A Reading List of Multi-Generational Mischief

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When I wrote You Should Have Known, I created an older character at a moment of great change. As the protagonist Frannie Greene moves into Ridgewood Retirement Apartments and gets to know her neighbors, she sees how they carry both the wisdom and the foolishness of their long lives. But her perspective is not limited to older folks—she is deeply involved with her kids and grandkids, and increasingly enmeshed in the lives of the young staff at Ridgewood as well.

Frannie’s family has been marred by grief. Her granddaughter Bethany was killed by a drunk driver, and her daughter Iris was shattered. The accident and its aftermath have distorted the emotional shape of Frannie’s family, impacting her remaining grandchildren and her son in addition to the devastated Iris. We often read about generational trauma, when the pain of one generation is passed to the next. But is it possible for the pain to be passed upward?

 Writing about Frannie and her family made me curious to read novels with characters from multiple generations, thinking of the diverse experiences and attitudes flowing from their different ages as a kind of framing device. Often involving family, but not always, the following books feature main characters grounded in multi-generational situations—on both sides of the law.

The Grownup, Gillian Flynn

A sex worker turned fake psychic gets drawn into a creepy and dangerous tangle between father, mother and son in which nothing and no one are as they seem. Or, perhaps someone is telling the truth, but whom? A quick- read novella written with propulsive panache by the author of Gone Girl, the last few pages might seem a bit pat and twilight-zonish, but then again—-who’s to know for sure?

Homicide and Halo-Halo, Mia P. Manansala

The most recent entry in the series that began with the popular Arsenic and Adobo, featuring Lila Macapagal and her extended family. Lila is about to open a cafe /bakery next to her aunts’ restaurant, a plan that gets complicated when she is sucked into judging a local beauty pageant. The situation becomes even thornier when the town’s most prominent citizen, who just happens to be a fellow judge and the pageant sponsor, is murdered. One of Lila’s family members is suspect, requiring Lila and her aunties to once again sift through the town’s secrets to discover the truth. Fair warning: the mouthwatering descriptions of the food will make you want to put your local Filipino restaurant on speed dial.

Sinister Graves, Marcie R. Rendon

Renee “Cash” Blackbear is a young Ojibwe woman with second sight and a complicated past. When Cash is asked by her guardian Sheriff Wheaton to help identify an anonymous woman found in the floodwaters of the Red River, the investigation takes her to the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home. A torn piece of a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe is the only evidence, and the elder medicine woman Jonesy offers cryptic but meaningful advice. Soon Cash is drawn to an isolated church on the prairie with a charming pastor and his adoring wife, who feed her and make her feel welcome. But the two small graves behind the church and the terrifying shadow she sees hovering there spark her disquiet. When another Native woman dies in a mysterious manner, Cash is determined to find answers, nearly perishing in the process. Rendon’s prose sent chills down my spine with both her suggestions of the supernatural, and the all too concrete evils that people commit. Dedicated to #mmiw and #stolen children.

Anxious People, Frederic Bachman

Two officers, a father and son, are called to an apartment building where a bank robber has fled, holding a group of potential buyers hostage. But the hapless thief, who attempted the robbery out of desperation and without a plan—and didn’t even get any money—was in the empty apartment seeking refuge, not captives. In this intricately plotted, oddball variation of a closed room mystery, we learn the (many interlocking) backstories of the ‘hostages’, their pains and fears. In the end kindness wins, the potential buyers resolve many of their issues, and father and son, despite their bickering annoyance with each other, conspire in a mutual act of compassion that is also a form of justice.

Gone Missing in Harlem, Karla FC Holloway

Iredell Mosby returns safely from WWI, and he and DeLilah Harrison happily establish their family in Sedalia, NC. But this is the lynching era, and when their young son Percy points out an accounting ‘error’ made by their landlord, they have to flee to Harlem. After Iredell perishes from the flu, DeLilah must raise Percy and daughter Selma alone. Percy falls in with the wrong crowd, and DeLilah sends him away to keep him safe.  And when Selma becomes pregnant by the monstrous son of a wealthy white family, DeLilah insists on compensation. As the newspapers are filled with the Lindbergh kidnapping, Selma’s infant is also taken. Twists and turns and suggestions and horrors rise up only to be disproven. Finally Weldon Haynie Thomas, New York’s first Black detective, untangles the multiple mysteries at the heart of the disappearance. Holloway’s tale of a Black family’s struggle is both heartbreakingly specific and grounded in the sweep of history.

A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder, Dianne Freeman

It is not surprising that weddings are irresistible for many writers of crime fiction, given the possibilities presented by closed settings, class differences and feuding relatives with competing claims on money, love and family lore. Weddings are also multi-generational affairs, replete with meddling aunts, disapproving in-laws and overwrought emotions. If you brewed Downton Abbey together the Hatfields and McCoys, laced it with talk of old vs. new money, title-hunting and dowries, set the tale at the dawn of the 20th century and filtered the resulting concoction through the voice of an American woman planning her second wedding—this one for love—you’d get this slightly cloying, fizzy cocktail. Dianne Freeman’s book goes down easy.

Mix Up In Miniature, Margaret Grace

Miniaturist Geraldine Porter crafts tiny copies of full size mansions—and, along with her granddaughter Maddie and the grudging involvement of her Detective nephew Skip, solves murders. In this sixth in the series, Geraldine is soliciting a donation to the library auction from the famous romance author Varena Young when she overhears a heated exchange between Varena and a man the housekeeper says is her brother. Within hours Skip calls with the news that Varena was found murdered, and that Geraldine was probably the last person to see her alive. Aside from the killer, that is. In short order an elaborate dollhouse with a secret compartment is delivered to Geraldine’s home, Geraldine is hired by Varena’s daughter, Varena’s employees take turns blaming each other, and everyone swears Varena has no brother. Oh, and the housekeeper who mentioned the brother has disappeared. Aided by Maddie’s computer skills and her nephew’s information, Geraldine slowly gets to the bottom of the mystery.

Because issues of scale and entering into a miniature world are central themes in this book, I was fascinated to learn that Margaret Grace is the pen name of Dr. Camille Minichino, on the staff of the Lawrence Livermore lab, with a PhD in physics.

The Ultimate Havana, John Lantigua

Willie Cuesta is a private investigator and former Miami police officer. He gets a call from Cesar Mendoza, the blind owner of a famous cigar store in Little Havana. Cesar is a one of the viejos—a friend of his father’s who fled Havana when Castro came to power. Cesar hires him to help Victoria Espada, a legendary beauty who married into one of the oldest and most successful tobacco companies, only to fall on hard times in Florida. Victoria’s son Carlos sought to salvage the family’s fortune, and is now missing. Cesar fears Carlos has gotten involved in counterfeit Havana cigars—a business as dangerous as it is lucrative. Then people start getting killed, including Cesar. The investigation takes Willie from the botanicas and cigar shops of Little Havana to the yachts of the superrich and the alleys and resorts of the Dominican Republic—and into danger. 

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