Finished: Passing (Larsen) Set in 1927, Passing is the story about two African American women, Irene and Clare, who have known each other all their lives. They are both light enough to pass for white. Clare leaves their Harlem neighborhood when she is seventeen, after her verbally abusive father dies. For many years no one hears a word from her. Irene marries an African American doctor and has two sons, settling in New York even though her husband would rather move to South America. One day, while Irene is visiting Chicago and shopping in the unbearable heat, she feels as if she may pass out. Nicely dressed, and light-skinned, she uses this moment, as she does many others, to pass for white and be admitted into a nice hotel rooftop restaurant. When a beautiful white woman walks in, sits near her, and then can't take her eyes off of her, Irene eventually realizes she's looking at her old childhood friend, Clare. Clare, whose lightness and blond hair actually comes from having one white parent, recognizes Irene immediately and strikes up a conversation, insisting that Irene remember her. As it turns out, Clare has been passing for white all these years. What's more, she has married an extremely bigoted white man, never telling him of her African American blood. She's also got a daughter who has no idea she has African American blood. When Irene relents and agrees to meet with Clare again the next week, she also meets Clare's husband Jack. Jack has no idea that Irene is African American, and during the conversation starts belittling African Americans, using the "n" word, saying he'd never touch a filthy "n" or eat near one or even want to be in the same room with their murdering, conniving type. It's truly awful, the things he says. Irene stands there with her mouth hanging open, but says nothing to defend her race. She is furious at Clare for putting her in the position of even having to meet her racist husband. Irene leaves Chicago and goes home. Two years later, she receives a letter from Clare who says she longs to be back among "her people", and that she wants to come to visit the old Harlem neighborhood while Jack is out of town on business. Irene refuses to answer the letter, but Clare comes anyway, barging into Irene's life...charming her friends, as well as her husband! Clare spends more and more time there as Irene becomes more and more disconcerted with the entire situation. One part of her actually worries about what would happen to Clare and her daughter if her husband found out. The other part of her comes to the slow realization that her husband is looking at Clare with passionate looks, long absent from their marriage, and that they must be having an affair! One day as Irene is out shopping with an African American friend, she rounds a windy corner arm in arm with her friend and runs right into Jack who has returned from a business trip and is readying to leave the country soon with Clare. Jack starts to be friendly, but as he looks from Irene to her friend, it dawns on him what he completely missed at their first meeting...that Irene is African American. Irene rushes on, but then starts to worry what will happen if Jack starts really putting things together. Sure enough, at one of the last parties with friends before Clare is set to leave town...a party where Irene can see from across the room that her husband and Clare have grown to care for each other, Jack bursts through the door in a fury. He goes right for Clare and starts calling her the "n" word...berating her. The hostess stops him short by exclaiming to him that he's the only white person in a room full of black people, that he'd better mind himself. Irene takes this opportunity to dash over to Clare, who is standing by an open window. Irene "can't remember" exactly what happens, but the author implies that Irene puts her hand on Clare and pushes her towards the window. Everyone else in the room just sees Clare go through the window in the blink of an eye and fall to her death below! The story ends with Irene at least comfortable in the knowledge that Clare won't be breaking up her family. hmmm...it's an interesting story, and a tragic one all the way around!!

Finished: A Man Called Ove (Backman) A very good book; a tugger of the heartstrings. A Man Called Ove is the story of a Swedish man, Ove, who is grumpy, set in his ways, matter of fact, unfriendly, and at 59, has just been unwillingly retired from his job not too long after his beloved wife, Sonja, has passed away. Ove is a stickler for the homeowner association rules when it comes to the neighborhood, and polices the street willing to confront anyone, including the neighborhood stray cat. He's tired, though, and heartbroken, and simply wants to go and be with his wife, rather than talking to her at her grave every day. He gets his affairs in order, cancels his phone and all his subscriptions and decides he will end his life. He doesn't count on the new neighbors literally barging in, accidentally running over his mailbox, breaking the association rules, and making themselves right at home in his life. He has to teach the young father, Patrick, how to back up a trailer, and he has to drive Patrick's very pregnant Iranian wife, Parvenah, and six & three year old precocious daughters to the hospital when an ambulance comes to collect Patrick when, trying to pry open a stuck two-story window, he falls from the ladder he borrowed from Ove. As the story unfolds, Parvenah comes to depend on Ove, and he on her. He teaches her to drive. She basically interrupts several of his carefully planned suicide attempts because she needs him for some reason or another, until he finally realizes that he IS needed and better stay on this side of things for a bit longer. He takes in the cat when it's attacked by a dog. He takes in a local teenage boy, whose father owns the local cafe, when he comes out as gay and is kicked out of the home. He teaches another teenage boy how to repair a bike, and then helps him pick out a car. And, most importantly, he gets back in touch with the other crotchety guy on the street, Rune, who used to be his best friend and comrade in all things in the association until they had a huge fight over something Ove can't remember anymore. Rune's wife, Anita, had been Sonja's best friend, which had thrown Rune and Ove together...but they never really minded it, and became friends themselves. It has been years since they've spoken, though, and Anita has come to Ove for help with her heater because Rune is suffering from Alzheimer's. What's more, the government wants to take him away and put him in a home. Ove begrudgingly, or maybe not, helps Anita and when he realizes that she's been battling the bureaucracy for two years and they are coming any day to get Rune, he mobilizes his new friends and neighbors and calls a local reporter who he always denied giving a story to when he saved a man off a railroad track one day. So, the new found friends rally around and get Rune kept in his house and promise that they will all be involved in helping Anita care for him. Ove gets more and more attached to Parvenah and her kids. They begin to even refer to him as Grandad. One night, after the oldest girl's eighth birthday, Ove confronts some hoodlums trying to burglarize a neighbor's house and falls to the ground with a heart attack. Parvenah is frantic, but gets him to the hospital where the doctor explains he's got an enlarged heart, but with medication, should be ok for another few years. Not long after, Parvenah gives birth to a little boy, who the author never names, but I can't imagine it's not Ove! Anyway, the book delves into Ove's past, and how honorable and hard-working he was because his single father raised him that way. It explores the day that Sonja bursts into Ove's black and white world with her colorful personality and infectious laugh, and he knows then and there he will marry her. It quietly develops all these new relationships that are thrust upon Ove until by the time he is actually going to die, he's made sure that the gay boy and his father have been reunited and that Patrick and Parvenah's children will all be taken care of with the money he never spent. It's a very good, very heartwarming story which brought tears to my eyes more than once! I really like this author. He's the same buy who wrote Bear Town and it's sequel. I will definitely be seeking out more of his books.