Mostly set in the 1930s, it opens with the discovery of a skeleton down a well in the 1970s, right before a hurricane comes in and destroys everything, including the evidence. It follows the intertwined lives of the Black and Jewish residents of Chicken Hill, in Pottstown, PA as they open businesses, marry and have children, and work and live alongside one another.
This book has an extensive cast of characters, but McBride makes each of them stand out for the reader in such a way that you don't forget who they are or mix them up, which so often happens in large cast novels. While the novel focuses primarily on Moshe and Chona, the Jewish owners of the grocery store and two integrated theaters, Addie and Nate Timblin, their Black employees, and their nephew Dodo, the novel is populated by a rich cast of characters that bring different perspectives to the events unfolding in Chicken Hill. This is a story of community, friendship, love, as well as anger and hate. It examines how poor immigrants and Blacks are oppressed by wealthier, whiter community members, and how they come together as a community to help one another in times of need. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives and interesting characters, as well as how McBride wove their lives and stories together into one narrative, incorporating humor alongside the tragic, and giving readers a satisfying end to Chicken Hill and its residents.

Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store early in exchange for a review.

This was my first novel by James McBride, and I was very happy with it. I loved the interactions between the Jewish characters and the Black neighborhood, I loved seeing how community pulled together to help a young boy, and I liked the ending. I thought the author did a great job with his characterizations and with showing the interweaving of the people into a web that supported the story and ending.

4 1/2 stars

This was an interesting book, not at all what I thought it might be. It focuses on a neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Chicken Hill, and the people who lived there in the 1920s and 1930s. It proved to be a delight, rich in characters, packed with history and cultures. My one slight complaint is that I felt that the ending was a little rushed, as if the author grew tired of writing about these wonderful and colorful characters.

In Chicken Hill, the long-standing, mutually-beneficial relationship of Blacks and Jews has gone on for years. Behind much of the community spirit is Chona, a young Jewish woman with a physical disability.

Chona, for her part, saw them not as Negroes but as neighbors with infinite interesting lives.

Chona does everything that she can to make her neighbors’ lives easier, even if it means that her grocery store is always functioning at a loss. When she marries Moshe Ludlow, a Jewish theater manager, they work together to make lives easier for their Black neighbors. There’s very much a touch of Yentel in Chona. She wants to study things that women aren’t supposed to study. She want to bring about freedom and equality for all.

This is a book of good coming out of evil, of evil being punished. It’s about friendship, compassion, and the mistreatment of those with physical and mental challenges. There’s a clear message of discrimination and how unfair it is. I think there’s also a peek into the Jewish Mafia touched on within the pages of this book.

I thought this book could have done with a bit less exposition, and I would have liked a better understanding of Malachi’s purpose. Also, Monkey Pants, was he purposely drugged, or did what happened come about from natural events? These are small problems in an otherwise excellently written book.

Overall, this is a magnificent book, and I highly recommend it.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I thank all involved for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.

I’m awed by the author’s ability to blend the experiences of a poor Pennsylvania settlement of immigrant Jews and Black Americans with the anti-semitism and racism that is once again surfacing in our country today. With all of the overt statements and beliefs of the white town population, the disadvantaged citizens of Chicken Hill nevertheless find ways to respect and help each other, particularly when the much loved owner of Heaven & Earth Groceries and a deaf boy are each threatened unfairly. The writing is very descriptive, even made me smile occasionally at his use of metaphors and similes. Loved that the author found a way to end this novel on a positive note.

Thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

James McBride does not disappoint in this new book. He is such an amazing storyteller that gives his characters depth and brings them to life. Great for readers of historical fiction and family fiction.

Thank you for an advance copy of this beautiful story of community. It tells the story of the residents of Chicken Hill, a mostly Jewish and Black community in the 1930s, focusing on two characters, Moshe and Chona and their small businesses in this community. They are immersed in the community and its struggles and get involved in protecting a young black deaf boy from being institutionalized. This story is so well written..the characters are so rich and complex and the setting is so well portrayed I felt I was there. It was touching, moving and an important story to be told. I loved this novel. HIghly recommend!

This set of linked stories, spinning out from different characters in 1930’s Pottstown, PA, took a while to get going but then sucked me right in.

The prologue, set in 1972, sets out what’s to come but only makes sense in retrospect. After this rather confusing start, we settle in to the main narrative which revolves around the Jewish and “Negro” residents of the Chicken Hill neighborhood. For a good chunk of the book, the expansive cast of characters drive the narrative as we get to know them and their stories.

Pottstown is full of migrants, both longstanding and recent. Many of the White folk proudly, if erroneously, claim heritage from the Mayflower. The colored inhabitants have moved up from North Carolina after the Civil War and split into two factions. The Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe are the most recent and the author does a sharp and witty job of delineating the perceived temperaments of the country groups.

Initially central are Moshe, who runs two theaters in town, and his wife, Chona, who runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery store which she inherited from her father. It’s a sympathetic portrait of a kind and generous couple who serve both the Jewish and colored communities. Chona is a strikingly independent woman who calls out the injustices and inequities she sees, perpetrated by entitled white residents.

The author does a wonderful job of creating a vivid community and setting it in a specific era through vignettes about different characters which then builds into three stories calling back to the prologue. Tonally it swings comfortably between tragedy, drama, and broad comedy, without losing the humanity of characters.

I have not read any of the author’s previous books so I can’t comment on how this fits into his oeuvre, but I’m certainly going to go back and try a few.

Thanks to Riverhead and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

In the mid and early 1900s immigrants and Black Americans had an uneasy alliance as they banded together against those with greater wealth and social privilege. The identity of the skeleton found in the well at Chicken Hill in 1971 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania was a secret held jointly by Jewish and Black community leaders. The same leaders kept a deaf boy safe from being housed in a forced, dehumanizing, institutional manner.

This is a fascinating look at a community, a microcosm, full of interesting characters, and relationships, that came together when necessary to solve problems. The premise is that they would move heaven and earth to help each other.

This is an exceptional book. The multi points of view give a nuanced exploration of the meaning of community. Everyone's path is smoothed and made more difficult by different factors. McBride allows us to walk a mile in each character's shoes. His writing flows beautifully for each character - with the cadence of the prose changing with each. The category of "other" falls away when a group is faced with shared hardship. I found my self deeply engrossed in the overall weave of the story as well as the individual threads.

I love James McBride. I will read anything he writes and picked this up without even bothering to see what it was about. McBride does justice to any time period or place he chooses and he's always funny. This one's about Jewish and black people in Pennsylvania in the 1930s and it is delightful.

This is such a great book. McBride is an amazing storyteller. The characters and historical detail make this a novel that--like much of what he writes--will stay with you long after finishing it. Highly recommended!

I was initially drawn to this book because it take place in Pottstown, PA which is very close to where I live. I had never read anything by this author so I had no idea what to expect. What an amazing storyteller James McBride is! I was hooked from the very first page. The story itself is incredible and the characters he introduces the reader to are so well developed and unforgettable. He does get a bit wordy with some of his descriptions but overall this is an amazing story that I will recommend to many!
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

My goodness! James McBride's way of storytelling certainly is mesmerizing! In "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store", he populates his tales with characters, the likes of which we have never seen before. Once you start this novel you can barely tear your eyes away; wanting to know more; wanting to know what happens next.

What started as a mystery veers into something else entirely and it is remarkable in its depth and breadth. Taking place in 1930's Pennsylvania, the novel deals with bigotry and racism, physical disabilities, and incarceration of those who are mentally ill or even perceived to be so.

I'm sorry to say this is the first book by Mr. McBride I've ever read, but it surely won't be my last. "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store", is a treat and I highly recommend it.

Such a unique and well- told story. At first, it seemed an overwhelming cast of characters, but loved how they all came together for the common goal.

This is a beautiful book about community and what people do to survive. The characters are captivating. It's also an interesting historical novel.

This novel is set in the 1930's, in a small town in Pennsylvania. Jews, African Americans, European immigrants and supposed Mayflower descendants, living side-by-side sharing joys, sorrows and everything else life has dealt them. This is a wonderful, powerful, brilliant historical fiction. I cried, I rejoiced, I was spellbound and enthralled. Highly recommend.

Vividly generous characters are revealed with heart, humor, community, and an intimate sense of place. Know and love the "Chicken Hill" neighbors of immigrant Jews and African Americans in Pottstown, Pennsylvania!

“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” by James McBride, Riverhead Books, 400 pages, Aug. 8, 2023.

In 1972, workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, are digging the foundations for a new development. They find a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Pennsylvania State Police go to the Chicken Hill home of Malachi, an elderly Jewish man, to ask about a metal item that was found.

He tells them it is a mezuzah that would have been hung above a door. They already know that the wording says it is the home of the greatest dancer in the world. Malachi was a dancer. The troopers say they will be back, but the state is hit by Hurricane Agnes the next day.

When the troopers finally return, Malachi is gone. 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 neighborhood where immigrant Jews and Blacks lived side by side in the 1930s.

Moshe and Chona Ludlow live on Chicken Hill. Moshe integrated his theater and Chona runs the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Although most of the Jews moved off the hill to the downtown, the Ludlows stayed.

When the state comes looking for a deaf 12-year-old boy, nicknamed Dodo, to institutionalize him, it is Chona Ludlow and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater, who work together to keep the boy safe. Nate is Dodo’s uncle. And when Dodo is finally taken away to Pennhurst Hospital, a plot is formed to get him out.

This is a well-plotted historical novel with excellent characters who demonstrate the good, and the bad, of a community. I got so wrapped up in the effort to rescue Dodo that I forgot that a skeleton had been found. The story accelerates to an amazing climax and a deeply moving ending.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

A beautiful, sad epic novel about the struggles of Jewish Americans and African Americans during the history of America.

I had high hopes for this book as I had enjoyed James McBride's previous book (a memoir). This one did not capture my interest, unfortunately and I was disappointed. Slow moving.