Rita Mae Brown

I started this book at the end of last month, then took a break to read a few other things, and finally finished it today while taking a break from prepping lasagnas. The easy, often biting, always witty dialogue in this book reminds me of the back-and-forth (I think between Dorian and the Duchess of Monmouth, but I'm awful at remembering character names) in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Brown has an impressive ability to show the deep love between Louise and Juts through their show more harsh words and actions towards one another. So often---at least in my family---we are absolutely maddening to one another while at the same time feeling secure in our knowledge that we love one another. I'm not as close with anyone in my family as Louise and Juts are, but the dynamic is a familiar one.

My favorite quotes in this book are all from Celeste. I didn't start dog-earing until late in the story, so I can only locate two.

The first is, "Whatever the art-form, a self-conscious culture is inauthentic." (288) Thinking of my experience living in California, the hipster trend, and the over-sharing of social media, I'm inclined to agree, but it's possible I'm just an old curmudgeon. I definitely want to talk about this idea with my book club.

My other favorite is when Celeste quotes from Through the Looking Glass: "Most of our lives we drug ourselves with the delights of the future. Tomorrow. Remember what the White Queen said: 'The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday---but never jam today." (173)

I love Celeste, and I love the way that the characters face violence and fear and still have room in their lives for love and laughter. The only thing I don't love is that the characters don't seem to develop much over time. As I get older, though, I'm starting to question just how much most of us actually change over time. It seems most people (and families, communities, towns, countries) are frustratingly stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that don't serve anyone all that well. show less

The Book Report: Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir and her big sister Louise do WWII and motherhood and heading into middle age, with an excursion into grandmotherhood and infidelity. All of Runnymeade, Maryland-and-Pennsylvania, is agog, when they are not aghast, at the antics of the sisters. This book fills in some *huge* gaps in the storytelling of [Six of One], as I suspect Ms. Brown is out to tell the whole tale and not only the bits and patches from the first book. One side effect of this is that show more the characters sometimes shift...for example, Minta Mae Dexter was the leader of the Sisters of Gettysburg, where in this book it was Caesura Frothingham, previously known as the leader of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Fannie Jump Creighton, I am happy to report, is still busy seducing the young men of Runnymeade. SOME things must remain sacred. Oh, and Cora gets the surprise of her life in this book...plus we meet Chessy's, Jut's husband, mother...what a complete pill.

Readers of [Six of One] recall how Nickel, the stand-in for Ms. Brown, came to be...well, now we see a piece of her not-easy childhood with a crazy, vibrant, exciting, but utterly self-absorbed Julia Ellen for a momma. Some of the most moving moments in the book involve the mother/daughter mishegas these ladies endured.

My Review: I don't know if I'm unusual in this, but I feel very *proprietary* about characters and books in the series that I come to love. Since I adored the first book in this series, [Six of One], I came to all the others thinking There Is But One Way for things in this world to be. And then Brown, creatrix of the series, shifts things willy-nilly! How dare she! After all, these are *my* books!

Oh wait....

Still and all, I arrived at an explanation that satisfies me: Memories change when a person gets old. I mean, after all, those of us back here in our twenties can't imagine really what it's like to have a half-century of events stored in our brains! (Shut up. It's MY review.) And Brown published this the year she turned sixty, which we all know is somewhat older than God. So of course her elderbrain wandered and led her into little boo-boos. It's not her fault, I decided magnanimously, from my extreme distance in age. (Stop laughing!) And then I got into the swing of things, enjoying mightily the antics and the goins-on of the one-horse burg called Runnymeade. It was lovely to see Celeste again, and to know a little more about Rillma and her jam (figures big in this book)...well, it was good to see the old gang and I hope I can see them again. I suspect one reason Brown is writing the fill-in books is that her mother is now dead. She has to be, doesn't she? But now, after the generations before us have thinned out to few and far between, now's the time to get it down and keep it there. Before the curtain drops on our...I mean HER!...generation too.

If you have a romantic or sentimental bone in you, this series is for you. Order doesn't matter. Pick one up and laugh and cry along with the Humsenmeir sisters, it's a load of fun. show less

Harry and her friend Susan are helping out clearing the grounds for the Hounds for Heroes run for Bassets and Beagles. Along with other volunteers, they find a problem on the road that needs the help of a tractor, and one of their friends, Jason Holzknect, sets off to find one. But when he doesn't return, they set off to find him...and they do, with his throat slit. While Harry is convinced someone at the club killed Jason, everyone wants her to let the police handle the case. And when show more another body is found Harry begins to connect the dots, never realizing that the truth is indeed stranger than fiction...

Meanwhile, the discovery of a centuries-old skeleton in a grave marked for another leads to other questions: who killed the woman and why put her on top of the casket of someone else? Why a couple of parishioners are more interested in the expensive jewelry she wore, Harry, of course, is interested in her origins and who hated her enough to leave her there...

This is the 28th book in the series, and I am happy to say that it's just as intriguing as all the previous ones. As a matter of fact, I find each book better than the last one I read. Perhaps it's just that I truly enjoy Ms. Brown's writing, but I also love a good mystery, and these books not only give you that, they give you tales that span the centuries.

Harry's joined, of course, by her faithful friends: cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, dogs Tucker and new friend Pirate, who's recently adopted and still growing. The animals make their own friend in this book, that of a ghost Beagle named Ruffy who has a tale of his own, and hopes his new found friends can help him. It's a mesmerizing story of love, betrayal, death, revenge, and money, and the author tells it well.

As Harry refuses to let go of Jason's murder, she's warned off gently but it doesn't stop her, and she's determined to solve the case. She begins to put the pieces together and convinces herself of the reason why the man was murdered; and through her determination and self-will, she keeps going, knowing there's more to the story.

Once again we revisit the eighteenth century where the Ewings and Holloways are neighbors, and we see how difficult life was in that century, where the author puts a different spin on the thoughts of certain beliefs of that era. I do believe that people forget that all souls are products of their time, and to expect anything different is sheer foolishness. I, for one, understand this and never expect the past to be the same as the present, nor would I wish it to be. It was a different world, when America was new and people were learning to survive in this country - any way they could.

Together both stories make for quite an absorbing narrative, which kept me reading all the way through to the end in nearly one sitting (sleep does reluctantly come). Just when I would find myself engaged in the past, I was pulled into the present, back again to Harry and her tenacity. But be aware that I never felt it was an intrusion or disruption of the story, and both seemed to meld together seamlessly.

When the truth of the murder is found, I had already figured out the killer as I read a lot of mysteries and for the most part it's rarely difficult, but I have always stated that it's the journey that's the most fun in mysteries - watching how the protagonist puts the pieces together, and Harry's almost an expert in this. It brings home a few questions of our own to answer, and our answers will tell us how we feel about this book.

I, for one, absolutely loved it, and felt that justice was done. I was satisfied with the ending, and although I do feel that Megs and Janice are just too avaricious for their own good, (although this is a personal feeling and nothing was alluded to it in the book) I look forward to the next in the series, where I can continue visiting with Harry and her friends, and of course the Ewings and Holloways. Highly recommended. show less

The Publisher Says: Perched right on the Mason-Dixon line, tiny Runnymede, Maryland, is ripe with a history almost as colorful as the women who live there—from Celeste Chalfonte, headstrong and aristocratic, who murders for principle and steals her brother’s wife, to Fannie Jump Creighton, who runs a speakeasy right in her own home when hard times come knocking. Then of course, there’re Louise and Julia, the boldly eccentric Hunsenmeir sisters. Wheezie and Juts spend their whole lives show more in Runnymede, cheerfully quibbling about everything from men to child-rearing to how to drive a car. But they never let small-town life keep them from chasing their biggest dreams—or from being true to who they really are.

My Review: The life and times of a matriarchal clan made up of a mixture of lesbians, hell-raisers, and goody-two-shoeses in the fictional town of Runnymede that sits smack on the Mason-Dixon line. From 1909 to 1980, Cora Hunsenmeir and her daughters Julia Ellen and Louise live, love, fight, make up, and generally enjoy themselves hugely, often to the detriment of though never at the expense of their fellow-travelers and employers Celeste Chalfonte, Ramelle Bowman, and Fannie Jump Creighton, that horny old dipsomaniacal hussy. (She's my hero.)

There is a lot of pleasure to be had in re-reading books that once made an impact on you. If, of course, they hold up well. This novel holds up well. It's not perfect, it's got small inconsistencies and this 1984 printing wasn't ever corrected for some minor textual flubs, but even the Pieta has chisel marks.

The women in this story are heroes and role models for me. I wish with all my might that they were my sisters, mothers, the crones who ruled my town. CERTAINLY not my wife, not a one of 'em, who needs the tsurres? I'll take a nice, easy man any day. (Which I now have the *legal* option to do!) But damn, is it fun to watch Julia Ellen get revenge on Louise for stealing her birthday hair ribbon on her fourth birthday in 1909...revenge served up in 1980! Had this been my own sisters, the revenge would've been a knife in the ribs, or a tchotchke smashed on the head...real hatred and sibling rivalry taken to a toxic extreme. Which is why, when I discovered this book in 1978, I loved it so immoderately.

I yearned to be witty, worldly Celeste Chalfonte, and also wise, simple Cora Hunsenmeir...but suspected deep down that I was already fated to be alcoholic sex addict Fannie Jump. (Which bit of self-knowledge changed nothing, thank GOD.) I was sure I would find redemption in these characters. (Redemption, like happiness, can't be pursued. It's not a grouse. {That's a quote.}) It was clear to me that this was a road map, a way to live my life, if I could just...Well, I never could, darn it, but the book lost none of its impact for all that. It's a real pleasure to come home to Runnymede and sit on Cora's porch listening to crickets and Idabelle's accordion from the porch of her own house at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill. Then wander over to Celeste and Ramelle's back porch to have magnolia droppings (aka gin, in discreet frosted glasses) with the ladies. Join in the tutting as Minta Mae Dexter assaults good taste with her brigade of soiled doves, the Sisters of Gettysburg. Rejoice heartily when Brutus Rife, the town's robber-baron industrialist, is ushered off this mortal coil in one of my very favorite literary homicides.

The magic of the book for me is that I can and do...these pleasures haven't faded for being re-experienced. I still sob at the loss of sweet gentle souls whose lives are lived in honest labor, and the inevitable passing of the ladies grand and common of the early generation in their various ways. Characters like this are a real pleasure to discover. This level of investment in the fictional lives of fictional people indicates a very high level of writerly ability is at work. The plot, the execution of the life-patterns of the women, is in a way secondary. The events chosen by the author to illuminate the spirits of the characters are the important criteria...though there are a lot of wonderful lines and zingers in here, make no mistake: "Who cares who you fuck in Pittsburgh?" demanded of a rigidly conventional sourpuss by a hearty old bawd is a favorite; but of them all, the reason I truly treasure this novel is the sad, sad glory of Cora Hunsenmeir's final moments: As she knows she is dying, she, this unlettered laboring daughter of a working man with no pretensions to status or learning, reaches up for the sun one last time and says, "Thank you, God, for all of it."

I hope that, when my time comes as it surely must, I can say that line with as much gratitude and sincerity as Cora did. I will live my life so as to make that a reality. show less