Hope is a Good Thing
“He wants to plead not guilty by reason of grief. She knows grief is a kind of insanity. She knows.”
Who thinks isolation is a kind of insanity? (All you extroverts, raise your hands.) With the exception of walking/running my devoted Retriever, I’ve been inside, Vitimin D-less, for a couple of weeks now. But I’m feeling surprisingly sane. I do have mounting questions. How is it that I still can’t catch up with my unyielding to-do list? Is online school worth my tax dollar? Oh, and why is my house not any cleaner? (Cut out drive time and I should, in theory, be able to mop a floor and scrub a toilet in those spare minutes, no?) What exactly constitutes binge-watching? And how do I not have more hours to read?
I did finish reading American Dirt. Jeanine Cummins got my attention. Her story revolves around Lydia Perez who finds herself in dire circumstances thanks to the Mexican cartel, so she’s immediately forced to flee Mexico with her 8-year-old son Luca. From middle-class bookstore owner to migrant, Lydia’s perilous journey may well make you feel more human. I feared for her. I ached for her. I most definitely hoped for her. I’m not at all surprised that Stephen King loved this one. He gushed: “On a micro scale―the story scale, where I like to live―it’s one hell of a novel about a good woman on the run with her beautiful boy. It’s marvelous.” That’s coming from the literary genius who believed that “Hope is a good thing, maybe the very best of things,” which is at the heart and soul of this fantastic read.
*This novel has kicked up a lot of controversy, so much so that Oprah filmed a deeper book club discussion to address it. I’m really hoping Rachel will weigh in on this one.