Book Reviews: Turning of Days; White as Silence, Red as Song; All That She Carried
Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Seasons, and Spirit by Hannah Anderson, with illustrations by Nathan Anderson (Moody Publishers, 2021)
Hannah Anderson is someone whose lightest thoughts and words are so wise, unique, and profound that I’m constantly urging people to read her Twitter threads. So you can imagine how avidly I devour her books. Her latest, Turning of Days, is no exception.
Turning of Days is Hannah’s first devotional. But like her previous books, it draws on nature—specifically, the nature surrounding her and her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains where they live—for deep insights about life and faith. Unlike her previous books, it enhances her words with some beautiful illustrations of plants and animals by her husband, Nathan.
Turning of Days came out earlier this year, but with its focus on the seasons and their differing qualities, I’m glad I happened to read it during the transition from summer to fall. It would be a wonderful book to read at any time, but to read it while the seasons actually are turning is a particularly rich experience.
White as Silence, Red as Song by Alessandro D’Avenia, translated by Tabitha Sowden (English edition Thomas Nelson, 2018)
When you look at this book on Goodreads, you notice quite a few five-star reviews, and quite a few one-star reviews as well. I can understand why it might be polarizing. When I began reading it, I was initially so put off by the narrator’s voice that I immediately put it back down for a while.
But I finally picked it up again, as part of a reading challenge I’m doing (category: “A Book You Have Avoided”). And I was surprised to find that, before too long, I was completely won over.
Leo, the narrator I mentioned, is that kind of person. He starts off as an arrogant young twerp, completely absorbed in his own concerns and treating all but a handful of others with contempt. The novel (originally published in Italian in 2010) traces his slow, painful growth into a mature young man, driven mainly by his relationships with two girls, Beatrice and Silvia. As much as he originally repelled me, I couldn’t help coming to like him and sympathize with him in the end.
D’Avenia’s writing, in Sowden’s translation, is both sensitive and strong. He has a good handle on his difficult young protagonist, placing him in situations that believably challenge and transform his character. Beatrice and Silvia, too, are well-drawn, and their relationships with Leo are commendably complex. The author gives us his own twist on well-worn Young Adult concepts that shakes the staleness off them and draws the reader in. It’s a book I’m very glad I picked up again.
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles (Random House, 2021)
In 2007, a shopper at a Tennessee flea market came across an old sack in a fabric bin. Stitched on it were these words:
My great grandmother Rose
mother of Ashley gave her this sack when
she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina
it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of
pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her
It be filled with my love always
she never saw her again
Ashley is my grandmother
Ruth Middleton
1921
The shopper quickly realized she had stumbled on something important. She bought the sack, took it to an appraiser, and eventually donated it to South Carolina’s Middleton Place Foundation, who loaned it to the Smithsonian. In All That She Carried, historian Tiya Miles undertakes to tell its story.
It’s no small task that Miles has set herself. The very nature of slavery, the conditions that made it imperative for a woman to hastily pack a bag for the young daughter being stolen from her, make it all but impossible to trace their family line. Diligent detective work turned up only the bare minimum of information about a woman and a girl who may have been the Rose and Ashley in question. Ruth is easier to find in the historical record, but we still don’t know enough about her or her family to fill a book, or even the majority of a book.
Miles fills up the gaps with plenty of historical and cultural context, examining everything from why Rose might have chosen pecans to put in the sack, to the makeup of the bag and the dress and what symbolic significance they might have held. It’s a tricky endeavor. We learn a lot of vital information about both Rose and Ashley’s era, and Ruth’s. But at times, there’s so much detail that that central poignant artifact, the sack itself, can’t help but get a little lost. (I feel much the same way about my own review, to be honest. The sack and its message are so “visceral,” as one woman puts it, that any words following their description seem useless.)
So the book is at its best when Miles is able to concentrate on her central characters and what we do know about them, or when she’s writing about other women, such as Elizabeth Keckley and Harriet Jacobs, who shared some of the same brutal experiences. Ultimately, she manages to paint a tragic yet somehow hopeful picture of that sack, and of the child who clutched it as she went to the auction block, that I expect will stay with me for a very long time.
(Cover images copyright Moody Publishers, Thomas Nelson, and Random House, respectively.)
Book Links:
Turning of Days on Amazon
Turning of Days on Bookshop
White as Silence, Red as Song on Amazon
White as Silence, Red as Song on Bookshop
All That She Carried on Amazon
All That She Carried on Penguin Random House
Other Links:
I reviewed Washington Stage Guild’s online production of Dear Liar, a play about George Bernard Shaw and his relationship with actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, for DC Metro Theater Arts. As I’m sending out this newsletter, the play is available to stream online for free for a couple more hours. If you’re interested, follow the links in my review! It’d make a nice way to spend a Sunday evening.