World's Most Eventful Grocery Store

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Pages: 400 Genre: historical fiction

Rating: 3.5 Star

Kindle Notes and Highlights

In 1972, Pottstown, Pennsylvania is hit with a devastating hurricane that nearly wipes out the town. As part of the clean-up efforts, they uncover a human skeleton. The origins of this skeleton are a mystery. But before there was a skeleton in a well after a hurricane, there was a growing community of Jewish immigrants and African Americans in a small town, Chicken Hill. Back in the day, Chona Ludlow ran the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store with her husband, Moshe, a theater owner who runs the town's integrated theater. The grocery store serves as a hub for the quirky residents of the Hill. One of Moshe's employees, Nate Timblin, comes to Moshe and Chona for help in hiding his nephew, who is Deaf, from the state who believes he needs to be institutionalized. The battle between love and community at Chicken Hill and the hypocritical, bigoted White population in town shadows the story as it unfolds.

The description of this book makes it seem like it's going to be a mystery, and it's not. It's a good story, but if you're looking for a mystery and want to watch them investigate to solve whose skeleton was found, you're going to be disappointed. Honestly, I spent the first bit a little disoriented about this. Once I found my actual footing, though, I did enjoy the story for what it was. I just think it could've used some refining around the start.

It look me a minute to get used to it, but I liked how the story was set up. We're presented with the question of whose body was uncovered in the hurricane and then are launched back to the '30s, where we unpack the story from the beginning. This is where we bring in all the other community members and their plights. It's a euphony of stories that ultimately converge to one point, wrapped up with a nice little bow. I understand how this could feel grating for some people, but I thought it was really well-executed. It was fun to start in a random place with a random character and seeing how we were brought back to the main throughline story. By the end, I was super invested in it.

And the writing was beautiful. It felt a little repetitive (sometimes it felt more intentional than others), but ultimately, the style was very nice. I also tend to find omniscient narrators with foresight to be corny, but, for the most part, I thought this was a good example on how to utilize that perspective well. Every now and then the book would pull back to look at this story as one part of the grand American narrative, which I found very compelling.

I really liked the setting as far as the time period went, and I got a good sense of the community — both the good and the bad. Living in modern Texas, there were certainly some parts I could relate to, but I felt very grounded in a small northern town in the mid 1900s. But the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store was really not as relevant as you'd expect, given the title.

The characters were the best part. Chona and the child in hiding (who is called Dodo) were the "main" characters, in the sense that the storyline largely revolved around them. But it was truly an ensemble book. I ended the book with a really strong understanding of many of them, and they felt real. If you told me this was based on real people, I'd believe you because of how well-rounded they were. And I was really impressed by this considering how many characters there were.

I get why not everyone will love this book. It's a very distinct style that not every reader will enjoy wading through. But I really loved it, and I think it's a great example of strong writing.