“And there is the bare truth of it, for her and all the women around here. Doesn’t matter how smart you are, how clever, how self-reliant- you can always be bettered by a stupid man with a gun....She reaches behind into her saddlebag with her left hand, and as he turns his head she drops the reins, grabs the other corner with her right fist, and swings the heavy book as hard as she can, smack, into his face.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are some lines from the opening chapter of Jojo Moyes newest novel The Giver of Stars. From 1935 to 1943, the rural residents of Kentucky were recipients of a literacy program championed by Eleanor Roosevelt. The WPA Packhorse Librarians in this novel consist of four women who spend their days bringing library materials to remote locations, rain or shine, snow or sleet, via packhorses.
Alice Wright has married a handsome American in a desperate attempt to escape her stifling life in England. Just as her loneliness becomes unbearable, she answers the call to help with the traveling library and makes lasting friends.
The leader, Margery O’Hare is a smart-talking, self sufficient woman, which ultimately gets her in trouble and accused of murder. And then there’s Izzy, an outcast due to a limp leftover from a bout of polio, Beth who wants to travel the world and Sophie, who lives with her brother and works at the library at night to avoid trouble due to the color of her skin.
As the cover says, if you want to read “ a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond” then you must read The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.
