#Review: IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TRUE by Susan Kaplan Carlton! #AlgonquinYR
Welcome to Book-Keeping and my review of the just-released historical fiction novel from Algonquin Young Readers, In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton! I absolutely love this book
title: In the Neighborhood of True
author: Susan Kaplan Carlton
publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
release date: 9 April 2019
A powerful story of love, identity, and the price of fitting in or speaking out.
After her father’s death, Ruth Robb and her family transplant themselves in the summer of 1958 from New York City to Atlanta—the land of debutantes, sweet tea, and the Ku Klux Klan. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be Jewish or she can be popular, but she can’t be both. Eager to fit in with the blond girls in the “pastel posse,” Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before she knows it, she is falling for the handsome and charming Davis and sipping Cokes with him and his friends at the all-white, all-Christian Club.
Does it matter that Ruth’s mother makes her attend services at the local synagogue every week? Not as long as nobody outside her family knows the truth. At temple Ruth meets Max, who is serious and intense about the fight for social justice, and now she is caught between two worlds, two religions, and two boys. But when a violent hate crime brings the different parts of Ruth’s life into sharp conflict, she will have to choose between all she’s come to love about her new life and standing up for what she believes.
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Praise for In the Neighborhood of True:
“The story may be set in the past, but it couldn’t be a more timely reminder that true courage comes not from fitting in, but from purposefully standing out…and that to find out who you really are, you have to first figure out what you’re not.” — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things
“A gorgeous story about a teenage girl finding her voice in the face of hate, heartbreak, and injustice.” — Nova Ren Suma, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Room Away from the Wolves
“Susan Kaplan Carlton’s snapshot of 1958 Atlanta is both exquisite and harrowing, and I will hold it in my heart for a long time.” —Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone and Our Year of Maybe
“You might not think a book set in 1959 could feel wildly relevant, but wow does this YA set in Atlanta that explores anti-Semitism in the south during the Civil Rights era feel incredibly on point after the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.” —Barnes & Noble Teen Blog
“While it's not wrong to say that historical fiction can be a great genre to read when you want to take a break from current events, these books can also be a gateway to re-examining and understanding the many ways that history can repeat itself unless people make meaningful, positive change happen. Susan Kaplan Carlton's debut, In The Neighborhood of True, is a combination of both: romantic escapism brushes against harsh truths about discrimination and violence.” —Bustle
Susan Kaplan Carlton currently teaches writing at Boston University. She is the author of the YA novels Love & Haight and Lobsterland. Her writing has also appeared in Self, Elle, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen. She lived for a time with her family in Atlanta, where her daughters learned the finer points of etiquette from a little pink book and the power of social justice from their synagogue.
Connect with Susan: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Q&A with Susan Kaplan Carlton
1. Â Â Â How did you write TRUE? All at once or did you outline the story?
I’m not an outliner, and it took me a long time (a year, if I’m being honest) to find the beating heart of this book. Once I figured out what the story was about—falling so in love with a boy, or a place, that you risk losing yourself…and learning to stand up for what you believe in even when it’s hard and heart-breaking—I wrote straight through.
2. Â Â Â What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters? Which of your characters do you most identify with, and why?
I love my main character Ruth. She’s shallow and she knows it (obsessed with fashion and frippery and the magazine Mademoiselle) but she’s discovering that she also runs deep. A couple of years ago, the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote a great essay for ELLE defending why smart women can love fashion. And I love that (and her). We are all so much more than one thing.
3. Â Â Â What gave you the idea for TRUE?
The roots of the story are deeply personal. Our family had just moved to Atlanta and joined a synagogue. We were still new to town when our youngest daughter announced she’d learned that the classroom she spent every Sunday morning in had been the site of a bombing 50 years before. That stayed with me—the idea that the walls that held these kids had once been blown apart. In the Neighborhood of True is a response to that bombing in 1958, retribution for the rabbi’s involvement in civil rights. The book is horrifying timely in a way I never could have imagined. You can draw a line from Atlanta in 1958 ….to Charlottesville in 2017….to Pittsburgh in 2018…to Christchurch two months ago.
So, there’s that important seed of the story. And then, as I was writing Ruth and her various lies of omission about her religion, I remembered my college boyfriend asking me to not tell his grandfather that I was Jewish…he just wanted the man to like me, he said. And, unbelievably, I agreed. That’s the question I found myself puzzling over—why was I so quick to hide who I was for this boy I loved?
4. Â Â Â Do you have a favourite scene, quote, or moment from TRUE?
It takes my main character, Ruth, a long time to find her voice in Atlanta, circa 1958. At first she’s so seduced by the dresses and the debutante parties (and a dimpled boy) that she keeps quiet about who she is.
On Ruth’s first official date with Davis, she’s trying to figure out how much of herself to reveal. I like this scene between them after seeing the movie Vertigo.
      “I like Hitchcock,” I said.
      “Me too. Bet you like one of the Janes—Eyre or Austen.”
      “Please. Give me some credit. I like . . . I love . . . Truman Capote.” Actually, Sara liked Truman Capote. But last year, Mademoiselle had published one of his short stories, so that was something.
      “I should read him then.”
      The thought of Davis doing something because I loved it was sort of exhilarating. “I don’t really love him,” I said, wanting to tell the truth when I could. “I just read one story of his about Christmas, and it was depressing as dirt.”
      “Ah, so in the neighborhood of true.” Davis one-dimpled me. “That’s what we say when something’s close enough.”
5. Â Â Â If you could tell your younger writing self-anything, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self not to be so judge-y. My first drafts are a hot mess. I wonder a thousand times an hour if there’s anything of worth on the page. And I’m kind of slow. I have to write all the way to the end to figure out what I’m trying to say. But then the revision starts, and I cut all the dreck, and things start looking up.
6. Â Â Â What is on your current TBR pile?
Sooooo many books, but here are my top five!
·     White Rose by Kip Wilson (a gorgeous novel in verse about Sophie Scholl and a nonviolent resistance group that challenged the Nazis)
·     Internment by Samira Ahmed (every single writer I respect has been raving about this novel set in the near-future with internment camps for Muslim-Americans)
·     Bright Burning Stars by AK Small (ballet and Paris—yes, please)
·     The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali (this historical fiction about first loves and fate is technically an adult read but easily crosses to YA – set in both 1950s Tehran and present-day Boston)
·     It’s a Whole Spiel edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman (cannot wait for this anthology with Jewish characters who are diverse in sexuality, race, and level of observance)
7. Â Â Â Do you write to music? If so, what artist were you listening to while writing TRUE?
The opening lines of the song 24 Frames by Jason Isbell made me think of Ruth: “This is how you make yourself vanish into nothing/And this is how you make yourself worthy of the love that she/Gave to you back when you didn’t own a beautiful thing.”
In a more vintage mood, I also made a Spotify playlist for TRUE – songs that Ruth (and Gracie and Davis) would have listened to and loved….and it really inspired me as I was trying to imagine the twists and turns, political and otherwise, of 1958:
Great Balls of Fire — Jerry Lee Lewis
Sh-Boom — The Crew Cuts
Love me Tender — Elvis Presley
At the Hop — Danny and the Juniors
Wake Up Little Susie —The Everly Brothers
Blue Suede Shoes — Carl Perkins/Elvis Presley
In the Still of the Light — Five Satins
St. Thomas — Sonny Rollins
Rock Around the Clock — Bill Haley and His Comets
Tutti Fruitti — Little Richard
That’ll Be the Day — The Crickets
I Walk the Line — Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Twos
Why Do Fools Fall in Love — Teenagers
You Send Me — Sam Cooke
When Brittani Hilles of Algonquin Young Readers first told me about the forthcoming In the Neighborhood of True, I knew immediately that I wanted to read it as soon as I could. I’m so glad she was kind enough to let me read an early copy, because I cannot say enough wonderful things about this book! Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres and has been since I was a teenager. I typically read historical fiction set long ago, particularly during the Elizabethan and Victorian periods. However, I’ve been reading some more recent historical fiction lately, and I especially like reading about the era in which so many Americans fought for civil rights. In the Neighborhood of True, set in Atlanta in 1959, is a wonderful example of what can be so special about books set during this time, especially when they are based on true events, as this one is. It might seem like an obvious thing to say, but there is so much we can -- and should -- learn from history, and Ruth’s experiences in True teach us so much.
The characters in True, from Ruth to Davis to Nattie to Max to Fontaine and Mr. Hank to the “pastel posse,” are full and complex and jump off the pages. Some will find their way into your hearts, while others you will feel palpable contempt for. Being a Southern girl myself, I keenly felt the atmosphere in which Ruth suddenly finds herself, even though I was her age 3 decades after the events of this story. (The more things change, the more they stay the same....) The sense of time and place is evocative and exquisite, from the way the characters speak (in both Southern-isms and 1950s-isms) to the descriptions of magnolias and sweet tea and taking nips of SoCo. At the same time, there is a keen sense of timelessness to the heart of the story, which is fundamentally about discrimination and hate and othering -- aspects of our lives which sadly have not faded all that much with the passage of the past 60 years.Â
After a hate crime rips through Atlanta, Ruth must decide if “passing” is worth it, if she is willing to maintain the lie (or at least, lack of truth) that has sustained her new friendships, or if she will out herself as Jewish and possibly lose the sense of community and belonging she has found. Without giving too much away, I have to say that my favorite scene, in a book rife with incredible moments, is Ruth’s final conversation with Davis. The realization she comes to is one that I hope we can all take to heart, even when it is not “our people” who are being targeted and hurt. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, so let me just say that I hope everyone will read this book. Author Rachel Lynn Solomon perfectly captured my own feelings when she said of In the Neighborhood of True, “...I will hold it in my heart for a long time.” That is precisely what I plan to do as well.
**Disclosure: I received an early e-copy of this book from the publisher. This review is voluntary on my part and reflects my honest rating and review.
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