The Best Book I Read This Month: Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

The best book I read this month was another edition of “our Founding Fathers were jerks”—this time about George Washington. The book, Never Caught, tells the story of Ona Judge, a woman enslaved by the Washingtons who successfully escaped to freedom.

As history books go, this one was relatively short—about 200 pages, not counting the copious notes and acknowledgements at the end. It was an easy read, too, thanks to Dunbar’s plain-spoken style.

What is remarkable about Judge, beyond her escape from the home and control of the president of the United States, is the amount of information available about her—including her own words. We have very little record of any enslaved persons from that time period. But not only have George Washington’s records and letters referring to Judge, we also have two interviews that she gave later in her life. (If you get the paperback version of the book, it includes transcripts of those interviews. They are not included in the hardcover edition.) It was because of these sources that Dunbar was able to craft this narrative. And as many historians do, she filled in the gaps with conclusions and inferences based on available data.

Dunbar does not sugarcoat Judge’s experiences, either, whether those experiences were working for the Washingtons or trying to survive as a fugitive free woman. Sometimes, in an effort to emphasize the risks and dangers Judge faced, Dunbar gets repetitive. But that was a small price to pay for the story of such a strong, determined woman.

Goodbye, My Darling

There’s a fabled piece of writing advice attributed to William Faulkner: “Kill your darlings.” It means, “get rid of the parts of your story you love most if they aren’t serving the story.” Tonight, I killed a darling. In fact, I killed my favorite darling.

Me, trying to hold onto my darling.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images

Five years ago, the main character in my current WIP (work-in-progress) introduced himself to me. I could see him vividly. His voice was crystal clear. His surroundings, sharp.

I was working on another novel at that time, so I fought him off. Told him to wait his turn. But he’s an ornery one and kept yapping at me, kept insisting I tell his story. When I finally sat down to do just that, that introduction became the first scene in my novel.

As the WIP developed, that scene stayed, draft after draft. I tweaked it as the story changed. Trimmed this. Added that. Traded this word for that one. But essentially, the scene remained the same.

For the last month, I’ve been working on Draft 6 of my WIP, what I hope will be the last draft before I start querying literary agents. As I’ve worked on these revisions, I’ve realized that that darling, that scene, that whole first chapter, was slowing down my story. It had to go.

I love that scene and that chapter—they’re my darlings!—so I resisted. I tried to find ways to change them to make them work. I tried and tried and tried, as relentless as Wile E. Coyote hunting Roadrunner and with about the same success rate.

Tonight I realized there was just no way that chapter would work—except maybe as an extra here on this blog when I finally get the book published. So I took out my scissors and snipped off the whole thing. My darling, killed. The whole first chapter, GONE.

I’m a sad little murderer tonight, mourning my dead darling, but my story is feeling much better. And that’s what really matters.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson

The best book I read this month is one I'm still reading (shhh...don't tell!). It's the latest in Peter Robinson's Inspector Alan Banks series, which is set in the fictional town of Eastvale in Yorkshire, England.

In this latest installment, called Sleeping in the Ground, Banks and his team must solve the mystery of a mass shooting at a local wedding. As I read, I'm learning a lot about U.K. gun laws. And, yes, there was the mandatory reference to the epidemic of shootings in the United States.

The book is the 24th in the series. (I started the series at book 10.) What keeps the series fresh is Robinson's treatment of his characters. In Sleeping in the Ground, recent changes in Banks's life have him off-balance. He was recently promoted, and he's not entirely comfortable with his new rank or his new office. He is also mourning the loss of a childhood friend while at the same time, dealing with an old flame who reappears in his life. Through these twists and turns, Robinson is forcing his leading man to grow and change.

Banks's supporting cast is equally engaging. In fact, I like two of them--Annie Cabbot and Winsome Jackman--more than I like Banks. Both feature prominently in this story (Jackman is one of the victims of the shooting), and I enjoy how they, too, have grown as the series has progressed.

The story (so far, at least) stands on its own, so it's not necessary to read the whole series to understand and enjoy this one book. But I am enjoying it more because I know the history of the characters and can see layers in their interactions as a result.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Henna House by Nomi Eve

The best book I read this month was an unexpected pleasure. I'd never heard of it before it was chosen by my book club to be our July read. What a gem I would have missed if they hadn't!

Henna House by Nomi Eve was a little slow to start but ultimately proved to be a rich, engaging read. It took me a while to get through the first 70 pages. I raced through the last 70.

Henna House tells the story of a Jewish girl growing up in Yemen in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, starting with her youth in a rural Yemeni village and ending with her immigration to the new state of Israel.

While the Holocaust does figure in the story's epilogue, it is not a central component of the story. That in itself was remarkable. So many works of literature about Jewish characters are stories of the Holocaust, and while it is important to remember the Holocaust,  the Jewish experience is so much more than that one event. It was refreshing to read a book that not only reflects part of that broader experience but also speaks to the diversity of the global Jewish population.

Bonus Recommendation: Savage Liberty by Eliot Pattison

This month, I was equally transported by another book, too: Savage Liberty by Eliot Pattison. Liberty is the fifth book in Patterson's Early America mystery series, and by far the best. Set a few years before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Savage Liberty incorporates many historical figures who made their names during the Revolution--including John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Ethan Allen. But at the center of the story, as in the rest of the series, is Highlander Duncan McCallum and his Haudenosaunee friend, Conawago. (The first book in the series, Bone Rattler, explains how their paths crossed and their friendship formed.) Together, they seek answers about the sabotage of a merchant ship and the murders of rangers who served during the French and Indian War.

What I especially love about this series is that Pattison shows the diversity of the colonial population. His stories are populated by more than just white men.  And while I would like to see more women in these stories, I am grateful for the inclusion of a variety of Native American cultures and colonial settlers, including, in this story, a Jewish character.

The Best Book I Read This Month: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi

Another slow reading month, thanks to my impending move and other life challenges. I read one meh book whose title I can’t remember and I read a book that will stay with me for a while: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi.

Set in Afghanistan, Hashimi’s book centers on a women’s prison and on one prisoner in particular: Zeba, who is awaiting trial for the murder of her husband. Like Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, A House Without Windows focuses on the lives and challenges of women in Afghanistan—but that is where the similarity ends.

 Hosseini’s book was stark, dark, and violent. Looking back, I can see clearly that—even though it’s about two women—it was told through the male gaze.

A House Without Windows, on the other hand, is a story of women told by a woman. It doesn’t grab and shake you. It lulls you in, tells a wInding tale, at times seems to lead down the garden path, until it reaches a satisfying conclusion.

It’s not a perfect book—there was one plot twist in particular that seemed too pat, too coincidental—but it was an engaging, effective mystery and a welcome glimpse into a country that seems to have been largely forgotten by the media and general public.