“On that last day Mor took us up to the roof, she had calculated the difference between what we couldn’t have and her ability to watch us want. The difference between her pain and ours, she decided, measured nine stories high.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (FEB 11, 2011)

It amazes me that The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is Heidi W. Durrow’s debut novel. It is poetic, poignant, beautiful and elegiac with the panache of a seasoned writer. Once I started it, I could not stop thinking about it. It haunted my days until I finished it. Durrow has a talent that is rare and brilliant, like the northern lights.

The novel is about Rachel, the lone survivor of a fall from an apartment building. How did she fall? What made her family go off the roof-top? Told in different voices, the story unfolds slowly and the reader is let in on family destinies, secrets, shame, and the legacy of alcohol.

The story starts off in Chicago. It is told from the viewpoints of Rachel, a bi-racial girl who is in fifth grade when the story opens and is in high school at its end. There is Nella, Rachel’s mother, who is Danish, and whose surviving diary tells her story. Roger, Rachel’s father, is a black man in the military who meets Nella in Europe and who leaves Rachel with his mother after the fall. Laronne is Nella’s supervisor at work who comes across Nella’s diaries after her death. And then there is Brick, a young man of the Chicago tenements whose stolen copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North America is his most prized possession.

As this haunting novel begins, Brick, a budding ornithologist, is watching for birds to fall in the alleyway of his building. He is hoping for an egret but usually what he sees are falling trash bags and detritus from the upper floors. This time, he sees what he thinks is a huge bird falling and he runs downstairs to see what kind of bird it is.

“He was certain the silhouette of the great egret had passed his courtyard window…When he finally reached the courtyard, he saw that his bird was not a bird at all. His bird was a boy and a girl and a mother and a child. The mother, the girl, the child. They looked like they were sleeping, eyes closed, listless. The baby was still in her mother’s arms, a gray porridge pouring from the underside of her head. The girl was heaped on top of the boy’s body, a bloody helpless pillow.”

This sight becomes imprinted on Brick and effects the course of his entire life.

Rachel is the only survivor of the fall and, after her hospitalization, is sent to live with her grandmother in Portland, Oregon.   With her blue eyes and “good” hair, she becomes very much aware of race. There are the white girls and there are the black girls. She fits in nowhere though she tries to make a new self after the fall. Her mother, “Mor,” had done her best to shield Rachel and her siblings from race, to see themselves as unique beings, not as a color. This was much easier to do in Europe than in the United States. As Rachel navigates the racial terrain of her new world, she is stymied over and over by the subtleties and outright cruelties of race.

Rachel watches her grandmother drink her “contributions” and sees how the amount of her drinking increases daily. Rachel is very aware of the impact of alcohol on her family’s lives. Nella was in recovery when she died and her diary begins each day with the number of days she has been sober. Roger, Nella’s father, is an alcoholic, and it becomes clear that Rachel’s grandmother has a huge problem with her “contributions.” Though Roger does not visit Rachel once she is out of the hospital, his story is told through Brick who met him in the hospital. There, Roger shared family secrets with Brick and made him promise to one day tell these to Rachel.

The story unfolds in layers, slowly and magnificently. The reader has questions answered page by page until the story of the fall, the family secrets and history, are all given to us in haunting and precious bits. This is more than a story of a bi-racial girl and her ability to adapt to a new world and the horror of her legacy. It is a story of resiliency and hope and awareness and insight. Rachel is one of the strongest and clear characters that I have come across in literature. This is a book to be treasured and re-read. It is that good.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 228 readers
PUBLISHER:	Algonquin Books; 1 edition (January 11, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Heidi W. Durrow
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Another “fall off the roof” novel: Stella Descending by Linn Ullman Another “mixed race” book: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Bibliography:

• The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (January 2011)

“‘We’re not gonna make it,’ I said.

‘We will,’ he said.

That was Henry for you: absolutely certain that whatever he wanted to happen would happen. The body would get buried before the storm hit. The weather would dry out in time to resow the cotton. Next year would be a better year. His little brother would never betray him.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Bonnie Brody (AUG 09, 2009)

“Mudbound” is the very unaffectionate name that Laura and her children give to her husband, Henry’s, Mississippi cotton farm. Mudbound is without running water, electricity and, as the name implies, muddy and dirty. For a good part of the year it is inaccessible to any town because the huge quantity of rain washes out the only bridge that links Mudbound to civilization.

The novel takes place in Mississippi shortly after the ending of World War II. It is a Mississippi that would shudder in its shoes if it knew that Martin Luther King and a Civil Rights Movement were only 15 years down the road. It is a Mississippi of segregation, racism and hatred, even for black WW II heroes returning from their time overseas.

The chapters are told from the voices of different characters. There is Laura, at first fearful that she will be a spinster, but then finding love of a sort with Henry who marries her and takes her far from her family so that he can fulfill his dream of being a farmer. Henry’s voice is that of a man trying to do the right thing under difficult economic and social conditions. Florence is a midwife and Laura’s housekeeper, a black woman wise in the ways of the world and understanding that there is a wall too tall between blacks and whites for her to traverse. Hap is Florence’s husband. He is working as hard as he can to try and make it as a tenant farmer on Henry’s farm. It is an uphill battle all the way with two steps backward for every step forward.

Then there are Jamie and Ronsell. Both are war heroes but one is black and the other is white. Jamie is Henry’s brother, many years his junior. Prior to the war, Jamie was light-hearted and easy-going. However, he brings demons back with him from his war experiences. Ronsell, too, is a war hero, having served in a black brigade under General Patton. He is Florence and Hap’s son. He, too, carries demons from the war. Both likely have cases of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Ronsell and Jamie become friends and this stirs up a pot best left alone.

In the background without his own voice in the story is Pappy, a mean-spirited, nasty and racist man – – Henry’s father. He is even cruel to his own granddaughter. There is not likely a person on earth that Pappy has a nice word for except occasionally Jamie.

This story beautifully and tragically unfolds through the different voices. Mudbound is a book that will not soon be forgotten. It is horrible in its tragedy and beautiful in its telling.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 471 readers
PUBLISHER:	Algonquin Books (March 17, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Hillary Jordan
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: When She Woke Similar reads to MUDBOUND: In the Dark of the Moon by Suzanne Hudson Paris Trout by Pete Dexter Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton

Bibliography:

• Mudbound (2008)
• When She Woke (2011)