The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and ’30s. In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community – heaven and earth – that sustain us.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
This book was released nearly a year ago and there is still demand! More than a dozen people are waiting for one of the over 140 copies purchased for circulation. It’s set among fictionalized Black and Jewish residents in the 1920s and ’30s. The author intertwines their stories in a complex, yet encouraging way. While there is so much tension and hate in the world, this story is a reminder of how love, respect and courage can prevail.