Program Type:
DiscussionProgram Description
Event Details
Pick up a copy of the book a month before the discussion, read, and discuss a different book each month.
Feb 5: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
In 1972, construction workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania discovered a skeleton at the bottom of a well—uncovering long-buried secrets from Chicken Hill, a poor neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans once lived together. There, Moshe and Chona Ludlow ran an integrated theater and the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state tried to institutionalize a deaf boy, Chona and Nate Timblin, a Black community leader, risked everything to protect him. As their stories intertwine, the novel reveals the struggles of those living on the margins of white, Christian America and the lengths they go to survive. When the truth behind the skeleton and the town’s white establishment finally emerges, McBride shows that even in the darkest moments, love and community endure.
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