The Manhattan Girls by Gill Paul
I'm not exactly sure why I checked out this book at my local public library. It may have caught my eye in a display, or it may have come up in a search for newly-acquired historical fiction in the library catalog. At any rate, The Manhattan Girls by Gill Paul was an easy read.
It's set in New York City in the 1920s, in the midst of Prohibition, and is about four real women, none of whom I knew about. Dorothy Parker was a writer, Jane Grant was the first female reporter for the New York Times and co-founder of The New Yorker magazine, Winifred Lenihan was a Broadway actress, and Peggy Leech was a novelist (and later, a historian).
These four main characters decide to start a bridge club when some of the men in the (real) "Algonquin Round Table." start a Saturday poker game - no women allowed. The story is told in alternating chapters from each woman's viewpoint, always in the order Jane - Dottie - Winifred - Peggy. The book starts in 1921, but moves rapidly (and rather vaguely) though subsequent years.
The book is subtitled "A Novel of Dorothy Parker and Her Friends," perhaps because Parker was the best known of the four. However, I found "Dottie" to be insufferable - selfish, needy, alcoholic, with a number of affairs and suicide attempts. Why her friends were so devoted to her is unclear to me.
The other three women were much more interesting. My parents had a subscription to The New Yorker, and I always loved its covers and cartoons, so it was interesting to read about the start of this magazine and Jane's part in it. Peggy seemed to have the most balanced and happy life of the four women, and was a good friend to all of them in the book. Winifred was the most intriguing of the four to me, not at all like the stereotypical actress.
The book is also filled with other real persons as characters in the story. Some, like Eva Le Gallienne and Neysa McMein, were fascinating; others, like Alec Woollcott and Elinor Wylie, were irritating.
I'm not against drinking, but I was struck by just how much the characters in this book partook. Seems like there were speakeasys and easy-to-get booze everywhere. Perhaps it was Prohibition that made drinking more attractive. It certainly gave a feel for what life was like in big cities in the 1920s - it seemed a lot like Paris in the same era, the setting for so many books about talented (and often free-thinking or free-spirited) people. Besides this and Dorothy's problems mentioned earlier, there are triggers for other sensitive readers.
The one gripe I have about the book was the lack of an author's note at the end to tell me what was real and what was not, as well as sources her information. The library copy I read was a large-print version, so perhaps such a note had been cut to keep the page count (and book weight) down, and I couldn't find an e-book that I could check out to see. I did find an "epilogue" online (it has spoilers) that answered some of my questions, particularly about Winifred.
The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
This is a sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, which I read last month. Although it's preferable to have read that book first, it's not necessary - this book can stand alone.
Still set in eastern Kentucky, the events in this book take place in 1953, almost seventeen years after those in the first book. Sixteen-year-old Honey Mary-Angeline Lovett is the adopted daughter of "Book Woman" Cussy Mary Carter and her husband Jackson Lovett. Like her adoptive mother, Honey has a genetic form of methemoglobinemia, having inherited recessive genes from her birth parents. Her case is milder, as her hands and feet only turn blue when she is agitated or upset, so Honey typically wears gloves everywhere.
Cussy was entirely blue, and considered "colored" in that era, thus hers and (white) Jackson's marriage was a violation of the state's anti-miscegenation law. After successfully hiding for many years, away from their home in Troublesome Creek but still in Kentucky, they are arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. Honey manages to escape on Cussy's old mule Junia back to Troublesome Creek, to avoid being sent to the "house of reform" and hard labor until she turns 21.
But Honey has a lot of people helping her, including her own court-appointed lawyer, who actually fights for her. Her elderly former babysitter is appointed her guardian, but after that woman's death, Honey decides to seek emancipation. To be successful, she needs to be able to support herself - she needs a job.
Although the Pack Horse Library Project had ended in 1943, author Kim Michele Richardson, a native Kentuckian, has a form of it continuing, and Honey is able to follow in her mother's footsteps as a newly hired rural outreach librarian, once again riding Junia to deliver books to a variety of patrons.
Some of these, like moonshiner Devil John Smith and his family, are former patrons of her mother's. Others are new - like Pearl, a 19-year-old single fire tower lookout who becomes Honey's best friend; Bonnie, the young widowed mother who took over her dead husband's coal-mining job; and Amara with the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS).
There are more villains in this book (mostly men), and more situations that will be triggering for some readers. But the descriptions of people and places in Kentucky are evocative, and make me eager to visit this part of the state on an upcoming road trip.
The book ends with a lengthy author's note about some of the real history in the novel; period images of Pack Horse librarians (and some of the scrapbooks they made, although those images should have been much larger to see the details), FNS nurses, and female coal miners and fire tower lookouts; and some excellent reading group discussion questions.
The Bodyguard Unit by Clement Xavier, illustrated by Lisa Lugrin, colored by Albertine Ralenti, translated by Edward Gauvin - advanced reader edition
The Bodyguard Unit is a nonfiction account in graphic novel format of - as the subtitle describes - Edith Garrud, women's suffrage, and jujitsu - in England in 1910 to 1914.
Garrud and her husband William were students of the Japanese martial arts who took over their instructor's dojo (school) when he returned to Japan in late 1908. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which often faced violent retaliation (from police and male observers) during their protests, asked Edith to train some of the members in jujitsu to serve as a bodyguard, particularly to prevent Pankhurst's arrest.
The text points out the core principle of jujitsu (using an attacker's force or energy against the attacker), and doesn't shy from the problem of domestic violence and the conflicts within the suffragette movement.
The illustrations are detailed, but not so busy as to detract from the action and dialogue. The book is also interspersed with historical illustrations from contemporary newspapers, books, journals, political cartoons, and even a board game (although the list at the end giving their sources does not have correct page numbers in this advance reader edition).
Sadly, the book does not cite any other sources, but it does end with further information on Emmeline, her daughter Sylvia, and Edith and William, and a timeline of Edith's life. I was surprised to learn the book was originally written in French - the translation to English by Edward Gauvin is smooth.
I liked this book, and learned a lot from it about Edith, jujitsu, and the suffragettes in Great Britain, and I'm inspired to learn more. I think readers ages 13 / grade 7 and up will too.
The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes
After reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, I found there was some controversy about possible plagiarism by this book, The Giver of Stars, by better-known author JoJo Moyes. I decided to read the latter to decide for myself.
Moyes' book is also set in Kentucky and about the Pack Horse Library Project, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program where books were delivered to residents in remote areas of Appalachia from 1935 to 1943. The main character is Alice Wright, an Englishwoman (like Moyes) who married a Kentucky mine owner when he was visiting her country. Bored, she decides to join the project in her new home of Baileyville.
Moyes' book is also set in Kentucky and about the Pack Horse Library Project, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program where books were delivered to residents in remote areas of Appalachia from 1935 to 1943. The main character is Alice Wright, an Englishwoman (like Moyes) who married a Kentucky mine owner when he was visiting her country. Bored, she decides to join the project in her new home of Baileyville.
There are four other women involved with the project, but the one who gets the most print time (other than Alice) is Margery O'Hare, a local single woman from a family with a checkered past.
Moyes primarily writes romance, and that's the emphasis in this book as well. Both Alice and Margery have love interests (Alice's husband is a cold fish, and her father-in-law a terror), and those storylines dominate the plot. I'd say this book is more plot-driven, while Richardson's book is more character-driven. I also felt Richardson's book was better-researched (she's a Kentucky native, and spent nearly five years on her book), and thus a better piece of historical fiction. I enjoyed Moyes' book, but I prefer Richardson's.
As for the plagiarism? It's always hard to prove. Richardson's publisher (which sold a 45% stake to Moyes' publisher the same month Richardson's book was published) determined no legal action was necessary when she brought her concerns to them in August 2019, three months after her book was published, and two months before Moyes' book came out. What really sucks is that Moyes, likely due to her fame, already had a movie deal for The Giver of Stars before it even came out.
Various sources in the publishing industry indicate that Moyes' team was aware of Richardson's book, despite their protests that they were not. However, I also agree with another librarian that the stories are very different, and that tropes (plot structures, themes, storylines, character traits, motifs, or plot devices commonly used in storytelling) may account for the similarities.
