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Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (2023)
Finishing the novel “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride left me with one thought: now THAT is a Great American Novel. This intricate story is about a community living in Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania in the 1930s, a community populated by a small number of families, mostly immigrant Jews and Black Americans who unexpectedly come to find themselves part of each other's lives.
It features such a remarkable cast of characters, including Moshe, the Jewish Romanian immigrant who owns a theater which features both Yiddish and African American performers. He is married to the beautiful and valued Chona, who is the beating heart of Chicken Hill. She walks with a limp due to having polio as a child, she's outspoken with socialist values and she runs a grocery store that never makes a profit due to her generosity. There is also Nate, the strong, silent Black man with a mysterious past who works for Moshe and his wife Addie, as well a hilarious cast of other characters with names including: Fatty, Big Soap, Paper, Monkey Pants and Dodo.
The cascade of events that happen in this book truly demonstrates what it is like to be part of a community and to rely on your neighbours, even if your struggles and way of life are different. Especially in a multicultural settlement like theirs in a time period where, if you are anything but a white, Christian able-bodied man, the odds are stacked against your favour. After all, this is a town where their only doctor still marches in the KKK parade yearly. However despite these challenges, these characters continue to live authentically and the beauty in their day-to-day lives is palpable.
While the writing is light, sharp, funny and relatively fast-paced, McBride does not shy away from challenging subject matters such as abelism, racism, intergenerational trauma, rape and child-abuse. However, the care that was taken to flesh these characters out as well as showing their bonds with each other, in a stunning message that rejects hate and embraces found community was really wonderful to read.
More than anything, this book is extremely critical of the American Dream, and conceptualizes America as what it really was and continues to be: a capitalist society that preys on the poor and systemically disadvantages people of colour and rewards those in power. And you know what, McBride is absolutely right. But you can tell James McBride is also someone that tries to think the best of humanity, that looks at people as more than the sum of their parts, and someone who can see potential in almost anyone. That's exactly how I felt after finishing this book - that more often than not humans will do the right thing. 5/5 stars for me.
