Tildes Book Club discussion - July 2025 - The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
This is the sixteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Our next book will be Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut at the end of August.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
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PHEW. I finally have some time to sit down and write about some thoughts.
First of all, I really enjoyed this book. I loved Chona and Moshe, and I loved Dodo. I thought the characters, and in particular the characterization of the community, were excellent. Chicken Hill had such a clear and rich character to it.
I really enjoyed that there were characters like Isaac, who felt like they couldn't live the life of innocence and joy that Moshe did, but instead of feeling threatened or condescending, felt the urge to protect Moshe and the beauty of his life and perspective.
The two distinct networks of Jews and Black folks supporting their own was very cool to see. I loved how the Jewish union railroad workers (from the minyan!) and the Pullman porters (presumably via Paper?) connected those two networks in the end to disappear Nate and Dodo.
I felt like I pretty much knew how the central conflict was going to go by the first passage from Doc Roberts' perspective. There was enough foreshadowing from the initial frame tale intro and the rest of the first part of the story to set it up pretty obviously. I don't know that this was an issue — while this story did have a plot, in the end, I was really reading for the characters.
The discussion of language and assimilation that cropped up from time to time amongst the Jews was pretty interesting to me. The hierarchy of languages, with some Jews being disdainful of speaking Yiddish, for example, was one aspect of this. Another was the Jews moving away from Chicken Hill, into downtown Pottstown, Reading, and Philadelphia. "Be American" was both a carrot dangled over the heads of the Jews, and in some ways a privilege they had that their Black neighbors did not. Some Jews could pass for white, at least in some context, in some places. Black folks could not (mostly, at least not the ones we met in Chicken Hill). It was pretty interesting and upsetting to be reminded of a time when being Jewish was such a significant social segragator.
I think I didn't really understand Malachi, and I'm curious to hear other folks' thoughts about him.
Monkeypants broke my heart.
Finally: goddamn, the audiobook narrator was on another level. That man is unreal. By my count, he pulled off:
You're not kidding about the audiobook narrator! I didn't count it out, but seeing your descriptions really drove the talent displayed home. I do recall thinking about how diverse some of the accents Dominic Hoffman used were, and also how I don't think just anyone would or should be willing to attempt that.
What did you think about Fatty, Bernice or Paper?
I ended up putting down the book at the end of part 1. I did check the next page. But I was struck so hard by my utter lack of reaction to the end of part 1, and the incident affecting the character that I probably connected to most at that point, that I felt like I didn't want to keep going. I've read a book with a similar plot point before (Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon). That version of a similar scenario had me gasping and holding my hands up to my mouth. This one... almost felt like it was happening in a dream, disconnected? And then with the addition of even more new characters in the next part, I was kind of too mentally taxed to keep going.
I did enjoy the portion that I read (37%). I don't mind mundane meandering. Interweaving the characters' histories and recent events was neat, but it made for slow pacing. I think I could give this book another shot, but it's the kind of book I would probably want to read at a slower pace over a longer stretch of time. I don't encounter books that match that description very often. Maybe it would sink in more if the story had more time to stew in my mind.
The main difficulty I had with the book were the long sentences and even longer (multi-page) paragraphs. It made reading comprehension and tracking from one line to the next really difficult at times. I do not recommend reading this book while sleepy, lol. Operating at optimal brain power is helpful for parsing some of those incredibly long sentences.
I might recommend the audiobook — the narrator was pretty outstanding, and it helped a lot to hear someone enunciate the longer sentences.
I'm glad you read it. Did you enjoy the book?
I loved it. I'm going to leave some more details when I have a larger block of time (hopefully before bed tonight), because I have so many thoughts and feelings!
You're not the only one who loved it so that's good.
I can get worried about engagement and every book so far, those worries were unfounded.
This book has a very distinctive style. Did you like it or dislike it and why?
I've read a bunch of multi-pov historical fiction novels recently, and they're starting to feel a bit same-y, this one included. (But I'm still enjoying them quite a bit!) I think it's a very standard narrative voice for this specific subgenre of small town, small group of people, get inside everyone's pov, and tell a small narrative along the way
Interested if anyone else knows a name for this subgenre?
Others would include A Little Hope, This Town Sleeps (kinda), The Women's Hotel
I felt kind of indifferent about the style. I like stories from multiple points of view, but this one felt a bit disjointed and detracted from the story in my opinion.
In some ways the town, the community, the interaction of diverse groups is a key theme. What do you think about how the author handled race, ethnicity, immigrant status? Is this a specifically American book?
I think the author did a great job voicing the characters from different backgrounds. The book showed a broader view of race, ethnicity, and immigrant status than we are taught in schools in the US. For the majority of my life, I was in school in the south and the things we learned were so incredibly white-washed. To see the world through these characters eyes, even though they were fictional, helped open my eyes to kinds of discrimination that I wasn't fully aware of. I don't feel it is a specifically American book, as the themes and prejudices have been seen in other countries around the world.
I also really enjoyed the different voices which I could 'hear' through the different writing style for different characters' dialogue even though I read a physical book.
What characters did you relate to, find intriguing or interesting?
How did you react to Dodo's story? Monkeypants?
Why do you think the book was called the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store?
On the top level, the grocery store was the location of the central conflict of the book, so that’s as good a name as any.
On a more theological level, I think that conflict especially played on the Adam and Eve story. God creates a beautiful garden at the intersection of heaven (God’s space) and earth (human space) with every kind of provision needed (like a grocery store, not to mention how Chona often gives food away), but there is still one thing in the garden that God tells the man not to take. We don’t know why, just that it will cause death. We don’t know why God places it there, but a test of faithfulness to God’s wisdom seems to be at least part of the explanation (conformity to social mores in the book?)
For an indeterminate period, there is bliss in the garden (time of relative peace in the book, Chona and Moshe’s relationship, perhaps even her care for the creative Dodo, as creativity and creating alongside God would also be emblematic of the Garden narrative). But finally, temptation/a snake enters the scene, leading to taking the fruit which was not for the humans (Doc is both the snake and the tempted here, succumbing to his own wrongly directed desire).
In the end, suffering occurs for all, including Adam and Eve’s future offspring (Dodo and Monkeypants as Abel? Son of Man as Cain - probably a lot more to unpack there), and all are banished from the place of safety.
It’s late and I need to go to bed, but I felt like I should get that in!
Disability is a key theme in the book, what are your thoughts?
The two couples, Moshe and Chona, Nate and Addie are key to the story. What do you think about them and their relationships?
What would you like to ask other group members about this book?
This is in my big wall'o'text, but what did folks think of Malachi? I think he was the only character that I never really felt like I got a handle on.
I'm relying on somewhat vague memories but that author really stressed that Malachi belonged to a stricter religious sect and I got the impression that Malachi was meant to play some kind of mystical or prophetic role, a role that wouldn't make sense outside of a religious context. In broader terms, Malachi seemed to play a role as an oracle or seer.
But ultimately, I didn't see Malachi as very important to the story. He represented one aspect of the culture and identity of some jewish immigrants to the US and he later was an example of the immigrants who arrived to escape the holocaust/shoah. He showed that many 'voluntary' immigrants were less motivated by the promise of America and more motivated by untenable circumstances elsewhere. The irish fleeing the potato famine would be another example of this.
Ahhh yeah, this is a good point, I appreciate you making it
Yeah, Malachi, then the instances of characters seeing into the horrible future of smartphones, were odd for me. At least with Malachi, sometimes there are just random people in your life that pop in and out. But the book almost made him out to be some kind of magical character.
Oh the random call forwards into how hellish modern technology would be was very weird, and felt totally out of place to me. I had apparently blocked that from my memory haba
What did you think about the ending? Did it work for you?
What do you think you are going to remember from this book? Are there memorable moments or key themes that stuck with you?
What did you think of Doc as a villain