Bread, Bags & Bullies: Surviving the 80's by Steven Manchester

Bread, Bags & Bullies: Surviving the 80’s. Steven Manchester. Luna Bella Press. November 2019. pb, 208 pp.; ASIN: B07YR894QP.

Those who grew up in the 1980’s are going to love this novel which describes the family of Herbie, Wally and Cockroach, three brothers who loved and tormented each other while growing up.  They grow up in a strict family where the rules are definite although somewhat out of the box of today’s norms. Steven Manchester is uniquely talented to capture the essences of a person (or family’s) strengths and weaknesses that is real and without artifice. It’s funny as well!

They’re definitely addicted to the Atari 2600 games with two joystick controllers with red buttons, paddle controllers and black game cartridges.  They love and hate the Combat or Air Sea Battle.  In moments of quiet they confess their deepest fears to each other.  They never miss TV shows such as Knots Landing, Donny and Marie, Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Lawrence Welk Show with the bubbles and corny music, and the always funny Carol Burnett Show. They’re thrilled with the music of Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, REO Speedwagon and Queen.  They know their family is far from The Brady Bunch TV family.  They also know they are poor but don’t worry too much about it.  Instead, one works as a newspaper delivery boy and others can’t wait their appropriate age to do the same.  They can’t wait for high school with the ability to go to concerts, earn money for a dream car like a Camaro, Pontiac Firebird or Trans Am and drag racing.  They’re obvious fans of the Lakers basketball team over the Celtics.  They’re into Motor Trend and Popular Mechanics magazines with an occasional forced foray into reading novels like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an irresistible movie that feeds their young imaginations.  MTV is starting to get rave reviews as well as numerous Billboard Chart idols.

Daily lessons are frequent but the largest one is to stand strong against bullies.  It’s believed that not facing fear will allow that fear to become a monster in one’s life, and so one of the brothers prepares to face one of his most formidable opponents on the school bus.  Mom and Dad are to be heard and obeyed.  The brothers may fight and rag on each other constantly but they are always there for each other in time of need, including when they have physical or emotional challenges.

Steven Manchester’s latest novel is a delightful look back to an age when families could name their challenges and meet them accordingly with love and toughness where appropriate.  Nicely crafted coming of age story, Steven Manchester!

A Mother Like Mine: Hartley-By-The-Sea No. 3 by Kate Hewitt

A Mother Like Mine: Hartley-By-The Sea No. 3. Kate Hewitt. Penguin Publishing Group/Berkley. August 2017. 384 pp. ISBN #: 9780399583797.  

Abby Rhodes, now a widow, and her 5-year-old son, Noah, have returned to Hartley-by-the-Sea and remained for two years now.  She’s just about taken over running the café on the beach as her grandmother Mary has recently had a heart attack and is not well at all.  Imagine their surprise when a knock on the door reveals that Abby’s mother, Laura, has now returned and plans on staying indefinitely.  Laura was, as far as Abby is concerned, an absentee mother for as long as Abby can remember!

This is the story of their reunion and attempt to resolve pain from the past, an opportunity to reshape the future as a family.  Sounds lovely as an idea, but it’s a difficult labyrinth to travel.  No one knows how it will all end!

Abby lives in a constant tension of feeling anger and hurt at her mother’s failure as a mother and a mature attitude and effort to put it behind her.  Giving her mother a second chance is a tall order, but Mary begs her repeatedly to try.  Noah, as a child and grandchild, is innocent about it all and he is the glue that keeps the whole quagmire from exploding and decimating the family again.

As the story progresses, Abby and Laura discover that each carries an unknown story with elements that were unpredictable, causing choices that may or may not have been best for all involved. 

Eventually a great loss and a surprising revelation will change their lives forever.  This is a story of love with all its messy and wonderful moments, a healing journey that forges a new relationship to last forever!

Fine, fine story that is a tense, poignant but lovely read!!!! Highly recommended!

Folly Cove by Holly Robinson

Folly Cove.  Holly Robinson.  Penguin Publishing. October 2016. 400 pp. ISBN#: 978110199534.  

Folly Cove Inn, its owner Sarah Bradford, and her daughters, Laura, Anne and Elly, are famous in the Rockport, Massachusetts area and throughout the country.  The singular jazz singing, elegant meals, pristinely beautiful grounds, and the hosts’ friendliness to guests make the Inn a favorite vacation spot as well as a site for weddings and celebrations galore.  At one time, the three sisters were as close as possible, a support for each other against the persistent demands for perfection from their mother.  But now through a series of unexpected events, secrets galore are about to come out, facts and dreams that will shatter or unite their relationships forever!

Anne is the first to come home from her idyllic love and beach life far from Rockport.  Her perfect life has come undone, her love has left and she arrives home to shock Sarah with a baby girl.  She soon moves into a nearby cottage on the grounds as her mother doesn’t want a child’s noise to disturb the guests; she never realizes her coldness to her granddaughter just adds more hurt to Anne’s already dispirited mood.  But Anne’s feisty enough to fight for her daughter and agrees to help out at the inn to make money to support her daughter.

Laura is the daughter who stayed at home, married and had a child.  But something is unraveling in her marriage and she has no idea what it is.  She and Anne hate each other over a supposed betrayal that happened years earlier.  The truth of that terrible time will be clarified in time but not before words and even a physical attack brings all the venom to the surface. 

Elly is a talented singer who just couldn’t make in the music business but developed other skills.  Her return home is guided by her need to recoup and see if she should move in a different direction.  She’s the beauty of the family which causes some resentment but her genial mood makes everyone around her laugh, smile and speak honestly about whatever is needed at the moment.

All of these ladies will gradually meet men secretly and in the open that will force them to face who they are individually and as a family. Those talks that follow are stunning. Even Sarah is about to undergo a transformation, albeit forced in one sense.

This is a family story that is so very, very real.  It has so many moments of different emotional ranges concerning dreams, betrayal and loyalty, sympathy, truth-telling, and a bond that is stronger than any one or series of events can destroy. 

This reviewer loved this novel and highly recommends it as a careful, talented work of engaging contemporary fiction! Great story and characters every reader can identify with in some way or ways!

Haven Lake by Holly Robinson

Haven Lake.  Holly Robinson. Penguin Group (USA). April 2015. 464 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451471499.

Sydney Bishop is a successful child psychologist who finds herself in the oddest of conundrums. Newly returned to the area many hours from her hometown after a series of family tragedies, she is engaged to a renowned surgeon who gives his all to his job but seems remote from his teenage son, Dylan.  Hannah’s in a difficult position, trying to be friendly to Dylan as a future stepmother and not expecting to exert parental discipline.  Unknown to Sydney, Dylan is angry and confused about a loss he has recently undergone and feels no one at home can truly understand what he’s going through.  So he packs up and decides to head elsewhere where he can start anew and learn a computer profession in order to get a job and support himself.  He thinks he’s an independent soul but has no idea of the difficult journey he is about to begin.

Dylan winds up at Sydney’s mother’s home in Haven Lake where he reluctantly agrees to stay a few days.  Hannah is not your typical mother and allows Dylan space to make his own decisions, not realizing how complex it will all get when his mother arrives.  In the midst of all the tension with her mother and Dylan, the secrets and feelings about the deaths in their family are gradually revealed, sometimes with harshness and sometimes with heartbreaking gentleness and sorrow.

Holly Robinson depicts family life with all of its unpredictability and tension-riddled moments with accuracy and sensitivity.  No stereotypical characters reside in her story and misunderstandings galore fill these pages, as well as the words said with powerful emotional and mental ramifications.  Secrets not only protect some characters but also initially keep a dysfunctional family from being torn apart, at least temporarily.

Forgiveness is never easy and the reader will be waiting for a satisfactory end but be quite surprised by the way it all evolves and concludes.

Very nicely done, Holly Robinson!

Hello From the Gillespies: A Novel by Monica McInerney

Hello from the Gillespies: A Novel.  Monica McInerney. Penguin Group (USA). November 2014. 624 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451466723.

Every year Angela Gillespie sends out a friendly, chatty Christmas letter for the holidays.  She fills it with bits and pieces of her perfect life in the Australian outback, a life she never dreamed she would spend most of her life in when she was a young woman living in England.  But here she is; only this year she gets more of her recent, severe headaches when thinking about what she should include as her year’s news.  A good friend Joan tells her to write the way things really are, to “let it rip.”  So all of a sudden, rather than bursting into tears, she takes her friend’s advice and really does write all about her dysfunctional family, from her neglectful, unromantic husband who barely talks to her, through her girls who have great dreams about careers but have really lousy relationships with boyfriends or are depressed, all the way to her youngest son Ig who spends his life chattering away, like he’s bonkers, to his imaginary friend.  Happy Holidays!

A terrible accident happens which is quickly resolved over several days; however, while she is dealing with that, her husband (without reading it) actually presses the send button for the Christmas letter to over a hundred family and friends. Oh, my God! Imagine Angela’s thoughts and feelings when she discovers what beloved hubby has done! And more how he feels when he realizes what was in the letter about himself and one of their nastier relatives!  In plain and simple English, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back and the bubbling, boiling pot overflows with an amazingly large bevy of previously unshared feelings and words!

Add to that the fact that the girls have lost their jobs and are returning home, expecting a monetary handout that might not be so forthcoming.  This then is the story of a family that finally is compelled to begin listening to each other, becoming sensitive to each other’s thoughts and feelings as well as words, in all becoming a real, mature adult family.  The process is riveting, totally engaging and absolutely delightful!

Hello from the Gillespies… is a thrilling read about which readers can say, “Oh yeah, that’s how it is in my crazy family and world!”  It’s a refreshing look at a normal Australian (is definitely universal) family that evolves through blood, sweat, tears and eventually hugs and kisses.  Highly recommended!!!!!