Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley

Another beautiful Virago cover. It's Regina Cordium: Alice Wilding by Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Red Pottage is a Victorian novel that is sadly under-appreciated -- it has less than 100 ratings on Goodreads! I probably first heard of it from Simon at Stuck in a Book -- all I know is that I've owned it for at least five years, and the cover is really pretty. But this is one time the book even transcends the Pre-Raphaelite artwork on the cover. It's a smart, well-written novel with great character development and plot twists, and I think it rivals my favorite Trollope novels.

Written in 1899, this is the intertwining story of two life-long friends, Rachel West and Hester Gresley. Rachel was the daughter of a self-made man who lost his money to an unscrupulous business partner. As a young woman, Rachel struggled to make a living as a secretary and then suddenly became an heiress when the remorseful partner left his fortune to her. She's had her heart broken and is wary of loving again until she met Sir Hugh Scarlett, a dashing man-about-town with a past. He'd been trying to disentangle himself from a love affair when he met Rachel, and the repercussions from the affair continually haunt his attempts to win Rachel.

Rachel's oldest friend, Hester Gresley, comes from an old family whose fortunes have declined, but she's done quite well for herself as a writer. After the death of an aunt, Hester has moved in with her brother's family in the country. James Gresley is a minister and a pompous know-it-all (he does a lot of mansplaining in the novel), and though Hester loves his brood of children, she doesn't get on all that well with his wife. Hester is working hard on a new novel despite the distractions of nosy country neighbors, her judgmental brother, and a houseful of kids. Like most Victorian novels, everyone knows everyone else, and Rachel's story keeps overlapping with Hester's. There's a lot going on in this novel but it really captured my interest and once I got going, I zoomed through it in just a few days.

One could describe this as a satire, but it's also a feminist novel. There are also bits that remind me of a Victorian sensation novel, but much better written and with far better character development. Parts of this book are extremely witty. I can't quote the best lines because they would ruin the plot, but here is an example. A minor character named Sybell Odom is throwing a country fete and is welcoming the country society:

Sybell raised her eyebrows, and advanced with the prettiest air of empressement to meet her unexpected guests. No, clearly it was impossible that the two women should like each other. They were the same age, about the same height and coloring; their social position was too similar; their historic houses too near each other. Lady Newhaven was by far the best looking, but that was not a difference which attracted Sybell towards her. On this occasion Sybell's face assumed its most squirrel-like expression, for, as ill-luck would have it, they were dressed alike.

This was a surprise success for its author, Mary Cholmondeley. Sadly, none of her novels (including this one) are in print any longer, but they're all available for free downloads from Project Gutenberg and on iBooks.  It's a shame that nobody reads this novel any more because I thought it was just brilliant.  I'm quite sure this will make my list of top reads at the end of the year. 

I'm counting this as my 19th Century Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien

Last summer I was lucky enough to visit Paris, which is only a three-hour train ride from our new home in southwest Germany. Of course we had to visit the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore which is on the Seine, just across from the Notre Dame Cathedral. Not only do they have a great selection of books -- all in English -- they also have a tiny collectible bookstore, and tables out front with some used books as well. One of my finds was The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue  by Edna O'Brien, which I chose as my 20th Century Classic selection for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

This book is actually a omnibus of three novellas: The Country Girls (1960); The Girl With Green Eyes (also known as The Lonely Girl) (1962); and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). The edition I read also includes the epilogue that O'Brien added in 1986. It's the two story of two young women, Caithleen and Barbara, growing up in the early 1960s. The girls are childhood best friends in a small town in western Ireland. Eventually, they move to Dublin and ultimately to London. 

The first two books are narrated by Caithleen, also known as Kate. In the first volume, Kate is a rather poor, bookish girl, sweet, but dominated by her more assertive friend Barbara (also known as Baba). Baba's dad is the local veterinarian so they have a pretty comfortable life, but Kate's father is a heavy drinker and they are struggling to hold on to the family farm which is heavily mortgaged. Kate gets a scholarship to a convent school, and Baba attends as well (though she makes it clear she is NOT on a scholarship). It's mostly the story of their teenage years adjusting to the convent school, girlhood crushes, and friendships. Baba is the more dominant in the relationship and the way she treated Kate sometimes made me really uncomfortable, but ultimately, Baba and Kate are always there for one another. 

In the second volume, The Girl with Green Eyes, the girls have moved to Dublin, and Baba is mostly in the background as Kate is navigating her first real love affair with an older man, to the displeasure of her relatives and all the people back home who decide to get involved. It was appalling to me how these outsiders felt they had a right to interfere. I've never lived in small town but I can't imagine everyone knowing my business. 

The third volume alternates between the third person story of Kate, and Baba's story, told in her own voice. Baba's narration is darkly funny but ultimately, I found this book really sad. As late as the 1960s, women in Ireland (and England) had so few rights, it was infuriating. The book is well-written and the characters really came alive for me, but it was quite depressing. There were a few funny moments but parts are quite heartbreaking.

I'm counting this as my Classic Set in a Place I'd Like to Visit (Ireland) for the Back to the Classics Challenge and also my first book for the European Reading Challenge 2017. 

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

Scandalous!!

Grace Metalious blew the roof off the image of the quaint New England Town in her 1956 shocker Peyton Place. Ostensibly set in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but with more of a 1950s feel to it, Peyton Place is the story of three women: Constance McKenzie, a beautiful widow with a Deep Dark Secret; her 13-year old daughter Allison, a budding writer coming of age in a small town; and Allison's best friend, Selena Cross, a beautiful girl who is growing up in squalor on the wrong side of the tracks with her mother, half brother, and stepfather, the town's creepy drunk.  

Peyton Place covers all the dirty secrets of small town life, including murder, suicide, child abuse, incest, illegitimacy, and abortion It was groundbreaking for its time, though it's probably pretty tame compared to Fifty Shades of Grey.  

I'm a big fan of stories of life in small-town America, and this is like a really sordid version of Gilmore Girls, with much less witty repartee. There were lots of interesting and colorful side characters -- the upright and beloved town doctor, the uptight school teacher; the rich, unscrupulous mill owner and spoiled son; and the new principal who comes from the big city.  There are a whole slew of characters from various generations, all with their own back story.  Some times I did wish Metalious had included less characters and given the reader more about less people.

I found it to be quite the page turner -- I finished the entire book in a weekend, and I really enjoyed it.  I did have trouble keeping some of the characters straight, particularly the colorful old-timers who sat around at the diner and played poker with the doctor and the town newspaper editor.  Some of the threads were left unresolved; there's a whole plot thread about Allison's childhood sweetheart Norman and his creepy mother, who seems like an eerie precursor to Norman Bates, but we never really find out what happened to him; also, I didn't care for the ending, which seemed somewhat tacked on.  I would love to read an entire book about Allison and what happened to her after the events in the book ended.  There was a sequel, Return to Peyton Place, but I've read it isn't that good, so I may skip it and just imagine for myself how the character's lives would have continued.  

Now I want to read more books about small-town American life -- Main Street by Sinclair Lewis has been on my to-read list for ever; also, I want to read some more mid-Century fiction.  Another one on my to-read list is The Group by Mary McCarthy, which I've returned unread to the library three times at least!

Bloggers, which other books about small-town life do you recommend?  Which banned books do you love?  And has anyone ever seen the Peyton Place movie or TV adaptations? 

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Every so often, I read a book that I love so much I will stop complete strangers at the library or the bookstore and beg them to read it. This is one of those books.

The beginning of this book is puzzling, but don't give up. It starts out with a cryptic prologue that doesn't make sense until you've read the entire book. Then we get to the heart of the story: eleven-year-old Miranda is a latchkey child living in New York City, the only child of a single mother. She's dealing with a lot of normal issues, like changing friendships, and first crushes, but the book also some more serious stuff -- safety in the big city, scary homeless people, racism, prejudice, and a frustrated mother in a low-paying job.

For a while this book seemed like just another realistic fiction book, albeit set in 1979, which is an interesting choice of time periods. It's so well written -- the characters are beautifully developed and the descriptions of Miranda's life in New York are so vivid, it's like I was right there in the sixth grade with her. Miranda is so real and the author has really captured what it's like to be that age. But midway through the book something happens that completely brings this book to a whole different level of wonderful. All I can say is that Miranda receives a mysterious message that changes her life forever. I'm afraid of saying too much because there is such a great twist to this story. I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I'm even going to be really vague in the tags so I don't spoil it for anyone. Also, I will warn readers: Miranda is reading the children's classic A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, and throughout the book she explains the story to a friend. I'm sorry to say she reveals some important plot points of that book, which is my one tiny complaint about this book -- if you read this BEFORE A Wrinkle in Time, it might spoil that book for you. Or you could just go read that first and then you'd read two amazing books in a row.

This had been in my library hold queue for several weeks, and I don't even remember adding it to the list. When it arrived, I couldn't even remember why I wanted to read it, and I kept putting it off. When I finally started reading it the other day, I was completely mesmerized and read the entire thing in one sitting. I laughed and gasped and cried, and when it was done, I brought it with me to my daughter's elementary school, because I was scheduled to volunteer at the book fair. I showed it to the librarian, to the library aide, some of the teachers, and all of the other parents who were helping out. Yesterday when I went to the public library where I volunteer, I found the branch's copy and marched over to the children's librarian and handed it to her. I'm spreading the gospel of When You Reach Me. It really is that good. If it doesn't make the Newbery shortlist, I will be shocked and appalled, unless there's something even better that I haven't read yet. If there is, I'd be lucky to read two such wonderful books.