James McBride’s backstory–his mother was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and his father was a Black minister–makes his new novel, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” an authentic historical fiction that showcases the outcast communities of Blacks and Jews in the rural American Midwest. There are, in fact, many, many characters in this complex story wherein we see reflections of the present in a memorable tale of good and evil. We do see that in the long run, good mostly triumphs over evil. But we also see that while much has changed since the early part of the last century, when this novel is set, and while we think of ourselves and our modern technology, not enough has really changed. And McBride makes that abundantly clear with his vivid prose and his lovely metaphor.

This is a novel in which the story is fascinating, the characters jump from the pages and inhabit our imagination, and the writing, at times, is so achingly lovely that we stop to reread a particularly moving and evocative sentence or paragraph twice or three times as we savor the delicate manner in which McBride expresses the feelings and actions of the characters.

McBride values connections. One of the evil characters in the story is a man with no connections about whom McBride writes, “For his wife did not love him. His children did not miss him. The town did not erect a statue in his honor.” The town was Pottstown, a small town with many small-minded residents. The Blacks and Jews were segregated in an area known as Chicken Hill. While the white Protestant residents of Pottstown enjoyed indoor plumbing and running water, those living on the hill had neither. Yet the main character, Chona, married to a fairly successful theater owner, Moshe, refused to move from her home and her place of business, the Heaven and Earth Grocery store. She ran the store and provided food and other necessities to the inhabitants of Chicken Hill, giving food away when needed and caring for those who could not care for themselves.

One of the many themes in this story is how people with disabilities are viewed by others and how they view themselves. Chona had polio as a child, and even with a specially made shoe, she limped. Yet when Moshe met her he didn’t notice her handicap. What he noticed were her sparkling bright eyes, her infectious laugh, and her loving demeanor. She was also beautiful. And what we find out about Chona is that she was as beautiful inside as outside, the very epitome of the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, making the world a better place. Chona consistently helped others with no thought of or need for reciprocity. Her generosity came from her heart, and was given regardless of the color or social standing of the person in need. She loved blindly and was almost ruthlessly singleminded in her determination to spread her values.

Many in town didn’t appreciate Chona’s values, her constant letters to the editor of the Pottstown newspaper about the inappropriateness of the town’s doctor marching in the KKK parade, and about other injustices she saw. In fact, the town doctor, the prime example of bigotry and thoughtless racism, also limped because of a deformity in his foot, and his unrequited crush on Chona was ignored in spite of the fact that he thought a Jew should have been grateful for his attentions.

What McBride presents in addition to Chona and Moshe and their Black good friends Nate and Addie is a community that represents America as a whole. There are the white Protestant families who only respect other white Protestants. There are immigrants from Europe who are treated as second class citizens and provided only the lowest of jobs. Then there are the Black families who work as domestic servants or drivers or nannies for white families. McBride writes about the Black women, “The Black women of Chicken Hill were a tight community. Most worked as maids for the white man, walking down the Hill to town each morning to wash the clothing, cook the food, raise the children, care for elderly parents, and allow the white women their privilege.”

But even in the small segregated communities, there are different groups. The Lowgods are a group of Blacks who are different from their Pottstown neighbors, and McBride explains how and why. In the Jewish community, there are the German Jews who look down their noses at the uneducated Jews who arrive from Eastern Europe: the Lithuanians Jews, the Hungarian and Polish Jews, Russian Jews, “crazy” Romanian Jews. But it’s the Black community that pulls together when there is a boy who needs saving.

Dodo, a twelve-year-old deaf boy, becomes the center of the story as Nate and Addie take him in when his mother dies. He lost his hearing due to an accident, but he can lip read and is a bright young boy. So when the state officials want to send him to Pennhurst, an asylum for the insane and feeble-minded, Chona declares that will not happen. But as events turn out, even Chona cannot thwart Dodo’s fate, and he ends up in Pennhurst; it will take the whole marginalized community of Chicken Hill to save him.

Love and community are at the center of the plot and are also the themes in Chona’s life. As the story illustrates, we are all connected, and when we realize that and show our respect and genuine caring to others, we can change the world. While there are many who want to build more walls to divide us and keep us apart, and the “devices of the future” McBride rails against present false realities to its users, the rich get richer while the rest of us fall victim to the false “American mythology of hope, freedom, equality, and justice.”

We did read this book for a book club I co-moderate, and in general everyone really liked it. Some of the participants pointed out the many themes that are raised in the novel, and some were amazed at the creativity of some scenes. What McBride does with facility is to take numerous characters (you might want to keep a list to help remember them all) and define them all so beautifully that they become as real as our own neighbors. And while none of us would want to live on Chicken Hill (where the sewage ran in ditches in the streets), we might long for neighbors and a community as caring as the fictional ones on that hill.

Please note: This review is based on the finished book provided by Riverhead Books, the publisher, for review purposes.