What is Visible by Kimberly Elkins

We are all familiar with the inspiring story of Helen Keller, the first deaf/blind child to become educated in America.  Aided by her teacher, Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College and launched a career as an author, speaker and advocate for the disabled.


However, in the mid-19th century, there was another deaf/blind child who was at one time the most famous woman in America.  Charles Dickens was one of many dignitaries who came to see Laura. Yet today, she has faded into obscurity. Laura Bridgman lost four of her five senses to scarlet fever at age 2.  At age seven, Laura was taken to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. 


Relying only on her sense of touch, Laura learned language skills and through her own intelligence and will communicated her thoughts on religion, philosophy, sex, and  the rights of handicapped people.  At the Perkins Institute, Laura was taken in by its founder the educator Samuel Gridley Howe. At times, Howe was her champion. At times, he used her to advance his own priorities.   Howe was married to the poet, suffragette, abolitionist and author, Julia Ward Howe.


This first novel is thought-provoking. Peopled with characters from real life such as Charles Sumner, John Brown, Charles Dickens, Dorothea Dix and Julia Ward Howe, this book gives great insight into Victorian era  America the author takes a great deal of literary license with Laura's inner thoughts and feelings, bur she explains her reasoning very well. More importantly, it really makes the reader think about the disable and how we treat them.  Do we allow handicapped people the human dignity make their own decisions? Can we see past the handicap and see the person inside?


For book discussion groups looking for an historical fiction, this book would be an excellent choice because it would generate a very meaningful discussion.

Alan Furst brings us another one - Midnight in Europe

Alan Furst, author of over a dozen historical spy novels, has brought us a new one.  Furst often starts at the Spanish Civil War which was a rehearsal for Nazi Germany.  In his latest novel, Midnight in Europe,  Furst  takes us through Europe in the years immediately preceding the invasion of Poland.  As stated by Sir Edmond Grey, British Foreign Secretary in 1914, "The lamps are going out all over Europe." Furst takes this quote as the theme of his book in which people and places are not what they seem and the treat of war is almost palpable.  Ordinary people such as the protagonist, Christian Ferrar, an international attorney, are drawn into the dangerous game of espionage and weapons smuggling in order to protect what is still honorable. 
Anyone taking one of those Europeans river cruises should read Alan Furst.  His scenes in cities such as Istanbul, Warsaw, Gdansk and Brno give a unique insight into Europe then and now.

Two little known, but extraordinary women- The Invention of Wings

When we think of abolitionists, we remember some familiar names from our history books - William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th, Bronson Alcott(father of Louisa May).  Of these folks who were white, they were all upper class, Northeast liberals. However,  two women from South Carolina, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who were born into a wealthy slave-owning family came to abhor the South's "peculiar institution."  These two remarkable sisters opposed their family, friends and society to speak their conscience about the evils of slavery which they personally witnessed.  Moreover, they campaigned for the abolition of slavery, racial equality and women's rights years before Seneca Falls!


In her latest novel, The Invention of  Wings,Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair,  gives voice to the Grimke sisters as well as a fictionalized slave who was given to Sarah Grimke as a birthday gift on her eleventh birthday. In beautifully written dialog, Kidde brings to the page a woman born into slavery who managed to survive a brutal system which divided families and dehumanized both  the slave and the slave owner. Kidd also uses the quilts often made by slave women to tell their stories, several of which are currently on display in Washington and Boston.  Denmark Vesey, a freed slave, who organized one of the few documented slave revolts is also a character in this book.


All in all, this is an eye-opening book, which is difficult to put down.  This would be an excellent choice for a book discussion group and I hope Hollywood starts working on a movie version.