We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza Loved this one. It’s about a black woman who is a TV news reporter and her best friend a white woman who is the wife of a white cop. The white cop shot and killed a black teenager while on patrol, and it’s all about how it all goes down. Of course Riley, the TV journalist, is reporting on the story and can’t really talk about it with her friend. And of course Jen is trying to stay closed and loyal to her husband. It really breaks down where friendships break down when things like the differences in race are not being discussed. A very illuminating story.
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth This one definitely lived up to all the hype. It was awesome. Elsie is an 81 year old woman trying to live a quiet life. Then everyone in her neighborhood learns that she is Mabel Waller, who was the youngest woman to ever be convicted of murder in Australia. She was quite notorious, she served her time and changed her name in an effort to live out her life quietly. The story takes us back to her childhood when so many people seemed to die around her to the point where there were rumors that she had done all the killing, until she finally actually did. She gets the chance to tell her story through the reflections on her childhood.
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett My cousin Theresa told me at a party over the summer that I have to read this one. She was right. Boy was she right. Birdie is from a small town in Mississippi during the Depression when her mother asks her to travel to her sister’s house in Oxford, Mississippi to ask for money as they are about to lose their house to back taxes. Her sister married wealthy and left the family behind. When she arrives she quickly learns that her sister Frannie’s life is built of lies. Her sister’s husband left her and his mother and took anything of value with him, and now the sister and her mother in law are trying to figure out how to keep the house as well. The story is told from another perspective, an 11 year old girl in an orphanage who is about to age out and is terrified of her next chapter—working in a cannery. (Which I wonder if that really means not working in a cannery but being trafficked.) Of course the two protagonists meet. But Birdie decides to do something completely unique and while her sister and the mother in law are off trying to track down Frannie’s husband she opens a brothel in the house to save up to pay off all that is owed on the house. A truly unique story and very well written.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.