Tag: Mercy Street

Detectives, Pioneers, & Protesters

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I faithfully read several newspapers every morning. The war and devastation in Ukraine are heartbreaking. I am also upset and angered by the power-grabbing actions of our state governor. For diversion, I turn to solid TV drama and well-written literature. Here is what I’ve delved into most recently.

MY NEW FAVORITE CRIME SERIES

The Chelsea Detective (Acorn)

Priya, Max, Jess (express.co.uk)

There are so many aspects of this series I like that I almost don’t know where to start.  First, it’s set in London and filmed in the affluent Chelsea neighborhood.  Second, the main characters are colleagues in the best sense of the word and like each other.  It’s a series with warmth and some humor as we see the home lives of several of them. Third, the cases they are confronted with, murder generally, are complex and involve multiple leads and dead ends. 

 Max Arnold, detective chief inspector, lives on a houseboat and has recently parted ways with his girlfriend Astrid.  His house is messy, but his approach to a case and his work desk are neat and orderly.  Priya Shamsie, another detective and his sidekick, is adapting to being a new mother while still loving the job she does very well.   Connor and Jess, two detective constables, round out the team along with Ashley Wilton, the pathologist.  What is noteworthy about Ashley (played by Sophie Stone) is that she is a deaf person in the role of a deaf pathologist.  There are only 4 episodes in Season 1, but each is 90 minutes long.  No definitive word yet on a second season.  Highly recommended!

FLORIDA CRACKERS—HISTORICAL NOVEL

A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith

Published in 1984, Smith’s A Land Remembered, is set in Florida.   It spans a hundred years from near the end of the Civil War to 1968 and follows three generations of the McIvey family as they settle the land, raise cattle, plant orange groves, and more.  Early cattle ranchers were called Florida crackers after the sound of the whips as they drove their cattle long distances to market.  The patriarch, Tobias, came from Georgia to Florida in the late 1850’s with his wife Emma and his infant son, Zech.  Wild cattle roamed freely, land was there for the taking, and despite battling weather and outlaws, Tobias and his family were successful.  

Zech and his son Solomon eventually traded cattle for oranges and real estate and Sol became very wealthy.  The novel is both a family saga and a history of early Florida and its transformation from open land to fenced ranches to hotels and high rises on the coast.  As a somewhat recent transplant to Florida, I appreciated this history through fiction. It was the April selection for my local book group and received positive reviews from the members.

SLICE OF BOSTON—CONTEMPORARY NOVEL

Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh

Author Haigh (living concord.com)

Jennifer Haigh is an author whose work I have enjoyed and admired.  Her earlier novels include Mrs. Kimble, The Condition, and Baker Towers, and often deal with controversial or contentious issues.  Mercy Street is no exception.  In exquisitely detailed prose, Haigh creates a Boston that is gritty and grotty and locked into an unending winter with nor’easter after nor’easter.   The focus is on an abortion clinic on Mercy Street—its staff, the protestors, and others connected to them or it in some way.  

Claudia, a social worker, who has been on the clinic staff for ten years, is the main character.  Divorced and stressed by her job, she seeks solace and companionship from Timmy, a childhood friend and now her source of pot.  There are regular protestors outside the clinic every day.  Anthony comes daily to photograph patients entering and leaving and then shares them online with Victor, an antiabortion activist who compiles them on a website.  

Apart from Claudia, most of these people I would never associate with nor have any desire to meet.  As the novel progressed, I kept expecting a tragic event.  Instead, what Haigh delivers is more a study in humanity.  While detached, she treats her characters, all of whom have been disadvantaged or treated badly earlier in life, kindly.  With its unexpected ending, I feel as if I should go back and re-read this timely novel from beginning to end. (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo of rowboat at the edge of the bay ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Mothers & Meals

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NOVEL PAIRING

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

I really enjoyed Lee’s first novel, The Piano Teacher, and so approached her new one with enthusiasm.  It too is wonderful, but in a different way.  Set in the present rather than the past, it details the daily lives over the course of a year of three expatriate women living in Hong Kong.  Like Anne Beattie, whose own stories delineate the fine structure of daily life, Lee knows this turf and her novel is rich with references to specific shops, clubs, and neighborhoods.  Two of these women are acquainted at the start (Mercy had worked for Margaret), but by the end all three, Mercy, Margaret, and Hilary, have intersected.

It is a novel mostly about motherhood—the angst of wanting a child, the tentativeness of trying out a child on loan, and the pain of losing a child coupled with, in Margaret’s case, the joys of cuddling and cosseting one’s existing children.  But it’s also a depiction of being an outsider in a culture, even if, like Mercy, you are half Asian.  I felt that Lee kept the reader at a distance from her characters; you knew their lives and habits, but you didn’t inhabit them.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Like Lee, Celeste Ng is a mother as well as a writer.  This first novel, winner of several awards, is a poignant story about a mixed race family in Ohio in the late 1970’s.  Husband James is Chinese American and wife Marilyn, a Caucasian from Virginia.  James and their three children stick out in small town Middlewood and each must deal with being singled out and looking different.  Sixteen year old Lydia bears the heavy weight of unrealistic parental expectations and when she goes missing, the family implodes.  It’s a book that makes one reflect on the sometimes unspoken demands we place on our children to their detriment.  Sobering and yet believable.  Marilyn is something of a Tiger mother.

SARASOTA SAMPLER

Expanding our local dining forays, but, we hope, not our waistlines, we tried two new restaurants this past week.

Yume in downtown Sarasota is a perfect choice for a Japanese lunch.  Among the four of us, we enjoyed several lunch specials:   chicken teriyaki and the eel, accompanied by rice and stir fried vegetables plus a small green salad or miso soup, and the spicy tuna roll with a side of seaweed salad.  Prices are very reasonable and the restaurant was not crowded.  Their longer menu also includes some Thai dishes.

Mozaic.  This is one of Sarasota’s fine dining restaurants (read a bit more expensive) and we ate here before the opera.  The menu is more creative than some other places, and we were pleased with what we ordered.  I thought the sautéed shrimp over lemon risotto was very tasty, and my spouse loved the crab cake salad and his side of lamb merguez sausage.

SMALL SCREEN SCRIBBLES

Mercy Street.  So far, I’d give this series a B, maybe a B+, but not an A.  It’s PBS’s first attempt at this kind of historical series and they just haven’t done it like the Brits do.  I’ve now watched the first three episodes.

Downton Abbey.  I’m mourning the end of Downton Abbey and the finale is still 24 hours away! I thought last week’s episode was one of the best and was particularly struck by the scene between Mary and her grandmother.  The dowager duchess opines about love and its importance in one’s life and then gives her granddaughter a hug.  Hugs are seldom seen between these folks, and I found this one touching and somehow very right.