Review of "Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie: A Holland Family Novel" by James Lee Burke

This 5th book in the 'Holland Family Saga' focuses on Bessie Mae Holland, a smart, brave, righteous teenage fireball. The book works fine as a standalone.

*****

It's 1914, and fourteen -year-old Bessie Holland is living on a Texas ranch with her sixteen-year-old brother Cody and her father Hackberry.





Hackberry's other children have long since scattered to the winds and disappeared, driven away by Hackberry's behavior and negligence.

Before liquor got him, Hackberry was a Texas Ranger, a rodeo star, and a hero in the state of Texas.



Now - when he's home - a hungover Hackberry is likely to be found doing backbreaking work on his ranch, unshaved, dressed in his long underwear, canvas britches, colorless boots, and sweat-ringed battered Stetson hat. Bessie observes, "I cannot believe the degree to which he punished his body and still managed to do the physical labor of an elephant. I always had the feeling he nursed his pain in order to absolve himself of the great harm he had done to his family, particularly my mother, who bore him one child after another until she died in a wagon trying to make the hospital."

To make thing's worse, Hackberry's gambling debts and tax arrears have put the ranch in jeopardy.



Bessie is also distressed by Hackberry's weakness for women. "He wasn't just a womanizer, he had them on the brain all the time, drunk or not, every race, thin as clothes hangers or fat women who ate Goo-Goo Clusters around the clock." Bessie especially dislikes Hackberry's friend, Bertha Lafleur, a wealthy madam who visits the ranch sometimes. Hackberry and Bertha met years ago, when Hackberry was a Texas Ranger and rescued Bertha from sadistic cowboys who were tormenting her. The cowboys ended up dead.



In truth, the Hollands are a brutal family. Hackberry's father was Sam Morgan Holland, a violent man who rode the Chisholm Trail and shot and killed nine men, and Hackberry followed in his footsteps. Bessie knows that Hackberry and his friends still carry guns, though they're no longer lawmen, and have no remorse about taking a human life if they consider it legal.



The drama in this book starts with a fight. Bessie's brother Cody.....



.....beats up Jubal Fowler, the roughest boy in the schoolyard, for peeking at Bessie in the outhouse.



Jubal retaliates by shooting a marble into Cody's eye with a slingshot. A furious Hackberry goes to confront Jubal's white trash father at his job in the slaughterhouse, and Bessie goes along. Things go sideways, and Bessie ends up shooting Mr. Fowler twice, and injuring him badly.



When Bessie is arrested for shooting an unarmed man, a spirit called Mr. Slick comes to the rescue. Mr. Slick tells the sheriff he saw Mr. Fowler hide a gun after the kerfuffle, and lo and behold, the sheriff finds a gun - a weapon planted by Mr. Slick.



Mr. Slick is a unique spirit. He's solid rather than ghostly, he eats and sleeps and so on, and he's always visible to Bessie. Other people, though, may or may not see Mr. Slick. Bessie also has a mystical connection with a girl who was raped and murdered years ago, and whose body has never been found.

In addition to Mr. Slick, Bessie is friendly with the schoolteacher, Miz Ida Banks. The school's textbooks are tattered, dirty, and useless, so Miz Banks brings her classics to school and reads to the class - works by Hawthorne, Homer, Keats, and Emily Dickinson.



Miz Banks is a spinster, a northerner and a suffragette, and she rubs local politicians the wrong way. Thus she's fired, and newspaper editorials rail about the 'filth' being taught in Texas schools. However Bessie admires Miz Banks and wants to be like her and to have her knowledge and manners.

James Lee Burke's villains are always repellent scum, and in this book we have crooked sheriffs, devious lawmen, and bigoted misogynistic riffraff. The worst offender is evil sadistic Indian Charlie (so called for killing Indians), who has a grudge against Hackberry from way back. Indian Charlie is bent on vengeance, and is further inflamed when drugs, money, and oil wells enter the scene.



As events progress, teenage Cody leaves Texas for New York City, where he lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side, works in a boxing gym, and hangs out with a rough crowd. After Bessie experiences a violent incident in Texas - and Hackberry goes off to fight Pancho Villa and Mexicans - Bessie joins Cody in New York.



There Bessie befriends several young boys - Benny Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Owney Madden - who will grow up to be infamous gangsters.



(Note: Bessie also meets Davy Crockett in this book, when he's on the way to the Alamo, and Bessie makes fun of his coonskin cap.)



Trouble in New York sends Bessie back to Texas, where the Hollands' get involved in the oil business, teenage Bessie starts a film company, and the Hollands' problems with Winthrop Fowler and Indian Joe escalate.



The story is replete with violence of all kinds: shootings, beatings, rape, hangings, torture, arson, murder, etc.....and Bessie does what she feels is necessary. That aside, Bessie is a VERY smart Baptist girl who's unfailingly polite. For instance, when Bessie meets a man called Digger Dog, she addresses him as Mr. Dog. Bessie is also well-read, quotes literature and the Bible, and wields her tongue like a sword. Besse's put-downs are apt (and fun), though the low-lifes she targets often don't 'get it.'

Bessie is a memorable character, and this book is a fine addition to the Holland Saga. The story is compelling and Burke's descriptions of the Texas landscape and New York streets are colorful and detailed.



Burke is a literary treasure, and I highly recommend this novel.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Review of "The Missing Pages: A Historical Fiction Novel" by Alyson Richman

In her foreword, author Alyson Richman writes 'The Missing Pages' was inspired by her daughter's visit to Harvard University, where the tour guide told a story about the school's Widener Library.

Background: When the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, one victim of the tragedy was 27-year-old Harry Elkins Widener, a wealthy American businessman and bibliophile. Harry and his parents, Eleanor and George Widener, were returning from a trip to England, and Harry and his father went down with the ship.


Harry Elkins Widener


Eleanor and George Widener

Harry's mother Eleanor was consumed with grief, and decided to honor Harry's memory by creating the 'Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library' at Harry's alma mater, Harvard University.


The Widener Library at Harvard University

The center of the Widener Library features the 'Widener Memorial Room', a faithful re-creation of Harry's home study, containing his book collection.


The Harry Elkins Widener room at the Widener Library

This novel creates a history for Harry, and intertwines it with the fictional tale of Violet Hutchins, a junior at Harvard in 1992.

*****

This is my review of 'The Missing Pages', a historical fiction novel.

Violet Hutchins, a third-year student at Harvard University, is mourning the recent death of her boyfriend Hugo, who died in a tragic swimming accident.



Violet's job as a library page for Harvard's rare book and manuscript collection provides some comfort, because Violet loves literature and books.



In addition to shepherding rare tomes from the stacks for students and scholars that request them, Violet is given extra responsibilities. Madeline Singer, the curator for the Harry Widener Room.....



......explains that Eleanor Widener requested fresh flowers be placed on Harry's desk every week.



Madeline asks Violet to choose and order the flowers, and put them in the Widener Room every Wednesday.



Madeline, who's writing a paper about Harry Widener's booksellers, also asks Violet to transcribe letters between Harry Widener.....



.....and two well-known booksellers: A.S.W. Rosenbach in Philadelphia and Bernard Alfred Quaritch in London.


A.S.W. Rosenbach (left) and Bernard Alfred Quaritch

Unknown to historians and archivists, Harry's correspondence with Quaritch's bookshop led to a secret friendship between Harry and Quaritch's assistant, Ada Lippoldt. Ada was intelligent, refined, and well-educated, but she would have been considered 'below' the Wideners' social class.



As Violet 'gets to know' Harry through his letters, she starts to feel his presence in the Widener Library.....



.....and indeed Harry's ghost is present and watching.



More than that, Harry communicates with Violet by dislodging a gilded laurel leaf that frames his portrait in the Widener Room, tipping books off shelves, and performing other supernatural deeds.

Violet realizes Harry is trying to communicate something, and she intuits Harry wants her to know he was in love. Knowledge of this would be a breakthrough, because during his life, Harry was never associated with a romantic interest.



Harry's feelings resonate with Violet, because she's still bereft about losing Hugo, who was very important in her life.

The novel toggles among three POVs: Violet, Harry, and Ada.

In Violet's chapters, we learn about her relationship with Hugo and her current life: Violet misses Hugo, who rowed crew and (unlike Violet) came from a wealthy family; in her grief, Violet can't bear to go to social functions; she's majoring in literature studies; she has a compassionate suitemate named Sylvia; she's friendly with Hugo's crewmate Theo, who understands her bereavement; and more. 



In Harry's sections, he talks about his time at Harvard; the books he loved and collected; his regard for his parents, especially his mother; his relationship with Ada Lippoldt; his journey on the doomed Titanic - a ship that sounds like a floating hotel with every possible luxury, even a bowling alley; and so on.









In Ada's parts, we see the relationship with Harry from her perspective.



The book has a tangential storyline (based on a true story) about sabotage at the Widener Library. Someone is stealing and damaging rare books, and Violet's 'odd behavior and interest in ghosts' makes her a suspect.

All this leads to a satisfying climax, which is assembled bit by bit throughout the story.

Note: The bejeweled copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam described in the book REALLY WAS lost on the Titanic.



I almost never read romance novels, but I enjoyed this book, which is more of an intellectual romance than a torrid love story. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, Alyson Richman, and Union Square & Co. for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 4 stars