This Much is True

Tomorrow night (June 16th) is the launch of a book I highly recommend, Trudy Morgan Cole’s By the Rivers of Brooklyn. I read this book when I was asked, by my publisher,  to consider doing an endorsement for it, a blurb, you might say. Now, I’ll be honest here and confess a couple of things. First, and I make no bones about this, Trudy is my friend. A very good friend. So, did that make it easy when asked to possibly provide an endorsement for her book? Nope. The truth is I probably wouldn’t have agreed if it wasn’t Trudy because, here’s my other confession: I don’t really like historical fiction. Not my cup of tea, but guess what By the Rivers of Brooklyn is? Yeah, you guessed it. But it was Trudy and I know Trudy has an amazing way with words and can grab my interest with anything she puts on paper (even a novel she wrote in less than 16 hours at an art event a couple of years ago had me quickly turning pages!). So I set about reading this book, knowing that I was interested in the idea of it: the story of a family of Newfoundlanders, some who who moved away to Brooklyn and some who stayed home, through three generations. The idea of it started me reading but it was the characters that hooked me.

A friend and I had a discussion some time ago saying that the books that stand out to us are not the ones with the big plotlines, but the ones with memorable characters, ones you think about from time to time, like old friends. By the Rivers of Brooklyn has rich, multi-layered, characters that I won’t soon forget. Trudy’s painted such a thorough picture that I can picture them, not just outside but inside, the poignancy of their often quiet desperation and the pleasure they garner from the simplest things. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of plot in the book too. With a timespan from the 1920s to 2004 (I think it’s 2004) you know the story is going to have plenty of love, death, betrayal, and hope to keep you going. And it does. It’s a hard book to put down. Maybe I should read more historical fiction because, it turns out, it can be quite good. Maybe I was just reading the wrong books. Or maybe this was just the right one.

By now you must be wondering how to get this book and there’s a few ways. If you’re in and around St. John’s the official launch is tomorrow night at Bianca’s at 7:00 and Trudy will be there to sign books and to do a reading too (a treat in itself, I’ll tell you). But even if you’re not around, you can take part in the launch because she’s having a virtual, online book launch and there’s even prizes. By the Rivers of Brooklyn is also available at Chapters and Coles across Atlantic Canada and in online stores as well. So, maybe I’ll see you at the launch but if I don’t I hope you’ll pick up the book and I hope you’ll love it as much as I do.