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Weekly Words about New Books in
Independent Bookstores
February 17, 2019
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Two Indie Next Favorites - Firsthand Look at Working Poor, Migrant Crisis Gets Personal
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land. This brave and important memoir about a single mother working as a housekeeper to make ends meet
explores the underbelly of upper-middle class  America and the reality of what it's like to be their servant. At 28, Stephanie Land's plan to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet and began writing about the experiences.
And what experiences they were - stories of overworked and underpaid Americans living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. And of the government programs that provided her housing that turned out to double as halfway houses. Then there were the uncaring government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance. Land touches on these and other similar challenges facing the working poor in this country, and she does it with the panache of a gifted storyteller. It's one of the reasons independent booksellers chose
Maid as their favorite new book of the month by making it February's #1
Indie Next pick.
In reviewing Maid, author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist) said, "What this book does well is illuminate the struggles of poverty and single-motherhood, the unrelenting frustration of having no safety net, the ways in which our society is systemically designed to keep impoverished people mired in poverty, the indignity of poverty by way of unmovable bureaucracy, and people's lousy attitudes toward poor people... Land's prose is vivid and engaging... [A] tightly-focused, well-written memoir... an incredibly worthwhile read."
Lost Children Archive by
Valeria Luiselli
. This timely new novel about an unnamed family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border is also an
Indie Next pick for
 February.
The parents and two children are headed to Arizona, specifically the ancient home of the Apache where the father hopes ghosts of Geronimo and Cochise might still linger. The mother, a radio journalist, becomes consumed by the news on the radio about the thousands of children trying to reach America but getting stranded at the southern border, held in detention centers, or being sent back to their homelands, to an unknown fate. As they closer to their destination, it also becomes clear that all is not well with the family itself, which only adds to the tension when the two children become separated from their parents and are plunged firsthand into the migrant border plight.
Author Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa, and India. She writes both fiction and nonfiction and has been nominated on two occasions for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In nominating this book for the Indie Next list, independent bookseller Zoey Cole from Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, NY, wrote: "Really incredible fiction takes you on a journey, and somewhere along the way you realize how much of it reflects your own reality. In Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli's narrator is highly observant of her inner life and the world around her. She unravels a story that's about family and how walls between people and nations are built - and what they damage. In reading this book, I felt like I was in the car on the family's road trip - feeling all the conflicting emotions that Luiselli's narrator is feeling as a partner, mother, and resident in today's United States."
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Puzzling Mystery Set Against Unforgiving Australian Landscape
The Lost Man by Jane Harper. Former journalist Harper made a big splash with her atmospheric first murder mystery, The Dry,  which was set in a small Australian town in the grip of a crippling drought that plays an important role throughout. With her new book, she again makes the setting a major plot element, which enhances the suspense of another nifty thriller.
The story takes place in an isolated region of Western Australia's outback where homesteads can be a four-hour drive apart and where Nathan Bright and his younger brother Bub have found the dead body of their third brother, Cam, under puzzling and illogical circumstances. The police write it off as suicide, but Cam was charismatic with a successful business and a wonderful family. The body was found in a remote corner of his ranch, where a lack of transportation and supplies would mean certain death. Except, Cam's truck - fully stocked and keys on hand - was found nine kilometers away. So, what - he drove out to the middle of nowhere, parked his truck, and walked out into the outback to die?
Although Nathan, who has troubles of his own, is reluctant to get involved, he returns to the family home and finds himself slowly but surely becoming more curious and suspicious as household dynamics reveal themselves and the isolation - both physical and emotional - of all their lives exposes secrets and clues. Harper eventually allows readers to know why Cam died, but I didn't guess the how until the very end. I loved this one.
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WHERE TO FIND
AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE
Many of you already have a favorite local bookstore, but for those of you without such a relationship, you can click here to find the
nearest indie bookstore by simply entering your postal code.
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WHY THE COLUMN?
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Hi, I'm Hut Landon, and I work as a bookseller in an independent bookstore in BerkeIey, California.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what indie booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; I'd like HUT'S PLACE to be a quick, fun read for book buyers. If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column, simply click
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COMMENTS, FEEDBACK
I always love hearing from folks, so please feel free to let me know what you're reading, make a comment, or ask a question.
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