VVMBookBlog

If you have ever experienced a death in your family, you know that it can have all kinds of far-reaching effects beyond just missing the person who has died.

In this book, Liz’s grandmother, Bunny, died suddenly of a heart attack. Liz’s mother was very close to Bunny, so Bunny’s death led to a major depression for Liz’s mother, Christine. An invitation to a spiritualist church that offers the possibility of communicating with people who have died gives Christine a reason to get up and out of the house, hoping to connect with her mother. But hearing about that church, or any church, alienates Liz’s father so much that he feels he might have to leave. And Liz is in the middle of all of this!

Then some new people move in across the street with their crabby neighbor, Mrs. Crosby. It’s her daughter Lily, grandson Nathan and granddaughter Courtney. But Lily hasn’t been home for years– hasn’t wanted to come home–and is now dying of terminal cancer. What will happen to Nathan and Courtney if she dies?

Liz becomes friends with both Courtney and Nathan, and especially Nathan! She finds herself in the midst of both families dealing with problems relating to each other under some pretty difficult conditions. And each family needs to figure out what to believe about death and about how to get along with those who are still living.

I think this author, Ellen Wittlinger, does a great job of developing her characters. I could really empathize with Liz and Nathan, and I really got frustrated with Liz’s mother! Another good book by Wittlinger, Zigzag, had the same effect on me. She gives her readers a lot to think about!

It’s 1949, Francine Green lives in Los Angeles, is in love (from afar) with actor Montgomery Clift, and attends a private Catholic school.   Her rigid home life and  the strict rules from the nuns at her school have pretty much silenced any opinions Francine would think of expressing.  But then it’s her friendship with very out-spoken Sophie that finally challenges her to begin speaking up for herself.

1949 was in the time of McCarthyism, fears of the Soviet Union and Communists, and fears of possible atom bombs being used against the United States.  Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin fed these fears by compiling lists of writers, actors, directors, newspaper editors, professors and any other people who he and his committee decided were sympathetic to the cause of Communism and therefore dangerous to the U.S.  These people were then “blacklisted” and lost their jobs and were unable to get jobs anywhere else.  It was a very scary time for our country.

So this is the backdrop of this story.  While visiting at Sophie’s house,  Francine meets Sophie’s father who is a screen writer for movies, and their friend, Jacob Mandelbaum, an actor who gets put on the suspect list and investigated by the FBI.  Francine’s experiences with Sophie cause her to question what she believes and how she can finally learn to really express what she believes.

I found this book really interesting, both from a historic perspective, and to see how Francine changed over the course of the book.  She really struggled with her feelings about not wanting to get in trouble but still  needing to act on what her conscience was telling her to do.  And, while I was not yet alive in 1949(!!!), I do remember having “duck and cover” drills in elementary school to practice what we would do if an atomic bomb fell. (However, I don’t think crouching under our desks with our heads covered by our hands would have been much help to us!) I lived in a small town in Wisconsin just east of St. Paul, and I remember a chart in the Minneapolis newspaper showing how far from the Twin Cities the damage from a bomb would reach.  Pretty scary at the time!