Category Archives: Life reflections

THE MONDAY BOOK: A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Posted on by
Reply

Normally I only put books I like in the Monday book. But after battling through this plot, I need to talk.

Character driven books are my favorite. This one set up a premise and then populated it. A black family live in a neighborhood where a white family move in and make some major changes to the property, resulting in damage to a historic tree on the black family’s property.

The black family would be bi-racial, except the white dad died because his family wouldn’t accept his black wife. It’s that simple. And it was kinda…. just too simple. This whole book feels like someone said “I need to write about the plight of American suburbs trying to not be racist” and then kept thinking up more convoluted ways to explore that. There are myriad ways of exploring racism in American suburbs without complications. Try skittles and iced tea walking home from 7-11. You don’t need to kill a historic tree through ostentatious display of wealth.

The narration of the story is told by “the neighborhood.” You never know or meet who is talking. They explore the character of the fall guy in this novel – the creepy stepfather who sets up his stepdaughter’s lover on a rape charge using his connections, and then finds his connections won’t actually turn it off again when he wants.

There’s also a totally unbelievable phone call from the teen girl who keeps saying she wasn’t raped, to the district attorney who is determined not to back down, and a conversation with a counselor who tells her 2/3 of women don’t believe they were raped at first, and pretty much have to come around to not accepting blame.

This is when I threw the book across the room. How many women have said they were raped and told they weren’t?

The plot is convoluted, the people are cardboard, the narration is weird, and frankly the handling of both racism and race culture feel like “what can I write about that will make people read me” rather than real. Those are terrible topics. They’re not entertainment fodder and if you can’t handle them with honesty and authenticity, write something else.

Demolition Derby – –

Posted on by
1

Jack just barely gets his Wednesday post over the line – –

Wendy wrote a post last week about finding the jars of canned beans and pickles in the rubble of the demolished house next door.

But the actual process of demolition was also interesting!

On the first day a very big bulldozer arrived and began bashing in the windows and then the gable end. Within just a few hours most of the house was reduced to rubble. I was amazed at just how quickly a house that had stood for many decades (maybe a century) could be knocked down.

Then a big truck arrived and the bulldozer began grabbing bits of wood, metal and plastic and dumping them into the truck. This was actually a much slower process than just the knocking down and many days later is still continuing.

Meanwhile the dozer driver, while waiting for the truck to come back, knocked down the garage in less than an hour!

I went out to the porch for my second cup of coffee yesterday morning and wondered why I could unusually see all the way down the street. Then I realized that they’d also ripped up the tall hedge that used to separate the demolished house from the one down from it.

It’s strange how something that isn’t yours, but has been part of your life for even just five years, can affect you. Of course we have no right to say anything about it or what should be done with it.

But, yet, – – those beans and pickles – – –