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
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)