Marilyn's Bookshelf

November 2011

Dougan, Terrell, That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister

      I met Terrell in Junior League many years ago.  She has been active in Salt Lake in volunteer work and is a journalist.  Terrell’s sister, Irene, was born six years her junior, in a long and arduous birth which may have contributed to her mental disability.  Although she cannot read or write, she is somewhat independent if living with a care-giver or in a group home.  Terrell is absolutely honest in her frustration with not only Irene, but also the care-givers, the programs of one sort or another, with funding for help, with those who meet and react to Irene in various ways.  She tells of hysterical experiences and tragic ones, of situations that would drive her to sleepless nights and tears, and wondering how in the world she would continue to deal with Irene (parents now are long gone).  But help always seems to arrive at just the right moment, and even though Terrell is a lapsed Mormon (her own admission), she is grateful to her higher power for many blessings which come in strange ways, like an uncle who offered to buy Irene a house for Irene and her care-giver, so that Irene would be closer to Terrell and in her own house.  Quite an amazing story, written from the heart.

December 2011

Dallas, Sandra, Tallgrass,    

      Authored by an East High graduate in the class of some of my colleagiate friends, this is the story of the Stroud family who live in the small town of the imaginary town of Ellis, Colorado.  After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, many Japanese internment camps were created across America to house those of Japanese descent.  Tallgrass, a Japanese internment camp, situated just beyond the Stoud farm, was based on an actual internment camp in Colorado.  Dallas creates an intriguing tale of how many families in this small town become embroiled in the uncalled-for hatred of any and all Japanese.  The Strouds take a different view.  After a murder of a young girl in town, many in the town attribute the heinous crime to one of the residents of Tallgrass.  Rennie Stroud, fourteen years old, is the main character in the book, but we quickly become involved with many of the townspeople and many of the Japanese as well.  We learn that this is a complicated business.