Meandering. Thought provoking. Childhood. Survival. Abusive relationships. Growing up. Broken. Waiting. Confusing. Raw.
I don’t know what else to say. This book mystified me. However, I couldn’t just walk away. I had to find out if Ruth was going to be ok. Not sure if I found the answer or not.
I enjoyed going on this adventure with Agatha Arch. However, two things stuck out to me…
”But is this immediacy a good thing? What does it do to hearts and minds and anxiety levels to know everything—bad and good—at every moment? (289)
We live in a society today where everything is shared on the internet. As O’Keefe states “bad and good.” Where did this need to know everything come from? How do we react to the postings of our family and friends? The internet has become the fast food restaurant of information. Drive-thru and feast on your fill of details, photos, heartaches, and dysfunction with one easy click.
“‘I am not a bully,’ she says. ‘I am a realist.’” (277)
Anonymity. Shooting straight from the hip. Unsolicited advice. These all combine to create a toxic online environment. Empathy. Compassion. Thrown away in the guise of truthfulness. Harassment. Bully.
O’Keefe’s character became a better human being by the end of the novel. But how many people see the internet as their own public forum, where they can shout and be hurtful without any sense of shame? Not caring who they hurt.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But names will break our spirits.”
The Misfits - James Howe
Trapped by our own devices. Order. Routine. Rituals. But what happens when those very devices that we create to make sense of our lives backfire? What are we left with? Can we move past what once gave us comfort?
Leaving what we know and the routines we fall into, is never easy. Change could lead to chaos. Change could lead to new and different experiences, ones we didn’t even know existed. How do we embrace a future different from how we always thought it would be?
Courage. Strength. Support. A willingness to fail. A determination to get up and start moving again. Open mind. Open heart.
New York City 1919
New York City 1966
Fiona Davis always draws me in. The history. The layers of fictional and non-fictional characters. The settings.
The Frick Mansion. The Gilded Age. The supermodel of the 1910s. An heiress. A suitor. An organist. A murder. The Magnolia Diamond. An intern. A wanna-be-model. Wealth. An unbelievable art collection.
The Frick mansion is the perfect backdrop for a juxtaposition between the ultra wealthy and the working class. The haves and have-nots. Impropriety. Social stigmas. Greed. Jealousy. AND a who-done-it! Jumping back and forth between 1919 and 1966 - seeing the Frick Mansion change from residence to art museum. The one constant throughout the novel is the artwork itself.
Women breaking the mold. Facing the challenges of being “working girls.” Finding their way in a man’s world. Settling for nothing. Grabbing with both hands, until…
1875. New Orleans.
What we choose to remember from our childhood is but a snapshot. Events that live in our hearts. But what if those same pieces of our past were so ugly, those memories simply weren’t there? How could you live a life devoid of a past? What choices would you make? What if that past nawed at you? Jumped out at you in glimpses?
Add to that the fact that you are a professional black woman in a community that doesn’t even see you. How do you reconcile your missing past with the future that you see for yourself? How will history write your chapter? Will it be “whitewashed”? Fitting a narrative that is far from the truth?
Jumping back to 1875. Post Reconstruction. Waiting another 90 years for anything close to being on equal terms with the community as a whole. That strong black woman, whose shoulders so many other women stood…
Seems odd that in 2024 we are fighting some of the same fights that Skenandore’s main character fought. Equal rights. Reproductive freedom. Remember the past. Learn from it. Work to make the future what we want, as women.
A jigsaw puzzle.
Pieces from Nigeria. Pieces from the United States. Pieces that fit perfectly. Pieces missing. Pieces that wouldn’t go together in my head as I read. Trying to follow where this story was going as each chapter unfolded proved difficult…like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together without a picture for reference. Pieces scattered all over the table. Some pieces dropped, lost.
In the end I found the author’s message about the future rather foreboding. I also found a piece missing from my own life: “…how little he needed me, how irrelevant I was in the grand scheme of his life.” (206) Those pieces are misshapen, making the puzzle impossible to complete.
“Give a girls the right shoes and she can conquer the world.” - Marilyn Monroe (VII)
If you were to write your life’s story, how would you label each chapter? What if you told your story by the shoes you wore? How would that look?
Buster Browns. Keds. Dr. Scholl’s. Cherokee.
I might have had a small shoe fetish, when I was working, but nowhere near what my daughter-in-law’s collection. She could give the characters in this novel a run for their money. Suffice to say, shoes complete me, just as they did Esme.
But, are shoes enough? Navigating a troubled past. Trying to pick up where you left off seven years earlier…is that possible? Are you the same person you were then? How does the plan change as your understanding of the past changes? How do you let go, and reach for the future with both hands? Is love possible?
Everyone is entitled to a “happily-ever-after” ending…so what shoes do you wear?
