Hut's Place

Weekly Words About New Books in

Independent Bookstores

March 26, 2023

New Fiction Featuring Bootlegging, Espionage, and a Pair of Strong Women

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls. You'll find a copy of Walls' memorable The Glass House, her memoir of growing up in an eccentric and dysfunctional family, in most independent bookstores, and her new novel should be front and center this week as well. With Hang the Moon, Walls goes Southern Gothic: This Prohibition-era family saga, set in rural Virginia, features family feuds, sibling rivalries, and a profitable bootlegging business to manage and protect. At the center of it all is the book's memorable heroine Sallie Kincaid, daughter of the town's biggest wheeler dealer, the charismatic Duke Kincaid.

Over time, Sallie gains a half-brother whom she helps groom for ascension to eventual head of the clan, is cast out of the family after a tragic accident, then returns a decade later to take over the reins. It's not an easy job. While Sallie proves a bold but somewhat reckless bootlegger, she's also feisty, fearless, and determined. So strap in for what Kirkus Reviews described as a "rollicking soap opera that keeps the pages turning with a surfeit of births, deaths, and surprising plot reveals."

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear. Taking a break from her popular Maisie Dobbs mystery series, Winspear's new standalone introduces an intriguing new heroine. Elinor White is a former British intelligence agent now, in 1947, living a quiet life in a small English village. The arrrival of a new family with connections to a London crime family draws Elinor reluctantly back into action, which is bad news for the bad guys. Winspear devotes a good portion of the book to revealing White's backstory, which begins in Belgium in 1914 when a 12-year-old Elinor is recruited and trained to spy on Germans. Two wars later, White has retired from the espionage game and is content with the privacy and anonymity that protect her from a haunted past. But when Susie, the child of a young farmworker and his wife, breaks through the protective facade of her seemingly unfriendly neighbor and enlists her help, Elinor finds herself facing down not only a dangerous organized crime gang but past demons as well. It's a path lined with danger and treachery, but one that may also set her free.

In it's review, Publishers Weekly described the book as "smart and nuanced," and added, "The chapters illuminating Elinor's dramatic backstory add vulnerability to her characterization, enriching the suspenseful main narrative. This will please both Winspear's fans and new readers."

Now in Paperback, A Bestselling Memoir That Explores Heritage and Loss

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Before the publication of this powerful memoir, Zauner was best known as an indie pop singer and guitarist who performs under the name Japanese Breakfast. Now she'll have to settle for "big time author" atop her resume after Crying In H Mart's two-year reign on nonfiction bestseller lists across the country. Zauner has produced a deeply moving account of her life - growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. The H Mart in the title is a Korean-American supermarket chain that serves as both muse and refuge for Zauner, who introduced readers to the “beautiful, holy place" in a 2018 essay for The New Yorker about the death of her mother, Chongmi, from cancer four years earlier. That essay appears as the first chapter of the book and kicks off her story.

Zauner grew up as one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon, struggling with her mother's high expectations of her. She went to college on the East Coast, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band, and meeting her future husband. With all that came a distancing from her Korean heritage, at least until her mother's terminal cancer diagnosis that forced - at age 25 - Zauner's reckoning with her identity and a desire to recapture the gifts of taste, language, and history that had been given to her.

It's no surprise that the book has garnered passels of great reviews over the past two years. This one from the San Francisco Chronicle is one good example: "A profound, timely exploration of terminal illness, culture, and shared experience . . . Zauner has accomplished the unthinkable: a book that caters to all appetites. She brings dish after dish to life on the page in a rich broth of delectable details [and] offers remarkably prescient observations about otherness from the perspective of the Korean American experience. Crying in H Mart will thrill Japanese Breakfast fans and provide comfort to those in the throes of loss while brilliantly detailing the colorful panorama of Korean culture, traditions, and food."

Know anyone who might enjoy this column every week? If so, would you consider forwarding them the link to this week's edition? If they like it, let them know they can email me at hutlandon@gmail.com to sign up. Thanks in advance - here's the link:

https://conta.cc/40xFZ6E

If you'd like to receive Hut's Place every week, simply email me at hutlandon@gmail.com and request to be added to the mailing list. I send the column every Sunday, and feedback and comment are always welcomed!

And rest assured - your e-mail will never be shared!

WHY THE COLUMN?

Hi, I'm Hut Landon,and I'm a bookseller in an independent bookstore in BerkeIey, CA.

My goal here 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; HUT'S PLACE is meant to be a quick, fun read for book buyers. If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box to add a short message.

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 zip code.