TLC BOOK TOUR: The Long Way Home by Kevin Bannister

Title:  The Long Way Home

Genre: Historical Fiction, Based on Real Events

Author:  Kevin Bannister

Format:  Digital

Publication Date:  September 15, 2016

Synopsis
Follows the lives of Thomas Peters and Murphy Steele who are friends, former slaves, fellows-in-arms and leaders of the Black Brigade. Their real-life story is an epic adventure tale as they battle bounty hunters, racism, poverty and epidemic in their adopted country after the war.

'The Long Way Home' has resonated with readers around the world as an unforgettable account of courage, hope and determination triumphing over despair and injustice. Thomas Peters, thoughtful and charismatic, and Murphy Steele, strong and impulsive, lead their followers on an inspirational search for a place where they can  be free.

My Thoughts
In an impetuous spur of the moment a young Murphy Steele runs with Thomas Peters in an attempt to escape their slave owner. Naivety and lack of planning result in their speedy recapture and sadistic scarring punishment. Quietly seething with resentment and vengeful notions Murphy is obsessed with murder and escape. He has become a frighteningly dangerous, powerfully strong brooding young man. Quite the reverse in attitude has happened to Thomas, now he wants to stay out of trouble and live as safe a life he can, even if that means being an obedient slave...One day circumstances will be right for them to run again.

It is through Murphy’s, at times, rather dry narrative but engaging conversational style that their experiences are shared with us as we follow them in pursuit of regaining freedom.  Two runaway slaves, two unsung heroes, with promises of becoming freemen with land of their own, fought bravely alongside the British Army in the American Revolutionary War. As soldiers they led their men in the ‘Black Pioneers’ unit into horrific bloody battle.  Victory was not delivered and the men who survived faced a difficult choice, to remain as slaves or leave for an uncertain future with the British.

I’ve read a few different titles, fiction and non fiction about the slave trade but not one which gives such a vivid in-depth enlightening perspective from two men such as Thomas Peters who had an influence on many fellow freed slaves some of whom he persuaded to return to Africa where they founded the state of Freetown; and Murphy Steele who was a key component in rounding up Black volunteers to accompany him to Nova Scotia where, once again promised by the British, they would be supplied with everything needed to build a new free state for themselves. This is where the sequel (currently in progress) will pick up from. I sincerely hope it won’t be too long in coming to publication.

Unquestionably brave, charismatic and highly influential men of their time, Bannister’s well researched historical novel gives them a real presence and voice to speak to and remind us about injustice prejudice and the cruelty of enslavement, of denying a race basic human rights and who are deemed an expendable piece of property, of the horror of war, and the reminder that as humans we are fundamentally a selfish animal which will usually choose the best course of action to benefit us personally, culturally and racially, that we will utilise treachery, betrayal or indifference as a means to that end.

The times they haven’t changed that much !

Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary digital copy of the book for my thoughts to be included in this tour. Thank you to the author and TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and take part.

Similar reads:
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
KINTU, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Sugar Money, Jane Harris
Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
Underground Airlines, Ben E Winters
12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup (memoir)
Black Boy, Richard Wright (non fiction)
The Free State of Jones, Victoria E Bynam (non fiction)

Unbelievable “My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History” by Katy Tur

Unbelievable by Katy Tur

Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher (October, 2017)

Pages: 291 (Hardback)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 

My Thoughts:
Absolutely...unbelievably fascinating…utterly unmissable.

Jeez this was a humdinger of a read about the coverage of the presidential campaign and its lead-up to Trump becoming one of the most controversial, most divisive US Presidents of our time.

In this excellent 'campaign memoir' NBC News correspondent Katy Tur tells us what it was like reporting on an exhaustive daily basis, at rallies and interviewing Trump or dealing with his chief aids during the campaign election, and of how she felt on a professional basis and personal level.  For me, Tur's record of events confirmed my original feelings about Trump which unfortunately intensified my concern and fear for a better and united America under his presidency.

I believe Trump despises women he doesn't find attractive.  He does call them 'disgusting'. People who disagree with him or get in his way may find themselves victims to his vengefulness.  Trump 'hates' journalists with an obsessive passion. Tur as a female journalist became a target for his bullying and outright 'weird' behaviour at times.  She shares with us how she felt being singled out at rallies for ridicule and hateful remarks by the then presidential candidate, and of how vulnerable she and her colleagues felt at one particular venue when the behaviour of a baying mob of loyal supporters had been supported and even encouraged by Trump.
I am truly fearful of a future without an independent investigative journalistic presence to keep track and hold those in power accountable and genuinely dumbfounded that a presidential candidate could be so badly behaved, divisive and instigative of manipulating his frenzied supporters into such emotive states of hatred and violence towards anyone opposed to his views.  Tur gives an extremely compelling, personally candid account of her coverage as one of the women political journalists during one of the craziest and emotionally volatile campaigns ever seen.

Packed amidst the vengeful, rhetoric of Trump's speeches or condemnation of pretty much anyone distasteful to his sensibilities Tur manages to inject a fair amount of humour in the form of her inner dialogue which lightens what could have been an overbearing political tirade and I spent time googling campaign video footage to accompany my reading experience.

Tur doesn't shed any new light on Trump's character but what it may do is confirm what the majority of us suspected all along and that is that Trump, a bullying, vengeful, narcissistic beast is now terrifyingly the most powerful man on the planet.

Intelligently written, fast paced, and intensely compelling, I was engrossed, fascinated and repulsed in equal measure by the book.  I highly recommend the aptly entitled book to anyone interested in the making of political history's most 'unbelievable' President.

Memorable quotes:
"Trump is crude, and in his halo of crudeness other people get to be crude as well.”

"Trump managed to tap into a deep well of resentment and anger among disaffected voters who were content to trade in old notions of truth and decency for Trump’s wild ride."

Disclaimer: I received a reading copy for an unbiased review from HarperCollins Publishers Inc.,

The Atomic Weight Of Love by Elizabeth J Church

Title: The Atomic Weight of Love

Author: Elizabeth J. Church

Publisher: Algonquin Books (3 May 2016)

Pages: 320 pages

Source: ARC via NetGalley

Genre: historical fiction, womens fiction, WWII, Vietnam War, women's studies

Rating:

Disclaimer: A complementary copy of The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J Church was provided by the Publisher for an unbiased honest review.

Read in July, 2016

Synopsis:
In her sweeping debut novel, Elizabeth J. Church takes us from the World War II years in Chicago to the vast sun-parched canyons of New Mexico in the 1970s as we follow the journey of a driven, spirited young woman, Meridian Wallace, whose scientific ambitions are subverted by the expectations of her era.

In 1941, at seventeen years old, Meridian begins her ornithology studies at the University of Chicago. She is soon drawn to Alden Whetstone, a brilliant, complicated physics professor who opens her eyes to the fundamentals and poetry of his field, the beauty of motion, space and time, the delicate balance of force and energy that allows a bird to fly.

Entranced and in love, Meridian defers her own career path and follows Alden west to Los Alamos, where he is engaged in a secret government project (later known to be the atomic bomb). In married life, though, she feels lost and left behind. She channels her academic ambitions into studying a particular family of crows, whose free life and companionship are the very things that seem beyond her reach. There in her canyons, years later at the dawn of the 1970s, with counterculture youth filling the streets and protests against the war rupturing college campuses across the country, Meridian meets Clay, a young geologist and veteran of the Vietnam War, and together they seek ways to mend what the world has broken.

Exquisitely capturing the claustrophobic eras of 1940s and 1950s America, The Atomic Weight of Love also examines the changing roles of women during the decades that followed. And in Meridian Wallace we find an unforgettable heroine whose metamorphosis shows how the women’s movement opened up the world for a whole generation.

My Thoughts:
On Meri's 10th birthday her father gives her a book, 'The Burgess Bird Book for Children'.  For her 11th birthday he gives her, Darwin's 'On The Origin of the Species'. Six months later her father dies leaving both Meri and her mother utterly devastated.
At 17 years old Meri leaves her hometown of Pennsylvania and attends Chicago University with a fierce ambition to earn an advanced degree in ornithology.  She sits in on one of Professor Whetstone's physics lectures and is completely smitten by this man old enough to be her father. This is what she says about seeing him at that first lecture, ' I was in awe of Alden. I could only sense the very fringes of concepts that his intellect grasped with such easy, ready fingers. I worshipped his knowledge, his aloof independence and greater world experience. He was my teacher; he led me, and I followed gladly.'  They embark on an affair fuelled, not by passion or lustful recklessness, but of joint admiration of intellectual minds. They marry and Alden takes her away to Los Alamos, New Mexico.

At the commencement of each chapter there are ornithological terms of reference which cleverly shadow Meri's experiences within the chapter they refer to.
The writing style is gently paced, and intelligent, with beautifully constructed sentences and phrases such as,"I watched the first snowfall begin as a light, dry powder and morph into those luscious, fat, lazy flakes that sashay downward and accumulate into weighty drifts." I fell immediately under the authors spell of words and eagerly devoured the pages of the book. In another poignantly beautifully written scene where the crows say farewell to one of their own, I cried as the loss and feeling of loneliness was utterly palpable and I truly believed I understood how Meri was feeling at that particular stage of her life.

The Atomic Weight of Love is primarily a love story written and voiced by Meri about the ever changing, evolving love she feels for Alden, and then in her 40's of her love for a much younger man.  I found it in turns to be heartbreaking, and infuriating due to the out dated attitudes of the times, but above all an uplifting read.  There is a bittersweet quality to the story and at times it simply broke my heart.

Elizabeth Church’s debut novel is an exquisite poignant tale of loyalty, trust and knowing when to let go. I truly hope there's a lot more to come from her as a writer.  I'd recommend it for readers who love beautifully written literary historical fiction that will make them question their own sacrifices and accomplishments.  I would also suggest it for book group readers as the multitude of topics raised throughout the book could generate some lively discussion.

TLC BOOK TOURS : Alice In Bed by Judith Hooper

Alice In Bed: A Novel by Judith Hooper

Hardcover: 325 pages

Publisher: Counterpoint (October 13, 2015)

Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

Rating:

Synopsis:
Arm yourself against my dawn, which may at any moment cast you and Harry into obscurity, Alice James writes her brother William in 1891. In Judith Hooper's magnificent novel, zingers such as this fly back and forth between the endlessly articulate and letter-writing Jameses, all of whom are geniuses at gossiping. And the James family did, in fact, know everyone intellectually important on both sides of the Atlantic, but by the time we meet her in 1889, Alice has been sidelined and is lying in bed in Leamington, England, after taking London by storm.

We don't know what's wrong with Alice. No one does, though her brothers have inventive theories, and the best of medical science offers no help. So, with Alice in bed, we travel to London and Paris, where the James children spent part of their unusual childhood. We sit with her around the James family's dinner table, as she - the youngest and the only girl - listens to the intellectual elite of Boston, missing nothing.

The book is accompanied by Hooper's Afterword,"What was Wrong with Alice?," an analysis of the varied psychological ills of the James family and Alice's own medical history.

My Thoughts:
Based on the diary of Alice James and correspondence between Alice and the rest of the James's family I found Judith Hooper's Alice In Bed to be an utterly fascinating and compelling novel.

We meet Alice, daughter of the famous author Henry James, in her late 30's during the latest bout of illness which has rendered her bedridden. Similar episodes of illness have plagued Alice since she was young and no one has been able to diagnose what is wrong with her. During this episode of incapacitation Alice reminisces about her life, friendships, family, and lovers, giving the reader a glimpse into the private lives of this often amusing, intelligent but ultimately tragic family.

I was particularly fascinated by Alice's relationships with her cousin Sara, and Katherine Loring with whom she formed intensely passionate affairs. The emotions and subsequent sexual encounters, particularly relating to the former friendship, were a revelation to Alice, but also confusing especially as the relationship was not on equal footing.

Alice comes across in Hooper's novel as a highly intelligent, quick witted, articulate young woman, who inside the family, is encouraged to participate in stimulating conversation and argument with her brothers and father on a multitude of topics. However outside of the family her spirited enthusiasm to engage fully in life's experiences is deemed unnatural, and inappropriate behaviour for a young lady.

There was so much that I enjoyed about the book; the prose was exquisite, and entirely in keeping with the period.  My reading copy is full of highlighted text, sentences and paragraphs of beautifully written descriptions of the conversations and acerbic quips between the members of the family. I spent hours looking up words in a dictionary and although I do recognise that this may be a drawback for some readers, I found it enlightening.

Alice In Bed is an intelligent thought provoking, cleverly imagined life of Alice James and one which I recommend unreservedly to anyone interested in American literature, and the lives of privileged women living during this era. It would be an ideal choice for book reading groups as I'm sure it would generate a lot of debate and interesting discussion.

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of Alice In Bed in exchange for my unbiased, honest review.