Book Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Plot Summary
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store opens in 1972 Pottstown, where an excavation operation uncovers a skeleton in a well, sparking an investigation into the town’s past. The story then transports readers back to the 1920s and ’30s, focusing on the lives of Chicken Hill’s residents, a neighborhood marked by its Black and Jewish communities. The novel explores themes of community, survival, and justice, set against the backdrop of racial and religious tensions. It illustrates the complexities of identity and the impact of societal prejudices on individuals and communities.
Introduction
This book is a rich tapestry of historical fiction and mystery, set in the 1920s and ’30s in the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. The narrative weaves through the lives of a diverse group of Black, Jewish, and Italian characters, creating a poignant tale of community, survival, and justice. It is suitable for adult readers, particularly those interested in historical narratives that delve into societal issues.
About The Author
James McBride is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water:A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill ’Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, and award winning composer. McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.
McBride graduated from Oberlin College in 1979 and later received a journalism degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1980. McBride is a former reporter for The Washington Post and People Magazine.
His critically acclaimed 1997 memoir The Color of Water is a tribute to his mother, the son of a black minister and a mother who would not admit she was white. He is one of twelve siblings that grew up poor, in an all-blacks projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn and herded them off to the best and mostly Jewish schools. His mother, the daughter of an itinerant Orthodox rabbi, born in Poland. Her family emigrated to America and settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, his mother married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in their Red Hook living room.
My Review
I read this book as a book club selection for discussion. I listened to the audio as I read along with the physical copy and the kindle. The novel was narrated by Dominic Hoffman, who also narrated Deacon King Kong, which was a well yoked match. I enjoyed that novel immensely, and I had no doubt that that would carry over to the The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. The purchase was an automatic buy.
As in Deacon King Kong, his character build up and funny, unique names to his growing list of stars in the novel was intriguing and funny at time. McBrides' writing style is with sound rhythm as he gives you background to each character that pushes the storyline to fall in cadence with the other characters and why they exist within the novel.
He paints a vivd picture to the imagination of the setting, the people, the era, the culture, and the struggles to which I felt I was among the community of Chicken Hill and was watching, listening from afar. The dilapidated neighborhood where Jews, European immigrants and African Americans lived side by side unified against white Christian America to protect a deaf black child from being institutionalized while secrets are being revealed through bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit. The novel was peppered with funny lines, like...His face looked like he had a hobby of stepping on rakes. (Chapter 17: page 215), A white man, declared: “You can’t be sick, son. When I was a Negro, I never got sick.” (Chapter 27: page 336), and “Doc, if you wanna be famous or important, die at the right time. Otherwise, carry your own load…” (Chapter 29).
The novel is divided into three (3) parts, with short chapters that easily slides into the next chapter like a television soap opera. McBride brings historical fiction with music greats, such as Chick Webb, Lionel Hampton, and Sister Rosetta Thorpe, the Pennhurst State School a Hospital in Pennsylvania where residents with disabilities were abused , neglected, beaten and assaulted (horror attraction). Upon reading about McBride's upbringing, I gathered a clearer look into the theme of the storyline that reflects from his personal life, an echo from his childhood, his mother's upbringing and the families heritage. I lived in a house in the city of Detroit in which a mezuzah, a small case that hung on the doorframe of our family home, in which the neighborhood was once a predominantly Jewish community. We discovered later its purpose, meaning, explained by a Jewish realtor. It brought our family good fortune in various ways.
I see the correlation to some of the characters in the novel, i.e. Shad Davis, Nate's father who helped build a church as McBride's father, formed a church in his living room. Miss Chona was an immigrant from Europe as was his mother from Poland, also an immigrant to the United States. This was a book of mystery...What had Nate done over in Hemlock Row? What was all paid for? Whose skeleton was found at the bottom of the well? Who is 'Son of Man'? How were the people on Chicken Hill going to get Dodo back home? This book will stay on my shelf to be a part of my collection of favorite reads.
Comments