Whistling Past the Graveyard

This is one of the best fiction books I've ever read, so entertaining and easy read!! I'm so glad Janet recommended it in her book, "When the Hart Speaks"

This book is one of the best I've ever read.

This book was the pick for our book club! I was the same age (10) as Starla depicted in the book! At the time I had no idea what it was like growing up in the south during the 60’s.

I enjoyed many elements of this book. The author has great language skills, so much so that the lumbering story receives frequent resuscitating jolts from a wonderfully crafted bit of mood, or tone, or dialogue - just not enough for more than three stars.Spoilers Included!Starla, our prepubescent heroine from 1960's Mississippi, has been left for years in the care of her abusive grandmother while her father works on an oil rig and her mother is supposedly achieving stardom in Nashville. A minor behavior infraction grounds Starla for the Fourth of July fair, and she decides that's the last straw. Without even knowing where Nashville is, she sets out for it on foot, carrying next to nothing. So far, pretty interesting.The tale began to lose me when a "colored" woman in a rickety pickup stops to offer Starla a ride. The woman, kindly and wise Eula, has just kidnapped an abandoned white baby from the steps of a church, but somehow thinks bringing Starla and the baby back to her home - and her drunken ogre of a husband - is a good idea. The husband is outraged by the baby - a white one at that - and decides he has to kill Starla (and the baby, I presume, although that's not clear to me). He's hauling Starla into the woods but stops because he hears a neighbor's dogs. Not the cops, but a neighbor, another black man. The neighbor never appears, but for an unexplained reason, Starla's spared. Back at the house, she's locked in a bedroom, where she manages to get a window open but decides to take the baby with her. That pointless burden slows her enough that the ogre has time to run her down at a nearby swamp. He pushes her head under the water, but before she drowns, he lets go. No explanation. He just stops, and he and Eula bring her back to the house for another lockup. That same night, he's in his cups again and attacks her while she's sleeping. Eula can't stop his attempt to strangle Starla, so she whacks him in the head with an iron skillet, killing him. Starla helps Eula stash the body, and they set off for Nashville - with the kidnapped white baby - to find Starla's mother.Plot holes aside, the rest of the book devolves into a predictably unpleasant reunion with the mother in Nashville, a sentimental enlightenment by her father, and the seeding of a new and better life back home in Mississippi, all of it overlaid with racial sensitivities that are both preachy and improbable. Starla was raised in '50's and '60's Mississippi, and the story happens in 1963. Segregation would have been a fact of life. She would have been schooled in all its protocols, yet there are times she's portrayed as if dropped in from another world. She speaks as if casually aware of Jim Crow, but experiences wide-eyed indignation when Eula endures verbal and physical abuse, or separate seating on buses, or white/black restaurant sections and restrooms. I don't doubt the intent was to show a gradual consciousness raising through her bonding with Eula, but the repetitiveness became a blunt instrument.This book would have benefited enormously if written in third person. The author is skilled enough to communicate each character's eye, ear, and heart; but she cheated us out of the variety in how it sounds.

..and what a glorious meeting it is. I attribute my adoration for this 1960s Southern story to its spunky, never-quit narrator Starla.Starla is nine years old and can't seem to stay out of trouble with her grandmother Mamie, who takes care of Starla because her momma left to pursue a music career in Nashvegas and her daddy works on an oil rig.Naturally Starla is fascinated by her departed momma, and I was furious with Mamie for hiding packages that Starla's momma sent to her. Mamie's fear of Starla turning out like her no-good momma makes her a controlling caregiver. Starla believes Mamie hates her.Feeling stifled and afraid of being sent off to reform school, Starla forges out on her own, determined to find her "famous" momma. On the way she meets Eula, a young black woman who has appeared to kidnap a white baby. Ruh roh! Starla and Eula experience all kinds of harrowing adventures on the journey.These two characters are absolute stars in the foggy night sky of racism and fear in Mississippi. Starla tries to deal with her "red rage" no-filter fight-for-justice episodes, but there's no reining in such an irrepressible spirit. Eula has been through absolute hell but won't let anything stop her outpouring of sweet, inspiring, maternal love. Together they're a force for good in evil times.One of my favorite parts of the book is Starla's evolution of racial beliefs. Mamie has taught her that black people are inferior. But Starla's experiences completely contradict that lesson. Eula saves her life and inspires her to create a life worth living. Miss Cyrena offers Starla help when no one else will. We all get told certain "truths" in our upbringing that we then discover to be quite false, and this was a poignant example."Here's the thing 'bout gif's." Eula stopped buttering her toast and looked straight at me. "A body don't know how many the good Lord tucked inside them until the time is right. I reckon a person could go a whole life and not know. That why you gotta try lots of things, many as you can...experiment."I love Starla's daddy. And Mamie is so complex that I'm not sure how to feel about her. But Starla and Eula definitely steal the show.Highly recommended! Thank you to Janelle for choosing this gem for book club.

If you loved The Help and Saving Cee Cee Hunnicutt you'll love this. I couldn't put it down, and when I finished it I really missed all the characters! It's a lovely story.

Loved this book, not an author I normally read.

A story of surprises. Enjoyable.

Wonderful story, you’re immediately in the Deep South of 1960’s with the adorably feisty Starla.You can’t help falling in love with the two main characters of the book, and their trails on the way to Nashville. Well worth a read.

This was a great read right from the start if you have previously read The Help I think you would like this too.Told from a childs' perspective it was just a lovely read.