Weekly Words about New Books in Independent Bookstores JULY 18, 2021

Indie Bestsellers: Modern Day Mid-Life Morality Tale and Historical Novel about a Mixed-Race Woman Dodging Racism and Achieving Success

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. In a novel that Publishers Weekly described as a "captivating debut… full of lush atmospheric details," Heller offers up a story of summer, secrets, love, and lies. The book debuted at #3 on this week's national Indie Bestseller list. Although this is her first novel, Heller is no stranger to storytelling, having worked as the head of drama series at HBO, developing and overseeing such shows as The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, and Big Love. "This house, this place, knows all my secrets.” Such is the power of the Paper Palace - a family summer retreat that Heller's protagonist Elle Bishop has visited every summer of her life. But this summer is different for Elle, now the 50-year-old happily married mother of three. Because of a single act triggered by roads not taken years earlier, she must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades and that will have lasting impact. One of the fans of the novel is Marion Abbott, co-owner of Mrs. Dalloway's, the Berkeley bookstore where I work: "Heller gives a nod to Mrs. Dalloway here in her shimmering debut novel that takes place over the course of one fateful summer day at a family house on Cape Cod. Past and present collide, leaving the future of two long-intertwined families hanging in the balance. A compelling morality tale, expertly told."

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This moving historical novel brings to life J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, a Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy. In her 20s, Greene was hired by Morgan just after the turn of the 20th century to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle was good at her job and soon became a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helped create a world-class collection. But Belle also had a secret, one she protected at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. But Belle was light-skinned enough that a fictitious backstory about her Portuguese heritage let her pass as white. The Personal Librarian recreates Greener's life and the lengths to which she goes—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve a White identity in the racist world in which she lives. In reviewing the book for NPR, Karen Grigsby Bates touched on the writing partnership between the two authors: "“Benedict, who is white, and Murray, who is African American, do a good job of depicting the tightrope Belle walked, and her internal conflict from both sides—wanting to adhere to her mother's wishes and move through the world as White even as she longed to show her father she was proud of her race. Like Belle and her employer, Benedict and Murray had almost instant chemistry, and as a result, the book's narrative is seamless."

No Reservations About This Original Mystery Debut, Now in Paperback Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. As a pretty prolific mystery reader, I'm often the go-to guy in the bookstore when customers want a recommendation for a good new thriller. As often as not, they're looking for something different or original, and Winter Counts is just the ticket. I won't claim it's the most complex mystery ever written, and it isn't to hard to figure out who the bad guys are. But the protagonist isn't your typical detective and his mean streets aren't those of a big city, which make both our hero and the setting all the more interesting. Virgil Wounded Horse is the local Lakota enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that’s hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop. Author Weiden is a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation and his descriptions of the tribe's history and traditions add greatly to his narrative. In addition to being shortlisted for the Edgar Award for First Novel and named a A Best Book of 2020 by the likes of NPR, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, the book was an Indie Next pick when it was published in hardcover last Fall. Here's the bookseller review chosen for that list: “Weiden’s book is a thriller with an important social and political message. Following a Lakota ‘enforcer’ who enacts extrajudicial punishment to fill the gaps in the legal system, Winter Counts is a twisty new addition to the growing Indigenous literature canon. While some of the action may fall into somewhat predictable territory, Weiden’s exploration of the injustices of reservation life are vital.” — Ashley Baeckmann, Briars & Brambles Books, Windham, NY

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