Home Can Be Anywhere: All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook


Perry T. Cook in Leslie Connor’s All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook grew up in a unique setting: the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility. His mother Jessica, convicted of vehicular homicide, gave birth to and raised the smart, curious, loyal Perry there.

Connor’s novel kicks off with scenes from inside the prison. It quickly changes to show Perry’s life outside the prison when a concerned district attorney, Thomas VanLeer, insists that prison is not the right place for 11-year old Perry to reside. VanLeer moves the boy into his home, giving him a new family in the form of VanLeer’s wife and step daughter Zoey, a friend of Perry’s from school.

Throughout the book, Connor does the work of showing the people inside the prison, and the VanLeer family, as complex characters. VanLeer is the villain here, but Connor makes the effort to show why he does what he does. Jessica is a sympathetic character, but is shown with her warts and all.

At its heart, the novel shows that a family can be anything that feels safe and loving, no matter where it communes. Perry’s transition to life outside the prison is difficult, because it separates him from the men and women inside who’ve raised him. Thankfully they raised him well enough that he adapts to his new family, and finds room inside himself to love both. A unique story, All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook would be a good read for anyone looking to expand their understanding of family.

Thank you to Meghan Meghan McLeod for recommending All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Books to Escape into while Social Distancing

Maybe one day soon a headline will read, “Out of Netflix Content, More People Turn to Books for Relief.” If you’re already ready for some literary escapism, check out these five books I read and loved in 2019. Hopefully they help you in this difficult time: The Storm King , Brendan Duffy. This book has many things that would make me not choose it as a Top Five: a straight male hero; not many strong female leads; privileged men acting out their privilege. Alas, it sucked me in with a short, strong opening chapter that set the tone and the mystery for the rest of the book. Duffy’s writing is a bit dramatic at times, but that’s also what kept the pages quickly turning. You can check out my review here . The Soul of an Octopus , Sy Montgomery. Montgomery ’s beautiful work in The Soul of an Octopus gives us hope about the connectivity between living creatures. Introducing the reader to several octopuses she met at the New England Aqua...
Read more

Almost Too Much Covered in The Tradition

In his third book of poetry, The Tradition , Jericho Brown covers much ground: he grapples with myth, media, racism, his own mortality, and still manages to push past established forms of poetry. It’s impressive in scope, but the breadth can leave the reader forgetting the ground covered because there was too much of it. Brown conveys a disdain for the world around him that embraces and encourages racism and violence, but also exudes a confidence about his own abilities to navigate the terrain. This is a book from a grown, tired man, and is filled with the heartbreak and the fortitude he’s earned. He introduces, too, the “Duplex” form in his poetry, described by Jeannine Hall Gailey in her Barrelhouse review of The Tradition as “a sonnet-like series of couplets that include repetition.” The repetition accomplishes a layering of experiences and voices, making his experiences feel that much more echoed in the lives of others, as though he is not alone. These stories are from a...
Read more

A Chat with E. Christopher Clark, author of the Stains of Time series

In the first book of his Stains of Time series, E.Christopher Clark pulls in magical realism, a hearty dose of nineties’ nostalgia, and family drama to tell Veronica’s story. Pregnant at sixteen, Veronica marries the baby’s father to appease a father who might never be happy with her, but really won’t be happy with her if she follows her heart and dates women as she wants to. Clark kindly answered About a Book’s questions about The Piano of Death , the series as it stands now, and his plans for its future. About a Book : How/when did you conceive of The Piano of Death ? Clark : The book that people can read today really started to come together in September 2011. I met with my friend, the actor/director Crystal Lisbon…to plan a benefit for the arts organization she was starting. Another friend of Crystal’s, the musician Mary Casiello [joined us for that meeting]. We were trying to put together an evening of theater and music, and I was tasked with writing the scrip...
Read more