Park Hill Community Bookstore suggests a diverse array of stories

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Park Hill Community Bookstore in Denver recommends stories of Liberia, the AIDS crisis and an adventure across the border.

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From the publisher: Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, “She Would Be King,” reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the Indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: I really, really, really liked this book — it sat with me for quite a while after I finished. The writer does a good job describing the friendship between June Day and Norman Aragon but they take up less space than Gbessa and the other women in the book. And, for me, the relationships between the women in this novel were the most deeply affecting particularly the sisterhood between Gbessa and Maisy. BTW: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born Ellen Eugenia Johnson, October 29, 1938) served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa.

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From the publisher: In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the Eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

From Babette McQueen, volunteer: I first encountered “The Great Believers” when it appeared as runner up to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019. Too bad it competed against “The Overstory,” because any other year it might’ve won. It resurfaced recently when the author published a very intriguing novel entitled “I Have Some Questions for You,” which is currently on my To Be Read shelf.

The Great Believers is a beautifully written book with a heartbreaking cast of characters, which the author ties up nicely at the end. I always love a well-written book with a good ending, and this difficult novel is both. It richly captures a time and a generation that is often lost to history: the beginning of the AIDS crisis. In addition to authentically creating complex characters, the story weaves in ways I didn’t expect and breaks the reader’s heart in painful but genuine moments of revelation. 

If a mark of a good book is one whose characters and storyline stay with you, this one is it! I highly recommend you read it, but try to choose a bad weather day, as you may not be able to put it down!

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From the publisher: Pedro Martín has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito — his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution. But that doesn’t mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has eight brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.

From Linda Baie, volunteer coordinator: I was not a Mexikid, but the adventures Pedro Martin tells in this wonderful graphic novel about his family’s trip going to and from Mexico makes me want to have been one! I had some special abuelitos, but only one sibling!

There’s lots to learn about border crossing and fun toys to be found in Mexico, also huge parties with other family members, and then some sadness in different ways of saying goodbye. It’s a trip that would be great all the way through, but the ending connection between Pedro and his abuelito makes the sweetest ending. I loved the creative and varied way Martin tells the story in his art and words, with lots of emotion in sad, hilarious, and happy times.

Type of Story: Review

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