I enjoyed Anaya Mathis' debut novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, which follows the lives of Hattie Shepherd and all of her children. The Great Migration took place from 1910 to 1930, and was characterized by millions of African Americans moving from the rural South to the urban Northeast in search of opportunity and to no longer be subject to segregation. In this book, Hattie moves at the age of fifteen from Georgia to Philadelphia. She has her first children (twins) at the age of seventeen and lives a life of hardship and making ends meet by the skin of her teeth and the strength of her character. I enjoyed the narrative structure, wherein the chapters are essentially interwoven vignettes of Hattie's different children and the very different paths they end up taking in their lives. This is a story of grit, courage, the strength of familial bonds, and the sacrifice and challenge of motherhood. This would be an interesting book to read coupled with Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, which I hope to read soon.
Having enjoyed several of Doig's later novels, I was excited to pick up English Creek, the first of Doig's Montana trilogy. Set in Montana in the 1930s, the story is told through the perspective of Jick McCaskill, a boy on the cusp of being fifteen years old and coming into his own. Unfortunately, I felt the story was filled with way too much detail and moved at a snails pace. There was no climax and no real drama or intriguing moments. While Doig's writing is jaunty and pleasant, this was my least favorite of his books.
Ingrid Betancourt's memoir of her six years of captivity in the Colombian Jungle, entitled Even Silence Has an End, is a detailed account of her daily life under horrific circumstances. At the time that she was captured, she was running for president of Colombia. This is a story about hope, the will to live, and surviving against all odds.
Louise Erdrich has written fourteen novels as well as short stories, a memoir, and children's books. Her most recent novel, The Round House, won the 2012 National Book Award. Curious to see what the buzz was about and not having read any Erdrich since college, I was immediately drawn in to the story as soon as I picked it up. The Round House takes place in 1988 on a reservation in North Dakota, and is told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Joe. Joe's mother Geraldine is the victim of a horrific crime. Joe and his father attempt to piece what happened together and to bring the attacker to justice, which is not an easy task when it is not clear exactly where the crime took place (private land, government land, Native land, etc.). Ultimately, Joe sets off with his friends and starts to learn of the crime, eventually taking justice into his own hands. The story was very powerful, and had a potent mix of humor and tragedy. I found Erdrich's channeling as a thirteen-year-old boy to be convincing, in the range of emotions he feels for his parents, his friends, and the very grown-up situation he unexpectedly finds himself in.
