I was a poor chaperone to The Chaperone. It was left neglected, tossed aside for days and weeks during a hectic fall season of all work and no pleasure reading. I liked the book, yet made no time for it. I should have fired myself and returned the novel to the library, but I couldn't part with the characters or the story.
So I hoarded it, waiting and waiting for evenings or weekends of uncluttered serenity---which never came. Days and weeks passed after my introduction to Cora, the chaperone, and young snippy, snobby Louise Brooks, a soon-to-be professional dancer and actress whose banged and bobbed hairstyle set trends 90 years ago.
Author Laura Moriarty used the real-life story of Brooks to set her story in motion. At age 15, the aspiring starlet wanted out of Wichita, Kansas, where life was too boring, too uncultured, too small town. Her self-absorbed, detached parents didn't create a warm home life either, but they at least insisted upon a chaperone while Brooks travelled to New York for dance classes and auditions.
Enter Cora Carlisle, married mother of teenaged twin boys who signs on for the job. While her sons are baling hay and chopping wood at some remote Kansas farm, she heads for the big city. Can't say that I blame her.
Cora had moxie and for 1922, quite a lot of liberation. Even in 2013, I believe most married women would consult their husbands before leaving for five weeks to babysit another family's teenager. Not Cora. While driving home in the car she told her husband, a Wichita attorney, "I think I'll go."
Wow! What a woman, I said to myself. Just doing what she wants when opportunity knocks. And, no argument from her husband! He acquiesced in one page of dialogue? How progressive for a Wichita couple from 1922.
Oh, I should have known there'd be a reason for all that cooperation and goodwill. The Carlisles were an unusual couple, whose backstory drives much of the remainder of the novel. Turns out Cora's childhood started in an orphanage in New York City (A-ha!) and continued on the prairie after a trip on the orphan train. She and Alan, her future husband, meet a decade later when Cora needs legal advice. They marry, move to Wichita and eventually start a family. Pretty routine, right?
Uh-uh. It is anything but routine. I enjoy discovering secrets in a novel, but The Chaperone invites the reader to be included in the secret-keeping. With each page, we discover more and more about the Carlisle's unique marriage, Cora's birth mother, Louise's atypical home life, and Cora's expanding family she invites home to Kansas after her chaperoning stint in New York ends.
It's one secret--or lie?--after another. And we, as readers--are in on it all. Will the real stories come out? Will Cora deceive her family forever? Will the truth prevail?
Cora was a woman ahead of her time. At least that's what I came away believing. How and why she lived like she did kept me from parting with the book. Now that I'm finished with it, I can't believe I stalled so often.
The story is interesting, but the book allows 21st century women to drop in on the lives of our "sisters" back in the 1920s. That's one of the reasons I've been recommending this book to friends. This was the era of our grandparents' youth; our parents' birth. Stories about this time and place help fill in the details about how our families may have lived and what they might have seen and heard and thought about issues of the day. It's stuff you can't get from a family scrapbook or photo album.
I thought of my grandmothers a lot while reading. Gee, did Nana ever see Louise Brooks in silent films, I wondered. Did she ever consider bobbing her hair? Themes of children born out of wedlock and birth control surface, too. What was it like, back then, to discuss health and body issues that ruffled feathers and made many women blush? I wondered about all of this while I read.
The Chaperone was good, enjoyable. However, it's no Rules of Civility, another book set in New York in the 20s by Amor Towles. Civility has more fast-lane, upper crust sophistication. Here's how I might set them apart. Chaperone is the reliable New York subway trip that gets you where you want to go. It's a decent ride. Civility is seeing Fifth Avenue from the back of the rumble-seat. A bit wilder, more glitter and lots more fun. Our library has both books. All you have to do is decide how you want to travel.
The Push From the Book: What I'd really like to write here I can't, or I'll ruin a big part of the plot. Let me just say this. I'm forever blabbing about being born at the wrong time. I'm especially curious about the years between my parents's birth in the 20s and their youth and young adulthood in the 40s. The movies, the clothes, the simpler pace. It clicks for me.
My husband tells me I'm full of it. And I guess he's right. It wasn't the easiest of times for women, especially for those who wanted information about their bodies and birth control, which is addressed in the second half of the book. Cora takes a brave stand---she refused to join a protest against the local drugstore where condoms were sold--and then later in her life helps raise funds for unwed mothers. Time travel sounds so exotic until you encounter episodes like this in a book that confront your whims and dreams. Perhaps time travel is like going to New York City. It's nice to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. I think I'm OK where I am.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Blast From the Past: An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason
Everytime I see one of Bobbie Ann Mason's novels on a shelf I have a private moment of awe. I touch the spine of the book, run my fingers over her name and say to myself, "Wow. I know her. I've talked with her. This woman helped me become a writer." And then I blab these innermost thoughts to anyone standing behind the circ desk. No one on staff has begun to roll her eyes--or maybe some of them have and I haven't caught them--but they must be so sick of me.
But c'mon. How much fun is this? I revel in this tiny thread of connection. My ties to Mason go back several decades. During the mid-70s she taught journalism at Mansfield University, and I was in her classroom for two semesters to learn the rudiments of news and feature writing. I remember her soft-spoken lectures on style and nuance as well as the critiques of my work--the good and the not-so-good included.
Over the years she's catapulted into the literary limelight, winning the PEN/Hemingway award for first fiction and being named a Pulitzer finalist. Now, maybe, you can understand why I'm a bit of a groupie.
Her latest book, The Girl in the Blue Beret, is an absorbing story about a downed WWII pilot and his quest 35 years later to find the French Resistance members who helped him escape. It's based on the real-life story of her father-in-law and hit bookstores last year. How did I miss this? How did I overlook her name or the vintage French street scene on the cover or blurbs about its WWII theme, which I lock onto like a heat-seeking missile? Luckily, one of my favorite book catalogs, Bas Bleu (http://www.basbleu.com/) alerted me to Mason's newest title and I suggested we add it to our collection at the library.
Last spring I wrote to Mason to congratulate her on the novel and request an e-mail interview. The good thing about Mansfield's small classes is that she remembered me too and was happy to answer a few questions about the book and her writing process. Here's what she had to say:
When and how did you learn about your father-in-law's escape from the Nazis and when did it strike you as a potential theme for a novel?
He had often spoken of his B-17 being shot down in the War and how he had to escape with the help of the French Resistance. Toward the end of his life, he wrote a memoir for his family. But it never occurred to me to write a novel about it until I began taking a French class several years ago. Suddenly, through the language, the uncertainty and terror of his wartime situation became real in my imagination. He was a tall American trying to disguise himself as a French worker--who couldn't speak French!
Once you settle on an idea and commit to it, how much time do you typically spend on research before you write? Is it important to visit the novel's setting?
I don't usually do research before I write. I do it as I go along, or even near the end, to check up on things I've imagined. Most stories don't require research. But my novels have all delved into subjects that I wanted to know more about---Vietnam (In Country), nuclear contamination (An Atomic Romance), 19th century Southern folkways (Feather Crowns), and the French Resistance.
I saw pictures of you in Paris at your website. How many times did you visit and how did it affect your storytelling?
I went to Paris six times, for two weeks at a time. It wasn't advance research really. It was just being there, soaking up the atmosphere, trying to imagine Marshall Stone, my protagonist, living there in 1980, when he returns to look for the people who had helped him during the war. So I went in search of the story. I sought out members of the Resistance who had helped my father-in-law, and they were very hospitable and still grateful to the Allied aviators. They helped to bring the story alive.
How did you find those Resistance fighters so many years later?
In the late 80s the villagers in Belgium created a spectacular monument to the crew of my father-in-law's fallen B-17. He went to the dedication, so I knew about those people. And a woman in Paris whose family had helped aviators contacted him after finding his name on her mother's list of aviators. They had made his false ID card so that he could get out of France. They met again at a reunion in 1993. I looked her up, and she became my girl in the blue beret in the story.
Where will your next story come from?
Who knows? It will surprise me. It will knock me over and demand some consideration.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: After nearly 35 years away from college, I did my own reconnecting, just like Marshall Stone. I loved this book so much I wanted to tell Mason. Would she remember me, I wondered. I took a chance and wrote her after visiting her website and getting the e-mail address. What a treat to see her name in my inbox. She graciously brought me up to date on her life, answered my questions, even shared news of some other Mansfield students who had entered the world of communications. I was tickled by it all. To learn more about Bobbie and her books, check out her website: http://www.bobbieannmason.net/bio.htm
But c'mon. How much fun is this? I revel in this tiny thread of connection. My ties to Mason go back several decades. During the mid-70s she taught journalism at Mansfield University, and I was in her classroom for two semesters to learn the rudiments of news and feature writing. I remember her soft-spoken lectures on style and nuance as well as the critiques of my work--the good and the not-so-good included.
Over the years she's catapulted into the literary limelight, winning the PEN/Hemingway award for first fiction and being named a Pulitzer finalist. Now, maybe, you can understand why I'm a bit of a groupie.
Her latest book, The Girl in the Blue Beret, is an absorbing story about a downed WWII pilot and his quest 35 years later to find the French Resistance members who helped him escape. It's based on the real-life story of her father-in-law and hit bookstores last year. How did I miss this? How did I overlook her name or the vintage French street scene on the cover or blurbs about its WWII theme, which I lock onto like a heat-seeking missile? Luckily, one of my favorite book catalogs, Bas Bleu (http://www.basbleu.com/) alerted me to Mason's newest title and I suggested we add it to our collection at the library.
Last spring I wrote to Mason to congratulate her on the novel and request an e-mail interview. The good thing about Mansfield's small classes is that she remembered me too and was happy to answer a few questions about the book and her writing process. Here's what she had to say:
When and how did you learn about your father-in-law's escape from the Nazis and when did it strike you as a potential theme for a novel?
He had often spoken of his B-17 being shot down in the War and how he had to escape with the help of the French Resistance. Toward the end of his life, he wrote a memoir for his family. But it never occurred to me to write a novel about it until I began taking a French class several years ago. Suddenly, through the language, the uncertainty and terror of his wartime situation became real in my imagination. He was a tall American trying to disguise himself as a French worker--who couldn't speak French!
Once you settle on an idea and commit to it, how much time do you typically spend on research before you write? Is it important to visit the novel's setting?
I don't usually do research before I write. I do it as I go along, or even near the end, to check up on things I've imagined. Most stories don't require research. But my novels have all delved into subjects that I wanted to know more about---Vietnam (In Country), nuclear contamination (An Atomic Romance), 19th century Southern folkways (Feather Crowns), and the French Resistance.
I saw pictures of you in Paris at your website. How many times did you visit and how did it affect your storytelling?
I went to Paris six times, for two weeks at a time. It wasn't advance research really. It was just being there, soaking up the atmosphere, trying to imagine Marshall Stone, my protagonist, living there in 1980, when he returns to look for the people who had helped him during the war. So I went in search of the story. I sought out members of the Resistance who had helped my father-in-law, and they were very hospitable and still grateful to the Allied aviators. They helped to bring the story alive.
How did you find those Resistance fighters so many years later?
In the late 80s the villagers in Belgium created a spectacular monument to the crew of my father-in-law's fallen B-17. He went to the dedication, so I knew about those people. And a woman in Paris whose family had helped aviators contacted him after finding his name on her mother's list of aviators. They had made his false ID card so that he could get out of France. They met again at a reunion in 1993. I looked her up, and she became my girl in the blue beret in the story.
Where will your next story come from?
Who knows? It will surprise me. It will knock me over and demand some consideration.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: After nearly 35 years away from college, I did my own reconnecting, just like Marshall Stone. I loved this book so much I wanted to tell Mason. Would she remember me, I wondered. I took a chance and wrote her after visiting her website and getting the e-mail address. What a treat to see her name in my inbox. She graciously brought me up to date on her life, answered my questions, even shared news of some other Mansfield students who had entered the world of communications. I was tickled by it all. To learn more about Bobbie and her books, check out her website: http://www.bobbieannmason.net/bio.htm
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Going for it in America
A Good American lived up to all its hype. The praise for this immigrant family saga by Alex George came gushing back in February. Amazon put the book on February's "Best Books of the Month" list; Barnes & Noble named it a Discover pick for Spring; B & N also listed it as a Top Staff Pick for Fiction in February; the folks with Oprah's O Magazine ranked it their #1 "Title to Pick Up Now" for the same month. The buzz continued, and NPR's Morning Edition inserted it into the "Top 2012 Summer Read" collection.
Consider me on the bandwagon, too. I loved it.
Like most readers, I mentally click off things that I like and dislike about books while reading, and by the end I know what I'd tell a friend or fellow reading junkie about the book. Here's how my tally breaks down: immigrant tale (always a favored story line for me), check; three generations of family drama, hardship, humor,sacrifice, heartbreak and success, check; vivid and believeable characters, check; surprise ending, DOUBLE check.
And then there is the nice addition of music that plays throughout the story. Another unexpected check.
In 1904 Frederick publicly serenades Jette in a Hanover, Germany garden and their futures are sealed. The music melts her heart, and in no time the couple is in love. But all is not well with Jette's family and the pair sails to America to begin anew. They buy passage on a ship bound for New Orleans--lots more musical connections there--and ultimately settle in Missouri. The Meisenheimers go on to own a bar (with musical acts aplenty) and ever-evolving restaurants through the years, but the fellow Americans they meet along the way and the appearance and actions of their children and their children's children had me turning pages feverishly. I hunkered down with this book while we lost electricity for six hours last Sunday and by the time the Olympics came back on tv later that night, Frederick and Jette had two grown children ready to launch their own lives.
Two days later I was done and knew it all--how all the grandchildren turned out, where they lived, how they became good Americans and the story behind the big family secret that I never saw coming.
Immigrant stories touch my soul. The characters who land on American shores to carve out new lives and new destinies are always inspirational to me. Fictional newcomers--like their flesh-and-blood counterparts--leave everything familiar behind to find freedom and opportunity here, and so it was with A Good American.
Interesting footnote about the author. Alex George is an Englishman who moved to America in 2003. He's an immigrant and has written an absorbing and entertaining immigrant story. He followed the standard advice to all writers---write what you know. Seems only fitting that he did something so characteristically American with all his hard work and talent---succeed wildly.
Way to go.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: The book and its characters embraced their freedoms and the American work ethic. It made me see that I could and should work harder in all things. This is, afterall, America. Immigrants come here from all over the world for a better life. Do those of us born here sometimes forget America's blessings and our own potential? Yea, I think so. Not every day is July 4, but novels like this remind us of what we celebrate on that day and why we're so lucky to be here.
Consider me on the bandwagon, too. I loved it.
Like most readers, I mentally click off things that I like and dislike about books while reading, and by the end I know what I'd tell a friend or fellow reading junkie about the book. Here's how my tally breaks down: immigrant tale (always a favored story line for me), check; three generations of family drama, hardship, humor,sacrifice, heartbreak and success, check; vivid and believeable characters, check; surprise ending, DOUBLE check.
And then there is the nice addition of music that plays throughout the story. Another unexpected check.
In 1904 Frederick publicly serenades Jette in a Hanover, Germany garden and their futures are sealed. The music melts her heart, and in no time the couple is in love. But all is not well with Jette's family and the pair sails to America to begin anew. They buy passage on a ship bound for New Orleans--lots more musical connections there--and ultimately settle in Missouri. The Meisenheimers go on to own a bar (with musical acts aplenty) and ever-evolving restaurants through the years, but the fellow Americans they meet along the way and the appearance and actions of their children and their children's children had me turning pages feverishly. I hunkered down with this book while we lost electricity for six hours last Sunday and by the time the Olympics came back on tv later that night, Frederick and Jette had two grown children ready to launch their own lives.
Two days later I was done and knew it all--how all the grandchildren turned out, where they lived, how they became good Americans and the story behind the big family secret that I never saw coming.
Immigrant stories touch my soul. The characters who land on American shores to carve out new lives and new destinies are always inspirational to me. Fictional newcomers--like their flesh-and-blood counterparts--leave everything familiar behind to find freedom and opportunity here, and so it was with A Good American.
Interesting footnote about the author. Alex George is an Englishman who moved to America in 2003. He's an immigrant and has written an absorbing and entertaining immigrant story. He followed the standard advice to all writers---write what you know. Seems only fitting that he did something so characteristically American with all his hard work and talent---succeed wildly.
Way to go.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: The book and its characters embraced their freedoms and the American work ethic. It made me see that I could and should work harder in all things. This is, afterall, America. Immigrants come here from all over the world for a better life. Do those of us born here sometimes forget America's blessings and our own potential? Yea, I think so. Not every day is July 4, but novels like this remind us of what we celebrate on that day and why we're so lucky to be here.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Read Like Rory Gilmore
I watched snippets of The Gilmore Girls when my now 24-year-old daughter still lived at home. The comedy/drama about a mother/daughter duo living in Connecticut aired from 2000 to 2007 and, apparently, referenced books more than I imagined.
Here's a list of book titles the characters read or mentioned during the show's run:
http://bookreviews.me.uk/rory-gilmore-reading-challenge/
You'll be surprised to find everything here from Anna Karenina and Beowulf to Gidget, Gone With the Wind, and Fahrenheit 451. It's great fun to skim down the list. How many of the 250 books have you read?
Here's a list of book titles the characters read or mentioned during the show's run:
http://bookreviews.me.uk/rory-gilmore-reading-challenge/
You'll be surprised to find everything here from Anna Karenina and Beowulf to Gidget, Gone With the Wind, and Fahrenheit 451. It's great fun to skim down the list. How many of the 250 books have you read?
Friday, August 3, 2012
Rumble in the Jungle
In 2010 there was Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand's celebrated tale of Louis Zamperini, WWII airman who survives a crash over the Pacific, 40 days on a raft, and then, as if life hadn't toyed with him enough----multiple Japanese POW camps. A year later something similar, Lost in Shangri-La. More downed WWII aircraft. More tests of strength and endurance. More real people never giving in or giving up.
While Unbroken is the story of one man in the middle of an ocean, Shangri-La is the story of three survivors in the middle of Dutch New Guinea's impenetrable jungles with cannabilistic tribesman thrown in for good measure. One of three passengers to survive the fiery crash was Margaret Hastings, a 30-year-old corporal in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) who looked more like a Hollywood starlet than a secretary assigned to the Far East Air Service Command. An informal picture taken of Hastings in 1945 appears in the book's opening pages, and I had to look twice because I thought Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon had shown up on page two.
Hastings, an Owego, NY, native, signed up for an atypical field trip on May 13, 1945. Each seat in the "Gremlin Special," a C-47 Skytrain, was filled for the 150-mile trip to Shangri-La, a hidden valley found in the thick of the Oranje Mountains.
Author Mitchell Zuckoff, whose marvelous book is on par with Unbroken in my opinion, describes the objective that day as a place time forgot. The thousands occupying the 30-mile long valley looked like something out of the Stone Age--barely clothed men and boys, women in fiber skirts, gardens and fields teeming with workers, thatched-roof huts, and pigs on the loose. It was sighted from the cockpit of a reconnaissance plane scanning the island for potential landing sites, and soon after its discovery bored soldiers wanted a glimpse for themselves. The sightseeing flights were a welcome diversion to life on the island, and that day nine WACs and 15 servicemen were aboard for a three hour tour that took a deadly turn.
The fate of the aircraft and the survivors made each new chapter more exciting than the next. Zuckoff used diaries and Army documents, photos, interviews and his own trip to New Guinea to recreate each step out of the burning plane, through the jungle and into the hands of the local tribesman.
But that's just the first half of the book. Wait to you meet the rescuers--brave paratroopers and medics who jumped in for the rescue without a firm plan to return home. Miraculous.
This book should appeal to lots of people: WWII buffs, armchair anthropologists, maybe even fans of the weekly show Survivor. I never thought I'd read a book as gripping and taut as Unbroken, but this comes mighty close. It's the perfect antidote for these dog-days of August.
The Push from the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me:
I am re-evaluating my wimp factor. It's way too high. All these survivor stories are making me feel like I need to buck up. Margaret suffered serious burns. Another passenger, Ken Decker, emerged with a deep gash in his head. John McCollum, who lost a twin brother in the crash, heroically tended their wounds and guided them to safety. The soldiers who parachuted in to provide medical care and support knew there was no exit strategy. All great examples of the can-do spirit of the Greatest Generation, correct?
Be calm. Be cool. Be brave. I'm workin' on it.
While Unbroken is the story of one man in the middle of an ocean, Shangri-La is the story of three survivors in the middle of Dutch New Guinea's impenetrable jungles with cannabilistic tribesman thrown in for good measure. One of three passengers to survive the fiery crash was Margaret Hastings, a 30-year-old corporal in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) who looked more like a Hollywood starlet than a secretary assigned to the Far East Air Service Command. An informal picture taken of Hastings in 1945 appears in the book's opening pages, and I had to look twice because I thought Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon had shown up on page two.
Hastings, an Owego, NY, native, signed up for an atypical field trip on May 13, 1945. Each seat in the "Gremlin Special," a C-47 Skytrain, was filled for the 150-mile trip to Shangri-La, a hidden valley found in the thick of the Oranje Mountains.
Author Mitchell Zuckoff, whose marvelous book is on par with Unbroken in my opinion, describes the objective that day as a place time forgot. The thousands occupying the 30-mile long valley looked like something out of the Stone Age--barely clothed men and boys, women in fiber skirts, gardens and fields teeming with workers, thatched-roof huts, and pigs on the loose. It was sighted from the cockpit of a reconnaissance plane scanning the island for potential landing sites, and soon after its discovery bored soldiers wanted a glimpse for themselves. The sightseeing flights were a welcome diversion to life on the island, and that day nine WACs and 15 servicemen were aboard for a three hour tour that took a deadly turn.
The fate of the aircraft and the survivors made each new chapter more exciting than the next. Zuckoff used diaries and Army documents, photos, interviews and his own trip to New Guinea to recreate each step out of the burning plane, through the jungle and into the hands of the local tribesman.
But that's just the first half of the book. Wait to you meet the rescuers--brave paratroopers and medics who jumped in for the rescue without a firm plan to return home. Miraculous.
This book should appeal to lots of people: WWII buffs, armchair anthropologists, maybe even fans of the weekly show Survivor. I never thought I'd read a book as gripping and taut as Unbroken, but this comes mighty close. It's the perfect antidote for these dog-days of August.
The Push from the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me:
I am re-evaluating my wimp factor. It's way too high. All these survivor stories are making me feel like I need to buck up. Margaret suffered serious burns. Another passenger, Ken Decker, emerged with a deep gash in his head. John McCollum, who lost a twin brother in the crash, heroically tended their wounds and guided them to safety. The soldiers who parachuted in to provide medical care and support knew there was no exit strategy. All great examples of the can-do spirit of the Greatest Generation, correct?
Be calm. Be cool. Be brave. I'm workin' on it.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
TKO'd by The Buddha in the Attic
There is no one main character in The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka's novel about Japanese picture brides who arrive in America during the early 1900s to marry men sight unseen. There are many characters. Scads of them. Each with a story that Otsuka melded into the first-person voice "we" to retrace their journey, their first night as married women, their work, their children, their homes, their employers and neighbors, and eventually, their new status as traitors in the days after Pearl Harbor.
It's a remarkable and memorable novel, and earlier in the year Otsuka won a big prize for it--- the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Buddha was also a National Book Award Finalist in 2011. And in typical Otsuka style, Buddha is spare yet richly descriptive, small--only 129 pages--yet potent.
It's been about 10 years since she wrote her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, a book that I liken to a quick punch in the gut. Not that I've ever experienced that, but her book took me down for the count and left me breathless. Her subject--Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps in 1942--interested me and her writing, which is lean, clean and powerful, packed a wallop of emotion.
Her writing still lifts me up, and I find beauty in its simplicity. Here are the opening lines from The Buddha in the Attic:
It's a remarkable and memorable novel, and earlier in the year Otsuka won a big prize for it--- the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Buddha was also a National Book Award Finalist in 2011. And in typical Otsuka style, Buddha is spare yet richly descriptive, small--only 129 pages--yet potent.
It's been about 10 years since she wrote her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, a book that I liken to a quick punch in the gut. Not that I've ever experienced that, but her book took me down for the count and left me breathless. Her subject--Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps in 1942--interested me and her writing, which is lean, clean and powerful, packed a wallop of emotion.
Her writing still lifts me up, and I find beauty in its simplicity. Here are the opening lines from The Buddha in the Attic:
On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years--faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times.
And from the chapter "Whites":
They gave us new names. They called us Helen and Lily. They called us Margaret. They called us Pearl. They marveled at our tiny figures and our long, shiny black hair. They praised us for our hardworking ways. That girl never stops until she gets the job done. They bragged about us to their neighbors. They bragged about us to their friends.
Can you hear the music of her words? But what efficiency as a writer! I feel their isolation and anxiety on the ship. I am seasick with them on page five and homesick with them on page 17. These stories of young women who left Japan from 1908 to 1920 to marry Japanese immigrants in America ultimately concludes with the theme of Otsuka's first novel--internment camps for Japanese Americans.
Neighbors peered out at us through their windows. Cars honked. Strangers stared. A boy on a bicycle waved. A startled cat dove under a bed in one of our houses as looters began to break down the front door. Curtains ripped. Glass shattered. Wedding dishes smashed to the floor. And we knew it would only be a matter of time until all traces of us were gone.
I regularly seek out books about Asian women. Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club pushed me in that direction years ago and since that time I've read many books about women from patriarchal cultures who face desperate situations and survive and sometimes flourish. Memoirs of a Geisha, Chinese Cinderella, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan are among my favorites. Even before I read it, I knew The Buddha in the Attic was a natural fit for me.
This small book is tiny enough to stash away in a purse or tote bag if you're travelling light for a weekend away. You can easily tuck it inside a beachbag or carry-on luggage. I can't insist that you read it but I'd like to challenge any woman to open it up and resist its first few lines. Keep reading, and you'll be like me. Knocked down and breathless. Otsuka's got quite an upper cut.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and
gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new
goals. Here's what this book did to me:
Simple response. I uttered many prayers of thanks for my life, my courtship, my husband. I did some digging before writing today's blog entry and listened to a bit of a WHYY radio interview (http://www.julieotsuka.com/media/) with the author. Otsuka explained that these first meetings between the picture brides and their husbands were often a "first date for life" because divorce was not an option in Japanese culture at that time. Some of the matches were doomed from the start and the new brides endured harsh husbands, family life and working conditions. They had no options and for that I felt pangs of sorrow while reading. The women were strong and stoic and inspirational. Maybe some of that will rub off. An inner-strength tune-up is always appreciated.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Snapping the Slump
Ever been in a reading slump? I just pulled myself out of one, snapping a pitiful 0-for-5 streak of abandoned books that spanned about four weeks. I was the Phillies of the library world. Struggling. Sputtering. Trying to figure things out.
But I kept hacking away and taking my swings until one day last week the ball flew out of the park. At long last readers, I connected with a book.
If you find yourself in a midsummer book funk, try The Snow Child, by first-time author Eowyn Ivey. I’m not sure if it was the title that drew me in on a steamy day or the frosty vibe of the grey and white cover art or the positive reviews I’ve been reading on several book websites. All of the above? Possibly.
The novel is based on a Russian folk tale about a childless couple that builds a snow child during the winter's first snowfall. It magically comes to life but disappears each spring, only to return the following winter. Mabel and Jack, Alaskan homesteaders living near the Wolverine River in 1920, have an empty home, stale marriage and diminishing pantry. Mabel comes close to suicide in the opening pages, but not long thereafter, the couple’s own snow child arrives. The mysterious, sprightly child runs through the forests with uncanny speed and confidence and offers gifts of berries, homemade baskets and trapped game for the near-starving couple. Her visits are unpredictable but over time the blond, blue-eyed girl comes to trust the couple and becomes part of the family, at least during the winter months.
There’s a strong fairy-tale thread that runs through this entire book, but it never overtakes the story of Mabel and Jack‘s ongoing battle with the elements, their farm, even their skittish horse. There is harsh Alaskan reality at the novel’s core that kept the story of the fanciful snow child in check. There are trees to fell, fields to plow, seeds to sow, wood to cut, chickens to feed, bread to bake. And half the time it’s cold, dark, snowy and lonely. One thing’s for sure. Alaska, 1920, is no place for the faint of heart, and Ivey gives her readers the total northern exposure experience.
The author lives and works in Alaska and conjured up the territory so convincingly she’s being compared to Willa Cather, whose fiction has also been a dependable source for understanding the look and feel of the real American prairie. As compliments go, this one must give Ivey the goosebumps, no matter what the temperature in her backyard.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: It kept me reading outside the box. Novels relying too much on folklore and fairy tales usually disappoint me. Earlier this year I grabbed Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, which Ann Patchett called “a marvel of beauty and imagination.” It didn’t strike me the same way, and I wanted to abolish anything like it for the foreseeable future. Good thing I let that notion pass. I would have missed something special had I put The Snow Child back on the shelf. And no doubt my slump would have continued.
But I kept hacking away and taking my swings until one day last week the ball flew out of the park. At long last readers, I connected with a book.
If you find yourself in a midsummer book funk, try The Snow Child, by first-time author Eowyn Ivey. I’m not sure if it was the title that drew me in on a steamy day or the frosty vibe of the grey and white cover art or the positive reviews I’ve been reading on several book websites. All of the above? Possibly.
The novel is based on a Russian folk tale about a childless couple that builds a snow child during the winter's first snowfall. It magically comes to life but disappears each spring, only to return the following winter. Mabel and Jack, Alaskan homesteaders living near the Wolverine River in 1920, have an empty home, stale marriage and diminishing pantry. Mabel comes close to suicide in the opening pages, but not long thereafter, the couple’s own snow child arrives. The mysterious, sprightly child runs through the forests with uncanny speed and confidence and offers gifts of berries, homemade baskets and trapped game for the near-starving couple. Her visits are unpredictable but over time the blond, blue-eyed girl comes to trust the couple and becomes part of the family, at least during the winter months.
There’s a strong fairy-tale thread that runs through this entire book, but it never overtakes the story of Mabel and Jack‘s ongoing battle with the elements, their farm, even their skittish horse. There is harsh Alaskan reality at the novel’s core that kept the story of the fanciful snow child in check. There are trees to fell, fields to plow, seeds to sow, wood to cut, chickens to feed, bread to bake. And half the time it’s cold, dark, snowy and lonely. One thing’s for sure. Alaska, 1920, is no place for the faint of heart, and Ivey gives her readers the total northern exposure experience.
The author lives and works in Alaska and conjured up the territory so convincingly she’s being compared to Willa Cather, whose fiction has also been a dependable source for understanding the look and feel of the real American prairie. As compliments go, this one must give Ivey the goosebumps, no matter what the temperature in her backyard.
The Push From the Book: each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here's what this book did to me: It kept me reading outside the box. Novels relying too much on folklore and fairy tales usually disappoint me. Earlier this year I grabbed Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, which Ann Patchett called “a marvel of beauty and imagination.” It didn’t strike me the same way, and I wanted to abolish anything like it for the foreseeable future. Good thing I let that notion pass. I would have missed something special had I put The Snow Child back on the shelf. And no doubt my slump would have continued.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Going With the Flow
I like flow charts. This one has a summer reading theme, and you're bound to find something you like among the 101 titles featured here. From the bloggers at teach.com, I say thanks for this creative way to give reluctant summer readers a kick in the pants. Those of you who like to read will also enjoy the suggestions. Classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction selections are included, so have some fun going with the flow:
http://teach.com/great-educational-resources/summer-reading-flowchart
Remember, lots of the books in the chart are available right here at Bethel. To locate classic lit, make a left at the fish tank and find the stacks on the right.
http://teach.com/great-educational-resources/summer-reading-flowchart
Remember, lots of the books in the chart are available right here at Bethel. To locate classic lit, make a left at the fish tank and find the stacks on the right.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
A man. In an eggcup?
Perhaps it was the title, The Man Who Lived in an Eggcup, that caught my attention or the fact that a physician wrote it, but this collection of essays about doctors and patients and their successes and failures is among the most interesting pieces of nonfiction you can borrow from our library at the moment. Amazon has 10 published reviews of Dr. John Gamel’s book, and each glitters with five stars. Bethel-Tulpehocken is the only system library to own it, so I suggest you get your hands on this book now before other Berks County readers request it and it’s gone for a few weeks.
If you don’t like stories about illness and injury or hospitals, skip it. It’s not for you. From time to time there’s gory detail, but it’s required to understand the full scope of the patient‘s condition, the challenge facing the doctor and the probability of a happy ending. Squeamish readers, then, might pass.
All those left standing should make an appointment with this book. Dr. Gamel, a semi-retired ophthalmologist, has written 17 absorbing stories, and each one thrusts you into hospital life so completely you swear there’s a sharp scent of alcohol coming off the pages. His tales take you from the bedside of a dying cancer patient still addicted to cigarettes to a treatment room where cutting-edge laser surgery saves the vision of a teenage diabetic. The book is just as entertaining as House and reminiscent of the old-school medical drama St. Elsewhere. Healing surrounded by heartbreak, sadness, absurdity, joy and humor.
But let’s get back to the man in the eggcup, essay number one. It’s the story of a man who needed both legs and hips amputated after a massive infection from a decades-old injury. Naturally, there's a more involved backstory, but the end result was that he lived--happily, gratefully-- in an eggcup-chair mounted to a wheelchair. It’s a triumphant story, which includes information about this rare surgery as well as conversations with the patient who pleaded to have his wasted lower limbs removed. “The Man Who Lived in an Eggcup” was perhaps the most bizarre, yet most uplifting story I’ve ever read.
Essay collections like this one are sometimes overlooked in bookstores and on library shelves because they don’t have the hype of new novels or the publicity machine behind established authors. So I’m doing my part to spread the word. Take it off the shelf, read, and like the docs say, “Call me in the morning.”
The Push From the Book---each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:
I’m able to walk, bike, pull weeds, sit at the computer, write an essay, hang out the wash, make a meal, drive myself to work, clean the toilet and bathe. After reading this, I have an even greater appreciation for the basics in life that many cannot perform for themselves because they are too sick. Health, indeed, is the greatest of gifts. And, I’ll try to be a better patient and heed my doctor’s advice. So many of us don’t.
If you don’t like stories about illness and injury or hospitals, skip it. It’s not for you. From time to time there’s gory detail, but it’s required to understand the full scope of the patient‘s condition, the challenge facing the doctor and the probability of a happy ending. Squeamish readers, then, might pass.
All those left standing should make an appointment with this book. Dr. Gamel, a semi-retired ophthalmologist, has written 17 absorbing stories, and each one thrusts you into hospital life so completely you swear there’s a sharp scent of alcohol coming off the pages. His tales take you from the bedside of a dying cancer patient still addicted to cigarettes to a treatment room where cutting-edge laser surgery saves the vision of a teenage diabetic. The book is just as entertaining as House and reminiscent of the old-school medical drama St. Elsewhere. Healing surrounded by heartbreak, sadness, absurdity, joy and humor.
But let’s get back to the man in the eggcup, essay number one. It’s the story of a man who needed both legs and hips amputated after a massive infection from a decades-old injury. Naturally, there's a more involved backstory, but the end result was that he lived--happily, gratefully-- in an eggcup-chair mounted to a wheelchair. It’s a triumphant story, which includes information about this rare surgery as well as conversations with the patient who pleaded to have his wasted lower limbs removed. “The Man Who Lived in an Eggcup” was perhaps the most bizarre, yet most uplifting story I’ve ever read.
Essay collections like this one are sometimes overlooked in bookstores and on library shelves because they don’t have the hype of new novels or the publicity machine behind established authors. So I’m doing my part to spread the word. Take it off the shelf, read, and like the docs say, “Call me in the morning.”
The Push From the Book---each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:
I’m able to walk, bike, pull weeds, sit at the computer, write an essay, hang out the wash, make a meal, drive myself to work, clean the toilet and bathe. After reading this, I have an even greater appreciation for the basics in life that many cannot perform for themselves because they are too sick. Health, indeed, is the greatest of gifts. And, I’ll try to be a better patient and heed my doctor’s advice. So many of us don’t.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A New Novel--Scrapbook Style
Caroline Preston has created a book so unique, so full of surprises and so much fun to read that I’ve borrowed it twice, just to keep looking at it and discovering things I missed the first time around.
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a story and a scrapbook from the 20s, all rolled into one exceptionally pleasing book. I’m nuts about it and believe you will be, too. Open it to any random page, give yourself a few seconds to feast on the very detailed artifacts Preston dug up and dusted off to create Frankie's world, and I guarantee you’ll be smiling.
The text--just a few lines or short paragraphs per page-- is written on an old Corona typewriter and placed among pictures, old advertisements, recipes, seed packets, graduation programs, postcards, valentines, maps, illustrations, ticket stubs, even luncheonette menus,
The scrapbook chronicles Frankie’s life beginning in 1920, the year of her high school graduation. She’s voted the smartest girl in Cornish, New Hampshire, and gets accepted to Vassar. But hard times--and tuition--put Vassar out of reach for the moment. Frankie stays close to home and finds work as a nursing aide to a rich, elderly woman with a handsome nephew. Hmmm.
How she finally gets to Vassar--a few months later--and then onto Greenwich Village and Paris and then back home again will keep you paging through the book nonstop. The story and the scrapbook elements are addicting!
Preston used some of her own memorabilia for the book, but hunted down a lot more on E-bay and in antique stores. There’s some 600 pieces of vintage treasure here, and if you’re like me, you’ll need more than one look to capture it all.
I also recommend the author’s beautiful website:
http://carolinepreston.com/
I’ve become a frequent visitor to read her blog, follow the reviews and track her speaking engagements. I’d love to attend one of her talks and keep wishing for a Pennsylvania event to pop up soon.
While visiting the website, click on the link “How I made The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt.” Preston reveals how her pack-rat and attic-prowling tendencies became the foundation for a career as an archivist and then, 15 years later, a novelist. What an interesting story. What a wonderful book.
The Push From the Book---each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me: I want to look at my own family’s treasure trove of paper and photographic memories and start consolidating and organizing. Next rainy day, I think I’ll be sorting through old photos, postcards and diaries. Wonder if Martha Stewart is free?
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a story and a scrapbook from the 20s, all rolled into one exceptionally pleasing book. I’m nuts about it and believe you will be, too. Open it to any random page, give yourself a few seconds to feast on the very detailed artifacts Preston dug up and dusted off to create Frankie's world, and I guarantee you’ll be smiling.
The text--just a few lines or short paragraphs per page-- is written on an old Corona typewriter and placed among pictures, old advertisements, recipes, seed packets, graduation programs, postcards, valentines, maps, illustrations, ticket stubs, even luncheonette menus,
The scrapbook chronicles Frankie’s life beginning in 1920, the year of her high school graduation. She’s voted the smartest girl in Cornish, New Hampshire, and gets accepted to Vassar. But hard times--and tuition--put Vassar out of reach for the moment. Frankie stays close to home and finds work as a nursing aide to a rich, elderly woman with a handsome nephew. Hmmm.
How she finally gets to Vassar--a few months later--and then onto Greenwich Village and Paris and then back home again will keep you paging through the book nonstop. The story and the scrapbook elements are addicting!
Preston used some of her own memorabilia for the book, but hunted down a lot more on E-bay and in antique stores. There’s some 600 pieces of vintage treasure here, and if you’re like me, you’ll need more than one look to capture it all.
I also recommend the author’s beautiful website:
http://carolinepreston.com/
I’ve become a frequent visitor to read her blog, follow the reviews and track her speaking engagements. I’d love to attend one of her talks and keep wishing for a Pennsylvania event to pop up soon.
While visiting the website, click on the link “How I made The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt.” Preston reveals how her pack-rat and attic-prowling tendencies became the foundation for a career as an archivist and then, 15 years later, a novelist. What an interesting story. What a wonderful book.
The Push From the Book---each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me: I want to look at my own family’s treasure trove of paper and photographic memories and start consolidating and organizing. Next rainy day, I think I’ll be sorting through old photos, postcards and diaries. Wonder if Martha Stewart is free?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Groovin' to the Sixties
I was a child of the Sixties. Not a hippy-dippy type, more of a Marlo Thomas/That Girl girl. The decade was a joyful collection of uncomplicated childhood, innocence, and then later, coming-of-age fun with junior and senior high school friends. Those years between first and 10th grade were idyllic, and if a book, movie or television show promises to take me back to that time, I’m in. Always.
Which brings me to my latest infatuation--Mad Men, the Emmy award winning series from AMC that transports us to 1960’s ad agency life at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a place where the alcohol flows well before noon and office-couch trysts are customary. And the women? Well, they’re typing. Unless you’re talking about Peggy Olson, the naïve secretary-turned-copywriter who’s gaining a foothold in this mighty world of ad men.
Mad Men airs Sunday nights and each week I wonder. Was life back then on Madison Avenue really this smoke filled? Was it this boozy? Were affairs this routine?
According to a new book called Mad Women, by Jane Maas, a real Peggy Olson-type back in the day, it was. Mad Men gets lots right, according to Maas. Not everything, mind you, but enough.
Maas, a Bucknell grad, gives us a backstage pass to ad agency life and doesn’t skimp on the details--storyboards, focus groups, television shoots, meetings, multi-martini lunches, nine-hour flights to California---all while wearing suits, heels, white gloves and hats. And she serves up enough proof on the subject of extracurricular sex and sexual harassment to acknowledge that Mad Men producers aren’t exaggerating when they recreate scenes of steamy liaisons over lunch.
If you’re like me and relish the thought of revisiting the 60s and 70s, or want to know more about ad agency life or love Mad Men, Mad Women will be worth your time.
The Push From the Book
Each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:As much as I delighted in this book, it also refreshed my memory about what women back then were up against. For starters, no equal pay for equal work. Maas writes that men even got the better work spaces. Offices with windows for males; cubicles for women. If you had children, there were precious few options for child care, no flex-time to attend school functions, no maternity leave. And speaking of pregnant, when you started to show, many women left--as in forever.
So yes, I love the 60s, but it was far from perfect. Women who wanted and needed to work struggled and cleared a path for the rest of us who entered the workforce decades later. Women are still dancing to do it all, but it’s so much better than our mothers had it. I shouldn’t forget that. Ever.
Which brings me to my latest infatuation--Mad Men, the Emmy award winning series from AMC that transports us to 1960’s ad agency life at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a place where the alcohol flows well before noon and office-couch trysts are customary. And the women? Well, they’re typing. Unless you’re talking about Peggy Olson, the naïve secretary-turned-copywriter who’s gaining a foothold in this mighty world of ad men.
Mad Men airs Sunday nights and each week I wonder. Was life back then on Madison Avenue really this smoke filled? Was it this boozy? Were affairs this routine?
According to a new book called Mad Women, by Jane Maas, a real Peggy Olson-type back in the day, it was. Mad Men gets lots right, according to Maas. Not everything, mind you, but enough.
Maas, a Bucknell grad, gives us a backstage pass to ad agency life and doesn’t skimp on the details--storyboards, focus groups, television shoots, meetings, multi-martini lunches, nine-hour flights to California---all while wearing suits, heels, white gloves and hats. And she serves up enough proof on the subject of extracurricular sex and sexual harassment to acknowledge that Mad Men producers aren’t exaggerating when they recreate scenes of steamy liaisons over lunch.
If you’re like me and relish the thought of revisiting the 60s and 70s, or want to know more about ad agency life or love Mad Men, Mad Women will be worth your time.
The Push From the Book
Each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:As much as I delighted in this book, it also refreshed my memory about what women back then were up against. For starters, no equal pay for equal work. Maas writes that men even got the better work spaces. Offices with windows for males; cubicles for women. If you had children, there were precious few options for child care, no flex-time to attend school functions, no maternity leave. And speaking of pregnant, when you started to show, many women left--as in forever.
So yes, I love the 60s, but it was far from perfect. Women who wanted and needed to work struggled and cleared a path for the rest of us who entered the workforce decades later. Women are still dancing to do it all, but it’s so much better than our mothers had it. I shouldn’t forget that. Ever.
Monday, April 30, 2012
April in Paris
Library bloggers shouldn’t introduce themselves with
confessions of major books and authors they’ve ignored, but in this
case I’ve got to come clean. Me and Hemingway? Not a match made in
heaven. Tried a few times and never clicked. The old adage about too
many books and not enough time kicked in, and I never looked back.
Perhaps that’s why I kept pushing Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife,
historical fiction about Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, to the back
burner. Last year I purchased it for a friend who has a Parisian flair
for living and dressing and even floated the idea to my book club.
Somehow the book never landed in my hands, but I knew one day it would
come to me.
And then in April it arrived---and conquered me
totally. In the midst of this year’s balmy, early Bethel spring, I had
my own April in Paris.
The Paris Wife, first and foremost, is a love
story. Hadley Richardson, a woman in her late 20s who seems destined to
become the Miss Lonely Hearts of St. Louis, meets 21-year old Ernest
Hemingway. Dashing, clever and fresh from his physical and emotional WWI
wounds, the young writer discovers his muse in Hadley and falls in
love. The two marry and begin a life, that for the next five years,
carries them to the glittering arts scene in Paris, bullfights in Spain,
skiing in Austria, picnics in the south of France.
You know that Hadley--the first Mrs. Hemingway--- is just
that. His first wife. And Hemingway had four. Number two shows up in
the last third of the book, and Hadley’s reactions to her and the demise
of her marriage left me unsettled and angry. She deserved so much more,
but rarely asserted herself the way I hoped.
How do any of us handle love when it’s fading or manage
emotions when we want to keep fighting for our first love, our family,
our way of life? It’s a question that you’ll ask yourself as you read.
I loved this book, and I found Hadley to be a woman who
could have been my friend. Sometimes her decisions frustrated me, but at
her core she was kind, smart, accomplished and most accommodating to
Ernest. Had I been there 90 years ago, sipping a café crème along the
Parisian sidewalks, I would have told her to walk away from him sooner.
Read this book, imagine yourself amongst the bistros and
salons with Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and tell me what you would
have said to this Paris wife. I’d like to know.
The Push From the Book
Each book we read leaves its mark and gives
you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new
goals. Here’s what this book did to me:I’m going to try
Hemingway again. “Papa’s” daring behavior in Spain, jumping into the
bullring for a close brush with hooves and horns, for example, and his
circle of friends whom he invited to the bullfights, were the grist for The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s first, and some say best, novel . His memoir of his early days in Paris, The Moveable Feast, is also on my radar. You can be certain that I’ll be thinking of Hadley while I read.
I also believe I need to see Paris. Sooner rather than later.
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