The title of James McBride’s book, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, was enough for me to want to read it. The book begins by us learning that a decomposed body is found in a well in Pennsylvania in 1972, and ends when we learn how that body got there in 1936. However, in terms of the story itself, these facts turn out to be pretty incidental. The real story lies elsewhere.
The real story, and the true reason I was drawn to the book, is that it takes place during and after World War One in a small town of which the only residents are immigrant Jews (with one glaring second-generation exception) and Blacks. There’s something about the setting that drew me in: the intimate yet strained relationships between the two communities; the way in which outsiders come together over their shared outsider experience; the way outsiders embrace their identity as ‘other’ in contrast to the majority White population.
I enjoyed the historical nature of the novel. It takes place in a time when Pennsylvania was growing as the centre of the steel industry, but more interestingly, at a time of Jewish immigration from Europe and African American migration from the South. Jews were cobblers and grocery store owners; underworld bosses and boxers; union leaders and train workers. The Blacks moved to the North to escape the racism of the South, only to encounter a subtler, less explicit, but equally pernicious racism.
The story McBride tells is of a cast of characters, Jewish and Black, who live in this small, decrepit, neglected town. The first half of the book has less of a narrative thread. It paints the picture of each character and the relationships between them. Though a bit slower, the characters are interesting, quirky and engaging. The second half speeds up, telling the story of how the group of townsfolk becomes mobilized to save a young, vulnerable, orphan boy. Both parts of the book were enjoyable in their own way, and ultimately the story comes together by the end.
I have not read McBrides well-known memoir, The Colour of Water, but plan to do so shortly. He’s a crisp, creative writer, with a fascinating backstory. His mother came from a Rabbinic family in the South; his father an Black man from Harlem. From this book it’s clear he has a lot of Jewish and Black cultural knowledge, and his description of both communities felt genuine and told from the inside. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is a story worth reading.
Just Because I Liked It:
- Please listen to this incredibly powerful and emotional shiur from Michal Horowitz about the present situation in Israel, and what we can and should do about it.
- Take a look at this short, but impactful video of the challenges of letting our children have smartphones. If you doubted why you should join Wait Until 8 (let alone why, with the war in Israel, we should expose our children to less social media), I hope this changes your mind.
- I’m a huge John McPhee fan. He’s a masterful non-fiction writer, and I enjoyed this interview with him. If you haven’t read him, try start with Headmaster or this book about Bill Bradley, the basketball superstar turned Senator well before he was either.