Hello Summer--Contemporary Woman Journalist Investigates Congressman's Death

I've never read mysteries by either Mary Kay Andrews or Kathy Hogan Trochek. Mary Kay Andrews is a pseudonym for Trochek.  Her Goodreads profile says that she established the pen name for books that would be more Southern oriented. Trochek lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

I was approached by publicist Meg Walker with a review request for Hello, Summer, the most recent Mary Kay Andrews novel.  The female journalist protagonist was what drew my interest. I appreciated that Trochek had been a journalist herself before beginning her career as a novelist. This meant that I could expect an authentic portrayal of the protagonist. The author gave her protagonist her own journalistic background.  They both had worked at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  I think that these shared circumstances increases the reader's confidence in the book's realism.

On this blog, I recently reviewed a book dealing with the real historical journalist, Nellie Bly here but I also reviewed The Suffragette Scandal, a romance by Courtney Milan in which the heroine was a fictional historical journalist  here.

Journalists play an important role in society. So I like to highlight them.  That's why I decided to accept the review request.  I received two print copies from the exceedingly generous publisher, St. Martin's Press.  My review is below.

                       

From a mystery perspective, readers will need to be patient. There is a great deal of development of the characters and their relationships before the case gets going.  The mystery does get solved though the resolution isn't conventional.

Although there is a romance element in this novel,  it doesn't dominate the plot.  I read a review on Goodreads that complained that there was too little romance and too much politics.  I personally liked the balance of all the various aspects in  Hello, Summer within the narrative.

Readers of this blog will want to know that there were two wonderful woman characters in this novel in addition to protagonist Conley Hawkins.

 My personal favorite was her grandmother's housekeeper, Winnie.  Her strength in the face of  environmental injustice impressed me tremendously. I would have loved a novel in which Winnie was the protagonist in which we got to see her entire history as she experienced it. I suppose it would have been an environmental thriller.

Conley's eccentric grandmother was incredibly supportive of Conley's insistence on investigating stories regardless of who they offended.  She had inherited the ownership of a local newspaper, and it was she who upheld its journalistic standards.

 Conley brought valuable experience to her family's newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, from her work at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  She had reason to believe that the risks she was taking could make The Silver Bay Beacon more successful despite her sister's skepticism.

 I'm hoping that there will be another novel taking place in Silver Bay in which we get to see whether Conley's strategy paid off in the long run. Do local print newspapers have a future?  I'd like to think that they do.

                   

                                 

Run You Down: Dramatically Intense Sequel to Invisible City @juliadahl

I reviewed the debut mystery Invisible City by Julia Dahl on this blog.  It took place in the hasidic community of New York who call themselves haredi. I said in my review of the first book that I wasn't that impressed with the journalist protagonist Rebekah Roberts, and that I wished that I was reading the story of Aviva Kagan, Rebekah's mother.  Well, I got that wish.  The sequel, Run You Down, alternates between the perspectives of Rebekah and Aviva.
 
                                                         

This book is full of tragedy, but you could almost call the murder that Rebekah is investigating a poignant footnote to the heart-rending story of Rebekah's uncle, Samuel Kagan.  Sam is the dramatic center of the book.  I was very sorry for Sam.   I understood that he was largely shaped by PTSD, and that his trauma motivated his behavior.  Yet at the same time, it was hard to view him as a sympathetic character because some of his actions were so shockingly unthinkable.

Aviva was an important character, but largely secondary within the plot.  Her self-punishing guilt kept her away from the people she cared about most.  Yet Aviva was really a victim of her upbringing.    As much as she tried to combat it, being a member of the haredi community was too much a part of her. 

Dov Lowenstein, a disaffected ex-haredi who appears briefly in Run You Down, calls the haredi a cult.  This would explain why Aviva and others found it so difficult to leave.  What is the definition of a cult?  Neopagan author Isaac Bonewits developed a Cult Danger Evaluation Frame originally published in his book, Real Magic.  Its original purpose was to allow Neopagans to determine whether any particular religious group that they might come across was a dangerous cult.  If a group's  practices involves a high number of the characteristics that Bonewits listed, it's best to stay far away from it.  It is possible to conclude from what is written about the haredi in Julia Dahl's books that they are a cult.  Others might maintain that they preserve traditions, and are a source of social cohesion for their community.

I thought that Rebekah improved in this book, but she may be too vulnerable to be a successful journalist.  The ugliness of the crimes that she has investigated disturbs her very deeply.  At one point in this novel she reminds herself that being a reporter is what she aspired to do, but then comments "Maybe one day living my dream won't make me feel sick."

Run You Down is a powerful piece of fiction.  It also completes the Rebekah and Aviva character arc.  So if Julia Dahl continues with the series, she will need to find a new direction for Rebekah.  Perhaps additional professional training would be advisable for this character.

                                                     

Jam on the Vine by @LaShondaKatrice: An African American Girl Who Grew Up To Be " The Voice of A Community"

I'm pretty sure that Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett was on the Goodreads page for Balm which I reviewed on this blog here.  It was a book that was added by people who liked Balm.  Since I was looking for another high quality African American historical novel, I prioritized the book on my library TBR.  The protagonist is Ivoe Williams who wanted to be a journalist from an early age.  I've never read a historical novel dealing with African American newspapers.  So I thought I'd learn a great deal about their history and the historical context by reading this book.

                                         

The book starts in late 19th century Texas.  I am well aware that the issues which the current Black Lives Matter campaign focus on have a long history.  In the minds of some individuals, slavery was never abolished.  Black people owning anything, or having any degree of independence angers these people.  They don't want to accept that African Americans are human beings with the same rights as other Americans.  

 Ivoe  was born to parents who had been free all their lives.  Her  mother was an Islamic woman who owned land and had a small business.  She sold jam made from the tomatoes that she grew in her garden.  Everyone called her Lemon, but her birth name was Leila. Lemon's parents came from a Muslim enclave in 19th century Alabama.  To learn more about the history of African Muslims in the United States read Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylviane A. Diouf . Ivoe's father Ennis was a metalsmith.  Both were well regarded within Little Tunis, an African American neighborhood.

 Yet this community was an island surrounded by a sea of hatred. As a child, Ivoe first became aware of this when her school was burned down because a little black boy was seen reading to an elderly white woman. A generation earlier it was a crime to teach blacks to read.  Ivoe's writing ambitions were anathema in this context.

Since my last review for Book Babe dealt with a novel whose protagonist was a journalist, I noticed that like Rebekah Roberts in Invisible City, Ivoe's first attempt at an article didn't credit its sources.  It's important to point out that Rebekah had the opportunity to study journalism, so she really should have known better.  Ivoe never had that opportunity.  She did learn how to write better stories from Ona Darden, a woman who became very important in Ivoe's life.  Ona told her, "You are the voice of a community."  So Ivoe's journalistic career wasn't just about achieving her own dreams. She was representing African Americans.  Ivoe's sense of what it meant to speak on behalf of her people evolved over time as she matured.

The discovery I made in this book that astonished me most was that African Americans were engaged in sign carrying street protests against segregation in the early 20th century.  I had always thought that civil rights demonstrations began in the 1960's, but there was one described in this book that really did take place in 1905. There were all sorts of African American protests before the 1960's that were reported in African American newspapers like Ivoe Williams' fictional publication, Jam on the Vine. Some historical African American newspapers have been digitized. You can access them on the Library of Congress website. 

African American newspapers also reported on atrocities.The mass murders of African Americans and burnings of their neighborhoods in the early 20th century which are mentioned in Jam on the Vine remind me very much of anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe during this period. A great wave of  Jewish immigration appeared on the shores of England and America. At the same time,  a vast influx of African Americans arrived in the cities of the North. This was called the Great Migration which is often framed as a quest for factory jobs.  I realized with Ivoe that although such jobs may have been a consequence of this exodus for some, blacks were really fleeing for their lives.

I was very impressed with the coverage of issues dealt with in Jam of the Vine and their relevance to  Black Lives Matter.  I also loved the way the major characters and their relationships were portrayed.  Lesbian love was shown to be the equal of heterosexual love.  This is certainly one of the best novels that I have read in 2015.

Invisible City-- Hiding Homicide Among The Hasidim @juliadahl

If I read an award winner or nominee, it's usually a remarkable coincidence.  I don't read books because they've been nominated for awards.  I've learned from experience that award winning books are rarely the kind of books that I want to read.  This applies to award nominated mysteries.  I don't care for the extremes in the mystery field--noir and cozies.  The awards are dominated by these polarized trends , and I prefer my mysteries somewhere in between.   I want realism, but I don't want the deep despair of noir.  I like sympathetic protagonists but I don't want the saccharine sentimentality that I find in the mysteries that are marketed as cozies. 

Invisible City by Julia Dahl was nominated for an Edgar in the first novel category.  It's somewhat grimmer than the mysteries I tend to like, but I was intrigued by the background of the protagonist, reporter Rebekah Roberts.

                                             

                                            
   Rebekah was brought up by her Christian father, but her mother, Aviva Kagan,  had come from the hasidic Jewish community and left it behind. Apparently, she was ambivalent about this decision because she soon left her daughter behind as well.   Ambivalence about my Jewish heritage is a situation that I identify with and understand.

The hasidic community call themselves haredi.  This literally means "those who fear" in Hebrew.  The implied connotation is that they are those who fear God. Yet it seemed to me that Dahl does portray haredi as generally fearful.    Their distinctive 19th century Eastern European dress makes them the most visible Jews and a special focus of prejudice.  Prejudice is catalyzed by fear of what is considered strange and unfamiliar.  Closed off communities like the haredi tend to cultivate their unique identity as a survival strategy. So the haredi are insular because they are afraid of the outside world, but those in the outside world who are most inclined to attack them are afraid of how different they are as a result of their insularity.  Fear begets more fear.  Fear was the reason why the haredi tried so hard to conceal murder in this book.

Invisible City centers on the killing of Rivka Mendelssohn which might easily have become an anonymous crime statistic in New York City.  The victim was a warm outgoing woman who wanted to help people.  She also strongly supported the rights of individuals to choose how they live and what they believe which ran completely counter to the haredi ethos.

There were a number of  characters in this book who were alienated by the lack of freedom among the haredi.  The most indelible are Rivka Mendelssohn and Aviva Kagan who never actually appear, but are nevertheless vividly portrayed through the memories of the people who knew them.

 Saul Katz is another of these disaffected characters, and he is very prominent within the storyline because his community contacts were invaluable for Rebekah Roberts.  In fact, without Saul Katz Rebekah wouldn't have gotten anywhere with her efforts to find out the truth about Rivka Mendelsson's death.   Saul is a compelling character, but Rebekah's unquestioning trust in Saul shows her naivete.

Frankly, I didn't think much of Rebekah.  I'll grant that she's young and new to journalism. Yet I wondered how it was even possible for her to become a stringer for a newspaper in a major market which would be highly competitive.  She should have needed to start her career in a smaller market like Oshkosh or Juneau. She also made mistakes that even a beginner shouldn't have made.  Having anonymous sources that need to be protected is one thing, but having anonymous sources because the reporter forgot to ask who they were is just incompetent.  I can understand why the author chose  Rebekah as the viewpoint character.  So much information that readers might need to know had to explained to her.  Yet she totally lacked professional credibility.   She does learn from her mistakes and presumably will be much improved in the sequel.  In Invisible City, I didn't find her interesting and wished that I was reading her mother's story rather than hers.

Still it was a good mystery.  I kept reading because I identified with Rivka Mendelssohn, and wanted to see justice done in her case.