The Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir by Donna Johnson

The Holy Ghost Girl; A Memoir  by Donna Johnson

Donna Johnson's father left the family when she was very young.  Donna, her mother Carolyn, and her little brother Gary join up with a tent revivalist, David Terrell, where Carolyn plays organ.  

The children are placed in the care of Brother Terrell's wife, Betty Ann who has two children by Brother Terrell during the revivals and are rowdy and full of mischief.  The story tells of growing up poor in the tents even sleeping on the chairs until wee hours of the night and traveling from town to town living in rented houses and eating scraps of food, sometimes fasting as well.

The revivals are full of exorcisms, healings, and speaking in tongues and at times, Brother Terrell has to fight off the KKK as the story is set during the civil rights movement mostly in Mississippi and Alabama.  

As the evangelist grows larger and traveling is more intense Donna and Gary are sent off to live with whoever  her momma can dump them on, sometimes abusive  people.  Eventually, the scandal of the affair breaks and Brother Terrell moves them into their own house where he makes regular visits and they even have more kids together but later on Carolyn finds out that Brother Terrell is having other affairs and has other "families". 

In my opinion, the book was a little slow, but I kept at it as it is interesting and there is a surprise in the end but I'll leave that to you dear readers to find out for yourselves.  I find it fascinating how Brother Terrell can heal people through the power of faith in the Lord and he does.  He makes the blind to see and the crippled to walk right in front of thousands of people and people would come from near and far and line up to be healed.  I don't know if it's true or not, but what Donna makes very clear is that the Lord speaks through him even though he is a sinner and cheater and a liar. 

The book was published in 2011 by Gotham books. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan lives a mundane life in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's playing bridge with the girls she grew up with and writing the newsletter for the Children's Benefit.  Skeeter dreams of a bigger and better life as an editor for a publishing company or for a magazine.  She writes to many places but the only job she can get is writing the domestic column for the local newspaper.  Skeeter doesn't know anything about domestic housekeeping as she has been raised in the south with a housekeeper who does all the house cleaning and all the cooking.

Since she doesn't know anything about housekeeping, Skeeter takes her column questions to her friend Elizabeth's housekeeper Aibileen.  Aibileen, reluctantly at first, answers all her questions and helps her with the column.  Soon they become friends and Aibileen tells her about her son who passed away and how he had dreams of writing a book about how blacks are treated by their white counterparts which gives Skeeter the idea for the book "The Help".  She hires Aibileen and twelve of her maid friends to tell stories for the book of working for whites in the South.  The stories tell of mistreatment, abuse and heartbreak but also of love and attachment for the children they help to raise.  And the telling of the stories itself is dangerous as it is set in the time of the civil rights movement and there are laws against whites and blacks conspiring together for any reason.   They have to very careful and meet in secrecy or someone could get hurt or worse.

I loved the dialogue of the book because you get the true nature and character of each of the maids through their voices.  Particularly Aibileen because she tries so hard to teach the white children she cares for to not be racist.

“Once upon a time they was two girls," I say. "one girl had black skin, one girl had white."
Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.
"Little colored girl say to little white girl, 'How come your skin be so pale?' White girl say, 'I don't know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?'
"But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, 'Well, let's see. You got hair, I got hair.'"I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.
"Little colored girl say 'I got a nose, you got a nose.'"I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.
"Little white girl say, 'I got toes, you got toes.' And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can't get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.
"'So we's the same. Just a different color', say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End."
Baby Girl just look at me. Law, that was a sorry story if I ever heard one. Wasn't even no plot to it. But Mae Mobley, she smile and say, "Tell it again.” 

I think this is an important book, even in modern times, because it shows not only how far we have come towards racial improvement but how far we still have to go.  I laughed and I cried and I gobbled the whole thing up in less than a week. 

Published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (February 10, 2009).

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

After reading Stephen King's colossal 11/22/63, The Notebook was like a decadent, rich, and smooth midnight snack.  I read the whole thing in about three hours.

The setting is coastal North Carolina, 1940's and Noah Calhoun is haunted by the ghost of a girl he once loved.  Everywhere he looks and everywhere he goes he is reminded of the love they once shared.  But she has been out of his life for more than a decade.

Allie Nelson is also haunted by the past and passions lost.  She is engaged to be married to another but she cannot go through with it until she is sure that is what she really wants.  So makes a trip back to New Bern, North Carolina to flirt with the past and see where her heart takes her.

She finds Noah sitting on the porch of his family home, alone and over the next few days, the two try to rekindle the flame that never went out. Will Allie follow her heart and stay with the man she never stopped loving or will she return to the socialite lifestyle she is expected to live?

"I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to do all I can to make sure it does.  But if we never meet again and this is truly good-bye, I know we will see each other again in another life.  We will find each other again, and maybe the stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time, but for all the times we've had before."

I usually don't go in for romance novels but I knew that this book was a bestseller for over a year, all over the world and that it had been made into a movie and I found it at a thrift shop so I thought, why not?  I'm glad I did.  Every girl wishes for such a passionate romance and soul partner that Allie has found in Noah.  This is one of the greatest love stories ever told.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Al Templeton, owner of the local diner in Lisbon Falls, Maine, has accidentally found a porthole to the past in his storage room.  Every trip through the porthole takes him to Lisbon Falls, Maine on September 9, 1958 at 11:58 AM.  And every time he comes back, no matter how long he stays, it's always two minutes later in the future.  Al makes many trips through the porthole and devises a plan to go back and prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.  Unfortunately, Al develops lung cancer and cannot continue on with his plan so he recruits the help of a local high school English teacher, Jake Epping.  Jake is of course skeptical at first but once he makes his first trip through 'the rabbit hole' under the alias of George Amberson and helps to save the lives of a friend's family he becomes a believer and agrees to make the journey through the porthole and on to 1963 where he would attempt stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK.  But the past is obdurate.  It doesn't want to be changed and there are many many, sometimes dangerous, obstacles in his way.

I don't want to give away too much about the story but Jake or George, whichever you prefer does fall in love, makes many friends, and also helps to save the lives of others on the way.  You must remember there is a butterfly effect going on and every single life he touches changes the future.  The ending is totally unexpected but I wouldn't say a cliffhanger, thankfully.

At first I was intimidated by the book's size(849p.) and it sat on my shelf for many months.  But once I got started with it, I was quickly hooked and finished the whole thing within a week.  I think Stephen King fans will love this tale of 'natural meets supernatural'.  Classic Stephen King.  I have to say the last several books I read by King were, to me,  not of his nature and left me slightly disappointed.  But I'm glad to say he is BACK!!  Go get it!

Published in 2011 by Scribner.

Shelly

Electric Barracuda by Tim Dorsey

This is Tim Dorsey's 13th book starring the ever practical yet psycho Florida fugitive, Serge Storms.  This time Serge takes on us on a fun and frolicking "fugitive tour" of Florida.  He keeps a blog and of course he has his faithful, yet stoned sidekick Coleman by his side every step of the way.

Serge is, as usual, being hunted by Federal agents, a bounty hunter, a whole caravan of characters, and his ex-wife in a Turquoise colored T-bird.   We take a trip throughout the sunshine state to see the back streets and "under belly" of Florida including The Everglades, Orlando, Venice, Myakka River, Tampa, and so on.

Besides the "fugitive tour", Serge has a mission this time to help his Grandfather's old gang on the Loop Road to recover funds stolen by a shady lawyer.  Will Serge complete his mission? Will the trackers catch up to him this time?  Will Agent Mahoney, his nemesis, track him down?  Go get this fun, laugh out loud, comedy and found out for yourself.

I can't help but wonder who would play Serge and Coleman in a movie?  Or Agent Mahoney?  I think it would a great movie!

Tim Dorsey is an ex-writer for the Tampa Tribune.  Electric Barracuda was published in 2011 by William Morrow.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt

Eli and Charlie Sisters are killers.  Hired gun killers.  It's 1851, Oregon City and the brothers are hired by the Commodore to kill a man who concocted a formula to make gold glow in the rivers for an easy strike.  Their mission is to travel to California, San Francisco to be precise, to kill Hermann Kermit Warm and steal the formula.  Their travels are long and dark and sometimes comedic.  Most of the book, narrated by Eli Sisters, is about their adventures during their travels and the characters they meet on the way but they finally do reach San Francisco and they do find Hermann Kermit Warm. But things have changed for the Sisters Brothers along the way and the ending takes a twisted turn that is not to be expected.


I found the book to be a little too dark and maybe a little descriptive however I was hooked early on and it became a quick read.   Mr. Dewitt is a fantastic story teller with a smooth flow of words that I can appreciate.  Plus I just like Westerns.  Always have.  I'm a huge fan of Larry McMurtry but I wouldn't exactly compare the Sisters Brothers to anything by McMurtry but more so like maybe a Charles Frazier novel such as Cold Mountain.  Seducing, riveting, grotesque, and funny all at the same time.  I can't wait for more from Patrick Dewitt!


Published in 2011 by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publisher and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize  Also published in paperback in 2012.

Lamberto Lamberto Lamberto by Gianni Rodari

Lamberto Lamberto Lamberto A Modern Fable By Gianni Rodari

Baron Lamberto is ninety three years old and lives on the island of San Giulio in the middle of Lake Orta in the mountains of Northern Italy.  Lamberto is very rich as he owns 24 banks around the world and on each continent and he is also very sick, having 24 ailments, one for each bank that he owns.  Only his butler, Anselmo, remembers them all.

Baron Lamberto is told by an Egyptian mystic that the secret to youthfulness is to have your name repeated over and over so he hires six people to chant his name twenty four hours a day.  "Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto,...." Surprisingly, this works and Lamberto's health begins to improve and soon becomes the epitome of youth.

But his life is at risk because not only does his only heir, his nephew Ottavio, want him to die but then a group of terrorists shows up at his castle to demand a ransom from each of his 24 banks.  Soon the 24 bank managers arrive and negotiations begin.

Lamberto Lamberto Lamberto was originally written in 1980 by Rodari and has been translated to English in 2011 by Anthony Shugaar.  The original story is a great Italian Fable and Gianni Rodari (1920-1980) is a great Italian author and journalist most famous for his books for children.  He won the Hans Christian Andersen award in 1970.

I am extremely happy to have found this book in the new book section of my local library and to have read it and I highly recommend it to adults and children alike.  It is filled with shenanigans, amusing characters, and is highly unpredictable.... I think you'll love it!