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385. Thirteen

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Ben Emerson

Author:  Steve Cavanagh

Genre:   Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Crime

356 pages, published January 30, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

As the front of the book Thirteen announces, “the serial killer isn’t on trial.  He’s on the jury…”  That’s the premise of this thriller.  When Hollywood star Robert Solomon is charged with the brutal murder of his beautiful actress wife, con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn is called in to serve as his attorney.  All the evidence points to Robert’s guilt, Eddie isn’t so sure and discovers that there is a lot more to the story than initially meets the eye.  His sleuthing puts him on the trail of the real killer who is just happens to be on is jury.

Quotes 

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

 

“What they all understood was that if they told me they were guilty but that they wanted to fight the case anyway, I could no longer represent them. That was the game.”

 

“Whatever good things you’ve heard about me probably aren’t true. Whatever bad things you’ve heard are probably just the tip of the iceberg,” I said.”

 

My Take

Thirteen meets the primary requirement of any good thriller, it is a fast reading page turner.  I enjoyed the characters, the plot twists and the courtroom scenes.  A perfect vacation read.

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384. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

435 pages, published May 1, 2004

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter is a third year student at Hogwarts and faces a new round of danger.  Chief among his worries is the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban prison.  Black, who was convicted of murderering Harry’s parents, now seems to be after Harry.  To protect Hogwarts, the dementors, the Azkaban guards who are hunting Sirius, are called in and they seem to also be after Harry.  To combat the dementors, Harry learns how to summon his own patronus from Professor Lupin, the new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, who was a childhood friend of his father.  With the help of the Mauraders Map and the invisibility cloak, Harry, Ron and Hermione set to make things right again at Hogwarts.

Quotes 

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

 

“Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.”

 

“What’s that?” he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. “If it’s another form for me to sign, you’ve got another -“

“It’s not,” said Harry cheerfully. “It’s a letter from my godfather.”

“Godfather?” sputtered Uncle Vernon. “You haven’t got a godfather!”

“Yes, I have,” said Harry brightly. “He was my mum and dad’s best friend. He’s a convicted murderer, but he’s broken out of wizard prison and he’s on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though…keep up with my news…check if I’m happy….”

 

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

 

“You think the dead we loved truly ever leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?”

 

“I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.”

 

“Why, dear boy, we don’t send wizards to Azkaban just for blowing up their aunts.”

 

“If you made a better rat than a human, it’s not much to boast about, Peter.”

 

“Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs.”

 

“I’ll fix it up with Mum and Dad, then I’ll call you. I know how to use a fellytone now—”

“A telephone, Ron,” said Hermione. “Honestly, you should take Muggle Studies next year…”

 

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”

 

“Don’t let the muggles get you down.”

 

“How’re we getting to King’s Cross tomorrow, Dad?” asked Fred as they dug into a sumptuous pudding. “The Ministry’s providing a couple of cars,” said Mr. Weasley.  Everyone looked up at him.  “Why?” said Percy curiously.  “It’s because of you, Perce,” said George seriously. “And there’ll be little flags on the hoods, with HB on them-”  “-for Humongous Bighead,” said Fred.”

 

My Take

I am thoroughly enjoying my repeat romp through all of the Harry Potter books, especially the amazing voice work of narrator Jim Dale who seamlessly transitions between characters and brings The Prisoner of Azkaban to life.  J.K. Rowling again delivers a compelling, intricate, creative and fun tour de force in this book and it is a pleasure to re-read it.

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377. The Woman in Cabin 10

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ruth Ware

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller

357 pages, published April 16, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a thriller that takes place in the constrained confines of a high end luxury yacht that has set sail on the North Sea.  Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, is on board to cover the maiden voyage.  At first, she enjoys the glamour and opulence.  However, when the weather starts to turn, Lo is awakened in the middle of the night and views a woman being thrown overboard.  When she rings the alarm bell, no one believes her since no passengers are missing.  Things become more desperate for Lo as she begins to doubt her own sanity and struggles to figure out what happened.

Quotes 

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”

 

“Maybe that was closer to the truth–we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.”

 

“I love ports. I love the smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of the gulls. Maybe it’s years of taking the ferry to France for summer holidays, but a harbor gives me a feeling of freedom in a way that an airport never does. Airports say work and security checks and delays. Ports say… I don’t know. Something completely different. Escape, maybe.”

 

“There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.”

 

“Of course the one type of sashimi you really must try is fugu,” Alexander said expansively, smoothing his napkin across his straining cummerbund. “It’s simply the most exquisite taste.” “Fugu?” I said, trying to insert myself into the conversation. “Isn’t that the horribly poisonous one?” “Absolutely, and that’s what makes the experience. I’ve never been a drug taker—I know my own weaknesses, and I am very aware of being one of life’s lotus-eaters, so I’ve never trusted myself to dabble in that sort of thing—but I can only assume that the high one experiences after eating fugu triggers a similar neuron response. The diner has diced with death, and won.”

 

“she had made her way up the corporate ladder by treading on the backs of more young women than you could count, and then, once she was through the glass ceiling, pulling the ladder up behind her. I remembered Rowan once saying, Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.”

 

My Take

I gave The Woman in Cabin 10 four stars because it has the quintessential quality of a good thriller:  I couldn’t put it down.  In a similar fashion to Something in the Water (a page turner that I also really enjoyed) Ware does a great job of keeping the tension high, the red herrings plentiful and the twists coming at just the right moment.  Highly recommended vacation read.

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374. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

341 pages, published July 2, 1999

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is book two in the classic Harry Potter series.  Once again escaping his mean muggle relatives, Harry is delighted to be back at Hogwarts with besties Ron and Hermione.  However, his happiness is soon interrupted when students begin turning to stone and the school is ominously put on notice that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

Quotes 

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

 

“When in doubt, go to the library.”

 

“Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward.”

 

“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain?”

 

“Your aunt and uncle will be proud, though, won’t they?” said Hermione as they got off the train and joined the crowd thronging toward the enchanted barrier. “When they hear what you did this year?”  “Proud?” said Harry. “Are you crazy? All those times I could’ve died, and I didn’t manage it? They’ll be furious…”

 

“Do I look stupid?” snarled Uncle Vernon, a bit of fried egg dangling from his bushy mustache.”

 

“Hang on . . .” Harry muttered to Ron. “There’s an empty chair at the staff table. . . . Where’s Snape?”

“Maybe he’s ill!” said Ron hopefully.

“Maybe he’s left,” said Harry, “because he missed out on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again!”

“Or he might have been sacked!” said Ron enthusiastically. “I mean, everyone hates him —”

“Or maybe,” said a very cold voice right behind them, “he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.”

Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape.”

 

“Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I’ve heard you’ve bin givin’ out signed photos. How come I haven’t got one?”

 

“Ron: Why spiders? Why couldn’t it be “follow the butterflies?”

 

“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . .”

He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT” 

My Take

I am having so much fun re-reading the Harry Potter series.  Or, rather, listening to them with the delightful audio version narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale who brings the story to life with his imaginative voice work.  J.K. Rowling is a marvel, crafting a richly drawn fantasy world replete with an incredible level of detail while still managing to create completely relatable characters.  A pleasure for readers of any age!

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370. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Doris Kearns Goodwin

Genre:  Non Fiction, Biography, Politics, History

916 pages, published September 26, 2006

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Overdrive

Summary

Written by acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals showcases the political genius of Abraham Lincoln.  The book focuses on Lincoln’s appointment of former rivals for the Republican nomination William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates to his cabinet.  From his unlikely winning of the Republican nomination as an obscure one-term congressman and prairie lawyer to his management of  the Civil War and passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln prevailed over more prominent and accomplished men, but harnessed their talents to preserve the Union and win the war.

Quotes 

““Tolstoy went on to observe,”This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.  Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country – bigger than all the Presidents together.  We are still too near to his greatness,’ (Leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) concluded, ‘but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.’”

 

“With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”

 

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”

 

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

 

“Having hope,” writes Daniel Goleman in his study of emotional intelligence, “means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks.” Hope is “more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right”; it is “believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.”

 

“An adult friend of Lincoln’s: “Life was to him a school.”

 

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition,” he wrote. “I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”

 

“The ambition to establish a reputation worthy of the esteem of his fellows so that his story could be told after his death had carried Lincoln through his bleak childhood, his laborious efforts to educate himself, his string of political failures, and a depression so profound that he declared himself more than willing to die, except that “he had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived.”

 

“In fact, Lincoln and Stanton had already heard similar complaints. After dispatching investigators to look into General Grant’s behavior, however, they had concluded that his drinking did not affect his unmatched ability to plan, execute, and win battles. A memorable story circulated that when a delegation brought further rumors of Grant’s drinking to the president, Lincoln declared that if he could find the brand of whiskey Grant used, he would promptly distribute it to the rest of his generals!”

 

“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing.”

 

“In order to “win a man to your cause,” Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.”

 

“Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.”

 

“It is not until one visits old, oppressed, suffering Europe, that he can appreciate his own government, “he observed, “that he realizes the fearful responsibility of the American people to the nations of the whole earth, to carry successfully through the experiment… That men are capable of self-government.”  

My Take

Team of Rivals helps you to understand why Abraham Lincoln is such a mythic figure in American history, but also reveals his most human qualities so that you have a better understanding of the man behind the legend.  A canny politician, an empathetic humanist and a righteous force of good, Lincoln was the man that the moment demanded and America is a better country because of his presidency.

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368. Justice on Trial: the Kavanaugh confirmation and the future of the Supreme Court

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino

Genre:  Non Fiction, Politics, History, Law

375 pages, published July 9, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Justice on Trial is an account of the bitter and circus like confirmation battle for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who replaced Anthony Kennedy on the court in 2018.  With lots of history of the Supreme Court and biographical background on Justice Kavanaugh thrown in, Justice on Trial primarily focuses on the hearings which came down to a he said/she said between Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford.

Quotes 

“There had been only three confirmations in the final year of a presidency when the opposing party controlled the Senate, most recently in 1888, when Grover Cleveland nominated Melville W. Fuller to be chief justice.”

 

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary,” wrote Justice Edward White in Coffin v United States, tracing it from Deuteronomy through Roman Law, Canon Law, and the Common Law and illustrating it with an anecdote about a fourth-century provincial governor on trial before the Roman Emperor.”

 

“Justice Brennan described the power of these unelected justices with chilling clarity when he told his incoming clerks that the most important rule in the law was the “Rule of Five.”

 

“Voters responded so well to Trump’s reference to Sykes and Pryor in debates and speeches that he decided to make a longer list of judges who met with conservative approval.”

 

“The Democratic strategy had been obstruction at all costs, so Klobuchar was annoyed at repeatedly being singled out for being cooperative and reasonable.” 

My Take

Like millions of Americans, I was riveted by the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  Justice on Trial takes you behind the scenes and tells the whole story, giving the reader a much fuller account of what happened and why there was such a media frenzy.  It also makes the case about the importance of due process, a foundational element of our Constitution and American life.   This book is a page turner and I highly recommend it, especially to readers interested in the judicial system.

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357. The Likeness

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Tana French

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

466 pages, published May 1, 2009

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Overdrive

Summary

The Likeness is book two in Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.  It starts six months after the end of In the Woods (book one).  After the events that occurred in the previous book, Detective Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back.  She is pulled back in when the victim in a grisly crime scene looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Cassie goes undercover must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more important, who she was.

Quotes 

“There’s a Spanish proverb,” he said, “that’s always fascinated me. “Take what you want and pay for it, says God.'” “I don’t believe in God,” Daniel said, “but that principle seems, to me, to have a divinity of its own; a kind of blazing purity. What could be simpler, or more crucial? You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and that you will have to pay it.”

 

“I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack.”

 

“Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out.”

 

“Regardless of the advertising campaigns may tell us, we can’t have it all. Sacrifice is not an option, or an anachronism; it’s a fact of life. We all cut off our own limbs to burn on some altar. The crucial thing is to choose an altar that’s worth it and a limb you can accept losing. To go consenting to the sacrifice.”

 

“Have you noticed how easily the very young die? They make the best martyrs for any cause, the best soldiers, the best suicides. It’s because they’re held here so lightly: they haven’t yet accumulated loves and responsibilities and commitments and all the things that tie us securely to this world. They can let go of it as easily and simply as lifting a finger. But as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever.”

 

“Now that’s a concept that’s always fascinated me: the real world. Only a very specific subset of people use the term, have you noticed? To me, it seems self-evident that everyone lives in the real world – we all breathe real oxygen, eat real food, the earth under our feet feels equally solid to all of us. But clearly these people have a far more tightly circumscribed definition of reality, one that I find deeply mysterious, and an almost pathologically intense need to bring others into line with that definition.”

 

“But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons.”

 

“It took my breath away, that evening. If you’ve ever dreamed that you walked into your best-loved book or film or TV program, then maybe you’ve got some idea how it felt: things coming alive around you, strange and new and utterly familiar at the same time; the catch in your heartbeat as you move through the rooms that had such a vivid untouchable life in your mind, as your feet actually touch the carpet, as you breathe the air; the odd, secret glow of warmth as these people you’ve been watching for so long, from so far away, open their circle and sweep you into it.”

 

“It was-this always seems to shock people all over again- a happy childhood. For the first few months I spent a lot of time at the bottom of the garden, crying till I threw up and yelling rude words at the neighborhood kids who tried to make friends. But children are pragmatic, they come alive and kicking out of a whole lot worse than orphanhood, and I could only hold out so long against the fact that nothing would bring my parents back and against the thousand vivid things around me, Emma-next-door hanging over the wall and my new bike glinting red in the sunshine and the half-wild kittens in the garden shed, all fidgeting insistently while they waited for me to wake up again and come out to play. I found out early that you can throw yourself away, missing what you’ve lost. ”

 

“The idea was flawed, of course,” he said irritably. “Innately and fatally flawed. It depended on two of the human race’s greatest myths: the possibility of permanence, and the simplicity of human nature. Both of which are all well and good in literature, but the purest fantasy outside the covers of a book. Our story should have stopped that night with the cold cocoa, the night we moved in: and they all lived happily ever after, the end. Inconveniently, however, real life demanded that we keep on living.”

 

“That kind of friendship doesn’t just materialize at the end of the rainbow one morning in a soft-focus Hollywood haze. For it to last this long, and at such close quarters, some serious work had gone into it. Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work as effortlessness.”

 

“Look at all the old wars, centuries ago: the king led his men into battle. Always. That was what the ruler was: both on a practical level and on a mystical one, he was the one who stepped forwards to lead his tribe, put his life at stake for them, become the sacrifice for their safety. If he had refused to do that most crucial thing at that most crucial moment, they would have ripped him apart- and rightly so: he would have shown himself to be an impostor, with no right to the throne. The king was the country; how could he possibly expect it go into battle without him? But now… Can you see any modern president or prime minister on the front line, leading his men into the war he’s started? And once that physical and mystical link is broken, once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech, forcing others to take his risks while he sits in safety and battens on their losses. War becomes a hideous abstraction, a game for bureaucrats to play on paper; soldiers and civilians become mere pawns, to be sacrificed by the thousand for reasons that have no roots in any reality. As soon as rulers mean nothing, war means nothing; human life means nothing. We’re ruled by venal little usurpers, all of us, and they make meaninglessness everywhere they go.” 

My Take

Having thoroughly enjoyed two previous Tana French books (The Witch Elm and In the Woods), I had high hopes for The Likeness.  It did not disappoint.  French is such a master storyteller and has such affection for her characters that it is impossible not to become completely absorbed in the story.  Some interesting twists, but this book is worth reading for the quality of the writing rather than the puzzle of its central mystery.

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356. Coffee with Jesus

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   David Wilkie

Genre:  Fiction, Graphic Novel, Theology

118 pages, published November 1, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The graphic novel Coffee with Jesus is taken from a daily online comic strip born out of artist David Wilkie’s frustration with the polarized political climate in America.  The strip is organized around six themes:  getting to know Jesus, spiritual disciplines, relationships, culture, church, and the challenges of life.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I was first made aware of Coffee with Jesus when my church used it for several weeks as a launch pad for sermons.  There is a lot of insight and relevant commentary in this short book told in a new and creative format.  Many of the strips really got me thinking.

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350. It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Lenna Kotke

Author:   Gregg Easterbrook

Genre:  Sociology, Economics, Public Policy, Politics, Science

352 pages, published February 20, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In It’s Better Than It Looks, author Gregg Easterbrook surveys a number of different metrics to see how well the world is doing and makes a convincing case that things are much better than most people think.  Under every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has ever been.  In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising and economic indicators are better than in any past generation. Worldwide, malnutrition and extreme poverty are at historic lows, and the risk of dying by war or violence is the lowest in human history.

Quotes 

 

My Take

As a naturally optimistic and grateful person, It’s Better Than It Looks is my kind of book.  It is a clear-eyed look at how humanity is actually faring in the 21st century and the answer is amazingly well.  When you think about the fact that 70 to 80 million people died during World War II alone, you have a much better appreciation for how much things have improved worldwide in the past 70 years.  It’s Better Than It Looks reminded a lot of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, another worthy read on this same topic.

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349. An American Marriage

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Tayari Jones

Genre:  Fiction

308 pages, published February 6, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

African American newlyweds Celestial and Roy, an aspiring artist and a young executive, are living the American Dream in Atlanta when Roy is wrongly accused and convicted of rape.  How they navigate the ensuing years is the subject of this book.

Quotes 

“But home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.”

 

“There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.”

 

“A woman doesn’t always have a choice, not in a meaningful way. Sometimes there is a debt that must be paid, a comfort that she is obliged to provide, a safe passage that must be secured. Everyone of us has lain down for a reason that was not love.”

 

“There are too many loose ends in the world in need of knots.”     

 

“I’m alone in a way that’s more than the fact that I am the only living person within these walls. Up until now, I thought I knew what was and wasn’t possible. Maybe that’s what innocence is, having no way to predict the pain of the future. When something happens that eclipses the imaginable, it changes a person. It’s like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It’s the same thing, but it’s not the same at all. That’s the best way I can put it. I look in the mirror and I know it’s me, but I can’t quite recognize myself.”

 

“Marriage is between two people. There is no studio audience.”

 

“I thought of Walter again. “Six or twelve,” he sometimes said when he was depressed, which wasn’t all the time but often enough that I recognized a blue mood when it was settling in. “That’s your fate as a black man. Carried by six or judged by twelve.”

 

“Much of life is timing and circumstance, I see that now.”

 

“I have always let you know how much I care, right? You never had to wonder. I’m not a man for words. Daddy showed me that you ‘do’ for a woman. Remember that time when you damn near had a nervous breakdown because it looked like the hickory-nut tree in the front yard was thinking about dying? Where I’m from, we don’t believe in spending money on pets, let alone trees. But I couldn’t bear to see you fret, so I hired a tree doctor. See, in my mind, that was a love letter.”

 

“Sometimes when you like where you end up, you don’t care how you got there.”

 

“You can never really unlove somebody. Maybe it changes shape, but it’s there.”

 

“Sometimes it’s exhausting for me to simply walk into the house. I try and calm myself, remember that I’ve lived alone before. Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.” 

My Take

Tayari Jones is a gifted writer and I appreciated the insight that she provided into the lives of people who are typically outside my social circles.  After reading An American Marriage, I felt that I had a better understanding of the African American communities and the issues that they have to contend with, especially African American men.  I was also impressed with the understanding Jones conveys of how a marriage works or doesn’t work.

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