Stein House by Myra Hargrave McIlvain

Stein House is the story of a German woman, Helga Heinrich, who brings her family to Indianola Texas in the mid-1850’s to manage her sister’s boarding house. This is in fact the story of a family living day-to-day, surviving. But just as our lives are sometimes mundane and sometimes spiked with drama so too are the days of the characters in this book.  

Helga’s alcoholic husband doesn’t make it past page one, drowning in a boozy attempt to jump aboard the ship sailing from Germany. So Helga and her four young children begin their trip to America grieving and uneasy, arriving at a point in history punctuated by turmoil. The shipping industry in Indianola is growing quickly. Texas is going through a painful birth. Devastating tropical storms and disease are battering citizens living on the Texas coast, and the politics and horror of slavery are threatening to tear the nation apart - a ripe setting for drama, which Austin author Myra Hargrave McIlvain (pictured) commendably delivers with just the right measure of shock, pace and grace through the vessels of the story, the characters.

Helga Heinrich’s family, strangers and we the readers become part of the Stein House extended family as we share the daily dinner, and the fear, anger, loss and hope of life. And it is this emotional buy-in, all presented in the context of a vibrant Texas history, that makes Stein House a book you won’t want to put down.

100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #14

When you are over emotional, or come across as weird, you lose credibility and it makes no difference how right you are.

When I was 30-something and working as Senior Aide to an elected official, I was the gatekeeper to a person with tremendous power. As such, I met daily with a never-ending line of representatives (lobbyists) intent upon persuading me to persuade my boss to help them get whatever they needed – usually to help them make more money. I also met daily with individuals whose beliefs, principals and values (not financial gain) drove their ever waking moment. These were the “cause” people, and their causes included concerns for children, the poor, elderly, environment etc.

One such guy I will never forget, was a mass transit advocate who I will call “Jim.”  Jim was brilliant. He knew his facts. He articulated exceptionally well. He was always well-prepared, and he was always at meetings about transportation issues. But in spite of all this, when he arrived at the podium to speak his case, there was an almost synchronized rolling of eyes throughout the room, thought bubbles over every head reading, “Here comes the kook.” It really wouldn’t have mattered what Jim said or how he said it because his appearance (extreme 1950’s vintage clothing and glasses and long unruly hair) was so bazaar, people wrote him off before he even spoke a word. Sure it works for Weird Al Yankovic (pictured), but it didn’t help Jim. Sensing this, he became defensive and emotional, often shouting down the other speakers.

One day in my office, I stopped him mid-rant and said, “Jim, you’re smart, you know what you are talking about and you’re right, but they will never hear you because they cannot see past your weirdness.” I told him right or wrong, like it or not, he needed to look like and act like the people he was trying to convince, so they could see his truth, and not just him.

So keep your cool and avoid the extreme, so you can retain the credibility that will help you win your case.

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

There is something about the English sensibility that resonates with me, and I think it is their capacity to view themselves and life so impassively. Rather than feverishly defining the emotions of the moment, English writers tend to tell the story, letting the reader draw their own conclusions.  And no one does it better than Ian McEwan (pictured).

You probably know Ian McEwan as the author of Atonement, which was made into a major motion picture staring Keira Knightly and James McAvoy – one of the very few book-to-movies I liked better than the book. And although I haven’t read all his books, some I didn’t like, Atonement and On Chesil Beach, and some I really did love, Saturday, and the topic of this review, The Children Act.

The main character of this book, 59-year-old Fiona Maye, has achieved so much. She is a British High Court judge, and an accomplished pianist, but as is so often the case, what we see of people’s outward lives looks nothing like that of their secret, personal life. And such is the case with Fiona.

Having achieved her greatest professional ambitions, Fiona achingly realizes in so doing she has sped by the opportunity to be a mother. Simultaneously her seemingly comfortable marriage of 30 years is split apart when her husband announces he wants to have an affair “while he still can”.

As if this isn’t enough to dismantle Fiona, she becomes inappropriately involved in one of the most controversial cases ever brought before her court. She must decide if leukemia patient Adam Henry should be forced under British Law (The Children Act) to undergo a blood transfusion to save his life. His parents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, are refusing treatment and Adam is underage. Altered by her realization of lost opportunities, Fiona steps outside normal legal procedure with a surreptitious visit to Adam’s hospital room to see for herself if Adam understands the consequences of his parents'  decision. That convergence sets off a chain of events we see distantly approaching but can’t quite make out until it is too late. And that, and Ian McEwan’s sparse and ethereal descriptions of minuscule things (Fiona’s reflection in a glass of cognac) present in colossal moments (as her husband packs to leave), makes for good reading.