#5 – The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

James McBride’s 2013 book The Good Lord Bird, an almost farcical account of a young Black boy’s adventures with the abolitionist John Brown, is one of my favorite books of all-time. Funny, unexpectedly poignant, and with a finger on the pulse of America’s original sin. The dialogue sparkled and the writing was so fluid as to be almost liquid.

The same gifted writer produced another unusual tale this year and showed off the same authorial dexterity. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store tracks the evolution of a Jewish and African-American neighborhood known as Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. McBride has an eye and ear for vibrant characters and there are many here (almost too many) from Chona, wife of Moshe and manager of the titular grocery, to Dodo, a deaf boy who finds himself locked in an asylum after having been protected by the community.

The class and race lines are complicated. It’s America, after all. One of the Jewish characters wonders if becoming part of the American stewpot is worth the cost. “We are integrating into a burning house,” he says. (71) But there is life bursting out everywhere, despite the trials.

The story is set within the loose frame of an historical mystery—Whose bones are down at the bottom of the old well?—but the day-to-day interactions of the community capture all the attention. McBride keeps adding to the texture and new characters keep showing up long after the end is in sight, but you sense a master writer who is also a jazz musician at work—weaving themes and reveling in the play.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store comes in at #5 on this year’s Best Reads. The previous entries:

#6 – The Ninety-Third Name of God by Anya Krugovoy Silver

#7 – Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

#8 – The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

#9 – Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

#10 – Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson