The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

[Gina]

The author: James McBride is a native New Yorker and a graduate of New York City public schools. He studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and received his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University in New York at age 22. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is married with three children. He lives in Pennsylvania and New York.

James McBride is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, People Magazine, and The Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. His April, 2007 National Geographic story entitled “Hip Hop Planet” is considered a respected treatise on African American music and culture. https://calabash.typepad.com/world_mu...

As a musician, he has written songs (music and lyrics) for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., and Gary Burton, among others. He served as a tenor saxophone sideman for jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott. He is the recipient of several awards for his work as a composer in musical theater including the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award. His “Riffin’ and Pontificatin’ ” Tour, a nationwide tour of high schools and colleges promoting reading through jazz, was captured in a 2003 Comcast documentary. He has been featured on national radio and television programs in America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The story in a nutshell: In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community-heaven and earth-that sustain us.


Awards: National Jewish Book Award for Book Club Award (2023), PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee for Longlist (2024), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2023), NAACP Image Award Nominee for Fiction (2024), Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Award (2023), Libby Award for Best Adult Fiction (2023)

I found this book s a bit harder to read than Deacon King Kong, but I enjoyed it. The varied people living in Chicken Hill were outsized characters and the little boy, Dodo, was my favorite. It's the old story of rotten politicians and the great divide between the wealthy and the poor, and there's lots of racism too.

[Justin]

Thank you for the information, Gina. I loved this book and was upset that it wasn't at least nominated for the Pulitzer. The story of Black and Jewish Americans working together to help a disabled (deaf) boy (Dodo) was inspiring ("It wasn't no them and us," p. 290), especially given its setting in a time of corrupt authorities ("This town is run by thieves," p. 215) and open racial prejudice (with the local doctor even marching with the KKK).

I also thought McBride did an excellent job of showing how the prejudice at the time shares similarities to what we see today, with Doc Roberts and the other white racists being upset about increasing diversity and social change, and believing that white people made the country great.

It would have been cool to hear more of Nate's backstory, IMO.

The evil guard, "son of man," was awful. It is terrifying to think that institutions (mental and correctional) really had (and have) people like this working in them.

[spoko]

I’m surprised how few author bios for McBride mention that he was raised as a Black man, only to discover as an adult that his mother was Jewish. In some sense, he may have been uniquely positioned to write a book like this.

[Jane]

It has been awhile since I read this, but one thing I like about McBride's books is that not all white people are bad. We had the love story between the white cop and the Black lady in DEACON KING KONG. McBride seems to find some good in some white people. And there is always humor.

[Shirley]

Jane, you mention something that has bothered me about a lot of contemporary literature, and that is the stereotypical portrayal of all minority characters as faultless. I'm always pleased to find writers who portray human nature more realistically.

[Sue]

I finished the book late and now join the discussion to say how much I enjoyed this novel. This is the first time I’ve read one of McBride’s books and I plan to read all of them now. I agree with the comments about the characters, i.e. none being perfect examples of immigrant minorities but instead being more realistic individuals. I think that’s the strength of this story. Even the villains had very human weak spots that were at least momentarily relatable. And Chona drove her husband a bit crazy.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that I became so involved in.

[Ann D]

It's been a while since I read this book, but after a somewhat slow start, I ended up giving it 5 stars. McBride is a wonderful story teller. I really like the way he ties all the seemingly disparate threads together at the end. I also appreciate the fact that his books have mostly happy endings for the characters I have grown to love.

The first book I read of his was The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, published in 1995. He didn't find out his mother was Jewish until he was grown up. Her father was a would-be rabbi and abused his children. He also had a small grocery store that had mostly black customers, but he treated them very badly, in complete contrast to the behavior of Chona and Moshe.

I believe Chona was modeled party on Mcbride's mother. She was a remarkable and very loving woman. I always liked the fact that she told her kids that God was "the color of water." When the kids were small and they questioned her race, she just said she was "light-skinned." For her, race was not important.

[Sue]

Thanks for all of the biographical information, Ann. It helps in seeing how he created a lot of the characters in this book. Or at least how he conceived the idea of them.

[Maureen]

I just finished this book. I really enjoyed it. I had not read any of his other books. I loved the sense of community these people had. How they helped one another. I felt Chona was the heart and sole of the story. I listed to the audio version, sometimes I got lost with so many characters. I gave it 4 stars.

[Gina]

I also listened to the audio version and at first, it was difficult to keep track of the many characters. My sister has started reading it about three times, always getting lost before she gets involved in the story.

[Amy]

I wanted to like this book, but I kept getting frustrated by the innumerable tangents - frequently in mid-conversation and once in mid-fight - into the life story of some minor character. It made the story very difficult to follow for me. But I listened to it on Audible; friends of mine who read the book did not seem to have difficulty following along. Perhaps there are visual cues in how the text is formatted, or you can simply flip back and forth few pages to reorient yourself. I thought the narrator did a remarkable job with the various accents.

And, after SO much character development, it struck me that the plot itself developed and then abruptly ended, as though the author felt he had run out of time and needed to wrap things up NOW. I did enjoy the story itself, and I’m sure the character development aided that story, but I wished for more balance between the two.

One of the reviews on Goodreads described the book as “jazzy,” and I can see the parallels to that genre of music (which I also have trouble relating to fully).

[Scout]

There were many characters to keep track of and, as Amy suggested, it was easier perhaps to read it in print and be able to flip back to previous pages for clarification. I enjoyed the novel overall because it showed how people of differing ethnicites can interact with humanity.

[Mary Anne]

I'm finally checking in here. Thank you for the wonderful summary, Gina, and great information on McBride, Ann.

This is the 4th McBride I've read: The Color of Water, The Good Lord Bird, Deacon King Kong are the other three. I do still like Deacon King Kong the best because the tone overall, in spite of the serious issues, seems lighter somehow. Heaven and Earth had a certain edginess that seemed to underpin the entire story. Right from the start, when years after the main story, a body is found at the bottom of a well, and the "person of interest" runs off, the reader knows that this book will be different. I think McBride really shows his depth as a writer in this book.

I also had trouble following all of the characters. I started writing them down on an index card, but then I found this cheat sheet was much better: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?
https://www.bookcompanion.com/qe_the_...

Lastly, I think McBride's trademark is the way he shows diverse cultures living in the same town, in this case during the Jim Crow era, and sometimes the proximity works and sometimes it doesn't. But we can rely on McBride to point out the racism in a way that doesn't seem preachy or punishing.

[Gina]

That's a great cheat sheet. I wish I had it when I was reading this. Thanks.

[spoko]

That’s actually a pretty great site (https://www.bookcompanion.com/). I’m going to bookmark that one for future reads. They only have a certain selection of books, but for the ones they do have, it would be a great reference!

[Shirley]

Yes, what a helpful list of characters!

[Book Concierge]

Wonderful website! I've bookmarked it.

I've read almost all of McBride's books (haven't gotten to Deacon King Kong yet) .

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride – 5*****
This work of historical fiction begins in 1972, but is mostly set in the early 20th century in the Jewish / Black neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania known as Chicken Hill. It is a character-driven work. McBride paints a colorful and intricate landscape, of two equally strong cultures co-existing because of the strength of character of their leaders. At its heart, this is a story of community, cooperation, tolerance and respect.
LINK to my full review

[Shirley]

I realize i'm a bit late, but I just finished reading this for the second time, and it was even better than I remembered. I'm even more struck by McBride’s rich prose, particularly in the epilogue.
But the character I keep coming back to is Malachi. His character seemed a bit contradictory. Was there an element of magical realism about him? What was McBride's purpose in including him? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Shirley]

Correction: an element of magical realism …