Events › Civic Center Afternoon Book Club: 'The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store' by James McBride

The Civic Center Library's Afternoon Book Club will meet in person on Thursday, February 19th from 12:00-1:00pm to discuss The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

While this afternoon book club generally meets on the 3rd Thursday of every month from 1:00-2:00pm, occasionally the day &/or the time will change. All are welcome to join!

Request a copy of the book online or ask at the Info Desk of the Civic Center Library (or call 415-473-6057) for assistance in placing a hold.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (book) or The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (ebook) or The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (eAudiobook) or The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (audiobook on CD) or The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (preloaded audiobook, aka Playaway) or The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (large print) by James McBride

From James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong and The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

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 neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

- adapted from the publisher

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