Book Review: THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride

THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride (Riverhead Books, August 2023) Hardcover, 308 pages. 

Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . . 

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community-heaven and earth-that sustain us.

My Five-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     This is my first encounter with the story-telling of James McBride, and it's fantastic. If I'm ever going to write fiction revolving around a community with an ensemble cast of characters I"m going to study the structure and character-building here and make copious notes. 

     I think the book jacket info and Goodreads synopsis may be doing this novel a disservice. Many who read that may pick this up expecting a mystery novel with a murder to solve. That 1972 prologue that describes the skeletal body found within a well and the epilogue that recaps how it got there merely serve as bookends to the rest of the book. This novel is set within the Chicken Hill section of Pottstown, PA in the 1930’s and that is where all the action and interactions occur. 

     THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE is about how African-Americans and Jewish immigrants settled within the poorer section of town and learned to appreciate each other for the good people they are. Small-town corruption, prejudice and discrimination are just a few of the challenges they faced while trying to peacefully co-exist and attempt to improve their standards of living. It's a large cast of characters, very well-defined, and absolutely memorable. I laughed and cried at their moments and came to love several of them. 

     Reading of their experiences, conflict, and resolutions felt like I was sitting across from a group of elder residents at a local diner or coffee shop listening to them tell stories down memory lane. Fascinating. There are many digressions that stray very far from the mystery in that prologue and epilogue and those are what makes this novel so memorable. McBride tells stories like a knowledgable historian or librarian whose factual recollections are the farthest thing from a stodgy textbook.