Thoughts 
by Ernest J. Gaines, Vintage Books Random House 1983, 214 pages
Challenge: Classics Club SPIN due April 19, 2023
Genre/Theme: Adult Literature / Race Relations
Type/Source: Tradeback / Library
What It’s About: Set in the 70s in rural Louisiana, this tale looks at friendship and loyalty, race relations, changing times that rail against ingrained attitudes, and dreams versus regrets. What a fabulous telling! Tautly paced, calm before coming dreaded storm, we get quick glimpses of real people and all treated relatively respectfully. Well done Author Gaines, a master of story craft.
A man is shot dead and friends rally around the man assumed to have done the deed because he has always been a rock to his beliefs, standing up for my himself. So all the old men grab similar shotguns, shoot and bring the spent shells so that “proof” of who done it is not so easily conclusive. The dead man is white, the group confessing to the killing are all black, except for the white woman who also wants to protect and rally for her own rules of justice (which is not in agreement with the sheriff.
All are more in fear of the family, the father and friends of the dead man coming to claim their own brand of justice. The sheriff is also hoping that won’t happen, but can he stop it?
“I ran out on the front garry and seen it was Miss Merle, and looked like a heavy load just fell off my shoulders.”
Thoughts: This was tense and well plotted. I loved seeing all the perspectives and outlaying of viewpoints black and white, the hopes and dreams over the decades that brought all these people to this point. I am looking forward to watching the movie. It’s got a great cast.
To be honest, I had no prep and it was challenging to figure out with certainty who was white and what was their role and relation to the community and who was black; when it came to the side players and how Gaines introduces everyone, I was challenged and I appreciate that. I really admired the subtleties.
Rating: I think I might raise my rating at a 5 slice of pie. Apple pie is mentioned rather frequently. Could pie be a metaphor? That we assume pie can heal the worlds ills and yes, why can’t it? Sadly, this situation is not easily fixed by apple pie but the ending was more positive than I ever expected.
I had Lucy bake me an apple pie, because I knew how much Jack just liked his apple pie. I told Lucy when she came to work that morning if she baked me the best apple pie she ever baked in her life, I would give her half the day off.
Copyright © 2007-2023. 
Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.
My favorite of today’s post, this has been considered Science Fiction and I might put it into the Mythology genre. In 2016, a volcano rises out of the lake in Central Park and becomes a global story. We meet lots of interesting people and follow their reactions and adventures. It’s quite wacky!! at times comic, at times somber – the chapters are interrupted by names of victims of 2016 incidents, often police brutality and mass violence. It is set across time, multiple time realities; it dips back and forth, and includes a time travel storyline of a boy who goes to 16th century Mexico. Not at all melodramatic, all the characters inspired positive reactions and I was invested in hope they all end up OK. A morality tale to wake up and pay attention? Four slices of pie, no pie mentioned. 
Selected because it was free and I recognized the author’s name – this is my first experience of her work. The goodreads reviews are NOT HAPPY that she published this and never attributed that it is based on a true story; some feel she stole it. It was VERY short; I had originally assumed it was a full-length fiction novel.
I had originally decided that this book was NOT going to be my cup of tea – that if I read the first 10 pages or so, I could satisfactorily cross it off the list. But then I ended up with physical books of all my remaining TOB unreads — except this one, and had one credit to burn at Audible. I couldn’t not listen to this audiobook! – especially, considering how many of this year’s slate have been books that I just couldn’t give proper due. (I want my Completist status, at least, to be considered TRUE EFFORT) so … and DONE! However. I sped this up to 200% for the last third or so until the last 30 minutes. I think I got (had?!) enough of it. Three slices, only raspberry pi technology mentioned.
A very interesting book, a short book, with one man experiencing a current crisis that provokes memories of past trauma, and trying to hold on the best he can. The ending is a gut punch! 
I didn’t give this book the attention it deserved. I wanted to be totally captivated but I was distracted by book-slump-disease, too-many-books-at-once-disorder, and guilt. I ended up reading reviews that praised it and I would go back and read 2-3 pages before life intervened and I was off doing something else. I ended up giving it the skim-skip, touching here and there to keep the story-thread alive if possible and then, finally, I read the ending. BAD CARE. I called it done and now apologize to the author and my readers that this “time and place” was not this book’s ‘day‘. BUT I do promise to watch for this author and read her next (this was her debut and she wasn’t even 20 when she wrote it!) Perhaps, I will come back and read Nightcrawling with full attention in the future. I am giving it 4 slices. Yes, it had pie! Sweet potato pie.
by Erich Maria Remarque, Random House Trade 2013 (orig 1928), 227 pages, translated from the German by A.W. Wheen 
Care's Books and Pie 