The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

 Once again Sarah Addison Allen delights me with her tale of a "need Mom's approval" thirty-something daughter living at home while caring for her aging mother.  Josey, known all over Bald Slope because of her family's wealth (as well as her own bad behavior as a child), has been totally dissatisfied with her life but not until crazy Della Lee moves into her closet does she begin to wish for more.  Della believes she has landed there to assist Josie in pulling away from home, thinking for herself, and pursuing the secret love of her life.

Josie does begin to do those very things as the story unfolds.  She steps out of her routine, makes new friends and finally believes she can be lovable...although her mother has indicated the opposite all of her life.  Along the way Josie begins to understand some of her mother's angst and her dead father's weaknesses. The magical elements which have made Allen's work so charming are intact:  moving books with exactly the right content found on tables or car seats, and plucky characters with slightly "psychic" or paranormal tendencies (like when the water automatically boils in the kettle whenever the man Chloe loves walks into the room where she is).

I'm sure there may be other readers who hunger only for realism, but Allen's whimsy continues to make me smile.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

As suggested by our book club, we branched out in our selection for this month and tried a classic.  I've read a few Dickens novels way back in my past but had forgotten how long it takes for him to develop his characters, interweave them throughout the story and finally bring it all to a conclusion (850 pages). It is not an easy process to wade through the language of the 1700's, and many times I could not decipher the real intent of a person's statements, as it must not have been politically correct to be direct with one another in that day and age!!                       

David Copperfield writes his story...from very young boyhood through his adult career as a journalist and writer.  Most believe that this is an autobiographical novel of Dickens' life, as there are many parallels.  I'm not sure that I will soon forget his amazing yet comical characters: trusted Traddles, sweet silly Dora, sensible Aunt Trotwood, loving Peggotty, steady Agnes, never wavering Mrs. Micawber, sacrificial Mr. Peggotty, maniacal Heep, and the murderous Murdstones.  Dickens has a wonderful way of bringing characters into his stories who represent all levels of society....some whom I totally dislike upon meeting them, but by the end am persuaded of their strengths and goodnesses.  Writing with a quiet wit and humor, Dickens still manages to attack the ills of the time.  Debtor's prison, child labor, poor living conditions, society's condemnation of immoral women, greed and loss are all brought under the author's scrutiny.

 I fully concur with Algis Valiunas in her April 2021 article 'THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DICKENS' as she concludes:  "There was a darkness in him.  Dickens carried with him all his life the indignity and terror of having been put to menial labor in a shoe polish factory when he was twelve, and he was a cad to his wife after he fell in love with a much younger actress.  But Dickens loved being alive, knew his life was a divine gift, and propagated that love and that knowledge wherever he went.  It was his love that allowed him to construct the most extraordinary fictional world since Shakespeare's: a world uniquely his yet unmistakably our own, poised precariously between good and evil, but tilting in the end toward the eternal victory of faith, charity, compassion and delight.  The canon is forever enriched by the Gospel According to Dickens.  He penned a modern quasi-mythic trove of Christian wisdom and, above  all, joy."

Waking Up White by Debby Irving

 "In this society violence against poor people and minority groups is routine.  I remind you that starving a child is violence; suppressing a culture is violence; neglecting schoolchildren is violence; discrimination against a working man is violence; ghetto house is violence; ignoring medical needs is violence; contempt for equality is violence; even a lack of willpower to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence".  These are words from Coretta Scott King spoken in 1969, and the more I try to educate myself in the nuances of American culture and racism, the more I realize that my problem has been the lack of willpower to be a voice for change...I have been a bystander.  

Irving does a great job of sharing her story, being raised in a rich upper class family in Winchester, Massachusetts.  She outlines the ways that she fell easily into the socioeconomic privileges her life afforded, with no thought of how others in lesser financial straits coped.  Her family culture taught her that she simply needed to work hard to meet her goals, to help "fix" other people's problems by teaching them to be more like her, to not push back in a hard conversation so that silence became the best solution.  These well ingrained family culture points had to be dismantled at age 50, as she became more aware of her part in allowing racism to prevail.  She found out that people of color do not want white people to "swoop in" and save/fix them, they want the tools to help themselves.  She is learning to bring listening skills to her difficult conversations so that she can hear other voices and cultures, and learn how she might be wrong.  She now understands that for many, working hard cannot get them into the best schools or jobs...because her privilege gave her referrals by prestigious and powerful white people.

This book added different layers to what I have been learning about myself, about how I view my opinions and values as right or normal, about my role as a bystander.  My heart is ready to figure out how to be an ally in this important fight.  May God give me wisdom.