4 Books Like Such a Pretty Picture

My husband and I have made a point of taking Black history tours when we visit U.S. cities. I loved Smith's perspective on the tours that he took of Monticello, Angola Prison, the Whitney Plantation, Blandford Cemetery, and Manhattan. Particularly insightful were his interviews with the tour guides who have taken on the responsibility of "passing the word."

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The stories in Lisa Alvarez’s new short story collection Some Final Beauty are about real characters living their lives with purpose, resilience, dignity, and strength. Alvarez has a perceptive eye for detail and nuance and can most certainly stick a landing. Each of the eleven stories resolves, not by perfectly tying up every loose end but by allowing the character to hope for a better future.

In the first story of the collection, Laurie walks home with the lyrics to the anti-Fascist protest hymn “Freiheit” carefully folded in her pocket “as if she might have future occasions to sing the song again.” In the heartbreaking “We Told You So,” Barefoot Roy, a canyon elder, tells the grieving widower Angelo, “We did good.” Angelo agrees. “Good enough,” he says.

In the title story of the collection, Toni waits patiently, “suspecting that it will take a while for some to come… show more.

Maley reached down deep into my heart and stirred an ache for young girls like her who were innocent and sweet believers of all the good in the world, only to be abused by men who take what they want without regard for the girl. My heart breaks for Maley and girls like her everywhere. The courage Maley shows us in NO LONGER THAT GIRL would inspire birds to take flight. Her writing is clear and compelling, hopeful and true. Once you begin the book, there is no choice but to read to the end to find a woman filled with love, strength and grace even though life has beaten her up. She seems never to lose her faith in God even as the men of this earth disappoint all of us with their selfish and self-serving behavior.

26 seconds starts as a tale by a big sister who lost her pilot-brother in an airline accident, but ends with inspiration and heartfelt passion about aviation safety, truth-telling, safety checks, and why the public should not accept the conclusion of any crash as merely “pilot error” without asking questions that reveal all of the underlying conditions that put that flight in danger. Learning that Boeing and Airbus prioritize money over safety wasn’t a huge surprise. After all, we live in a capitalist society. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept the answers given to the public after a crash that blame “pilot error” as the truth when, in fact, a variety of other reasons planes crash aren’t even listed. Thanks for writing your tragic story of losing your brother, so the rest of us can learn the whole truth. My father died in a small plane he was… show more.