Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves

 

Description

In this astonishingly accomplished, morally complicated, “exceptional and starkly beautiful debut” (Kevin Powers, National Book Award–nominated author of The Yellow Birds), a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins and find peace after being sent to prison for manslaughter.

Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life’s work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father’s failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn’t do something, he begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoe’s grasp.

Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoe’s illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. Now an unmoored Roscoe must carve out a place at Kilby Prison. Climbing the ranks of the incarcerated from dairy hand to librarian to “dog boy,” an inmate who helps the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimes—for him and his family—is greater than he ever let himself believe.

Gorgeously spare and brilliantly insightful, Work Like Any Other is “a striking debut about love and redemption, the heavy burdens of family and guilt, and learning how to escape them…Virginia Reeves is a major new talent” (Philipp Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of The Son).

This is a work of historical fiction, set in the south in the mid 1920s Before the story has begun we are already aware there will be a death on this land and that Roscoe Martin will be jailed for it. The story flashes back and forth between the time leading up to that death and jail sentence, to the time Roscoe is currently serving out his sentence and then continues past his eventual release. He and his wife Marie were not exactly the happiest married couple you will ever encounter though they did both try to make things work in their own way up until his jail time when Marie totally abandoned him. Roscoe had never actually wanted to be a farmer and his resentment of that was often felt by his wife and son. This was a tragic story of the breakdown of not only a marriage but ultimately a family.
I enjoyed the story but I could have done without the excessive descriptions of wires, coils transformers and how electricity works.

I received an advance copy for review

Evicted by Matthew Desmond

Description

From Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America
 
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stick up after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.

The fate of these families is in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former school teacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs the worst trailer park in the fourth poorest city in the country. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, “Love don't pay the bills.” She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas.

Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending over half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America's vast inequality—and to people's determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.

Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation, while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

 

This is a work of non fiction, the story of 8 families and their struggle to make ends meet, and their often times less than sympathetic slum lords.
I would say it is an unbiased look, showing both sides from the perspective of tenants and their landlords but in a matter of fact way.

The reason I wanted to read this book was because we struggled ourselves to make it through the recession and I was curious what it was like for these other families. However our own situation was quite different in that we were never on welfare or SSI and we were never criminals or drug users or from families with a long history of broken homes and unwanted pregnancies. Our financial collapse was due to my husband's employer living large and committing tax fraud, and deducting social security from everyone's pay while not actually paying social security. When the company went into receivership and then out of business owing everyone 2 weeks pay we were already falling behind in our bills. So that additional month that it took from the time they closed to the time the first too small unemployment check arrived was brutal and the closest we have ever come to being homeless. We were not at all prepared to go 6 weeks with 0 income, and that coupled with the fact that there just plain were no jobs made for the most difficult year of our lives.

Anyway back to the book, this was a well written and well researched look at poverty in America and the landlords who make their living off the poverty stricken.

 

I received an advance copy for review

 

The Consultant by Bentley Little

Description
CompWare is in serious trouble after a promised merger falls through, so they do what other businesses have done to bolster their public image: they hire a consulting firm to review and streamline their business practices.

But there's something strange about the firm they hire--more specifically, the quirky gentleman who arrives to supervise the project: Mr. Patoff, tall and thin and wearing a bow tie, and with an odd smile that never quite reaches his eyes.

In his first interactions, the consultant asks a few inappropriate questions, and generally seems a nuisance. Over time, Patoff gains more power, to the point where he seems to be running the whole company. He enacts arbitrary and invasive changes to office protocol. He places cameras all over the building, making workers paranoid; he calls employees at all hours of the night, visits some of their homes and menaces their families.

People who defy the consultant get fired… or worse.

They soon realize they're not just fighting for their jobs: They're fighting for their lives.

The Consultant is a biting workplace satire, with the horrific touches only Bentley Little could provide.


In the same vein as his previous novels The Store, The Policy, The Resort etc  Bentley Little paints a horrifying (yet satirically comedic) picture of big business as an evil entity. While I did mostly enjoy this story, as a long time fan of the author I can't help but notice I'm starting to feel that he is basically writing the same book over and over. He has a formula and he sticks to it. Because of that, if you have read his previous works you may find this one a bit predictable.

The Sentinel by by Jeffrey Konvitz

Description

A New York Times Bestseller: A young woman descends into a demonic madness—only to discover that it’s not simply in her mind

Aspiring model Allison Parker finally moves into her dream apartment: a brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But her perfect home quickly turns hellish. The building is filled with a cast of bizarre tenants, including a reclusive blind priest, who watches her day and night through an upstairs window. Eventually, Allison starts seeing things and hearing strange noises from the empty apartment above hers. Before long, she uncovers the building’s demonic secret and is plunged into a nightmare of past misdeeds and evil that knows no bounds.

From New York Times–bestselling author Jeffrey Konvitz, The Sentinel, which was adapted into a feature film starring Ava Gardner, Cristina Raines, and Chris Sarandon, is classic horror at its best.

 

 

This is a classic horror that I missed out on the first time around because I never knew it was a book. I remember seeing the movie when I was a kid or bits of it anyway but I didn't realize it was adapted from a book.

A model with a dark past moves into a great apartment with affordable rent. All is well until she meets her neighbors!

Some of the language is a bit dated but the story itself stands up to the test of time.

I would rate it 4 of 5 stars.

I received a complimentary copy for review.