Vernon Can Read! By Vernon Jordan Jr. with Annette Gordon-Reed

(35. - 1107.) Vernon Can Read! By Vernon Jordan Jr. with Annette Gordon-Reed (2001) - In the summer of 1955 the 20 year old Jordan, a second year student at DePauw University, was employed as a chauffeur / butler by Robert F. Maddox, an 80 year old plus banking executive in Atlanta. He has a wonderful library. While Maddox is napping Jordan spends his afternoons reading there. One day Maddox rises earlier and finds Jordan reading. Startled, he advises his family that night that “Vernon can read”. Secure in the superiority of his race he “never thought about those who worked for him in any way that did not directly affect their duties to him”. It was a powerful illustration of what life was like for black Americans in the South of the 1955’s.

Jordan was never going to live the quiet life of his father, Vernon Jordan Sr. who was a good dependable man providing his sons with a stable home.

Jordan was infused with the spirit and drive of his mother, Mary. She moved from rural Georgia to Atlanta to work as a servant. She was not content with a simple life. She wanted a better life and established a successful catering business. She was equally ambitious for her sons.

In ways large and small she motivated Jordan. Her favored name for Jordan was “Man”:

This was her positive way to counteract what she knew would be the outside world’s - the white world’s - view of me even after I had officially passed into manhood.

Writing in 2001 Jordan is intent on providing his “very personal take on the black experience since the end of the Second World War” to the 1980’s. He modestly states:

I hope what follows will be instructive to readers today, and for anyone in the future who wants to know something of what these times were like, as well as the events that took us away from them”.

At 12 in 1947 he is sternly reminded of his place when he is advised a white boy, also 12, he had played with on trips to his rural relatives is now to be addressed as “Mr. Bobby”.

To Jordan perspectives on race are distorted “when class is taken out of the equation”. In addition to his mother’s influence, he believes growing up in a “lower-middle class family” made him a “striver”.

From the age of 5 he was always finding ways to make money including finding and selling golf balls, polishing brass door furnishings and having a newspaper route. Jordan embodied his mother’s hustle.

Writing of the social disadvantage of being a boy who was a good student sounded familiar. Other boys admire athletes, not scholars. Personally, there was some respect in high school but it was not until I reached university that being good at academics was valued.

His mother wrote to him every day at university. One of his “deepest regrets” is that he did not think at 18 to keep these notes and letters of her love and commitment to him.

At graduation from DePauw in 1957 official segregation dominates the South. Jordan, determined to change the system, goes to law school at one of America’s leading black education institutions, Howard University. He is intent upon becoming a civil rights lawyer.

Possibly the most important aspect of life at Howard was that there were girls around him he could date. At DePauw there was an unwritten, but rigid, code of no interracial dating.

After graduating from law school he went to work for an Atlanta lawyer, Donald Hollowell. In his first month he aided Hollowell in trying to save Nathaniel Johnson, a young black man, who had pled guilty to raping a white woman to avoid the death penalty. (He had a good defence though being found not guilty in Georgia of the late 1950’s was doubtful.) The plea did not save him from the death penalty. Taking over the case after state appeeals had failed the duo desperately file applications, appeal to government officials and petition the governor. All their efforts are brushed aside and Johnson is executed. Jordan is exhausted and devastated but he is in the office the next morning. Other clients need him. I am so familiar with being at the office the day after a grueling trial. Maybe a day off is possible but waiting cases demand attention.

After a year in the Hollowell office he moved into administrative positions starting as a field officer for the NAACP. Between an acknowledged innate restlessness, a powerful ambition to move up in the world and an intense desire to take advantage of opportunity for personal benefit and the Black community he took new positions frequently.

Befitting his designation as the “most connected man” in America he constantly met and established relationships with the elite of American life (white and black).

Often the first or second Black to hold a position he opened further opportunities for Black people. In particular, he led the way in working to integrate the Boards of Directors of America’s largest corporations. He saw that, for Black Americans, to fully advance in American society they needed to be directors of great companies.

He first became a corporate director when he was President of the National Urban League. Going to his first director’s meeting at the Celanese Corporation was an emotional experience. As a young man he had served, as part of his mother’s catering business, the wealthy businessman of Atlanta. Now he was a member of a much more powerful elite, the directors of Fortune 500 companies, based in New York City.

The writing is fluid and draws the reader into Jordan’s life. The stories are vivid and real. He follows my favourite approach to discussing issues. He provides examples rather than abstract principles. He was a great American who died earlier this year.

Ghost Light by Stan Jones and Patricia Watts

(34. - 1106.) Ghost Light by Stan Jones and Patricia Watts - An elderly woman with dementia, muttering about a whale headed dog monster, brings a piece of human jawbone to Nathan Active, Chief of Police in Chukchi on the North Slope of Alaska. After briefly recoiling, Active regains his composure and starts searching for the rest of the body.

Since her mind failed Tommie Leokuk has taken to roaming about the village at night. In a small community where everyone knows everyone her family thought it less harmful to let her wander rather than have her enduring the agitation that possessed her when she was locked in a bedroom.

Active is recovering from being shot in the leg in Tundra Kill. It is uncertain if his leg will ever be free of pain. His mind is more troubled from the shooting than his leg. His wife, Grace, is worried.

At home life is going well with Grace, his stepdaughter Nita and new son, Charlie. Having a family forces him to think about more than his work and personal demons.

Other bits of the body are brought in by Tommie.

Eventually, through some imaginative police work the body, a young woman, is found.

The investigation takes Active to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope. At the oil fields workers spend 4 weeks in camp and 2 weeks at home. It is a well paid but isolated life which makes it difficult to involve yourself in a home community. For many years work in the North was dominated by men. Now increasing numbers of women are working in the camps. There are more complications from relationships in and out of camp.

In Ghost Light Active must explore a series of tangled personal relationships involving the murdered young woman. Police work is a challenge when two suspects tell contradictory stories with phone text evidence pointing to each of them equally. Who is the liar? Add a third plausible suspect and there is an excellent mystery.

For readers who live in urban environments the distances of life in Alaska strain comprehension. To question witnesses and suspects Active flies for hours to and from Prudhoe Bay, Nome and Anchorage. 

The villagers of Chukchi continue the process of an uneasy adjustment to the economic benefits of large industrial ventures in the North. Going to camp is now far more complicated. Camp can be the traditional place to hunt, fish and gather berries or camp can be the modern place to fix, maintain and operate the equipment extracting oil from the land. Jones and Watts skilfully explore the complexities of evolving life in the North. Modern electronics abound while almost every household has guns and fishing gear.

Beyond the mystery investigation, Active continues to experience his Inupiat heritage. The grandmothers of the North are seers of the soul. Can Nathan, who is reluctant to bare emotions, draw upon their age old wisdom?

****

Jones, Stan – (2009) - White Sky, Black Ice; (2010) - Shaman Pass; (2012) - "J" is for Stan Jones; (2013) - Frozen Sun; (2013) - Q & A with Stan Jones on Nathan Active and Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte - Part I and Part II; (2015) - Village of the Ghost Bears; (2015) - Radio in Indigenous Mystery Series; (2016) - Tundra Kill and An Exchange with Stan Jones on Sarah Palin and Helen Mercer and Governor Sarah Palin and Red Parkas; (2020) - The Big Empty (co-written with Patricia Watts) Hardcover

n Command of History – Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds

Not having a review quite ready tonight I was looking back on unpublished reviews.  Winston Churchill is currently best known as a great orator and leader of England in World War II. He is less remembered for being a great writer. For much of his life it was his primary source of income. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Some years ago I read a fascinating book about his series of books on World War II.

****

18. - 428.) In Command of History – Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds – Winston Churchill inspired and led England during WW II. After the war he wrote a 6 volume set of memoirs that I always considered a history of the war. I was surprised by the number of people who Churchill invited to comment on drafts. Almost anyone of significance discussed was given a chance to present their views on what he had written. The top bureaucrats in the Cabinet Secretary’s office, especially the Secretary, discreetly assisted and edited and advised. Churchill was far more sensitive than I expected to the need to avoid excessive controversy with individuals (politicians / bureaucrats / military), Allies (the U.S., Commonwealth and France) and former Allies (the U.S.S.R.). Reynolds sets out how often “diplomacy took precedence over history”. I had not thought about how difficult it is to quote letters and other communications without the consent of the other party. While I had always expected Churchill had skilled researchers I never realized how much they contributed to the actual writing. While Churchill vetted each of the 2,000,000 or so words a significant portion were written by researchers. It was a fascinating insight into how history is created by the choices of the writers. Modern historians would be appalled by the deletions Churchill makes in documents for reasons of style or to avoid controversy or because they do not reflect well on him. He did his best to conceal his preference in 1943-1994 for such Mediterranean ventures as occupying Aegean Islands over the invasion of France. Not surprisingly Churchill believed strongly in history being decided by great men and personal summitry to deal with problems (himself, Roosevelt and Stalin). I had not seen his handwritten note of percentages of influence in the Balkans checkmarked by Stalin. A great example of new information and analysis of a man for whom you would guess all was known and said. Excellent. (May 3/08) 

The fourth "F" is Forgiveness

In my last post I reviewed Gail Bowen's new book, An Image in the Lake. After posting the review I exchanged emails with Gail. I appreciate her responding to my thoughts on her book.

****

Gail 

Below is a link to my review of An Image in the Lake. I enjoyed the book.

I appreciated Joanne’s return to provincial politics. 

In Deadly Appearances, the opening book of your series, Andy Boychuk, Saskatchewan’s premier, was poisoned at a political picnic. I was glad there was not a carafe of water sitting on a trailer at the political picnic in An Image in the Lake.

Joanne, a dedicated supporter of Boychuk’s progressive party, participated in decades of political campaigns until she took a break while Zack entered municipal politics running to be Mayor of Regina.

As I read the book I noted the provincial political party was not named. As I think about it I do not recall the party being named in any of the books. It is clearly the NDP (the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party for readers outside Canada).

You are proud of the party and its accomplishments. I have wondered why you have chosen not to name the party. I can see no harm for the provincial NDP and even some benefit for the party in being mentioned in your books.  In An Image in the Lake you have a character refer to a candidate for the real life Saskatchewan Party.

Throughout the series you have referred to existing Regina businesses. In An Image in the Lake Joanne orders pizza from the Copper Kettle and gets sandwiches from the Star Deli (I love their fresh made Italian sandwiches).

I found Joanne’s statement that the party needs to return to the core principles of its founding in the 1930’s in the CCF (Canadian Commonwealth Federation) interesting. Might that be your personal conviction?

I am not a supporter of the NDP. At the same time I have been an avid observer and occasional participant in Saskatchwan politics. As with Joanne I have been in the background.

You rightly point to the need for the leader of any political party to have charisma. In your book Alison Janvier admirably fills that role. I remain a little surprised the real life party has never had a female leader beyond Nicole Sarauer’s brief tenure as interim leader.

I wondered if the following statement, while swiftly withdrawn by Janvier, might also have reflected your personal thoughts:

…. and when a reporter asked her if it was time for someone like her to lead the party, she said, “Why not? We haven’t had much luck with our string of old white guys.”

I look forward to the next book in the series.

If you are able to reply I will include it when I post this email on my blog.

All the best.

Bill

****

Happy Friday, Bill,

This did indeed arrive, and as always, your comments are thoughtful and thought provoking. As in the other books in the JKS series, faith, family and food are integral parts of An Image in the Lake, but this novel focuses on a fourth 'f' -- forgiveness. 

Jill Oziowy's betrayal of Joanne and her family is at the centre of 12 Rose Street. After much soul-searching, Joanne is finally able to reach out to Jill.  When the book was published I had a surprising, and to me, heartbreaking number of letters from people asking me if I could teach them how to forgive. 

Joanne's conversation with her daughter, Mieka, about the Japanese art form of Kintsugi is an attempt to answer those readers' questions about forgiveness.  I'm glad you noted that the need to forgive is at the heart of An Image in the Lake.

Have a fine weekend. 

Gail  

****

** Bowen, Gail – (2000) - Burying Ariel (Second best fiction of 2000); (2002) - The Glass Coffin; (2004) - The Last Good Day; (2007) – The Endless Knot (Second Best Fiction of 2007); (2008) - The Brutal Heart; (2010) - The Nesting Dolls; (2011) - Deadly Appearances; (2012) - Kaleidoscope; (2013) - Murder at the Mendel; (2013) - The Gifted and Q & A; (2015) - 12 Rose Street; Q & A with Gail Bowen on Writing and the Joanne Kilbourn Series; (2016) - What's Left Behind and Heritage Poultry in Saskatchewan Crime Fiction; (2017) - The Winners' Circle; (2018) - Sleuth - Gail Bowen on Writing Mysteries / Gail the Grand Master - (Part I) and (Part II); (2018) - A Darkness of the Heart and Email Exchange with Gail on ADOH; (2020) - The Unlocking Season; (2021) - An Image in the Lake - Hardcover

An Image in the Lake by Gail Bowen

(33. - 1105.) An Image in the Lake by Gail Bowen - MediaNation, a leading Canadian broadcaster, is in turmoil and Joanne Kilbourn knows everybody.

Her son-in-law, Charlie Dowhaniuk, is the star of Charlie D. in the Morning, a national radio show with interviews, music and Charlie’s commentary now being broadcast from Saskatchewan.

Executive producer, Rosemary Morrissey, had deteriorated physically and emotionally and was abruptly forced out.

Executive producer, Ellen Exton, was threatened with the exposure of sexually explicit videos she had sent to a lover. The network, barely over the dismissal of a prominent broadcaster for his sleazy ways (clearly based on a real life Canadian broadcaster) gives her the option of a profitable resignation or a public dismissal. She takes the money and disappears.

With internal conflict leaving MediaNation in Regina bereft of leadership the network assigns Jill Oziowy to take over. Joanne is rarely distraught but the mere mention of Oziowy angers her. Oziowy had been a best friend and godmother to her children when Joanne learned 3 years earlier that Oziowy had been her deceased first husband’s lover for 15 years. 

A manipulative 19 year old Clay Fairbairn, is an intern at MediaNation. He is studying journalism and too eager, ethics are of no importance, to gain employment in the broadcast industry.  His doting grandmother, a friend of Joanne, unconcerned about his moral issues, aids his quest.

Another intern, Thalia Monk, who is close to Fairbairn, is the stepdaughter of another friend of Joanne. She is both brilliant and bedeviled.

The four interns are a cohort. They are clever, potentially wicked and enjoy reading Nietsche. Not every young person is  sensitive and caring. Gail has created a striking quartet of young characters.

At the same time Saskatchewan is gearing up for a provincial election. Joanne is impressed by the new leader of her progressive party, Alison Janvier. I was glad to see Joanne return to the campaign trail. The political themes have always worked better for me than the broadcast industry intrigues as they are distinctly Saskatchewan plot lines. I wish the election had played a greater role in the book

Joanne and her husband, Zack, attend a political picnic with her grandchildren instead of her children. Their enthusiasm in taking selfies with Janvier reminded me of photographic change. Where people once thronged to have their photo taken next to a politician and then printed and framed the selfie digital image has taken over.

Life is good for Joanne’s children but just when I thought the family was too perfect, her adopted daughter Taylor, returns or more accurately retreats to Regina with a broken heart.

The lake cottages at Lawyer’s Bay are a place of respite for the characters as they deal with the issues of relationships, the problems at MediaNation and the consequences of a sudden death.

As a Christian Joanne strives to find forgiveness. In a moving scene she makes “a pot of tea - my grandmother’s panacea for all life’s problems” and sets about a reconciliation with Jill. 

As Joanne wrestles with the issues of today the T.V. series based on her difficult youthful past, Sisters & Strangers, is broadcast. It has its greatest impact on those around Joanne rather than upon herself.

Not every ending of the books in the series has been a strength but the conclusion of An Image in the Lake was right. The resolution of the murder was plausible and sad. Joanne’s efforts to make amends for the characters reminded me of Maisie Dobbs in the Jacqueline Winspear series. There was a powerful psychological uplift, even healing, through a transcendent work of art for Zack still devastated by the deaths of his partners a few books ago.

Joanne and Zack share Thanksgiving with 9 members of their family and 8 good friends. I wish more sleuths had such celebrations.

****

** Bowen, Gail – (2000) - Burying Ariel (Second best fiction of 2000); (2002) - The Glass Coffin; (2004) - The Last Good Day; (2007) – The Endless Knot (Second Best Fiction of 2007); (2008) - The Brutal Heart; (2010) - The Nesting Dolls; (2011) - Deadly Appearances; (2012) - Kaleidoscope; (2013) - Murder at the Mendel; (2013) - The Gifted and Q & A; (2015) - 12 Rose Street; Q & A with Gail Bowen on Writing and the Joanne Kilbourn Series; (2016) - What's Left Behind and Heritage Poultry in Saskatchewan Crime Fiction; (2017) - The Winners' Circle; (2018) - Sleuth - Gail Bowen on Writing Mysteries / Gail the Grand Master - (Part I) and (Part II); (2018) - A Darkness of the Heart and Email Exchange with Gail on ADOH; (2020) - The Unlocking Season - Hardcover

Changing The Old Enemy

As I read The Old Enemy by Henry Porter I thought the old spy, Robert Harland, killed in the opening pages had a fleeting familiarity. After completing the book and looking at my reading of Porter books I found out he was the protagonist in three books I had read and enjoyed. They were A Spy’s Life, Empire State and Brandenburg.

Since I read the last of that trio in 2009 I understood why my memory was but vague of the distinguished spy.

My favourite was A Spy’s Life which had a spectacular opening. Harland falls from the sky into the East River as his U.N. plane crashes while plane landing in New York City. Harland is the only survivor.

The Old Enemy is the third in a trilogy featuring Paul Samson as the lead character. It wraps up the lives of a pair of characters and two series.

Porter is a skilled writer of what I would term thrillers. Wilbur Smith uses a different phrase, “adventure writer”. It is an apt description of Smith’s books. I still think of Porter as more a writer of thrillers than adventures.

Porter was a winner of a Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize in 2019 for Firefly, one of the Samson books.

In an interview a few years ago with the Wilbur Smith and Niso Smith Foundation, Porter, when asked if there were of writers who “made a lasting impact” on him said:

Yes, but they are generally not thriller or adventure writers. I have always greatly admired John Buchan, Mark Twain, Forsyth, Le Carre’s early books, Primo Levi, Austen, Orwell, Wodehouse, Tolstoy (the short stories, especially) and the great nature writer Barry Lopez, who is a remarkable!

As with Le Carre he travels to the places about which he writes in his fiction. In the same interview he stated:

Vital to get this right. I spend a lot of time in the field.

I continue to think Porter missed a wonderful opportunity to write an unconventional conclusion to the respective sagas of Harland and Samson. Normally, in fiction and real life, we expect, as supported by actuarial tables, that the aged will die before a younger generation. 

Yet the most dynamic characters of The Old Enemy were the older characters. Robert Harland, Denis Hisami and Ulrike Klaar (Harland’s wife) all had a sparkle to their personalities.

It was Samson and Anastasia Hisami, the younger though not young characters, who were the earnest ones. They were the characters wearied and worn by the dramas and tragedies of life.

The older trio were leading the way in exposing a grand conspiracy when Harland and Hisami were eliminated from the plot and Ulrike consigned to a supporting role.

The trio had lost none of the vigour which carried them through the Cold War and into the present millenium. 

It is Samson who is ready to withdraw from intelligence work and Anastasia who is content to assist Hisami.

There are a pair of young characters in Rudi Rosenharte, Ulrike’s son, and Zoe Fremantle, Harland’s daughter born long into his life, who have the enthusiasm to take up the fight against the old and the new enemy.

I would have loved to have seen them interacting with the older spies for the whole book.

Writers have so many choices with their characters.

****

Porter, Henry - (2003) - A Spy's Life; (2004) - Empire State (Tied for third Best fiction in 2004); (2004) – Remembrance Day; (2005) – Brandenburg; (2009) - The Dying Light; (2021) - The Old Enemy; Hardcover

The Old Enemy by Henry Porter

(32. - 1104.) The Old Enemy by Henry Porter - A retired English spy, Robert Harland, goes down fighting upon a deserted beach in Estonia while painting the sea and sky. Ripples from his death soon reach London.

Another former British government spy, Paul Samson, now free lancing for private industry and individuals when not running his Lebanese restaurant, is warned that he might be the next target. 

In the United States Kurdish born businessman, Denis Hisami, has been hounded by the federal government. On his way into Congress to testify before a hostile committee he is handed newspapers which he hands to his lawyer. As he starts to testify Hisami and his lawyer collapse in paroxyms. The papers have been saturated with a nerve agent. The lawyer dies and Hisami is left critically ill.

In London assassination attempts are made upon Samson.

The common element between the attacked was an intelligence operation whose climax in Estonia saw two Russians killed.

Yet it does not appear a Russian operation.

The violence is the opposite of the average thriller. There are no clever efficient killers in The Old Enemy going after the good guys. Vicious disposable thugs from various European countries are hired. What conspiracy would use such amateurs? They gather attention and, even if disposed of, leave trails.

The beautiful Anastasia, Hisami’s wife and Samon’s former lover, and Naji, a brilliant Syrian refugee, are involved in a private intelligence operation being carried out by Harland and Hisami.

Individuals high within the governments of Britain and the United States have been recruited or blackmailed to betray their countries. The origin of the mastermind of this penetration, code named Berlin Blue, is in the Stasi of East Germany in the 1980’s.

The reasonably complex plot takes espionage into the high tech of the 21st Century gathering both vast and very particular information. At the same time individuals are targeted with the traditional means of exploitation.

I enjoyed the interaction of the characters and how an important section of the plot took place in Estonia, not often a destination for thrillers, but clearly a land of many spies as it adjoins Russia.

The climax is a remarkable resumption of the Congressional hearing at which Hisami had been stricken. All the main characters are present for a striking denouement..

As I reflected on the book I realized I would have preferred a reversal of roles. My favourite characters, though their presence was brief, were Harland and Hisami. It is probably because of my senior years that I would have preferred them to have been the protagonists with Samson killed and Anastasia poisoned. They would have been the aging warriors intent on avenging their proteges and uncovering the conspiracy. Their acknowledged brilliance and tenacity would have carried the book.

The Old Enemy is an excellent book.

****

Porter, Henry - (2003) - A Spy's Life; (2004) - Empire State (Tied for third Best fiction in 2004); (2004) – Remembrance Day; (2005) – Brandenburg; (2009) - The Dying Light; Hardcover

Considering "People" in The Madness of Crowds

In my first two posts on The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny I reviewed the book and discussed its exploration of reacting to evil. I consider the views of the character, Professor Abigail Robinson, supporting “mercy killing” of those who burden society such as the ailing aged or deformed unborn as wicked. How we consider “people” is another important theme of the book.

Some of the best books in the Armand Gamache series probed the depths of the minds of artists. The Madness of Crowds opens by examining the mind of a scientist of numbers, a statistician.

Robinson does not value individuals. It is society - “people” as a group - which is valued by her. The greater good requires sacrificcs.

By contrast, Gamache sees “people” as individuals. He sees persons not categories of worthy and unworthy members of society. 

Gamache looks into the souls of those he questions during investigations. He reflects on their life experience, their aspirations, their motivations and their passions.

In The Madness of Crowds, beyond the strongly individualistic, even idiosyncratic, continuing characters of Three Pines, we read of a pair of striking personalities who defy easy classification.

As set out in my last post Haniya Daoud, the Hero of the Sudan, is a great humanitarian dedicated to the cause of suffering women and children around the world. At the same time she has committed violent acts to survive and has a mean personality with a biting tongue. The Nobel Peace Prize candidate is barely civil in conversation.

The village has a distinguished retired thoracic surgeon, Dr. Vincent Gilbert, living a hermit’s life in the woods near Three Pines. He has saved many lives but is a nasty man whom the villagers refer to as the Asshole Saint.

Great humanists may not be great humans. There are humanists who do not love humans.

Gamache bites back retorts to Daoud’s cruel remarks. He views her as a haunted soul.

With Gilbert, Gamache appreciates his intellect and work as a doctor but sees a self-pitying doctor living in exile who focuses on how everyone’s words and actions affect him.

Gamache cares about each person with whom he meets and talks.

I have spent 46 years in the practice of law. During that time part of my work has been defending men and women charged with criminal offences. I know most are guilty but not all. I do value that our system of criminal justice puts the onus upon the Crown to prove guilt by the high standard of beyond reasonable doubt. I would dread a system where guilt is a statistical analysis.

I strive to see each client as a person. There is a continuous risk in the law as with othe professions to get cynical. I believe our system can only work when accused are judged as inviduals.

I have admired Viktor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who is a Nazi concentration camp surivivor, since I read of him 50 years ago in second year university in a class called The Philosophy of Religion. 

In my review of his great book, Man’s Search for Meaning, I stated:

Frankl said it “does not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us”. If suffering is your task in life it is necessary to face it with dignity. All life has meaning. He said those with religious faith understood their sacrifice.

For Gamache his grandaughter, Idola, who has Down Syndrome has value as does Abigail Robinson. 

If we all recognize each life is worthy we can defeat the views of those who would believe in an Abigail Robinson.

****

Penny, Louise – (2005) - Still Life; (2006) - Dead Cold (Tied for 3^rd Best fiction of 2006); (2007) - The Cruelest Month; (2009) - The Murder Stone (Tied for 4th Best fiction of 2009); (2010) - The Brutal Telling; (2011) - Bury Your Dead (Best Fiction of 2011); (2011) - A Trick of the Light; (2012) - The Beautiful Mystery (Part I) and The Beautiful Mystery (Part II); (2013) - "P" is for Louise Penny - Movie Producer and Review of the Movie of Still Life; (2013) - How the Light Gets In; (2014) - The Long Way Home; (2014) - The Armand Gamache Series after 10 Mysteries - Part I and Part II; (2015) - The Nature of the Beast (Part I) and The Nature of the Beast (Part II); (2016) - A Great Reckoning - The Academy and Comparisons and The Map; (2016) - Louise Penny and Michael Whitehead Holding Hands; (2017) - Glass Houses - Happiness and Unhappiness and Getting the Law Wrong; (2019) - Kingdom of the Blind and Irreconcilable Dispositions; (2019) - A Better Man; (2020) - All the Devils are Here and Relationship Restaurants in Fiction and Real Life and Reading of the Marais Simultaneously; (2021) - The Madness of Crowds and Responding to Evil; Hardcover