I hate the DNF but in this case it was doubly necessary.
I should have known better given my luck with literary fiction, but The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store had a good opening segment preview and it was at the local library. DNF reason 1: it’s due back at the library tomorrow because it’s part of a special set of books where you can get a relatively recent release on a shorter lend with no renewals. DNF reason 2: I totally lost interest after about the first two chapters. Characters randomly show up but then disappear or are set up for main parts and then get sidelined for no reason. Take Chona, one of the supposed main characters by the book general summary and opening. She’s the owner of the titular grocery store, happens to be Jewish, physically disabled, female, and operating a shop frequented by African Americans in 1970s Pennsylvania. She should be a totally kick-butt figure fighting for justice etc. Problem is, she’s mostly present in people’s thoughts or observations; she has virtually no voice. I have to admit, I gave up actually reading this one. I skimmed and skipped around to see if things got better; it’s possible I missed something. Same kind of problem with Nate, who is set up to be the local African American hero type. He does something at the end that seems to have no reason, and then what happens to him afterwards likewise seems unfinished and meaningless.
Then there’s characters like Malachi who randomly wander in and out of the story seemingly at random, and feel kind of like they are supposed to have meaning, but don’t really, kind of like someone was trying too hard to be deep. There’s also an awful lot of fate; if only someone had looked two feet to the left, or if only someone else had known a thing at the time seems to happen at a relatively consistent rate. The last we see of Monkey Pants is a variation on this problem too.
It’s really too bad because what I did manage to get through captured the feeling of a community of outcasts trying to get by for themselves but also co-exist; the blatant villain racist doesn’t seem that way to everyone in the story but since we get to see and hear their thoughts, we know, as do quite a few other characters who see through the respectable façade. The mystery is kind of interesting but the execution involves quite a few other murders that don’t factor into the set up, and there’s a lot of wasted potential. This one is a nope for me.