Cluster Critiques

Waters Plantation by Myra Hargrave McIlvain
Five Presidents by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin
The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates 
Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss

Waters Plantation by Myra Hargrave McIlvain

I worry about reading and reviewing books written by friends. What if I don't’ like it? What if it isn’t well written. Then what do I do? 

Apparently, I have a knack for picking friends who are great writers, because Very Smart Gals Book Club member and friend, Myra Hargrave McIlvain, author of Waters Plantation, and other award-winning books, like Stein House and The Doctor’s Wife, never disappoints. 

Water Plantation brings together some of the characters in her previous books, tying together the stories of the decades long progression of Texas settlers through the turmoils of Mexican rule, Civil War, and Reconstruction. German Immigrant Amelia Stein, who suffered the loss of family and was trapped in a loveless marriage during her life in historic Indianola, is reunited with the man she fell in love with in New Orleans, and secretly lost a child from, plantation owner, Al Waters. Al, a former slave owner who conceived a son with a Black slave and secretly raised that child as white, struggles painfully as his Harvard Medical schooled son, Toby, returns to Brenham intent on embracing his biracial origins in a community still struggling with racial prejudice and an active Ku Klux Klan. 

McIlvain’s fictions of early Texas history include complicated, relatable characters, full of ambiguities, flaws, spirit and love - people trying to do the right things but not always succeeding – just like us, so, we care about them and feel for them. Waters Plantation is a beautifully told family saga, rich in texture with all the real-life ingredients that fill our everyday lives, and which filled the everyday lives of our Texas ancestors, and made Texas who and what it is today. 

You will enjoy this Texas historical novel. Read it.

Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin

Five Presidents is an a-political, unsensationalized, personal, and unique, view into the lives of the American Presidents between the 1950’s and 1970’s - told from the perspective of the (not so) Secret Service Special Protective Detail for the Presidents during that time. Special Agent Clint Hill’s humbly told account is so full of history-making events (he was the agent that jumped on the back of the limo to protect Mrs. Kennedy seconds after John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas), that it has, as one astute reviewer noted, a Forrest Gump feel to it. 

Although I entered into this book mostly driven by a sort of perverse curiosity, I quickly found Mr. Hill’s apparent compassion, authenticity, and dedication quickly changed my interest to that of simply hearing a well-told story about interesting people in interesting circumstances and times – which is at the heart of any good book. 

Read Five Presidents and learn unique information about the lives of some of our Presidents - like Eisenhower played golf and Kennedy swam every afternoon no matter what was going on in the world, and Johnson spent most of his Presidency at his Johnson City ranch.  You will also learn about the quality, sacrifices, and dedication of at least one member of our Secret Service.

You will enjoy Five Presidents. Read it.

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The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates  

As I read The Moment of Lift I kept asking myself, “Why would a very wealthy woman with three small children at home, risk her life traveling to and staying in the most dangerous areas in the world?” But that’s what Melinda Gates has done and continues to do because she truly believes the biggest challenges our world faces cannot be solved without engaging the victims of those challenges – women and children.  I was also sort of awestruck that Gates, a devout Catholic, would so publicly take on the issue of abortion and contraception, which is the primary focus of her book. I found that such a courageous thing for her to do.  

Gates also points out what she and I believe is the only “women” bridge between liberal and conservative audiences – money – if we want to solve the world’s problems, we must solve women’s problems, because women control the money.  Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn reached the same conclusion in their exceptional 2010 book, Half the Sky, saying, as they traveled country to country interviewing leaders, they were only successful at gaining audiences when they pointed out that women accounted for more than half of the GNP (Gross national product - a broad measure of a nation's total economic activity). It always boils down to money. Always.

Read it if you are interested in Melinda Gates, but don’t expect any epiphanies.  Although I was tremendously inspired and somewhat educated by Gates book, I didn’t finish it feeling like much had or would change as a result.

Lady in the Lake: A Novel by Laura Lippman

This could have been a good book. I liked the premise: 1966 Baltimore, a wife and mother, Maddie, who seems to have it all decides she wants more, walks away from her comfortable suburban lifestyle and ventures into the gritty, inner-city looking to redefine her life. A young black woman, Cleo, born, raised and living a gritty, inner-city existence dies, and nobody seems to care, and her character, who appears post-death to narrate her story, likes it that way. 

Maddie and Cleo are on an intriguing collision course, and there’s a dead woman in a lake somewhere waiting to be discovered, or so author Lippman would have us believe. Unfortunately, Maddie and Cleo’s stories don’t so much collide as occasionally catch a glimpse of each in a crowded subway, and the dead lady in the lake promise is pretty empty.

The fatal flaw with Lady in the Lake is that there’s not a single person in the book that you can like. Maddie is self-absorbed and superficial. Cleo is cynical and indifferent. The balance of the too many characters (if you want to call them that) were shallow and inconsequential. Furthermore, the story line requires the reader to accept without question ridiculous story lines – like Maddie becoming a top reporter for the Baltimore newspaper virtually overnight based on a super flimsy plot line. 

As I wrote this review I kept thinking Lippman’s name sounded familiar, so I searched for her name in my blog, and sure enough, I’d read and reviewed another of her books, And She Was Very Good, saying, “The reader could conjure up some sympathy for Heloise (books main character) if she was even remotely likable ... the plot is so full of fluff I felt like I was in a pillow fight”. 

If you haven’t already fallen victim to the extensive promotion of this book, save yourself the disappointment. There are just too many better choices out there. Don’t read it.

The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss

The Woman's Hour is the well-told and riveting account of the Tennessee battle to achieve the final state approval needed to ratify the 19^th Amendment, the right for women to vote. So riveting in fact, that Steven Spielberg has purchased the rights for the movie. Weiss artfully builds the story to a crescendo making for some satisfying anticipation and intrigue - in spite of the fact that we already know the outcome - which in my mind makes for good writing. 

Throughout the entire book, I felt humbled by the hard work and dedication women (and men) gave to suffrage, inspired by the intelligence and competency of the women (and men) involved in the campaign, humbled by the sacrifices they made, and appreciative of the generosity of the wealthy women (all men) who made ratification of the 19^th amendment possible.

I also felt ashamed and embarrassed by the ignorance and malice of anti-arguments including, women’s supposed emotional instability and intellectual deficiencies, the danger to society of anything that distracted them from their domestic duties as wives and mothers, and the threat to the moral order should they sully themselves with politics.

Ironically, 100 years later, there's still a hefty segment of society opposed to women's equality. What it is about “equal” that is so intimidating and repugnant to some? Why is equality, regardless of gender, race or otherwise even an issue?

If you have any interests in the history of women't suffrage, this is a good book because it touches on all the history, and includes a suspenseful story about the final approval.