Tuesday’s Temptation ~ May 25

Despite how wonderful my current reads might be (or, this week, how incredibly disturbing), I really enjoy being able to look over my shelves and drool over the as-of-yet unread goodies. I don’t know about you, but I could spend a half hour or more just touching the spines and, because I have to double park my books for lack of space, pull out the first row so I can rediscover what’s behind them.  Granted, this is most likely to occur when I’m procrastinating getting the laundry started or doing the dishes, but I would enjoy it just as much if I planned to do it.  So, why not plan on deliberately combing my shelves?  Going forward, I’m going to take a look at my (horrifically gigantic) TBR pile and highlight a book that I’d really like to pick up right now if it weren’t for …  Sigh.  Here you’ll find the who, what, why, when, and where of one of my greatest literary temptations of the week.

Welcome to the May 25th edition of Tuesday’s Temptation!

Who?

Heidi W. Durrow!  Her first novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, is one of the few books I’ve actively requested.  The only other book I have emailed the publisher to request was The White Queen by Philippa Gregory.  To my mind, this puts Durrow in pretty great company.  She is the daughter of an African  American soldier in the Air Force and a Caucasian Danish woman.  Her racial heritage plays a huge roll in her art.  Her life and her many careers intrigue me.

What?

Why?

As someone who suffered from post-partum depression, this story of a child who survives her mother’s complete psychotic breakdown caught my attention immediately.

Here is the synopsis from the author’s website:

This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy.

With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Meanwhile, a mystery unfolds, revealing the terrible truth about Rachel’s last morning on a Chicago rooftop. Interwoven are the voices of Jamie, a neighborhood boy who witnessed the events, and Laronne, a friend of Rachel’s mother. Inspired by a true story of a mother’s twisted love, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking “Must race confine us and define us?”

In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl—and society’s ideas of race, class, and beauty.

It is a winner of the Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice.

Once again, doesn’t that sound fantastic?

When?

Since the first of the year, I’ve really been enjoying the complimentary copies of BookPage that  get from my local public library.  I saw The Girl Who Fell from the Sky featured in the February issue (I believe).  I knew this was something I had to read.  When I saw that it was published by Algonquin, the publisher of A Reliable Wife, one of my favorite novels of 2010, I couldn’t resist requesting a copy.

Where?

How to describe this?  Hmm…  When I shelf surfed and my eye caught on this book, it was sitting double-decker on the second shelf from the top on the bookshelf in our bedroom.  The books in this double-decker were sitting on top of The Devil’s Queen, The Miracle of Prato, America America, The Virgin Queen’s Daughter, and Follow Me.  In the double-decker pile, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky was the fourth of five books, sandwiched between Little Bee by Chris Cleave and Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martell.  Now, it’s sitting on my lap.

I can’t wait to give in to this temptation, so I’m reading it next!

Want to play along?

I had a couple of requests to play along with Tuesday’s Temptations and I meant to post about it on Sunday.  Alas I wasn’t on the computer that much.  Please feel free to jump on board.  I think it’s so much fun that there are others like me who love to scan their shelves and drool over the un-mined potential that resides on our bookshelves.  Grab the graphic here and shoot me an email with a link to your post.  I’ll update my post to list yours.  By next week, I hope to have a Mr. Linky type deal up and running.

Whether you play along or not, I’d love to hear what your current literary temptation is.