We don’t know our own strength until we are forced to bring it forward.
13 masked Bookers gathered in the 19th hole of the Pinnacle Club instead of the dining room as the crew building the club’s wine rack in the foyer arrived to begin the project.
Virginia Gandy’s heartfelt thank you card for Bookers love and support was read, and we reported that Cherry Fugitt was home and appreciated her Cheer Up Cherry cards, booklet, and cherry blossom kitchen towels. She sounded strong and determined to do whatever was necessary to regain her strength. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Our reviewer, Pat Faherty, recapped this month’s historical novel set in the isolated prairies of Wyoming in the late 1800s where the Webber and Bemis families lived next to each other on neighboring farms. The novel begins with adultery and a revenge murder generally setting in the mind of the reader a particular sympathy toward one party or the other. Cora Bemis, a former socialite turned farmer’s wife and mother of four has an affair with Nettie Mae Webber’s husband. Ernest Bemis discovers the pair, shoots Substance then turns himself in, receiving a two-year sentence deemed a crime of passion. Both matriarchs are without their spouses leaving the families to fend for themselves facing the harsh Wyoming winters. The author succeeded in exposing the human condition – the emotions of survival, family, forgiveness, guilt, fear, remorse, and rage resulting in an unlikely sisterhood between the female survivors. The prose shifts between point-of-views as the narrative changes and the story unfolds weaving a soft-shoe romantic waltz between sixteen-year-old Clyde Webber and thirteen-year-old Beulah Bemis – the author’s great grandparents’ story.
Wyoming:
The setting, 1,000 shades of gray where the prairie wilderness “ran right up to the front door…existing long after mankind had fallen to dust,” was a major character in the novel – the isolation from civilization; the starkness of weather and the vulnerability to those uncontrollable conditions. Just the changing of the seasons dominated what the other characters would do. A wilderness void of hope- the “prairie was nothing but death – season in and season out” dry grasses, gray sage, hawks falling from the sky to seize whatever small lives struggled below; wolves howling, brown water racing down a hill, the sterile winter snow six-feet deep.” Gray was a prominent color in the novel – a combination of black and white symbolizing detachment and darkness, perfect for the nuances of the prairie and the people who dwelt there.
Beulah Bemis
Her name from a false god in the Bible meant witch…one who communicates with the dead. She was a child with extraordinary vision and depth some saw as “simple-witted” but with the ability to sense forthcoming events with an unflappable acceptance of everything where fear should have been and never struggling through all of life’s curves. ” Her job on earth was watching, seeing, knowing…she was governed by a “secret heart” following a compass that no one else could see or understand and was present even in her absence. She was one with nature in her belief that all things have a purpose and recreate themselves to continue life’s cycles.
The title of the book as explained by her: “There’s a rhyme you say as you tuck the seeds in to be sure you plant enough- One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the cutworm, and one to grow.” Her mother Cora reminded her of a blackbird – they love society and never go anywhere but in a flock. – So Clyde asks if Cora is a blackbird what is his mother – “she ain’t a bird at all…she’s a cutworm-gnawing and gnawing and never satisfied…she’ll eat up anything you put in front of her and it’ll stick in her gullet and make her all angrier, and then she’ll go on gnawing all the more.”
Clyde Webber
He was determined not to be a model of his father, fighting hard to distance himself from his abusive personality. He became the man of the house after his father was killed, taking the responsibility in stride, making the right decisions in spite of his mother’s opinions. He was smitten and fascinated with Beulah from the beginning and pleasantly surprised at how hard she worked. They were destined to be together from page one and it was a very satisfactory match to the reader.
The husbands:
Ernest Bemis, and Substance Webber were polar opposites. Ernest was full of goodness, a gentle man “too Christian to murder” with violence and rage foreign to him while Substance possessed a mean dominating personality full of strength and power who used fear to his advantage with his wife and son.
The wives:
Cora explored in her mind the “affair” that ruined her life as well as her neighbors’ determining the only attraction to Substance was to tame the untamable…something she could control in her life. Hattie Mae was frightened enough about her only son’s health that she allowed the Bemis family into her home. “Clyde’s fever had burned hot enough to melt the coldness of her will.” She had lost so many children she embraced the younger Bemis children as they were a persistent reminder that life goes onward, and a future lay ahead. The relationship thawed between the two women due to circumstances but, “the air around them seemed full of yellow jackets, buzzing and angry.”
Discussion:
We talked about what we would do in either Cora or Hattie Mae’s shoes; whether the china from President Ulysses S. Grant was to buy Cora’s silence or a gesture of remorse; the lyrical style of writing; how one critical review called the book a platform for the author’s atheist views painting Christians as blind sheep with confused morals; whether or not we agreed with some reviewers who regarded the book too slow and too detailed with pages of characters thinking to themselves instead of spoken dialogue; how the story was somewhat predictable; and the uncanny and valid connection between horses and their masters.
In the author’s words:
There will not be a sequel – “the theme of the book is about coming to term with the fact that things end – lives, relationships, stories.” She doesn’t provide any discussion questions as she wants the reader to determine what was important and not dictated by the author’s intent. Ernest returning to Cora was not addressed in the book – “the book was not about Cora getting back with Ernest – it was about Cora becoming more accepting of isolation and less dependent on others.”
The author knew she was going to be a professional writer at the age of eight and this title was based on family lore. Born Libbie Grant, she has written under the pen names of L.M Ironsides, Libbie Hawker, and what she calls her “fancy pants name” Olivia Hawker. She grew up Mormon in rural Idaho with one of her responsibilities being chronicling the family history, a passion that continued even after leaving the church. She lives in San Juan Islands of Washington State on a one-acre micro farm dedicated to sustainable permaculture practices where 60% of their food comes from this source. Her next project will be another historical novel of the history of the LDS Church.
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
December 8: The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
One-hundred and four-year old Ona tells the eleven-year-old unnamed boy who has been helping her out every Saturday morning, “The story of your life never starts at the beginning.” A heartwarming tale of love, loss, and friendship.
PALE PINK
Discussion Leader: Jean Alexander
Home of: Pinnacle Club Restaurant or outdoors @ private home. TBD
January 12, 2021 American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
RED
Literary novel that reads with the intensity of a suspense tale. Stephen King guarantees you cannot put it down with a perfect balance of terror on one side and love on the other.
February 9: Olive Kitteridge & Olive Again, Elizabeth Strout
The author, described as a master at animating the ordinary, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Olive Kitteridge featuring an indomitable, compassionate, unpredictable retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine. Strout weaves a tale in thirteen linked stories, a vibrant exploration of the human soul that will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince in pain, and shed a tear or two. This is a revisit for Bookers as thirteen reviewers offered their opinions of each story in November 2009. Ms. Strout thought she had put Olive to bed, but the eternal cantankerous character kept begging for more press so Olive, Again was born.
PINKISH-RED
March 9: The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
PINK
A story about the interminable bond between siblings – a brother and a sister who grow up in a fairy tale – huge house, loving father, and caring staff. The only thing missing is their mother who fled the pressure of managing the household when they were young.
April 13: To Be Determined
May 11: People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
DEEP PINK
An Australia rare-book expert is offered a job of a lifetime – analysis and conservation of a priceless book, one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. As she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries, the reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation.
Summer Read: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, Sonia Purnell
PINK
A long overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman who was Winston Churchill’s closest confidante, fiercest critic and shrewdest advisor. Later in life he claimed that victory in World War II would have been impossible without the woman who stood by his side for fifty-seven turbulent years.
Discussion Leader: Beverly Dossett
Home of Beverly Dossett – fingers and toes crossed!
Happy Reading,
JoDee
