Reviews by Gail Stilwill – Page 4 – Books, Brews & Banter

Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

This book is titled Flight Behavior for good reason. It opens with a 27-year-old Applachian woman, Dellarobia Turnbow, poised to take flight from her shotgun marriage to a man she does not love and no longer respects and from the responsibility of two young children, and her mundane life of near poverty. On her way to begin an

affair with a younger man, she runs up the mountain above her family’s farm and straight into an astounding phenomenon that changes everything for her.

She stumbles into the forest alight with millions of beautiful orange Monarch butterflies covering nearly every inch of the ground, tree trunks and branches. Dellarobia is filled with awe and wonderment and interprets the sight as a sign from God that she must go back to her life and try to make her marriage work.

As word spreads about the butterflies, the local religious community, then the international media, consider the sight miraculous. But when a Harvard-educated scientist whose life work is studying butterflies arrives and sets up a lab on the Turnbow farm, he is certain that the migratory patterns of these Monarch butterflies has been disrupted by the effects of climate change. On their annual flight to the warmer climate of Mexico, something caused them to land in the less-friendly climate of the Tennesee, forest putting their survival at risk.

Dellarobia originally had planned to improve her life by attending college. But an unplanned pregnancy had disrupted those plans and landed her – like the butterflies— in a very different and uncomfortable environment. As she gets involved in the scientific study taking place in her own back yard, she begins to see that she and her children can attain a better and more meaningful life.

Kingsolver tells a fascinating, gripping story and tells it beautifully. But her book also conveys an urgent social message about climate change.

—by Gail Stilwill

How The Light Gets In, by Louise Penny

The sleepy, scenic village of Three Pines, just hours from Montreal, seems like an unlikely setting for murder and intrigue. But the tiny, secluded village has seen its share of both.

The town square is ringed with older, well kept homes, a theater, and combination library and cozy, welcoming bistro, which is a gathering place for villagers. The book’s unforgettable, main characters are friends and frequent bistro visitors who come in from the cold Canadian winter to enjoy hot coffee, or wine, excellent food and lively discussions around the large stone fireplace.

Ruth is a grumpy, outspoken retired, award-winning poet whose constant companion is a duck. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Montreal Police Department and his wife recently joined the group since moving to Three Pines. Myrna the bookstore owner, mothers quirky but sweet bistro owners Gabriel and Olivier. She is worried about her missing friend, Constance. The elderly Constance carefully guards the secret that she is the last survivor of the famous Ouellette quintriplets, whose birth and early life caused an international media frenzy for years. And no one has ever seen the inside of Constance’s home until the morning she is found murdered and they discover that she has used the walls of her home as canvases for her strange, beautiful paintings.

The Inspector begins discovering connections between Constance’s murder, the unexplained nearby murder of a young woman, and corruption and evil-doing in his own police department. The secrets go deeper and become more intertwined, threatening Inspector Gamache, the police department and the village itself. Penny skillfully twists and turns her plot and her characters, tugging the reader into the lives of the villagers and the intrigue surrounding them.

How the Light Gets In is nine in a series of 10 Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny. All are set in the village of Three Pines.

—by Gail Stilwill

March, by Geraldine Brooks

Anyone who has read Louisa Mae Alcott’s Little Women will likely remember the vague, background figure of the father of the four little women. For most of that book, he was far from home fighting the Civil War. In this Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Geraldine Books brings him to life, calling him only “March,” the family’s last name.

She paints March as a strong believer in the Union cause, but he is too idealistic and totally unprepared for the horrors of the war he is about to become involved in. The story follows March as he leaves behind his family and heads off to join the Union troops as a Chaplin.

But before leaving, and without consulting his wife, Marmee, he gives nearly all of the family’s fortune away to support the losing cause of John Brown, leaving his family to live on the very edge of poverty, barely surviving and only with the reluctant help of the family’s Aunt March.

Behind the lines of the battlefield, March comes face to face with violence, suffering, and the unexpected cruelty and racism of both Northerners and Southerners. His faith in himself and in his religious and political convictions are mightily tested. But his letters to his family are intentionally evasive and cheerful, never revealing the challenges and discouragement he faces daily. March becomes attached to a field hospital where he is faced with violence and horrible suffering which he is powerless to prevent.

He re-unites with Grace, a beautiful, well-educated Black nurse who he met years ago while working as a peddler, selling his wares to various Connecticut plantations. When his sexual indiscretion with Grace becomes known, March is sent to a plantation where recently freed slaves are able to earn money. But while he struggles with his duties as a Chaplin, he becomes seriously ill from the horrors he has experienced, his guilt and total disillusionment. Marmee is sent for and eventually is able to bring him home from the Washington hospital, a sick, broken man, and an invalid. His belief in himself is shattered. He is a changed man.

Then we learn the behind-the-scenes story of Marmee, the strong, outspoken and loving mother who kept her family together during their wartime struggles. She is both enraged and deeply hurt when she learns of March’s indiscretion. His actions have driven a wedge between Marmee and March. Marmee is again left to struggle with keeping her family together and nursing her invalid husband.

— by Gail Stilwill.