Customer Reviews

A Snug Life Somewhere

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Our bookclub read this book and loved the spunky protagonist, Penny Jo Copper. She's a working class woman doing her best to survive in the United States, in the era between the wars, WWI and WWII.

There is plenty of meat on the bones of this story. The long arc of (fictional) Penny Jo Copper's life illuminates many of the larger social issues. The author deftly connects the daily life of a single person to the larger fabric of international history. The history is judiciously woven into the action and is integral to the plot and its turns.

We learn about everything from immigration to the labor movement, plus the interaction between American socialists and Russian Communists. Penny Jo mixes with many people, and moves across the country several times, even going to Mexico, to meet (and sympathize with) the locals and play her part in the life of the expatriate community there.

Penny crosses paths with some famous 'movers and shakers,' like J. Edgar Hoover (before he was the director of the FBI) and Michael Borodin, an influential Russian Communist. But all the action boils down to what life is actually like for one woman, who searches for 'a snug place somewhere.'

Read the book to see if she eventually finds it!

Penny Jo reminded me that women see and experience history differently. In her musings about one rabblerouser, she says; "Men like Gabe, who take what they want, can be exciting or demeaning or dangerous for a time, but in the end they are simply boring. They produce a toughening, not a tendering of the spirit. An important part of you is blanketed, so each encounter with a man like Gabe produces a new layer of skin. Dean skin, which can be sloughed off."

Penny on the other hand; "labors in the opposite direction. Trying to clear nature of all the progress that has been foisted upon it, letting widl seed reassert itself. It is solitary work. Tilling and waiting and watching."

The author lives in Rhode Island, and joined our book club discussion. She's willing to do the same for others. [...]
Shapin has honed her skills writing plays and screenplays for more than 20 years. I look forward to reading her next book.

I believe that most readers who go to author Jan Shapin's Web site (www.janshapin.com) for the first chapter of "A Snug Life Somewhere" will want to know what happens next to Penny Joe Copper, the narrator whose relationships with figures involved in the often violent labor unrest in the Puget Sound area during the World War I years drive Shapin's informative and engaging blend of history and fiction. An experienced author, Shapin uses the death in 1916 of Penny Joe's younger brother, a student activist, in what came to be known as the Everett Massacre to launch a tale of an inexperienced but plucky young woman swept up into a network of Socialists and Communists maneuvering for control of an unsettled U.S. labor movement.

Most of the novel is devoted to Penny Joe's recollections of experiences during the years between the Everett Massacre and another major event in labor history, the Seattle General Strike of 1919. It is a period in which she allows herself to be used in the campaign of a radical labor agitator, Gabe Rabinowitz, and accompanies him on a trip to Mexico during which he takes possession of Faberge eggs intended to help finance the activities of the American Communist Party. Following their return to the U.S., Penny Joe's efforts to separate herself from Gabe and undermine his role in Soviet-financed agitation make for some exciting reading.

Throughout this formative period in her life, Penny Joe is aided by a series of strong and appealing characters, some drawn from the pages of the history of the period, some of Shapin's creation. Also during these years, an ill-fated love affair with a teenage violin prodigy several years her junior plays a powerful role in Penny Joe's life and story.

Penny Joe Copper may have been swept along for a time by dangerous people and events, but the author endowed her with the personal qualities she needed to grow and to prevail, including a particularly appealing voice with which to tell her story. I look forward now to hearing the next voice the talented Jan Shapin will offer her readers.

Jan Shapin's novel is beautifully written and populated by well-drawn characters who demand our attention. The narrator -- an old woman, born Penny Joe Copper, twice widowed and now retired -- succeeds in conveying the distilled wisdom of a lifetime as she reflects on her formative years with an unflagging honesty tempored by affection. Life for Penny Joe has been a series of storms with an occasional respite in a snug harbor. In recounting her story, she seeks to discover whether what happened to her in life was done to her by others or whether she did it to herself: "That is the question!" she says. Her answer: if we have no clear plan for our own future, we open ourselves to exploitation by others. Or put another way: if we are unwilling or unable to do it to ourselves, others will do it to us.

Penny Joe's life story is presented much as an artist creates a portrait, first sketching in the broad outlines, then painting in the details. It commences with the death of her brother in the Everett Massacre of 1916. Twenty-four years old, alone and vulnerable, she allows herself to be manipulated by a crafty labor organizer named Gabe Rabinowitz, who has ties to the IWW and to Russian socialism. Her odyssey takes her from Seattle to Mexico City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Along the way she encounters such historical figures as M.N. Roy, Mike Gold, Mikhael Borodin, and J. Edgar Hoover. In Ms. Shapin's hands this proves to be an effective narrative method for the most part, except for a rush at the end to fill in the remaining years. The portrait that emerges is somewhat lopsided. The young Penny Joe emerges clearly, whereas the old woman, the narrator, is known largely through her comments on her youth and her penetrating insights into history and human nature. The fault is a minor one. If wisdom comes with old age, may we all be so wise.

I loved the writing as well as the story. The book achieved a melding of character, plot, historical background, and rich, beautiful writing. Penny Joe is an original character, and through her we learn a lot of the history of the early 20th century. The writing is deeply felt with nary a cliche in sight. It would be great for book groups and would lead to stimulating discussions.