I’ve read James McBride differently since I heard him say writing is like music for him; this story is nothing if not a dance. An exuberant, intricately-plotted tale with a wide cast of beguiling characters.

In the town of Pottstown, PA, Blacks and Jews have formed a comfortable alliance, thanks in large part to Chona, a kind Jewish woman who runs the Heaven Earth grocery store. As the dark clouds of fascism pervade Europe, their long shadows invade Pottstown as well. Despite the withering gaze of the Ku Klux Klan, Chona and her husband, Moshe set up popular businesses. When Dodo, a deaf Black child falls in trouble, a great escape for the boy is planned. A delightful novel, filled with delightful characters that affirms the power of community to overcome even the toughest odds.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a moving book about people who care about each other in a world where there is so much discord. McBride’s story is full of love & community & humanity. He is a wonderful storyteller and has written yet another excellent novel.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a moving book about people who care about each other in a world where there is so much discord. McBride’s story is full of love & community & humanity. He is a wonderful storyteller and has written yet another excellent novel.

Set (mostly) in a changing Pennsylvania neighborhood of mostly Jewish immigrants and Black Americans near the beginning of the previous century, this richly told, occasionally bewildering (but in a good way!) story of a Black family who hides a young Black deaf child from institutionalization, the owners of a neighborhood theatre and store, and the secrets that come to light after a devastating secret is revealed is a must read for fans of epic historical fiction.

Many thanks to Penguin Random House/Riverhead and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Quite an intricate story but perhaps a bit muddy and a little heavy handed on "good" v "bad" guys for my taste. Your experience may vary!

McBride sets his novel in Pottstown, PA, a gritty far suburb of Philadelphia. It is the mid to late 1930’s, pre-WWII, but news is reaching the US about the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Two groups of characters are featured: a small Jewish community and a black community, both sharing the neighborhood of “Chicken Hill,” the side of town neglected by municipal council and lacking such basic services as public water.

The central characters are Moshe Ludlow, owner of a ballroom modeled on Pottstown’s Sunnybrook ballroom, handyman Nate Timkins, who encourages his boss to book black performers as well as Jewish popular bands to increase his business, and their wives Chona and Addie. Both families get involved in trying to protect a deaf twelve-year-old orphan boy called “Dodo” from unscrupulous bureaucrats who insist on sending the boy to the notorious Pennhurst State School (the all-to-real Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic).

It's a story of good versus evil and the good-hearted working poor versus the greedy, privileged class who get their comeuppance in the end.