Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan has subjects to be explored rather than a story to be told. Two mothers have both left abusive marriages to protect their children.
The voice of one of them tells the main part of the story. The voice of a daughter, a transgender eighteen-year-old, tells a second part. The main purpose of the book is to educate, through storytelling, about domestic abuse and transsexuality.
One of the plots that holds things together is the murder trial of the young woman’s boyfriend. There is also their teenage love story. There is also the beekeeping. There is a lot going on in this one book.
Mad honey is a real thing. Made from rhododendron flowers, it is a hallucinogen causing vomiting, dizziness, and fainting, among other things. In other words, it looks sweet but is really poisonous, an apt metaphor for abusive partners and phony friends and neighbors.
Sometimes all we want is a good story. Not a challenge; not a lecture; not an education; just something restful with a happy ending – but well written! Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler fits the bill.
Micah’s life is quiet and orderly. He has a small non stressful IT business that gets him by, a nice enough apartment in a building he manages, and a relationship with a thirty something fourth grade teacher who makes few demands. When he dreams he has found a baby in the supermarket, he is told it means he will have a change. When it comes, in the form of a college girlfriend’s son, it is not the sharp jolt we at first expect, but a gentle epiphany.
In Shimura Trouble by Sujata Massey, Rei Shimura has been caring for her father who is recovering from a stroke when a mysterious letter arrives from Hawaii. They are invited to visit a lost relative for his 88th birthday, a double luck milestone for the Japanese.
It is not the pleasure trip they had expected. The new relative asks for their financial help in recovering property taken from their Japanese family during WWII. Rei, a part time investigator, becomes immersed in the history of an old plantation village and meets a charming big landowner/developer. The situation escalates when there is a fire and a young cousin is suspected of arson and murder. Sailing into the midst of all this (on a yacht which was part of the Transpacific Yacht Race from California to Hawaii) is her military intelligence boyfriend.
This is an intricate mystery with likeable characters, but it is the setting in the full sense of the word that adds to the appeal. Anyone who has visited Hawaii, but especially those who live there either full or part time, will enjoy the namedropping of familiar towns, attractions, even restaurants. The physical setting, the leeward or Ewa side of Oahu, is not the lush tropical green Hawaii typically described, but a dry, sunny place where more locals than tourists can be found. Rei’s interactions with the Japanese side of her family open a window onto Japanese history and traditions which color the atmosphere of the whole book.
In one of her books set in Tokyo, Zen Attitude, Massey immerses us even further into the niceties of Japanese culture and manners. Rei, here an antiques dealer, finds herself involved in two murders when a customer commissions her to find a special tansu, or chest of drawers.
Along the way she makes a potential friend when she meets a failed judo star living on the grounds of a Buddhist temple, and learns to make peace with her almost-fiancé’s loud troublesome brother.
Walking along the river in Portland, we found a small “Poetry Beach” where poems written by children are carved in large stones along the path. I loved this one:
A river is wonderful It keeps the fish from drying out
In a nearby Chinese restaurant we saw a catchy play on words for their rewards program.
