I am late to the party, not having been alert enough to request a galley of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride. McBride is the author of The Color of Water and Good Lord Bird, but I haven’t read those either yet, so the whole thing blew by me, until I read the rave reviews by my fellow reviewers, and saw that it had climbed to the top of the charts.

Whoops.

So, my thanks go to Seattle Bibliocommons for the loan of the audiobook. Dominic Hoffman is the narrator, and he does an outstanding job with a somewhat difficult narration, what with various dialects and a plethora of characters. After all, a grocery store draws an awful lot of people, even in a relatively small community such as Chicken Hill.

At the outset, our protagonists are Moshe and Chona Ludlow, owners of the grocery store. Moshe also runs a theater, and integrates it before other communities are doing so. In fact, the beauty of the story lies largely in the intersection and mutual support of the Jewish and African-American (“Negro” during this time period) residents. Later, a disabled child nicknamed “Dodo” moves to the forefront; yes, this is a horrible nickname, but those using it simply regard it as his name, and it doesn’t seem all that remarkable, given that others have names like Big Soap, Fatty, and Monkeypants. Dodo is orphaned and because he is hearing impaired, the state decides to send him to the nuthouse. The community bands together to raise him and, when the state comes sniffing around, to conceal him.

I do love the convenience of an audiobook, but I don’t retain information as well this way as I would have if I’d also had (or only had) a digital copy. With text, I can highlight areas for reminders when writing a review, and I can choose meaty quotes as well. However, I had what I had, and I did enjoy this story. There are too many characters to keep track of, and my advice to other listeners is to let most of it wash over you, and just pay attention to the key players. This is not a story to rush through, in any case; like most outstanding literary fiction, it’s a story to lean into and absorb in a leisurely fashion.

My one reservation about this book was the title. I have no use for religious stories, and for awhile it appeared this actually might be one. But just as my enthusiasm was waning, the action picked up and God went back up in the clouds where he belongs. Far more salient is the theme of brotherhood and solidarity between the two marginalized peoples, and when an emergency situation involving little Dodo occurred, I knew I had to see this thing through if I wanted to sleep at night.  

Highly recommended.