“I was an only child who was often alone with adults, and, because I was in some ways a timid sort, I became practiced in the art of watching and listening.”

We’re kindred spirits, Lee Martin and I. An only child who loved quiet pursuits like reading and imaginary games, whose mother was always home with her, whose grandparents also lived in the house, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by loving, caring adults.

They fascinated me. When I first read Martin’s elegant little self-description, an image of myself as an eight year old popped into my head. I spent most of my time at home either in my room, or in the basement of our little ranch house, which had been “finished” complete with a full kitchen. Because the basement kitchen was larger than the one on the tiny first floor, my grandmother –the chief cook and bottle washer in our family in those days – quickly took it over, thus making the basement our family’s main living area. I had my own play area in a far corner, with my Barbie Dream House, a large stand-alone chalkboard for playing school with a menagerie of stuffed animal pupils, and fully loaded bookshelves. Tucked away in this corner, I could engage in my own solitary pursuits but still keep one ear trained to the adult conversation and activity.

This was how I learned that my uncle was struggling with alcoholism, that our neighbor was pregnant with baby number six. This was how I finally pieced together from whispered conversation that one of my cousins had been brutally attacked by a home intruder.  This was where I first gleaned the tensions between my mother and father, how she resented the time he spent with his Masonic Lodge group and was resisting his efforts to join the Eastern Star (the corresponding women’s organization).

Some of this information was troubling, some of it was exciting, but all of it was interesting. Much of it appeared later on in the stories I wrote, first in my childish round handwriting, and later on my brand new electric Smith Corona typewriter.

Those early days of listening and watching heightened not only my interest in, but also my awareness and understanding of people. For a while I considered becoming a psychologist, because I’m fascinated by what makes people tick emotionally, why and how they react as they do.

My mother says I read people like a book, and that seems appropriate. Certainly reading has given me insight into human behavior and emotions. I gravitate toward character –driven books, because they feed that interest in people. My own writing explores my feelings about life in general and my own experiences in particular, because I believe that sharing our life stories helps us understand our own lives while it brings us closer together as human beings.

The art (as Lee Martin refers to it) of watching and listening is vital for a writer. It’s probably why writers historically spend time in café’s and coffee shops. Like me in my basement play area, they scribble away in their quiet corners, one ear attuned to the conversation of those around them. That time becomes a crucial part of their working process and is definitely an art worth practicing for any writer.

How about you? Where do you practice the art of listening and watching?

The book centers on the somewhat surprising friendship between Ed, a Jewish kid on scholarship who is unapologetically ambitious and girl-crazy, and Hugh, a Boston Brahmin who seems ambivalent about everything except Helen, his first and only love. Their friendship burns brightly and intensely, until one night when something happens which causes it to end just as abruptly. The two men diverge into different paths, but remain connected through and current of relationships unbeknowst to them.

Hershon’s engaging story deftly examines the contrasting worlds of a rich Boston WASP, and a scrabbling Jewish boy eager to make a name for himself. Her characters are complex and interesting, and provide some rich insight into human relationships and class differences.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this very engrossing novel.

Buy A Dual Inheritance from Amazon.

I haven’t seen the remake of The Great Gatsby, and I’m not sure I want to.

The trailer scares me a little.

I cut my cinematic Gatsby teeth on the 1974 version, with Robert Redford/Mia Farrow, all shimmery pastels and brooding looks accompanied by Nelson Riddle’s score. I loved everything about that movie – I was 18 after all, and it was so romantic.  Baz Lurman’s remake, with all it cinematic special effects and hopped up score frightens me.

Until I make a choice, I’m indulging my long standing interest in everything pertaining to the Fitzgeralds, and reading two recently published books about Zelda Fitzgerald, the fascinating woman who lived with F. Scott during his tumultuous and reckless writing career.

Z, A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, by Therese Fowler, is straightforward bio-fic (biographical fiction), imagining Zelda and Scott’s courtship and early years of marriage. I raced through it, getting a great photographic portrait of this couple’s marriage.

Ericka Robuck’s Call Me Zelda comes at the subject from a slightly different angle. Robuck introduces a fictional psychiatric nurse who is Zelda’s caretaker at the mental hospital in Baltimore. I love this approach, because the novel gives the reader a two-for-one story as we meet this very interesting character who has a story of her own to tell, one that seems to intersect in interesting ways with Zelda’s.

I’m glad I decided to read them in the order I did  (Z first, followed by Call me Zelda), because I have the background on Zelda’s entire life from Fowler’s book to illuminate all the corners of Robuck’s novel, which focuses on a briefer span of time.

Both books are great ways to satisfy an interest in this fascinating woman.

What are you reading this Sunday?

When Deb Smouse, friend and Life Coach extraordinaire, starting contributing to Medium (a new concept in writing networks that’s still in the beta stage) I was intrigued.

When I received an invitation to post there myself, I decided to give it a try. My first piece is here – I’d love to have you visit, and if you like it, click the green “recommend” button to let me know you’ve been by.

A new writing space.

A fresh spring morning.

What’s not to like?

I admit that the specifics of our class assignment stole some of the enjoyment from the task. It was difficult to find 40 different varieties of leaves, even in Michigan where there are a lot of trees. I enlisted out of state family members who sent me leaves from palm trees, smoky ash. When I finally met my quota, I had to figure out how to arrange the in some sort of logical order, and then how to display and preserve them so they would remain viable for display during our school’s open house two weeks later.

With painstaking effort, I carefully encased each leaf in wax paper, created a typewritten label with all the identifying information, mounted each leaf onto (coordinating) colored paper, and fitted each page into a three-ring binder. I don’t recall the grade I received, but I do recall a heady sense of pride at having successfully completed a project like this one – something that was very different from the language arts and musical projects I usually attacked with confidence and creativity

For a few weeks now, I’ve had a new writing project wandering around inside my brain. As I think about it and ponder the characters and situations involved in it, I feel a bit like that leaf-gathering girl – the one who wandered the neighborhood with a paper sack and picked up whichever brightly colored leaf struck her fancy, giving little thought to type or size or classification. I’m having fun looking at all the pieces of my kaleidoscope, twisting them and turning them into endless striking combinations.

Writers do that, don’t we? We wander through life picking up bits and pieces of ideas and imagery. All of  life is like a huge forest in the midst of autumn, filled with a banquet of brightly colored ideas splayed out for the taking like a vibrant carpet beneath our feet. That’s certainly the fun part for me, the way I can pass endless hours of time – re-reading my favorite authors, writing down sentences that move me, inspire me.

At some point, though, we have to become the scientist, and put it all together in a way that makes sense.

Scary.

But worth it.

Although I didn’t plan it, I’m in the midst of a book about mothers and daughters. The book is One True Thing, Anna Quindlen’s 1994 novel that describes the multi-faceted relationship between 24 year old Ellen Gulden and her mother, Kate. When Kate is diagnosed with advanced cancer, Ellen’s father insists that she quit her job and come home to care for her mother, the quintessential homemaker and family touchstone -their “one true thing.” But Ellen has always placed herself akin with her father in the family dynamic – the intellectual, high achiever. Initially, she is resentful and afraid  - she has no idea how to play the role of caregiver, the one her mother has always embraced so masterfully. Yet as the days and weeks pass Ellen changes, and reassesses her preconceptions about her mother, her parent’s marriage, and the choices she has made for her own life.

Because I’m a huge fan of Quindlen’s work – both her fiction, her memoir, and her journalism – I know there are autobiographical elements to this novel. I know that her own mother died from ovarian cancer, know that Quindlen’s father called her home from college to care for her mother during her final illness. But  knowing Quindlen has woven bits and pieces of her own experience into the fabric of this story just makes the novel all the more interesting and touching. The mother-daughter relationship in One True Thing is so poignant, and I love watching the subtle ways that Kate uses this final opportunity to teach Ellen some things about valuing herself as a woman.

I started thinking about some of my of favorite contemporary novels that deal with the mother-daughter relationship. Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels came to mind immediately.  I first read it back in the early 80′s, but I re-read it about every five years because it’s so powerful and affecting to me. It explores that age-old question – how does a mother satisfy her own need to be creative and productive, to have her own life,  while still providing the best care for her children?

Another favorite is Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, which looks at the way a mother’s cultural history affects her expectations for her daughters. I’ve always loved this novel  (and the movie adaptation), and when it was first published most of us in the western hemisphere knew very little about Chinese culture. It was intriguing to look at the mother-daughter dynamic through the eyes of eastern history and culture.

How about you? Do you have a favorite novel or memoir about motherhood?

Do share.

If you’re interested in reading further –  a bibliography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Contemporary Fiction from the University of Delaware.

Our Wedding
May 8, 1976
Martha-Mary Chapel, Greenfield Village

You know what I remember most about my wedding day?

Not my surprise at how many people had packed into the white wooden pews of the historic chapel. Not the moment of panic when my about-to-be husband dropped the wedding ring onto the floor in the middle of the ceremony. Not even the annoying wedding  photographer who kept insisting we smear wedding cake over each other’s faces.

No, the memory that stands out most clearly from that day, the one I return to when I want/need to recall the butterflies in my stomach that accompany young love, is a moment later that evening as we drove to our  honeymoon in Toronto. We stopped at a small convenience store, a tiny, cramped little place, the ceiling-high shelves jam packed with everything from soup to shaving cream. I don’t remember why we stopped, what “convenience” we needed. But I was alone at the front counter after making my purchase, peering around the overflowing shelves to see where Jim might have wandered off to.

“Is there something else you need?” the clerk asked me.

“No,” I replied, “I’m just looking for my husband.”

And with the utterance of that word – husband – a shiver I can still feel ran through my body. What a momentous word, heavy with portent and responsibility. Saying it for the first time plucked me from girlhood and instantly, ready or not, plopped me down into womanhood. It was a word that meant I was grown up, with a grown up relationship and responsibilities.

Thirty seven years later, having now said the word thousands of times, I’ll admit it isn’t always accompanied by a flurry of girlish excitement. When you live with someone your entire adult life, you learn more about them then is probably good for any two people to know about each other. But familiarity doesn’t have to breed contempt. My husband’s oh-so-familiar habits and attitudes are usually more comforting than contemptuous. Sure, like most wives I complain about the snoring, the TV, the long showers and short conversations. And he still wanders off when we’re shopping and I have to look around for him after I’m done.

But mostly I’m thankful that we’ve turned out to be as compatible as we thought we would be when we took joined our lives together 37 years ago today. Like that little convenience store on the 401 in Windsor, we’ve stocked the shelves of our relationship with everything imaginable until they’re filled to overflowing.

I picked a really good husband. I hope I get to call him that for another 37 years at least.

But mindful that it could change any second, as it did for the people in Boston, and Watertown, and West.

It’s all combined to make me feel a little melancholy.

My spirits were lifted Friday evening as I gathered with a group of bookish ladies for a lively discussion of The Orchardist. If you recall, I waxed rhapsodic about the book a few weeks ago. And while the general consensus among the group was to praise the writing, several people found the story simply too bleak to call enjoyable.

As much as I loved  The Orchardist, I could never call it a “feel good” book. It’s rather like the events of the past week – it’s a book that forces you to contemplate evil and sadness. It’s a book that uncovers isolation and hopelessness and unfulfilled dreams. As we sat around the table and talked about these things, it occurred to me how often I gravitate to books like that, how I almost relish that kind of literary atmosphere. Of course there’s sadness and pain and disillusionment and misunderstanding. I take it for granted in my books, like I’ve come to take it for granted in my world.

Having lived a lot “in my head” I know my own penchant toward the melancholy. My book choices reflect that – the memoirs and novels I read often focus on people who suffer, who seek spiritual and emotional sustenance. I don’t like violence or cruelty – won’t read a book that has any of that in it – but I do hunker into those books that delve into the depths of the human experience.

Of course this week I haven’t had to read about it in fiction…it’s been all over the news.

I wonder if other readers find themselves drawn to books that reflect their emotional temperature? Do you?

I enjoyed her clever wit and acerbic humor in The Post Birthday World. I was riveted to the painfully dramatic and timely saga of We Need to Talk About Kevin.

But while I appreciated Shriver’s writerly talent in The New Republic –  a part parody, part social satire featuring an attorney who re-creates himself as an investigative journalist – I wasn’t completely sold on the premise or plot of this novel.

The novel takes on mythic proportions when Edgar Kellogg, a disgruntled corporate attorney with a larger than life chip on his shoulder, tosses in his lucrative law career and agrees to a suspect foreign assignment in which he will replace the enigmatic but hugely popular journalist Barrington Saddler who has mysteriously disappeared.  Edgar finds himself in a (fictional) Portugese backwater, awash with other journalists trying to make a name for themselves, but mostly living the high life and seeking excitement wherever they can find it. He gets quickly caught up in the spirit of the adventure as he investigates the turn of events surrounding Saddler’s disappearance and how it’s related to the terrorist activities of the so-called Sons of Barba.

The New Republic was written in 1998 (but published in 2012), and so the satiric, almost playful portrait of a terrorist culture seems almost unseemly in light of 21st century events. Shriver’s coverage of current events, i.e., the topic of school shootings in We Need to Talk About Kevin, was highly personal but thoughtfully and carefully scripted.  What interested me most in The New Republic was Edgar Kellogg himself. Ostracized as a child because of his weight, Edgar’s one goal has been social popularity.

Edgar had verified in childhood what the New Testament only hints at…Edgar’s personal Apocrypha: that people will exonerate sadists, braggarts, liars, and even slack-jawed morons before they’ll pardon eyesores. If you’re attractive, people need a reason to dislike you; if you’re ugly, people need a reason to like you. They don’t usually find one. In his tubby school days, Edgar had learned the hard way that every vulgar slob on the block was an aesthete.

So, Edgar has attached himself to popular people throughout his life, becoming the perennial sidekick for the “rich and famous” among the cliques that threaten to ignore him. And he’s madder than hell about that. But now, finally slim but still smarting from years of rejection, Edgar has the opportunity to literally replace the “absentee paragon,” Barrington Saddler, about whom “no one from New York to Cinziero can stop talking for more than ten minutes using a stopwatch.” As he channels Saddler’s persona, he is forced to reevaluate his desires for promotion from sidekick to leader.

And how does that work out for him? What’s better – to be the admired or the admirer?

Shriver takes the reader on a long and meandering path before Edgar comes to this final conclusion.

Edgar considered his life long position of second-in-command. Sure, constitutionally Edgar was a sidekick. But there was nothing disgraceful about lieutenancy should your captain be splendid. … As Edgar reviewed the short list of his idols…he concluded that in every case he himself may have got the better end of the deal. It was probably more interesting to adore than be adored, more transporting, more engrossing, and in any event much less creepy. What the hell, given a choice, Edgar might rather revere a hero than be one.

The New Republic is an interesting look at two very large personalities and invites the reader to consider what it is that make people popular.  It’s exploration of international terrorism was less successful for this reader, but some with a more political bent might find it of keener interest.

Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

The author’s Facebook page.

The blessing is that it puts a world of information, resources, and opportunities to connect with like minded people at our fingertips.

The curse is that it puts a world of information, resources, and opportunities to connect with like minded people at our fingertips.

It requires a lot of discipline for a writer  to refrain from constantly taking a refreshing dip into the waters of the world wide web. And once you’ve taken that first small step, it’s hard to pull back before the tide pulls you right in and you’re floating happily down the current of blogs, chats, tweets, and status posts. I’m as guilty as anyone, and it’s an ongoing battle to keep my mind on my work and not click on the Internet Explorer icon at the first sign of brain blockage.

But I’m wondering if the internet doesn’t deprive us of more than just time. I think we’re often substituting our online connections with people for the real thing, thinking that because we share our status on FB or post our opinions in pithy 140 character offerings on Twitter we’ve “connected” with our friends and colleagues in a meaningful way.

I’m beginning to believe that those connections aren’t as meaningful as we’ve led ourselves to believe, and that writers especially need the kind of give and take that only can occur in real conversations with real live people. Although I’m an introvert through and through and do my best work when I’m alone in a quiet room with no distractions – human or otherwise – I’ve found myself recently craving the company of another writer, someone I could sit down with over a cup of coffee and “talk shop” –  brainstorm ideas about our writing projects, bemoan those days when the muse fails to call and wonder why she always does when we have nine million other things on the calendar. We could discuss the future of publishing, and dish about the way our favorite writers do what they do.

A lot of the writers I follow on Twitter carry on these kinds of conversations in their Twitter-feeds. Maybe it’s my age – after all, I grew up when the only way to communicate electronically was via a rotary landline telephone – but that’s just not as satisfying in any way as hearing the person’s voice or catching the expression on their face.

I’ve never been part of a writers group, or even had one real-life writing friend, at least not since middle school when my friend Raine Beaser and I spent one summer working side by side on our respective “novels.” But I’ve belonged to enough musical groups to know that artists working in tandem produce a lot of creative energy. There’s something about the shared experience that boosts everyone’s enthusiasm and inspires them to move forward.

I’m craving that experience in my writing world. I’m craving that old-school kind of connection where people sit in the same room together and talk out loud to one another. I think my writing would benefit from it, and so would my soul.

How about you? Do you find your online connections a little lacking at times? Are you able to connect on a personal level with other writers, or other artists who work in your field? If so, is this beneficial?