“This is my way back; you are the lighthouse. Speak to me of home,” Daisy.
15 met at the home of Kittie Minick to discuss this multigenerational saga told through the voices of three women navigating the complex terrain between Puerto Rico and the American Midwest, exploring what it means to call a place home.
Business:
We’ll meet on March 10th, 10:00 a.m. at the home of Virginia Gandy, 261 St. Andrews Drive, Pinnacle Golf Club to discuss The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter, a gripping psychological thriller and family drama featuring a young woman who investigates the forty-year-old murder that inspired her mother’s bestselling novel, uncovering devastating truths and dangerous lies.
As a reminder, if you have not purchased your tickets for PWC’s major fundraiser, Casino Night, to be held on February 28th at the CR Legacy Event Center in Gun Barrel City, the deadline of February 16th is fast approaching. Tickets are $125.00 per person, and all proceeds benefit the local charities who depend on our generosity to support their missions. It’s in our hands to make this an event to remember and show our support for these worthwhile causes.
About the Author:
Jeanine Cummins was born in 1974 in Rota, Spain where her U.S. Navy father was stationed and her mother was a nurse. She’s of Irish and Puerto Rican heritage and spent her childhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland and attended Towson University majoring in English and communications. After graduating she spent two years working as a bartender in Belfast, Northern Ireland before moving back to the United States in 1997 beginning work at Penguin in New York City spending ten years in the publishing industry.
Her 2004 memoir, A Rip in Heaven, is a story of a tragic night in April 1991 on the Old Chain of Rocks bridge which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis, Missouri when her two cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry were murdered and her brother, Tom barely escaped. Her cousin Julie’s death inspired her to become a writer as she was Jeanine’s role model and a very gifted writer in her own right. Cummins felt a sense of responsibility to carry on her legacy. Her next book, The Outside Boy, published in 2010 is a poignant coming-of-age novel about an Irish gypsy boy’s childhood in the 1950s. The Crooked Branch followed in 2013 centered around the Great Famine of Ireland. January 2021, Bookers chose American Dirt, published in 2020. Our reviewer, Rebecca Brisendine, admitted she almost put it down after the first chapter which begins with the massacre of 16 people at a family barbeque in a pleasant neighborhood in Acapulco, Mexico…but she was glad she didn’t. The novel sold over three million copies in thirty-seven languages but also gained controversy within the American literary community for perceived cultural exploitation and inaccuracy in her portrayals of both the Mexican and migrant experiences. Her book tour was cancelled in 2020 as specific threats to booksellers and to the author surfaced causing the organizers to believe a real peril to their safety existed.
She and her husband, who is an Irish immigrant who lived illegally in the U.S. for ten years, have two daughters and she is currently researching another novel.
Synopsis:
Speak to Me of Home is a sweeping, multigenerational novel that explores the complexities of family, migration, and the search for belonging. Through its interwoven timelines and richly drawn characters, the book examines how trauma, exile, and assimilation shape identity—not just for individuals, but for entire families and communities. The novel is unflinching in its portrayal of racism, classism, and the quiet violence of exclusion, yet it is also deeply hopeful, celebrating the resilience of women and the power of storytelling to heal and connect. The DNA test, hurricane, and vintage shop are not just plot devices but metaphors for the ways in which the past is always present, and the future is always being rewritten. Ultimately, the novel argues that home is not a fixed place or a pure inheritance, but something we build together—through honesty, forgiveness, and the courage to claim our own stories. In a world marked by displacement and uncertainty, Speak to Me of Home offers a vision of family as both sanctuary and adventure, and of identity as a living, evolving tapestry.
Mixed bag of Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews are considered in the industry as the gold standard and this novel was described as having “flat characters and full of cultural cliches making for a disappointing read. She indulged in tired tropes such as Rafaela’s mother who is a black-haired beauty from the countryside who shimmies her hips and claps back at the aristocratic women who snub her. Although Daisy does almost die in a hurricane, a natural disaster is not character development. Indeed, none of the characters here emerge as real people. Even the dramatic revelation that animates the novel’s final act fails to provoke much in the way of conflict or change.” Ouch.
On the flipside, The Bookish Elf, says the author has “crafted a novel that is at once intimate and expansive, tackling big ideas through the lens of one family’s deeply personal story.” The novel is “a testament to the power of roots, the complexity of identity, and the enduring strength of family bonds. With its lyrical prose, richly drawn characters, and thoughtful exploration of what it means to belong, this novel is sure to resonate with readers long after they turn the final page. It is a journey worth taking, one that invites us to reflect on our own sense of home and the stories that shape who we are. Jeanine Cummins has once again proven herself to be a master storyteller, capable of illuminating the universal through the deeply personal.”
Rating System:
0 – aka The Susan – wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy. (You are special – no one else has a rating named after them!!)
1 – put your money back in the piggy bank
2 – borrow, don’t buy
3 – good beach read
4 – borders on your favorite read ever
5 – order now, include in your will.
Our discussion:
We talked about the credibility of today’s resources such as Wikipedia versus the “old school” Encyclopedia Britannica and The World Book. Wikipedia provides quick information and is a “good starting point” as it’s a collaborative online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit its articles – all editors are volunteers. The New York Times calls it “a factual netting that holds the digital world together.” This open model has led to both strengths and weaknesses in its credibility. The accuracy of AI models depends on the quality of their training data, but these models are also fundamentally unable to cite their original source for their knowledge, thus AI users use Wikipedia knowledge without knowing that Wikipedia is its source. Be careful what you quote!
Speak to Me of Home was well received as the majority of our ratings fell between 3 and 4. Our discussion covered the relatability and development of the characters. Rafaela Acuña’s life spanned privilege, loss, and reinvention with her marriage to white American, Peter Brennan, while still agonizing about giving up the love of her life, Candido. She navigated through scandals, exile, widowhood, and the slow erosion of memory to finely find contentment. Peter was both loving and limited, unable to fully understand his wife’s identity or the racism she endured…his intentions were good, his love for his daughter, Ruth, genuine, and his eventual acceptance of the family’s truth, an act of grace. Ruth is forced to reinvent herself after her husband’s death eventually embracing the messy business of family. Daisy, fiercely independent and determined to reclaim her Puerto Rican heritage, suffered a life-threatening accident, her recovery forcing her to confront her own fragility and the depth of her family’s love. When she opened her vintage shop, The Double Down, it became a living archive of family history – a place where the past was honored and the future imagined. Benny’s character was transformative and a favorite as he became a pillar of strength for his family – he was practical, loyal, and quietly wise. Carlos, Ruth’s youngest son, became Daisy’s confidant acting as the bridge between generations.
The novel is steeped in symbolism such as the banyan tree with its ability to turn branches into roots mirroring the family’s journey of loss, adaptation, and return. The hurricane serves as a metaphor for the family’s upheaval as it disrupts, destroys, and exposes vulnerabilities but also brings a family together in crisis…old wounds are exposed and the possibility of renewal emerges. Family secrets collide with fate as the past shapes the present and the role prejudice plays in the story is on full display in the American Midwest, but we learn how a home is both a place and a choice. Storytelling across generations, languages, and mediums is a central theme as it becomes a way to survive trauma and to claim identity, underscoring the idea that we are made by the stories we inherit and the ones we choose to tell.
Happy Reading,
JoDee
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