The Giver of Stars
By Jojo Moyes
2019/390 pages/ fiction
Englishwoman Alice Wright meets and marries American Bennet Van Cleve in a whirlwind romance. They travel by ocean liner back to America, and Bennet and his father take her to their home in Kentucky.
It is far from what Alice had imagined. Her father-in-law is demanding and domineering, her husband Bennet is suddenly cold, and the townspeople mock Alice’s ways and accent. Mr. Van Cleve owns the coal mines in the town which employs many of the men, and is an important figure in the small town.
On hearing about the WPA project of the Kentucky Pack Horse Librarians, Alice signs up on impulse. Here is a chance to get out of her oppressive new home for hours on end. She meets Margery, Beth and Izzy on the Pack Horse team. They bring reading materials to people who live in remote cabins in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky.
Mr. Van Cleve is convinced that Margery has had it in for him for years and is against the library and librarians from the start. He is very opposed to Alice being part of the project. The women on the team become close and help each other. But when Margery is accused of murder, they are all tested.
Margery seems to have given up and will not see visitors. Alice remembers something that Margery once said to her about not ever being trapped. There is a way out of every situation. “There is always a way around.” Alice must find “a way around,” a way to free her friend.
This is a marvelous book about a sisterhood of women who join together to bring books to people in the remote mountains of Kentucky. The Pack Horse Library initiative was a New Deal project and ran from 1935 to 1943, when the WPA ended. The librarians served 50,000 families and 155 public schools in a 10,000 square-mile area of eastern Kentucky. And the librarians went to extraordinary lengths to bring people the gift of books and reading.
Robbin Bailey, Concord Public Library
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