Listening for the hum of the earth A Contrary review by Cynthia Newberry Martin  To Kill A Mockingbird begins with this epigraph by Charles Lamb: “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.” Expand lawyers to all of us, and it would be a fitting epigraph for this debut novel by 62-year-old Welsh librarian Mari Strachan. As you read the first sentence, “I fly in my sleep every night,” Gwenni-colored glasses cover your eyes. It is this world you are seeing, but through those glasses. You will dress under the bedclothes so Buddy Holly can’t see you. You will hear the Voice of God. You will smell the soap and tobacco in Tada’s warm chair. You will taste Mrs. Edwards the Bank’s egg sandwiches. You will feel the crumbs of the Marie biscuits as you turn the pages. Gwenni Morgan is twelve and a half, not thirteen. She is skinny with red hair, “the family hair.” Her Mam says, “Pity you have that old family nose to go with it.” She lives with her sister and parents in a small Welsh town where a cup of tea is the answer to all life’s crises and everyone carries a handkerchief. Just as Australian terms add to Tim Winton’s books, so do Welsh ones here. Tada, I think at first is a name, but when the second Tada comes into the story, I understand that it must be Welsh for Papa. Very quickly the reader deduces that nain must mean grandmother. Gwenni projects her feelings onto the Toby jugs on the mantelpiece and onto the peeling distemper in the scullery where the faces she sees sometimes close their eyes or are scared. She wants to save the spirit of the dead fox that Mrs. Llywelyn Pugh wears around her neck. She doesn’t like lighting matches, the scent of Evening in Paris, dirty fingernails, blood, or fat—on meat or people. She tries not to look at or smell things that give her “the family stomach.” When Gwenni says, “He can’t have a girlfriend if he’s married,” it may seem as if she should be younger. But this was a different time. Although when is not spelled out, some readers have recognized the 1950’s. The Earth Hums in B Flat is a story about family and secrets. Gwenni’s best friend and Kindred Spirit, Alwenna, tells her, “…this is really secret stuff. I mean, everyone knows but it’s really secret.” Gwenni’s Mam often says, “I don’t want anybody to know.” But Gwenni wants to know, and so we’re off to discover some answers. “Do you have to understand?” her Nain asks. Yes, she nods. The writing takes the reader out of Gwenni’s world only a few times. A discussion around the supper table about human reproduction seems a little too on point to an impending discovery. Also, because we are seeing the world through Gwenni’s eyes, the reader often figures things out before she does. For the most part, this works, but at one point, for at least two pages, the reader is shouting at the story. Finally, Gwenni is always asking questions, of herself and of others, but when these manifest themselves as unanchored general questions, they pull us out of her point of view. Gwenni flies at night searching for answers and to hear the Earth sing, “constant as the hum of bees in summer.” Flying, she says, is “like being enchanted; you never want to come down from the sky.” It fills her “like a blessing.” Bad things happen in this world, and Gwenni doesn’t fly away when they do. In the end, she discovers more than she wanted to. “So this is what a murderer looks like. Just like anybody else. Maybe that’s why they’re hard to catch.” The Earth Hums in B Flat is a coming-of-age story, but it’s also a story about the world we live in when we are children, a world that is easy to forget and a delight to remember. Yiyun Li said in an interview that “a story can talk to another story in many ways…” And as this story evokes Mockingbird, we can hear Gwenni and Scout, lights out, talking the night away. Cynthia Newberry Martin lives in Columbus, Georgia. Her first novel, The Painting Story, was a finalist in the 2008 Emory University Novel Contest. Visit her blog, Catching Days. Index of Reviews...>http://catchingdays.cynthianewberrymartin.com/Reviews.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1

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The Earth Hums in B Flat

Mary Strachan

2009, Canongate

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SUMMER 2009 COVER YELLOW FINCHES JIM KROSSCHELL THE FACTORY: AN ELEGY IN 6 PARTS REBECCA LEHMANN CROW YEAR PAUL SILVERMAN DAY OF THE DEAD ARLENE ANG THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS EDWARD MC WHINNEY BABY IN A JAR TANIA HERSHMAN REVIEWS JOHN PIPKIN J. ROBERT LENNON MARY STRACHAN STEPHEN HAVEN C.E. CHAFFIN PAULA MEEHAN DAG SOLSTAD D.A. POWELL Summer-2009.htmlFinches.htmlFinches.htmlFactory.htmlFactory.htmlCrow_Year.htmlCrow_Year.htmlDead.htmlDead.htmlSisyphus.htmlSisyphus.htmlBaby.htmlBaby.htmlReviews.htmlPipkin.htmlCastle.htmlHaven.htmlChaffin.htmlMeehan.htmlSolstad.htmlPowell.htmlshapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1shapeimage_5_link_2shapeimage_5_link_3shapeimage_5_link_4shapeimage_5_link_5shapeimage_5_link_6shapeimage_5_link_7shapeimage_5_link_8shapeimage_5_link_9shapeimage_5_link_10shapeimage_5_link_11shapeimage_5_link_12shapeimage_5_link_13shapeimage_5_link_14shapeimage_5_link_15shapeimage_5_link_16shapeimage_5_link_17shapeimage_5_link_18shapeimage_5_link_19shapeimage_5_link_20shapeimage_5_link_21