Is This An Overview?
In the 1970s, a skeleton is found in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. The skeleton has a pendant that leads to The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store. The tale takes the form of a backstory of how the skeleton came to be there, a mystery that is set in the 1920s-1930s. During the time, The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store, along with theaters are owned by Moshe and Chona. Moshe manages the theater, while the disabled Chona manages the store.

The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store acts like a sanctuary for many. A central community gathering place that is recognized for how they help the community. In an era of various forms of persecution, the store and theaters transformed the community into an inclusive region. A region where diverse people who struggle are able to find people who can help them. Diverse people from different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and disabilities.

As a sanctuary, Moshe and Chona are willing to hide a nephew of a friend and colleague. The nephew is a 12-year-old boy called Dodo, who needs to avoid a government agent who is set to take Dodo to a special school for people like Dodo. Dodo became disabled after a kitchen accident. Dodo became deaf, but is able to read lips and be athletic. The request to hide Dodo was due to the poor conditions of the intended school. Dodo is hidden at The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store. Although Moshe and Chona did not have a child, Dodo has become part of the family. Can they keep Dodo hidden? How is this event tied to the skeleton found many years later?

Caveats?
The book covers various socially tense situations, using the language of the era. Ideas and language that are no longer appropriate. The situations are meant to represent the values of people during the time. What they thought and how they reflect on contemporary values. ( )

Well paced story with interesting characters with real concerns and challenges, and a bitter heart. The inclusion of modern dissatisfactions/distress is jarring though, as the novel itself makes it's views and message sufficiently clear. ( )

I read this book in audiobook format.

This novel is about a mixed race community (Black, Jewish, White) in the 1920s-30s. There is a large, lively, and sometimes confusing cast of characters that get into all kinds of predicaments. Ultimately they must work together to solve their problems and get closer to the American Dream. Mildly humorous but with some dark parts too, the novel is uplifting but hints at an American future full of violence. I liked the book a lot but did find it difficult to follow in parts. The ending was very satisfying. I think I like Deacon King Kong better, which is a similar novel by McBride. ( )

James McBride has used the lessons he learned from both his parents to write this book. His father was an African-American preacher and his mother was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. This book, which is centered in a poor neighbourhood called Chicken Hill in Pennsylvania, starts with the lives of Jewish refugees who settled in Chicken Hill with blacks as neighbours. The time period is the 1920s and racism by whites against both Jews and blacks was not even hidden. The town doctor, who had a distinguishing limp, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and paraded in the white outfit around town every summer.

Actually, the book starts with the discovery of bones in an old well in Chicken Hill later in the twentieth century. A pendant and a mezuzah found with the bones cause the police to question one of the remaining Jews left in town. This necessitates returning to the past to become acquainted with a Jewish couple, Moshe and Chona, who owned and lived above The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Chona ran the store while Moshe operated several theatres. Chona ran the store at a loss in order to provide a place for the local people to shop. She was a woman with a big heart even though she had a disability. She was also outspoken about the racism in town. One of Moshe's employees, Nate, asks Moshe and Chona to hide his nephew, Dodo, a deaf orphan that state officials want to put into a state institution. Dodo wasn't born deaf, it was caused by an explosion in a kitchen. Maybe that's why Dodo is able to understand what people are saying and why he is quick to learn things. Nevertheless, he is eventually caught and taken to the institution where he becomes friends with another disabled boy. In the institution, Dodo comes to the attention of a night orderly who has carnal desires for him. Nate is determined to get him out of the institution but it is not an easy task. Will Dodo be permanently scarred by this incarceration even if Nate does get him out? Well, read the book to find out this and much much more including who the body in the well was.

I listened to the audio of this book and I loved the narrator, Dominic Hoffman. Because of the wealth of detail in this book it might have been better to read it but the narration added something that just reading would lack. ( )

While I had a few quibbles with this novel, I enjoyed it overall. I loved the story of Chicken Hill and its Jewish and Black residents. The hub of the community is Chona, a Jewish woman, who inspires both groups with her principled stands and courage in the face of bigotry.

I had this book on my TBR and was happy to get to it sooner, thanks to the impetus of my new book group. We had a really good discussion about it, and one comment helped me appreciate the novel even more. In an interview, McBride apparently spoke of the book as being similar to jazz - with one player (character) taking center stage and then moving aside for another one, but the entire group forming a coherent whole to tell a story.

4 stars ( )