Crossroads discussion

Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
★★★.5

Emmaline (Lucia) Lucas is the undisputed queen of Riseholme during the roaring 20’s, and everyone knows it. She and her husband, Peppino, are close, and her next closest friend and ally is Georgie; while some think they flirt, that couldn’t be further from the truth, but he is definitely her go-to friend and confidante. As the neighbourhood becomes wrapped up in an Indian guru after Lucia snags him away from Mrs. Quantock, Georgie’s tall, strapping sisters bicycle in for a month’s stay after sending their dog and things by train, turning poor Georgie into a mess with their dog, whom he is certain is vicious and their rambunctious ways. Just at about the same time, his friend, the opera singer Olga Barcely, married to a different Georgie, but who hasn’t changed her name, comes to town, and then such a commotion as people race to be the first to see her and have her over. When Olga unwittingly offends Lucia, things go far from well, and poor Georgie is caught in the middle, and in the meantime romances begin to blossom among some of the local singles.
This is a delightful novel about the goings on of a small English community and the splash a newcomer makes. Light, fun, humourous with some glimpses into human nature and a wonderfully surprising amount of grace and compassion from someone you might not expect it from (but which of the characters I won’t say). I hadn’t even heard of this series until one of my Shelfari friends said she was rereading it and that I really must try it. I am planning to read the rest of the Lucia novels, but no more than one per month so I can savour and enjoy them without getting tired of them. This wasn’t so stellar I’d give it five stars, and it lost another half star because of a few little things, such as the odd time Georgie and Lucia talk in baby talk (perhaps this was done more among friends in the 1920s, but since that was before my parents’ time, I have no idea.)

Karin wrote: "Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
★★★.5."
Sounds like a fun read. I need to have a few of those in my back pocket for times when I need something light.

Mariana by Monica Dickens

3 stars

Mary Shannon has gone away to brood while her husband is at war in WW II. During a storm she hears on the radio that her husband's ship has gone down; frantically, she tries to telephone to get news, but her line is down. During the long night, she remembers her life from about age 8, and it is part coming of age and part becoming her own person. This is the second novel by Monica Dickens, the great- granddaughter of Charles Dickens, and she said that it was semi-autobiographical.

Part of this book gripped me more than others. I did root for Mary, even if she was often self-centered; I think that is a natural part of most children's development, and if she didn't get out of it as early as many of us think she should have, just look around at how many self-centred teens and early twenties people there are today.

As far as women authors went, Monica Dickens was only outsold at that time by Daphne du Maurier, however, her work hasn't remained as popular over time. I haven't read du Maurier for years, so can't give a good comparison as to why, but I do think it's a shame she's so little known now. I didn't love this book, although I suspect that when I was younger I'd have liked it more.

☊ To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, read by Sissy Spacek ★★★★★

Scout tells the tale of her family, Dill, Boo Radley and a volatile court case set in 1930s Alabama, and Sissy Spacek does a fabulous job of reading this book. If you haven’t yet read this, I strongly recommend it; when I first read it about ten years ago I wondered what had taken me so long to get around to reading it, but now I’ve listened to this recording twice in different years. Sure, Scout is only 6-9 while the story takes place, a precocious tomboy who has been reading as long as she can remember, much to the chagrin of her first grade teacher, but I for one don’t give the whole unreliable narrator idea an enormous amount of credence here. Obviously, it’s told from only one perspective, but it written so that it is easy to see past the child’s point of view to more of what is going on. There are so many people who have given a synopsis of this book, I don’t feel a need to do so here, and if you don’t know anything about this story before you read it, it will only make it that much better (other than understanding what was going on in Alabama in the 1930s, less than 60 years from the end of the civil war, that it was the Depression, and so on.) Also, if you know what was going on in the US at the time this book was written and published, that helps shed some light on this, even if it’s more than a generation later.

What I really appreciated the most this time around, besides the brilliant writing, plot, story and the reading by Sissy Spacek, was how well Harper Lee captured the people and set up the pacing and arc of the story. Also, that there are no two dimensional characters in this book, not even one.

This is on the edge for classics, but it's been re-issued nearly 50 years since it first came out, so I'm going to include it here.

Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw ★★★★

Shannon Lightly has just graduated from high school after a life time of living in Europe and the US, either with her mother, her father or her aunt. She has been everywhere in Europe, but when she is about to fly back overseas from Portland, she realizes she is really nowhere and isn't even sure of who she is and what she wants to do. She turns to her "Uncle" Frosty, who suggests she take the summer off, and ends up helping him discover what is up with a rather unusual will that he has been hired to contest. She decides to go undercover, gets a job as a waitress and lives right among some of the potential legatees. Bear in mind that this was written and set in the 1960s, when you could do that and be paid from the till.

Although Shannon has traveled alone from one parent to another, this is the first time she is really and truly on her own, and while trying earnestly to gather information, she meets Sherry (George Maynard Sherrill) who takes to her immediately.

It's easy to see, while reading this, why Eloise Jarvis McGraw, who won the Newberry Honor three times in as many decades, published so many books; she knew how to write. This has been republished as a Nancy Pearl "Book Crush Rediscovery" and I would say it is worth it.