Cindy R

Carrot Quinn's memoir, THE SUNSET ROUTE is one of the most brilliant books I've read. For Carrot to write so poetically while revealing such desperation, it's not an easy book to absorb. Carrot grows up in Alaska with a schizophrenic mentally-ill mother who speaks to the Virgin Mary, a brother and has no father. She's neglected, hungry more often than not, living moment to moment, surviving. She leaves Alaska at fourteen years old after her mother attempts to strangle her.

At that point, Carrot makes her way to Portland, falls into a counter culture existence living in punk houses, eating from dumpsters, shoplifting and traveling the country by rail. Carrot is introduced to the memoir, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard which gently leads her to embracing nature, feeling one with the trees and water. This memoir is her bible throughout the story. She lives in forests, homeless camps, exists out of society.

THE SUNSET ROUTE has a running theme of loneliness, isolation and grief. Carrot believes she is "unlovable trash" and is constantly trying to connect with another human. When she does, it is short lived and she ends up disappointed. Her description of hopping trains, meeting other hobos, living an alternative lifestyle is all interesting, but unsettling at best.

Towards the end she hasn't seen her mother in eighteen years and feels shame wondering if she should be taking care of her. She learns her mother is alive, and searches for her in Alaska, always a step behind. At the end of the memoir, she discovers long distance hiking making the 10,000 mile trip between Mexico and Canada three times. "I am new, clean and empty as the wind."

THE SUNSET ROUTE left me rattled after reading Carrot's journey and grateful for my own existence.

While reading Virginia Feito's novel, MRS. MARCH (Liveright/WWNorton) I felt as if I was being sucked into the mind of a 42 year-old woman suffering from early dementia. And while it was uncomfortable and sad, I couldn't stop reading. Feito's novel is a study between madness and death. It's a dark psychological drama that will creep you out. At least, it creeped me out.

Mrs. March is the wife of a successful author. She starts to begin seeing herself in the main character of her husband's new bestselling novel and begins performing as that character in real life and losing herself at the same time. Mrs. March not only finds herself between the pages of the book, but discovering secrets of her past, as well as tracking down a killer.

Feito's writing is brilliant and her characters are so complex and well developed. The whole novel is set in the wealthy New York City "Book World" which is quite a treat to read about.

MRS. MARCH is soon to be a motion picture with Blumhouse, starring Elizabeth Moss, of "Mad Men" fame.

I've read a plethora of novels set during WWII. Tracey Enerson Wood's new novel, THE WAR NURSE (SourceBooks) offers a story about WWI based on nurse, Miss Julia Stimson, whose true story was lost until now.

Superintendent nurse, Stimson has one month to recruit, train and create policies and procedures for sixty-five nurses to be stationed at the Red Cross base camp in Rouen, France. Stimson finds herself caring and protective of her girls who will be close to the front, sacrificing their time with no return date set. American Expeditionary Forces Base Hospital 21, is a former racetrack set up to care for five hundred, but soon they are facing thirteen hundred patients. The novel focuses on the bravery and courage these nurses showed. Reading about the gases that were used against our troops and its effects on humans was cringe worthy.

Soldiers start coming into camp with a mysterious influenza-like disease causing coughing spasms. At first, those cases are dismissed as troops just trying to get out of going to the front, but with Stimson's leadership they realize there is a contagious influenza. It's the beginning of the pandemic of 1917-1918, which will go on to kill five-million people around the world. She fights to get an area set up just for those infected, most likely saving lives.

While reading Wood's novel, I couldn't help but recognize the similarity of the reaction to this misunderstood disease in 1918, to COVID-19 today. Wood gives readers some relief from the atrocities of war, by highlighting personal relationships. Readers will find a strong female character in Julia Stinson and once again, be reminded of the importance of nurses in the field of medicine.

I'm sure most of you are unfamiliar with the person written about in THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN (Berkley) by authors, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. She happens to be one of the most interesting people I've ever read about, and I believe you will find her intriguing too.

In 1905, at the age of twenty-one, Belle da Costa Green was hired by financier, steel, railroad and electric power magnate, J.P. Morgan to become his personal librarian for the collection he wanted to build. He entrusted her completely, to negotiate for and buy millions of dollars worth of manuscripts, books and art for Morgan. She told Morgan, who was willing to pay any price for important works, that her goal was to make his library "pre-eminent, especially for incunabula, manuscripts, bindings and the classics." Acquiring rare and valuable items was a way wealthy families showed off their status. Belle was immediately welcomed into New York society and was soon mingling with Astors, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and other members of the "swells."

But from the very beginning, Belle had a secret. It was a secret that if discovered would crumble down and destroy her and her family, who she provided for. I'm not going to give away the secret, but the whole story is true, with some literary license, and truly amazing.

Belle was a trailblazer as a single, successful career woman in the early in the early 1900's. THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN deals family, sacrifice, truth and lies. A definite must read.