Moving, thoughtful tale of Jews and African Americans struggling to co-exist and survive in Pottstown, PA in the 30s. Amazing descriptions, characters and language - McBride is a master at weaving a story.

An absolutely riveting read. McBride’s masterful way of weaving this tale at breakneck speed simply compelled me to never put the book down for long. Each diverse character is as compelling as the last one, and it makes for a rich American tapestry.

Thank you to Riverhead Publishing and NetGalley for the early copy of this book, releasing on August 8th, 2023x

I am very faithful to James McBride, and I have a season pass for everything he writes. Will read all his books from now until forever! All of his books have wonderful characters with incredible details and this book was no exception. This book was extremely unique…McBride builds the Chicken Hill community, a community with both Jewish immigrants and African Americans living side by side with their shared secrets and mutual care for each other. At the core, this book is about the resiliency of community and love despite differences, and this theme is intertwined throughout each character’s presence in the book.

What do you get when you mix a Jewish theatre, an impoverished Black community, and an unchecked evil?

Well, you get a hurricane. And a well.

There is a lot of darkness in this book, caused by the evil that white privilege spawns.

But there is also hope.
Hope that we may not be doomed to repeat the past.
Hope that community may stand up for the downtrodden.
Hope that people will overcome.
Hope that justice may be done, and the circle be unbroken.

Chicken Hill is a real place. A bastian of inclusivity and acceptance, that disappeared in the annals of history, and somehow brought to life in this book. The author's note says it was diverse "before the word diversity echoed around America."

If you are a fan of historical fiction, this book should be at the top of your to-read list.

"Don't ask for the devil to show up, Soap."
"What are we waiting for?"
"Waiting for the future, Soap, waiting for the future."

Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC
What a great story that you definitely do not want to end. I was so immersed in the Pottstown PA community that it comes alive jumping from the page into your very being. McBride succeeded in rendering these two communities with such justice to both. McBride is a master storyteller and this is a must read novel that is hard to put down.

The black and Jewish residents of Chicken Hill help each other survive in the decades before WWII. Their lives and struggles overlap as McBride reveals more and more about each character, until their lots are thrown together fully by an attack from the white establishment that leaves a Jewish woman dead and a black boy in danger.

James McBride is becoming one of my favorite authors. I love the way each chapter is a self-contained story and how the plot just sort of reveals itself by stacking stories on top of one another. The way that you almost forget about the body that's discovered in the well in the beginning of the book, until it comes back around at the end. This books is fantastic, and I'll be recommending it.

Racism and anti-semitism, the division of American society, and a mysterious skeleton found in a well decades later make up an engaging story. The multiple characters are well developed and the writing is beautiful.

A compulsively readable tale, populated with vivid and engaging characters, that poignantly illustrates the tension in American society (and not just in the past). Two families of different backgrounds are inextricably linked as the mystery of a skeleton in a well is unraveled. A compelling narrative that touches on racial prejudice and mistreatment of the disabled.

In 1972, after the ravages of Hurricane Agnes, the authorities find a skeleton in a well, wearing the remains of a red coat and clutching a mezuzah. So begins “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”, a beautifully written story of the Chicken Hill area of Pottstown, PA in the mid-1930s. Chicken Hill is inhabited by Blacks, Jews, and Italians, whose lives are interwoven as they live on the margins of the staid, seemingly respectable Pottstown where the KKK marches in the annual parades and corruption is right below the surface. Alternately funny, tragic, and heartbreaking, the stories of Chona, Moshe, Dodo, Nate and Addie are rich with history and carry echoes through to today. James McBride is a master. Highly recommend.

1n 1972 a mysterious skeleton , along with a Jewish pendant is found at the bottom of a well on Chicken Hill in Pottstown, PA.

40 years earlier the residents of Chicken Hill came together to hide and protect an orphaned deaf boy the state was looking to institutionalize.

Full of unforgettable characters, humor, grace… and delicious karma.

What I think McBride does so perfectly is show us the beauty that exists in humanity and community, without ever closing our eyes to its cruelly and injustice. I loved every sentence!

The Heaven & Earth Grocery store has never turned a monetary profit but that doesn't matter to Chona, a handicapped Jewish wife who cares for and feeds her local community, be they white, black, Jewish or poor. At a time when women were supposed to "keep house" and keep quiet, Chona educates herself on history, politics, the law, and the Talmud. She speaks out in her letters to the local newspaper and identifies a local KKK leader as the town's doctor. As various characters from "Chicken Hill", (the neighborhood where the poor live) interact with Chona, readers are introduced to the prejudiced world which she and her neighbors inhabit. Weaving each family's stories into the fabric of the narrative, McBride provides us with a richly satisfying tale. A tale that will leave readers deeply satisfied for having known these unique characters and the woman who accepted and loved them all.

I loved this book and could not put it down. A great novel that provides insight into 3 different cultures and does an excellent job- -African American, Jewish community - -Italians- -and how their experiences differ and how much we are alike. A compelling read as it chronicles how these 3 groups are interconnected and share the same struggles and triumphs.

This is a historical novel about Chicken Hill where Jews and African Americans came together as neighbors to find their way.
This is a good story of history and shows what many cultures have had to go through just to survive.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is an enlightening novel that encompasses the lines of ethnicity, religion, politics, and health during the 1930's, while prejudice is rampant, especially against anyone who is not white and Jewish and disabled. The Southern twist to the writing is fantastic for us Southerners. The background 'stories' of all the characters are somewhat lengthy.

James McBride has a talent for crafting large groups of memorable, fully realized characters, and then weaving them all together into a beautifully (and also at times tragically) intricate web, all with keeping their vivid individuality intact. Said talent is once again on full roaring display here in “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.” Here, McBride’s latest cast anchors a tale that is as intensely heart wrenching at some times as it is soul-warming in others. Their story is simultaneously one of their own community and time in pre-WWII Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and a story that’s all-too-timelessly American with its themes of the marginalized striving to live in a land built upon a foundation of catering to the white Christian (and quite often a male one, to boot).

To be a bit cliched, my main qualm is that I’ve already finished it, and now have no choice but to wait indefinitely for McBride’s next work. But in the meantime, I’ll be happy to endorse it to anyone on the lookout for a high quality historical fiction read.

In the early 20th century, Black and Jewish residents of a poor neighborhood rally together when a deaf boy is institutionalized after an incident with a white doctor at the local grocery store.

This is a powerful novel of injustice in America, dealing with race, religion, and disability. I enjoyed the portrayal of the diverse immigrant Jewish community and the parallels of their experiences with those of African Americans.

But if I’m honest I found the book heavy going overall. While the many characters and their backstories gave depth to the story, the tangents, excessive detail, and overlong conversations made for a tedious read. I also felt that the messaging was overdone at times, particularly with the “flashforwards” to our current era and its issues.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

Chicken Hill is a dilapidated residential area in Pottstown, Pennsylvania where immigrant Jews and African-Americans lived. In the early 1970s, workers were excavating in advance of building a new development, and were startled to find a skeleton. No one seems to know who it is or how it got there.

A couple named Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived in the area back in the day, and she ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, while he was busy integrating his theater. Representatives of the state were thwarted by their efforts to remove and institutionalize a deaf boy by Chona and Nate Timblin, the janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the African-American community in the area.

As I read the stories of these characters, the big impact on me was how much the people in the Chicken Hill area (like all those who live outside the mainstream of white Christian America) had to struggle just to survive. As the story of what happened in Chicken Hill emerges, a picture of a community that has found the strength inherent in a close-knit group grows more and more vivid.

McBride is known for his compassionate storytelling, evidenced by his Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. I’ve been feeling discouraged by the lack of progress in reducing (and hopefully, one day eliminating) racism in this country. Events like what happened in this story are horrifying, and I personally didn’t come away from this book feeling positive about humanity in general or white Christian America in particular. But it is beautifully written, and I appreciate Penguin Group/Riverhead and NetGalley for providing a copy of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store in exchange for this honest review. Four stars.

This is a beautiful book that I could not put down. I loved the story about how Jewish people and Black people come together to make up a community that takes care of its own people.I absolutely loved how they come together in the story to expose what's wrong in the world and to help a a child who is in need.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful novel with an even more beautiful tribute at the end.

James McBride's latest book is about being a good neighbor.

Blacks relocated from the South and Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe live side by side in the 1930s on Chicken Hill, a slum that Pottstown, PA, residents, deserted in favor of potable water and a sewer system. As squalid as the conditions, Chicken Hill residents feel fortunate to be where they are.

Chona, who runs Heaven & Earth Grocery, extends credit to everyone. Born in America, stricken with polio and the daughter of a rabbi, she refuses to move down the hill. Her husband has her love but not her courage in the face of prejudice.

The couple agrees to protect the young deaf nephew of the black couple that works for them when the government decides the child should be in an institution. Chicken Hill aids in the deception and abets in the plan to retrieve the child.

McBride paints detailed portraits of the characters, shading with comedy and tragedy. This book will stay with the reader long after the epilogue.