Bookish Marginalia: Musings on a Reading Life

Today is...

2005-08-21T22:01:00.000-04:00

the third anniversary of my father's death. We took my mom shopping, to the movies, and to dinner -- to distract us all. I miss him so much still, though I'm thankful for the time we had together.

My own coping mechanism: while my aunt and mother were watching a movie, I was browsing at Borders. Found some good magazines and books to use with my students.

Still reading The Hamilton Case -- I find it interesting how Maud, the mother of the erstwhile main character, uses writing to cope with her solitude and the creeping infirmities of old age. She writes compulsively -- cheery, fictional letters to her old acquaintances, lists cataloging the flora and fauna of her childhood home (where her bitter son has exiled her), and journal entries that chronicle her mental, emotional, and physical decline.

2005-08-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

Just saw a promo for next Friday's 20/20 -- it's about Dracula. I wonder if they'll cover Kostova's novel. I would think that's the hook right now, just like The Da Vinci Code prompted all those programs about Mary Magdalene and the meaning of the Grail legend...

I'm back!

2005-08-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

Hi, gang! The summer vacation was wonderful, very restorative. The semester is well underway, so I have the time, energy and inclination to return to the blogosphere.

Currently reading: The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Kretser. I'm halfway through. I'm enjoying it though it's not what I expected. I don't know why (vague recollections of reviews?), but I thought it would be a thriller. It isn't. In fact, I find it hard to categorize... will mull it over as I finish it & let you know what I come up with.

So, what have you guys been up to? I'll be doing the rounds to get into the flow again.

Missed you!

Off on vacation

2005-07-11T13:01:00.000-04:00

I'll be officially away until early August, as I'm going on vacation with my family to the Northwest. I plan to start regularly blogging again when I return, so I hope to see you all back here. Thank you for sticking with me through this tough time, and once again, I really do appreciate all the messages of support (even if I didn't respond to you at the time).

Here's a little food for thought while I'm away:check out this essay by a stroke survivor about the impact his memoir still has a decade later.

So, friends, please live well and enjoy every moment. I intend to do the same!

Just read: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

2005-06-27T18:35:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed Elizabeth Kostova's first novel, The Historian, though, frankly, I fail to see why she got a 2 million dollar advance. BTW, wouldn't such a large advance be the death of any first-time author's promising career? Who can sell enough to pay out that advance?

It took me about a week to finish this novel. I'm not sure if that's due to its heft or to my own lack of concentration. It's an interesting approach to the Dracula story, and I'm a sucker for books with scholars as protagonists... and scholarly work at the center of the story.

As you can probably tell, I'm still not to my usual speed blogging- or reading-wise. Hopefully will continue getting better...

Hanging in there

2005-06-20T22:59:00.000-04:00

I'm taking care of myself, riding out the storm of negative thoughts and listlessness... I have been reading a little, very slowly.

I enjoyed reading the first Michael Ohayon Mystery by Batya Gur, The Saturday Morning Murder: A Psychoanalytic Case. It's slow going at first, but well-worth it. Plus it's so nice to have a detective that doesn't know everything... I've started the second one, Literary Murder: A Critical Case, but I'm only midway through the first chapter. I learned about Batya Gur when she died recently and many bloggers praised her work, so I felt compelled to track down her five mysteries.

I've read a few Ellora's Cave erotic romances, which I've mostly enjoyed. I do hate one Ellora's Cave author with a passion: S.L. Carpenter. Bad writing, bad plotting, bad sex... Avoid at all costs. BTW, I was surprised to see an Ellora's Cave ad in the NYT Book Review a few weeks ago...

I also read Renegade by Diana Palmer. She's quite a prolific romance writer, known for her sexually innocent/inexperienced/feraful heroines and strong, conflicted heroes. This one fits her pattern, but it's one of her best in a long time.

And I finally read MJ Rose's The Halo Effect, which I quite enjoyed.

Currently hibernating

2005-06-15T17:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know it's almost summer, but I've been in hibernation lately. A recurrence of depression, mostly... Since I was 21 I've been battling chronic major depression, and it's been paying me a little visit lately. Depression for me is not at all about sadness; it's all about (corrossive, vitriolic) negative thoughts, lack of will and motivation, and scattered concentration. Not conducive to blogging, or indeed, much of anything, except brooding. I take my antidepressants daily, exercise regularly, and just soldier on; I did spend 10 years in therapy, including a month-long stint in a psych ward, so I've learned to manage it, live through it. It doesn't really make it any easier to slog through, though.

Thanks to everyone that has sent me messages and good wishes -- your concern is much appreciated!

I'm sure the mood will upswing soon, and I'll be back to reading and blogging with passion again.

Does anyone else...

2005-06-10T20:56:00.000-04:00

... think it's in really bad taste for GM to announce that it will reduce its domestic workforce by 22% and premiere a new campaign offering their cars at the employee discount -- all in the same week? If the people in the new commercials are actual GM employees, I hope they're not going to be on the chopping block. Now THAT would be in bad, bad taste! (And by the way, can you believe the GM head honcho's name is Mr. Wagoner?)

Just read: Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas

2005-06-06T21:54:00.000-04:00

I just finished a wonderful mystery set in Victorian England. In Some Danger Involved, first-time author Will Thomas introduces an eccentric and utterly compelling detective duo. Cyrus Barker is a prosperous private enquiry agent with a mastery of arcane martial arts, a love of all things Oriental, and a gift for languages. He needs a new assistant, since his last one was found floating in the Thames with a bullet hole between his eyes. Thomas Llewelyn, a widowed, penniless, former Oxford student who just got out of prison, answers Barker's ad, "some danger involved in the performance of duties" notwithstanding. After putting Thomas through a rather unusual interview, Barker hires him, providing food, shelter, reading material, and a complete new wardrobe. And when a young Jewish scholar is found crucified in the middle of the Jewish Ghetto's busiest street, Barker and Thomas tackle their first case together... and attempt to find a murderer while averting a pogrom against London's Jewish population.

To Kingdom Come, the second installment of the Barker/Llewelyn series has just been published in hardcover.

Today in my family's history

2005-06-05T12:02:00.000-04:00

Today is my parents' anniversary. Had my father lived, he and my mom would be celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary today. Theirs was quite a love story, which makes me wonder why I don't believe in true love myself...

My parents met forty-five years ago this summer, when my mom was just a fifteen year-old high school girl away from home from the first time. She was attending a summer camp for gifted students sponsored by the state university; he was a seventeen-year old college student who drank too much and partied too hard with his frat buddies. Still, somethiing must have clicked between my shy mom and my outgoing dad, because they became inseparable that summer. It must have helped that she was staying at his house (his family ran a guest house)...

They married four years later, the day after my mom graduated from college. Four years after that they had me...

Just seen: Empire Falls

2005-06-02T17:32:00.000-04:00

I just spent the afternoon watching the Empire Falls miniseries on HBO. It's based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Richard Russo, who also wrote the screenplay. I admit I have not gotten around to reading the book yet (which I always try to do before I see an adaptation), but I really enjoyed this movie. I wonder how it stacks up to the original, though.

Some parts of the film seemed a little forced; the foreshadowing too obvious. For example: the weird outcast kid is seen arriving home and petting a scrawny dog. The next shot is of his dark house and we can hear the screech of a dog in pain. Now I ask you: what do you think is going to happen with that kid? Haven't we all heard ad nauseam about how hurting animals is a trait of serial killers? And what about all the closeups of the exacto knife in the girl's backpack -- you'd have to be blind and stupid not to figure out something will happen with that knife...

Still, it's a good movie. I'd recommend it. Now, to find that book... I'm sure it's somewhere in the stacks in my room...

Update

2005-05-31T19:19:00.000-04:00

Sunday's concert was terrific! Antonio Orozco is a wonderful singer/songwriter from Spain, who mixes traditional Spanish rhythms with rock and pop sounds. It was his first solo concert outside Spain, and he performed in front of an appreciative audience -- we liked him even better for performing while injured: during the third song he apparently twisted his ankle and was hobbling around for the next hour and a half. As you can see, he's also a good-looking guy, even though he dresses like a homeless person (really).

After the concert we went to check out my Aunt's new digs -- on Friday she bought a new beachfront apartment just a couple of blocks from ours. Shopping for the new apartment has consumed a lot of my time lately; she likes having company while choosing furnishings and accessories.

More shopping yesterday, and then we went to the movies -- I confess: we saw Monster-in-Law... it was better than I expected (admittedly, I didn't expect much...)... To complete the mindless entertainment double-header, we saw the Miss Universe Pageant. Hey, I can claim both the movie and the pageant were watched for patriotic reasons -- JLo is Puerto Rican (from the Bronx, but still...) and we were rooting for the Puerto Rican contestant, who was apparently a front runner. And indeed she was -- she came in first runner-up. Plus, my extended family got together for pizza and put-downs, which is always fun.

Not so fun -- towards the end of the pageant, we blew a fuse. Literally. Half the apartment went dark. Worse still: the air conditioning was out. Horror! My bedroom also lost power; that's where my computer is, so no posting for me then either. And no power today either, since the electricians spent quite a few hours rewiring and installing new fuses. But everything's back to normal now, fortunately!

Not much reading going on. I've been in a funk the last few days...

I've been away...

2005-05-29T13:37:00.000-04:00

...from home and computer a little too much lately, which is why I haven't posted in a few days. I'm off to a concert this afternoon, but tonight I'll update you on what's new in this little corner of the blogosphere.

Does absence really make the heart grow fonder? Or is it just a stale cliche? A justification for neglect?

I really have missed you...

Teasers

2005-05-24T21:20:00.000-04:00

Still wading through tons of student papers, so here's a preview of upcoming book reviews, just to whet your appetites (I told you I've been a busy reader!):

Fiction
The Bitch Posse (also published as The Bitch Goddess Notebook in England) by Martha O'Connor -- Highly recommended. This is compelling, unflinchingly honest storytelling about what it means to live haunted by memories you can't stomach but can't quite repress. It's about the darkness within all of us, which so often seeps out through senseless, self-destructive acts. It's a haunting novel, perfect for readers who appreciate Joyce Carol Oates. Read an excerpt here -- it's representative of both style and subject matter. Another good thing: the blurbs are actually accurate!

Home Land by Sam Lipsyte -- I picked this up because it was recommended over at The Elegant Variation. I liked it, but I wasn't as enthused as TEV (overly high expectations, perhaps?). Lipsyte subverts the high-school alumni update to create a funny, absurd tale that kept me turning the pages.

A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin -- Cullin gives us a nanogenarian Sherlock Holmes who is still solving mysteries, though in a smaller, more intimate scale. This Holmes is perplexed by the vagaries of his aging intellect, but he is still a force to be reckoned with. The novel intertwines Holmes own written account of a case that still haunts him (not for its complexity, but for its protagonist), with flashbacks to a recent trip to Japan where his host presents him with a mystery, and the present, where he is trying to figure out his life and cope with some traumatic events (that I won't spoil by revealing).

Mystery
Eight of Swords by David Skibbins. This is the first in a planned series of mysteries featuring Warren Ritter, a tarot-reading fugitive who juggles several different identities and who always has an escape plan in place, ever since his 'death' thirty years ago. In this installment, one of Warren's tarot clients is abducted; another is murdered; his sister recognizes him on the street; and he starts romancing a wheelchair-bound ex-Army computer whiz/one-woman army... Entertaining, to say the least.

Memoir
Nervous System, or Losing my Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen -- In this memoir Jensen chronicles how he quite literally went insane during the final editing of his first novel (though that turned out not to be the cause, as good a hook as that is). Jensen became convinced the publication of his novel would set in motion a series of events that would end with the total destruction of the world through nuclear holocaust. Honestly -- he really thought this, which is why he couldn't sleep, which in turn resulted in his hospitalization (twice) in a psychiatric hospital. The memoir is interesting, but repetitive -- Jensen dwells too much on his delusions and paranoia, and too little on everything else in his life.

Young Adult
Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters -- Sweet novel about teenagers falling in love and lust. The twist -- both are girls, and one hadn't realized she was even a lesbian.

Luna, also by Julie Anne Peters -- This is Peters' most recent novel, about a transgendered teen. I found this novel less satisfying than Keeping You a Secret, perhaps because the novel is told from the point of view of the transgendered teen's younger sister, and Peters uses flashbacks to fill out the story (sometimes rather clumsily introduced by a sudden flash of memory...). Still, it's an interesting story; I might even assign it to my students -- they thoroughly enjoyed Normal, Amy Bloom's collection of essays on transgendered, cross-dressing, and intersexed individuals.

Miscellaneous
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leven -- short, entertaining book about how to get more from your reading time. Leven (of Levenger catalog fame) advocates keeping a List of Candidates (books you might like to read), a Library of Candidates, a Living Library (of books already read), and an annotated book biography (the rather awkardly titled Bookography) of books read...

When will this semester be over?

2005-05-23T21:46:00.000-04:00

The semester is dragging to a close, a couple of weeks later than usual, due to the students' enthusiastic but ultimately futile attempt to stop a tuition increase (the first in over a decade). And I'm just so tired...

Plus, how many times can you keep a straight face when a student claims his disk just won't open, every printer at the university is out of ink, paper, toner... or perhaps a relative has died --or been seriously injured... One of my colleagues had a student who very calmly informed her that her baby daughter had just died (it turned out her 18-month-old niece was sick, but not dying); another had a student hand in a portfolio with a forged paper -- yes, forged. It's apparently no longer enough just to plagiarize; the girl had copied the professor's handwriting to write comments on a 'draft' -- and she even signed the paper using the professor's initials. Of course, the artful student didn't know that my colleague keeps track of the drafts she corrects, so... busted!

[Have been reading a lot -- will post reviews and comments ASAP (as soon as I dig myself out from under the piles of student quizzes, papers, tests...)]

Recently Read: I'm Not the New Me by Wendy McClure

2005-05-21T23:12:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I read blogger Wendy McClure's new memoir, I'm Not the New Me. It fell through the cracks of my blogging life, maybe because I didn't find it too memorable. I guess I expected more from this book, given Wendy McClure's blogging fame -- her blog is Pound at poundy.com (not much going on there right now, as McClure is busy promoting the new book).

I'm Not the New Me is strongest when McClure is focusing squarely on her life -- her friends, her family, her would-be suitors. However, perhaps to try to tie it in to her popular blog (which she started to chronicle her diet and weight loss), the book is billed as being about weight and related self-esteem issues. That is grossly misleading, and also, it ignores the real strengths of McClure's memoir -- namely, her distinctive voice when describing the details of her life (beyond the body thing, which fortunately takes up little textual space). The weakest parts, for me, were the ones about fatness, particularly her discourses on fat girls in general (the prologue 'how to tell a fat girl story' and the chapter titled 'invisible jet' are particularly unfortunate examples, which would have been best sacrificed for the greater good of the book). I also found the reprints of the disgusting 70s Weight Watchers recipe cards superfluous -- and McClure's commentary not particularly funny or enlightening (yes, I know, the cards also tie into her blogging fame...).

My recommendation: skim it (and definitely skip the 'fat girl' parts). I am curious, though, about what Wendy McClure will publish next -- I think that she will blossom as a writer (and as a memoirist) when she is no longer tied to the premise of her blog as the justification for her publishing contract. I definitely look forward to that!

For more information:

Website for I'm Not the New Me - it includes lots of blurbs with opinions that are a lot more enthusiastic than mine...

Wendy McClure's blog, Pound.

Interview with Wendy McClure at zulkey.com

Brief bio from the Penguin USA site.

Boston Globe article, "From blog to book, chasing the thin line"

Q: For a book ostensibly about weight loss, you don't talk about food much. Why not?

A: I don't know. I think there's a lot of [writing] about weight where the person has a food addiction. I don't. As far as obsessing, I can't say I really do it. I think it's like this for a lot of people. If people obsess about food that way, it would just be so obvious. I tried to reflect that a little bit. I've resented TV shows that have [overweight people] who have candy bars in their pockets.
.....
Q: Although the book claims to be a memoir about weight loss, ''I'm Not the New Me" seems to have a different theme altogether at its core. It could be described as the tension between being out there on the web, living in cyberspace, and the struggle to stay in everyday reality, to stay in the moment.

A: Definitely. . . . I wanted to do something with that. So much about putting oneself online is about negotiating how you appear. If you go to . . . any blog by women in high school and college, if you look at the pictures, the pictures are taken from above to minimize their chin, and some web logs have a small picture on line.

If you must, go here to view Wendy McClure's collection of Weight Watchers recipe cards.

Check out these Book Sense Paperback Picks

2005-05-21T16:58:00.000-04:00

for Summer 2005.

1. GOOD GRIEF, by Lolly Winston (Warner, $12.95, 0446694843) "While grief is not inherently amusing at all, Lolly Winston has found the perfect tone in her breezy and humorous description of Sophie Stanton's struggles (and failure) to be a 'good' widow at age 36. The novel never makes light of Sophie's sadness, but it does deftly show the funny side underneath." --Liz Murphy, Learned Owl Book Shop, Hudson, OH [This novel is on my TBR mountain...]

2. MULTIPLE CHOICE, by Claire Cook (NAL, $14, 0451214889) "Claire Cook once again has proven that she can write a touching, witty, and sassy novel about families. This mother/daughter novel is a laugh-out-loud fun ride that every mother and daughter can relate to." --Karin Beyer, Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI

3. TRUTH & BEAUTY: A Friendship, by Ann Patchett (HarperPerennial, $13.95, 0060572159) "Patchett has written a memoir of her longtime friendship with Lucy Grealy, poet and author. By turns hilarious and tragic, Patchett remains a steadfast friend to the eccentric, charismatic, and self-destructive Lucy. She is the candle that burns too brightly but illuminates the world around her, and Patchett reflects their relationship brilliantly." --Nan Hadden, Books, Etc., Portland, ME [Here's what I had to say about it!]

4. SOME DANGER INVOLVED: A Novel, by Will Thomas (Touchstone, $9.95, 0743256190) "This blend of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, set in Victorian England, features descriptions so compelling I wanted to gulp it down in one sitting. My favorite read in the detective genre for the season." --Jim McKee, Lee Booksellers, Lincoln, NE

5. SHADOW DIVERS: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, by Robert Kurson (Random House Trade, $14.95, 0375760989) "This is a fascinating, true story of the deep-sea divers who discovered a German WW II U-boat off the coast of New Jersey. The book is written like a novel, carrying the reader along as the mystery is uncovered." --Connie Geverink, Chesterfield Books, Chesterfield, MI [Also on my reading agenda...]

6. THE SUMMER GUEST, by Justin Cronin (Delta, $13, 0385335822) "I am fired up about The Summer Guest. This story of a dying man's last wish was a wonderful read with authentically real and admirable characters, and I'll be hand selling it like crazy." --Wendy Morton Hudson, Nantucket Bookworks, Nantucket, MA

7. CARPE DEMON: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom, by Julie Kenner (Berkley, $12.95, 0425202526) "Kenner's Carpe Demon is best described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Desperate Housewives, with all the fun and thrills of both. A demon slayer turned suburban housewife, raising a teenager and toddler, is forced to come out of retirement when her family is threatened. What follows is full of laughs and edge-of-the-seat excitement." --Rita Moran, Apple Valley Books, Winthrop, ME Available in July.

8. BITTER FRUIT, by Achmat Dangor (Grove/Black Cat, $13, 0802170064) "A chance encounter with the policeman who raped his wife during South Africa's apartheid era forces a Johannesburg man and his family to confront the pain of their past. Their individual impressions, filtered through Dangor's rich imagination, create a devastating portrait of how history haunts and transforms. Dark and deep, yet full of humor, sensuality, and the desire for life's small, bitter pleasures." --Jamie Kornegay, Square Books, Oxford, MS

9. CALL IT A GIFT, by Valerie Hobbs (University of Nevada Press, $18, 0874176123) "Talented young adult author Hobbs' first adult novel explores an unlikely and, yet, very possible late-in-life romance. Jeronimo Smith is annoyed to discover that a copy of the poems of William Butler Yeats is not on the library shelf. And, even more annoying, the person ahead of him at the checkout desk has it in her hands. A hopeful book for us aging pre-Baby Boomers." --Jody Fickes Shapiro, Adventures for Kids, Ventura, CA

10. OFF MAIN STREET: Barnstormers, Prophets & Gatemouth's Gator: Essays, by Michael Perry (HarperPerennial, $13.95, 0060755504) "Eagerly awaited by us fans of Population: 485, Perry's latest delivers more news from New Auburn, Wisconsin. Perry reviews his eclectic experiences with a Midwestern sensibility that knows there is bound to be something profound mixed up in the middle of goofiness, and vice versa." --Joyce Gray, Mitchell Books, Fort Wayne, IN

See the complete list of recommendations here.

Just read: Raising Hope by Katie Willard

2005-05-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

I just read a truly enjoyable novel about family and friendship, Raising Hope by first-time author Katie Willard.

The premise: Bobby Teller's wife dies in childbirth and he leaves his one-week-old daughter in the care of his sister Ruth and his former lover Sara Lynn. Ruth, tough-talking and scrappy, must learn to get along with wealthy, well-educated, well-mannered Sara Lynn, her childhood nemesis, for the sake of little Hope. So Ruth and Hope move into the Hoffman mansion with Sara Lynn and her widowed mother, Aimee, and become a happy, surprisingly functional family.

Raising Hope is (mostly) set during Hope's twelfth year of life, when Hope is impatiently waiting for her breasts and her period to make an appearance, nurturing a secret crush on her tennis instructor, and wondering where her long-gone father is. The novel is told from the perspectives of the four women in the Hoffman/Teller household: Hope, Sara Lynn, Ruth, and Aimee all get chapters of their own, so we readers get the pleasure of exploring the world and their relationships through their four very different perspectives.

Raising Hope is very definitely geared towards women (I guess "women's fiction" would be an accurate generic label) -- it's a novel that celebrates the bonds between women, be they biological or social, based on family ties or friendship. It is an aptly titled novel, not only because the character of Hope is the unifying force in the narrative, but also because the novel is hopeful about life, love, and relationships. Raising Hope shows us how life hurts, but also how it sparkles, amazes, dazzles. Most definitely recommended.

[I also hope Katie Willard writes a sequel -- I really want to know what else life holds for these four women!]

For more information:

Visit Katie Willard's website, and read an interesting Q&A:

The characters in RAISING HOPE meet life head on and grow into people fuller and stronger than they ever imagined they could be. I think if we are open to life, we have so much potential to grow into and beyond our best selves.
.....
Q: The family of Hope, Sara Lynn, Ruth and Mamie is all female. The men in your book are either absent, dead, or, like the two boyfriends, Sam and Jack, playing minor roles. That's interesting and probably significant. What was your idea behind taking men out of the picture, so to speak?

A: As a feminist, I consciously celebrate women. I love women: we are mysterious and complicated in our bodies and our souls. Men are fine (especially my husband, who is very, very fine), but I'm just not as interested in what makes them tick. I also think men have plenty of opportunities to voice who they are; my book unapologetically is not one of them.
.....
RAISING HOPE is a gentle book, and, yes, it does reflect my sensibilities. There isn't anything "offensive" or "shocking" in it because there wasn't a need for that kind of material in this particular story. That's not to say that shocking material won't show up in another book, but I'd bet against it. I write stories I want to read, and I just don't enjoy reading about excessive violence or meanness. Writing a novel is a huge commitment of time and energy, and I want to spend my resources on characters and situations that touch my emotions but ultimately make me happy. There's enough ugliness in this world that I don't feel the need to add to it.
On the origins of Raising Hope:

I wrote Raising Hope because it was a way for me to talk about the complexity, pain, and deep, deep love between mothers and daughters. Writing a novel had been my lifelong crazy dream, an idea I'd pooh-poohed as a silly fantasy until I became a mother, grew into being a woman, and learned a thing or two about what really matters. It took motherhood to show me that life is short and precious and I'd better start living it. It took motherhood to show me that I could fail and fail and fail and learn from those failures to make something worthwhile. It took motherhood to show me that being fully present in my life was the biggest gift I could give my daughter, myself, and my writing. Most of all, it took motherhood to show me that the wildest, most wonderful dreams do come true. I should know. They come true for me every day when I look into the sparkly eyes of a little girl with wiggly front teeth.

Hometown newspaper coverage: "Hopes are High for First Novel":
"I have always loved fiction and I have written on and off through my life just for fun, and just for me," said Willard, who remembers writing short stories and poems from the time she learned to read at the age of four.

But when her daughter was about to enter kindergarten in the fall of 2002, a bittersweet time of letting go, Willard, 37, felt compelled to put her hopes for her child, and the life lessons she wanted to pass on, into a written legacy.

"I wanted to tell her about grabbing life with both hands and going forward, and that the curveballs life throws you can lead to places you never expected," said Willard whose own life has taken some unexpected twists.

Willard's words of wisdom were woven into a novel, "Raising Hope," written for Zoe, now 8. Willard's debut novel is about the love between three generations of mothers and daughters, and how self-fulfillment often comes during life's detours.

The New Yorker weighs in on the latest/last Star Wars episode

2005-05-20T15:35:00.000-04:00

Drop by Jenny Davidson's Light Reading to read a really funny excerpt from Anthony Lane's review of Revenge of the Sith. Warning: You might not find it so funny if you take your Star Wars seriously. (I found it hilarious!)

The benefits of insomnia

2005-05-20T15:11:00.000-04:00

I couldn't sleep on Wednesday night, so I spent the night reading (always a good thing in this corner of the blogosphere). The good news: I read the Cassandra James mysteries (only two so far) by Christine Poulson. The bad news: after a night of no sleep and then teaching five courses and driving two hours, I collapsed when I arrived home last night, so no blogging for me on Thursday night...

But I'm back now, well-rested and ready to blog!

The first Cassandra James mystery, Murder is Academic (original UK title Dead Letters -- why can't they keep original titles in the US? It just makes things confusing for readers...) introduces our non-sleuthing academic, Dr. Cassandra James, a lecturer on nineteenth-century literature at the English Department of the fictional St. Ethelreda's College in Cambridge, England. The book opens with Cassandra's discovery of the body of her boss floating in a pool (you can read an excerpt here). Was Margaret's death a suicide? An accident? Murder? No one is sure, but Cassandra needs to get her act together, because she has been put in charge of St. Ethelreda's struggling English Department. If Cassandra cannot cajole/threaten/push and otherwise prod her colleagues to produce publishable work by the end of the year, the department will cease to exist and Cassandra and her colleagues will be out on the street. When Margaret's husband names Cassandra the literary executrix of the dead woman's estate, Cassandra finds --and destroys-- shocking letters that reveal Margaret's life is not what it seemed... and which link her to another mysterious death involving the college. As Cassandra deals with an excentric colleague who claims Conan Doyle is coauthoring his long-overdue academic treatise, a supportive boyfriend who is pushing for more, and a student who has plagiarized Cassandra's own work, she must also ponder what to reveal about Margaret's secret life and to whom...

The second Cassandra James mystery, Stage Fright, finds Dr. James on maternity leave and attending rehearsals for a play based on a nineteenth-century novel she adapted for the stage. Her neighbors, Melissa and Kevin, are also involved in the production of the play; Melissa, a well-known actress, is the star, and husband Kevin, a former tv star, is the director. But when Melissa disappears just a few days before opening night --leaving her six-month old daughter home alone-- Cassandra knows something must be very wrong. Cassandra struggles to take care of Melissa's baby while juggling her own daughter (who has the temperament of a diva), fielding calls from her boyfriend Stephen, a lawyer who is away on business in California, and seeing her first husband for the first time in fourteen years...

Poulson writes engaging academic mysteries that make for enjoyable light reading. These books cover no new ground, either in style or content, but they are full of interesting, quirky characters who provide wonderful company to wile away a few pleasant hours.

Just Read: Kate Atkinson's Case Histories

2005-05-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

I already had Case Histories, Kate Atkinson's fourth novel, on my To Be Read pile(s), but I admit that when the LBC chose it as the first Read This! pick, I bumped it up and started reading.

[BTW, am I the only one who hates this cover?]

I found the first three chapters --the case histories themselves-- tough going. The writing didn't engage me and reading three tragic episodes back-to-back was a little wearying. I finally became a little more engaged with the novel with the appearance of the PI whose cases these would become. Jackson Brodie seemed to me a more interesting and engaging character than all the dysfunctional, unhappy people in the case histories. Not that Jackson isn't dysfunctional and unhappy -- he is, but he's witty about it. This guy has a sense of humor about his misery, while the subjects of the case histories just seem so dreadfully earnest in their suffering. I guess I can safely say that Atkinson's decision to organize her novel around the three "case histories" felt contrived to me and not entirely successful. I think the novel would have been better and stronger had the material been organized differently (perhaps losing the "case histories" as separate entities and reworking them more smoothly into the narrative).

I also found Atkinson's narrative coy -- she flashes her hand but then holds it back, refusing to reveal information her characters already know. For example, when Jackson uncovers the key piece of information regarding the Laura Wyre case, he calls his client (her long-grieving father) and tells him he'll mail him a postcard with the information. What? Is that believable? Oh yes, I spend ten years obsessing about my daughter's case and when the PI I finally hired to look into it calls and says he's solved it, I just say okay, don't need to know, I'll wait to get that postcard... Please. And that little unbelievable exchange comes a little after Atkinson interrupts the narrative when the woman Jackson is interviewing says Oh I know who the killer is... Well, we don't. Could you tell us? Show us? Nope -- Jackson apparently has better things to do, and so does Atkinson. We must wait until they feel like showing us... That's a little too coy for my taste.

Other things also annoyed me:

The little beggar girl that just kept popping up. I just wanted to shout to the characters -- take a look at her! Isn't it obvious she'll turn out to be important! And of course, she is...
The Carolyn character. Obviously, since she was given her own chapters, she must be important to the case histories. And indeed she is... It just takes a while to become apparent (frankly, too long).
Why does Jackson put up with the secretary from hell? Does she have something on him we don't know about? Otherwise, it makes no sense to me that Jackson would employ this dour, nasty woman with no apparent redeeming qualities.

I did like that the resolution of the cases was surprising (a little contrived and manipulative, perhaps, but still interesting). I was also thankful that towards the end of the novel the atmosphere of utter, pervasive failure and despair surrounding all the characters lifted a little. There are no happy endings, just hopeful endings. And that's good enough for me.

For more information:

Atkinson's bio

Links to reviews of Case Histories

Follow blogger Grumpy Old Bookman discusses Case Histories, pre-LBC (I happen to agree with many of his comments):

As for me, well I found Case Histories to be hard going. For one thing you have to go 60 pages before you get anything that might reasonably be called a scene (in dramatic terms) in which two or more actors engage in a dialogue. And to my mind that ain't the best way to proceed. So I began to skip. Fast. Which is not, of course, the ideal way to read a novel. You should read every word, but I'm afraid I am very old-fashioned about these things and I expect the writer to give me some help. Reading a novel is suppose to be fun, at least in my estimation; it's supposed to be an enjoyable, interesting, satisfying experience; it's not supposed to be a whole lot of hard, tedious work.

Anyway, I did stick with the book, after a fashion, and after a couple of hundred pages or so I began to see a little more virtue in it. And by the end I could also see, very clearly, that if the material had been organised differently, Case Histories could have been an impressive novel indeed. But it would have been an impressive crime novel. And that, I suspect, is something that Kate Atkinson and her publisher would rather die than admit.

On Bride & Prejudice, the movie

2005-05-18T23:25:00.000-04:00

This weekend I saw Bride & Prejudice, the Bollywood-and-Austen-inspired new movie by the director of Bend It Like Beckam. It's light and cheery and full of gorgeous sounds and colors, exactly what I needed after a week of gray, rainy days (it hasn't been paradise in the tropics lately!). While this is not a cerebral interpretation, it is a lot of fun -- a celebration of over-the-top Bollywood song-and-dance numbers infused with the spirit of Jane Austen. And most of the actors and actresses in the movie are uncommonly beautiful, so that it seems quite fitting that they spend a lot of time prancing around decked out in colorful clothing...

The beautiful Aishwarya Rai, former Miss India and current Bollywood star, plays Lalita, a 21st century Indian Elizabeth Bennet, who is destined to be momentarily charmed by the wicked Wickham (here a nomadic backpacker), ogled by Mr. Kholi (Austen's Mr. Collins has been turned into an ingratiating accountant who emigrated to California and has returned --green card in hand-- to shop for a proper Indian wife), and ultimately landed by Darcy, a white-bread (and bred) American hotelier.

Of course we all know what happens, but it's so much fun to watch anyway. And how cool is it to see Lalita and her Mr. Darcy riding an elephant that is sporting a "Just Married" sign with its bejewelled finery?

For more information:

Bride & Prejudice website

Miramax's B&P website

On Lynn Viehl's Darkyn Series

2005-05-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

Recently I read If Angels Burn, the first in a new series of novels by Lynn Viehl (of Paperback Writer fame). Billed by publisher Signet Eclipse as "paranormal romance", If Angels Burn is described by its author as also containing "strong elements of horror, suspense, fantasy and science fiction." The fact is that the novel works better within any of those other genres than as a romance.

That is my main problem with this novel: expectations created and left unfulfilled.

Not only is If Angels Burn marketed as "paranormal romance" but a prominent blurb on the cover proclaims this novel "[e]rotic, darker than sin, and better than good chocolate." It is none of those things. Of course I know blurbs exaggerate, but still, as a reader I'm annoyed (angry, really) at being deliberately misled.

I have read a lot of romance, and a fair amount of paranormal romance (including all of Christine Feehan's Carpathian romances, which are a favorite of mine), and trust me, If Angels Burn is NOT romance. In a good romance there are two basic genre rules that cannot be bent: 1) the narrative has to focus on the relationship between the hero and the heroine; and 2) there has to be a happy ending, which includes the promise of the hero and heroine together and happy. If Angels Burn skirts both these rules -- the story contains too many secondary characters and subplots; the supposed hero and heroine occupy but a small part of the narrative; there is very little sex, and what there is of it cannot really be called erotic; the end of the novel is merely a setup for the continuing Darkyn saga, not a satisfying resolution of the relationship between hero and heroine (who really seem like an afterthought).

I'm not a slave to genre -- I like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, which is not strictly horror or romance, but then, I don't expect Hamilton's books to follow a particular formula. Even then, the Anita Blake books have a strong heroine and devote a lot of narrative time to developing her (admittedly problematic and genre-bending) relationship to her several heroes.

Still, even though I was disappointed, I liked If Angels Burn (great title, even if it doesn't directly relate to anything in the novel) enough that I will give the second book in the series a try. I just hope there's more romance in it next time. Or that the publisher reclassifies the books. Or that the blurbs are more truthful...

For more information:

The Darkyn website, which explains what the first three books are about.

Sheila Kelly's blog: Paperback Writer

Interview with Sheila Kelly (Lynn Viehl's given name)
SK: My day starts at 5:30 a.m. and ends at midnight. I write new material in the mornings and early afternoons for six to eight hours, and edit for another four to six hours in the evening. I have no time/genre preferences.
RK: Do you write more than one book at once?

SK: I usually write three books at the same time. This month I’m writing four so I can take off two weeks at Christmas.

RK: Do you outline or write from the hip?

SK: I outline the novel with a fairly detailed synopsis and about forty or fifty pages of notes that only make sense to me. The book is completely planned out in my head before I write the first word. I rarely deviate from the plan, but when I do, I rework the outline before I continue to write.
.....
RK: What are you offering readers with the Darkyn novels?

SK: I avoid genre labels, but I guess dark fantasy seems most appropriate to me. The series is being marketed by the publisher as paranormal romance. There are strong elements of horror, suspense, fantasy and science fiction in the books as well. Take your pick.

Sheila Kelly on the search for the perfect suit:

I was facing my first crisis as a professional writer. It wasn't a plot problem. It wasn't writer's block (I never get writer's block. There are many moments, usually around 2 am, that I fervently wish I did). I liked my editor, loved my agent, and was busily whizzing through the revisions on my manuscript. Problems with them I could handle.

I had been invited by a local writer's group to attend their monthly meeting. At the Airport Hilton. To meet 65 published or aspiring writers. I wasn't nervous about attending. Sixteen years of public school conferences had enabled me to be pleasant and sit and listen to almost anyone politely insult me. Then there was all the hand-to-hand combat training I'd gotten in the military. I figured meeting a bunch of writers would be a breeze.

No, the problem was my closet. Or more specifically, what was not in my closet.

[Isn't it nice? She never gets writer's block. She writes and publishes 4 books a year. She works from 5:30 am to midnight. She always outlines. She never deviates from her schedule. She plans her writing 2 years in advance; she doesn't sign her books because it makes her "feel ridiculous".. And she lives with her husband and two children in South Florida. Now, am I being cynical, or is there something wrong with this picture?... Which prompts me to wonder: how reliable (truthful?) are writers when they talk about how they write?]

On Ghosting by Jennie Erdal

2005-05-16T19:16:00.000-04:00

This weekend I read another Borders Original Voices selection, a memoir entitled Ghosting by Jennie Erdal. For almost 20 years Erdal worked as an editor and translator for Quartet Books in London, and she also became the ghostwriter for Quartet's flamboyant owner, whom she dubs "Tiger" (his real name is Naim Attallah). Ghosting has caused quite a stir in England, where Atallah is quite well-known and his books well-received.

I wanted to love this book. After all, what's not to like? Ghosting purports to tell the true story of how Jennie Erdal went from Quartet Russian-lit editor (and sometime translator) to ghostwriter of Attallah's books, novels, newspaper columns, articles, and even intimate correspondence. I've often wondered about the relationship between ghost and ghosted (haunted? ghostee?): what makes one person take on the writing persona of another? And is it ever ethical to disclose the relationship? Is the ghost being paid just for the words or also for discretion and silence?

But ultimately, Ghosting answers none of these questions. In fact, I found this memoir just plain boring; I found myself skimming... trying to get over the repetitive bits as quickly as possible. How many ways can Erdal describe Tiger's flamboyance? His little eccentricities, like the mismatched socks, the three watches, the obsessive scheduling, and the never-ending drama? The answer: way too many. Perhaps this book should have remained a Granta article... the added length does not add depth or value.

While many reviews have commented on Erdal's elegant prose, I found the writing clunky. It drags. [And yes, I could cite examples, but I only got 3 hours of sleep last night --(non)emergency at my grandmother's nursing home-- and don't have the patience to transcribe...] There's too much telling (and retelling) in Ghosting and not enough showing, both in her relationship to Tiger and in the sections chronicling her own life (which I found, well, boring...).

Erdal cites extensive passages from the novels she ghosted for Tiger; the passages from the first novel are particularly excrutiating to read. It's hard for me to believe that those novels got good reviews. But then again, Erdal herself mentions that reviewers often see in novels what they are looking to find.

Erdal also chooses to include fairly long passages in French, which are not translated. I can read French, so those posed no problem for me, but I imagine non-French-speaking readers would be annoyed. Another annoyance: Erdal frequently cites words of wisdom from other writers -- sometimes she references the cites with a footnote, sometimes she doesn't (even when she cites directly, using quotes). I couldn't figure out the rationale for this haphazard referencing system -- either reference all the cites or none of them, please!

Bottom line: I wouldn't recommend this book. If you're interested in the topic, like I was, I suggest you browse through the info and links below -- they provide plenty of free info without requiring a large commitment of time.

For more information:

Excellent interview/article on Erdal and Ghosting.

Overview of the reviews on Ghosting, from metacritic.com. Most of them are much more favorable than my own opinion!

Reprints of reviews, articles, and excerpts from Ghosting

"Giving Up the Ghosting":

David Sexton of the Evening Standard, in an interview with Attallah, has depicted a rift between Erdal and her former employer. Attallah is, Sexton writes, 'understandably agitated.' The prominent publisher has found in Ghosting, 'details that you don?t normally put in a book' to the point where he claims, 'I don't recognise myself' It is not mentioned, however, that Attallah personally approved the book after being given advance copies. Sexton himself is ultimately impressed enough to find Ghosting 'a fascinating and notably well-written memoir.'

Adding further fuel to the controversy, Attallah himself has recently published a new book of his own, this time without the use of a ghost-writer. The Old Ladies of Nazareth is the first of a proposed trilogy in which Attallah explores his own Palestinian heritage, published on October 21.

With Ghosting's much anticipated publication, the media frenzy will perhaps subside, and Erdal will - for the first time - be able to speak for herself, and under her own name.

Review, "A Kind of Self-Deception":

Ghosting is not a literary kiss-and-tell, its author emphasises, anxious about the book's reception. She points out that for years it was an open secret in publishing circles that Attallah, magazine proprietor and owner of Quarto Books and The Women's Press, did not himself write every word of the journalism or the books that appeared under his own name--notably volumes of his interviews with famous women, and a brace of novels. Private Eye had long ago "exposed" the situation, in very unflattering, black-and-white terms.

Instead Erdal is interested in the intense relationship that developed between herself, an editor, translator and single mother-of-three from a conservative small town in Fife, and the exuberant, obsessive, emotional Attallah, who grew up amid the olive groves of Palestine.

And she is interested in the complexities of the role she took on in his employ. In one way she sees it as just a simple service, comparing her job to that of the letter wallahs in India, who will compose a letter to order because they can phrase it better than the individual who buys their skills. In another, particularly when she came to write Attallah's novels, it became a strange kind of distortion of her own mental space, as she attempted to force her own creative imagination into the shape of another person's brain.

"Ghostwriter Giving Shape to Own Career":

Her role developed so gradually that she wasn't aware for a long time that what she was doing was not moral — that writing material for someone else to say without attribution was "ghosting." She says neither she nor Attallah ever used that word.

"He was very ambitious about being a writer, and he thought I could make it happen for him. I worked at home — about 500 miles from London. I didn't feel manipulated at the beginning. My impression was that a lot of people were doing the same thing."

By the time she wrote the book, she was sorry and wanted to "take a hard look at ghostwriting, which is very prevalent now. We all get mixed up in our heads. I was doing an extreme form of it — especially with intimate letters. Passing off something that is not your own is not honorable or moral behavior, but it is interesting behavior. Why give words away? Words are very personal."

Her top salary, she said, was "25,000 pounds a year — less money than he paid his chauffeur. He paid me just enough to keep me interested. It was enough for me to pay the bills. The fact that I didn't get credit didn't matter to me. I knew. He couldn't own my thoughts. Getting credit seemed very low on the list of priorities. It was more important for me to care for my family."

From "War of the Words" in W Magazine's March 2005 issue:

At the very mention of Jennie Erdal's name, Attallah becomes enraged. "Our relationship--any relationship I have--is sacrosanct," he booms from behind his desk. Although he knew she was writing a book about her time with him ("I told him more than once that I wasn't going to make him a saint," says Erdal), he says he was shocked when he first read an excerpt in Granta. Choosing his words carefully, he refuses to confirm or deny Erdal's ghostwriting claims: "It was a very close collaboration where two talents intertwined.

"I am obsessed with loyalty," he adds, clenching his fists. "And she knows how I view loyalty."

Though Attallah acknowledges he recognizes "some aspects" of himself in Erdal's portrayal, he is offended by most of her description. "It's like an opera, there are many inaccuracies, embellishments, exaggerations," he says. "She made me look like a comical buffoon. To be called illiterate by somebody with whom you have worked closely is not a nice thing. You can be so kind to someone, and then put a knife in them--and the wound feels just as painful. I feel betrayed."

A little trivia:

Ghosting

Saying goodbye to a beloved bookstore

2005-05-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

I don't know how I missed it, but one of my favorite bookstores closed at the end of October 2004 and I just didn't hear about it. WordsWorth Books in Harvard Square was my home away from home during my four years at Harvard College. And now it's gone! I knew they had filed for bankruptcy, but not closed. It pains me. Harvard Bookstore better be thriving -- Harvard Square just wouldn't be the same without it, and I don't think I could stand losing yet another favorite bookstore... even one thousands of miles away.

Hillel Stavis, owner of WordsWorth Books, in a Boston Globe interview after WordsWorth's closing, talked about reading, bookstores, and booksellers's reading habits:

As independent bookstores wither away, what of the future of reading? Is it time to prepare the obituary for bookstores?

''No, people read, although they have attention-span-reading-disorder. People buy books, but I have a suspicion they don't read them through. Everybody bought [Umberto] Eco's 'The Name of the Rose,' but how many read it? [Hey, when I was a bookseller I wanted to sell books. Sure, I would like everyone to be a voracious reader, but, let's get real, no one ever reads every book s/he buys!]

''Habits are changing. Bookstores are no longer the sole repository, other than libraries, of intellectual pursuit. There's competition. Television has not only stupid music videos but serious offerings, like the History Channel. From the Internet, you can download Shakespeare.

''I don't want to give the impression books are becoming extinct. Recently, I was looking at John Locke's 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding.' Online, you can read three paragraphs and get the gist, but if you bought the book you might tend to read the whole thing. [I thought people didn't read the books they bought, but maybe Locke just trumps Eco... Nah...]And unlike your tape recorder or a plasma TV, a book is relatively inexpensive. You can lose it and replace it easily, and so, when you think about Gutenberg's invention, it's proven to be portable, cheap, and remarkably durable."
.....
''People fantasize about owning a bookstore, but what happens is that you get so busy with minutiae you don't have time to read. If there's a retirement home for booksellers, what you'd see is a lot of old booksellers sitting in rocking chairs, and what would they be doing? They'd be reading all the books they never had time to read when they owned a bookstore."

Now, that I agree with. When I was a bookseller I hardly had time to read. In fact, I read much less those two years than at any other time since I was about 10 years old. I always felt that I was drowning in a sea of text... (I still miss, though, the thrill of opening the boxes of new books and of handselling beloved titles to potential readers, but not the aggravation of dealing with vendors or employees or taxes...)

An unexpected side effect of blogging

2005-05-13T18:43:00.000-04:00

I usually have several packages of books arriving every week; I just can't seem to stop myself from ordering books that look promising. Since I started blogging and cruising the lit blogosphere, I have found many new authors and books to read, so the influx of packages has grown.

That I expected.

What I didn't expect was how often I now find these packages from amazon.com, Powell's, allibris (etc) have surprising contents: books I have no recollection of ordering. Once I look them over, I know I ordered them, because they all have something that catches my interest -- plot, theme, character, that elusive first sentence... but for the life of me I cannot recall how I originally came upon the book... It does make each box more of a gift, though... so many lovely surprises arriving weekly (almost daily!). I just wish I could remember how I found each book for the first time!

How Leonard does it

2005-05-13T00:31:00.000-04:00

One of my recurring obsessions is finding out why writers write and how they do it -- you know, the mundane little details of routine, schedules, tools... Here is Elmore Leonard's writing story, culled from a NY Times May 9 profile:

On how he writes:
"[Elmore Leonard] writes seven days a week in the living room of a nice house in the suburbs here with a No. 5 Pilot Pen on unlined yellow paper. He does not use e-mail or a computer. He types the handwritten pages on an I.B.M. Selectric, which occasionally breaks down from daily exertion."

On why he writes novels:
"I write them to find out what happens," he said of his novels. "I don't write for anybody else."

On the structure of his novels:
"Mr. Leonard does not think what he does is very complicated.

"The first part moves along O.K., and then I have to think about the second part, because the second part keeps it going," he said. "And then you've got to get to some new things, say around page 250. There is always those surprises near the end.""

On the role of characters:
"Characters serve as can-openers on plots for Mr. Leonard. Once conceived, they become his masters, shoving him from one scene to the next, until the book ends, usually at about 300 pages."

And how they (sometimes) get their names:
"This great American author, one of the best dialogue writers ever, lets people at charity auctions bid for the right to name his characters; Ed Hagenlocker, a "hard-shell Baptist" and cotton farmer in "The Hot Kid," got his name that way. "Why not help them out?" he said."

Have I got a great book for you!

2005-05-12T23:06:00.000-04:00

Today I devoured gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson. In one sitting. And when I finished, I wanted to read it again. Now that's an unusual desire for me -- since there are so many wonderful books awaiting discovery I hardly reread, except for favorites like Pride & Prejudice, for example, or books I'm either teaching or studying. But gods in Alabama is a truly wonderful novel. And I am so very glad I set aside my distrust of Southern themes to pick this novel up.

You all know by now that I collect first sentences that grab me. Well, gods in Alabama has one of the best opening paragraphs that I have ever read:

There are gods in Alabama: Jack Daniel's, high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus. I left one back there myself, back in Possett. I kicked it under the kudzu and left it to the roaches.

Who could resist all the questions prompted by these two little sentences? And the lovely thing is, the rest of the novel is just as delicious a read as that yummy first paragraph.

I'll be posting more on this novel, but in the meantime: run, run, run and grab a copy of your own! It really is worth plucking down the $19.95 (which is way cheaper than most new hardcovers anyway!).

I promise you won't regret it. gods in Alabama is the ultimate reader's dream: a truly satisfying read that delights both brain and heart. The characters are compelling and richly drawn; the plotting is superb, including many unexpected plot twists; and the storytelling is top-notch -- Jackson can pull the reader along even (or perhaps even because) she has already disclosed some heavy duty secrets from the very beginning. It's a journey well-worth taking.

Why is it that...

2005-05-12T19:45:00.000-04:00

... when we professors don't show up for class the students start clamoring to be taught? Are they just being contrary? Is it human nature or some particularly annoying trait of late adolescence? I sure don't know what it is -- all I know is that when I called in sick today for the fourth time this week, the department secretary regaled me with tales of woe from all the students who had been by the department suddenly worried about their final presentations. Oh please. I just told her to tell them to take the extra time to prepare and just be ready for next class (and darn it, just leave me the hell alone). Okay, that last part I didn't actually say. But I wanted to.

Still sick...

2005-05-10T23:30:00.000-04:00

... and reading a lot of erotica (comfort reading extraordinaire -- I love Ellora's Cave!) and watching too much tv.

I watched the finale of Amazing Race (I am totally addicted!) -- I wanted Rob and Amber to win... yes, he's unapologetically machiavellian but his relationship with Amber is wonderful. Not once during the whole season did they ever yell or insult each other -- they were the only couple who didn't. In my book, that's pretty special. I just wish Puerto Ricans weren't so susceptible to sob stories; then Joyce and Uchena wouldn't have been able to get on the flight from San Juan to Miami when the door was already closed and the walkway retracted. Oh well, here in my part of the world we sometimes are a little too nice!

There was also quite a long and interesting spoof of news networks' coverage of blogs on tonight's The Daily Show...

Now I'm off to cuddle with my Kleenex. I've got lots of good books to talk about still (those two memoirs and two novels), plus of course, all that erotica (some of it quite good). So, see you tomorrow, folks!

I have a bad cold...

2005-05-09T20:42:00.000-04:00

... so I'm a little woozy. Those Tylenol Cold tablets sure pack a punch! Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow with a clearer head. Til then, happy reading!

June Book Sense Picks Announced

2005-05-07T12:43:00.000-04:00

I'm always on the lookout for new books I might like, so I always check out the Book Sense picks that indie bookstores will be handselling. I've found quite a few good books that way.

BTW, Carrie Kabak's Cover the Butter is one of the June picks. I've blogged about her novel and am also going to be posting an interview with her soon.

This is what Publishers Weekly said about Cover the Butter:

Kabak's debut, set in Wales, covers familiar familial territory. When 40-something Kate Cadogan arrives home to find her house trashed by her teenage son, Charlie, she succumbs to a long overdue need to take stock of her desperate housewife life. We revisit Kate from her 1970s teenhood forward: her mother Biddy's cold and obtrusive "controlling passion" rules the family roost and dictates everything from Kate's clothes to her intended career, while her father is devoted but feckless. Kate is buoyed by a cast of sympathetic and supportive characters: her diehard friends Ingrid and Moira, her sweet and knowing grandparents Magmu and Griff and her aunt Oona, a kindred spirit. After a disastrous but passionate relationship, Kate meets businessman Rodney Fanshaw. All is well, but "Rodders" ignores her wish to work, is even more inconsiderate in bed and spends more time at sport than at home, leaving Kate lonely. Dejected and depressed, Kate pours herself into house and child until the moment in the prologue when she breaks down. The dialogue is chick-lit generic but exact; scenes play out fluidly and are nicely detailed, particularly in Kate's sophisticated foodyism. Kabak doesn't provide the frisson of the racy TV mockudrama, but she does tell Kate's story with warmth and humor.

Michael Gruber's The Witch's Boy

2005-05-06T23:41:00.000-04:00

When I started blogging, I thought the hard thing would be reading enough to have material to post about. Well, guess what? I actually am reading ahead of my posting capabilities. In the last week I read two memoirs and three novels that I have yet to blog about. Go figure!

Let's start with The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber. The Witch's Boy is a fantasy written for (and marketed to) children. I found it through Borders' Original Voices program. This is Gruber's first children's book, but his third book published under his own name. He used to ghostwrite Robert Tanenbaum's novels (Tanenbaum is Gruber's cousin; I get the feeling they're not on friendly terms...).

This is the publisher's description of the book:

A wondrous journey through the realms of magic

They call him Lump. Ugly, misshapen -- more goblin than human child -- abandoned as an infant and taken in by a witch, he is nursed by a bear, tutored by a djinn; his only playmates are the creatures of the forest, whose language he learns to speak.

But when Lump inevitably stumbles into the human world, his innocence is no match for the depths of people's cruelty, which turns his heart to stone, and fuels a vengeance that places him and his witch mother in deadly peril. Yet these disasters also send Lump on a journey of self-discovery, to realms deep within the earth and far beyond mortal imagination.

In this stunning fantasy debut, Michael Gruber has created a world that is at once deceptively familiar and stunningly original, a world of cruelty, beauty, legend, truth, and above all, wonder. Readers will delight in the author's ingenious retelling of classic fairy tales and will marvel at the stunning new tale of a boy raised by a witch, a cat, a bear, and a demon.

I thought the premise was promising: a monstrous child raised by a witch with good intentions but poor maternal instincts, nursed by an attentive bear, tutored by an enslaved demon (the djinn), and supervised by the witch's feline familiar. The story is indeed good, but I found The Witch's Boy ultimately unsatisfying.

Lump (what a name) grows up overprotected -- his mother (usually referred to in the narrative as 'the woman') cast protection spells over him, so that nothing in his world ever harms him; he never gets skinned knees or mosquito bites, he's never exposed to frustration or sadness, and though lonely, he is for the most part blissfully unaware of his isolation. Until... other humans start encroaching on the witch's forest, and Lump's glimpse of their children at play prompts fantasies of new friends, real friends (unlike the children he glimpses through the magic windows in his djinn-created nursery). So naive and overprotected Lump makes contact with the children, with disastrous results:

Hatred breeds best in the soil of ruined dreams. Lump now felt for the first time in his life the hot pangs of that emotion. It was directed at his tormentors, not so much for what they were doing to him but because they were not what he had hoped them to be, a loving and admiring family. And at his mother, too, for not foreseeing this, for allowing him to believe he was something other than a hideous monster. And worst of all, at himself: self-contempt gripped at his vitals and also shame, and his free boy's heart was strangled in his bosom. (pp120-121)

[This quote also shows another problem with the novel: the writing is sometimes lovely and sometimes clunky -- "self-contempt gripped at his vitals and also shame, and his free boy's heart was strangled in his bosom"... Rewrite, please!]

In the aftermath of his near-death experience, Lump is bitter. And he just keeps making horrible choices which ultimately cost him and his 'family' everything.

That's exactly the problem with this novel. Lump never seems to learn. And when he finally does, it seems hurried and forced (it's at the end of the narrative). So does his marriage and his reconciliation with his mother. I just wasn't convinced of his transformation, after seeing him repeat his mistakes time and time again. Yes, we're told he had ten years to do nothing but think of his mistakes (I won't say how or why), but we (okay, I at least) don't see him really wrestle with himself. I just didn't see the change or growth, so the resolution felt hollow. In fact, the entire novel feels superficial, full of missed opportunities to really develop the characters or deal with issues like grief, hate, prejudice, cruelty, love...

New Feature: Author interviews!

2005-05-05T23:41:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know. Author interviews abound in the lit blogosphere. So what? I like reading, I like writers, and if some authors are willing to 'talk' to me, hey, I go for it.

My inaugural interview is with Jane Guill, author of Nectar from a Stone. Nectar, published in March 2005 as an original trade paperback by Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, is Guill's first novel, though not her first publication; she has published several Pushcart-nominated short stories. As you probably remember, I heard about Nectar from Guill's Backstory at MJ Rose's Backstory blog. And of course, I just had to get it. And reader, I liked it! [You can take a look at my original posts: A little Nectar and Now reading.]

Nectar from a Stone is a historical novel, set in Wales in 1351, just after the Plague swept through Europe. What sparked your interest in medieval Wales?

I'm American but my family is Welsh, several generations removed. During a mid-life crisis, I went to Wales to find my 'roots' or to at least find something that might help me figure out who I was. But I found more than that. Halfway into my visit, I watched a crazy man rappel down a cliff from a rope tied around a car. The next day I met this same maniac in person and I fell in love--just like a besotted teenager. He was a Welsh geologist who specialized in ancient mining, and I had a very limited time, a couple of weeks, to convince him that I'd make a dandy life companion. (He certainly seemed to need a keeper.) Four years later, in 1996, we married in North Wales at Conwy Castle, which was built by Edward I in about 1285.

My husband, Andy Lewis, adores Wales. He spent his childhood on Anglesey, a strange and wonderful island. It's where in 57 AD a Roman army commanded by Suetonius Paulinus slaughtered a defending force of native Britons made up of Druids, women, and children. Andy's love for all of Wales is contagious. The two of us have a marvelous time traipsing around some pretty obscure places over there. We climb windy slopes like Pen Llithrig-y-Wrach (The Head of the Slippery Witch) or sit in the shadows of Taliesin's Monument at Geirionydd Lake. There's always some new/olde thing to investigate, so we never get bored.

As far as my medieval interest, that I can claim independently. Andy's main love, history-wise, is the Bronze Age. But to me there's something absolutely fascinating about the Middle Ages. There was so much shocking tragedy and yet such compassion and humor in those centuries, and I somehow feel a deep connection with them.

What are you working on now?

It's another medieval novel, and once again British. This story deals with the supernatural, or at least the supernatural as it was perceived hundreds of years ago. It features a woman who runs afoul of the powers-that-be. (Alienated women seem to be a constant theme with me.)

Do you think of yourself primarily as a writer?

Yes. I also do a lot of drawing and painting but my interest in art is more recreational than soul-felt. That is, when the writing isn't going well, I'll often 'goof off' and turn out some grotesque, detailed cartoon or silly collage that takes me half the day. Glitter sometimes flies and there are splots of paint all over the place. But it's relaxing and at least I feel like I'm doing something, rather than just staring into space trying to come up with one halfway decent sentence.

When did you first realize that you wanted to write?

About twelve years ago. Progress on my artwork had slowed to an absolute crawl and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I could 'say' all the things I wanted to say with words instead of images. My drawings have always been fairly narrative anyway, and the leap seemed natural. So I started to describe images in words instead of using images to tell stories.

The change has been a terrific challenge, but a wonderful one.

Are you a full-time writer? Or do you have other work? (Motherhood, wifehood, and housework count too!)

Yes. Historical fiction requires tons of research, and that naturally takes time. I'm also not a fast writer (I just agonize and agonize and rewrite everything a thousand times liked a demented idiot) so I have to be a writer who works long hours, whether I want to or not.

As far as other work, I've been a vegetarian for over twenty-five years and seem to do a lot of cooking because we hardly ever go to restaurants. (Andy has an organic garden here in Illinois, and another back in Wales. His brother minds the latter.) In the summer I'm always preparing spinach soup or salsa or stuffed sweet peppers. Three times a week, all year, I make homemade yogurt for the fresh fruit smoothies I whip up for breakfast every day. As far as housework, yes, I do it, but not often enough to be very effective and not with great relish. My two wonderful kids are out of the house; my daughter is recently married and lives in Denver, and my son goes to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

I love the story about how you and your husband, met, courted, married. How is married life, with such an interesting backstory behind it?

Married life is excellent. It's such an amazing pleasure to live with someone with truly similar and passionate interests. (My first husband--who's now looking among the embryonic set for Wife Number Five--was, is, a capitalist and an avid golfer. He used to instruct me, just before business functions/parties, not to talk about books or art because no one was interested. He suggested I learn to play bridge, do volunteer work, or redecorate the house, unless I wanted people to think I was odd.)

But now my life really feels like my life. In the old days, I often had this strange, disturbing notion that someone somewhere was calling my name. Sometimes I'd actually look over my shoulder. Sad and spooky, in a way, like the world wasn't quite in alignment. But after I met Andy, that all stopped. It was as if I'd found the person who'd been calling me. Fanciful and maybe foolishly romantic, yes. But it's true. And it's been such an indescribable relief. Now, if he ever ups and leaves me for some Glamour Babe who hates history and books and who watches reality TV and wears lots of make-up and giggles constantly, then I'll just have to go back to looking over my shoulder. Or, more likely, I'll throw in the Love Towel completely and become a celibate and bitter martini drinker. Not that I'm insecure or anything like that.

Where do you usually work? Do you have any particular habits, rituals, or even superstitions regarding writing?

I work in my study, when I use the computer. But before I can type, I sit in a chair in the living room and compose everything on a pad of yellow paper, in long-hand. I start about 9 in the morning, take an hour for lunch, then finish around 5. If I have a deadline or I'm really chugging happily along, I sometimes work until 6 or 7. I can't listen to music, any music, when I'm working. As far as superstitions, I don't like anyone to touch any of my research notes or reference books. And in the winter, I'll light a candle or two or burn cedar incense for atmosphere. When it's really windy and wintry outside, I wear fingerless mittens while I type because my hands get cold.

About your reading habits: what is/are your favorite genre(s)? authors? Why? How much do you usually read?

I can't actually say what my favorite genre is; my reading habits are all over the place. On my bedside table right now, for instance, you'll find Salman Rushdie's STEP ACROSS THIS LINE (collected nonfiction), Kate Atkinson's latest novel CASE HISTORIES, then THE APPEARANCE OF EVIL: APPARITIONS IN WALES by Edmund Jones, then 1215, THE YEAR OF THE MAGNA CARTA, by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham, then a novel called EVERY INCH OF HER by Peter Sheridan, then Shalom Auslander's story collection, BEWARE OF GOD, then an old book about Welsh herbal medicine, and finally, under everything, is a recent Vermont Country Catalog. I really ought to be more orderly and put something away. Ha.

Some of my favorite authors are William Trevor, Zoë Oldenbourg, Penelope Fitzgerald, Barbara Pym, Hilary Mantel, James Lee Burke, James Joyce, Jeanette Winterson, Elizabeth Atwood Taylor, John McGahern, Dorothy Parker, Taliesin, and so many others. For research I like Simon Schama, Colin Platt, Malcolm Jones, Norman F. Cantor, Barbara Hanawalt.

What is the best piece of advice anybody's ever given you? Do you follow it?

I keep a quote from Jonathan Winters on a bulletin board next to my computer. It reads: 'I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.' It's kind of like another saying I like: The harder you work, the luckier you get.

How long did it take you to write your novel? Was it hard to find a publisher?

It took about five years altogether. An agent read one of my short stories in a magazine and contacted me. He asked if I had a novel. I did, but it was less than a quarter done. So he urged me to finish it. I finished it (about eighteen months later) and he sold it to the first publisher who read it, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone.

I know you got two Pushcart nominations. For what stories? Have your short stories been collected or republished since their original publication?

I had a third Pushcart nomination late in 2004. The first was for "A Templar's Tale," a story about the imagined fate of a Templar who escapes execution in Paris in 1314. The second was "Something Akin to Glory," in which a grief-stricken man joins the flagellants after his family dies of the Plague. And the last was for "Bad Birds," a contemporary tale about book conservators involved in a love triangle as they work on restoring an ancient bestiary to its former glory.

None of the stories has been collected or reprinted so far, but I'd ultimately like to write enough historical pieces to make up a collection. Whether any publisher would want to take a chance on such a thing is yet another story.

What's the strangest thing a reader has ever said to you?

A stranger at a book-signing for NECTAR asked me--no, he practically ORDERED me--to read his unpublished novel and give him advice on getting an agent and a publisher. The manuscript was a mere 750 single-spaced typed pages and concerned a family in Dark Age Britain who made apple cider and mead and lived right next door to King Arthur's castle. He promised me it was brilliant and said everyone in his on-line writers' group loved it. He (rather grandly) assured me that if I helped him, he'd even give me a cut of the royalties--and that would be a lot of money because it was sure to be a bestseller. Luckily I was able to say, in all honesty, that I didn't have time. I politely suggested he try query letters. He wasn't particularly pleased.

What's the most unexpected thing you've done to promote your book?

I created and reproduced about 25 different greeting card designs to sell at a local artisans' shop and at a local bookstore. Some cards are funny and/or strange, some are conventional 'medieval' designs. Inside each card is a little note with a blurb for NECTAR. And you know, those cards are selling pretty well! I guess that's what they call guerrilla marketing.

Describe your most memorable author event.

Near Barrington, Illinois, where I used to live, about 70 people came to an event for NECTAR. The store sold out of the novel that day (they had 60 copies) and had to call around to other stores for more. I had 8 books in my car and brought those in, too. It was so gratifying, after sitting alone in my study for so long, just typing and talking to my two cats. One lady had 6 copies, for her book club. A man carried four, one for each of his sisters. I only wish every event could be like that. (They aren't, of course.)

If you could change one thing about your book, what would it be? Why?

We received a wonderful blurb from Susann Cokal (MIRABILIS and BREATH AND BONES), but it didn't arrive in time for the print-run. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

What's the most surprising thing about being a published author?

I still have to clean the cat litter. Worse than that, I still lack self-confidence. Somehow I thought I'd just turn, voila, into some sort of ultra-cool ultra-assured Katherine Hepburn/Audrey Hepburn person, all gorgeous and witty and wondrous. Alas, no. I'm still an insecure dolt, maladroit, graceless, expecting literary disaster at every turn. WHY THE HELL IS THAT? Is my whole body, my whole personal aura just one big stupid Achilles' Heel, huh?

What would you like potential readers to know about you? About your book?

I'm not as insecure as I sound. Maybe. And NECTAR FROM A STONE was definitely written with love and care and earnest, honest attention to detail.

What is your favorite line (or passage, scene, etc) from your novel?

I'm not sure I have one favorite thing. Nicolas always made me laugh, and he very nearly wrote his own crazy dialog. I liked Elise's visions because they gave me a chance to really let my imagination run wild. When Gwydion was in Paris, held by Charles of Spain, I liked his interaction with his guard. Descriptions of herbal cures and concoctions were also fun to write and to research. In general, I love words. Certain words really resonate with me and the trick is putting those words together with other wonderful words to make beautiful sentences.

How do you feel about your author photo? Like it? Hate it? Do you feel it gives an accurate sense of who you are?

Lord, that's a loaded question. I'm hideously UN-photogenic. When the photographer took that picture, it was actually the best of a bad bunch of nearly thirty attempts. He was flummoxed, because none of the photos really looked anything like me. It's uncanny, like funky reverse magic. I always think my photographs make me look like Charles Laughton, or maybe Walter Matthau post-mortem. Does that particular photo give an accurate sense of who I am? Goodness, I hope not. A friend told me it makes me seem sinister. Now that's hilarious; me, sinister.

How would you describe yourself?

Decidedly un-sinister. A little odd, but not in need of strong medication. Well-meaning. Detail oriented and industrious. Stubborn. Secretive. Superstitious. Loyal. A bit shy. Self-conscious.

Of course, to that I would add talented, and decidedly generous with her time and her words. Thanks, Jane! And keep working on that next novel; I really want to read it!

TV ad for James Patterson's 4th of July

2005-05-04T20:37:00.000-04:00

I was checking my email and watching tv (at my multitasking best), when a commercial for James Patterson's newest thriller came on.

For some reason I just knew it was a book commercial, even before the author or book cover flashed on the screen. Maybe it was the cheesy ad copy, or perhaps every book commercial uses the same voice-over guy? Whatever it is, I paid attention. And I was a little horrified.

The main image of the commercial is a man and a woman cavorting (really, that's just the word, precisely) on a bed, round and round, kissing, making out. It's like bad porn.

Can't we do any better than that?

Coincidentally, I was reading a Wall Street Journal interview with Dean Koontz where he discusses the marketing of books, including tv advertising:

WSJ: Should publishers be spending more money on TV to advertise their books?

Mr. Koontz: The wisdom is that TV doesn't work for books. But I think it does work for books. It really depends on the crafting and preparation of that commercial. The problem with ads that say a new book is a thrill ride or the greatest love story ever told is that nobody relates to the obvious hype. Too often commercials basically say a book is thrilling rather than telling you what the book is about. That's the wrong way to sell. When you see a cereal commercial they don't say it's tasty: They offer you a hook for their product. I see little book advertising done that way.

I can safely say the crafting of this Petterson commercial leaves a lot to be desired...

[BTW, 4th of July is currently #10 at amazon.com.]

I finished Gilead by Marilynne Robinson...

2005-05-04T11:22:00.000-04:00

...a few days ago, and have been pondering what to say about it. I wanted to love Gilead. I had loved Housekeeping back in college, when I read it in my very first lit class my first semester at Harvard. And of course there are the accolades, the Pulitzer, the National Book Award... when a book is as acclaimed as Gilead, it makes me try a little harder to appreciate it.

But honestly, I just didn't like Gilead very much.

The premise is interesting: a sixty-seven year old husband, father, and preacher is dying of heart failure, and he decides to write a letter/diary to his young son, so that the child will have something tangible to remember him by. So far so good. But the problem with this premise is that it's very restrictive in terms of narrative devices -- the entire book consists of the preacher's scribblings, which are sometimes lengthy, focused, and content-rich, but often short and full of the details of ordinary life. And that's fine, but in book-length, it gets a little tedious. I think that's probably why I had trouble reading more than twenty or thirty pages at a time. I just got tired of eavesdropping on an old man's thoughts, particularly since the old man in question is an earnest, well-meaning good man who is just not that interesting (at least to me). I found the religious/philosophical digressions especially hard to get through... I just wasn't interested. And I admit, many of the biblical allusions escaped me (and I didn't feel like looking them up).

On the subject of fiction as deathbed testimonial: I loved Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, mostly because I found Moon Tiger's elderly protagonist so much more interesting than Gilead's preacher.

About marginalia

2005-05-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

As you most likely know by now, I fixate on descriptions of reading and writing in the novels I read. In Matt Bondurant's The Third Translation I was pleasantly surprised to find a discussion of marginalia. Protagonist Walter Rothschild is at the secondhand bookstore where he meets his future wife, Helen. He is a fan of used bookstores, and of used books:

...it seemed remarkable to me that any historian would choose to read a new book when a used copy, a copy already with some sort of intrinsic history, is readily available. Often you could find underlinings, exclamations, curious symbols, cryptic messages and notes written in the front and margins, things to decipher and use to construct images of the previous readers and their lives. (p212)

Later Helen gives Walter her much-read copy of Aaron Copland's What to Listen for in Music:

... what I read wasn't Copeland's [sic] rambling discourse on the properties and foundations of music, rather I concentrated on the curious script that lined the margins, a cipherlike shorthand of lines, dashes, exclamation points, and the ocassional phrase, like chromatic scale and overt tone color and only Mahler would try this! I spent the entire night poring over these notes, examining her cuneiform scratchings, and by morning I had constructed a base-line key of sorts, a way to translate the basic elements of her scribblings. I got so I could read her shorthand notes like my own. From this I formulated many things, about her life, about her art, about the way she read the world. I could see that she was a kind and loving person, the kind of person who would always remember everyone's birthday, and that she felt most alone reading in her bed at night. I could also tell that I was desperate to be closer to her. (p216)

Like Helen, I write all over my books, hardcovers and paperbacks alike. I find that if I don't read with a pencil in hand, it's as if I haven't read at all -- not much stays in my memory. But if I scribble all over, underline, circle, question, exclaim, analyze, argue, summarize -- then I remember. I always tell my students to approach texts as active collaborators, since passivity is not a good quality in readers or learners (or anyone else, for that matter). It's hard to break them of their habits, though; they either want their books pristine or color coded in neon underliner.

But like Walter, I also love to pore over other reader's markings on a text (as long as there's no neon involved!). Just like I gravitate towards other people's bookcases to check out their book selections, I feel compelled to look at other readers' notes -- what do they find important, challenging, intriguing, worthy of marginalia? I admit I also get a little thrill when my professors give us copies of articles they have marked up; I always smile when they apologize for not finding a clean version to photocopy. Cleanliness is highly overrated (in reading copies, at least).

A jaunt through the blurbosphere

2005-05-03T08:44:00.000-04:00

Columnist William Safire tackled the overblown language of the ubiquitous blurbs in Sunday's NYT Magazine. It's well worth a look, particularly if like me, you are annoyed by the hyperbole that renders most blurbs meaningless.

Here's a little taste:

Acclaimed, in this fulsome lingo of book ads and catalogs, now means merely ''the author received at least one good review.'' Widely acclaimed means ''two or more, plus a cable-TV plug.'' Critically acclaimed means ''it was decently reviewed in a specialized publication but didn't sell.''

Long- is a beloved half-word adverb in the blurbosphere. The letters of Lytton Strachey, advertises Farrar, Straus & Giroux, regarded as one of the classiest publishers, is ''a long-overdue collection.'' Whenever a writer has had a dry spell and taken forever to deliver, his book is hawked as long-awaited. On the other hand, if the author has a hot hand and sold well last time out, the adverb is switched and his work becomes eagerly awaited.

Sales problem: How do you blurb a dull book? Meticulously researched, or if you're really in trouble, definitive, exhaustive, spiced with profoundly insightful. Whatever covers a lot of ground and spans the millennia is a sweeping epic, which could soon be a major motion picture about three generations of janitors.

Brilliant, through overuse, has lost its sparkle. Fascinating has lost its charm, powerful is impotent and even towering achievement is getting shaky. Liberals go for heart-shattering and deeply empathetic while conservatives are attracted to gripping and the hard-driving compelling.

For adventure novels, riveting is getting a rosy run, along with the hypnotic mesmerizing and the noun page turner. For novels in which characters determine the plot, San Francisco likes absorbing and satisfying, and New York pushes moving and masterly. Upbeat women's books take triple adjectives, with an adverb rhythmically punching the third: ''Funny, ferocious, intensely likable'' and ''Droll, shrewd, irresistibly entertaining'' describe the same Random House novel.

Today I read...

2005-05-01T20:19:00.000-04:00

The Third Translation by Matt Bondurant.

I was thoroughly disappointed. It started so well: a beautiful cover (yes, I admit I pay attention to those things), and interesting premise (a forty-something American Egyptologist specializing in translating and decoding hieroglyphs has just a few days left before his contract with the British Museum expires to find the elusive "third translation" of the Stela of Paser. Once his contract is up he will be evicted from the museum-paid lodging, barred from the Stela, and essentially left penniless. Then he goes out drinking with 'friends' and ends up taking a girl to have sex in the museum. Of course, she steals a priceless papyrus and he's royally screwed. Now he has to find the girl, retrieve the papyrus, and decipher the Stela within 4 days or lose it all -- career, freedom, and maybe life...). I'm also a sucker for ancient Egypt, academia, and translation, so I thought, yum, a thriller that incorporates all these favorite themes must be good.

No. It isn't.

Things I didn't like:

Way too many scatological references. Who cares about the state of the characters' intestines and their penchant for using the tiny bathroom in the protagonist's room? I certainly didn't.

Too much of the plot is driven by alcohol, hash, and other drugs. And this despite the fact that Walter Rothschild, the main character, is basically a forty-something academic who is socially inept and not particularly attractive, yet he keeps drinking, taking proferred drugs and tripping, and making stupid choices that drive the plot. Please!

The absurdity of some plot elements. I can stomach a fair amount of absurd, even surreal behavior in the books I read, as long as there's a reason for it. This novel is marketed as a thriller (which is perhaps unfortunate) and thus carries certain generic expectations. Having some of the bad guys be American wrestlers who first turn up in a riot scene (they get mobbed leaving a Virgin Megastore) is just beyond absurd, particularly when one of them is a hulking, one-eyed brute named Gigantica... need I say more? I could -- these guys keep popping up all over the place, and then there's some sort of cult (with unexplained Hare Krishna ties) that also has a fetish for things Egyptian, though what their point is (and why we should care) is never really explained.

The book ends in the middle of nowhere, plot-wise, and therefore, most narrative strands have to be awkwardly concluded in an epilogue.

Something I did like:
The way Bondurant writes about Walter's childhood and young adulthood, including his marriage. It makes me think that somehow thrillers are not his thing and he should write more literary fiction (that is not genre driven). The choice of a thriller/mystery is unfortunate, because The Third Translation just doesn't work. It just feels like a rough draft, and not a finished product. I'd be interested, though, to see where Bondurant goes next.

Just read: The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

2005-05-01T19:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I finished Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club, about the lives (and reading experiences) of the members of a book club convened to discuss Austen's novels. There are six members: Jocelyn, breeder of championship dogs; Sylvia, Jocelyn's lifelong best friend who was recently left by her husband of thirty-some years; Allegra, Sylvia's drama queen, lesbian daughter; Bernadette, a sixty-seven year old chatterbox with a penchant for getting married; Prudie, a high school French teacher who has never been to France; and Grigg, the lone male who also happens to be reading Austen for the first time (from a one-volume collected works, no less).

It's certainly an entertaining novel (and a fast read), but when I finished, I just thought: so what?

And I had one major complaint about The Jane Austen Book Club: I couldn't figure out who the hell was narrating. It's written mostly in the first person, but this I/we doesn't correspond to any of the "six of us" in the book club. Probably this won't bother most readers, but it drove me nuts -- just like a little paper cut that keeps smarting.

I did like, though, the compilation of quotes about reader response to Austen through the centuries, starting with her own observations of her relatives' reactions to her works.

"America's Finest News Source" on the well-read man

2005-04-30T00:55:00.000-04:00

Via Rake's Progress: Our favorite news source (after The Daily Show, of course), The Onion, has a feature on a truly literate man, who reads only the classics. Of course, only the first hundred pages or so:

"Listen, I'm no book snob," said Seward, settled into his favorite reading chair and running his hand over a nearly half-well-thumbed copy of Pride and Prejudice. "It's just that I love cracking the binding on a truly good book and reading until I drift off. I'd say it's something I do two or three times a week."

This did remind me of Ian McEwan's assertion to salon.com that he reads only about twenty pages (or so) of the contemporary novels that reach his doorstep by the hundreds...

Just Read: Quality of Care by Elizabeth Letts

2005-04-29T23:20:00.000-04:00

Quality of Care is a thought-provoking and entertaining novel that just pulls you along -- it's so readable that you forgive the too convenient coincidences that sometimes drive the plot (like protagonist Clara picking up a dog in the middle of the road and turning up an unmarked road to look for the dog's owner, who turns out to be the woman she went back to California to find, and who also just happens to be needing a stable girl and hires Clara on the spot...).

The premise of Quality of Care is irresistible: what happens when your college lover and his pregnant wife (who is your childhood best friend) turn up one night at the hospital where you are the OB-GYN on duty? What if within an hour this woman who once saved your life is dead, and her premature baby is barely alive? And what if you still feel pulled to this man, whom you once lived with and walked out on?

These questions are what drive the novel, and keep the reader turning the pages. We follow along as Clara has her privileges suspended by the hospital and her partner suggests a vacation. Suddenly barred from obstetrics (if only temporarily), Clara is cut off from her passion, and forced to confront the demons that drive her perfectionism, her obsessive need to avoid making any mistakes. So she runs away from her current life and returns to California to search for answers about her father's death. But running away doesn't bring the expected relief; Clara just can't forget: "My practice, my patients, my partner, my mother, the flickering candle of a frail baby, and the ghost of a person who everybody assumed I had forgotten had once saved my life. They had all come along with me here, my ghostly entourage" (p80).

Her California interlude at the horse ranch does help Clara figure out her life (I'll leave that for you to find out for yourself -- I wouldn't want to spoil it!), but Quality of Life is never maudlin or sentimental (even if the cover is emblazoned with the NAL Accent motto: "Fiction for the Way We Live" -- yuck!). I do have some qualms with the novel, but they are minor and didn't affect my enjoyment:

Those coincidences. Yes, they are handled well by Letts, so it's not manipulative, but still...

Unnecessary secondary characters that add absolutely nothing, and actually detract from the story. Prime example: Veterinarian Franny Baker (a childhood acquaintance of Clara's) is a red-headed red herring. It's annoying and distracting to keep mentioning her at the edges of the narrative when her involvement will never amount to much. Clara's frequent mentions of her are just unnecessary distractions.

For more information:

Elizabeth Letts's website. She includes an interesting discussion of some of her favorite books, "My Life in Books".

From a review by Terez Rose (which otherwise discloses a little too much plot for my taste)

Letts, a practicing certified nurse-midwife has a keen eye for detail — both technical and physical. Her knowledge of horses and obstetrics makes the descriptions ring with authority, yet without ever burdening the reader with unnecessary terms or lingo. She is at her best when describing the coastal scenery (“The hillsides were variegated, some fields of tall grass scattered profusely with goldenrod, others a harmonious blend of dense low-lying chaparral, bluish green to grey, like a natural patchwork”) as well as in flashbacks to Clara’s developing relationship with the brilliantly-drawn Gordon (“I was drowning in him, plunging somewhere deep and fast — on that same speedy trajectory that a car would take when the land beneath it disappeared, or an icy airplane that decided to drop from the sky”). These stirring, evocative and sensuous flashbacks with their undercurrents of grief and mystery kept me reading, hungry to stay inside the story.

Letts delivers her story, much like the nurse-midwife she is — with deft hands, coaxing the reader on with absorbing dialogue and narration; providing them with a protagonist who never succumbs to excessive sentimentality...

An interview with Elizabeth Letts (contains some of the same passages as the author interview at back of Quality of Care:

When writing Quality of Care, it was the situation, or premise that came first — it’s virtually impossible to work in obstetrics without thinking about the what-if possibility that something terrible might occur on your watch . . . so I think the premise was incredibly compelling. Then I thought about a real worst case scenario — what if that patient had a special relationship of trust with you?

Oprah to announce Book Club Summer Selection in late May/early June

2005-04-28T22:05:00.000-04:00

Oprah will name a summer selection for her book club in about a month. According to her announcement, posted today in her website, "we are breaking new ground and doing something we haven't done before." I wonder what that could be... maybe a nonfiction title? Several books in a series?

If it is a classic, I would bet on Don Quixote. It's the 400th anniversary, it's a big juicy book, and the paperback edition of the Edith Grossman translation is just coming out. That would be my choice.

What would you choose?

[In the meantime, Oprah has a reading recommendation: "if you need a book right away for your reading groups, I highly recommend the Pulitzer prize winning novel The Known World by Edward P. Jones. It is a masterfully written gem, and I am certain you will not be disappointed."]

It's Turn-Off TV Week...

2005-04-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

... so why am I staring at the blasted thing? And the program is just a newsmagazine pastiche of pieces I'd already seen. And yet, I don't turn it off. Why?

I could be doing so many other more useful things, like

grading that stack of journals about King Arthur and company from my Brit lit students

reorganizing the piles of books colonizing my bedroom

taking yesterday's four Amazon boxes to the trash

or more pleasurable things, like diving into any of the books I am currently reading (honestly, I'm reading all of them at the same time!):

Pride & Prejudice ("Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast." -- Mmm... Darcy... Why are all the good ones fictional?)

Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March -- coincidentally, this week's New Yorker has some interesting things that Bellow wrote to Philip Roth about some of his early novels, including Augie March. I'm planning to post something about this later on...

Quality of Care by Elizabeth Letts - a debut novel by a midwife which does remind me a little of Midwives, the Oprah Book Club Selection by Chris Bohjalian. I expect I'll breeze through it -- it's really well written and well-plotted, and I really want to find out what happens to the protagonist, an OB-GYN who is stunned when her college sweetheart and the girl who once saved her life turn up married and pregnant at her hospital...

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler - Since I'm rereading P&P I finally decided to read this novel and have been pleasantly surprised so far...

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson -- I loved Housekeeping and am enjoying Gilead, though a little goes a long way. The novel is meant as a dying old man's letters/diary for his young son, and as such, there are no chapter divisions, just small breaks... it's interesting but exhausting reading. Plus some Civil War references (as well as biblical references, since the narrator is a reverend) are beyond me...

But now I'm strangely fascinated by NBC's Revelations... I think I need an intervention!

Is your blogging suffering?

2005-04-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

Are you dreading posting? Never fear -- Paperback Writer has some suggestions on how to enliven your blog. What amazes me though, is that Paperback Writer has published 28 books in 5 genres under 5 different pen names... and still has time to blog!

(Can I blame my woeful lack of quantifiable achievements on chronic depression and eight years wasted on a cheating (ex-)husband?)

Rereading Pride & Prejudice

2005-04-26T23:22:00.000-04:00

I have been rereading Pride & Prejudice with my British lit students; we already made it through Beowulf, Grendel, Le Morte d'Arthur, and Hamlet (I was pleasantly surprised by how good Ethan Hawke and Mel Gibson were as Hamlet, diametrically opposed Hamlets that they are). I enjoy P&P more each time I read it, though I admit I have trouble keeping the A&E visuals away now. Jane Austen is just so pleasant to read -- her language is impeccable, and her use of details to depict that particularly British, eighteenth-century, aristocratic way of life seems more inspired with each rereading.

And of course, P&P has arguably the very best first sentence ever: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." But how to convey the sublime pleasure of this line to students? Especially when they look at me like I'm nuts for being so enthused about these books we're reading...

Anyway, it all reminds me of how Katherine, the narrator of Barbara Trapido's Brother of the More Famous Jack, dives into Emma whenever in need of a little literary pick-me-up. As a dutiful wife she tries to get into her husband's first novel: "Jonathan's novel was actually more than I could cope with during pregnancy, being a spirited if macabre four hundred page satirical hallucination... I had promised myself to read it properly while I breast fed, if it didn't have the effect of curdling the milk" (p216). As I said, she tries, but: "I tried reading Jonathan's novel as I fed her, but gave it up in favour of Emma, which is still my favourite" (p219). Hey, who can blame her? Austen trumps hubby every time!

For me, that comfort read is undoubtedly Pride & Prejudice. What's yours?

Cancer Vixen gets $250,000

2005-04-26T21:13:00.000-04:00

Publishers Weekly is reporting that "[c]artoonist, newlywed and self-described "Cancer Vixen" Marisa Acocella Marchetto has signed a deal to pen an autobiographical graphic novel for Knopf/Pantheon in which she will write about her struggle with breast cancer and her life among the fashionable New Yorkers who frequent her husband Silvano Marchetto's restaurant, Da Silvano."

The PW article continues:

Sonny Mehta bought North American rights for $250,000 in a five-way auction. Robin Desser will edit the book, for which no pub date has been set. Publishers began competing for Marchetto's story following an April 14 New York Times article about a six-page cartoon spread that appears in this month's issue of Glamour, in which Marchetto chronicles her year-long bout with cancer.

The Knopf title, Cancer Vixen, will expand on the story, which is about more than fighting a disease, said Marchetto's agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman. "It is also a story of New York fabulous life from the inside and from the outside," Sheinkman said, adding that Silvano Marchetto's appearance "makes this brave tale a love story."

A year ago, Marchetto, 44, signed with Sheinkman to work on a different book project. Then, in May, a month before her wedding, she got her diagnosis. She kept working, though the subject changed, as she kept a kind of diary about her battle with cancer. "To me it was like the healthiest thing I could do, to get it all out on paper," Marchetto said.

Good for her. Though I did read the Cancer Vixen feature in Glamour and wasn't particularly impressed. Of course, cancer does hit a nerve, because my dad died of it two and a half years ago. I just didn't see much that I hadn't seen before in the Cancer Vixen strip...

More info:

Marissa Acocella Marchetto's cartoons for The New Yorker

"Marissa Acocella: Roving Cartoonist"

Marissa Acocella at Comicopedia

A little snippet of Cancer Vixen

Bet you didn't know...

2005-04-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

... that libraries are hotbeds of terrorist activity. But, don't you fret, Deroy Murdock over at the National Review is here to set the record straight on those pernicious libraries. He has quite a list of transgressive activities by library patrons who only seemed harmless... I guess hindsight is really 20-20, at least for Mr. Murdock, who concludes his article this way:

No square inch of this country should be a safe harbor where terrorists calmly can schedule the slaughter of defenseless civilians. Whether fueled by sincere civil libertarianism or malignant Bushophobia, those who thwart probes of Islamo-fascist library patrons have the same impact: They make it easier — not harder — for terrorists to kill you.

If I didn't know better, I would think that the entire article was satirical. (No such luck.)

Via Pages Turned.

Highly recommended: Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

2005-04-25T19:35:00.000-04:00

This weekend I read a wonderful novel about a thirty-something under-employed guy who sees dead people. It's a Perfect Cicle by Sean Stewart.

Don't be put off by the subtitle ("a novel about Texas, ghosts, and perfect pop songs") or by the fish hooks on the cover -- this is really a gem of a novel: funny, intelligent, surprising, thought-provoking...

Will "Dead" Kennedy has always seen in both color and black & white (and divided people "living and dead -- into five groups: 1) Buddhas, 2) Tell-Tale Hearts, 3) Cobains, 4) (Jack the) Rippers, and 5) Zombies" p25). The living are in full color; the dead he sees in black and white -- that's how he can tell them apart. Of course, it's complicated at night, which is why Will decided to stop driving -- he kept braking for people who weren't really there. Now in his thirties, he still carries a torch for the ex-wife who left him to marry an ex-Marine, he has just been fired from his low-paying Petco job for eating cat food, and he has a 12-year-old daughter who calls the ex-Marine dad (after all, it's the other guy's name on his daughter's birth certificate). But things get even worse when desperation entices Will to take $1,000 to exorcise a ghost from (distant) cousin Hanlon's garage...

I won't ruin the surprises by revealing anything else. Suffice it to say that Will's visit to his cousin's garage has many unexpected consequences, for him and for the narrative.

But Perfect Circle is not merely a story about ghosts, or Texas, or family. This is what Will says, and it encapsulates the essence of this novel perfectly:

There are so many different ways lives work out, so many stories, and every one of them is precious: full of joy and heartbreak, and a fair amount of situation comedy. Every life is a movie that starts in color. They just all end in black and white.

I really urge you to try this novel. You won't regret it!

How JSF found an agent

2005-04-22T20:40:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder how writers and agents get together? I have. Here's an interesting tidbit about how Jonathan Safran Foer found his agent:

For my novel, I knew that writers got agents, the very typical route. And so I went to authors that I loved. I went to their acknowledgments page and saw if they thanked an agent. And that was the agent I would send it to. So I remember I went to Howard Norman and he thanks Melanie Jackson. I went to a number of authors who thanked Nicole Aragi, who ended up becoming my agent. It’s a really great way to do things.

This is part of a much, much longer interview (which is sometimes interesting and often quite boring, as it is a transcription of an actual conversation).

Just read: Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

2005-04-22T19:38:00.000-04:00

The students at my college campus have been on strike --protesting the first tuition hike in 13 years-- so I have had a little extra time to commune with the books. Yesterday I read Bee Season, the debut novel by Myla Goldberg (and again recommended by Jenny Davidson of Light Reading). I liked it, but I can't quite say I enjoyed it. It's a book about people searching for their missing pieces, both literally and figuratively, through many different methods: stealing, religion, spelling, a child's newfound potential for transcendence...

Protagonist Eliza Naumann is a 10-year-old never-been; since she was bypassed for TAG (Talented and Gifted) glory, she has been invisible to her parents, and her realization that her older brother was the unheroic and uncomplaining victim of bullying estranged her from the only family member she had been close to. But everything changes when Eliza's hitherto unsuspected genius for spelling leads her to the national spelling bee. Her father suddenly sees her as his true pupil, the one who will be able to achieve the perfect mystical communion with God through the permutation of letters. While Eliza and her father throw themselves into the words, older brother Aaron starts dabbling in religions, finally falling in love with the immediacy --and fellowship-- of the Hare Krishna. Eliza's mother, meanwhile, is spinning quietly, inexorably, and imperceptibly out of control, compelled by powerful internal forces to steal, or as she sees it, reclaim the objects that complete her.

The mysticism, particularly towards the end of the book, left me mystified -- I'm not sure what it all adds up to. And I also have trouble understanding the final scene of the book -- is Eliza rising above it all? Reacting to her mystical revelation of the night before? Exacting revenge on her father? Or merely growing up? I guess in the end I find Bee Season unsettled, and unsettling. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Writers want Oprah!

2005-04-22T15:36:00.000-04:00

Word of Mouth, an association of women writers, has just sent Oprah Winfrey this letter begging her to focus once again on contemporary fiction. I've always liked the Oprah Book Club (if not the selections themselves) and I would love to see it revived. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Just read: Trapido's Brother of the More Famous Jack

2005-04-21T22:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I breezed through Barbara Trapido's Whitbread-winning novel Brother of the More Famous Jack. Loved it! (Thanks to Jenny Davidson of Light Reading for turning me unto Trapido!)

This novel chronicles protagonist and narrator's Katherine's relationship to the Goldmans, a large Bohemian family whose patriarch was Katherine's philosophy professor. Katherine becomes friends with Jane, Prof. Goldman's wife, and lovers with their eldest son, Roger, who keeps his relationship with her a secret from his family. It was a less than ideal relationship, but Roger was Katherine's first love, which may help explain the depth of her otherwise inexplicable attraction to him. It certainly wasn't the sex:

Roger and I, let me confess, never altogether got it right in bed, though we enjoyed the comforting proximity of flesh on flesh. It was never much different from PE classes at school, I found, and left me similarly sweaty, exhausted, and sneaking glances at my watch to see how much longer it could possibly go on. Roger once caught me in the act of looking at my watch and took offense, being an arrogant and insecure young man. I had not yet realized that somebody as beautiful and clever as Roger could be as morbidly riddled with inadequacies as the next man. I was a rather hesitant person myself with a different collection of self-doubts. Thinking back, I realize that I had instinctively built my inadequacies into my public persona, in the hope that thereby I could bestow upon them the dignity of a presence. (p75)

When Roger unceremoniously dumps her, Katherine flees all the Goldmans, spending the next decade teaching English in Rome. Finally, tragedy pushes her back home to England, and prompts her to seek out the Goldmans once more. This time, she accepts their love and understanding, and finally, fully, comes into her own.

Ayelet Waldman on Oprah

2005-04-21T02:39:00.000-04:00

I missed it (I was napping!), but Ayelet Waldman was a guest yesterday on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She was there to talk about her controversial Modern Love piece for the NY Times (about how she was in love with her husband and not her four children). I liked that piece (I know many people didn't) and wish I had seen the show. Still, there's a slide show on Oprah's site that gives the highlights.

Truth, beauty, friendship & the writing life

2005-04-20T20:26:00.000-04:00

Last week I read Ann Patchett's memoir of her friendship with the late Lucy Grealy, poet, autobiographer, and tortured soul. Truth & Beauty is a beautifully written, compelling and painful account of the complicated relationship between two women who couldn't be more opposite: Patchett was (and is) well-grounded, disciplined, mature; Grealy was child-like, obsessive, demanding, due perhaps to the childhood bout with jaw cancer that left her permanently disfigured and forever in search of the next surgery that would miraculously restore her face and her looks.

I wonder at the enormous amount of energy it took to be Lucy Grealy's friend. And she had many, many devoted friends -- even when she was so damaged by her addictions that there was not much of her left inside the battered body, her friends took care of her. As the book barrels towards the inevitable outcome of Lucy's descent into self-destruction, we become stand-ins for Lucy's friends, drained like them of hope and energy but still hanging on to Lucy's potential, the fading light of her extraordinary spirit.

Lucy's quest for love, her inability to accept what was, could well be linked to the fact that her face, that metaphor for the self, was always a work in progress. In the end, what is surprising is that Lucy hung in there as long as she did -- probably a testament to the strength and will of her devoted friends. But where was her family? In her obits, it says that Lucy was survived by her mother and sisters. Where were they? Patchett certainly never mentions them.

Patchett tries valiantly to show why Grealy aroused such passion and devotion in her friends, but frankly, I can't really see it. And yet, I can identify more with the tortured, self-destructive Lucy than with the responsible, grounded Ann. I suppose that says something about me...

Ann Coulter as Time cover girl

2005-04-20T20:05:00.000-04:00

I was surprised to see that Time magazine chose to write a cover story on Ann Coulter... Thankfully, this salon.com article by Eric Boehlert articulates my feelings much more cogently and coherently than I could ever have hoped to.

(Un)Cover the Butter

2005-04-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I finished my very first advanced reading copy since becoming a litblogger: Cover the Butter by Carrie Kabak. I have been mulling it over; after all, it's not every day that I get review copies (though I'm perfectly happy to get them -- so please, keep them coming!). Overall I liked Cover the Butter; it's a nice mix of chick lit and women's fiction (with a dash of Peggy Sue Got Married and Under the Tuscan Sun thrown in).

Publisher's description (with my comments in brackets and italics):

In this mesmerizing tale [I really liked it, but mesmerizing is not exactly the adjective I would have used; engaging, perhaps, or charming... maybe even enchanting...], Kate Cadogan is a middle-aged housewife coming to a crossroads in her life. She doesn't realize it until one Sunday morning when she discovers the callous destruction [once again I have trouble with the adjective] visited upon her home [really, it was just the unpleasant leftover mess left by her teenage son's overly rowdy friends], a home she lovingly restored [she actually decorated it and carefully made it into a nest "twig by twig" for her son, who seems curiously unaffected by the post-party state of said nest]. It seems her teenage son threw a party the night before and her husband, Rodney, is too busy with his latest sports program to care. Kate opens a bottle of wine, vows never to sleep with Rodney again [it turns out to be a decision only marginally influenced by his sports obsession and completely related to his behavior during their last sexual encounter], and wonders how she reached this point; how she became just another "sports widow" to an ineffectual, uncaring husband [he's much worse than merely ineffectual]. A few glasses later, Kate finds herself falling down a "tunnel", only to land in 1965 -- in the moment she got her first bra [landing implies awareness of herself as an adult travelling back in time -- there is no such awareness there]. What follows is an exhilarating series of adventures with two spirited and devoted friends, one crazy mother too repressed to leave the butter uncovered [yes, the point of the title does become clear very early on, thankfully], a few wayward men, and one hell of a foundation garment. Through it all Kate rediscovers the woman she once was. Delightfully imaginative, Cover the Butter is an over-forty coming-of-age novel that proves it's never too late to move to Provence and start over.

Things I liked about Cover the Butter:
* The episodic nature of the narrative -- it skips time, clusters it.
* The distinctive voice of Kate the protagonist and first-person narrator, as older teen, young woman, middle-aged woman.
* The tone of the narrative -- it's usually light and filled with humor. Just a little taste:

The double-decker pulls up with a whoosh of brakes. We toss coins into the mouth of the Please Proffer the Exact Fare box, and squash together one seat because we have so much to say, so much to look forward to, and too much to laugh about.
This, I call freedom.
My parents: out of sight.
How I wish I could say: out of mind. (p73)

* How Kate's complicated relationship to her parents was treated -- no easy answers there. Her mom, Biddy, is a self-involved, controlling woman who even monitors her teenage daughter's periods: "Biddy knows the very timetable of my body. She's familiar with every root of hair on my head, every toenail, every eyelash, every mole, and freckle. The invasion is both comfortable and disconcerting at the same time" (p167). Her dad is both emotionally overinvolved with his daughter and chronically unwilling (or unable) to defy his wife (even for his beloved daughter).

What I had problems with:
* The fact that the Alice in Wonderland thing is only for the prologue. Nowhere in the rest of the narrative is there even a hint of awareness of the time travel (not even when the events of the prologue are (re)lived). That just makes it gimmicky, something that feels tacked on as merely a hook or tease but isn't really integral to the story.
* The protagonist as a 14-year-old girl -- I'm still not sure if my discomfort with these chapters reflects a lack in Kabak's writing or merely that it took me a while to hit my stride as her reader, but I found the chapters involving 14-year-old Kate shallow and uninspiring. I had to force myself to read them, but once the narrative shifted and 17-year-old Kate took over, I found both the writing and the story much more compelling -- in fact, I was hooked!

If you want a light, entertaining novel with an engaging protagonist who has her share of misadventures and emerges triumphant, happy, and fulfilled, do give Cover the Butter a try. You won't be disappointed!

And I'm certainly looking forward to Carrie Kabak's next novel!

More information on Cover the Butter:
* It will be published on June 17 by Dutton in hardcover.
* It has been chosen as a Book Sense selection for June, which qualifies it for consideration for the Quills Awards.

Just Read: Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

2005-04-18T02:51:00.000-04:00

On Sunday I read another YA novel, Hard Love, by Ellen Wittlinger. I enjoyed it, particularly the zine articles by some of the characters that Wittlinger pastes into the main narrative. These articles (and also some letters and poems) serve to illustrate how Wittlinger's characters turn to writing as a way of coping with life, reaching out to others, and coming to understand themselves. As Wittlinger herself has said: "And although I don’t set out consciously to say this, my husband tells me that all my books are about how art can save you. Kids who have no one to turn to, turn inward and find an art form—writing, video, drawing, singing—which gives them a way to express themselves and feel good about who they are. In the process, they often find that their art is a bridge to other people."

From the publisher's description:

Since his parents’ divorce, John’s mother hasn’t touched him, her new fiancé wants them to move away, and his father would rather be anywhere than at Friday night dinner with his son. It’s no wonder John writes articles like “Interview with the Stepfather” and “Memoirs from Hell.” The only release he finds is in homemade zines like the amazing Escape Velocity by Marisol, a self-proclaimed “Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee Lesbian.” Haning around the Boston Tower Records for the new issue of Escape Velocity, John meets Marisol and a hard love is born.

While at first their friendship is based on zines, dysfuntional families, and dreams of escape, soon both John and Marisol begin to shed their protective shells. Unfortunately, John mistakes this growing intimacy for love, and a disastrous date to his junior prom leaves that friendship in ruins. Desperately hoping to fix things, John convinces Marisol to come with him to a zine conference on Cape Cod. On the sandy beaches by the Bluefish Wharf Inn, John realizes just how hard love can be.

With keen insight into teenage life, Ellen Wittlinger delivers a story of adolescence that is fierce and funny—and ultimately transforming—even as it explores the pain of growing up.

From amazon.com:

John Galardi is a loner, unable to express his feelings except in the pages of his zine, Bananafish. He finds inspiration in another zine, Escape Velocity, created by Marisol Guzman, a self-proclaimed rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin. Her sharp observations make John laugh out loud and he decides he must meet this witty author. By planting himself in Tower Records the day she drops off the latest issue, John manages to arrange a coffee date that extends over several Saturday mornings. They discuss everything from Johns inability to feel and his parents divorce to Marisols problems with her suffocating adoptive parents. When Marisol casually tells John that she likes him, he is flabbergasted:" Honest to God a shiver ran through my body... Nobody ever said that they liked me. Ever. Not even [my friend] Brian, who probably actually doesn't." After a disastrous just friends junior prom date and a weekend zine conference spent together, John realizes that his feelings for Marisol are more than platonic. And Marisol, who is exploring her identity as a young lesbian, has no idea how to let John down gently without losing her new best friend.

Like Barbara Wersbas's Whistle Me Home, Hard Love tackles the delicate issue of unrequited love between a straight and gay teen. But what sets this novel apart from similarly themed books is Wittlinger's choice to present the story from John's straight male point of view. Funny and poignant first-person narration will engender empathy for John as he attempts to connect with his emotionally distant parents and an understanding of how his need for their affection has manifested itself in romantic feelings for a girl he knows is unavailable to him. Hard Love is a thoughtful and on-target addition to the growing canon of gay and lesbian coming-of-age stories. (Ages 12 and older) Jennifer Hubert

For more information:

Ellen Wittlinger's website

Lyrics to the Bob Franke song that inspired Hard Love

Interview with Ellen Wittlinger

Another interview (and profile)

PDF file of "How Art Can Save You: An Interview with Ellen Wittlinger": "I first tried to write a novel for teenagers when I was thirty. But I hadn’t read many YA novels, and I hadn’t written much fiction. I think I thought writing for young adults would be easy and I could dash out a book in no time. Of course, that book neversold. If I had a preconceived idea, it was probably that books for teenagers were kind of insipid and that I would shock everyone by writing a really good one. How arrogant I was. Then I got a job in the Children’s Room of our local library, and I started to actually read YA novels. There were so many great ones! I realized there were things that I needed to learn about this genre if I wanted to write for it. Brock Cole’s and Katherine Paterson’s books gave me the underpinnings that I needed to start writing."

Ellen Wittlinger in her own words

The House of the Scorpion

2005-04-17T23:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I devoured The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. It's a young adult novel that won the Newberry and the National Book Award (among many prizes) in 2003. [For some reason, I have been really attracted to children's and YA fiction lately.]

The House of the Scorpion is set in an unspecified but not so distant future, where Mexico no longer exists (it has become Aztlan), the US is no longer paradise to immigrants, and a country called Opium has sprung up between Aztlan and the US, born of a treaty between the US, Mexico and the powerful drug dealers of the borderlands. Opium, named for its obiquitous poppy fields, is a feudal state; the most powerful of the lords is El Patron, Matteo Alacran, a 140 year old man who owes his extreme longevity to medical experiments using clones created in labs and grown within cows. Cloning is a fact of life in this world -- and highly regulated. By law, clones are no better than cattle. At birth, each clone receives a tattoo of ownership and a chemical lobotomy, which ensures the clone will remain properly animal-like. A similar chemical process is used to turn all ilegal immigrants unfortunate enough to be caught by Opium Farm Patrols into eejits, zombie-like creatures that can only perform what limited functions they are especifically ordered to do. Most eejits are then used to tend the poppy fields.

The protagonist of the The House of the Scorpion is a clone, but not an eejit, because as El Patron's clone, Matt is spared the chemical obliteration of his brain. However, being anyone's clone is no picnic -- clones are both feared and loathed by ordinary humans. We follow Matt from conception and harvesting through to age 14, and get to experience his bewilderment at his situation, plus his eventual acceptance of his condition. While it's not a cheerful novel, and many parts are hard to stomach, the ending is optimistic (but never pat). Farmer does an excellent job of showing the effects of this society (and its choices about technology) without resorting to preachiness or heavy-handedness. This novel is well-worth the time of any reader interested in cloning, enslavement, and the treatment of the weakest people in society. I can't wait to see how Farmer's The House of the Scorpion compares to Ishaguro's Never Let Me Go, which covers some of the same territory.

For more information:

Read an excerpt of The House of the Scorpion.

Here's another.

A biography of Nancy Farmer

Nancy Farmer's acceptance speech for the National Book Award for The House of the Scorpion

Excerpts from a Locus interview with Nancy Farmer

Another interview with Nancy Farmer, mainly about her African-themed books: "Growing up in a hotel on the Mexican/U.S. border taught me that good people are an endangered species that need to be protected at all times. I have a bleak viewpoint of all governments and dislike borders of all kinds."

Interview with Nancy Farmer, mostly about her new novel, The Sea of Trolls : "Nancy Farmer never intended to be a writer. Rather, the award-winning childen's author says, "I wanted to be an explorer . . . to go out and have adventures and have fun." Although she's no Christopher Columbus, Farmer has certainly had her share of adventures, from spending three years in the Peace Corps in southern India to living in a California temple with a group of Hare Krishnas. Eventually, she says, "I wanted to do something interesting, so I bought a ticket on a freighter to Africa." She ended up spending nearly 20 years in Africa, where she met and married her husband, Harold."

Book-buying binge

2005-04-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

I've been on an all-out book-buying binge for the past few days. It's really all Borders's fault -- they are currently having their semi-annual educators' appreciation weekend, and who can resist 25% off?

I can't.

So, bottom line: I have spent way too much and have tons of new books to read. And I'm going back tomorrow for more!

Yes, I'm shameless!

PS I'm still having Blogger problems and I'm also trying to figure out how to set up my own website, but all I have right now is a huge headache... Argh!

Check out Mitch Cullin's Blurb Project

2005-04-15T22:16:00.000-04:00

Thanks to MJ Rose for pointing us to this amusing site (an author's page on a publisher's official website, no less), which offers another take on the quest for the holy blurb. It even provides fill-in-the-blank examples for your own use. Rock on, Mr. Cullin!

2 observations:

The Blurb Project did make me want to buy Mitch Cullins's new book, A Slight Trick of the Mind, which I had already heard about but hadn't bought... And isn't that what publisher websites are all about -- selling books? Kudos!

I really hate blurbs that contain false superlatives, overstating the work's true qualities. For example, "an extraordinary novel", "a brilliant debut novel", "a tour de force"... when the book is neither extra-ordinary nor especially brilliant (though it indeed is "funny", "poignant", "evocative" -- all excellent qualities that, while perhaps more mundane than "extraordinary" and "brilliant", are ultimately more truthful and satisfying. So please, blurb-makers, publishers, and authors: keep it honest!

Do a little bookstore tourism today!

2005-04-15T21:48:00.000-04:00

Blogosphere surfing yielded an interesting website promoting an equally interesting concept: bookstore tourism. Basically, it means making special day trips (or longer visits) to areas that have interesting independent bookstores (and author-related sites) -- it's just a more organized way of doing what we booklovers do naturally: visiting bookstores wherever we go. I know that I've visited bookstores all over the world (I seek them out even in places where I don't speak --or read-- the language); it's fun to see what kinds of books are displayed, what their merchandising is like, and of course, if I can score some good buys. I started bringing boxfuls of books when I was about 10 years old, and have kept it up ever since.

The originator of the bookstore tourism concept, Lary Portzline, also has a new blog devoted to the topic, as well as a book. In his blog, he has an entry on how he self-published his book, including an explanation of why it's important to get an ISBN (International Standard Book Number).

Let's go visit some bookstores, people! The books await!

A little McEwan on reading and writing

2005-04-15T21:18:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed Ian McEwan's latest novel, Saturday, and so I have looked for McEwan interviews online (Google is the greatest invention ever!). Here's a little compilation of interesting McEwan tidbits related to reading and writing.

Enjoy!

On writing:

" I like to feel that novelists are seriously dedicated to their art, which means doing a lot of reading and thinking about the novel. Sometimes it seems like writing novels has become a contemporary form of expression, expression of self. Much like being a Renaissance gentleman writing a sonnet. It's seen as a thing that anyone with a reasonable amount of education can do, and it's your duty as a citizen to write a half-dozen novels." From his recent salon.com interview

"I often have spent a while writing a paragraph that I know is a first paragraph of a novel. I just let that paragraph sit there for eight weeks. These sentences are like keys; they really can just turn a lock." From a 1998 salon.com interview.

"I think of novels somewhat in architectural terms. You have to enter at the gate, and this gate itself must be constructed in such a way that the reader has immediate confidence in the strength of the building. I'm careful not to overload with information, but not to deny too much either." Also from that 1998 salon.com interview.

"Not many things in life get better as you get older. But in a writer's life, perhaps there's a little plateau that you hit somewhere in your mid-40s to your mid-50s. You've still got the physical stamina to write a novel without too much pressure, thoughts of mortality."

On reading:

"I read a lot of the beginnings of contemporary novels. I get sent hundreds of them. I always read the first 10 or 20 pages. Well, sometimes not 10, sometimes one and a half. It's rare that I feel that sense of being in good hands. It's almost impossible to find." Also from his recent salon.com interview

"Writers we admire and re-read are absorbed into the fine print of our consciousness, into the white noise of our thoughts, and in this sense, they can never die." From his tribute to Saul Bellow in the Guardian.

"I have this twin hunger. I need fiction, although I find it harder to find any that really satisfies. But I nearly always have two books. At the moment, I'm reading the Ted Hughes poems and I'm finishing the latest Updike and I'm reading Steven Pinker's book on the brain. I do have to hump around two or three books at once." From a 1998 salon.com interview.

"Reading Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint" seemed to offer amazing life -- brilliant use of embarrassment, in terms of paralyzing the reader. For an American writer such as Roth to address something so commonplace as masturbation, and wrapped around it is an extraordinary meditation of what Jewishness is about. It was bold and profoundly apt. I took something from that. And "Naked Lunch" -- something in the kind of scamperous cruelty of it, again was like a jolt." From the 1998 salon.com interview

My first reading copy arrived!

2005-04-15T17:55:00.000-04:00

Last night I received my very first reading copy since becoming a litblogger! I used to get a lot of advanced reading copies when I was a bookseller, but that was more than five years ago...

The book is Cover the Butter, the first novel by Carrie Kabak, who used to be a succesful illustrator of children's books. She gave that gig up to become a full-time fiction writer.

Pub data: $23.95 hardcover to be published by Dutton in June 2005

Genre: chick lit

First impressions: This is not a book I would have picked up at the local bookstore, because I don't find the cover or the title immediately appealing (which is usually what triggers my book-perusing instincts). So I guess it's a good thing I had already decided to read it! Plus, the author promised that the reason for the title choice would become apparent within the first three chapters. What seems to be the summary for the inside flap of the dust jacket does mention that the protagonist has "one crazy mother too repressed to leave the butter uncovered." If I had gotten so far as to read that in the bookstore, that would have soothed some of my title-related worries.

I have started reading it and will post more about it later, I promise.

By the way: If anyone out there wants to send me other advanced reading copies, please do so! I can't promise to read them all (I might be buried under an avalanche of books), but I will do my best. Just know that I will post my honest opinions, good, bad, or middling. To get my snail mail address, just e-mail me.

Please forgive the typos!

2005-04-15T17:08:00.000-04:00

Today's Camille Paglia post (hopefully just below this one!) has been posted with the help of the w.bloggar software, because for the last 24 hours or so I have been having Blogger problems. While I can access Blogger and even create posts, it won't post or publish them. What's up with that?

The w.bloggar application can post to Blogger, but I can't do any editing once the post is inside Blogger (as Blogger won't post or publish changes or new messages!). It's frustrating, and it is driving my inner perfectionist crazy. So, while I figure out why cutting and pasting Word documents doesn't work perfectly in w.bloggar (it omitted some apostrophes and quotation marks... and changed the font by itself), please bear with me and kindly overlook any typographical mistakes.

Thank you.

Camille Paglia just can't resist...

2005-04-15T16:54:00.000-04:00

In a recent salon.com interview to promote her latest book, Camille Paglia slams blogs (among other targets):

The blogs, for example, are becoming so self-referential. If people want to be better writers, they can't just read the blogs! You've got to look at something that's outside this rushing world of evanescent words. Nowhere in blog pages does anyone pay attention to the individual word -- things are moving too fast. Someone like Emily Dickinson was working with the dictionary and looking at the etymology of the word, so that you have all this tremendous stuff going on within a single word!

I for one don't read blogs with the sole purpose of becoming a better writer -- that's what I write for. Blog reading is for entertainment, information, a feeling of community.

About Emily Dickinson: Her talent was huge but her life was limited, circumscribed to her protected domestic sphere. She was a reclusive woman obsessed with words.

And for every writer who feels too old or too rejected, heres a little Paglia trivia, straight from the source: "You have to remember, my first book wasn't published until I was 43, and that book had been rejected by seven publishersand five agents. I came on the scene without any publicity. "

Mmm... There's hope for me yet. I'm only 35!

New word for the day (the month, year, decade...): flibbertigibbet
Use it in a sentence, Ms. Paglia, please: "Some people think I must be some sort of a flibbertigibbet, running around the world in front of cameras."
Definition: A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially a pert young woman with such qualities. Ms. Paglia as pert young woman...interesting...

Oh, the power of self-promotion: In this salon.com interview, Paglia finds occasion to mention the 60 Minutes profile, the Vanity Fair photo turned cartoon, the New York Magazine cover story...and then, proclaiming herself the impetus behind Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World (a book which of course sucks), and a phenomenon parallel to Cornel West... Yes, we get it, you're a self-made media star!

It must be nice to be Paglia the writer who needs little editing:

My work is never edited in that sense. My excellent editor will make a suggestion or a request here and there, but there is never wholesale rewriting or reorganization of my prose or alteration of my voice. What you're getting from me is entirely my work.

Perhaps her editor is afraid of her?

As well as the researcher who needs little documentation:

And what gets me is when a reviewer says in awe, "This is a very erudite person -- there are so many pages of footnotes!" I want to laugh! Well, pages and pages of footnotes in the back of a general interest humanities book usually indicates weakness. You don't need all that if your scholarship is solid. And the idea that the trendy professors of the elite schools have actually read all those books is usually false. Not only haven't they read them, they haven't even gone to the library to get them.

Would the very act of picking books up at the library confer knowledge, wisdom, transcendence? Is that a process of literary osmosis which transmits erudition through the physical labor of checking out one's own library books?

I was also under the apparently mistaken impression that references meant depth and breadth of research, as well as accountability and an acknowledgement of intellectual indebtedness...

And hail Paglia the great communicator:

I've won a very wide audience in that way. I listen to or monitor a huge range of opinion, including on talk radio, which I love. I want to understand how most people think! That's why I can communicate with large numbers of people. What's the secret? The secret is I cannot stand the coterie mentality, whether it's in downtown Manhattan or in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or in L.A. I cannot stand the cool in-group -- "We are the special people, we are the best people, everyone else is just rubes and hayseeds." Get over that!

But isn't Paglia herself guilty of this? Perhaps the difference is that she is a clique of one. I get a sense she doesn't need anyone else to proclaim her queen bee.

This interview just makes Camille Paglia seem utterly detestable: cantankerous, arrogant, self-serving, overbearing. I wonder if she really is like that or if it's a side effect of having her words transcribed; maybe in person, her voice, her mannerisms, and the force of her personality make her charming?

I don't expect I'll ever find out.

Cloning, Embalming, Dissection, and the 18th Century Felon

2005-04-14T00:08:00.000-04:00

These are a few of the elements woven together by Jenny Davidson in her debut novel, Heredity (Soft Skull Press $14), the story of protagonist (and narrator) Elizabeth Mann’s stay in London as she tries to sort out her life and her relationships.

While working as a freelance writer for a budget travel series, Elizabeth resumes a relationship with the much older –and very much married—Gideon. She accompanies him to an antiques auction, where he is bested by his father-in-law in a bid to acquire more 18th century surgical tools for his collection. Disgusted, Gideon gives Elizabeth the box of worthless papers he ended up with, and there she finds the mildewed diaries of Mary Wild, second wife of notorious 18th century executed criminal Jonathan Wild, whose skeleton Elizabeth had seen –and been intrigued with—on a visit to the Hunterian Museum in London. Elizabeth becomes obsessed with the Wilds; she wants to have Jonathan’s baby and to recover Mary’s words from the damaged pages. The rest of the novel basically chronicles Elizabeth’s attempts to accomplish those goals, while having plenty of smokes, drinks, and sex.

This plot summary hardly does justice to Heredity – there’s much more here than just plot twists. There’s plenty to like, including Elizabeth’s voice, if not her character; while she’s not a very sympathetic character, she is a compelling narrator – cynical and drily witty:

* The double narrative. The main narrative is Elizabeth’s first person present-tense account, set in London circa 1998. This narrative is periodically interrupted by Jonathan Wild’s story, which seems to have initially been a problematic arrangement for Davidson:

I wrote at least half-a-dozen versions of Wild's story without finding a voice and structure that worked (third-person omniscient; first-person confessional; Q&A, with hack writer Daniel Defoe interviewing Wild in the condemned cell the night before his execution; you get the idea). But I couldn't figure out how to bring to life any of the things that made the story so compelling to me in the first place, including the casual violence of life in the 1720s and the intense vividness of people and places as they are represented in contemporary accounts. (From Jenny Davidson’s essay about Heredity in her British publisher’s site)

Fortunately, Davidson found the appropriate narrator –and narrative structure-- to present Jonathan Wild’s story:

The voice of Mary Wild - the author of the manuscript that Elizabeth Mann unearths and deciphers over the course of the novel - came later, when I realized that my schematic let's-contrast-first-person-present-tense-female-narrator-in-1998-with-third-person-past-tense-narration-of-1720s approach was outrageously misguided. (Ibid.)

The contrast between Mary and Elizabeth, and between 18th century and 20th century England, provides both interest and depth to the novel.

* The protagonist’s penchant for research and arcane knowledge. I enjoyed following Elizabeth into the British Library to learn about body snatching, the history of dissection, 18th century embalming practices, and of course, the life and death of notorious outlaw Jonathan Wild.

* The narrative thread relating to Elizabeth’s father and her relationship to him. I admit I was shocked at what the root of Elizabeth’s problem with her dad turned out to be. I also found the underlying issues related to father figures interesting, although perhaps undeveloped.

* Resolution of the cloning issue within the narrative. It was believable and while that shouldn’t have been surprising, it was. I was prepared for an ending that was more science fiction. I only wish that Davidson would have taken some more time (and pages) to develop the ending – it felt rushed.

Overall, I enjoyed Heredity, and would recommend it. But I do have some issues:

* Heavy-handed use of research. One particular example stands out: Elizabeth’s imaginary conversation with the creator of Dolly the Cloned Sheep. What was the point of that? Fortunately, it was a short conversation…

* Continuity problems (I feel like I’m working on a movie, nitpicking, but still…): In one chapter Elizabeth mentions she has given Gideon a key to her apartment, which he uses to get in. A little later, Gideon buzzes and Elizabeth has to let him in. A minor thing, I know, but it stopped my reading flow. I was also somewhat nonplussed that Elizabeth desperately wanted to become pregnant and yet she continued drinking for some days after the IVF procedure – without even giving it a thought. Granted, it could be part of her characterization, but still it nagged at me.

* Rushed ending. I would have preferred more time and space invested on developing the ending and exploring the dynamics of Elizabeth’s relationship with Gideon and with her father, instead of having so much attention spent on Elizabeth’s various self-destructive habits. In particular, the resolution of Elizabeth’s relationship rang a bit hollow, probably because it was rather rushed. Gideon butted head-on against Elizabeth’s Wild obsession, and yet, it hardly seemed to affect her. I also thought it was odd that Gideon and Elizabeth never even considered the implications of having children together (particularly given the apparent infertility of Gideon’s wife).

[In the interest of self-disclosure: Jenny Davidson is a fellow blogger and a frequent visitor at Bookish Marginalia. And she gave me leave to be brutally honest.]

For more information:

Jenny Davidson's essay on Heredity in the Serpent's Tail Publishing site, explaining her interest in Jonathan Wild, how she developed the voice of Mary Wild, and why sex is a prominent part of the novel (trust me, the actual novel is much less prurient than any summary would seem):

Depending on your reading preferences, this novel is either value for money or else a complete nightmare. (The mother who ill-advisedly brought her young daughter to a reading in Berkeley fixed me with a look of utter horror and leaned over literally to cover up the girl's ears when my narrator told her married lover to unbutton his pants and take out his cock.)

Excellent interview with Jenny Davidson in Three Monkeys Online. It includes a tantalizing look at her next project, a fantasy trilogy.

Some people's noise...

2005-04-13T16:56:00.000-04:00

is other people's song.

Apparently, the good people of Maui, Hawaii are all in an uproar about the "annoying screech" of the coqui frog (according to USA Today), because as everyone must surely know, "swarms of coqui frogs... can drive reasonable adults mad." SWAT teams of neighbors band together to go annihilate the evil creatures, and even the state has gotten into the spirit of the hunt:

Nowadays, the invasion has reached the point that, in January, Big Island Mayor Harry Kim told the state Legislature his county should be declared in a “state of emergency” because of the frogs. Although Maui hasn’t reached that crisis level, Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa has asked the Legislature for $2 million to help get rid of the frogs here while it’s still possible. That’s in addition to $450,000 that the county grants to MISC to attack alien species in general. (Maui News, April 10)

Money well spent, I'm sure the Tylenol-popping, earplug-using, sleep-deprived Maui residents would say. After all, continues Maui News reporter Valerie Monson, "[t]he story of the coqui frogs illustrates in horror-movie fashion how an alien species that looks as harmless as a fly can have entire communities in an uproar in less than 10 years."

Don't these people and this reporter have anything better to do?

On the upside though, the frogs have provided an incentive for neighbors to unite against the common threat of declining property values, invading alien animals, and incessant loud screeching. There are even meetings on the subject, to get on record the expert opinion of the frog-squad's most prominent (and promoted) member, Bob Flint. (I kid you not; here are the minutes of one such meeting). And the state government has even created an anti-coqui site (another example of money well spent), which gives several hotline numbers, an online reporting form, and a stern warning about the dire consequences of being caught with a coqui.

But there are dissenters among the throngs of frog-haters. CHIRP (the Coqui Hawaiian Integration and Reeducation Project) has launched its own website, which includes a recording of coqui song (so you can judge for yourself) and an online form to protest the use of tax dollars to fund the coqui eradication campaign.

Of course, in the other side of the US, in the Atlantic Ocean, the coqui's "annoying screech" is actually considered a treat. In Puerto Rico, the coqui's native land, residents so admire the little frogs that the coqui has become the beloved national symbol. Legend even had it (erroneously, to the despair of the aforementioned Hawaiian residents) that a transplanted coqui would die of grief if ever taken from its homeland...

In Puerto Rico, there are coqui magnets, squeaky toys, plush toys, ornaments, brooches... cartoon coqui frogs decorate tourism company billboards, as well as the ubiquitous towels, t-shirts, glasses, and other assorted souvenirs. And the fact that coqui song is slowly fading away from (human) overpopulation is received with sadness, not viewed with exultant relief. That's how invested the people of Puerto Rico are in the fate of these harmless, tiny, loud-voiced tropical tree frogs.

I should know. I live here.

Here's Ellie!

2005-04-13T16:00:00.000-04:00

The 2005 National Magazine Awards have been awarded. The New Yorker trumped all again. [The link is to the official press release, which includes the commendatory language for each category -- I thought it was interesting to see why the judges liked each winner...]

Many of my favorite magazines are mentioned, but some winning publications I'd never even heard of. I guess I'll look more closely at the Borders magazine racks next time I visit (probably tomorrow!)

Interesting tidbit: The Atlantic won for fiction... I wonder if that will make the editors reconsider their decision to confine fiction only to a single annual issue (August is the chosen month).

Book Sense winners announced

2005-04-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

Here are the winners of the American Booksellers Association Book Sense Book of the Year awards, as well as the four books given honorable mentions in each category:

Fiction: JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, by Susanna Clarke
Nonfiction: SHADOW DIVERS: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, by Robert Kurson
Children's (Literature): CHASING VERMEER, by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist
Children's Illustrated: DUCK FOR PRESIDENT, by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin

Honorable mentions
Fiction:
Eventide by Kent Haruf
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant -- In my pre-blogger days I read this book and I remember that I liked it...
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon -- Love, love, love this book! It's a literary mystery, which starts when a father takes his son to choose one book from a secret library of forgotten books. Of course, the boy loves the book and is mystified when he cannot find other books or even any information about the author. His booklust is inflamed, and the quest for answers begins. It's also set in Barcelona, one of my favorite cities.

Nonfiction:
Candyfreak by Steve Almond
The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, Robert Mankoff (Ed.)
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs
Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett - This is a memoir of her friendship with the late Lucy Grealy, poet and author of The Autobiography of a Face. It's the book I'm currently reading, so you'll hear more about it soon!

Children's (Literature):
Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan
Ida B... and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer

Children's Illustrated
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henke
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle
Wild About Books by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Marc Brown

Click here for a list of all ABA Book Sense 2004-2005 Reading Group Picks with brief descriptions.

Saturday excerpt in Granta 88

2005-04-12T12:19:00.000-04:00

The Winter 2004 edition of Granta has an excerpt from Ian McEwan's Saturday. Since the issue is devoted to mothers, the excerpt is about Henry Perowne's visit to his mother at the nursing home where she lives:

He knows the routine well enough. Once they're established together, face to face, with their cups of dark brown tea, the tragedy of her situation will be obscured behind the banality of detail, of managing the suffocating minutes, of inattentive listening. Being with her isn't so difficult. The hard part is when he comes away, before this visit merges in memory with all the rest, when the woman she once was haunts him as he stands by the front door and leans down to kiss her goodbye. That's when he feels he's betraying her, leaving her behind in her shrunken life, sneaking away to the riches, the secret hoard of his own existence.

Lily Perowne, former competitive swimmer and indefatigable homemaker, is now lost to Alzheimer's. Her conversations with her son are now grammatically correct nonsense, incapable of conveying meaning between them. [I read somewhere --maybe in the Newsweek profile?-- that McEwan wrote down his own conversations with his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's, and used them years later to give Lily Perowne her distinctive voice.]

I wish I could write half so poetically about my own visits to my grandmother at her nursing home. She doesn't have Alzheimer's, but she does have dementia associated with aging, and when she's off her antipsychotic meds she turns from the inoffensive (if annoying) drama queen she has always been to a demanding, manipulative shrew who thinks my cousin's boyfriend is a CIA operative and the light fixtures have recording devices built into them (because the feds are building a case against her for receiving a fragance purchase-with-purchase gift set without making any purchase thirty years ago...) I kid you not.

Now reading (and enjoying): Heredity by Jenny Davidson

2005-04-11T19:34:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I received my copy of Jenny Davidson's first novel, Heredity (Soft Skull Press $14). So far it's highly enjoyable -- I'll keep you posted.

A tease:

In this little excerpt, narrator Elizabeth Mann talks about both her minimum-wage job as a glorified fact-checker for a budget travel guide and her new passion for executed 18th century felon Jonathan Wild:

Three weeks into the travel guide work, a familiar malaise has hit me. I have a passion for research, but it's bad luck for my editor that I find the past so much more engaging than the present. I have a toxic inability to carry through on projects I don't like. I'm sleeping late, then drifting in to the British Library around eleven for a session with the eighteenth-century pamphlets that recount the life and crimes of Jonathan Wild. (p53)

BTW, Jenny is a fellow blogger. Drop by for a visit at Light Reading.

More on Peter Temple and Shooting Star

2005-04-11T16:49:00.000-04:00

I'm still in a Temple sort of mood!

Things I loved about Shooting Star:

1) Descriptions. Temple's style is sparse, but when he decides to use precious narrative time to describe people or places, every word packs a punch. Here's an example of the way Frank Calder describes the place the kidnap victim was allegedly last seen in:

I went for a walk down the street, around the corner, in the glass side door of TRIPLE ZERO!, the record store. I was in a small vestibule, pulsating music audible, facing another door. I opened it and the sound was like a blow to the whole upper body. It hit you, then it invaded you, stuck probes up your nose, into your mouth. My filings seemed to be transmitting sound and I could taste them. I subdued the impulse to flee, stood my ground. When my brain accepted that it could function in these conditions, I went around the bend into the long leg of the store. (p76)

I remember stores just like this one from my college days, small, cluttered, noisy, impossibly crowded stores that just vibrated with sound.

2) The ending. Unlike many mysteries, crime novels, and thrillers, in Shooting Star all the narrative threads are not tidily concluded. Yes, the main crime, which is the kidnapping, is solved and the case closed, but several other related possible-crimes are not. These are intentionally ignored, giving the reader an ambiguous resolution -- has justice truly been served? by what means? is there a murderer still on the loose? were other family members involved in criminal activities? The reader gets partial answers to these questions, much like Frank himself, who has his own theories but nothing to prove them with.

Peter Temple's Shooting Star

2005-04-11T15:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I read Shooting Star, an award-winning novel by Australian (despite his South African birthplace) crime novelist Peter Temple. I found this book (and this author) through Jenny at Light Reading. She calls Shooting Star 'the perfect book' -- I'm not sure if I would call it perfect, but it's damned good.

In Shooting Star, narrator Frank Calder, an ex-soldier, ex-hostage negotiator, and financially-strapped independent mediator, is hired by the wealthy Carson family to hand over a ransom payment for a kidnapped 15-year old Carson heiress. Frank advises the family to call the police, regardless of the kidnappers' instructions: "'[We're] At the point where we phone the cops,' I said. 'You're not dealing with the greedy. The unhinged, that's what you've got here. And this is personal.'" (p51). Of course, the Carson patriarch refuses. Things quickly get complicated and Frank starts a little investigation of his own on the missing girl and her assorted relatives (including MIA dad, institutionalized mom, black sheep cousin...). He brings in an army buddy to be his wingman, Michael Orlovsky.

Here's a little sample, to show you why this novel was so entertaining:

In the car, driving back to the Carsons', I said to Orlovsky, 'We may have to rethink this. They may have smart technology but these people are not A-list kidnappers. They would be lucky to get onto any list. Not without expanding the alphabet.'
'Is that good or bad?'
'Bad, very bad. The stupid are capable of anything.'
'Unlike the clever, who are generally capable of nothing.'
'Nothing this clumsy,' I said.
'On the other hand,' Orlovsky said, 'they may not be stupid. Perhaps they just don't care very much.'
I didn't want to hear that. I said, "Don't say that. Not caring is much worse than stupid.' (p78)

More information about Peter Temple:

Peter Temple's bio.
A review of another Temple crime novel, In the Evil Day.
A blogger reviews Temple's Jack Irish series.
A holiday gift-giving suggestion from Peter Temple via Beatrice.com.
Mysteryreaders.org has this to say about Peter Temple:

Of the more hard-boiled writers, Peter Temple is clearly the leader of the pack. His seven novels to date are all consistently very good and have won a record four Ned Kelly Awards for excellence in Australian crime writing. Four of his books have featured Jack Irish, a disgraced lawyer and habitual gambler who has fallen on bad times and now earns a living finding people who do not want to be found. They are slickly written and exciting tales and, along with his two stand-alone crime novels, An Iron Rose and Shooting Star, paint an evocative picture of the rain-swept streets of Melbourne. Temple has also written a terrific international thriller, In the Evil Day, about dark deeds and old secrets set in England and Europe.

A review of Identity Crisis, the first Peter Temple novel to be published in the US, from Partners & Crimes:

Ever stumble across an author whose work is new to you and wonder how you could possibly have missed his (or her) books all your life? Peter Temple is just such a find! He’s a very popular Australian crime novelist and three-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award. We are extremely pleased to introduce his outside-Australia debut. Identity Theory is a multi-layered espionage thriller which follows three damaged people whose lives have been shaped by events beyond their control. First, there’s Con Niemand, an ex-mercenary whose body-guard job goes violently south, salvaging only a video-tape showing what appear to be American soldiers eradicating a tiny African village. Then there’s John Anselm, a former journo whose days as a hostage in Beirut ended his reporting days forever. He works for a shady surveillance/information retrieval firm in Germany, permanently in the shadows… Add Caroline Wishart, a London tabloid reporter with a reputation for stories than rent-boys and insipid scandals, who wants to tackle REAL NEWS…and you have one explosive cocktail!

For all the Google searchers...

2005-04-10T11:53:00.000-04:00

... looking for the posts on Ian McEwan's Saturday and on Henry Perowne, please scroll down to March 27 (or click on the archive for that week).

BTW, why such an interest in Saturday and Henry Perowne today?

A little Nectar

2005-04-10T11:16:00.000-04:00

Just finished Jane Guill's debut novel, Nectar from a Stone (S&S Touchtone, $15). I thoroughly enjoyed it. Guill has a deft touch with dialogue, a delightfully unexpected dry wit, and a sensualist's approach to atmosphere and setting.

As a reader of romance, I would have liked to see more of how Gwydion and Elise fell in love. It's not satisfying just to be told that they had lots of interesting conversations -- I wanted to eavesdrop on those conversations. Guill really does a good job with dialogue elsewhere, which is why I can't understand why she shies away from showing the relationship between these two characters through their extended conversations (especially since this is how they fell in love, because the relationship is chaste). The author built enough credibility with me as a reader before the falling in love phase of the book that I believe Gwydion and Elise did, but it still chafes that it wasn't shown. I would have sacrificed a few of the scenes that develop the characters of Elise's husband and Sir Nicholas, to have gotten the space to develop Gwydion's character further and to explore his relationship to Elise.

That said, these missing elements really didn't interfere with my enjoyment of Nectar from a Stone as a whole. I was more aware of the lack of narrative time Gwydion and Elise got as a couple after I finished reading, perhaps because the novel ends very much as a romance novel would, with a stereotypically happy ending. I wonder why -- not why the book ended well (I WANTED that), but why this particular scene was chosen as the final one. Somehow it doesn't fit, though I'm not exactly sure what my discomfort is with it -- perhaps that I've read many scenes like it in historical romances and I expected different from the ending of a novel that does not otherwise conform to generic rules?

I hope Jane Guill is working on her second novel right now -- I'm so looking forward to reading more from her. She crafts beautiful sentences, and weaves the details of time and place lightly, making them an integral part of the narrative but not an obvious one. A pet peeve of mine with historical novels is the author's desire to display the breadth and wealth of their research by adding paragraphs better suited to scholarly books. There's none of that blatant display of scholarship here, just well-placed, unobstrusive use of details. (My favorite is when Elise places one of her dresses under her mattress so that it will get pressed while she sleeps.)

A book about Oprah's book club

2005-04-09T23:00:00.000-04:00

Blogosphere surfing again. Visiting Scott Esposito's Conversational Reading I found a link to an Orlando Sentinel story about a new book apparently analyzing the Oprah Book Club phenomenon.

Now, I am a fan of Oprah's, and I enjoyed her book club, even if some of the selections weren't to my taste. Anybody who can motivate people to buy --and read-- books deserves commendation, in my book.

So, I'm not against Oprah, her book club, book clubs in general, or university press books. However, reading the article and the author interview about Reading With Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America by Kathleen Rooney (University of Arkansas Press, 2005), I'm not filled with confidence about this new book, "an earnestly argued look at what worked -- and what didn't -- in Winfrey's brave attempt to raise the collective brow of her fans." Mmm... 'earnestly argued' doesn't impress me; I wonder if the patronizing tone is purposeful or unintended? And I don't think that Oprah was trying to browbeat people into being 'higher browed' -- my take on it is that she understands how reading can enrich lives and was trying to get more people reading. (And maybe, like the rest of us, she enjoyed getting free Advanced Reading Copies...)

But it gets better. This is an excerpt of the author interview. (Note both the incisive questions and the well-reasoned answers - my comments in italics):

Q. How'd you research "Reading With Oprah"?
A. I read every single book Oprah ever selected. . . . I focused on adult contemporary fiction. It was an absorbent phase.When I first set about the project, I was on the side of those who were skeptical. There's a common misconception that she had a particular type of book she picked. You can pick out patterns. But she didn't pick just one kind. It was diverse. She'd pick [a book by] Anita Shreve and then Bernard Schlink's "The Reader" [a German novel about a young man's love affair with a woman later prosecuted for Nazi war crimes]. [Well, color me impressed. If I came to my thesis advisor with this explanation of my analytical approach, she would laugh me off campus. Hell, if one of my undergrads decided to use this tack for an essay I'd be disappointed... I hope this answer is not representative of the depth and quality of Rooney's thought, only an example of her being nervous about being interviewed...]
Q. Tell us some of your conclusions.
A. I think for one thing, it showed this hunger for intellectual satisfaction in the American public that a lot of people hadn't acknowledged. Oprah showed that people do want to read. She showed that television doesn't have to be lowbrow. [And we need a book to tell us this? I guess maybe the prior question does accurately reflect the quality of the research... And here we go with the lowbrow thing again. Do you think Rooney's assumption is that anything tv is lowbrow and anything print is high(er) brow? BTW, I would disagree with that.]
Q. Any downside to Oprah's Book Club?
A. My one critique was that it was on TV. The discussions weren't really discussions. [Author] Sue Miller pointed out that it's really more of a commercial. [That's her criticism -- it was on tv? Hard-hitting cultural criticism here. And I find nothing wrong with advertising books --if indeed that's what it was-- if it gets more books sold and read, regardless of the perceived quality of those books.]

In preparation for this post, I went searching Amazon for this book, and I found another one with almost the same title (and subtitle), published a few months ago:

Well, my interest is piqued. I'll track down both these books and see how they stack up. This inquiring mind (and endlessly curious reader) wants to know. I'll of course keep you posted!

Interested in scholarly books?

2005-04-09T19:32:00.000-04:00

Visit Labyrinth.com and its sale annex, where there are thousands of wonderful, obscure, and fascinating scholarly titles at remainder prices! I just discovered this site today and I'm readying my order now!

The wallflower lives

2005-04-09T13:53:00.000-04:00

Today I had a flashback to my more socially awkward younger self, to the girl who was never asked to dance and was always picked last in PE class… No, this is not pretty, but it’s honest: I feel left out. Outcast. Inferior.

And I hate myself for feeling that way.

Let me explain: The lit blogosphere has been buzzing with news of a new project by 20 of the leading lit blogs, which have joined together in a co-op to promote selected books, one each season. I applaud the initiative – by pooling talent, readers, and resources, this new blog initiative has the potential to really make a difference for four deserving and overlooked authors. The chosen blogs are linked to and prominently listed.

That’s all fine and good. And my more mature, logical side understands, accepts, approves.

My more vulnerable, primal side just feels sad. I KNOW my little blogging effort is just that, little. I haven’t even been here very long. I also know that it’s a basic law of life that there are always levels, hierarchies, insiders, outsiders. And yet… some of the chosen blogs are just a few months old; one of the bloggers in the new Emerging Writers interview has been at it about as long as I have. So, what do they have that I lack? Other than popularity, recognition, a sense of fellowship… and perhaps a more journalistic approach to this blogging thing...

It’s high school all over again.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected that the blogosphere would be any different from real life, and that just because this blogging thing is intertwined with books, which have always been my refuge, it would have no drawbacks, no downside.

I’m off to lick my wounds, regroup, and remind myself I am a competent, strong, self-validating adult. And then: Pick up a book. Blog again. Link to the co-op.

Barnes & Noble to 'demote' Discover program

2005-04-09T13:45:00.000-04:00

Publishers Weekly is reporting that effective in May Barnes & Noble stores will no longer give prime display space to B&N’s Discover program to promote new writers. They will instead use their front of store display space to feature high margin items like books backed by publishers’ coop money, their own B&N imprints, remaindered books, and other non-book items. This, while disheartening, isn’t really all that surprising. B&N is a business, first and foremost. I just hope that they make it easy to find the books, even if they are not front and center.

I don’t have a B&N nearby, but my two local Borders stores don’t even have a special section for their Original Voices selections (they’re shelved in their regular sections and only sometimes pointed out through little shelf cards… pathetic.)

Now reading: Nectar from a Stone by Jane Guill

2005-04-09T13:12:00.000-04:00

I’m about halfway through and thoroughly enjoying Jane Guill’s debut novel, Nectar from a Stone (S&S Touchstone, $15), particularly the witty dialogue by Sir Nicholas, the murdering villain whose reliance on portents and signs borders on the nutty (and makes him unpredictable and very interesting).

This novel is Guill’s first, and it reminds me of two of my favorite historical romances – Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (billed, like Guill, as a mainstream fiction writer by her publisher, but adored by many romance readers) and The Shattered Rose, by Jo Beverley (a medieval romance that is my favorite Beverley book, and sadly out of print). Like both these writers, Guill inhabits the world she writes about; you get a sense that you are in medieval England and Wales, not just reading about it. The characters hold beliefs and act in ways that are very different from our own, but totally congruent with their setting. I think trying to be authentic is a courageous act for a writer of historical fiction; you run the risk of alienating contemporary readers by introducing ideas and acts that are unfamiliar and even unfathomable in modern America.

One pet peeve (and it relates to the publisher, not the author):

The back copy gives away too much information. I’m already on chapter 27 and I still haven’t covered everything that’s disclosed in the back cover. I really, really hate that. Even though I am not one of those people who is usually bothered by spoilers, it does really annoy me when the flap/back copy 1) doesn’t reflect the content of the book (not the case here); or 2) gives away too much. It seems disrespectful of the publisher – not enough care for the writer’s narrative and the reader’s pleasure in figuring it out.

For more info (to tide you over until my next Nectar from a Stone post!):

Jane Guill's website, which also has a PDF of the first chapter
A review of the novel at roundtablereviews.com
Jane Guill gives the inside scoop on Nectar from a Stone in MJ Rose's Backstory blog.
Flogging the Quill discusses the opening of Nectar from a Stone
From the S&S site, the foreword and an excerpt of chapter 1
Lisa Baca's review of Nectar from a Stone for Romance Reviews Today. (You need to scroll down to find it, but here's a taste:)

NECTAR FROM A STONE is a wonderful novel for the reader who enjoys a credible medieval world. It immerses us in not only the minutiae of day to day life, but the larger stage of history between Wales, England and the world. Around these elements, Elise and Gwydion’s world gradually grows in complexity until we can almost sense the air of Wales, the smells of good food, bodies only washed once a year, and in the background, the faint bitter taint of fear and death from the Great Mortality.

I'm back

2005-04-09T13:11:00.000-04:00

Finally figured out the Blogger problem -- the cookies had to be cleared and Blogger is back online. Thank God -- I was going crazy. Now I can post what I wrote last night. Oh joy!

Blogger is driving me nuts!

2005-04-09T13:10:00.000-04:00

I have been trying since around 5 pm on Friday to get some new posts up. No cigar. One went into Blogger limbo, and since then I haven’t even been able to access the Blogger add/edit feature. This is frustrating as hell! I imagine my (two) faithful regular readers will decide they have other better blogs to follow. Oh, the horror!

Loved Lake of Sorrows!

2005-04-08T16:58:00.000-04:00

I was away from the blogosphere yesterday, because I just dove right into Erin Hart's second novel, Lake of Sorrows, and I didn't want to come up for air! I love it when that happens -- pure flow...

I'm always a little cautious when I approach sequels or new installments in a series; in the back of my mind I'm always afraid of disappointment. But I'm thrilled to report that Lake of Sorrows is just as good as Haunted Ground(and now I can't wait for the next book -- the occupational hazard of voracious readers, I suppose. Unfortunately, this third book is still 'under construction' according to Hart's website).

Lake of Sorrows is set about six months after the end of Haunted Ground. Irish anthropologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin are still together in Dublin, though there's tension in the relationship (not for lack of love or desire). [It drives me nuts that the Publishers Weekly review said they were on-again, off-again lovers -- don't you just hate when reviewers are sloppy? It just seems disrespectful to the authors and the readers both.] As a consultant for the national museum, Nora is called to the excavation of a bog body found in a bog harvesting area; Gavin tags along to write and spend time together. Things quickly get complicated when a second bog body turns up near the first; this time the dead man is wearing a very modern wristwatch, though the manner of death of both is eerily similar.

I'll post more later, as now I have to run to my sister's for dinner!

Let's just say this:

If you like intelligently plotted mysteries with well-drawn characters and lovely, eloquent language, please give Erin Hart a try.

Lake of Sorrows arrived!

2005-04-07T00:25:00.000-04:00

I'm dancing around the book piles in my room, clutching this hardcover. Lake of Sorrows is the second in the Cormac/Nora series of mysteries by Erin Hart. I loved the first one, Haunted Ground, so I'm signing off right now to go snuggle with this one!

When a narrative unravels in the last thirty pages...

2005-04-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

... you get one very frustrated reader. That's what happened with How I Became Stupid by Martin Page. It was funny and entertaining and a pleasure to read -- until about 30 pages from the end, when it began to fall apart. I had happily followed protagonist Antoine, a 25-year-old scholar of Aramaic ("He had enough specialized knowledge on a good many subjects to stand in for a sick lecturer at a moment's notice, but not the in-depth knowledge that represented a mastery of any one subject so that he might have hoped for a permanent position" p85), on his pursuit of stupidity through alcoholism, suicide, lobotomy, medication, stockbrokering, wealth, and conspicuous consumption. And then came the "premature ghost" of a second-rate pop singer (reminiscent of Dickens), an exorcism by a quartet of Einsteins, and an encounter with a woman who must have been a relative of Twidledee and Twidledum...

I just realized that I was fine while it was Antoine making the choices, but once his choices were taken away (by said ghost, Einsteins, and woman of questionable sanity), it just stopped being funny. And I'm annoyed about it. After all, this novel has some wonderful moments, including this description of a doctor's office:

The room looked like any other doctor's office with its diplomas hanging on the beige-colored walls, its bookcase of hefty volumes magnificently bound in the hide of a cow that must have grazed on solid gold. As if the copper plaque by the door were not enough, the whole office exuded a certified aura of competence; the colors and the furniture created a feeling of gravitas. Anyone who set foot in the place was assailed by the atmosphere of solemnity, felt the monarchial presence of Medicine the all-powerful, and had no choice but to submit to it. (p68)

So, to the author, why, why, why include those final episodes? I would really like to know!

More about Marilynne Robinson

2005-04-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Strolling through the blogosphere again, I found Patry Francis's account of having dinner at Marilynne Robinson's house. Francis's entry also includes her thoughts on Housekeeping and Gilead. (She loved both.):

Unlike Housekeeping, which I devoured, Gilead is a novel to be read slowly. I allowed myself only three or four pages a night. More than that and I felt as dizzy as I was standing before a selection of unfamiliar wines those many years ago. It is a novel of the senses, of the heart and mind, but most of all it is a novel of that wan and underfed guest: the soul.

Via Pages Turned, one of my daily stops in the blogosphere.

[Did anyone else notice that Gilead is now #14 at Amazon and shipping in days not 24 hours?]

Now Reading: How I Became Stupid

2005-04-05T22:10:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm halfway through a funny little novel originally published in French and called How I Became Stupid by Martin Page. This is a pretty accurate product description from Amazon:

Ignorance is bliss, or so hopes Antoine, the lead character in Martin Page’s stinging satire, How I Became Stupid—a modern day Candide with a Darwin Award–like sensibility. A twenty-five-year-old Aramaic scholar, Antoine has had it with being brilliant and deeply self-aware in today’s culture. So tortured is he by the depth of his perception and understanding of himself and the world around him that he vows to denounce his intelligence by any means necessary—in order to become "stupid" enough to be a happy, functioning member of society. What follows is a dark and hilarious odyssey as Antoine tries everything from alcoholism to stock-trading in order to lighten the burden of his brain on his soul.

By now you probably can tell why this book caught my attention. But to seal the deal, here's the first paragraph:

Antoine had always felt he was living in dog years. When he was seven he felt about as playful as a man of forty-nine; by eleven he was as disillusioned as an old man of seventy-seven. Now, age twenty-five, Antoine was hoping to start taking it easy, and he resolved to shroud his brain in stupidity. He had already realized that intelligence was just the word people used for stupid remarks that were well presented and prettily pronounced, and that intelligence itself was so corrupt, there was often more to be gained from being dumb than from being a sworn intellectual. Intelligence makes you unhappy, lonely, and poor, whereas disguising it offers the possibility of immortality in newsprint and the admiration of those who believe what they read.

I know it's a satire, but I can identify with Antoine's malady: an overactive brain. Even when he's trying to make himself stupid, he researches everything -- I do that too... and not for satirical purposes either!

On Erin Hart's Haunted Ground

2005-04-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

This weekend I finished reading Haunted Ground, by Erin Hart, and now I can't wait for the second in the series, Lake of Sorrows, to arrive so I can devour it too!

This is what the publisher's site says about Haunted Ground (Scribner $13):

Introducing Erin Hart, who brings the beauty, poignancy, mystery, and romance of the Irish countryside to her richly nuanced first novel.

When farmers cutting turf in a peat bog make a grisly discovery -- the perfectly preserved severed head of a young woman with long red hair -- Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin team up in a case that will open old wounds.
.....
And the red-haired girl is not the only enigma in this remote corner of Galway. Two years earlier, Mina Osborne, the local landowner's Indian-born wife,went for a walk with her young son and never returned. Did Mina simply decide to disappear, or did mother and child become lost in the treacherous bog? Could they, too, be hidden in its depths, only to be discovered centuries from now? Or did the landowner, Hugh Osborne, murder his family, as some villagers suspect?

Bracklyn House, Osborne's stately home, holds many secrets for Nora and Cormac and policeman Garrett Devaney. But time is running out. Devaney's superiors want him off the Osborne case. Now. He wants to stay and find a killer.

Meticulously crafted and resonating with traditional music and folklore, Haunted Ground celebrates Ireland's turbulent history, revealing the eternal, subliminal connections between past and present in a riveting novel that heralds the arrival of a bright new crime-writing star.

Haunted Ground weaves together several different stories: the search for more information about the red-headed bog girl led by archeologist Cormac and pathologist Nora; the investigation of the disappearance of a prominent citizen's wife and son led by a local cop; and Nora's complicated feelings about the (unsolved) murder of her sister. Add to that lovely writing and evocative descriptions, and... Erin Hart has another fan!

To illustrate, let me just quote a little bit of Cormac's thoughts as he watches Nora:

What he felt right now, looking at Nora, was something even stronger than physical desire --though he felt that intensely, too, he had to admit. But desire was swallowed up in a larger yearning to gain entrance, to wander the rooms and passageways inside her head, her heart, if she would allow him. Of course, that meant throwing open the doors, allowing her into his own hidden places as well. And for the first time in his life, that prospect actually seemed possible. (p96-97)

Just lovely -- the writing, and the moment.

The loot from yesterday's Borders visit

2005-04-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

Due to popular demand (well, okay, two people asked, but in my little corner of the blogosphere, two is a multitude!), here's an accounting of what I got during yesterday's retail therapy at Borders:

Sword of the Rightful King by Jane Yolen (YA/Fantasy) -- reading Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur with my students has awakened a desire to explore contemporary versions of the Arthur story

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (YA/Fiction) -- about an alternate version of Earth where sixteen-year-olds get plastic surgery and become pretty. I couldn't resist the premise, though the first few paragraphs did not hook me.

Secrets Vol. 11 (erotica) -- four novellas of erotic romance by Angela Knight, Kimberly Dean, Jess Michaels, and Jennifer Probst. I have nine of the other volumes and have enjoyed most of them.

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin -- I've always liked Austen, and I'm teaching Pride and Prejudice this semester.

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper (Fiction) -- I don't know about you, but I couldn't resist a book that starts with the following sentence: "Just a few scant months after my mother's suicide, I walked into the garage, looking for my baseball glove, and discovered Cindy Posner on her knees, animatedly performing fellatio on my older brother, Brad."

Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett (Fiction) -- Another one that didn't blow me over with the opening, but which had a promising description on the back: "Set in Rhode Island, Winner of the National Book Award tells the story of twins who could not be more different. Abigail Mather is a woman of passionate sensual and sexual appetites, while her sister, the book loving local librarian Dorcas, lives a quiet life of the mind. But when the sisters are sought out by the predatory and famous poet, Guy DeVilbiss, who introduces them to Hollywood hack writer and possible psychopath Conrad Lowe, they rapidly become pawns in a game that leads to betrayal, shame and ultimately, murder." Sex, librarians, books, and hack writers... Who can resist?

I also bought a bunch of magazines and read through a couple of erotic romance anthologies published by Ellora's Cave. In the new paperbacks section I found a reprint of Dark Prince, the first novel in the series of paranormal romances that launched the career of Christine Feehan. I discovered Feehan early on, so I already have that book (and the rest of her books), but I read through an enjoyable addition to her Carpathian series that was printed with it ("Dark Descent"). For me, Feehan's books are the best in escapist fantasy romance: the couples are bonded for life, there is no adultery possible, and the sex is of course incredible. (What can I say -- in real life I'm an avowed feminist, but I do like romance books with alpha males...)

Saul Bellow has died

2005-04-05T18:56:00.000-04:00

Eighty-nine year-old Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow has died. This New York Times/AP report has some interesting biographical info.

April is Poetry Month...

2005-04-05T10:54:00.000-04:00

... and I feel like a philistine for admitting this, but I just don't get most poetry... I think it's lack of contact (I wish I had taken Helen Vendler's class in college [sigh]), but it might be lack of aptitude instead...

Take for instance these poems I got a few days ago from Knopf's Poem-a-Day promotion (I figured this was an easy way to get more poetry into my life). They are by Franz Wright, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

First poem:

My Place

for Beth

Rain land, walnut blossoms raining
white
where I walk at sixteen

bright light in the north wind

Still sleeping bees at the grove's heart
(my heart's) till the sun
its "wake now"
kiss, the million
friendly gold huddlings
and burrowings of them hearing the shining
wind
I hear, my only
cure for the loneliness I go through:

more.

I believe that one day the distance between myself and God will disappear.

My reaction: Huh? I mean, I'm plenty familiar with loneliness, but still, I just don't get it. Is there someone out there who does and might enlighten me? Presumably this is good stuff, since it did get a Pulitzer prize (at least the judges --whoever they were-- liked it...).

Second poem:

On Earth

Ressurection of the little apple tree outside
my window, leaf-
light of late
in the April
called her eyes, forget
forget—
but how
How does one go
about dying?
Who on earth
is going to teach me—
The world is filled with people
who have never died

My reaction: This is more accessible to me, though I find it hard to reconcile the first part of the poem with the second. I guess I could connect them by saying spring = renewal, rebirth vs. death... I just don't get what the point is. Maybe it's my expectations. I suppose I do expect poetry to be meaningful, to delve into the essence of life and language. And this poem, while apparently about rebirth and the unfathomable nature of death, just leaves me shrugging.

Margaret's new(est) spring resolution: More poetry. This ignorance is driving me nuts!

Robinson's Gilead Wins the Pulitzer

2005-04-04T19:22:00.000-04:00

The long-awaited second novel by Marilynne Robinson has won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; it had earlier won the National Book Critics' Award for Fiction.

Coincidentally, my copy of Gilead arrived today! I have fond memories of Robinson's Housekeeping, which I read in my first lit class in college and loved. Hopefully, I will enjoy Gilead just as much. I'll keep you posted, of course.

Playing hooky (to go to the bookstore)

2005-04-04T17:21:00.000-04:00

Today was one of those downturn-in-mood days. I sat in my car this morning and just felt overwhelmed. I just didn't want to drive one hour to teach the two courses I took over another professor who's on maternity leave. I hated myself for it, but there it is -- I didn't want to go to work today. So, after about ten minutes of staring at the digital clock, I finally called in sick.

And then I drove to Borders.

Ouch! When the NYTBR slams your book...

2005-04-03T22:06:00.000-04:00

... it must really hurt, particularly if the review is not mean spirited -- that just makes the criticism more incisive, in my opinion. Some examples from today's New York Times Book Review:

A review of A.L. Kennedy's novel Paradise, written by Neil Gordon:

...Kennedy's novels have a baffling way of engaging her readers and then squandering our involvement. It's not that she gives us wooden characters or poor writing or foolish plots. Rather, her books are so adroitly written and carefully conceived, so technically accomplished, that it comes as a surprise to reach the end and find them so unnecessary.

Now, I don't know about you, but that seems the worst possible indictment of a writer -- loads of talent squandered creating meaningless work. It's even more painful than being called a hack.

From Walter Kirn's review of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer -- on the child narrator: "...there are neurological limits to some readers' ability to tolerate a wee one who says whatever springs to mind and keeps circling to the clue of cluelessness and other riddling Oriental insights." And on the novel as a whole:

This accords to what appears to be the novel's quite difficult grand ambition: to take on the most explosive subject available while showing no passion, giving no offense, adopting no point of view and venturing no sentiment more hazardous than the history is sad and brutal and wouldn't it be nicer if it weren't.

Ouch. But I guess Foer's strategy of soliciting sales via e-mail must have worked -- he made it into the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller List this week (just squeezing in at #15 this week, though up to #13 for next week).

By the way, I haven't read any Jonathan Safran Foen yet -- I have Everything is lluminated but haven't gotten around to reading it. I wonder if I ever will.

Cruising through the blogosphere

2005-04-03T11:10:00.000-04:00

In my daily cruise through the lit blogosphere, I found several posts from author Karen Spears Zaccharias at Beatrice. She writes about her experiences at a recent book festival, where she talked to readers about her new memoir, Hero Mama, the story of her mother's determination to pull herself and her three children up from the despair and chaos caused by the father's death in Vietnam.

I liked Zaccharias' voice and the way she wrote about her festival experiences, so I followed her to her own website and from there to an open letter to other grieving children of war (currently found at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7167398/site/newsweek/). A little taste:

You just need acceptance.

To find that you must remember your parent. The jokes they retold, the meals they savored, the way their arms felt upon your shoulders, or the way they smelled when they hugged you close. In other words, they way they loved and cherished you. Your parent died in an effort to bring freedom to others. Don’t misuse your own freedoms to self-destruct.

Even though I have not lost a relative to war (my grandfather's heart murmur excempted him from duty in WWII; my father was a National Guardsman during the Vietnam War; no family members are in the Armed Forces now), Karen Spears Zaccharias's letter touched a chord with me, about grief for lost parents. My dad died two and a half years ago of metastasized colon cancer, and I still mourn him. His absence is a hole in my heart and in my life, though I count myself lucky for having had him almost thirty-three years. It's so hard, though, to let go of one of the few people who loved me unconditionally, no matter how unlovably I acted, or unlovable I felt.

Have you heard about The Quill Awards?

2005-04-02T22:18:00.000-04:00

From the April 4th edition of Publishers Weekly comes news of a brand-new awards ceremony in the style of the People's Choice Awards. The Quills, sponsored by PW's parent company, is "designed to be an industry-qualified "consumers choice" awards program for books, honoring the current titles readers deem most entertaining and enlightening." In a bid to become the Oscars of the literary world, The Quills "[w]inners will be revealed during an awards ceremony similar to that of the Golden Globes—including a ritzy dinner party and celebrity presenters. The NBC Universal stations will broadcast the event in major markets on the evening of October 22."

Now, I enjoy a good awards ceremony as much as the next gal, but somehow I don't think this will be a ratings bonanza for NBC...

But lest we think that The Quills are designed to honor "quality" or even "entertaining" literature, the PW article reveals the method behind the madness (yes, rereading Hamlet is indeed paying off!): "What will the publishing industry gain from yet another literary prize? In a word, sales. That's the goal, anyway." (I'm feeling the confidence there...)

And to reach that goal? Well, PW suggests publishers push their titles aggressively (think of the ubiquitous film ads in the trade publications leading up to the Oscar votes...): "Instead of passively waiting to get the nod —and then hoping someone will notice and care about the award— publishers can lobby voters on behalf of their books during the competition, then capitalize on the honor afterward." Rather baldly put...

Just in case you didn't get it, the PW article (press release?) continues with a pithy example: "Think of how television uses the Emmys and movies use the Oscars—to build buzz and demonstrate quality. Think of how that could translate to books with The Quills." Thinking... thinking... head exploding...

The explanation of the rules is also quite interesting -- note the sources from which the books are to be culled:

Competition in the book genre categories will begin with a slate of about 1,800 eligible titles. To make the long list of nominees, a book must have been published in its original format in North America between August 1, 2004, and July 31, 2005, and marketed in the United States. It must also meet one of the following criteria: a starred review in Publishers Weekly, Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers selection, one of the ABA's Book Sense Picks, a Borders Books & Music Original Voices title or has made it onto the bestsellers list of Publishers Weekly, Book Sense, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

That's just the first step. Then it's time for a select 6,000 to create shortlists for each category:

A nominating board of about 6,000 members, invited from the subscriber base of PW, mostly booksellers and librarians, will narrow the list to five contenders for each category, beginning in May. Each month, the board will create a shortlist for five or six categories. In August, the voting will open up to members of the public, who can cast ballots online for their favorites among the shortlist for each category. Consumers will also vote on a "Book of the Year," choosing from the finalists in all the genres.

But Borders, B&N, and co. will not determine the candidate pool for best novice author: "For the "Rookie of the Year**" award, each publishing division [does that mean each imprint?] is invited to nominate two debut authors."

But people, don't get too excited if you like film adaptations or book design; it seems consumers are not qualified for THAT part of the judging, since "[f]inalists for the "Book to Film" and "Design" awards will be named by committees of experts." And then something I don't understand -- and I swear that these two sentences go after the ones just quoted: "For each of the awards, consumers will have the final say on who wins. One other prize, the "Book Club Award," will be chosen by Bookspan." Is it me, or is this confusing?

The Quills Calendar, as printed in PW:

April: PW publishes lists of eligible titles for May categories: Audiobooks, Children's picture books, Religion/spirituality, Poetry, Health & Self Improvement, Romance

May: PW publishes lists of eligible titles for June categories: Children's novel for pre-teen and younger, Science fiction/fantasy, Biography/memoir, History/current events/politics, Sports, Business

June: PW publishes lists of eligible titles for July categories: Rookie of the Year, Literary fiction, Graphic novel, Suspense/mystery, Thriller/horror, Young adult, Humor

April 15–July 15: The Quills Nominating Council votes on the shortlists for each category.

August 15: Shortlists announced in PW and released to national consumer media.

August 15–September 15: Consumers vote online or at participating bookstores.

October 11: Winners announced during The Quills awards ceremony

October 22: NBC airs the event in major television markets [11 days after the ceremony itself, so even we book fanatics who might be interested already know who won...]

And finally, here are all The Quills categories:

Book of the Year
Rookie of the Year*
Book Club Award**
Children's [would this include young adult?]
Best Book to Film**
Graphic Novel of the Year
Design**
Literary Fiction
Suspense/Mystery or Thriller [interesting grouping...]
Science Fiction/ Fantasy or Horror [another interesting grouping...]
Romance
Biography / Memoir
Religion / Spirituality
Science
Health / Self Improvement
Sports
Business
History / Current Events /Politics [so I guess a book about ancient Rome will compete with one about the current Bush presidency...]

So, fellow citizens of the literary blogosphere, what do you think?

Strange pairings at Amazon

2005-04-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

The current issue of Publishers Weekly comments on a little-known marketing program at Amazon where a bestseller is paired with an unknown author's book, calling it "The Strangest Program You've Never Heard Of."

In a little-known but eyebrow-raising program, Amazon is pairing well-known authors with nearly any publisher or author willing to pay the fee. It's a
program that evokes strong reactions: while the site's willingness to let unknowns mix with celebrities is hailed by small publishers, others say it raises significant questions about Amazon's responsibility to protect an author's brand or to disclose its own financial arrangements.

The program, known as BXGY to publishers (for Buy X Get Y) and appearing to customers under the header "Best Value," has existed in some form for several years. But anecdotal evidence suggests a recent increase in small-publisher participation. Under the program, houses or authors interested in pairing with a bestseller are sent a list of eligible bestsellers, which, according to participants, includes nearly every author who isn't taken. They can then pay $750 per month to be linked with one of Amazon's bestselling authors, sometimes paring for multiple months and rotating among several bestsellers. The program is distinct from the similar-looking "Better Together," where the choices are made, without sponsorship, by Amazon—though no such distinction is made on the page.

Mmm... I've got nothing against free enterprise, but some of these book pairings are rather frightening:

Jared Diamond's scholarly but accessible Collapse draws History: Fiction or Science, which is described in part by its publisher, an outfit called Mithec Press, as "Eminent mathematician proves that: Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086."

Yikes! Reader beware.

Now you too can comment! Changes in comments section

2005-04-02T14:49:00.000-04:00

Now you can post comments to Bookish Marginalia even if you're not a Blogger member -- I finally figured out how to enable everyone to post. So please feel free to express yourselves!

In today's NYT...

2005-04-02T12:30:00.000-04:00

... there's possibly the weirdest news photograph I have ever seen. I wish my scanner were working so I could post it here; it's worthy of sharing.

This is a large photograph: on the foreground there is the headless body of President Bush with his hand on a podium bearing the presidential seal. His wedding ring is quite prominently displayed. In the center portion, framed between the podium and the president's body is the disembodied head of Laura Bush, who is looking at his body... the effect is eerie, to say the least, and subversive as well. A headless husband, a bodiless wife; a (figurehead?) president without a head (or maybe without a thought in his head?), a first lady who is nothing but a face...

The photo is credited to Doug Mills of The New York Times, so this was taken expressly for the paper. (Not like the Corbis archival photo in that same page of President Bush flanked by prominent Republican senators (all looking like little lead soldiers...).)

If you want a look, it's on page A11 of the Saturday New York Times.