> NEW AND NOTABLE
Just As I Am, Cicely Tyson (Harper-Collins) In rather a heartbreaking turn of events, Cicely Tyson died on Jan. 28 at the age of 96, just as her first and only memoir was coming out. So instead of seeing Tyson on screens and in articles doing interviews about the book, which she had already started — her last interview before passing was “Live With Kelly and Ryan” — the book now stands as part of her legacy.
And, with Viola Davis’s powerful introduction, it also becomes a memorial to Tyson and to her career which, Davis writes, inspired her: “In Ms. Tyson I saw a dark-skinned woman with the same ’fro as my mother, an artist who carried herself with pride and poise … Watching ‘Jane Pittman’ I saw my ticket out of poverty and shame.”
There are intimate and powerful stories from Tyson’s early childhood — including one that haunted her about her mother, a domestic worker, a strong, dignified woman, lining up on a street to be looked over by white women who then hired her.
Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz (Grove Press) The tension grabs you from the first sentence of this book’s eponymous first story: “Pink is the colour for girls,” Kiera says, so she and Ava cut their palms and let their blood drip into a shallow bowl filled with milk …” Blood sisters.
Powerful and evocative, these 11 stories, set in Florida, are pulled together in Moniz’ debut collection. Lauren Groff has called it “a gorgeous debut from a wickedly talented new writer,” and Roxane Gay has chosen it as her April book club pick.
Cathedral, Ben Hopkins (Europa Editions) At 624 pages, this doorstopper of a book will appeal to those who want an immersive read to take them through the dark days of February — particularly if you’ve caught up on Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell/“Wolf Hall” series and are yearning for more sweeping historical fiction. This is a first book for Hopkins, the British screenwriter and filmmaker with movies including “The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz” to his credit.
At the centre of the novel is the building of a fictional cathedral beginning in 1229. It provides the backdrop and structure for a narrative told by 15 characters with varying places in the hierarchy. Hopkins wrote it as “a portrait of the early roots of modern mercantile capitalism.”
City of a Thousand Gates, Rebecca Sacks (Patrick Crean Editions) With a crowded cast of characters — 29, apparently, from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives — Sacks creates a debut novel about life in the West Bank and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
The narrative is anchored around the murders of two young people: a 14-yearold Jewish girl stabbed to death by a terrorist who crawls into her bedroom, and the retaliatory murder of a 14-yearold Palestinian boy who is beaten at a Jerusalem mall.
Sacks’ own perspective is unique: she is a citizen of Canada, the U.S. and Israel — currently living in Israel — which perhaps gives her the ability to stand outside of the fray.