The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

No wonder this one is a bestseller! Talented writer (and musician) James McBride serves up a slice of 1930s America — with rich, quirky characters, moments of stomach-sinking horror, and profoundly subtle humor. Plus I cried at the end. What more could you want? 4.5 stars is a more accurate rating.

THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE is a uniquely constructed story and quite hard to describe. So bear with me.

Think of the novel as having roughly two parts:

• The first part introduces the real town of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a small industrial town 40 miles from Philadelphia. This is Depression-era America, so Pottstown really represents any place during this period. Residents are struggling to get by and each life is influenced, for show more better or worse, by the relationships formed with those around them.

• In the second part of the book, McBride skillfully lines up his characters in multiple but interdependent situations. It reminded me of a badly-aligned string of standing dominos. You can’t tell by looking whether each will fall the way you want -- but you know they simply HAVE TO, to get to a satisfying ending. The mounting suspense that results is intense.

Pottstown, like many places in the 1930s, reflects the 20th century influx of immigrants. Some have been there long enough to wield political power. Others more recently arrived do not. There was a significant Jewish population, but most have now moved away. Most of those remaining are Black Americans, providing most of the key service and labor jobs needed to maintain the town.

These are people who understand their community. Corruption is widespread. White residents understand you can’t necessarily expect help through legal and government channels. And Black residents have always understood their lives are ruled by a different set of laws altogether. So the question becomes: what solution is possible when an important need arises -- like helping a 12-year-old deaf boy get the protection he needs?

Under these circumstances, people wind up having to rely on one another. Like on Moshe (who brings entertainers to town) and his wife Chona (who runs the grocery store referenced in the book title) who are two of the Jews who have NOT moved away. They remain in Pottstown, alongside those who are most important to them -- like their Black neighbors.

Each of James McBride’s characters felt both distinctive and familiar. Types we all know because they live everywhere. Bullies and crooked cops. Gamblers and loan sharks. Sultry women manipulating the men around them. Even a town doctor who heals by day, but marches with the Ku Klux Klan at night. And for all of them, under the surface, there are also deep allegiances and long kept secrets at work.

Ultimately, the book's message is universal and exposes the best and worst of we humans. Expect instances of injustice, torment and abuse alongside moments full of good intentions and deep human connection. Along with reassuring proof of all that one person is willing to do to help another. Don't miss this one! It's a great American novel. show less

Summary: A story centered around a grocery store in the midst of Pottstown’s Chicken Hill district, inhabited by immigrant Jews and the local Black community.

In 1972, a body is found at the bottom of a well, but swept away by Hurricane Agnes. In one sense the rest of this novel answers the question of how that body got there (and so I won’t). But this is a rich story about so much more, that all centers around a Jewish grocery, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Jewish immigrants with a daughter Chona owned the store. She married a struggling theatre owner, Moshe Ludlow. Eventually Moshe figured out that the money was in Black acts, that the Black residents of Chicken Hill as well as surrounding areas would attend.

Chicken Hill was show more where those living on the margins, trying to get a toehold, lived–Blacks, immigrant Jews, and later, Latinos. Moshe and Chona lived above the store. While his theatres profited, the store lost money, mostly because Chona was generous with extending credit and slow to ask repayment. As more Jews moved away, Moshe wanted to join them but Chona refused. Today, we would call her a community activist. She was greatly loved, whether by the Jewish immigrants or Black residents, many of whom McBride introduces us.

Nate Timblin worked for Moshe, doing repairs. He had a dark past, according to rumors, but Moshe knows nothing of this. So when he asks Moshe and Chona to help a bright child deafened by a stove explosion to hide from white authorities who want to institutionalize him at Pennhurst, they agree. Dodo quickly becomes beloved by Chona, and a great help as she was weakened by periods of illness. This was not a child who needed institutionalization. They succeed until the town’s white doctor visits the store. Dodo defends her against an assault by the doctor, who flees only to return with the police, who take Dodo to Pennhurst, which is as horrible as all the rumors.

Nate and Addie, the woman he has been seeing, figure out what happened to Chona. And an amazing thing happens. Two communities touched by this evil act come together to rescue Dodo, honor Chona, and to get back at the city councilman, Gus Plitzka, who controls their water supply. And this underscores the larger context of this story. Pottstown is controlled by its white establishment. In these incidents, two ethnic communities, each in many ways self-contained, except by the generosity of Chona, come together to shrewdly resist the white establishment in plots with many moving parts. As kind of a dark counterpart to Chona, Nate chooses to risk all to deliver Dodo from the horrors of Pennhurst.

It’s not hard to see why this book has won numerous recognitions. McBride paints a rich portrait of these two communities that stand against white power and venality. We see two communities galvanized by attacks on an innocent boy and a generous and righteous woman. But all this was sown through years of care and generosity where heaven and earth met at a grocery store. show less

It didn’t really begin in 1972 with the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of a well, but what led up to that discovery is what this tale is all about. It was a secret kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, a rundown place where Jews and Blacks lived peaceably side by side. In this town, neighbors help each other, whether it be by giving food when food is scarce or by hiding a disabled boy from the authorities who say they want to help but in reality will only cause harm. James McBride has spun a folksy tale filled with quirky but very down-home and likable people. Except not all the people are nice or likable, hence, a skeleton. This tale is rich in imagery and delightful in characters, and is an all around entertaining, show more first-rate story. show less

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is the kind of book to lose yourself in. Written by a storyteller at the top of his game, James McBride's account of the neglected community of Chicken Hill during the 1930s, when it was where immigrants and Jewish people landed before moving into one of Pottstown's more acceptable neighborhoods, and where Black Americans always lived. The story begins and ends with a body in a well, yet this isn't a mystery novel, but an expansive book about the many people who called Chicken Hill home. If you're looking for a tightly-constructed plot, this isn't the book for you; this one ranges here and there, while remaining centered on the small grocery store at the center of the community, run by a small Jewish show more woman who refuses to be quiet and whose compassion is legendary. For all this, McBride's story never forgets the harshness of the world in which these characters live. It's wonderfully told and while it seems to wander off into side stories, they all work together to make this book something remarkable. show less

This sprawling novel begins with a skeleton found in a well and then flashes back several decades, to the town of Pottstown PA, where the reader slowly discovers the origin of this mysterious body. The story is mostly set in Chicken Hill, a neighborhood that is mostly populated with black and Jewish residents and much of it revolves around the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. It is owned and operated by a very kind Jewish woman and her equally kind, theater-operating husband. There are many dark secrets on Chicken Hill, along with rampant racism. McBride manages to coax a wonderful, complex tale out of this place and time, proving his absolute mastery at story-telling and plotting.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - McBride
4.5 stars

“Light is only possible through dialogue between cultures, not through rejection of one or the other.”

This book had so much flavor. It’s kosher and soul food. The neighborhood of Chicken Hill pulses with activity. The overlapping, intersecting lives of the characters in this book reminded me of the tribal characters in Erdrich’s The Night Watchman. In McBride’s book there’s a mingling of tribes. It’s a mingling of marginalized people, immigrant people; the excluded people. Much of the mingling happens at the Grocery Store.

The book begins with the discovery of a skeleton in the bottom of a well. That’s a dark beginning and the book has no lack of injustice and human show more suffering. However, the harsh reality can’t compete with the humor and the human kindness. I enjoyed the quirky characters, their ramshackle environment, and their underhanded victory. Despite McBride’s prophetic foreshadowing of a bleak 21st century, (Chona’s whiff of a hotdog scented future), I was feeling optimistic as I read the last page.

I had a limited time library ebook of this title. I was propping up my eyelids to finish it the night before it vanished from my kindle. I will need to buy a copy so I can reread. I need to go back to see how all the little puzzle pieces fit together. I also miss these characters now that they have disappeared. It would be good to visit them again. show less

This book had a lot of moving pieces but was such a rich and compelling read. All of the characters had flaws of some sort, but the majority of them were good decent people. The heart of this historical novel is about secrets, why people keep them, and the unintended long term consequences of them. It's at times rip roaringly funny and other times heartbreakingly sad. There are a wide variety of poor people living on Chicken Hill, but by and large they are either Black or Jewish (with a few enterprising Italians thrown in for good measure). They are both rejected by the community of Pottstown but they form an uneasy alliance - mostly because of the work of Chona, a Jewess who extends credit to any on the hill who need it. Her generosity show more and happy spirit help bond the Jew and the Black folx together - which is good because soon they will face a challenge neither party ever expected. show less