is full of people . . . who think fitting in is more important than being yourself.” However, her first day at John Wayne Junior High presents a challenge when her teacher announces that students must pair up to debate in front […]
FictionFamily Saga

The Vanishing Half

Review by Alice Cary

When Desiree Vignes returns to Mallard, Louisiana, in 1968 after running away 14 years earlier, people take note—especially because she’s accompanied by her dark-skinned 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The black citizens of Mallard believe that lighter skin is better, an idea that’s been championed since the town’s founding back in 1848. All these years later, the townspeople “weren’t used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them.”

That’s just part of the masterful plot of The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett’s exquisite second novel, which weaves together scenes from the 1950s through the ’90s, tackling such issues as racism, identity, gender and inherited trauma. Family ties and secrets were at the heart of Bennett’s bestselling debut, and she continues to explore these themes here, this time concentrating on sisterhood. The title refers to Desiree’s identical twin, Stella, who has turned her back on her family, married her white boss and is living in California as a white woman, a secret unbeknownst to her husband and daughter, Kennedy.

This is a novel to be devoured slowly, not only for its intriguing plot and exploration of vital issues but also for its gorgeous writing. Bennett digs deep into the history of colorism and racism in America and explores how far their poisons can reach. As young girls, Stella and Desiree witness the lynching of their father by angry white men. This tragedy haunts his surviving family, its effects reverberating for generations to come.

At the novel’s core is not only family but also community, from Mallard to the privileged, seemingly progressive Los Angeles neighborhood where Stella lives with her family. When a black television star and his family move in across the street from Stella, it poses a unique dilemma that unfolds in a multitude of rewarding scenes. Soon the lives of cousins Jude and Kennedy intersect with plot twists reminiscent of Twelfth Night, which the novel references.

The Vanishing Half calls to mind the work of Toni Morrison, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout. Bennett writes like a master, creating rich worlds filled with a broad cast of characters, all shining brightly in memorable moments both big and small. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read about how Brit Bennett’s mother inspired The Vanishing Half.

Family ties and secrets are at the heart of Brit Bennett’s bestselling debut, The Mothers, and she continues to explore these themes, this time concentrating on sisterhood.
YA NonfictionYA

Kent State

Review by Alice Cary

Deborah Wiles was 16 years old on May 4, 1970, when she heard the news that the National Guard had opened fire on college students who had been protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, one of whom was left paralyzed. Two of the students killed had simply been walking to class. Fifty years later, the award-winning author revisits the tragedy in Kent State, an extraordinary and passionate recounting written in free verse from multiple points of view. “The earthquake of its enormity has never left me,” Wiles reflects in an author’s note.

Like a meticulous theater director, Wiles opens by carefully setting the stage, then coming out from behind the curtain and addressing readers directly. “You are new here,” she writes, “and we don’t want to scare you away, / but we want you to know the truth.” She explains that the military draft provoked angst and uncertainty across Kent State’s campus, and describes mounting student anger at Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia.

Wiles’ decision to write in free verse, rather than prose, effectively harnesses her meticulous research and enables her to convey her four-day chronology of events through collective, often conflicting, voices. She captures the vigorous debates and frequent clashes that occurred between these voices, which include white and black students, townies and National Guard soldiers. The opinionated participants remain anonymous on the page, distinguished through careful and varied typography, but together, they form a diverse chorus that offers readers a mix of opinion, memory, fact and misinformation. Wiles also intersperses the lyrics of protest songs through the book, including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio,” which was written by Neil Young in the aftermath of what happened and, as Wiles explains, “helped change the national conversation about the war in Vietnam.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Deborah Wiles shares the book that inspired Kent State’s verse format and her personal memories of May 4, 1970.

Yet always at the forefront of this chorus are the victims, to whom Wiles dedicates Kent State. Allison Krause was “attractive in every way” and died in her boyfriend’s arms. She was 19 years old. Jeffrey Miller had recently chatted with his mother by phone, telling her, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get hurt.” He was 20 years old. Bill Schroeder had just met with his ROTC advisor and eventually planned to help frontline solders as a military psychologist. He was 19 years old. Sandy Scheuer was a “delightful square” who loved Dinah Shore and Perry Como. She was 20 years old. Wiles doesn’t mince words when describing the circumstances of their deaths: “America turned on its unarmed children, in their schoolyard, and killed them.”

In Kent State, Deborah Wiles has created a powerful work of art that serves as both as a historical record of a national tragedy and a call to action for every American, but especially for young people. After all, as she writes, “It has always been the young / who are our champions / of justice. / Who stand at the vanguard / of change.”

Deborah Wiles was 16 years old on May 4, 1970, when she heard the news that the National Guard had opened fire on college students who had been protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, one of whom was left paralyzed. Two of the […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

We Dream of Space

Review by Alice Cary

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s latest novel is a work of historical fiction that pulses with contemporary relevance. We Dream of Space chronicles the lives of three siblings during the month leading up to the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986. 

Life in the Nelson-Thomas home is anything but easy. Mom and Dad fight constantly, and the family feels “like its own solar system,” with members who are “floating objects that sometimes bumped or slammed into each other before breaking apart.” Twins Bird and Fitch couldn’t be more different. Fitch loves arcade games but can’t control his temper (a cruel outburst gets him suspended from school), while Bird thrives in her classes (the budding engineer spends her spare time drawing schematic diagrams of everything from VCRs to cassette tapes). Big brother Cash feels he isn’t particularly good at anything, especially since he’s repeating seventh grade, putting him in the same class as the twins. Kelly develops the siblings’ personalities through short, focused chapters, allowing their stories to emerge naturally as the book progresses.

Much to Bird’s delight, science teacher Ms. Salonga, who hopes to become a teacher in space like Christa McAuliffe, organizes students into flight crews as part of Space Month. Lively classroom scenes add to the anticipation of the launch. Bird yearns to one day blast off to become NASA’s first female mission commander. In a series of touching inner monologues, she imagines conversations with Challenger astronaut Judith Resnik.

Kelly vividly resurrects the 1980s with references to President Reagan, Madonna and Atari and integrates astronomy metaphors throughout her prose as the Challenger’s fateful liftoff approaches. Her sensitive description of that terrible day captures the shocking impact of the tragedy, particularly for classroom viewers like Bird and Ms. Salonga, whose enthusiasm and empathy provide a stark contrast to the Nelson-Thomas parents.

We Dream of Space offers an exceptional portrayal of the endless ways in which parental dysfunction affects every member of a family. It’s also a celebration of the need for optimism, compassion and teamwork in the face of disasters both individual and communal.

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s latest novel is a work of historical fiction that pulses with contemporary relevance. We Dream of Space chronicles the lives of three siblings during the month leading up to the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986.  Life in the Nelson-Thomas home is anything but easy. Mom and Dad fight constantly, and […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

The Little Blue Cottage

Review by Alice Cary

A young girl and her parents enjoy idyllic summers by the bay year after year in The Little Blue Cottage, an endearing celebration of summer traditions and the ways those traditions inevitably change over time.

Author Kelly Jordan succinctly conveys the child’s bond to this special place. Days at the cottage are filled with sensory fun—the songs of seagulls, the smells of pancakes and sunscreen, the sight of boats with colorful sails in the distance. The cottage is a home away from home where the girl plays boisterously and, in quieter moments, sits on a window seat in a cozy alcove, gazes out at the waves and tells the cottage, “You are my favorite place.”

Illustrator Jessica Courtney-Tickle’s vibrant art imbues the cottage and its inhabitants with a classical feel while retaining a modern sensibility. The blue cottage gleams beside the bay’s turquoise waves and shimmers amid green hills and grass. Courtney-Tickle’s use of varying frame and image sizes is admirably effective, as in one spread composed of three long, horizontal panels that show the girl growing older and taller each year while befriending a redheaded boy.

Eventually, years creep by with no summer visitors at all, and the cottage grows dilapidated. Then one glorious day, the girl—now a mother—returns with her daughter, her redheaded husband and her white-haired father. Times do indeed change, but readers will find reassurance in this reminder that traditions can endure, even as they are transformed and passed on to new generations.

A young girl and her parents enjoy idyllic summers by the bay year after year in The Little Blue Cottage, an endearing celebration of summer traditions and the ways those traditions inevitably change over time. Author Kelly Jordan succinctly conveys the child’s bond to this special place. Days at the cottage are filled with sensory […]
NonfictionMemoir

Inge’s War

Review by Alice Cary

Svenja O’Donnell was never particularly close to her grandmother, Inge, whom she describes as an “aloof, somewhat selfish woman.” Unexpectedly, though, when O’Donnell visited the East Prussian town where her grandmother grew up, Inge suddenly announced during a phone call, “I have so much to tell you.” Thus began what the author calls a “decade of discoveries” into the secrets that lay at her “family’s heart, unspoken, undisturbed, unsuspected for years.” At one point, her normally reticent grandmother even began hearing the voices of her dead friends and family in the form of “waking dreams.” The past had come back to haunt her.

As a seasoned print and television journalist and a former political correspondent, O’Donnell was well-equipped to track down her family’s buried truths. In Inge’s War: A German Woman’s Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler, she lets events unfold chronologically while seamlessly interspersing conversations with her mother and grandmother, both natives of Germany, with her own research and travel to important family landmarks in Europe.

In the midst of World War II, Inge became a young, unmarried mother while her beloved boyfriend was off fighting the war; his father forbade them to marry. Later, as the Russian Army approached, Inge, her toddler (the author’s mother) and her elderly parents escaped just in time to Denmark, where, as Germans, they weren’t well received. The tale of their flight is harrowing, and O’Donnell provides thoughtful commentary every step of the way, observing, “Silence has always dominated women’s experience of war.” She notes that German children like her mother had “to bear the weight of an identity that made them pariahs at birth” and that she herself remembers feeling uneasy during a school trip to a war museum in Normandy, as she was the only half-German student in her class.

Even so, O’Donnell makes no excuses for anyone, noting that many Germans conveniently hid behind the phrase “I did not know” when it came to the realities of the Holocaust. As she notes, the goal of her investigation was “to learn the truth of my family’s story, to recognize in its shifts, its hopes and its flaws, the hybridity that shaped my own identity.”

Mission accomplished—with Inge’s War, O’Donnell has created a story that reads like a novel filled with fascinating history and excellent detective work.

Svenja O’Donnell was never particularly close to her grandmother, Inge, whom she describes as an “aloof, somewhat selfish woman.” Unexpectedly, though, when O’Donnell visited the East Prussian town where her grandmother grew up, Inge suddenly announced during a phone call, “I have so much to tell you.” Thus began what the author calls a “decade […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

The List of Things That Will Not Change

Review by Alice Cary

“Sometimes my life feels like a room with two windows and two moons,” muses Bea, who spends her days being shuttled between her divorced parents’ New York City apartments. She’s excited for her father’s upcoming wedding, not only because she adores his partner, Jesse, but also because she’ll also finally have the sister she’s always longed for—Jesse’s daughter, Sonia, a fellow fifth grader who lives in California.

In The List of Things That Will Not Change, a dazzling middle grade novel from Newbery Medalist Rebecca Stead, Bea’s life is filled to the brim with good friends and wonderfully supportive adults. Sometimes Bea’s life seems downright idyllic, as when her restaurateur father stashes surprise meals in his ex-wife’s fridge, or when Bea and her friend Angus sip soda together in Bea’s father’s restaurant. But Bea has painful eczema and a host of paralyzing worries, not to mention a deeply buried secret that’s quietly gnawing away at her conscience.

Navigating family and friends can be tough, of course. As Bea grows more and more excited about the upcoming nuptials, her father cautions, “Family can turn their backs on you, just like anyone else. I’m sorry to say it.” Stead tackles this delicate theme in grand style, not only celebrating the glorious ways that family and friends can support one another but also showing—in quite a surprise move—how family members can occasionally be backstabbing.

Even for enthusiastic, likable Bea, anger frequently gets the best of her, such as when she violently throws Angus off a chair during a game of musical chairs or when she hits an irritating classmate in the face. Bea resists going to therapy, but her therapist patiently offers helpful advice in session after session, cautioning Bea to try to start “thinking two steps ahead” of her actions and teaching her valuable strategies for corralling her fears.

Plot and characters reveal themselves naturally as The List of Things That Will Not Change unfolds, and small details later reappear to tightly and brilliantly weave together a plethora of themes. Books that successfully address divorce, remarriage and their many complicated repercussions from a child’s point of view are uncommon—and all the more valuable for it.

Stead has proven herself once again to be a masterful storyteller. The List of Things That Will Not Change is a messy but ultimately glorious family celebration that’s not to be missed.

The List of Things That Will Not Change is a dazzling middle grade novel from Newbery Medalist Rebecca Stead.

NonfictionArts & Culture

Thinking Inside the Box

Review by Alice Cary

What do Stephen King, Nancy Pelosi, Sting, Martha Stewart and Jon Stewart have in common?

They’re all cruciverbalists—that is, crossword fans. The ever-popular puzzle first appeared seemingly by accident in 1913, when Arthur Wynne introduced a new amusement because he had space to fill in the Christmas edition of the New York World newspaper. He called it a “Word-Cross Puzzle.” A transposing typo two weeks later called a subsequent brainteaser a “Cross-Word,” and the name stuck.

Adrienne Raphel takes readers on a deep lexical dive into the history and culture surrounding the beloved linguistic sport in Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures With Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them. Her enthusiastic account will appeal to all sorts of puzzle and word lovers, even those who are just dabblers. (Raphel calls herself a “hunt-and-peck” solver, admitting that she’s more of a Boggle fanatic.)

In lively chapters, Raphel constructs her own puzzle and submits it to the New York Times (no spoilers here on whether it’s accepted), visits fabled Times puzzle master Will Shortz, reports on a crossword puzzle tournament, delves into the puzzle’s history and evolution and crosses the Atlantic on a themed trip aboard the Queen Mary 2 celebrating the 75th anniversary of the New York Times crossword, which first appeared in 1942.

Ironically, the Times long resisted printing these puzzles, proclaiming in 1925, “The craze evidently is dying out fast and in a few months it will be forgotten.” There’s plenty of intriguing history there, and some of the most fascinating discussions involve puzzle-related issues of gender, race and class. As Raphel points out, “The crossword is black and white, but it’s very, very white. This monoculture seeps into the types of clues that appear in the puzzle, and the way that words get clued.” Happily, there are signs of progress, with the author noting that crosswords are becoming “increasingly woke.”

Raphel certainly knows how to write, coming up with sentences like, “The fifty-two-story New York Times skyscraper rises out of the grid of midtown Manhattan like a steel fantasy of a crossword, a study in squares and frosted glass.” At times the book is uneven, however, with certain chapters more engaging than others. Nonetheless, Thinking Inside the Box offers a unique crossword puzzle tour that will likely have you sharpening your pencil by book’s end.

What do Stephen King, Nancy Pelosi, Sting, Martha Stewart and Jon Stewart have in common? They’re all cruciverbalists—that is, crossword fans. The ever-popular puzzle first appeared seemingly by accident in 1913, when Arthur Wynne introduced a new amusement because he had space to fill in the Christmas edition of the New York World newspaper. He […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

The Keeper of Wild Words

Review by Alice Cary

Brook’s Mimi isn’t “just a grandmother,” she’s also “a grand friend” who weaves “words into everything.” The same could be said of The Keeper of Wild Words, Brooke Smith’s celebratory picture book that delivers an urgent plea to young readers. 

Brook hopes to find something interesting to bring to show and tell on the first day of school, but on this late summer day, Mimi also has an important mission. She takes Brook on a hike and asks her to be her Keeper of Wild Words, a protector of the words Mimi fears are disappearing. She gives Brook a piece of notebook paper with wildlife words such as drake, monarch, starling and wren. As they walk through woods, meadows and streams, Brook and Mimi marvel at the natural delights they find. “Do wild words dance like this every morning?” Brook wonders.

In an author’s note, Smith explains that her story was inspired by The Oxford Junior Dictionary’s removal of more than 100 entries to make room for words like database, MP3 player and vandalism. The resulting tale is an inspirational commemoration of such “lost” words. Its final page contains a built-in pouch for readers, along with an appeal: “You can be a keeper too. Your wild worlds will stay safe inside this envelope.”

Madeline Kloepper’s vivid illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to Smith’s rallying cry. Her pages are bright with red poppies, swooping starlings and beavers frolicking in a pond near a grassy shore. Readers will practically feel a puff of wind as Brook blows a cascade of dandelion seeds into the air, and they’ll hush to Mimi’s shushing as the pair passes a doe snoozing amid the ferns. Every spread is filled with wonder and warmth, not just for the natural world but also for the bond between grandmother and grandchild.

The Keeper of Wild Words is an irresistible invitation to a wild and wonderful linguistic crusade.

Brook’s Mimi isn’t “just a grandmother,” she’s also “a grand friend” who weaves “words into everything.” The same could be said of The Keeper of Wild Words, Brooke Smith’s celebratory picture book that delivers an urgent plea to young readers.  Brook hopes to find something interesting to bring to show and tell on the first […]
FictionHistorical Fiction

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Review by Alice Cary

After their gold-prospecting father dies, 12-year-old Lucy and 11-year-old Sam are left to fend for themselves in the gold rush days of the American West. The first task of these Chinese American sisters is to bury “Ba,” and tradition dictates they place two silver dollars over his eyes—two coins they don’t have. The girls head to a bank, and all hell breaks loose when a banker casts them out with a hateful epithet.

That’s just the first of many action-packed scenes in C Pam Zhang’s standout debut. Lucy and Sam’s odyssey unfolds in a series of edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, bringing to mind the classic True Grit and Paulette Jiles’ News of the World, two Westerns that also feature fierce young heroines. Yet Zhang turns the genre on its head by writing a historical saga that also serves as a modern immigration novel. Before dying, Ba tells his eldest, “I grew up knowing I belonged to this land, Lucy girl. You and Sam do too, never mind how you look. Don’t you let any man with a history book tell you different.” Ma, however, offers polar-opposite advice. While Ba dreams of having a large, isolated parcel of property, Ma warns, “Gold can’t buy everything. This will never be our land.”

Unfolding in a carefully structured, nonlinear fashion, the novel repeatedly questions what makes a home a home and what makes a family a family. Zhang was born in Beijing and, she writes in her bio, has lived “in thirteen cities across four countries and is still looking for home.”

The book also wonders at the nature of truth and who can be trusted. Because boys earn a higher wage working in the coal mines, Sam begins wearing boys’ clothes and finds that this new identity suits her, thus bringing to the forefront issues of gender, identity and cultural and sexual prejudice. 

Zhang’s sparse prose style may initially take some getting used to, but both language and plot remain clearly focused. Daringly original, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is gritty and frequently gruesome, yet at times magical and ethereal, incorporating tiger paw prints and a buffalo sighting, along with a fog-filled view of San Francisco and the wild ocean beyond. 

Zhang’s laser-sharp reexamination of America’s myth-laden past is likely to help bring clarity to many issues that continue to challenge us all. 

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: C Pam Zhang discusses the “gold-soaked sun” and hauntings of the American West.

C Pam Zhang’s sparse prose style may initially take some getting used to, but both language and plot remain clearly focused. Daringly original, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is gritty and frequently gruesome, yet at times magical and ethereal, incorporating tiger paw prints and a buffalo sighting, along with a fog-filled view of San Francisco and the wild ocean beyond. 

YA FictionYA

The Light in Hidden Places

Review by Alice Cary

Sharon Cameron’s The Light in Hidden Places is based on the true story of Holocaust heroine Stefania Podgórska, a 16-year-old Catholic girl in Poland who not only took care of her younger sister but also hid 13 Jewish people in the attic of her tiny apartment.

In order to tell Stefania’s story, Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, The Knowing) did extensive research, which included interviewing several of the attic’s survivors, gaining access to Stefania’s unpublished memoir and traveling with Stefania’s son to Poland. There, they visited the places in which this incredible tale unfolded. Cameron saw for herself the minuscule, cramped space where 13 people cowered for more than two years with no electricity, water or toilet, and which Stefania and her sister could only access via a ladder to bring them food and water and carry out their waste in buckets. 

What’s more, an SS officer lived in an adjacent apartment for months, and by the end of the war, two German nurses had moved into Stefania’s apartment. The nurses often brought their SS boyfriends home for the night, making Stefania feel like she was not only secretly and illegally hiding Jewish people but also “running a Nazi boarding house.”

Cameron’s wide-ranging research and deft storytelling abilities combine to create an astoundingly authentic first-person narration. Her exquisite prose conveys in riveting detail exactly what it was like for Stefania to live through the horrors she witnessed, as well as the difficult decisions that had to be made by both survivors and those who did not, ultimately, survive.

Though it at times reads like a memoir, The Light in Hidden Places is a tense and gripping novel, full of urgency, in which death seems to wait around every corner. Although it’s still early in the year, it seems destined for my list of the best books of 2020.

Sharon Cameron’s The Light in Hidden Places is based on the true story of Holocaust heroine Stefania Podgórska, a 16-year-old Catholic girl in Poland who not only took care of her younger sister but also hid 13 Jewish people in the attic of her tiny apartment. In order to tell Stefania’s story, Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, […]
NonfictionMemoir

Nobody Will Tell You This but Me

Review by Alice Cary

In 2011, Bess Kalb received a rambling voicemail from her beloved grandmother, Bobby Bell, reminiscing about how she would fly between Florida and New York every week to babysit Kalb as a baby while Kalb’s mother worked. “I was an old lady! But I loved you. And I’d sit there in their terrible apartment by the hospital and I’d watch you. We’d watch TV, we talked, it was fine. Every week for the first year of your life. Can you imagine? You started talking at nine months. You said ‘hi.’”

From that first word on, the dialogue between these two has never stopped, even though Bobby Bell died at age 90 in 2017. At her funeral, Kalb read a transcript of that voicemail as part of her eulogy, and afterward she decided to write a book about her grandmother’s life. However, Kalb, a comedy writer for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” put a unique spin on the project, using her grandmother’s voice to write the book in first-person. And kudos to Kalb, who pulls off this daring approach brilliantly, allowing readers to hear her grandmother’s inimitable voice in Nobody Will Tell You This but Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story.

In the prologue, Bobby offers a running commentary on her own funeral, noting, “The worst part was the dirt.” Not surprisingly, given Kalb's chosen career, there are laughs galore throughout the book, as when Bobby gives fashion advice, career advice, boyfriend advice or says, “God knows I never wanted you to be a writer. But I knew you would. I told you, Bessie—you should be a teacher. Make a salary. Have the summers off to travel.”

Yet this account runs much deeper than a typical comedy routine. Kalb frequently shares the immense challenge of imagining her grandmother’s voice, writing, “It’s turned me into a riddle, a series of boxes to unlock, pages to riffle through in your mental filing cabinet. Bess, I’m not a riddle—I’m a corpse.”

Calling her book “a matrilineal love story,” Kalb describes the lives of several generations of women, starting with Bobby’s own mother, who immigrated to America alone at age 12 from Russia in the face of religious persecution. These many enthralling tales (along with family photographs) unfold in a carefully structured yet nonlinear fashion (think “This Is Us”). The result is lively and fascinating, funny yet poignant.

Kalb processes her own grief as she writes, sharing how she reacted in the days following her grandmother’s death. With heartbreaking honesty, she notes in her grandmother’s voice, “Ha. You can write all you want, but you’re still at a desk in a world where I don’t exist.”

In a bold stroke of literary bravura, Kalb has turned the formula for writing memoirs inside out, bringing her grandmother’s distinctive voice back to life and sharing it with a legion of lucky readers.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Bess Kalb, author of Nobody Will Tell You This but Me.

In 2011, Bess Kalb received a rambling voicemail from her beloved grandmother, Bobby Bell, reminiscing about how she would fly between Florida and New York every week to babysit Kalb as a baby while Kalb’s mother worked. “I was an old lady! But I loved you. And I’d sit there in their terrible apartment by the hospital […]

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