You're Ready for a Family Saga

Are participating in Nonfiction November or Need a Balm for Your Brain

Hi friends,

It feels like months have passed since I last wrote this newsletter. It’s only been two weeks, but that included:

• Meeting my beautiful newborn niece.

• An election.

• A time change.

• Two emergency vet visits (Ellie is hopefully on the mend now).

I brought the baby Doug Salati’s Hot Dog, Where’s The Unicorn, a fun lift-the-flap book, and Never Touch a Dinosaur, which features different silicone textures for kids to play with. If you have any suggestions of what a bookish aunt should give her niece, let me know.

And, now, what to read if …

You’re Looking for a Family Saga

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiménez

The intergenerational family saga, told from multiple perspectives, is one of my favorite genres. I love the way they examine complex family dynamics and deliver fully fleshed-out characters, all while offering an engaging plot. Claire Jiménez shows that it’s possible to deliver all that in a tight 250 pages in her brilliant debut, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez.

In 1996, 13-year-old Ruthy Ramirez disappeared while on her way home from track practice. Twelve years later, the loss reverberates through the daily lives of Ruthy’s mom, Delores, and her two sisters, Jessica and Nina. Delores is still knee-deep in grief, while Jessica and Nina struggle to maintain a relationship with each other. But, when Jessica catches a woman who looks just like Ruthy — complete with her signature birthmark — on “Catfight,” a “Real Housewives”-type show, she immediately reaches out to Nina. The two sisters call a tepid truce as they consider how to finally find Ruthy and bring her home.

Delores, Jessica and Nina alternate narrating chapters and they all have such distinct voices, I would have been able to tell who was who without any marking. I feel like I know these three women — I can imagine what they would each order at a diner and how they would approach basic chores. More broadly, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is a searing, poignant story of family, grief and loss. I’m eager to see what Claire Jiménez does next.

Reminder recommendations: I have a whole family saga issue and also adore Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo and Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina.  

You Want a Nonfiction November Read

The Unfit Heiress by Audrey Clare Farley 

It’s Nonfiction November when, as you may expect, participating book lovers focus their reading on true tales, such as Audrey Clare Farley’s The Unfit Heiress, the gripping story of the forced sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt, a socialite poised to inherit a vast fortune.

Ann Cooper Hewitt, whose father invented the mercury-vapor lamp, sued her mother, Maryon, in 1936, alleging the older woman colluded with her doctors to have her sterilized during a scheduled appendectomy. Peter’s will incentivized Maryon: If Ann didn’t have children when he died, Maryon would receive Ann’s inheritance as well as her own. Maryon bribed the doctors performing the appendectomy, claiming her daughter was “feeble-minded” and “over-sexed.” The physicians agreed without even consulting Ann.

Maryon benefited from eugenics laws and a culture that feared “immoral” and “loose” women. Audrey Clare Farley, a professor of U.S. history, uses the lawsuit and the sensation it caused as a jumping-off point to explore the somewhat common practice of forced sterilization across the country. As she notes, many of the Americans obsessively following the trial “didn’t know that tens of thousands of individuals had been sterilized in state institutions nationwide.”

It's a fascinating read, especially amid ongoing conversations about women’s reproductive rights.

Reminder recs: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Why Fish Don’t Exist and The Woman They Could Not Silence are all nonfiction reads documenting women abused by the medical system.

Your Brain Needs a Break

The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker

As I noted in my intro, there has been a lot going on. During my first trip to the emergency vet, I started rereading Act Like It, the first book in Lucy Parker’s London Celebrities series. It was the exact brain balm I needed, so I ended up rereading the rest of the series. They’re all such a joy, but I think my favorite is the fourth book, The Austen Playbook (although I reserve the right to change my mind in the future — I’m a mood reader).

West End stage actor Freddy Carlton expects playing Lydia Bennett in “The Austen Playbook,” a live-action TV broadcast where viewers determine the plot of a murder mystery, will provide her a break from her recent spate of heavy roles and the weighty expectations of her father/manager. Instead, it puts her on a collision course with James “Griff” Ford-Griffin, a notoriously harsh theater critic whose family owns the extravagant estate where “The Austen Playbook” is being filmed.

Despite their personality differences — Freddy is a joyful Energizer Bunny, Griff enjoys glowering — the pair find they’re attracted to one another. As they spend more time together, they uncover a long-held secret that, if exposed, would upturn both their families and their budding relationship.

Parker is explicit about her goal for The Austen Playbook. Early in the book, Freddy says the production of the same name, is “pure entertainment and escapism. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s a bit of whodunit, it’s a bit of snogging under the stairs.” If that sounds like what your brain needs right now, put this at the top of your TBR.

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