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    The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel
    The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel
    The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel

    Written by James McBride

    Narrated by Dominic Hoffman

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

    WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION

    FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024

    NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE

    ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

    “A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review

    “We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

    From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them

    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. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

        As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America 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.

        Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Audio
    Release dateAug 8, 2023
    ISBN9780593684122
    Author

    James McBride

    James McBride is a civil servant in the United Kingdom who has been deployed on operations in Afghanistan. This is his fi rst novel, the culmination of ten years of writing and research. He and his wife, Elaine, have three children and live in Barry, on the coast in South Wales.

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    Reviews for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

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    • 5/5

      Feb 20, 2025

      Slow to start but a whirlwind of an ending, I would recommend.
    • 4/5

      Jan 25, 2025

      Real Rating: 3.25* of five

      The Publisher Says: In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing development, the last thing they expected to uncover was a human skeleton. Who the skeleton was and how it got buried there were just two of the long-held secrets that had been kept for decades by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side, sharing ambitions and sorrows.

      Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

      As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.

      I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA MY FRIEND MARK. THANK YOU.

      My Review      : Quirky neighbors living in a supremely hardscrable era, gettin' by and gettin' along with the help and kindness they so generously give without expecting a return. Thus, of course, assuring they get one.

      In other words, Norman Lear's wet dream. Author McBride can write his socks off. The lovely prose masks the sitcom-from-1972 plot. I expect to receive brickbats for breaking orthodoxy, but there it is.
    • 4/5

      Jul 25, 2024

      Wonderful story with unique characters and well written
    • 3/5

      Jul 19, 2024

      I struggled to get into this one. For me, there were just too many stories and I had a hard time stitching them all together in a way that advanced the overall story telling. But there were strong characters and it highlighted a time and place I haven't read much about before.
    • 5/5

      Dec 21, 2024

      I really cared about the charactes in this story and cheered and weeped for all of them. Historical fiction touches on race, religion, and disability.
    • 4/5

      Aug 5, 2024

      So many well-drawn characters! Such a colorful glimpse into communities. Add in deft weaving of multiple story lines. I was interested from the start, but it drew me in more and more as it progressed ... the point where I almost forgot the mystery that started it all.

      Well worth reading, imo.
    • 4/5

      Dec 3, 2024

      Chicken Hill is a neighborhood on the outskirts of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and in 1925 is home to immigrant Jews and Blacks, many fresh from the South. Although dilapidated, the neighborhood is close-knit with much of the social life revolving around Moshe and Chona Ludlow. Moshe runs the local theatre, catering to both Jews and Blacks with a mixture of shows ranging from klezmer to jazz. Chona runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, inherited from her father, and the heart of Chicken Hill. Nate Timblin works for Moshe and his wife Addie takes care of things when Chona is ill. When their deaf nephew is orphaned, Nate and Addie take him in. But the state wants to send him to a "special" school, and Chona helps hide the boy. This triggers a series of events that both tries and strengthens the ties that bind the neighborhood together.

      I had loved McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, and was eager to try some of his fiction. This novel is similarly well-written and also depicts relationships between Jews and Blacks. The characters are interesting, although at first I was a bit confused as to who the main characters were going to be. I listened to much of the book on audio, and Dominic Hoffman does an excellent job narrating it.
    • 4/5

      Jun 3, 2024

      Well paced story with interesting characters with real concerns and challenges, and a bitter heart. The inclusion of modern dissatisfactions/distress is jarring though, as the novel itself makes it's views and message sufficiently clear.
    • 5/5

      Jul 9, 2024

      Reason Read: bookclub read
      I read this because it was chosen by my bookclub and also it has had many good reviews. I liked the other book that I read by McBride. This on his historical fiction set in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and the Jewish woman running the grocery store is based on his Jewish grandmother who ran a grocery store in a black neighborhood. He never knew his grandmother but wanted to honor her. I liked the authors approach to the themes. He let his characters tell the story and in general he let his people just be good people. It was enjoyable to read because of how the author chose to tell the story. There is racism and antisemitism but the characters are just living life. I also felt that the picture of the state hospital back in the 30s probably was pretty accurate and reportedly was full of abuse. Disabilities included foot problems and need for special shoes, cerebral palsy, deafness. Last of all, there is a sense of community which exists inspite of differences. McBride stated in an interview that "The humanity of people far exceeds the differences." I hope that is true. Community is very important for a good and long life. I liked this book.
    • 3/5

      Nov 11, 2024

      Sorry to say this novel didn't work well for me at all. It would almost draw me in with bits of intriguing story and then smother me in wordy repetitious passages where I'd find myself turning a page without having taken in the content. It reminded me of listening to a jazz composition where every so often I'd be engaged in what felt like music, but a lot of the time I'd hear only noise. There are wonderful story elements in here, but I had little patience for the way the novel was put together. I've had similar issues with McBride before, and I think I'm just going to say that stylistically he's not for me, and move on.
    • 4/5

      Oct 31, 2024

      In the 1930’s there was a poor area of Pottsdale, Pennsylvania known as Chicken Hill. Jews from all over eastern and western Europe lived there, as well as the black population and a few other ethnicities who were seen as ‘not quite white’.

      Jewish entrepreneur Moshe Ludlow had a hand in many businesses, including a music venue. It wasn’t until he began including the new black musicicans there that he really began making money. This move also began the area’s integration. While races remained separate, they also began to see each others’ humanity.

      Moshe’s wife, Chona, managed the Heaven and Earth Grocery store. Chona had lived a childhood hidden by her parents after being crippled by polio. Instead of becoming bitter, Chona’s mission in life was to make everyone day’s a bit better. And while the grocery store was the only enterprise that Moshe owned that didn’t make money, he loved his wife and let her shine.

      And so Moshe and Chona took in a black youngster Dodo, who was deaf and needed a home. Dodo thrived in the environment until he saw the local doctor who was also the KKK leader commit a crime. The doctor then arranged for Dodo to be sent to an institution for those unable to live in society. Instead of receiving special help he was warehoused in the very worst of the wards.

      There was no way to circumvent the powerful people who ran the institution and who had put him there. It took everyone in the community to come together and hatch an improbable plan against the highest odds
      .
      As in any community, there is an absolute web of characters to keep track of. I loved the way the author showed how different characters were seen by different people of the communities.

      Great book club discussion – lots of issues to talk about and a mystery that wasn’t solved until the last page.
    • 5/5

      May 12, 2024

      I really loved this book and was amazed that I could remember the characters with names I was not familiar with as the story moved from scene to scene. Yes, convoluted and twisting but so well interwoven ao that the prologue at the beginning makes perfect sense when you get to the end.
    • 4/5

      Oct 24, 2024

      Back in the 1930s, the setting of this novel, most Midwest towns had a “wrong side of the tracks” – an area of town given over to marginalized populations. In Pottstown PA, this area is Chicken Hill, and it’s occupied by a mix of Jewish families from Germany, Romania & Lithuania, blacks, and a smattering of European emigres. The community is anchored by Mosha, who owns the local theater/dance hall, and his compassionate, enlightened wife Chona, who runs the local grocery store. Despite Mosha’s bold move to integrate the theater and his wife’s unquestioning acceptance and generosity towards all, prejudice continues to flourish – but the one thing the residents of Chicken Hill have in common is that they are viewed with a mixture of suspicion and aversion by the white population of downtown Pottstown PA, led by Doc Roberts, misogynist/degenerate/proud KKK member, and a city council stuffed with members bolstering their supposed privilege with fairy tales of Mayflower ancestry and racial superiority. When the authorities of Pottstown set their sights on institutionalizing a young member of their community, however, the residents of Chicken Hill set their prejudices aside in order to protect one of their own.

      Some members of my book club dinged this because “it starts off too slowly.” Which is not inaccurate: we don’t even meet the young Dodo until halfway through the tale, after which things do start moving at a brisk pace. So what’s going on the rest of the time? McBride’s introducing us to the deeply human residents of Chicken Hill, filling us in on their life stories, struggles, and aspirations. Because even more than fairy tales of Mayflower ancestry, what’s enabling the folks of Pottstown to cling to their illusions of superiority is the fact that they view of the residents of Chicken Hill as somehow less than human, an illusion that McBride’s backstories of love, loyalty and sacrifice forcefully dispel. By the end of the novel your list of personae dramatis may stretch to 2-3 pages, but your heart will have also stretched to incorporate a wider and deeper empathy for the struggles of the courageous immigrants who fled to the U.S. in search of new lives and new hope, and the compelling resiliency of the black, native, and disabled populations that were so appallingly disenfranchised. .

      Enjoyed McBride’s depiction of the period and especially of the inner lives of immigrant Jewish communities. Delighted in the clever way that disparate strands of plot come together at the end to create a denouement in which Fate receives a highly satisfying “assist” from Justice. (I’m not the type of reader that demands happy endings, but isn’t it always satisfying when they happen?) Appreciated McBride’s storytelling chops. (Though still struggling to understand why, in a couple of places, the author inexplicably steps away from the story to interject rambling rants about current politics, which hits as both jarring and self-indulgent. How did his editor let these slip by?) And I especially applaud the way McBride incorporates and honors individuals with a range of disabilities (cerebral palsy, polio-related handicaps, deafness). Mostly, though, I savored the humanity of the world McBride has given life to here, as I think many other readers are likely to do.
    • 5/5

      Aug 9, 2024

      Jews and African Americans resided in Pottstown's Chicken Hill. A Jewish woman who operated the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store treated everyone fairly. That was not always the case with everyone in the area, particularly with the area's doctor. We see how Chona, the Jewish woman, made a lasting impact on the people she encountered. The well-drawn characters brought the story to life. Included in the story is the plight of an African-ancestored boy who was deaf but definitely not dumb. We also see the sad state of asylums at that time. Sometimes you had to laugh at the ingenuity of this group of people.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      Jun 27, 2024

      I read this book as a book club selection for discussion. I listened to the audio as I read along with the physical copy and the kindle. The novel was narrated by Dominic Hoffman, who also narrated Deacon King Kong, which was a well yoked match. I enjoyed that novel immensely, and I had no doubt that that would carry over to the The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. The purchase was an automatic buy.

      As in Deacon King Kong, his character build up and funny, unique names to his growing list of stars in the novel was intriguing and funny at time. McBrides' writing style is with sound rhythm as he gives you background to each character that pushes the storyline to fall in cadence with the other characters and why they exist within the novel.

      He paints a vivd picture to the imagination of the setting, the people, the era, the culture, and the struggles to which I felt I was among the community of Chicken Hill and was watching, listening from afar. The dilapidated neighborhood where Jews, European immigrants and African Americans lived side by side unified against white Christian America to protect a deaf black child from being institutionalized while secrets are being revealed through bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit. The novel was peppered with funny lines, like...His face looked like he had a hobby of stepping on rakes. (Chapter 17: page 215), A white man, declared: “You can’t be sick, son. When I was a Negro, I never got sick.” (Chapter 27: page 336), and “Doc, if you wanna be famous or important, die at the right time. Otherwise, carry your own load…” (Chapter 29).

      The novel is divided into three (3) parts, with short chapters that easily slides into the next chapter like a television soap opera. McBride brings historical fiction with music greats, such as Chick Webb, Lionel Hampton, and Sister Rosetta Thorpe, the Pennhurst State School a Hospital in Pennsylvania where residents with disabilities were abused , neglected, beaten and assaulted (horror attraction). Upon reading about McBride's upbringing, I gathered a clearer look into the theme of the storyline that reflects from his personal life, an echo from his childhood, his mother's upbringing and the families heritage. I lived in a house in the city of Detroit in which a mezuzah, a small case that hung on the doorframe of our family home, in which the neighborhood was once a predominantly Jewish community. We discovered later its purpose, meaning, explained by a Jewish realtor. It brought our family good fortune in various ways.

      I see the correlation to some of the characters in the novel, i.e. Shad Davis, Nate's father who helped build a church as McBride's father, formed a church in his living room. Miss Chona was an immigrant from Europe as was his mother from Poland, also an immigrant to the United States. This was a book of mystery...What had Nate done over in Hemlock Row? What was all paid for? Whose skeleton was found at the bottom of the well? Who is 'Son of Man'? How were the people on Chicken Hill going to get Dodo back home? This book will stay on my shelf to be a part of my collection of favorite reads.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5

      Apr 24, 2024

      Addressing the melting pot of cultures in the northeast in the 1930s, this is a rich and colorful tale of people of different races, religions and cultures who have hurt and helped each other. I thought it could have been shorter.
    • 5/5

      Apr 22, 2024

      A splendid tale with a collection of memorable characters and a captivating plot.
    • 4/5

      Oct 6, 2024

      This book had a lot of moving pieces but was such a rich and compelling read. All of the characters had flaws of some sort, but the majority of them were good decent people. The heart of this historical novel is about secrets, why people keep them, and the unintended long term consequences of them. It's at times rip roaringly funny and other times heartbreakingly sad. There are a wide variety of poor people living on Chicken Hill, but by and large they are either Black or Jewish (with a few enterprising Italians thrown in for good measure). They are both rejected by the community of Pottstown but they form an uneasy alliance - mostly because of the work of Chona, a Jewess who extends credit to any on the hill who need it. Her generosity and happy spirit help bond the Jew and the Black folx together - which is good because soon they will face a challenge neither party ever expected.
    • 2/5

      Apr 17, 2024

      An amazingly uninvolving book. You don’t care who comes out on top. The KKK, the Jews, the Blacks, the Whites, doesn’t matter, your only wish is to get to the last page.
    • 4/5

      Oct 2, 2024

      In 1972 when workers in Pottstown, PA, 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 residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe integrated his theater and where China ran the Heaven and Earth Geocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was China and Nate Timblin, the black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
    • 5/5

      May 26, 2024

      I read this book in audiobook format.

      This novel is about a mixed race community (Black, Jewish, White) in the 1920s-30s. There is a large, lively, and sometimes confusing cast of characters that get into all kinds of predicaments. Ultimately they must work together to solve their problems and get closer to the American Dream. Mildly humorous but with some dark parts too, the novel is uplifting but hints at an American future full of violence. I liked the book a lot but did find it difficult to follow in parts. The ending was very satisfying. I think I like Deacon King Kong better, which is a similar novel by McBride.
    • 5/5

      Sep 29, 2024

      A phenomenal book that I read as part of a "find something hidden" challenge. And it really did fulfill that challenge on so many levels. The book's flyleaf describes workers finding a human body in 1972, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and that is just the first of many secrets that is whispered between these pages.

      The book itself begins with the workers finding the body along with a mezuzah, the police knocking on the door of the only remaining Jewish resident in Pottstown, yet before they can collect the skeleton Hurricane Agnes comes through and removes the body. Along with much of the town. And so the tale is told of the residents of Chicken Hill, both Jewish and African-American (throughout the book referred to as "Negro") in the mid-1930's.

      One of the main characters, Chona, is the daughter of the town's rabbi and owner of the only Jewish store in Chicken Hill, the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. She is hidden churning butter and sorting vegetables in the back of her father's store because of her limp that was an effect of the polio she suffered as a child. And because she is hidden so well, she is able to study the Torah, another secret hidden from her as a woman.

      When her soon-to-be-husband falls in love with her (one of the few things not hidden in this book), the story begins to unfold about the lives of the townspeople and the secrets they hold. The leader of the Ku Klux Klan, which marches through the town, is revealed to be Doc Patterson thanks to Chona's frequent letters to the newspaper and the city council, criticizing their marching and calling out the town's doctor by name. She knows his secret because he, too, has a limp caused by polio and a special shoe to help him walk.

      The town's black population have their own secrets, some not revealed until the end of the book. Nate, who helps Chona's husband, Moshe', with his theater, has his own secrets, and Chona had a close friendship with her next door neighbor, Beatrice, who now keeps to herself and no longer reveals her beautiful voice in song.

      I worried that I would not finish this book after starting it late in the month; I read it in only a few days, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good tale told well.
    • 4/5

      May 20, 2024

      James McBride has used the lessons he learned from both his parents to write this book. His father was an African-American preacher and his mother was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. This book, which is centered in a poor neighbourhood called Chicken Hill in Pennsylvania, starts with the lives of Jewish refugees who settled in Chicken Hill with blacks as neighbours. The time period is the 1920s and racism by whites against both Jews and blacks was not even hidden. The town doctor, who had a distinguishing limp, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and paraded in the white outfit around town every summer.

      Actually, the book starts with the discovery of bones in an old well in Chicken Hill later in the twentieth century. A pendant and a mezuzah found with the bones cause the police to question one of the remaining Jews left in town. This necessitates returning to the past to become acquainted with a Jewish couple, Moshe and Chona, who owned and lived above The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Chona ran the store while Moshe operated several theatres. Chona ran the store at a loss in order to provide a place for the local people to shop. She was a woman with a big heart even though she had a disability. She was also outspoken about the racism in town. One of Moshe's employees, Nate, asks Moshe and Chona to hide his nephew, Dodo, a deaf orphan that state officials want to put into a state institution. Dodo wasn't born deaf, it was caused by an explosion in a kitchen. Maybe that's why Dodo is able to understand what people are saying and why he is quick to learn things. Nevertheless, he is eventually caught and taken to the institution where he becomes friends with another disabled boy. In the institution, Dodo comes to the attention of a night orderly who has carnal desires for him. Nate is determined to get him out of the institution but it is not an easy task. Will Dodo be permanently scarred by this incarceration even if Nate does get him out? Well, read the book to find out this and much much more including who the body in the well was.

      I listened to the audio of this book and I loved the narrator, Dominic Hoffman. Because of the wealth of detail in this book it might have been better to read it but the narration added something that just reading would lack.
    • 4/5

      May 20, 2024

      While I had a few quibbles with this novel, I enjoyed it overall. I loved the story of Chicken Hill and its Jewish and Black residents. The hub of the community is Chona, a Jewish woman, who inspires both groups with her principled stands and courage in the face of bigotry.

      I had this book on my TBR and was happy to get to it sooner, thanks to the impetus of my new book group. We had a really good discussion about it, and one comment helped me appreciate the novel even more. In an interview, McBride apparently spoke of the book as being similar to jazz - with one player (character) taking center stage and then moving aside for another one, but the entire group forming a coherent whole to tell a story.

      4 stars
    • 5/5

      May 20, 2024

      Book on CD read by Dominic Hoffman


      McBride begins this work of historical fiction in 1972, when skeletal remains are discovered at the bottom of a dry well by a construction crew. From there the story goes back to the early 20th century and the thriving community of Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where immigrant Jews who originally settled the area are moving out as the African Americans move in. But Moshe and Chona, who run the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and live in the apartment above the business, refuse to leave. They continue to serve the African-American community and are comfortable with their neighbors.

      The crux of the story revolves around Dodo, an African-American orphan who is deaf (as the result of the gas stove in his residence exploding), and whom the state wishes to consign to the notorious Pennhurst Asylum. The efforts of Dodo’s aunt and uncle, Addie and Nate, and of Moshe and Chona, to keep Dodo away from that hellish environment is the basic plot.

      But the novel is less plot-driven than character-driven. McBride paints a colorful and intricate landscape, of two equally strong cultures co-existing because of the strength of character of their leaders. They rely on and support one another. They show compassion and empathy and love. And, yes, anger and disdain as well. There were times when I wanted McBride to “get on with it.” But I was invested in all these characters, even the unlikeable ones. I recognized that I needed to know all of them to understand the dynamics of Chicken Hill. At its heart, this is a story of community, cooperation, tolerance and respect.

      The hardest section to stomach was the part set at Pennhurst. My heart broke for Monkey Pants, and I wanted to throttle Son of Man (and the administrators who allowed him to prey on the helpless).

      Readers should definitely read the acknowledgement section at the end, where McBride tells of the real-life heroes and mentors who inspired this work of fiction.

      Dominic Hoffman does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. He has a lot of characters to deal with, but he is up for the task. I was rarely confused about who was speaking (and when I was, it was MY fault, for not paying attention).
    • 4/5

      May 9, 2024

      A story of community, racism, stigmas, and resilience.
      In the town of Pottstown, PA, a story evolves of a town that has been marked by its population of Jews and Christians, blacks and whites, and those who are shunned due to a disability.
      Moshe and Chona Ludlow are main characters. Moshe integrated his theater and Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. A young deaf boy is going to be institutionalized, but Chona and Nate Timblin, the janitor at Moshe’s theater and leader of the black community on Chicken Hill, decide to keep him safe. We learn of the reasons, and how they worked against biases. Meanwhile, the racist gets his due!
      I found the story interesting, but I thought the author's note was the most inspiring!
    • 3/5

      May 7, 2024

      Liked it, didn't love it. Characters, and keeping track of all of them, was an issue for me. I didn't really identify with any of them except maybe Chona. The beginning, and ending, which bring the whole thing whole circle, were a bit confusing to me.
      Moshe and Chona run the Heaven and Earth Grocery store, and Moshe also owns and operates a local theater/dance hall, where both Jewish and Black musicians perform. They help their neighbors, Nate and Addie hide their deaf nephew Dodo from the "state" who believe the boy needs to be institutionalized.
      Race relations, and prejudice are a big part of the story. I did particularly like the relationships between the Jews and the Black people, who were often friendly and helpful to each other, but never really "understood" the others.
    • 5/5

      May 4, 2024

      This book is set in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1930s and focuses on the Black and Jewish communities in that town. The Jewish community is generally upwardly-mobile, but one Jewish couple, Moishe and Chona, stay in the Black neighborhood, where he runs a music theater that often caters to a Black audience, and she runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, which never turns a profit but is a community hub thanks to Chona's deep care for her neighbors. Chona takes in a Black boy who has been rendered deaf and orphaned by an exploding stove accident, which creates trouble when white authorities want to put the boy in a mental institution.

      McBride's writing is witty and delightful. The characters are vivid, and most of them are very lovable. He often goes on long tangents: when a new character is introduced, he'll tell that character's entire life story. These tangents might be frustrating if they weren't all well-written, and the extra detail about the characters adds a lot of depth to their interactions. The characters might suffer from disability, poverty, and racism, but they make up for it with love and care so that the book is ultimately hopeful.
    • 4/5

      Apr 30, 2024

      The setting is Chicken Hill, a neighborhood in Pottstown, PA that is populated by Negros, Jews, and European immigrants. Set during the mid-twentieth century the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is run by Chona, a good hearted soul who allows credit, forgives debt, and makes no earnings for the grocery store. Her husband, Moshe, runs a dance hall that is integrated and brings in dance bands which are touring the country. Nate is Moshe's right hand man and his wife Addie helps with the grocery store and helps Chona who is disabled from childhood polio.

      Nate and Addie assume responsibility for nephew, Dodo, who is deaf from the explosion of a stove, when his mother dies. Dodo comes to the attention of state authorities who want to put him in a residential home. The rest of the book revolves around the characters (many of them with more than one name) of Chicken Hill trying to conceal Dodo from the authorities, then working to free him from the residential school once he is captured.

      It took me about half way through the book to get engaged with the story because there were so many characters and so many back stories. The story is populated with people who are marginalized by society in general and who ban together to work for the greater good of one another, though they sometimes have their own sense of justice.
    • 2/5

      Mar 12, 2024

      2.75 Hard to push through story.

      Frustrated with the plotting and prose. There were far too many characters which made the story hard to follow at times. If it were not for it being a buddy read, I would have DNF'd the book three chapters in. Dodo's story caught me and helped me to finish. I do not know why there were so many subplots and how that was suppose to benefit the story. I was not sure he McBride would ever get back to the mystery in the beginning. The pacing was uneven, which made it hard to stay engaged. Overall, this is not a book that I would reach for again.