Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail (1983) by Louise Shivers

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail (1983)

by Louise Shivers

Tarborough, North Carolina

North Carolina: 5/20

   Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail is another win for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America: A regional work of fiction by a little-known author who I would have never read but for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  There's not much online about her- a stub-like Wikipedia page that mentions this book was named best first novel of the year by USA Today in 1983(!) and was made into  a movie in 1987, Summer Heat.   Her New York Times obituary noted the surprise success of this book- which was published when she was 53.

  Reviewers at the time compared her writing style to Flannery O'Connor, and author Mary Gordon had a role to play as well- selecting the manuscript out of a prize competition where she was the judge and sending it to her publisher.   The plot can be described in one line: Rural wife of a farmer has an affair with a hired hand with violent and predictable results, but like many books set in the rural south, it is all about the atmosphere.  The hot days, the sultry nights and the desperate need to escape- if not to another place then to another person, both themes that are active in this book. 

In West Mills (2019) by De'Shawn Charles Winslow

1,001 Novels: A Library of America

In West Mills (2019)

 by De'Shawn Charles Winslow
711 Main Street, South Mills, North Carolina

North Carolina: 4/20

  In West Mills was the debut novel by author De'Shawn Charles Winslow, about a fictional African-American community in the northeastern tip of North Carolina.  I really enjoyed this book, centered around Azalea "Knot" Centre, an unconventional woman who is a dedicated reader and equally dedicated alcoholic.   Set between the 1940's and the 1980's, In West Mills nearly takes place out of time- the characters are blessedly unaware of the societal upheaval that never reaches their little piece of heaven. 

  Most of the book concerns Knot and her decision to have two children and surrender them to her childless neighbors.  She is present as they grow up, and the plot expands to encompass her children and their lives as Winslow moves through the decades.  Knot also has her friends- Otis Lee, and Valley, the local representative of the LGBT community in West Mills.  She also has her enemies- one of her neighbors betrays her secret pregnancy and subsequent surrender of her children to her parents, and they refuse to talk to her for the rest of the book. In West Mills is unusual for the books from the south in that it is, basically, a book only about African Americans with little or no white presence.  Most of the books from the south contain both black and white characters, and the plots are often about their interrelationships.  Contrast this to the north, and New York City in particular, where single ethnicity books are the rule, rather than the exception. 

  Also this was a very good Audiobook.

The House Behind the Cedars (1900) by Charles W. Chesnutt

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

 The House Behind the Cedars (1900)

by Charles W. Chesnutt 

Fayetteville, North Carolina

North Carolina: 3/20

   I was under the impression that the only Fayetteville was the one in Arkansas, but here we are in Fayetteville North Carolina for this excellent minor classic, The House Behind the Cedars, written by bi-racial (that's not what they called it back then!) author, Charles. W. Chesnutt.  This is the kind of book I'd hope to see a lot more of in the 1,001 Novels project.  First, it's a book from the 19th century (I extend the 19th century through the beginning of World War I in 1914).  Second, it's a book with some wit to it, that also exists in a recognizable literary universe- allusions to Walter Scott and a 19th century version of a Renaissance Faire both appear in its pages.  Third, it's a point of view: That of the "passing" of people with African American ancestry for white, that is little encountered in contemporary literary culture. 

   Generally speaking, any actually readable American novel written before The Great Gatsby is a find, and I enjoyed reading The House Behind the Cedars, even if the frequent discussion of "the race question" is galling to contemporary ears.  Also, the frequent use of the n word, and not in a nice way, by bigoted Southern characters. You aren't going to get assigned The House Behind the Cedars in your introduction to American Lit class, let's put it that way.  I would love to find more books written before World War I on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America list. Rediscovering 19th Century American Literature is a potential gold-mine, or silver-mine, anyway. 

The Third Realm (2024)by Karl Ove Knausgaard

 Audiobook Review

The Third Realm (2024)

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

   We are now three books into Karl Ove Knausgaard's "The Morning Star" series, which combines his trademark close examination of the minutiae of everyday life and everyday thoughts with some kind of a supernatural thriller plot that revolves around a mysterious "new star" which appears in the sky over contemporary Norway and somehow stops all deaths.  Three books in and the general public is still unaware of the phenomenon.  To slow things down even further, Knausgaard uses the third volume to introduce an almost entirely new cast of characters, including a naive Norwegian teen and her nefarious black-metal boyfriend.  In fact, it is Norwegian black metal that takes an astonishing front-of-house position in this volume, as a Norwegian detective seeks to solve the gruesomely mysterious slaying of three members of a lesser Norwegian black metal band at the hands of forces unknown.

  There is also a neurologist who is called in to investigate brain activity in people who were thought to be brain dead, Tove a manic-depressive housewife and painter and Gaute, a teacher and husband to previously described character Katrina (a clergywoman with the church of Norway.) Still no idea how long this series will continue- could be endless?

The House Girl (2013) by Tara Conklin

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The House Girl (2013)

by Tara Conklin

Lyndhurst, Virginia

Virginia: 4/17

    One observation I would make about Virginia and North Carolina is this theme of enslaved people being sold from the relatively benign environments of the upper South to the harsher, crueler world of the cotton belt:  Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  The plantation economy of places like Lyndhurst, Virginia is one of perpetual, inevitable decline as the soil failed from primitive 17th and 18th century farming techniques.  Instead, you had these small plantations owned by families who owned multiple properties or leased land to others, or made their money from a profession or trade.  The slaves in these environments were an asset of the estate that could be sold off in times of economic distress to places that needed man and woman power.

   The House Girl is two inter-related stories, one about Lina, a contemporary attorney working at a white-shoe law firm, she lives in Brooklyn with her artist Father and a mother who "died" under mysterious circumstances.  She is recruited by a partner at her firm to work on an unusual case undertaken at the behest of an African-American defense contractor, a lawsuit for reparations for slavery.  She is tasked with finding the so-called, "Lead Plaintiff," a lineal descendent of an enslaved individual who can serve as the face of the lawsuit.

  This story intersects with that of Josephine, the "house girl" of the title and an 18th century slave who works as the lady-in-waiting for her dying mistress on a swampy, run-down Virginia plantation.  The House Girl is a good pick for the 1,001 Novels project on a couple of levels.  First, with over 7000 Amazon reviews it is a certified hit by the standards of literary fiction (though this isn't quite that).  Second, Lyndhurst is the farthest east location for a Virginia title save two books set near the Cumberland Gap (that's a thing, right?), and the gloomy, gothic plantation where Josephine lives is very evocative of the time and place.