{"id":229,"date":"2018-12-31T11:20:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=229"},"modified":"2018-12-31T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:20:17","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=229","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Foreword Reviews, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, and blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com. Her reviews appear or are forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Sarah McCoy<\/span> is the New York Times, USA Today,<\/span> and international bestselling author of The Mapmaker\u2019s Children; The Baker\u2019s Daughter, <\/span>a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella \u201cThe Branch of Hazel\u201d in Grand Central;<\/span> and The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. <\/span>Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post<\/span> and other publications. She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband, an Army physician, and their dog, Gilly, in El Paso, Texas. Connect with Sarah on Twitter at @SarahMMcCoy, on her Facebook Fan Page, Goodreads, or via her website, www.sarahmccoy.com.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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For summer, we’ll be reviewing several recent audiobook editions of Texas books. We hope you enjoy your reading\u2014and driving, hiking, exercising, or whatever you’re doing while you give these titles a listen!<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span>Fiction<\/p>\n

Sarah McCoy<\/span><\/p>\n

The Baker\u2019s Daughter<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Read by Elisabeth Rodgers<\/span><\/p>\n

Audible audio edition, 11 hours and 47 minutes, unabridged, $21.95<\/p>\n

Also available in hardcover (2012), ebook and paperback (Broadway Books, 978-0-307-46019-6, 304 pgs. $13.95, August 2012)<\/p>\n

The Baker\u2019s Daughter by Sarah McCoy<\/span> is an entertaining and illuminating exploration of the false dichotomy between loyalty to country and personal conviction. Moving backward and forward in time between World War II Germany and present-day El Paso, Texas, McCoy draws parallels between those who did what they could to help the Jews and those who do what they can to help Central American immigrants.<\/p>\n

Reba is an El Paso journalist writing a feel-good piece on Christmas traditions around the world. She goes to a German bakery to interview the owners, Elsie, who married an American GI and left Germany for the United States sixty years earlier, and her daughter, Jane. Reba gets more story than she bargained for, and the experience proves transformative.<\/p>\n

McCoy skillfully conjures the atmosphere of terror, paranoia, and desperation in Germany in early 1945. Advice from Elsie\u2019s mother: \u201cDon\u2019t act like a gypsy or Jewess\u2014 unpredictable spirits\u2026.One cross word\u2014 that\u2019s all it takes, Elsie.<\/span>\u201d As befits this novel, food imagery and metaphor abound. \u201cJosef\u2019s world of power, prestige, and uncensored euphoria…dripped off everyone and everything in the room, like fruit glaze on a strawberry tart.\u201d McCoy uses the bounty at a Nazi party to convey the shiny exterior hiding the rotten core of the Reich. Dinner looks appetizing but when Elsie digs in, the pork is \u201cso lardy she needn\u2019t chew; the jelly rind slid down her throat; the potatoes were gray and mushy; the sausage mealy and under cooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCoy\u2019s characters are complex and diverse. My only complaint is Jane\u2019s grammar and mannerisms. She approaches caricature with her \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d for \u201cdoesn\u2019t\u201d and \u201cfeller\u201d for \u2014 what? boyfriend? \u2014 and all that thigh-slapping. She refers to \u201cthe TV\u201d like \u201cthe diabetes.\u201d There are multiple subplots: Reba and her family, Reba and her boyfriend Riki (who is a Border Patrol agent), and one involving a Nazi officer. McCoy has pulled off a rare feat \u2014 each of these subplots is relevant and adds to the narrative.<\/p>\n

Evenly paced, suspenseful approaching the denouement as the Americans and Russians take Germany, The Baker\u2019s Daughter<\/span> holds your attention. The plot is intricate and a joy to watch as the strands are flawlessly woven together. The ending is satisfying, if a bit sweet \u2014 happy endings all around. However, I like to think the sweet mitigates the ick factor of Nazi breeding cults.<\/p>\n

Elisabeth Rodgers, an actress with extensive stage experience who has narrated more than 75 books, including an Audie Award winner and two Audible Earphones Award winners, reads The Baker\u2019s Daughter<\/span> smoothly and evenly, with a good ear for German accents. Though I found her men awkward, Rodgers\u2019 women are distinctive and engaging, and she skillfully conveys age, personality, and atmosphere.<\/p>\n

To whom or what do we owe allegiance? To an abstraction or to the flesh-and-blood human being in front of us? We must examine the distinctions without differences and arbitrary categories we create. As Riki considers, \u201cat what point [does] human compassion trump blind obedience\u201d?<\/p>\n

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Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Foreword Reviews, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, and blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com. Her reviews appear or are forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}