The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld

I want to talk to you today about a book that is at once extremely sad and incredibly lovely. The book is The Butterfly Girl, by Rene Denfeld. Ms. Denfeld is an author, journalist and licensed public defense investigator. I have previously reviewed her other two novels, The Enchanted, about death-row inmates, and The Child Finder. I won’t tell you too much about the story-line since it is a kind of mystery, and I would not want to be a spoiler.

There are two primary narrators in this novel: Naomi, an investigator who specializes in finding lost children, and Celia, a twelve year old girl who lives in a sort of community of street children. Naomi has decided she will not take another case until she finds her younger sister with whom she was abducted years before. Naomi escaped, but her sister did not. She has no picture of her sister and no name, but she is determined to find her. Naomi remembers very little of her own escape, but one lead has led her to Portland, Oregon, and it is there that she continues her search.

Celia is on the run from an abusive stepfather and a mother who is an addict. While she occasionally checks in with her mother, she is afraid to give away her location.

Celia disappeared inside herself. She was used to doing that. She could make herself vanish even as she stood there, just another street urchin with no future in sight. 

Celia who believed in nothing but herself and the butterflies, knew that the worst fears of the streets were always real. You can find that out the hard way, or you can be watchful. 

Naomi and her husband Jerome are staying with one of Naomi’s old friends while Naomi continues her search. She wakens from a dream of still being in captivity, and hearing the voice of her sister “back there. In that place.”

She breathed out in relief that the dream was over but still felt the anxious echo of the call. 

I’m getting closer, she thought. This is why she was here in the city with Jerome. After almost a year of searching for her long-lost sister, their investigation had brought them here.

Celia and her street friends Rich and Stoner sleep under an overpass at night, and offer each other friendship and what protection they can provide.

When Celia first encounters Naomi on the streets where Naomi is asking questions of street people in hopes of coming up with some leads, Celia does not trust this well dressed and seemingly assured woman, but eventually as the story unwinds she begins to trust her, and Naomi, for her part, cannot ignore this streetwise child even though she is on her own search.

Denfeld is an incredible writer, not simply sympathetic to the street people, her connection is much deeper. She could be describing herself as she describes Naomi during a period in her investigations.

Naomi was standing outside the Aspire shelter. The smeary brick, the narrow streets, the shapes huddled in the doorways—all felt familiar to her now. She has crossed the threshold. The world of the missing had become her own world. She knew the regulars, the bruised-cherry alcoholics, the families on nodding acquaintance, the street kids like Celia.

There is no condescension in Denfeld’s dealings with the homeless, no us/them dichotomy. No wonder she can create such believable characters, can give the reader views from the inside.

As in her novel The Child Finder, Denfeld is intrigued by and describes meticulously how children who are held captive and cannot escape may create a kind of escape with their minds. Celia escapes via her world of beautiful butterflies, her guides and guardians on the streets. 

If you take a burrowing animal and deny it anything but a glass cage, it  will break its  own claws in the madness to escape. Naomi, who once had no escape, had created one with her mind.

Margaret Atwood, who is herself an amazing and deeply insightful author says of this book, “A heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, and yet ultimately hopeful novel…”

I have no intention of telling you in what ways the novel is hopeful or of revealing much more of the plot, but I am certain you will find this a socially significant and rewarding read. In her acknowledgements Denfeld credits libraries for her books and for her salvation. Like many of us she finds books to be a window into a better world.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

In a wonderfully perceptive and often humorous debut novel, Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid takes on issues of race and class in a delightfully light-handed way. It is the story of two women, a white woman, Alix Chamberlain who writes a kind of inspirational blog urging  women to take power in  the workplace, and a twenty-five year old black woman, Emira, who babysits Alix’s wonderfully precocious three year old daughter, Briar, so that Alix can work from home. Emira and her three closest friends, Zara, Josefa, and Shaunie are all recent college graduates; they often go our drinking and dancing together, and the novel opens with the four women at a birthday party for Shaunie. Due to an egging at the Chamberlain house which includes a rock being thrown through a doorway window, Alix calls Emira begging her to come take Briar away from the home for an hour or so since the police have been called, and Alix and her husband Peter do not want young Briar to be exposed to the hubbub of flashing lights and police in the home.

Emira agrees, though explaining that she is dressed for the party and does not look much like a baby-sitter. No problem, insists Alix and promises to send a cab and to pay her double for the inconvenience. Since this opening scene is pivotal to the rest of the novel, I will recount a bit more without giving away much of the storyline. Emira takes Briar to a very upscale little convenience story nearby to keep her entertained during the police visit. Zara has accompanied Briar and Emira to the store and they end up dancing down one of the aisles with Briar leading the way. An overzealous security guard decides that, since Emira is obviously not the mother of the child, he needs to intervene. A very tall young white man begins to use his phone to capture video of the encounter and to offer up advice to Emira.

“Hey hey hey.” The man behind the cell phone tried to get Emira’s attention. ”Even if they ask, you don’t have to show your ID. It’s Pennsylvania state law." 

Emira said, ”I know my rights dude.” 

"Sir?” The security guard stood and turned. ”You do not have the right to interfere with a crime.” 

“Holdup holdup, a crime…what crime is  being committed right now? I’m working,

I’m making money right now, and I bet I’m making more than you." 

“Okay ma’am?” The security guard widened his stance to match hers. ‘You are being held and questioned because the safety of a child is at risk.'

Emira manages to call the Chamberlain’s home, and within minutes Peter shows up; the security guard completely changes his demeanor and the situation de-escalates. The young man who tried to intervene, Kelley, turns out to be a central character in the rest of the novel. 

Much of the early parts of the novel are taken up with conversations between Emira and her best friends, and Alix and her best friends. All of the friends are various shades of color, and the repartee between the women is often very funny and enlightening about working women in New York and Philadelphia, and the struggles with childcare.

Although resistant at first, Emira begins to date Kelley.  They trade stories about their lives and soon realize how compatible they are. The third star of this book is Briar, or simply B, and her many interactions with Emira (who  she calls Mira).

Alix, who loves the relationship between her daughter and Emira, begins to try to make Emira a part of the family, and seems to genuinely love her. Alix’s parents had come into a lot of money at some point in Alix’s childhood, and used it to buy extravagant homes and cars. As it happens, Alix and Kelley had a tumultuous relationship in high school, and that relationship causes near disastrous consequences for Emira and Kelley as well as Alix.

Emira learns that not only does Kelley have a lot of black friends, but that he seems to date only light skinned black women. The many conversations between the women reveal so much about race and class issues, but author Reid is, I think, extremely skillful in stepping back as narrator and allowing the characters themselves to bring out the issues. Even when the novel turns very serious in the end, Reid refuses to enter in as omniscient narrator  or even to provide commentary on the actions that take place.

Given that this is Black History month, I had initially intended to talk about Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Toni Cade Bambara, all of whom I have reviewed in the past years. But there is something so fresh and crisp about Reid’s writing and such a here-and-now look at questions of race and class that I felt I must review her novel. Hard to believe it is a debut novel, but then she has been writing for a long time and has published in many magazines.

The combination of humor and wisdom in this book make it one that I hope will be read widely.

The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning

This long  and beautifully constructed novel bounces back and forth between Vienna in the late 30s and early 40s, Melbourne 2016, and Shanghai (also in the late 30s and 40s).

It is the story of a friendship between a beautiful Shanghai girl, Li, and a Jewish refugee, Romy. They meet in Shanghai in 1939. The two become instant best friends  who explore densely populated Shanghai “Paris of the East”. While author Manning insists that it is a work of fiction, it is nevertheless a well researched historical novel. As she explains in the author’s notes, “Shanghai had opened its doors to more than twenty thousand refugees fleeing Europe, at a time when no other country would.”

The story begins in Vienna as Romy, 12, is literally dragged along by her parents through a scene of chaos , smoke and flying glass everywhere as the Jewish ghetto is raised in what would come to be known as Kristallnacht. Both of Romy’s brothers are dragged off by Nazi soldiers only one of whom lives long enough to be sent to a concentration camp.

Without telling too much of this novel, suffice it to say that Romy and her father eventually escape Vienna by fleeing first to Italy which was not yet conjoined with Germany, and then by boat to Shanghai. Romy’s father is a doctor and soon finds employment in the Jewish hospital in Shanghai and Romy begins her exciting relationship with Li. The third strand of the story takes the reader to Melbourne in 2016.  Alexandra has recently left London and a relationship she had thought would culminate in marriage and rushes to Melbourne to be with her dying grandpa, Wilhelm and her grandmother Romy. 

The author takes the readers through the four sections (or con cessions)  of Shanghai: the International Concession, the ghetto where Jews are permitted to live and work,, the zone controlled by the Japanese, and the French concession full of luxury hotels and shops. Manning always takes the time to describe in detail the huge variety of food and flowers to be seen there. Knowing so very little of Shanghai, and nothing of its tolerance of Jewish refugees during the war, I was stunned by the descriptions of this magical city.

The character of Li, while fictional, is based on a very famous Shanghai singer; Li lives in a luxurious hotel that she and Romy come to know in great detail. Theirs is one of  several close friendships between female characters in the book. Another is that between Romy and Nina, both Jewish refugees who end up in Melbourne.

Alexandra wants to learn of the histories of her grandparents and after the death of Wilhelm, her grandfather, she goes to Shanghai  and begins her search to uncover their stories. 

While I was writing a story about refugees and how China opened their doors and hearts to the Jews, Australia was locking up refugees who attempted to come there by boat. Why haven’t the lessons of  history taught us to treat people better?

Besides introducing me to Shanghai and is treatment of Jews during World War II, the author also discovers many other interesting bit of war history. 

I also discovered that before 1940 it was possible to be released from a concentration camp if you had a valid passport, visa, permit to take up residency in another country, and proof of transport. Such release was always subject to the prisoner leaving Germany within a limited time. The time frame and the documents needed varied from case to case.

As you read this lovely if often frightening book, I think you might begin to hear echoes of the song of the Jade Lily, almost able to see the beautiful Li as she sang for her enthralled audiences. It is obvious that the author has been captured by the sights and sounds of Shanghai, and she manages to give her readers a window into that world.

One strand of the novel I have not touched on is that of the relationship between traditional Chinese medicine and mainstream medicine. Both Romy and her mother had a keen interest in Chinese medicine as does author Manning, seeing them as adjuncts rather than opposites.