The Midnight Train by Matt Haig 4

 

"Oh dear, Old Bean. Listen. You are at the end of your life and the start of your death. Your life flashes before your eyes. You linger where you are meant to linger. On scenes that provide as a whole, a complete representation of your life. But then, when the time comes, you get on board the Midnight Train and keep on chugging along the track. You don't stick around. Because as I told you, you can't be there when your living self falls asleep. You get on the train and then you wait for eternity."

    -Agnes Bagdale explanation to Wilbur Budd

I wasn't sure what I thought of this book at first; I don't read fantasy often. This one is pretty fantastical with Wilbur Budd dying near the beginning and then essentially travelling the Midnight Train through his life. I loved Agnes, Wibur's ghostly guide on the trip. Her philosophy of life provided so many profound quotes, I had a hard time picking one. Mostly because of this, I have rated the book a 4.

This is not an easy journey for Wilbur since he has to revisit some troubling times and some major regrets, particularly a broken relationship. Agnes keeps warning him not to make changes to the past lest it keep him from eternity but in the end, he can't resist.

Here are only a few of the passages I found so meaningful:

Music had a way of threading through decades like nothing else. A song, after all, was a needle pulling the thread of time, stitching disparate moments into something whole.

There were days in life that rolled by and were never really thought of again. And then there were days that were so beloved or important that they contained inside them everything that came after. Russian doll days that were always inside the expanding future.

Nothing ever just happened, realized the Ghost. Even the most reckless action was a consequence of what had gone before, just as every loud mistake in the world was the product of some quiet and secret pain.

Does any person in their youth truly appreciate the time they live through? Doesn’t the mundane starch of reality always turn to sugar with memory.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout 3

"So blind we humans are---so blind. To each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. And maybe we have, as Artie did with Rhonda Lazarre that day. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another's selves, including our own. Thinking all the while that we can see."      -from the novel

The Things We Never Say is a short book, about 200 pages, with long chapters, only seven. I have rated it 3 since I liked it somewhat, didn't love it.

Living in coastal Massachusetts in 2024, Artie Dam is a high school history teacher, a popular one. As a former teacher myself, I found his relationships with students impressive. However, Artie hides a lot of emotions from others---loneliness, discontent, depression, even suicidal thoughts for a time. A potentially life-threatening accident changes him. Then he learns a family secret that throws him for a loop.

The time setting was interesting---presidential election 2024. Artie's reaction was similar to mine. "The election came and went. Half of the country was stunned, the other half jubilant."

Artie and I were in the former half. 

Basically, I found the book well-written but a downer.

The Guardians by John Grisham 5

 

"This can be a dirty business. We are forced to deal with witnesses who have lied, police who have fabricated evidence, experts who have misled juries, and prosecutors who have suborned perjury. We, the good guys, often find that getting our hands dirty is the only way to save our clients."

            -Cullen Post, from the novel

This is my third Grisham novel in a row. Might not have happened if The Guardians had not been a June Page Turners selection and had The Testament not been the best available in the cruise ship library. Of the three, I liked this one best for a couple of reasons. It reminded me of Framed, a nonfiction by Grisham and a co-writer, Jim McCloskey who heads up an innocence project of his own. I found it fascinating, if disturbing. Also, The Guardians is partially set in Central Florida where I live with mentions of familiar places like the Orange County Court House, a skyscraper in Orlando. I rate it a 5, definitely a page-turner.

Cullen Post is a former criminal defense attorney turned episcopal priest turned innocence lawyer. He works with a nonprofit, Guardian Ministries, out of Savannah. The novel focuses on two of his clients, innocent men falsely imprisoned: Duke Russell dangerously close to being executed in Alabama and Quincy Miller 20+ years in prison in North Florida for a murder he did not commit. Post puts in an incredible number of hours and miles on his old car traveling from prison to prison and finding and interviewing people involved in the original verdicts.

I can only hope there are numerous guardians like Cullen Post in America trying to right some terrible wrongs. Our U.S. justice system is far from just for some Americans, especially people of color and those without resources.

The Testament by John Grisham 5

 

"You die with eleven billion, and people care about your last will and testament. Especially if there's a chance that one of the world's great fortunes is about to be fed to the vultures. The tabloids were there, along with the local papers and all the important financial magazines. The three rows Wycliff had designated for the press were full by nine-thirty. The journalists had a delightful time watching the Phelans gather in front of them. Three artists worked feverishly."

           -from the novel

Troy Phelan is one of the richest men in the world and, nearing death changes his will in a very sneaky way. He has 3 ex-wives and many adult children who can't wait to get their hands on some of his great wealth, and it seems none of them are very deserving.

Nate O'Reilly, a D.C. litigator just out of rehab and way down on his luck is tapped to find the actual recipient of the Phelan fortune. She is Rachel Lane, Troy's illegitimate daughter about whom little is known except that she a missionary in a remote area of Brazil. 

Nate is lucky to survive a plane crash and boat problems in his search for the woman. Fortunately, he has a river guide named Jevy, who, by the way, adds some humor to a story that gets pretty intense.

I found this to be a page-turner; the rating is 5.

A Painted House by John Grisham 4

"I was scared and tired, almost faint again, and I just wanted everything to be normal, with the Mexicans and the Spruills out of our lives, with Ricky home, with the Latchers gone, with the nightmare of Hank erased from my memory. I was tired of secrets, tired of seeing things I was not supposed to see."

        -Luke, from the novel

I thought I had read this novel, but I really didn't remember much of it. It was not the legal thriller for which Grisham is best known. My rating is a 4.

The narrator/protagonist is Luke Chandler, a 7-year-old living on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents in Arkansas. The setting is fall of 1952. Luke must help with the farm work but dreams of playing baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. As a former elementary school teacher, I tend to identify with youthful characters.

The Chandler family has little money and they depend on the cotton crop for a living. It is harvest time and they must hire migrants to help with picking in order to get it done in time. These would include a family named Spruill, folks they call "hill people" from the Ozarks, and a group of several Mexicans. At his tender age Luke is exposed to adult situations brought on by these two groups including violence and a sexual encounter. One can surmise the ill effects on him from the quote above.

A painted house of the title is a status symbol in this time and place because people like the Chandlers cannot afford paint and are looked down on by those who can. I will leave it for you to find out more about why the title is fitting.

The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers 3

 

"I'm just fumbling my way through like everyone else, trying to do my best. One thing I learned---well, two things: Work hard. And never give up."

       -Julia's advice to Trixie, from the novel

I began reading this book thinking it was a biography and not until the Author's Note did I know for sure it is a work of fiction. But A Conversation with the Author, the Credits and Acknowledgements made it clear the author had done mountains of research to make this part of Julia's story as authentic as possible. 

A good portion of this book was over my head and other parts were confusing. There are so many acronyms for WWII, the author included a dictionary at the beginning to define them, for example OSS, FANY, SEAC, SACO, WRENS and several others. I don't read many spy novels, making this more challenging reading. There were so many characters, I almost gave up trying to keep track of who's who.

Julia McWilliams aspired to be a writer in her youth but ended up with the highest clearance working for the OSS in exotic (and dangerous) places like Ceylon, India and China. She is described in various places and by different people to be strong, resilient, intelligent, organized, dogged and ambitious. Reading this, it is hard not to be impressed, and she certainly managed to survive a few life-threatening incidents. 

I wondered if I wanted to keep reading when Julia's future husband, Paul Child, appeared. They didn't like each other at first, so I had to continue to find out how they eventually connected. I am rating the book a 3 since I liked it enough to finish and I learned a lot but didn't enjoy it immensely.

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende 5

 

"But no crying. We have to be good. No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Everyone knows where we are. I'm here with you and you know where I am. See? There's nothing to be scared about. Mama will be able to find us; she just has to call and ask Miss Selena or Tita Edu. We don't have to worry about the guardian angel either. She always knows where we are and she never goes too far away."      -Anita to her sister Claudia

I chose this book because I thought I had enjoyed another novel by this author but in looking at a list of her work, I saw nothing familiar. According to her bio she is known for magical realism, a genre that I don't always like. In this novel, it worked for me because it came in the form of imaginings of a traumatized child, her escape in a very real way. I've rated the book a 5.

This novel spans time and place by presenting the stories of Samuel Adler, sent as a Jewish child from Vienna in 1938 to London to avoid the Nazis and Anita Nogales, a 7-year-old blind girl brought from El Salvador by her mother and separated by the heartless U.S. immigration policy in 2019 of taking children from parents.

Anita's story reminded me of We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez about young people making their way north after fleeing a horrendous situation in Guatemala and trying to survive very dangerous situations to get to the U.S.

Other characters important to the plot are Selena Duran, a social worker who becomes very involved with Anita's predicament and Frank Angileri, a lawyer recruited by Selena to help with the needed legal work.

I loved how the two immigration stories are compared and contrasted and how Anita's story is woven into Samuel's. It was interesting being reminded of the onset of COVID 19 restrictions and the author reflects negatively on President Trump's first term because of his treatment of the pandemic AND his cruel immigration policies.