historical fiction
The people who live around The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store in the Chicken Hill area of Pottstown, Pennsylvania in the 1930s don’t
have an easy life. But the immigrant Jews and African Americans do
have a sense of community. They come through for each other when it matters.
For example, when the grocery store owner is ill, people rally to help her.
When an orphaned deaf boy is being hunted by a poorly managed government-run
facility, the community tries to protect him as best they can. When tragedy
strikes, everyone in the village does something to seek justice.
Similar to the other book I read by James McBride, Deacon King Kong, this is a novel about the people in a struggling community. It’s full of characters presented as short stories that all
fall underneath the larger story arc involving all of the inhabitants. In the
end, everyone contributes in some way to set things on the right path. The
people in the book jump off the page. They feel authentic and I couldn’t help
but care about them. I understand why so many people love this book which illustrates
how, in fact, it takes a village. For me, it was good but slower paced than I
prefer, especially the first half.
The audiobook narrator, Dominic Hoffman, usually does a nice job. In this one, however, he had a lot of accents to perform—some more successfully than others. I often had difficulty understanding which character was speaking in dialogues. I’ve graded him higher in the past but I’m giving him a B+ for this one.
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