Nothing But Ghosts

A real perk of blogging about all things bookish has been the opportunity to meet new writers, to learn more about their writing process, and share in the joys of their success. One of my favorite authors/bloggers,Beth Kephart, has a new book, Nothing But Ghosts, being ushered into the world this week.

Luminous- that’s the word which always comes to mind when I read Beth’s writing, whether it’s in her books or her daily blog posts. It’s like a Debussy prelude on the piano, or a Monet watercolor ~ imbued with delicate, intricate passion. She encourages me to look at the world more closely, to see past the surface of people and things into the deepest part of their existence. To look for the beauty, even when it’s sometimes hidden so deeply.

If you don’t know Beth, now would be a good time to meet her. As Nothing But Ghosts makes it’s debut, there are numerous virtual events to celebrate it’s release. Visit her blog, read her interview at Presenting Lenore, attend the book party on June 30, hosted by My Friend Amy. Get hold of a copy of Nothing But Ghosts and lose yourself in her beautiful writing.

cross posted at Bookstack

It’s Only Me

Growing up an only child in a very Catholic, post WWII neighborhood, I was quite the anomaly.  Viewed with a mixture of awe (by my peers) and pity (by their parents), I rather enjoyed my somewhat exalted status.  In fact, I enjoyed being an only child so much that I married one, and then became the mother of one. 

Which is probably why many young women of my acquaintance consider me an expert on the subject.  These days, it’s quite popular to have just one child-over the past 20 years, the percentage of families who choose to have only one child has doubled.  Yet, these women occasionally harbor lingering doubts about their decision, and seek out my opinion. 

“Tell me what it was like being an only child,” they’ll plead.  “Was it really okay?  After all, you and Jim and Brian all turned out fine, didn’t you?”

Next time I get this question, I’m going to offer them a copy of Only Child, a selection of essays edited by Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller.  These two women, both only children themselves, solicited writers to “reflect on transformative episodes that defined them as only children.”  These twenty essays explore not just childhood experiences growing up as an “only,” but also the way this has shaped the writers relationship with friends, their own parenting experience, and finally, coming to grips with their parents aging and death. 

So we have Peter Terzian, writing about himself as a 10 year old who developed an almost personal relationship with his postcard collection; Sarah Towers, who at age eight was so desperate for a sibling she was “ready to  settle for a chimp”; Betty Rollins who, until she was 15, didn’t realize her “birthday wasn’t a national holiday.”   

And there’s John Hodgman, who decided to have two children of his own, since, “like a farmer who needs two children to till the soil and cannot risk having but one, so I need more than one child to lower my risk of absolute awful heartache.”  And Penn Jillette, a professional magician who learns to practice a different sleight of hand in caring for his aging parents.  “If you’re an only child, and you love your parents, and your parents need you, well, what do you do?  You help them while pretending not to help.  You lie.  And you think you fool them.”

By turns poignant and humorous, the collection provides valuable insight into the psyches of only children. Nearly every essay contained a nugget of truth so close to my own experience that I found myself nodding in affirmation, or shaking my head in wonderment.  Yes, exactly! I might think, comforted to know there were others who had felt the same way.  Those hot button issues that only children face in spades – creating boundaries between themselves and their parents, learning to express anger, conquering loneliness – are tackled in this group of essays.

Whether you are an only child, the parent of one, the spouse or offspring of one  (or, in my case, all of the above!)  these essays will touch your heart, make you smile, and offer valuable insights into navigating the waters of this life experience. 

 

Only Child, Writers on the Singular Joys and Sorrows of Growing Up Solo

edited by  Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller

published in 2006, Three Rivers Press

256 pages

this review brought to you by  Mother Talk

 

Book Blocked

There’s something a bit off in one of my most treasured relationships. I can’t describe it, but lately we haven’t been connecting at all. We sit down together as we always have, but somehow don’t engage. My mind wanders, and before long I’m thinking about my “to do” list, or the grocery shopping, or worrying over a tough passage in a Mozart Sonata. Several times, I’ve been forced to simply walk away.

Books and I aren’t getting along well.

Don’t laugh- reading is a relationship with me. I count on the fictional world to help me escape from the dreary real world and entertain me with the antics of interesting characters. I expect poetry to elevate my senses, soothe my spirit, ignite my intellect. I come to non-fiction to inspire my muse and feed my creativity. Lately, none of this has been happening with any of my books. My book journal for the month of October is completely bare ~I’ve finished nothing.

However, here’s what I’ve started and put aside in the last two weeks~The Lay of the Land, Still Summer, Keeping the World Away, Body Surfing, and The Jane Austen Book Club. These may be perfectly fine books, but every time I sat down to read I kept losing my place in the middle of a page, or going back to re-read the last three paragraphs because my mind hadn’t registered a thing. Finally, disappointed in the book (and in myself) I placed each one back in the “to be returned” pile of my library stack.

I don’t take my relationships lightly, and the one I have with books is no exception. Giving up on one is hard. There was a point in my reading life when I refused to do it, and would struggle through most anything until the end. Now, though, there really are simply too many books and too little time. If a book and I aren’t enjoying one another after about 50 pages, we part company.

But it doesn’t happen often, certainly not with five books in a row as it has this month.

I suppose reading relationships go throught difficult periods like human relationships. Sometimes we simply fail to give each other what is needed. For whatever reason, we don’t find the sustenance, the comfort, the insight that’s required. But during those strained times, there is definitely something missing from life, and I feel bereft and lonely.

Today, I’m off to the library to bring home a new collection of possibilites.

Wish me luck.

How about you? How are things in your reading life?

Bookmarked

No matter how busy life gets, I never stop reading. So even during these past few weeks when things in my regular life have been crazy, I’ve always had the comfort of a good book to come home to. Here’s a few that have sustained me during the mayhem of April and May~

The Luncheon of the Boating Party, Susan Vreeland~Based on the Renoir painting of the same name, this book is a fictionalized account of Renoir and the friends he gathered to paint on Sunday afternoons at this terrace cafe. Narrated in turn by Renoir and each one of the subjects, which include his future wife, the story is a delightful and imaginative look at the artist at work, and la vie de France during the time following the Franco-Prussian war. This is one of my favorite Renoir paintings – it’s so full of detail and joie de vivre. I’ve often thought it would inspire a wonderful story, and Susan Vreeland has done a marvelous job creating a slice of the artists’ life.

The Sweet Life, by Lynn York: I picked this one up at the airport, and it turned out be a captivating beach book. The story of Miss Wilma Swan, choir director and piano teacher in the little town of Swan’s Knob, North Carolina, her new husband, Roy, and the startling changes wrought upon their lives by the advent of Wilma’s teenage grandaugher, Star, who comes to live with them. It’s a charming family story, with a memorable cast of small town “characters” reminiscent of Jan Karon’s Mitford series.

The Knitting Circle, by Ann Hood: The first of two novels I’ve read that feature knitting as the vehicle for women to form friendships and work through dilemmas in their lives. Ann Hood’s novel is a poignant, understated story about a mother grieving the loss of her five year old daughter. When the novel begins, Mary Baxter is unable to pursue any of the activities that once gave meaning to her life, including her relationship with her husband. Through the women she meets in The Knitting Circle, who have each overcome their own personal disasters, Mary is able to share her own story and begin the long road back to life once more.

The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacbobs: Another group of women joined by their interest in knitting, this novel is a bit more lighthearted and humorous than Hood’s story. The crisis in this tale comes at the end, after we’ve become attached to Georgia Walker and her 13 year old daughter, Dakota, proprietor’s of Walker and Daughter Knit Shop, where the club members meet each week to hash out not only sweater patterns, but life changing events. This is a fun read, full of characters that are instantly recognizable and likeable. Both this novel, and The Knitting Circle are part of a new genre of books that I really like to read~novels where the reader meets groups of women characters dealing with various life concerns, forming friendships, and bonding together in pursuit of a common activity, one that, in itself, becomes therapeutic for them.

Of course, I’ve always got a writing book or two going, and lately I’ve been working my way through the Gotham Writers’ Workshop Guide to Writing Fiction. You can read more about what I’ve been learning from this collection of essays if you visit Moving Write Along (my other blog dedicated to all things writing related).

Bookmarked-Nineteen Minutes

I’ve just emerged from a heartbreaking world created by author Jodi Picoult in her latest book, Nineteen Minutes. I can’t remember when I’ve last been so deeply affected by a novel, but I think it was another of Picoult’s books, The Pact. Both novels deal with teenagers in crisis, which, as a mother and high school teacher, is a subject near to my heart. But Nineteen Minutes ~ the story of a boy bullied physically and emotionally by his peers his entire life, a boy who finally takes control in a horrifying shooting spree at his high school~strikes extremely close to home for me, because the more I read about Peter Houghton, the young man at the heart of this compelling story, the more I was reminded of my own son.

It’s really hard for boys who don’t fit the mold, boys who would rather write stories or draw cartoons than play football or soccer, boys who don’t think stuffing people into lockers is funny,
boys who prefer hanging out at home watching Star Trek reruns to going to gambling and drinking at the casino. My son Brian, like Peter Houghton, was one of those boys who were “different.” And like Peter, he became a victim of kids who used emotional and physical abuse as a way to preserve their own misguided sense of superiority.

“Most of Peter’s childhood memories involved situations where was victimized by either other children or by adults whom he’d perceived as being able to help him, yet didn’t,” testified Peter’s psychiatrist. “He described everything from physical threats – Get out of my way or I’m going to punch your lights out; to physical actions-doing nothing more than walking down the hallway and being slammed up against the wall because he happened to get too close to someone walking past him; to emotional taunts – like being called homo or queer.” For Peter (and for Brian, too) the computer became a “safe haven.” It was “the vehicle he used to create a world that was comfortable for him, peopled by characters who appreciated him and whom he had control over, as he didn’t in real life,” explained Peter’s psychiatrist.

Brian was luckier than Peter in that he was physically forbidding – always tall and stocky, he was perfect quarterback material from a physical standpoint~which made him less vulnerable to physical abuse. But the emotional alienation was very real for him, especially during his high school years, and I watched him become increasingly withdrawn and angry. But, like Peter’s mother Lacy, I really had no idea how to help, or really, how dangerous this situation was. And the teacher’s at Brian’s school (just like at Peter’s) were of no help at all, and even insinuated that the kids doing the bullying were just “being normal kids,” and Brian needed to “stop being so sensitive.”

I’m ashamed to say that I bought into that philosophy for a while, and tried to “toughen him up,” as Lacy Houghton admitted to doing with her own son. It took an act of violence to really make me understand just how traumatized my son was ~ a moment when he lashed out in anger and fear, his hand forced through a window, slashing his wrist and severing nerves and tendons in two of his fingers. From that moment, I realized that this was a matter of life and death, and treated it accordingly. We started fighting back as a family, found a wonderful therapist, and Brian began to gain confidence in himself and learn ways to cope.

I can tell Brian’s story now because (unlike Peter Houghton’s story) it has a happy ending. He’s happily married, has a successful career, and functions very well in the world. But he keeps a wariness within him, a fear of people and situations where he might become vulnerable and prone to “attack.” That’s the legacy left from those years of exposure to mistreatment and ignorance.

If your child were being victimized by an adult, wouldn’t you immediately move heaven and earth to stop it, to protect them? Why treat abuse from other children any differently? Why allow children to indulge in behaviors that hurt someone else, and pass it off as childish pranks? If you do (as Jodi Picoult so eloquently yet painfully portrays in her book, and as I have seen firsthand in my own experience) the effects can be more devastating than you could ever imagine.

Bookmarked

One of my birthday traditions is to buy myself a new book (actually, I’ll use any excuse to buy myself a book, so my birthday is just one of many!) Anyhow, last Friday (which was my birthday, in case you’ve forgotten) I hied myself to Barnes and Noble, fresh coupons in hand (love being a Readers Club Member) and grabbed up the latest offerings from two of my favorites~ Chris Bohjalian’s Double Bind, and Jodi Picoult’s, 19 Minutes.

I haven’t started to read either book yet, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy them. I’ve been reading these authors for as long as they’ve been publishing. Bohjalian’s first mainstream novel was Midwives, which I read long before it became an Oprah Book Club Selection. My introduction to Picoult came with Harvesting the Heart, which was her second novel, published in 1993. Each one of these authors has a unique way of embroiling their characters in an issue that faces all of us in modern society, and creating a fascinating, thought provoking web of actions and consequences that we can all relate to .

There’s something interesting going on with these two novels, something that’s never happened before with an author that I “follow.” Bohjalian and Picoult have become “hot properties” on the bookstore circuit. Barnes and Noble is featuring Bohjalian’s book in their new “on-line” book clubs, complete with a really cool 10 minute pod cast of the author at home, discussing his writing process, giving us a tour of his study, and talking about the book. Picoult seems to belong to Borders, who has it’s own video of Jodi participating in a book group discussion with other readers (just like me and you!)

I have to admit, I feel a little wierd about this. It was fascinating to watch these videos, hear the authors speaking, see their homes, even (oh my god!) their studies, and the actual desks where they write. But I felt a little like the kid who sees their classroom teacher in the grocery store and thinks, “My gosh! Mrs. Smith actually eats food like the rest of us!” Over the many years that I’ve been reading and enjoying their work, I think I’ve put them on a bit of a pedestal. Now I see that they’re just human beings, like me – Bohjalian is quite obsessive compulsive, particularly about his study, which was frighteningly organized and neat. Picoult has the most beautiful, expressive face, yet she is obviously much heavier than the picutres on her book jackets, which leads me to believe they’ve been “altered” to make her appear “more attractive,” when she is gorgeous just as she is.

This new web driven marketing is probably a good thing for authors, at least in terms of sales volume. In some ways, it’s exciting to see writer’s becoming media figures, and I’m all for making reading (and writing!) more popular in today’s society. I guess I’m a little uneasy about some of my favorite literary “heroes” becoming slaves to the media. I don’t want them to give up their individuality, their unique way of expressing themselves, their particular art, just to serve some PR firm’s idea of what will increase sales.

How about you? What’s your take on the mass marketing of author’s?

Bookmarked-The Sunday List of Dreams

Dreams are the lively and lovely desires of the heart, soul, mind, and body that should propel us through every moment of our lives. ~ The Sunday List of Dreams, by Kris Radish~

Connie Nixon, 58 years young, divorced, and newly retired from a demanding career as an RN, is now ready to embark on a new life, one fueled by her Sunday List of Dreams, a list she’s been keeping and tinkering with for “as long as she can remember.” There are at least 48 items on this list, everything from “buy a convertible, something flashy, put the top down and drive someplace without thinking” and “start sleeping naked” to “stop doubting yourself” and “stop being afraid.” Connie’s journey toward fulfilling her dreams takes on some totally surprising twists and turns, as a reunion with her oldest daughter teaches her some amzing things about herself, and leads her to a completely new interpretation of her List of Dreams.

Sunday List of Dreams is the fourth novel from author Kris Radish (The Elegant Gathering of White Snows, Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn, and Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral), whose series of books about women in mid-life and their experiences with friendship, life journeys, and learning to accept the past and embrace the future, are “chick lit” at it’s best. Normally (and I hope I don’t sound like a book snob when I say this) I don’t read this particular genre~it seems to formulaic to me, the plots often contrived and hackneyed, the characters somewhat cairicaturistic.

I enjoyed this one though, (probably because it was such a departure from Paint it Black, the novel from Janet Finch that I finally had to set aside unfinished just before I picked this one up.)

It was a fun read, with strong and humorous women characters. Most interestingly, it brought up some very intersting issues for me.

First, The LIST. It’s the backbone of the book, this list of dreams, and it informs everything Connie does. Following her progress in ticking off the items on her dream list, I was suddenly horrified to realize that I don’t even have a list! Sure, I have dreams ~at least I guess you could call them that~ but they’re so amorphous and vague they don’t resemble anything like the 37 concise dreams Connie has documented in her brown leather notebook.

Then, there’s the WAITING. For most of my life, I’ve been postponing even thinking about life dreams because I’ve been waiting for something~waiting to get through school, waiting to find a job, waiting to raise my family, waiting until I had enough money, waiting until my parents didn’t need me, waiting, waiting, waiting~ and what it all comes down to is that I’ve been waiting for life to happen to me, and not making anything happen for myself.

SO~~~ in the spirit of creating dreams to “propel” me through the rest of my life~~~ here, in black and white, are the first three items on what I’ll call my Monday Morning Dream Directive…

1. Stop waiting!

2. Take charge of your life!

3. Decide what your dreams are, and then do #1 and #2!

*Beginning today, The Sunday List of Dreams, is a featured selection of the Barnes and Noble online book club, including conversations with the author.

Bookmarked

“Reading is an escape, an education, a delving into the brain of another human being on such an intimate level that every nuance of thought, every snapping of synapse, every slippery desire of the author is laid open before you like~well, a book.” ~Cynthia Heimel

It’s been a good book year so far. I’ve been “delving into the brains” of some very fine authors, and their words have been like~well, Natural Opium, if I may borrow the title of my most current selection, a book of travel essays by Diane Johnson that reads more like a witty memoir or eclectic collection of short stories than a travelogue.

My literary travels have taken me to the court of Henry VIII via Phillipa Gregory’s The Constant Princess. Gregory’s portrait of the young Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, and her fiery determination to be the Queen of England, puts a new spin on this often told tale. “I shall not give myself to heartbreak,” Catherine writes after the death of her beloved first husband, Henry’s brother Arthur. “I shall give myself to England. I shall keep my promise. I shall be constant to my husband and to my destiny. I shall plot, and plan, and consider how I shall conquer this misfortune and be what I was born to be. How I shall be the pretender who becomse the Queen.” Lush with drama, atmosphere, intrique, and sensuality worthy of the finest of romance writers, this entry in Gregory’s series of historical novels was both informative and enchanting.

From the courts of medieval England, I was carried to the far east where Lisa See immersed me in a fascinating novel set in 19th century China. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, is a story two small girls who are committed to each other as laotang, or lifelong friends, and their struggle to survive in 19th century China. They communicate in nu shu, a secret “women’s writing” developed by Chinese women to convey their deepest thoughts and feelings. See’s writing is absolutely luminous, and her depiction of a woman’s place in Chinese society is heartbreaking. “We women are expected to love our children as soon as they leave our bodies,” writes Lily, the narrator of the tale. “We may love our daughters with all our hearts, but we must train them through pain. We love our sons most of all, but we can never be part of their world, the outer realm of men. So we love our families, but we understand that this love will end in the sadness of departure. All types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.”

After these travels through history, Patry Francis’ first novel, The Liar’s Diary, catapulted me right back to the 21st century. Liar’s abound in this chilling suspense novel, and their web of deception results in devastation and death. Jeanne Cross, a school secretary married to a hotshot doctor, has spent her life portraying the part of the perfect wife and mother, ignoring the way her husband’s behavior is destryoing the life of their 16 year old son, Jamie. Enter 46 year old Ali Mather, a free sprited, seductive musician, whose own secret past allows her valuable insight into the evil that lurks in Jeanne’s family. Her struggle to help Jeanne and Jamie face the hard truth about their lives results in chilling psychological suspense and violent death. Francis’ characters had me hooked from page one, and I eagerly followed this thrilling roller coaster ride to it’s surprising and satisfying conclusion.

I’ve also been working my way through Reading Like A Writer, Francine Prose’s “Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them.” Prose offers the idea that one should “learn to write by writing, and by example, by reading.” Her book is a look into the method she uses for carefully studying great writing, for “putting every word on trial for its life,” for absorbing, “almost by osmosis” what works and what doesn’t in the realm of literature.

Yes, it’s been a very good book year so far. And more to come…two of my favorite authors have new releases this month. Jodi Picoult, and Chris Bohjalian. Good thing my birthday’s coming up…

Bookmarked*-The Other Side of the Bridge

One of my favorite morning rituals is to grab my first cup of coffee, crawl back into bed, bolster my self with bunches of pillows, and read. Yesterday, I gave myself a Christmas treat and spent a long time immersed in a fabulous book. The Other Side of the Bridge, by Canadian author Mary Lawson, is based on a tale as old as time – the rivalry between two brothers. But in this luminous novel, set a in a small logging community in Northern Ontario, the writing makes this tale anything but ordinary.

Mary Lawson writes prose like Mary Oliver writes poetry. It’s simple, and spare, but so evocative of person and place that you want to re-read sentences just to savor their richness over again. “The lake was the town’s only asset. It was large…and deep, and very clear, surrounded on all sides by low granite hills studded with spruce and wind blasted pines. Its shore was ragged with bays and inlets and islands that you could spend your life exploring and never find half of them.”

She brings her characters richly to life as well, and when we meet Arthur and Jake Dunn in the Prologue, they are just boys, but their character and roles are alreay well defined. “Jake had dark blue eyes in a pale triangular face and hair the color of wheat. In build, he was slight and reedy (“frail” was the word their mother used) and already good looking, though not as good looking as he would be later. Arthur, five years older, was big and slow and heavy, with sloping shoulders and a neck like an ox.”

The story follows these boys through the mid-30′s in past the Great War, and as their frayed relationship begins to unravel when a beautiful young woman arrives in their small town. The novel slips back and forth in time, with a parallel story taking place in the 1950′s involving Ian Christopherson, a teenager who takes on job on Arthur’s farm. Ian has no interest in farming, but he does have an interest in Arthur’s beautiful wife, Laura, who fills the gap he feels when his mother abruptly leaves the family and moves to Toronto with another man.

Tragedy abounds in this novel, for Jake’s wilfulness and selfishness wreak havoc in ways both large and small. Then too, there is the Great War, which claims the lives of nearly all the town’s boys. But somehow, the tragic occurrences are not overwhelming. Lawson presents them in such a way that we accept them as part of life, knowing that bad things happen to good people. Her characters react with wisdom and dignity, and in the end the reader is comforted to know that decency pays off.

I finished the novel yesterday, and immediately headed downstair to my bookshelf to pluck out Lawson’s first novel, Crow Lake, which I had read in 2002 and loved. I started re-reading right away, simply because I needed more of her wonderful story telling and thoughtful outlook on life. This novel is placed in the same setting as The Other Side of the Bridge, and again takes a deep look at a family in crisis and the relationship between two brothers who are faced with enormous responsibility at an early age.

A reviewer from the Washington Post perfectly describes my reaction to both of these novels.
“Lawson communicates not only the lovely awe and beauty of the landscape but the way its inhabitants function within it. These are the kinds of books that keep you reading well past midnight; you grieve when it’s over. Then you start pressing it on friends.”

The Other Side of the Bridge was long listed for the Booker Prize, and deservedly so. Lawson has a marvelous way of presenting characters that stay with you, evoking a realistic sense of atmopshere, and providing a compelling story.

~To hear the author discuss The Other Side of the Bridge, go here

(*Bookmarks is a new feature here at the Byline, where I can tell you about what’s currently on my bedside reading table.)