The Jackal's Mistress: A Novel
by Chris Bohjalian
The Right Thing to Do (1/30/2025)
This Civil War-era novel by Chris Bohjalian is based on the true story of a Virginia woman who rescued and brought back to health a Vermont lieutenant left to die in a neighboring house when the Union retreated from that area of Virginia. What is the right thing to do? This is a continuing theme and dilemma for Libby, the Virginia woman whose husband had been captured and was in a Union prison camp somewhere. Her choices were: 1) Hide him and try to get him back over the Union front lines? 2) Turn him over to the rebel army, where he would likely be killed? She had the decency to choose #1, at great risk to her own life and her family if he were discovered.
This was a well-written novel and a page-turner. The character development was well done and the harsh realities of the Civil War times were well-researched and weaved throughout the story.
I especially liked the author's notes at the end, relating the real story and what changes he made to the story in the novel. I highly recommend the book for your reading pleasure. Thanks to BookBrowse and NetGalley for a pre-publication copy of the novel.
Fagin the Thief: A Novel
by Allison Epstein
A Different Fagin (1/3/2025)
I read Oliver Twist several decades ago and was fascinated by the opportunity to read this reimagining of the villain of Dicken's novel set in the mid-nineteenth century. Somewhat to my surprise, a sympathetic Jacob Fagin appears in Allison Epstein's novel. Jacob is a boy abused by his father, who was also a thief, and loved by a mother who tried to point him in a different direction, to no avail.
I took an interest in the extreme anti-Semitism in London at that time, as Jacob Fagin was a secular Jew, but a Jew nonetheless. The attitude toward him by society was, "Of course, he's a thief, he's a Jew, isn't he?" The story takes us through his early life as a ragamuffin pickpocket on the street, eventually becoming a master thief. In the Dickens story, it appears that Fagin deliberately gathered boys into his lair, sending them out into the streets to pick the pockets of the rich and bring the spoils back to him.
Epstein presents a different storyline: Boys seek him out to escape their fate and be trained by him. He becomes a reluctant rescuer of these boys. Jacob is not a kindly hero, but he does have a soul and a conscience, of sorts. Oliver, interestingly enough, is not a major character in this novel but does appear and takes part, against his will, in an abortive home robbery that goes awry.
At this point, Epstein imagines a different story concerning the violent Bill Sikes and his girlfriend Nancy, which becomes the main focus of the rest of the book. Without giving spoilers away, they all come to an end differently than in Dicken's novel. If your remembrance of Dicken's version is strong, you might object to Epstein's version, but I frankly thought it was well done and actually made more sense. And a novel is, after all, a novel, so the author can go anywhere they wish. I highly recommend it. Thanks to BookBrowse for providing a pre-publication version for review.
The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story
by Pagan Kennedy
The Secret History of.. the Rape Kit??! (11/6/2024)
"The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story" by Pagan Kennedy
Reviewed by Jim Traxler
If I were simply browsing through a list of new books, looking for something of interest, I have to confess that a book with the title, "The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story," would not draw much attention for me. But since the book was provided to me for review by NetGalley, I waded into it. To my great surprise, it became a page-turner. Imagine a scenario where a social worker named Marty Goddard with no medical or forensic expertise was able to design a kit for medical workers to gather forensic evidence from someone who had been raped.
In her work with the poor people in Chicago, she had discovered that rapists were rarely caught and prosecuted. She couldn't understand why and barged into the Chicago police department to find out why. What she discovered was there was a general attitude among policemen at the time that no one actually rapes women, they just got what they deserved. So law enforcement regarded rape to not be a serious crime. Furthermore, there were no procedures in Emergency Rooms to gather evidence of rape, and the ER staff were often just too busy to take the time to do so.
Long (and very interesting) story short, she designed a kit and took it to a highly regarded Chicago police crime lab analyst named Louis Vitullo, who adopted and approved it, which became known as the "Vitullo Kit." So the female inventor of the kit got no credit for this ultimately life-changing invention. Why? Ms. Goddard allowed that to happen in order for the kit to be accepted by male-dominated police departments, since it had a respected male police officer's name on it.
The book is much more than the history of the rape kit. The author Pagan Kennedy, after learning of Goddard's role in the development of the kit, goes looking for her. After achieving success against all odds in getting hospitals and law enforcement to use the rape kits, Goddard disappears from view, and the story becomes one of tracing her down.
That story is just as interesting as the rape kit story. In the process of trying to find Goddard, Kennedy learns that Goddard herself had been the victim of sexual assault. Furthermore, we learn that Kennedy had also been a victim of sexual assault, both as a child and as an adult. So the search for Goddard became a personal memoir of the author's own struggles as a victim and survivor of rape.
These two interwoven stories are heart-wrenching tales of what women went through and the inability of society to recognize and reform itself. But thankfully, with the acceptance of the rape kit, paired later with the ability to use DNA samples to identify and arrest sexual predators, the current rate of unsolved rape cases is much lower. It also means that there is awareness that rapists are no longer likely to escape punishment. However, the stigma of reporting sexual assaults still remains today, even after the "me-too" movement. And pockets of misogyny still reside in police and sheriff departments everywhere.
This is a well-written saga, a real "true crime story." I recommend it to all for a better understanding of the woman who gave rape victims a chance for justice.
Becoming Madam Secretary
by Stephanie Dray
Inspiring Story of Frances Perkins (12/9/2023)
If you love history, you will love this book. If you love stories about strong women who made a difference in this world despite having to overcome barriers that no man would encounter, especially in times past, then you will love this book. Frances Perkins was the first female member of a President's cabinet, serving as Secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945. When I began to read the book, I knew all that. I quickly realized that I knew nothing about Perkins' life and the incredible extent of her accomplishments in that office.
The job of writing historical fiction about a larger-than-life character like Ms. Perkins and all the important people she had to push, cajole, and convince, requires not only extensive research but also the creativity to try to discern and write what plausibly could have been her thoughts and her conversations. Stephanie Dray did a masterful job of all the above. As she says in her Author's Notes, "Novelists can go where historians rightly fear to tread."
The prologue begins with a scene in FDR's office in 1933 where he is asking her to be his Secretary of Labor. For reasons we learn later, she has already decided she would not accept the appointment. She lays out what she would do if she had the position, assuming that her agenda was so radical that he wouldn't agree to it. To her amazement, FDR agreed to every jot and tittle of her agenda. How could she say no?
Chapter One takes us back in time to the summer of 1909 when Frances was getting a master's degree in economics. Upon graduation, she begins a career of fighting for worker's rights and improved working conditions. She observed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which changed her life's mission into being an unstoppable force for safety in the workplace. This led to successes and the attention of Governor Al Smith and Theodore Roosevelt, as well as FDR.
The author delves into Perkins' personal life, a happy marriage that gradually disintegrated due to her husband's growing mental illness, which seemed to be genetically transmitted to their daughter as well. It was for this reason that she was reluctant to take the position offered by FDR. But she did, and brought about legislation which even today affects every citizen of the USA. Without Frances Perkins, there is some doubt that we would have ever had Social Security, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, child labor laws, and so many other safety net programs.
But the real story here is how she had to endure hatred, lies, death threats, scorn in the press, and sabotage by other members of the Cabinet; yet she maintained her dignity, pressing forward to get the programs she knew were needed by the American people. This is a book about history, but more importantly an inspiring story about courage and persistence in the face of seemingly impassable barriers. The author allows us to experience what might have been the anguish in Perkins' inner thoughts and feelings, which she never displayed to the outside world.
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