Daughter of Moloka’I, by Alan Brennert. St. Martin’s Press, 2019

We first meet Ruth in an orphanage on Oahu, the half Japanese, half Hawaiian daughter of occupants of the Moloka’I leper colony. Over the course of 54 years, from 1926 to 1970, we follow her life as she is adopted by a Japanese family who move to California to farm. Of course, come Pearl Harbor, they are put in an internment camp and later have to start over in the aftermath. Ruth is contented with her life; she loves her parents and is starting a family of her own. Then, out of nowhere, a letter arrives from Rachel – her birth mother. Will Ruth want to meet the woman who gave her up when she was one year old? Can she love both her birth mother who she doesn’t remember and her adoptive mother, the only other she’s known? Can she even understand the woman who gave her up- and who lived a significant amount of her life in the leper colony?

The characters are mostly well drawn and three dimensional. The author brings places to life, too- the islands, central California, the internment camps. I think this description of the inhumanity of putting people in internment camps like animals comes at a time when the US is doing the same thing all over again, and I hope it will make some difference in the minds of readers. Five stars.

Change Here Now: Permaculture Solutions for Personal and Community Transformation, by Adam Brock. North Atlantic Books, 2017

 

I have a deep interest in permaculture in the agricultural sense, found “A Pattern Language” (an architecture and town planning book from 1970 that pointed out the living patterns that people use) fascinating, and am very interested in how to change the world into a better place, so the description of this book sounded like it would be something I would love. Instead, I found large parts of the book rather tedious.

Not that I think they would be tedious to everyone. The main focus of the book is on working with people: getting the best from people, getting groups to work together efficiently (which changes depending on the size of the group and what it’s trying to do), getting people to express themselves but also to listen, etc. I’ve met a lot of that in presentations I’ve been sucked into in various volunteer groups I’ve been part of, and if I’m lucky I’ll never have to go to another one. I’m a loner; tell me what to do and let me go do it. But if you need to start a group to get something done, the author presents ways of making it more efficient- and at the same time, more people oriented. And some of the things are as simple as rearranging the chairs.

The book is easy to read in some ways; the chapters are very, very short- sometimes only two pages- so you have natural places to stop and think about what you just read. The author uses some vocabulary that most people won’t have, but he gives the definitions (like, what is ‘sankofa’? I didn’t know). The rest is everyday language.

So, if you need to get people working together, invest in this book along with your Robert’s Rules of Order. Just don’t get it thinking it’ll help you create sustainability in your yard! 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.

Neither of these things influenced my review.  

Lotus, by Lijia Zhang. Henry Holt and Company, 2017

Lotus is the nom de guerre of a young woman from rural China, who left the village to seek better employment in the factories. On her deathbed, her mother had told her to take care of her younger brother; she intends to make money to support the family and send her brother to high school and university. After her cousin dies in a factory fire- the building locked to prevent workers from escaping- she moves on to the city. Here she soon finds herself working as a ji- a sex worker- in a low rent massage parlor. She sends virtually all her money home, telling her family she is waiting tables and earning big tips.

Bing is a photographer. He’s a middle class, middle aged man who couldn’t hack the business world of modern China. He wants to both make a difference in the world, and do something creative. He finds his calling in photojournalism, taking photos of the ji, especially Lotus, and telling their stories, which are not pretty stories. One of Lotus’s co-workers is not even 14; one is supporting her developmentally disabled son; another is supporting a low-life boyfriend who takes her for one abortion after another.

While the main focus is on Lotus and the development of her character as she navigates the perils of her life, it’s Bing’s coming of age, too, despite his age. I enjoyed watching them evolve and grow- and not end up in the place I thought they would. The descriptions of people and place are vivid and the divide between the privileged middle class and the poor is achingly exposed. The writing is a bit rough at times, but the reader has to remember that English is not Zhang’s first language and she wrote directly in it- this is not a translation. Four stars out of five- I’d give four and a half if Amazon would let me! 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for a fair review. 

Neither of these things influenced my review.  

The Painted Girls, by Cathy Marie Buchanan. Riverhead Books 2013

The story starts in 1878 Paris, in the slums where the van Goethem sisters live with their alcoholic, recently widowed mother. Sources of income are few and far between; the mother works long hours of hard labor at a laundry and doesn’t make enough to feed the family. In the France of this era, there is no safety net for the poor and young girls are pretty much regarded as useless, evil parasites. The girls go to the Paris Opera, taking ballet lessons and hoping to get hired by the Ballet, where they will not only be paid a semi-decent wage but will be exposed to men that can afford to keep them, a way out of the gutter.

Antoinette, the oldest at 17, has had her chance and proved not a good enough dancer. Now she must find another way to earn money, and her two younger sisters, Marie, 14, and Charlotte, 7, will make their attempts at the Ballet.

Marie gets lucky, in a way: Edgar Degas, not yet a famous artist, wants her to model for him. She is paid well for this, although it exposes her to a man who says he is an artist but never seems to actually draw during modeling sessions. Antoinette finds various employment, and finds herself in her first love relationship with a young man who gets accused of murder. The story is told from Antoinette’s and Marie’s points of view in alternate chapters, and their stories twine around each other as they try to find happiness in a world that despises them and are tested to their limits of what they’ll do for love. Through the story runs the theory of the time, that a person’s facial features show their inner selves. People with low foreheads, bad teeth, and forward thrusting jaws are branded as stupid, lazy, and natural criminals.

The van Goethem sisters were real; Marie was the model for Degas’s famous sculpture ‘Little Dancer Aged Fourteen’. Charlotte danced with the Ballet for years, advancing to the rank of sujet, a part time soloist. Antoinette’s lover was also real, although chances are the two never met in real life. There are two main themes in the book: sisterly love, and the way the poor were treated at the time. The girls and the streets of Paris come to life in these pages. I rooted for them all the way and stayed up late reading.