Ellen Meeropol

This was a tough one for me to rate. I liked it quite a lot for the first half and then when Grandpa Ivan died it suddenly came crashing down and everybody in the book (except Pippa) started to drive me nuts.

I found Anna uptight and miserable as a character. Emily even more so and I was incredibly tired of her self-pity over her parents. I wanted to know more about the Isis family and less about Zoe's medical care. Zoe and her condition seemed completely unneccesary to the story, BTW.

Could Marge have been any more of a caricature? And Gina seemed like she'd become a big player but then didn't.

I suppose this is how real life works - not everybody is an important player in a story even though they are around while it's happening -- but this is a novel and I want everything in the book to matter.

I found the pie-in-the-sky ending totally absurd.… (mais)

In a quiet cul-de-sac next to a closed mental hospital, an old woman just disappears one morning. Her husband and the neighbors in the other 5 houses on the street have their own opinions on what may have happened. So does the police inspector when she arrives to start investigating.

While this could have been the start of a crime novel, Ellen Meeropol uses it as a way to tell a story about a place and about a collection of people who somehow ended up in the same street - each with their own fears, nightmares and stories (including the troubled detective). The street was once used for the doctors and nurses of the nearby hospital and a lot of the people on the street had been connected to it. Others had brought their own trauma from elsewhere.

One thing that derails the tale a bit is that the author tried to make her characters as diverse as possible (including the reasons and details of their trauma). While this is often a plus, the chance of it happening in such a small neighborhood is not very big and it requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief not to get derailed by it. It feels a bit Hollywood-ish - get everyone you need together and don't look too closely at why and how they ended up at the same place. The author does make an attempt at explaining how everyone ended up there but as at least half of these backgrounds were not really needed or used, it felt a bit as diversity for the sake of diversity and some of the characters felt like checklist items (with as much depth as one can get on a checklist as well). Add to that the very weird set of chapters which sound like a chorus in a play and which really does not add anything to the story.

With that being said and ignoring that particular part, the novel actually somewhat works as an examination of mental health management - both in the past and today. It is a tale of old secrets and old crimes, some of them horrific and some of them almost acceptable which makes them even more horrific when you stop to think about them. It tries too hard in some places and there is just this much of a coincidence that I am ready to accept but I did not hate it at the end - mainly because the author did not leave dangling threads I suspect - this kind of novels tend to end abruptly and this one did not.

Northampton State Hospital existed and treated patients between 1858 and 1993. The characters in this novel may be invented but most of the experiences in the hospital were at least partially based on reality. Mental health had always been the red-headed step child of medicine - even today. While the author uses the setting to tell a story about secrets and lies, it also tells the very real story of mental health management in the past and the horrors most of the most vulnerable people in the country had to live through. And when we say the past, it does not really mean as far back as we all think it does (or hope it does).… (mais)

One of my favorite aspects of reading is the things I learn. Ellen Meeropol's books are not just interesting stories, but provide the reader with the chance to explore elements of social history and issues. It's one of my favorite aspects of her writing, and is a feature of this book. My family's personal arc overlaps with some of the Azalea Court characters, so I knew of some of the events in the earlier lives of Iris, Harriet, and Asher, but through Meeropol's writing I was able to see more, from a slightly different trajectory.

An elderly woman goes missing. The story unwinds through viewpoints of multiple characters, past and present times, to unravel hidden truths. Relationships can be glorious, but also messy, and Meeropol takes the reader through those of her characters, warts and all*. It is also an elegant tribute to the power of friendship, and the strength we can find in each other.

*apologies to Oliver Cromwell… (mais)

I originally bought this book because it begins in the summer of 1968 in Detroit and I was going to college in Detroit at this time. I was hoping that it would bring back some of my memories from that time period - I got the memories and so much more. This was a fantastic well written book about family and forgiveness, protests and the justice system but most important it was about sisters and their love for each other despite their estrangement.

In the summer of 1968, Rosa and Esther participated in an anti-war protest in downtown Detroit. They were both fervent in their opposition but Esther had a small baby and her family was the primary focus in her life. They both made a bad decision which caused a policemen to get hurt. When their pictures showed up on the evening news, they were identified and arrested. It was apparent that they would both have jail time in their future, until Esther made the decision to testify against her sister so that she would be able to raise her baby. Her decision caused a major estrangement between the sisters and totally ended any communication between them. Over the years, they both wrote letters to each other but never mailed them. They missed each other but were both convinced that they were right and didn't make any effort to ease the division.

This is a novel about a family divided during a time that the country was divided. One sister wants to help the future through the family that she is raising and the other sister feels that it is important to fight injustice on a larger scale no matter the consequences. Even though this book took place in the 60's, much of it is relevant in the divided country that we are living in now… (mais)