Memoirous

The Vaster Wilds Lauren Groff Riverhead Books, September 2023 In the Distance Hernan Diaz Riverhead Books, March 2024 I wanted to slip out a quick review of these titles. My Christmas vacation was spent reading. I think in one week I read four books. It was lovely— You know, with all the snow and cold, hot tea and chocolate, cozy slippers, warm blankets, putting my feet up in my Tiny House. I was blessed. I’ve been a fan of Groff for a while. I love her Florida stories and the novel Matrix , not so much her highly-acclaimed Fates and Furies . In fact, that novel put me off so much, I thought I might not return to her work. But every time I hear of a Florida hurricane (which is frequent) I think about her short story collection, Florida . Also, I think I might have been at the Sewanee Writers Conference in a critique group with her. She looks so familiar in her author pic. It seems that Groff’s interests are varied and far-ranging. All her books are different, coming from, I’m sur...

Also a Poet Ada Calhoun Grove Press, 2022 I’d recently been doing internet research into a quote I love: I’m out on a limb, and it is the arm of God. Frank O’Hara. This quote perfectly expresses how I feel when I begin a bike tour. It’s crazy to think frumpy me on my little bike crossing the country will actually make it. Soooo many things can end such a trip, like getting struck and killed by a car—or killed period by psychopaths, alligators, bears—you see where this road leads, down a hole of NO. It’s why most people don’t go or seek adventure; there are too many things to be afraid of. Out on a limb—check. The hand of God—yes. We are putting ourselves into the hands of destiny, seeing where it leads. Into the hands of a God who loves, who cares, where even I matter. It is an attitude of vulnerability, but also openness. Which describes Frank O’Hara and his attitude toward life. Thus, in my research of the quote, I discovered an article by Ada Calhoun (https://www.nytimes...

 A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies Was a very interesting and heartbreaking book. A simple story really—it’s about life, love, and children—particularly your child and how impossible it is to feel in control. Those of us who are parents are tapping our chest and saying, I feel ya. It is a small book and a quick read—though I guess it took ages to write. In fact the little I’ve gleaned from a topical search online about Peter Ho Davies and a masterclass I had with him via Zoom a couple of months ago through Story Studio  inform me that he is self-deprecating and transparent about feeling guilty about not writing. Funny, I‘ve been doing much the same. Not writing, and feeling bad about it. Not true. I have been writing, not just the stuff I meant to get around to. I’ve been busy with these blog posts or what I like to tell folks: the personal essay. Seinfeld would label it writing about nothing. Ho Davies seemingly writes about nothing. There was n...

For All Who Hunger Emily M.D. Scott Convergent, New York, 2020 In an earlier post I mentioned that we’re being allowed back into the library to browse the stacks. Since I’m unfamiliar with the library, as I moved here during the pandemic and it was closed, I had no idea where to start. Luckily on the first floor is a NEW section. Of course, there was the torrid romances with their covers ALL IN THE SAME COLOR PALETTE. Sheesh! There was also some exciting new non-fiction and then a little tiny section for religion or self-help/improvement. And, since this is Eugene OR, the section included several titles dedicated to goddess and witches/worship. So it was a broad swath of everything. Nestled in here was a title that caught my eye: For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World by Emily M.D. Scott. I liked her back profile picture. Rev. Scott founded what came to be called Dinner Church. Based essentially on congregants sharing a meal together. She began with a small id...

Everything Sad is Untrue Daniel Nayeri Levine Querido, 2020 In Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue, winner of the ALA Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults, takes the reader on a wild ride much like the Tornado at the amusement park or like Scheherazade in 1,001 Nights, spinning yarns/memories in order to save his life. This is not just hyperbole. In the face of trauma, he was unloading, taking heavy burdens off his heart and mind. At the same time he was lightening he was enlightening us, the reader, giving us insight into the life of a refugee. A timely story. Doing research for my book Cloud of Witnesses for the character Hassan I read many first-hand accounts of life in Iran pre and post the Revolution. Nayeri describes his family, homes, and life in a beautiful and complex country. We are given a picture of a home full of the sound of birds and the smell of jasmine—and at the same time an open sewage trench and running from the morality...

Nomadland: a book review Jessica Bruder W.W. Norton & Co., 2017 In one of the opening scenes of the film, Nomadland, we are given a close-up of Fern, yet are unable to “read” her face. There is a slew of emotions to sort through. Intensity, concentration, fear—then the camera backs up and we realize—oh, she’s having a pee—backs up further—beside a lonesome highway. She quickly finishes up and pulls up her pants and jumps into her white van. Upon reading the book, we gain a much BROADER understanding of that close up. It is a woman’s face, someone who has worked and suffered sudden unemployment, who is grieving not only the end of her life but the life of her husband=everything she has ever known. Gone. And now, she is starting out, without a house, her stuff in storage, on a journey, a new life, called vanlife. Living in her van The raw emotion that is unreadable is unknowable. Where does she start, where is she going, where will she end up? So many questions. She is terrified. Out...

The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai Viking, 2018 “We were the great believers. I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved—and who now walk the long stormy summer.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “My Generation” A striking epitaph for Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel, The Great Believers about . . . . Imagine a mysterious virus suddenly besetting a population. The illness itself sets those people apart, publically identifies them. It hits with impunity, across all ethnicities and age groups. At first no one knows how it is spread . . . they have an idea formed from fear and panic, prejudices and assumptions. A mixing of fluids. And, because this population is somewhat small, though no one knows exactly because it can sometimes be hard to tell, and marginalized, the rest of the world carries on. Years later as the outcry grows for treatment, a vaccine, more is done to stop the spread, to ...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Millennials—I know, I know they get a bad rap because they don’t know anything and only pay attention to their phones. Or so it goes. Actually they have lived through the encapsulation of The Great Depression, World War II, and Vietnam. Thus said: a lot of stupid mistakes in American history. All of it foisted upon them. So, yeah, whatever. During the time of Coronavirus I think Office Girl by Joe Meno captures this moment in time. The novel has this indie feel to it of young adults circumnavigating the world. They have dreams, but they don’t seem to fit into current reality. In a wasteland of gentrification and the world falling head-first into shit, this couple has a moment. Check it out—I mean, download it. The Paris Review has an article https://tinyurl.com/y6v5yhej about parents discovering children’s books because they are staying at home reading to their kids. Some of these are older books such as Little Bear by Els...

A cascade of coincidences. Kyle White and Jane Hertenstein, both writers of flash and THE SAME BIRTHDAY. I discovered Kyle’s work, Wisconsin River of Grace, when he was doing a reading at Everybody’s Coffee. I never intended to buy the book, but had to once I opened it and read a snippet (the good thing about flash is you can dive in anywhere and get a taste). Since that 2012/2013 publication he has continued fermenting flash. Bear With Me is a field journal that reads as a contemplative children’s book. In the sense that I could see it being shared with the whole family, the meaning explicit on so many levels. Just like a good Jon Scieszka book—there is something there for the adult and younger folk to hang their hat on. Mostly I enjoyed the pace of Bear With Me : short, pithy haiku-type entries with a unspoken “selah” at the end where one can sit and pause, ruminate over the importance of hibernation, relaxing, listening to your body, nature calling, living in tune with t...

The Lifters Dave Eggers, Alfred A. Knopf, 2018 Is magic enough to fix the morass of Middle America? Are Earth balls enough to stop the collapse of a small town? How can two middle schoolers stop the madness of grownups tearing their community apart? These are questions divergently addressed in The Lifters by Dave Eggers. A young Gran moves to Carousel, which despite its “fun” name, is a place of desperation, depression, and insurmountable sadness. Carousel is in the midst of an economic downturn as is Gran’s family. Both had seen better times. Thus, the town is suspicious of new comers—hear any political echoes here? Gran and his newfound friend Catalina attempt to prop up the town. This means taking risks, free-falling down deep, dark holes. There are parts of the book where I seriously had to ask myself—why are these kids working so hard and there isn’t a lot of chemistry between the protagonists. Do they even like each other? But it’s cool to think teenagers ar...

Weaving fiction and historical events together, this book made me laugh and cry. The characters jump off the page. A great read for all middle school students. — Marilee Amodt, M.S.Ed., long-time Middle School Curriculum Resource Teacher Cloud of Witnesses hooks the reader with well-developed, interesting characters and snappy dialogue. The story features issues faced by many middle schoolers—coming of age, friendship, loyalties to family and classmates--but is set in the backwoods of Appalachia. This is an important fish-out-of-water story about empathy and the dangers of painting everyone in similar circumstances with the same brush. — Marlene Targ Brill, author of Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Women Who Demanded Justice In this present era of unusual cruelty and persecution of others in America, Cloud of Witnesses provides a gentle reminder of what it is to wonder, to love, to experience suffering and loss, and how letting go is also a bridge to joy. Cloud of Witn...

Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead I didn’t know much about this book—except the title and the author. And, let me tell you, right now, read it. I’ve been telling people about this book, and the affect is reflective of the culture prevalent after this election. Bi-polar. People either love the book or don’t. You either get it or don’t. You either voted for Trump or you didn’t. The scary part is walking around in a world where you just aren’t sure. “The weirdness of being black in a white space” cartoon Atlanta artist Cory Thomas illustrates the strange new reality of everyday life after Trump’s victory. There is an underground railroad depicted in the book that is both highly representative historically but also figuratively. By following the main character Cora we are invited along the way to visit several dark (and I mean DARK) periods of African-American history in America. It doesn’t get better. If you are looking for an uplifting read, this migh...

Another Brooklyn , Jacqueline Woods A couple of weeks ago I went to hear Jacqueline Woods read from Brown Girl Dreaming and Another Brooklyn at Women & ChildrenFirst Bookstore . What a refreshing evening—saw some old friends from AROHO. Brown Girl Dreaming is straight up memoir. It won National Book Award for Young People's Literature in non-fiction. Another Brooklyn is another story. A lot of good fiction reads like autobiography. And, certainly, there is little division between the two. Our lives inform our stories, and visa versa. Yet, any reader of Brown Girl Dreaming will see resounding strains in Another Brooklyn . Certainly Woodson’s love for her adopted hometown. Also something else—nostalgia. Many of us look back with different glasses on our past, but in NYC and Brooklyn the neighborhoods are dramatically changing. Readers of this blog will know from my posts that I’m no fan of gentrification. Yet there is no stopping these population shifts. ...

My Name is Lucy Barton , Elizabeth Strout My Name is Lucy Barton was something I picked on a whim off the library shelf. I have not read her other works, namely Olive Kitteridge , which won the Pulitzer prize. The story is set up almost as vignettes that bounce back and forth between the past, the “present”, and then the “present” turns into past reflection. It is a book about memories—and possibly mistakes. I say possibly as I don’t want to rob it of broader themes. A daughter, bedridden in a hospital with an unknown ailment, becomes the basis for her mother’s unexpected arrival. And, for 5 days the mother sits vigil and the two begin to revisit the past. A complicated one, but nothing out of the ordinary. There is no GREAT revelation; this is no The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls). We have here in a fairly slim volume, the story of a family making ends meet in rural Illinois. We also have the story of the families around this family, the surrounding community. It is a b...

No Baggage A Minimalist Tale of Love & Wandering Clara Benson 2016, Running Press So girl meets guy, guy meets girl and together they decide they are going to travel to 11 countries in 3 weeks WITH NO LUGGAGE. Of course this book is really all about the baggage they lug around, the stuff inside of them. Both have pasts that are not easily left behind. First off: who meets on OKCupid and stays together for 3 seconds let alone 3 weeks without a change of clothes????? I loved this story and Googled and found out there is a film project around it, so can’t wait for that. Clara meets Jeff, an professor of environmental science with a wild streak. Clara is a naïve but open-hearted young adult trying to navigate the world post bachelor’s degree. She loves poetry and soup. He experiments with alternate lifestyles, such as living in a Dumpster for a year. The idea that these two will embark on an overseas trip with nothing sounds crazy, exciting, and im...

Just the Thing (review) Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951 – 1991 It’s hard to get into a book of letters. I started and then began to skip around—then it hit me: Oh, this is when Frank died, or Jimmy went on vacation with the Koch’s in August, or he just won a Pulitzer for Morning of the Poem, and then the letters began to take on some context. I began to use the dates and places and reference them to a New York School of Poets timeline—wish the editor had done a little of this for us. Nevertheless, it is rich, rich and brimming with names and nuances. You really begin to see the amount of collaboration that went on in this fairly broad group of friends. Imagine if you were able to approach your genre, let’s say poetry, through the eyes of a painter—or your sculptor friend gives you feedback. The cross-pollination between dance, fashion, music, writers of all genres is incredible and RICH. These people wrote together, slept together, drank, summered, and gossiped ...

Frank O’Hara, Poet Among Painters, Marjorie Perloff 1998, University of Chicago Press, with a new introduction O’Hara was about intense friendships. Actually he was about many things: art, dance, classical music, travel, gay theater, movies. He was about the exclamation point. It is the singular fingerprint of his work. How many of us grew up, in school being told the exclamation point was to be used rarely, in instances of the extreme. Indeed, I once sneaked a peek (okay, I was spying)at a roommate’s diary, a girl I didn’t like and liked even less when I saw the page covered in exclamation points. She was as shallow as I suspected, is what I told myself. The (exclamation) point is she probably was, exclamation points aside. So I planned to be careful, judicious, barely rising above a whisper. Early Jane Hertenstein work does not display an ounce of exuberance. Then I discovered Frank O’Hara, and the fun began. I could be playful, fey, charming, bantering a...