Three survivors, one raft, and one small island..

The Cay by Theodore Taylor

I last read this book when I was about 13. 

I remembered just how much I loved it then and want to send it to my grandchildren.

However, before mailing it off, I wanted to re-read it.
Especially since I'm participating in Bex's Re-Readathon! 
And this one also counts for #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks and Historical Fiction!

So glad I did. This book is so very powerful!

 

The beautiful hardcover I purchased
from my favorite local indie
bookstore for my grandkids!

Though I remembered some of the main points from my initial reading, I certainly did not remember everything! It was virtually impossible to imagine Phillip's predicament in almost every aspect! Poor guy!

One minute you and your mother are traversing the sea on a marine vessel and the next you awake and are drifting aimlessly on a raft, with a strange old man and a cat! Eek!

Although, for me...a CAT!! Yes!! I do love a furry feline! :)

 And all this when only a few days earlier, Phillip had thought

I was not frightened, just terribly excited.

War was something I'd heard a lot about, but had never seen.

The whole world was at war, 

and now it had come to us in the warm, blue Caribbean. (10)

 This rang so true to me as the thought process of an 
 11-year-old child! Just purely curious... Following the initial 
 attack,  Phillip  defies his mother's edict and goes out to the  bridge/water area  which was to be forbidden territory to him. Though I must give him credit for not lying and admitting where he'd been. As so often happens, he just wanted to see what he could see. However...

My mother closed her eyes and pulled me up against her thin body. She was like that.

One minute, shaking me; the next, holding me. (14)

And, oh, isn't that just so true! I know there were times when I did exactly that with my own sons! I get it! And I'm sure they and their wives all do the same thing to their own children on occasion! Phillip wondered why his father hadn't simply ordered his mother to just stay on the island, then realized that he "just wasn't that kind of man." I don't know. Wow, that would be a hard call, but I believe that if my spouse was considering evacuation during wartime when the area had already been attacked...I might have fought very hard for them to stay and keep the family unit together. 
  
Initially, it is very difficult for Phillip to accept the fact that his only companions were Timothy, a very large Negro who appeared to be quite old, and a "big black and gray cat." No sign of his mother. And once he heard Timothy speak he realized he was a native of the West Indies and remembered seeing him work as a member of the deck gang of the Hato, the ship on which he and his mother had sailed. It was very difficult for Phillip to ignore the fact that to him Timothy appeared to be ugly and old, and the fact that he was a Negro didn't help at all, especially when his mother had made it clear that Negroes were "different" and "lived differently," and "That's the way it must be." He had been taught there should always be a separation from the Negroes. And here he was...with no choice! 

Phillip's head hurt mightily and Timothy explained something large and heavy had hit him in the head and it was Timothy who had hoisted him out of the water and onto the raft. A few days later the pain in Phillip's head subsides, but he is left totally blind, with no vision whatsoever. Of course, he panics,

I'll never forget that first hour of knowing I was blind. 

I was so frightened that it was hard for me to breathe. 

I was as if I was put inside something that was all dark and I couldn't get out. 

I remember that at one point my fear turned to anger. Anger at Timothy for not letting me stay in the water with my mother, and anger at her because I was on the raft. I began hitting him and 

I remember him saying, "If dat will make you bettah, go 'ead." (46)

Timothy was wise in so many ways. And always trying to help Phillip, not just with physical survival, but as true moral support. At this point Timothy tells the story of a man with similar injuries, but that his sight returned within 3 days. Weeks later Timothy states it was months before other man's sight returned. When Phillip questions him about this discrepancy, Timothy admits he can't remember exactly how much time elapsed, but knows his sight did return. At which time Phillips rightfully deduces Timothy is just trying to give him hope, and he appreciates his efforts. 


Timothy does so much more than that, however. He has enough skills to be able to catch fish, make fires, build a make-shift shelter, weave sleeping mats, build a crude containment system for trapping rainwater to drink and cook with. Not only this, but he creates an environment within which Phillip can learn to be sulf-sufficient on his own, just in case he is left to his own devices. Granted, they had the extra advantage of the supplies stored in the compartment in the middle of the raft: 

"We 'ave rare good luck, young bahss. D'wattah kag did not bus' when d'raff was launch, an' we 'ave a few biscuit, 

some choclade, an' d'matches in d'tin is dry. 

So we 'ave rare good luck." He grinned at me then. (32)

As you might imagine, Timothy was only able to view all this as bad luck, at the ship being torpedoed, at his mother's unknown whereabouts, at his father's lack of knowledge that he was abandoned on this raft floating in the water with no sight of land... Timothy was able to think about immediate survival whereas Phillip was grieving all he'd lost, you would expect a child to do. Timothy admits he is uncertain as to his own age, but is aware he is at least 60 years old. Phillip immediately tells him he is almost 12, so that he will stop treating him like a child half his age! :)

Although they have a signal fire all setup on a rise and ready to light at any time, they only hear a plane a few times. There are so many islands similar to this one, it would be virtually impossible to search them all up close. Phillip is able to help Timothy in an area where his knowledge is limited. He is evidently illiterate and Phillip is able to help him form the letters H, E, L, P, with rocks just next to the signal fire. Phillip is kind and wise enough to realize this, but not mention it to Timothy and just help him... As much as I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to imagine being in this situation, I cannot imagine the utter hopelessness that much follow when you hear a plane as it nears the island, and then as it goes further away without showing any signs of having noticed the island or those on it. That would be totally devestating, wouldn't it? 

It made me rather sad to consider this as a possibility, but I could only imagine that Timothy may well have felt responsible for Phillip's well-being due to much more than the fact he was an adult and Timothy a child. Timothy's initial use of the word "bahss" to address Phillip denoted the overt social hierarchy evident in the 1930's/1940's, that white men were bosses of the black men. Although their solitude and skills actually reversed that hierarchy on the island, initially, it was quite evident in both their actions and thoughts. Things progress about as well as they could have. They are able to fish and find enough food to eat, but the weather presents insurmountable challenges at times. A hurricane hits and survival is tenuous at best...regardless of all Timothy's pre-planning and safety precautions.

The first cover image above is a bit misleading, as Timothy made sure Phillip was tied to the with Phillip right behind him, sandwiching Phillip between the tree and the man, protecting him as much as possible. Simply put, Timothy thought of virtually everything! 

Honestly, you should read this book, and if you have children? Definitely! 

It would make a great book to share by reading aloud.

Or they could just read it and discuss it with you. 

I have the sequel, which is actually a prequel, Timothy of the Cay on hold at my library. 

I can't imagine that this book, detailing the Timothy's life prior to the ship going down, 

won't be just as good as The Cay, but I really must know!

And if I like it as much as I suspect I will, then I'll purchase and send it to the grandchildren.

Do you read much "children's literature"?
I find I still love it, and appreciate having 11 grandchildren as a handy excuse to read it! :)

A powerful historical fiction debut! Part II--The Big City

Jam on the Vine by 

Lashonda Katrice Barnett

One of the best historical fiction novels I've read!
In case you missed it, here is the first part of my review!
(Yes, there was so much I felt needed to be said, there are two postings for this review!)

This is an amazing story of brave people, but especially brave young black females at a time when prejudice and discrimination were not only overlooked, but actually condoned.

I find it unbelievable that this is Ms. Barnett's first novel! 
I predict Ms. Barnett has a great future ahead as a writer! 
And I love love love this cover image! 

This book encompasses so very much that discussion could be endless! There were about 12 people at the University Book Club meeting when this was discussed, and all said without exception that this book introduced them to at least one new historical fact of which they were totally unaware... That is amazing, considering the diversity among this group! It speaks to the tenacity of Barnett's comprehensive and thorough research and broad coverage of the time.

For me--I had no idea of 'the Red Summer of 1919,' during which there was an outbreak of lynchings and race riots across the Midwest. Born and raised in the Midwest and had never heard of this in my nearly 60 years of life. Sad. Exactly what are we teaching and learning of our own history? We should know about such things so we can make sure it is never repeated! We cannot be aware if we are uninformed! 

Ivoe is luckier than most young black females--able to attend Willetson Collegiate and Normal Institute in Austin. Advice from her family as she prepares to embark upon this adventure... Her older brother, Timbo, tells her of something he observed on a Florida beach years ago:
"You can't see the end lessen you cut it down. The sun can't wither it, fire can't burn it, and moss can't cling to it. When a strong wind come, it just bends--lays all its fans out till the wind lets up. You remind me of that cabbage palm, Ivoe. You might have to bend a little, but you ain't never gonna break." That's how it was with Timbo. Lord knows he could act foolish and ornery, but whenever her brother said she could do something, she believed him. (82)
My immediate thought was that Timbo was a bit of a writer himself! 
Momma waited by the tracks at the train depot, a bunch of yellow primroses in her hand. "Probably wilt on the train in all this heat. You be in my thoughts much longer." She hugged her tight and whispered, "Baby you going places I didn't have sense enough to dream about." (83)
All I could think of in regard to Lemon's comment was that at least this next generation, her own children, had that chance to dream...whereas Lemon's generation had as its main goal nothing more or less than survival...and not just in can economic, self-supporting sense...

In Berdis Peets Ivoe recognized the flare of heroines she had met in her literary solitude....Passion for music gave Berdis an original life. In this way, she reminded Ivoe of all the women she loved--her mother, Aunt May-Belle, Miss Stokes--each had certain talent that seemed to dictate her womanhood. (88)
At a school convocation where Berdis was to play a Schumann composition, she substituted "Mister Tom Turpin's 'Buffalo Rag'...
"I lost a week in the practice room on account of devising my own program, but it was worth it....I would know very little that our people have accomplished in the ways of music, poetry, literature, if I had not found it out for myself. I suppose Willetson is like every other institution for learning in America. Even when the teacher is colored, don't expect to be told anything worthwhile about yourself. Most teachers here are white and they love to hear about how great they are. Can't shut them up on talking about it neither, as if they made the world on their own. Makes my ass hurt....If you're not careful, they'll teach you to despise yourself. And you can't do nothing worthwhile unless you feel good about yourself." (87)
And, that, in my opinion, is exactly where our educational system overall fails many, if not most, students... And "makes my ass hurt"! Kills me! So perfect! 
  Berdis loved it when Ivoe laughed all deep down in herself. "What's got you so tickled?"
  "Momma always told me not to show no man all my teeth. She said you can't smile at them too wide 'cause then they know they got you. She didn't say nothing about showing my teeth to a woman." 
  Berdis pulled Ivoe close enough to kiss. "I got you?" she said, too serious.
  "Yeah. You got me." (97)
Though unfortunately, this relationship didn't stand the test of time...and Berdis became bitter...with disastrous results. 

Writing did not come easily to Ivoe...
How vast the gulf between consuming words and making them! Reading had always enlivened Ivoe but writing was death. Where she had cherished books for their company, writing was a lonely endeavor she was not suited for. Her first contributions to the Herald were written in her habitual passive voice. "On the way to progress, we make self-discoveries," Miss Durden encouraged. For Ivoe, the blank page was a looking glass. In writing she came face-to-face with her truest self. She could speak her mind without worrying about who it offended. She was a gardener like her mother, planting seed for thought in a reader's mind. Like Papa she forged the right word on the anvil of her mind." (94) 
Ms. Barnett's writing...well, simply wonderful! While at dinner at Miss Durden's, Ivoe asks...
  "My articles...what begs improvement?"
  "You're coming along." As usual, the teacher was sparing with compliments, having seen how they snuffed out potential greatness. "You know, a sentence is like a race. You can't possibly win it unless you end as strong as you began. Good journalists understand that the last word is as important as the first." (103)
I was one of the few book club members for whom this rang so true...an encouraging teacher trying to avoid creating complacency in her student. It was so very obvious to me that Miss Durden was attracted to Ivoe as more than just teacher-student...
  Ivoe dallied at the open front door where the air was sweet like honeysuckle, and Miss Durden drew her into a tight embrace, touching the knot of her scarf in a way that prompted Ivoe to look her in the eye.
  "Father up in heaven. It's what's inside that makes you shine, girl." (103)

Ivoe returns to Little Tunis an educated woman, with big plans for a journalistic career, but discovers there is still very little opportunity for her employment, and virtually none using her journalistic skills. Eventually, the family moves to the city, only to become disillusioned as were so many... Ivoe and Ova Durden, her former teacher, visit each other regularly throughout the ensuing years, and eventually become lovers and found Jam on the Vine, the first female-run African American newspaper, but their lives are by no means calm and complacent. Ivoe and her brother Timbo, Ova, and many others risk their lives to protest and bring voice to the oppressed during the 'Red Summer' of 1919 and beyond. 

As Ivoe overhears two black women discussing Jam,
  Ivoe recognized the brand of negritude on display. To her, theirs was the worst kind of race pride: it ended when complaining ceased yet did nothing to propel the race forward. They gave the white man and his evils over to Jesus and and prayed for things they themselves might remedy, while Jim Crow stood with his foot on their necks. (251)
  Worse yet were the ones who loved to tell you how good God was while they made do with as little as one could imagine. Colored religion was the white man's most clever tactic yet. A new form of Uncle Tomming. It burned Ivoe up. Lord, woe is me--instead of pulling together and doing something to change the course of their lives... (123) 
I had never before read such a condemnation of "Christianity" with regard to the oppressed, but for me, it certainly rang true--there is a point at which a person must help themselves or nothing will change. Are "good Christians" simply to believe that life is as it should be and there is no hope of social evolution for the better? When considered from Ivoe's perspective, it seems nothing more or less than a passive acceptance of injustice...a way to confirm and perpetuate oppression of the oppressed. But I digress...

Heart-stopping. There were times when I scrunched my eyes shut while reading the last third or so of this book. The suspense. Wondering if this would be the time one of these characters would be killed for their activism and fight for justice. 
He doused her until the bottle was empty and she had accepted her fate. He would set a match to her, sweep up the remains or leave them to the mice....So this was the helplessness and regret Papa had also felt. (244)
And I always feel as if that sense of 'helplessness' is what defeats people most. In this time, kidnappings and killings were 'accepted' as part of the risk for protesters. And those perpetrating such acts? They could well be the very same 'public servants' paid to protect the citizenry! Admittedly, there is part of me that wonders just how far we have really come in preventing such happenings... 

The Jam offices are closed by legal injunction and Ivoe is jailed. As the guard delivers food to her:
  "Gonna get your people in a world of trouble," the grim-faced guard said to Ivoe upon delivery of a sandwich and glass of water.
  "We have always lived in a world of trouble. Kindly take back your tray. I do not wish to attract vermin."  (286)
The next morning she looked out her cell window and drew a shuddering breath, stunned by what she saw. Across the street, a quiet mob crowded the sidewalk. She craned her neck to see how far the human chain extended--beyond the end of this block into the next. In the blustering cold, shoulder to shoulder, they began to sway to a minor cadence as their voices swelled with song.
          Heavy load, heavy load, 
          Don't you know God's gonna lighten up your heavy load.
          Heavy load, heavy load,
          God's gonna lighten up your heavy load.
  The language of grieving never had words; the human heart does not speak but sings its sorrow. Ivoe heard theirs now, a plaintive refrain sifting through her soul....Ona had felt something that Ivoe didn't or couldn't until now: community. Everybody's little bit of goodness pooled together to lift someone higher. (287-88)

For [Ivoe], life in France was kinder, but no matter where she was in the world, her race and her gender would work against her. (310)

She needed all the support she could get--names and addresses for every black politician in the country, from alderman to senator, on a clipboard within reach. They were up against a mighty bear, but each cell door flung open in the name of justice was an arrow in his tough skin. (316)

Here is a great NPR Interview with the author. 

(I have mentioned my fascination with NPR before, right?) :)

If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend it!

An absolute favorite of mine--EVER!

A powerful historical fiction debut! Part I--Little Tunis

Jam on the Vine by 

Lashonda Katrice Barnett

One of the best historical fiction novels I've read!

This is an amazing story of brave people, but especially brave young black females at a time when prejudice and discrimination were not only overlooked, but actually condoned.

I find it unbelievable that this is Ms. Barnett's first novel! 
I predict Ms. Barnett has a great future ahead as a writer! 
And I love love love this cover image! 

This book not only contains historically accurate information, but is a work of art in characterization, relationships, and atmosphere. It is so very much more than the story of the founding of the first female-run African American newspaper, Jam on the Vine. So very much more...

After May-Belle, Papa, and them, Ivoe loved books best. Books were a friend to anyone who opened them. Blowing a whirligig to make the sails go 'round or talking up a storm to a corn-husk doll was all right for passing the time, but you never went anywhere new or met anyone special like you did in the pages of a book. (4)
Yes, books hold no prejudice! :) They are open to anyone's interpretation! As a child it was damn near impossible for Ivoe to obtain books, or any other printed material, to read. 

  "Momma, it's so hot the cows not mooing and the chickens not clucking," Ivoe said, 
  wanting to melt the worry that made her mother hard as tack candy. (9)
That! That is language that literally transports a reader to another time and location! 

Ennis, Ivoe's father, who is a metalsmith, muses to himself as the skin on his arm blisters from an accidental burn:
  In the race between what he could give his family and what they needed, need always 
won. Truth like that stared you down. More than hurt you, it numbed you--even to a 
hungry flame. (24)
I could feel Ennis' pain with these words...pain and despair...but so much deeper than just the physical body, into his own psyche, his soul, any self-confidence he had...

James, a colored man who had made good with his own lumber business, establishing it in the same locale as the 'white' lumber business and moving his family, though Ennis and others tried to warn him about encroaching upon the whites in their own territory, both James and his son were beaten and then shot to death. Lemon, Ivoe's momma, talks with Ennis afterward:
  And you wonder why I don't want you building me nothing. What I want a little shack 
for? Or even a stand? White folks ain't ready to see colored folk have nothing of they 
own. No, sir. I'll keep right on selling my jams from my kitchen 'cause soon as they see 
you doing all right--doing for yours like they do for theirs--they go and do something 
like this. Opening a business is one thing, but to leave Little Tunis? You know, Ennis, I 
believe if James had kept his family down here he would still be with us. That was 
mistake number one--leaving Little Tunis.
  "Naw, mistake number one was being born colored." (36)
And this is what stabs me through the heart every time--some must sacrifice themselves in order to initiate social change. Why? Why must it be death and destruction that only grabs the attention of those who are so prejudiced? *Shakin' my head...*

Then the KKK burn down the colored schoolhouse:
  Ivoe listened with her classmates before a heap of charred wood. She tried to understand, but like jamming the wrong puzzle piece into an almost-finished puzzle, she couldn't make the picture in her mind fit with Miss Stokes's words. Why would anyone want to burn down a schoolhouse whose benches left your behind full of splinters and none of the inkwells ever saw a drop of ink? (36-37)
Isn't that the truth? Though Miss Stokes loses no time in campaigning for help to reestablish a school, realizing that students will be lost without it...such a smart women, quite foresighted. 
  "Those not in trouble are in the fields. Parents are starting to depend on the bit of money the little ones bring in. I mean to get the night school running as soon as I can before I lose them all to sharecropping." (41)
Seems unreal to me that you had to worry about children being put to work! But it was true! Hence the passage of child labor laws. 

There is so much to this book I feel as if I could write five blog posts discussing it! And I'm sure the material is there for at least that much! I will try to condense... Although I have already decided this is Part 1 of 2 posts for the complete review! 

As a youngster, Ivoe wins a trip to Austin with a letter she addressed to the President of the United States and thus began her devotion to writing and led to her career as a journalist. She always had teachers who worked hard at developing her talents: Miss Stokes in Little Tunis and Ona at Willetson. It is so often teachers who help encourage children to develop their talents! 

Additionally, this book bore out to me in a large way the immense diversity among U.S.-bound immigrants. For some reason, and probably just due to my own ignorance and limited scope of travel, I rarely consider that Muslims were an active immigrant population throughout this country's history, just as were any other "group" of people. And Ivoe's mother, Lemon, is a Muslim, married to a black East Texan. Diversity is the underpinning of this book and much of what makes it so compelling. 

"Sometimes it takes generations for opportunity to come, but if you keep on living, it will show up." (69)
Lemon's summary of 40 years of freedom and the story of Stark moving immigrants in and allowing them to die, be killed, etc. She was listing everything for which she had to be grateful at the time. 

Lemon actually owns the little patch of land where their small cabin sits, including their garden and yard. As a teen/young adult, Ivoe tries to convince her mother to sell out and move with her to [a larger city] for "more opportunity," particularly for Ivoe to apply her journalistic/writing skills. Barnett describes exactly why Lemon wants to retain her land...
  "The Williamses lounged beneath a cornflower-blue sky all afternoon. The chickweed grass, coarse and brilliant green, gave the earth a spongy feel beneath Ivoe, who lay stretched out with the newspaper over her stomach. The branches of a blackjack oak stirred a slight breeze for Roena and Timothy while they played cards in the fleeting twilight. Lemon crossed before Ennis's chair, causing his eyes to light up like stars as he reached out to pat her behind. Irabelle, playing in May-Belle's hair, watched a jaybird flutter away from the fig tree just as Bunk rolled onto his stomach, extending his forepaws on the porch he dusted with a fanning sweep of his tail. For a moment nothing stirred except now and then the call of a screech owl. They didn't have much but this happiness was their own." (74)
I guess this rang so true for me because I am a "country girl" at heart. I was raised in the country and crave the unique calm and quiet connectedness with nature provided by a rural setting just such as this...it really is idyllic to me and I could relate to Lemon's reluctance to give up this bit of peaceful isolation.

For it is just these types of "lazy days," so few and far between for those working hard to scrabble out a living, that can help offset some of the more frustrating and humiliating discriminatory experiences. Such as...a sheriff physically and all but sexually molesting Irabelle, their youngest (and most beautiful) daughter, as the deputy physically restrains Ennis (who must look on helplessly) while in a store in the neighboring town. The stark reality of a black man unable to help a fatally wounded white man, knowing full well that no matter how he might spin the story, he will be blamed for the injuries and/or death of the white man, just because he is...himself, black. Unbelievable to me that he had to choose to watch a man die rather than come to his aid, yet, I could understand this conundrum into which he was pulled by circumstances totally beyond his control...

Have you even heard of this book yet?

It is phenomenal!

The second portion of this review is here! 

Ng on Everyth(i)ng...

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Hardcover Edition

I felt I really must read this after seeing Shaina's review at Shaina Reads at the end of August 2015. As I read her review, I said aloud, "No not 'everyone and their pet cat' has read/reviewed this one...for instance, I haven't!" :) When I started checking out others' reviews, I had to read it myself...just to see! 

Firstly, I was reminded of Jhumpa Lahiri's writing style. I have read and absolutely loved Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, and Unaccustomed Earth. Like Lahiri, Ng has quite the knack for making each character real and believable, as if they could be my friends and neighbors. I also felt elements of Ng's writing were similar to Maeve Binchy (Too many books published to list them all, even just the ones I've read!) in that we got to know the characters so very well as to realize the underlying motivations for their intentions, actions, and attitudes. Miss Celeste is a master of the first sentence(s), too. I realize everyone else has also used this in their review, but it really is incredible as an opening...at least it was for me! 

  Lydia is dead. But we don't know this yet. 1977, May 3, six-thirty in the morning, no on knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast. (1)

Wowzers! I was hooked instantly! Who wouldn't be? Her mother, Marilyn, starts searching, inside the house, outside the house, confirming that her car is still in the garage, though Lydia doesn't know how to drive, and then she learns Lydia is not in her first-period class, 11th-grade physics (though she is in 10th grade). We later see how ironic that is...

We learn that Lydia has done much to camouflage who she really is and wants to be, simply to keep peace within her household, especially with her parents. Her father, James is of Chinese heritage, though born and bred in the U.S.A., his phenotype is definitely Asian/Chinese, as are Lydia's brother and sister, Nath and Hannah. However, Lydia's phenotype is much more similar to her mother's, who is 'white.' She has her mother's blue eyes, though her hair is dark. The prejudice within this family is no different than so many others, the child most resembling the majority race/ethnicity is the favored one, and that would be Miss Lydia, the middle child of James and Marilyn's three children. I remember reading that even Malcolm X preferred his own children who had lighter skin and facial features that appeared less ethnic. That shocked me! But I have read many other articles confirming that same prejudice for those most resembling the majority among many cultures and subcultures. 

As with many females in the late '60's and throughout the '70's, Marilyn abandoned her own academic/career dreams to get married and have a family. As a female who graduated from high school during the '70's, my mother told me I should definitely go to college, "just as a backup" in case I didn't get married or I ended up divorced and single (like her) or something happened to my husband... I still chuckle at that even now. Though it is more sad than funny... I suppose most of us as we get older sometimes wonder what might have made a difference for us in our lives and the decisions we made as teenagers. But we can't go back! :) We must continue onward and upward! 

  How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and daughters. Because of Lydia's mother and father, because of her mother's and father's mothers and fathers. Because long ago, her mother had gone missing, and her father had brought her home. Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. (25) 

Much cooler Paperback Cover! 

And this pretty well sums it up! There was a time when Marilyn had simply driven off, moved to another city, and enrolled in college courses, determined to complete her bachelor's degree and then obtain an MD. She had simply abandoned James, Nath, and Lydia to their own devices with no notice. I could relate to her desires, as I had my own similar desires during years spent as a stay-at-home mother, though I was fortunate enough to be able to return to college and complete by bachelor's degree once my three children were in school. I could understand Marilyn's desire to be 'different,' as I was much the same way in high school. Fortunately for me, however, there were at least 4-5 other female classmates who were also science/math nerds, so I was not the ONLY female in those science classes, which I am sure helped me feel much more comfortable than if I had been alone amongst the males. Though I typically preferred hanging out with the males, as opposed to females--I was not interested in talking about boys, dating, clothes, or gossip, which I considered to be a 'waste of my time.' After all, I always had a good book I could be reading, or a sewing or knitting project I could work on... So it might have been easier for me than it seemed to be for her. 

James might not have felt quite so 'different' as an adult had he been hired as a faculty member at Harvard, as he had expected. Once that prospect was removed from his list of possibilities he took a position at a small college in Ohio, where, of course, there would be very little to no 'diversity' among the students/faculty/staff on campus, or the surrounding community. He and his children bore the brunt of prejudice and discrimination as meted out by the local citizenry. I can also relate to that. Though my situation in childhood wasn't nearly as dire, I experienced similar behaviors and attitudes in my own small-town rural Midwestern community simply because my mother was divorced and she and I lived with my grandmother. That was unheard-of back in the '60's and '70's...at least in such rural mid-western small-town environments in the U.S. Overall, it was fairly easy to ignore the older kids on the bus, but I remember not understanding why other adults disliked my mother and talked about her so. (It wasn't like she slept around or anything!) It was obviously much more intense, blatant and hurtful for Lydia and Nathan in small-town Ohio than it was for me. James had worked hard to learn as much as possible as a child, so he could earn a scholarship to attend the private school where his father worked in maintenance. And as a child he was constantly worried that other students would learn of his connection to his father, the janitor. That's just awful! But I'm sure it would be true! He continued to feel uncomfortable even as an undergraduate and then graduate student at Harvard--he had no friends and had never truly connected with any of his peers, until Marilyn...though she was his student, not truly a peer...until she dropped his 'Cowboy' class and they became lovers. They were not that far apart in age. 

Ah, people do create others' stories for themselves, as Lydia and Jack's relationship demonstrates. In a startling discovery, Hannah is the only one who sees Jack's true feelings and the target of his love. Everyone believed Jack was having sex with all the girls who rode in his car. No questions asked. Though no one knew the truth except Jack and those girls. I was shocked by James seeking out Louisa, though of course, they did share the same Asian/Chinese looks, and perhaps that, combined with the loss of his daughter and his seeming inability to connect in a meaningful way with Marilyn at the time 'pushed' him into anothers' arms...but personally, I still cannot condone sleeping with people other than your own spouse/partner when in a committed relationship. And poor little Hannah! It was as if she was always just an afterthought to James and Marilyn, and of course, we can easily imagine it might be difficult for Marilyn not to resent Hannah as the reason she had to once again abandon her own college education and hopes of a professional career. During her mother's absence, Lydia discovers her maternal grandmother's cookbook under a bookcase and as she reads it realizes how unhappy her mother must be and blames herself and Nath.
  If her mother ever came home and told her to finish her milk, she thought, the page wavering to a blur, she would finish her milk. She would brush her teeth without being asked and stop crying when the doctor gave her shots. She would go to sleep the second her mother turned out the light. She would never get sick again. She would do everything her mother told her. Everything her mother wanted. (137)
And so begins Lydia's own 'hell on earth' as she attempts to be the person her mother and father both expect her to be...what they were not. Any loving, caring parent always wants life to be 'better' for their child/children, however, pushing anyone too much to make them into the person you want them to be is a dangerous proposition, and will usually destroy a relationship.

One of the underlying themes in this book was resentment...there was so much to go around! Both Hannah and Nathan couldn't help but resent Lydia because she was the obvious 'favorite' of both parents. Although Nath had one day actually pushed her off the pier into the lake, Lydia was petrified to think of daily life without him to confide in and debrief with, as well as resenting his apparent freedom to do as he pleased, select his own program of study, and school, etc. Poor Hannah, of course, had to resent both her brother and sister and the way she was constantly ignored, but especially her mother and father for their lack of love and attention, which was all showered on Lydia, then Nath, and then...not her,never her... I believe James resented Marilyn's constant attention to Lydia, feeling she carried her expectations for her daughter too far, putting too much pressure on her. I had a good friend in elementary school who was pressured by her parents to be 'perfect' in her schoolwork. She once scored an "A-" on a high school exam and was grounded and had to eat supper with a textbook at the table, studying. She was punished for an A minus! Each grade she earned must be an "A." She ended up not going to college, though she was our valedictorian! Why? Simply because she refused to allow herself to be pressured like that any more--she knew her parents would never leave her alone, but harass her as they had always done. Isn't that sad? Not that every single person should go to college, it is definitely not for everyone, however, you should at least give your children the freedom to decide without undue pressure. I felt sad for her, as I did for Lydia.

Nath's resentment is finally released somewhat as he pushes Lydia off the pier and into the lake,
...the second he touched her, he knew that he had misunderstood everything. When his palms hit her shoulders, when the water closed over her head, Lydia had felt relief so great she had sighed in a deep choking lungful. She had staggered so readily, fell so eagerly, that she and Nath both knew: that she felt it, too, this pull she now exerted, and didn't want it. That the weight of everything tilting toward her was too much. (154)
...It was too big to talk about, what had happened: it was like a landscape they could not see all at once; it was like the sky at night, which turned and turned so they couldn't find its edges. It would always feel too big. He pushed her in. And then he pulled her out. All her life, Lydia would remember one thing. All his life, Nath would remember another. (155) 
Everywhere things came undone. But for the Lees, that knot persisted and tightened, as if Lydia bound them all together. (158)
Yet Lydia herself was coming 'unglued,' so to speak, as Nath thought:
When I get to college--he never completed the sentence, but in his imagined future, he floated away, untethered. (168)
As Nath imagined a life of his own, Lydia was drowning in thoughts of a bleak future without him to save her. Though just as new insights appear to her, her life ends...

I loved this book on so many levels and for so many reasons. Ng brilliantly depicts the marginalization felt by so many who are 'different' from the majority population, especially how that can negatively affect relationships. The danger of parents exerting too much control over their children, living through them, forcing their own unfulfilled goals upon their offspring, effectively smothering any hopes they may have for asserting themselves. Simply put: a great read! Have you read it yet? Are you considering it?

Some other insightful reviews: 

Naomi at Consumed by Ink

Shannon at River City Reading

Catherine at The Gilmore Guide to Books