Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

This book came into the shop, and I’d seen somewhere online that it had been nicknamed “The Israeli Kite Runner.” So I took it downstairs to our flat and made it my bedside book.

Hmm….. on the one hand, it’s very atmospheric, makes you feel the Haifa poverty and inner city activity of the time period (post-WWII). On the other, translated books have that one-step-removed feel, and this novel has that in spades. It feels like reading from behind a curtain.

The story centers around a woman who decides to marry a guy from Barcelona, both Jewish, different classes, dealing with a lot of the ethnic and economic and political effects of the day. Marriage strains, sick babies, family members who aren’t cooperating, etc. If it weren’t for being set in Haifa, it would be an Aga Saga. But instead, it’s kind of an atmospheric time piece. Maybe even a peek behind the curtain.

I love character-driven books best of all, and this one isn’t. It’s setting-driven, and I have to admit that works really well. I didn’t care about the people, but it was like watching a television instead of reading in terms of the filled-in living details and little tossed-on-top nuggets of unexplained culture. It’s written from the inside, and those of us on the outside can learn a lot just from watching the casualness of the unexplained as it appears.

It’s not a book in which a lot happens action-wise, at least not most of the time, but it’s a great depiction of how time, place, and money can rock a marriage. Any marriage, any time, any place.

Four stars, shall we say?

Hazel House, the sojourning spot for rescued cats awaiting furrever homes, is getting its porch screened in this week. Yeah, I know, that sounds soooooo sexy and interesting, but this means the house will have three fully operational rooms for cats without the danger of them slipping out the door as we bring in fellow sojourners. And that the kitties can sip cat-mint juleps on the screened-in veranda.

Thanks to the kindness of friends (Jon and Beth and Cheryl, specifically) it is also beginning to look downright snazzy. The neighbors like the updo, and no one has complained about the hammering or creative swearing emanating from the property. We have a pileated woodpecker to the south and a retired miner to the north, both of whom have been very pleasant.

So here are the photos of the team, gettin’ er done, along with a few of the fuzzballs for whom we do it.