Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue

 

Imbolo Mbue, herself an immigrant from Cameroon, has written a story focusing on two couples, one an immigrant family from Cameroon and the other, their upscale employers in New York City.  Mbue starts her story in the fall of 2007 and weaves a tale that combines the difficult decisions that many immigrants must face with the looming financial crisis.

As the book opens, Jende Jonga has just been hired as a chauffeur by Clark Edwards, a top executive for Lehman Brothers. This job enables Jende to bring his wife, Neni, and their 6-year-old son to New York, where Neni finds temporary work for Edwards’ wife, Cindy, at their summer home in the Hamptons.

All, of course, does not go smoothly.  Jende does not have his green card and has been assured by his “cousin,” acting as his immigration lawyer, that it is only a matter of time.  Together they craft an exaggerated story to document Jende’s claim of dire danger to himself – from Neni’s family in Cameroon — that will, hopefully, convince the immigration authorities to grant him asylum status.  In the meantime, Neni uncovers and documents Cindy’s drinking problem.

At the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Jende loses his job and with it, the Jongas’ ability to pay the rent on their modest apartment.  The financial squeeze leads Neni to take steps of her own that come as a surprise both to the reader and to Jende.

Throughout, Mbue shines her light on how these marriages work, and don’t work. Cultural differences play an important part, as we watch the Jongas through the lens of a strongly patriarchal background against the Edwards in a modern America where Cindy finds herself as a very wealthy stay-at-home mother/professional volunteer not quite in step with the times. Patterns of communication and non-communication, honesty and deceit, and saving face are woven together to craft a compelling story.

The ending was both disappointing to me and, strangely at the same time, inevitable. But however I was feeling at the time I read the conclusion of this book, I found the whole book eminently readable and insightful. Mbue has a strong voice and her characters are well drawn and true to human form, with their flaws and strengths, their compassion for one another and their casual disregard.  I cared about these people. And, for me, that’s one mark of a good novel.

— Jeanie Smith

An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones

 

Celestial and Roy have been married a little over a year when he is falsely accused of rape and sentenced to 12 years in prison. They’re both smart, educated, ambitious, highly focused, and African-American. He’s a marketing pro, she’s an artist. He’s her muse, she’s his inspiration.

In An American Marriage, Tayari Jones follows the couple through Roy’s incarceration, building up layers of background stories to question just what marriage is and how being American, especially African-American, defines it.

We learn about both sets of parents and their jagged paths toward one another, and we begin to understand how and why Celestial and Roy chose one another. Andre, who has loved Celestial since they were babies, is always a bit on the sidelines, adoring her even while introducing her to Roy and celebrating their marriage.

Eventually we meet Roy’s “Biological”—the ne’er-do-well drifter to whom he is biologically related, even though the man he calls Big Roy has always been his real father. Jones deftly shows us that there is more than one way to be a father.

Why do people choose who they marry? What draws people together and why do some marriages last and some not? Do we choose the partners we want or those we need? Does that matter?

This is a story of affluent Americans who face challenges typical of many couples, but who also have the issue of race as a threat in the shadows. Roy is clearly innocent, yet it takes his lawyer five years to work past the bigoted local justice system to get him cleared. Then he returns to find what home now looks like, to deal with a brittle spirit that has endured evils he never knew existed, and a life without the mother he adored.

Celestial has moved on and, in her defense, she asks Roy, “Would you have waited for me for five years?”

“This wouldn’t have happened to you,” Roy replies. She is, after all, not a black man. But what Roy doesn’t understand is the way in which being a woman has forced Celestial into a style of thinking and acting that confines her at the same time it defines her creative spirit. She is also broken.

Ultimately, they both find a level of comfort and, perhaps, end up where they should have been in the first place.

Celestial and Roy are alternately charming and annoying, selfish yet giving. An American Marriage offers plenty of questions but no easy answers. It’s worth reading twice—once to get the story, once to get the characters.

—Pat Prijatel 

Foolish Church, by Lee Roorda Schott

Pastor Lee visited with the Books, Brews, and Banter group this April. We talked about her inspiring book and how we might apply her wisdom to our own lives.  Below are three individual reviews of her book, which are also posted on Amazon’s page for the book.

This powerful book is somewhat scholarship (footnotes and an extensive bibliography), somewhat how-to (discussion questions at the end of each chapter, plus helpful, practical appendices), and somewhat a memoir of Pastor Lee Roorda Schoot’s leading a church inside a women’s prison. But most of all, it’s a passionate argument to make our churches really real—not just shiny, happy places where the nice people go periodically.  

In a well-paced, anecdotal style, Pastor Lee convinces the reader (at least this reader) that if we open our churches (with wise and necessary boundaries) to ex-offenders, we also open our hearts and minds in a way that benefits each of us and the whole community. FOOLISH CHURCH: MESSY, RAW, REAL, AND MAKING ROOM isn’t just a book about welcoming ex-offenders. It’s a book about welcoming ourselves and the worst things we have ever done. About acknowledging life’s messiness. And making room.

—Sharelle Moranville

“Pastor Lee,” as the inmates at the Iowa Correctional Facility for Women at Mitchellville call her, gets down to the raw and messy sides of being part of a church today. Are we welcoming? Inclusive? Judgmental? Do we accept one another’s scars (and our own), or are we looking for a sanitized community that’s an idealized version of ourselves? In clear, direct and inspirational prose, Schott shows us the way to the church community we could be, using her relationship with women inmates as a model. A book well worth reading for any faith community.

— Pat Prijatel

Foolish Church is a relatively short book that is long on wisdom about how to build more caring communities with room for people the church has often overlooked. Her message is a powerful, yet simple message that applies to all of us.  It is a plea to move beyond an assembly of the upright and proper, to make room for those on the edges of respectability. 

One quote that really resonates is “how do we become churches that build boundaries, but not walls.” Are we welcoming, inclusive, judgmental, or looking for a sanitized community? I believe that those are also questions that should be heeded by our President in making our country one that builds boundaries, not walls.

—Ken Johnson