‘Heaven & Earth Grocery Store’ tells a powerful story
(Mar. 1, 2024) — Every glowing review of James McBride’s “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” should get you to your closest independent bookstore to buy a copy.
I’ve long been a fan of all McBride’s novels but, hands down, this may be his finest.
McBride’s table of contents is the first hint of his powerful storytelling. The story is made up of three parts: Gone, Gotten and The Last Love.
Each part has chapters with names to capture the imagination of any story-loving reader: The Hurricane, A Bad Sign, A New Problem, Monkey Pants, Cowboy, The Hot Dog, Without a Song, Duck Boy and Waiting for the Future. The epilogue, The Call Out, will bring you out of your chair in applause.
The very first sentence of Chapter One, The Hurricane, epitomizes the five Ws of writing: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Who? An old Jew and a couple of Pennsylvania state troopers. What? The cops questioning the old Jew. When? June 1972. Where? Chicken Hill, in Pottstown, Pa. Why? Developers of a nearby street dug up skeletal remains of an apparent murder victim at the bottom of an old well, below the home of the old Jew.
Next, we are introduced to McBride’s ear for the vernacular voice of a wide range of characters. The cops, holding up a mezuzah found among the bones, ask the old Jew, “Don’t these things belong on doors?” I’d guess the cops are white. The old man answers with diasporan aplomb, “Jewish life is portable.”
We also find out that the developers have hounded the old man for 30 years to sell his property. The old man’s name is Malachai, and, in his day, he was known as the “Greatest Dancer in the World.”
‘Suspect shuspect’
The cops tell Malachai he is a suspect and that they will return after they’ve studied the “murder scene.” “Suspect, shuspect,” he says with a shrug.
The cops do not return, “because the next day God wrapped His hands around Chicken Hill and wrung His last bit of justice out of that wretched place.” Hurricane Agnes.
It was all gone, fancy, newly developed Pottstown, even the well and its bones. All that is left is the story of Malachai and the community of Chicken Hill, with its African Americans and immigrant beginnings to the epilogue. And, of course, the grocery store and all those folks between chapters one and three.
I suspect it will be a long time before I read anything better than “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.”
If you wonder how McBride gets these voices to ring so true, at least to what sounds right, PC or not, Google him when you finish the book – it’s another great story.
Visit Sunny Solomon’s website at bookinwithsunny.com for her latest recommendations or just to ‘talk books.’
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Sunny Solomon
Sunny Solomon holds an MA in English/Creative Writing, San Francisco State University. She is a book reviewer for “The Clayton Pioneer” and her poetry and other writing has been published in literary journals, one chapbook, In the Company of Hope and the collection, Six Poets Sixty-six Poems. She was the happy manager of Bonanza Books, Clayton, CA and Clayton Books, Clayton, CA. She continues to moderate a thriving book club that survived the closure of the store from which it began. Sunny currently lives next to the Truckee in Reno, NV.