Books for Readers Newsletter # 101

Between traveling, plunging into a lot of writing by students in my classes, and trying to do at least a little of my own writing, my reading has been haphazard at best this fall. Still, sometimes that’s the most fun. One thing I picked up over the summer and only got to a couple of weeks ago was MY BRILLIANT CAREER by the Australian feminist, Miles Franklin. She published this in 1901, having written it when she was just sixteen or seventeen. It is wonderfully scattered and mercurial: sensually alive, changeable, and enthusiastically despairing. I kept wanting to give her a big hug. The character is endlessly saying outrageous things, stumbling when she doesn’t have to, getting in scrapes, refusing to take what is offered to her. I also was fascinated by the inside look at rural 19th century Australia: lots of practical jokes and casual racism. I recently read Jared Diamond’s COLLAPSE, which includes a section on the misuse of the thin Australian soil by the settlers, and the lives of the farmers and itinerant workers here sheds light on that. All this, of course, ignores the people who were there first. It’s a worthy little book, and in spite of all the Sybylla’s troubles, full of energy.

I also pulled an American classic of my shelf, after hearing it discussed in a taped lecture on literature and the law (from The Teaching Company ). Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER is a vivid tale, and Hawthorne was a quintessential teller, not a shower. That is to say, for all the drama in the novel, much of it is narrated like a fairy tale. The relationship of Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale is told in evocative prose that never quite demonstrates how the revenge-seeking Chillingworth actually works his way into Dimmesdale’s heart. It is made very clear that Chillingworth is making his enemy ill, but you never see it happening directly. Little Pearl, on the other hand– the fruit of the Adultery that Hester Prynne wears symbolized on her dress– has her actions and words dramatized thoroughly and well: she is an interesting little character, treated with some sentimentality but also with an astringent other-worldliness. The indirection often works brilliantly, too: it is never exactly said what Arthur has been doing to his “breast.” The horror is left to our imagination– although we have a pretty definite idea that it’s some kind of capital “A” in blood. I was gripped by the story, and this time I understood how Hester actually becomes a mature and constructive woman out of all this, while Arthur’s pride in his place and skills dooms him. You have to wonder, though, whoever thought this is a book that ought to be taught in American high schools.

Then I read THE UNTOUCHABLE by John Banville. Banville has that enviable British conviction that words and fiction still matter deeply. Pat Barker and Sarah Water, whose work I also like a lot, have the same assumption– that the novel is the best lens for getting a clear understanding of the world. I believe it too, but I’m not sure most American readers and writers do: we people being artists, and we have lots of members of the cult of originality. We certainly have great literary entertainers, and we have people with raw and gripping stories to tell. But Banville offers the complete experience, lots of scenes, lots of words, lots of action, and lots of rumination. Victor Maskell is part of the Oxbridge spy rings of the twentieth century, and however factual it is, it feels very real. The secret gay sex stuff is well done and since I believe Banville is a hetero himself, the depiction of the illicit illegal upper class British homo-sex is something of a tour de force. Some of my favorite characters were the ones with a touch of mystery about them like Victor’s wife Vivienne and the “handlers” from Russia and Europe. I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.

Finally, a novel that just blew me away with its poignancy. I liked Kaszuo Ishiguro’s REMAINS OF THE DAY, but this one, NEVER LET ME GO, the one set in an alternative world where clones are raised for organ donations, is one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. You keep wanting to say to the characters, Leave! Run away! Rebel! But they accept who they are with the same complete belief that we have about knowing we will die someday. You could say that it’s different, we really do have to die, but the point is that these young people think it is also a fact that their time will come for their “donations,” and that too is a fact. I suppose this is what makes it all so sad– we may not have been raised to be body parts, but we won’t get out of this alive either. The science fiction part isn’t worked out in any great detail (who finances their lives as young adults, who runs things and sends them their “donation” notices, how they are cared for as infants). Probably the weakest part of the whole novel– maybe the only weak part– is also the most explicit part, which is when one of the people who ran the school for the children, Miss Emily, makes a speech from her wheelchair about her motivations in running their school. I guess I would have been disappointed if there hadn’t been even this partial explanation, but it feels alien and unlike the rest of the book. Maybe that’s the point? To make the protagonists finally know there is nothing outside for them? Anyhow, a wonderful book.

–Meredith Sue Willis



P.S. Scarlet Letter image is of the 1926 film directed by Victor Sjöström with Lillian Gish as Hester Prynne





CONGRATULATIONS TO US

Carol Brodtrick writes to say, “Penning 100 newsletters merits a good bit of admiration and respect, plus, your newsletters have given this reader/writer a trunkful of book suggestions I might never have uncovered. I look forward to newsletter #101, and hope you reach #200 and beyond. Congratulations, and thanks.”

Cat Pleska writes: “Congratulations to you on your one hundreth newsletter! I enjoy reading it and thank you for providing interesting topics and inviting us to discuss. I must get back to updating my blog--it's been a busy, busy summer. I did hear today from someone in Austrailia writing to say he enjoyed my blog on Loretta Lynn's home place (http://www.rednecromancer.typepad.com/mouth_of_the_holler/). He says that where he lives in Victoria is very similar to Appalachia. He loves all things bluegrass and has been to eastern KY twice. It's always fun hearing from people about something you've written about. I can imagine that has been quite satisfying to you to correspond with your readers through your newsletter. Keep up the good work. I'll keep tuning in!”


MORE ON THE POISONWOOD BIBLE

Norman Julain writes to say, “I read THE POISONWOOD BIBLE a couple of years ago and that established [Kingsolver] at the forefront of American novelists I like. Wondering, has she published anything since? I feel she may be hard at work on another good one - at least I hope so.”

Fran Osten suggests, “A good companion piece to POISONWOOD BIBLE is KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST, by Adam Hochschild, which came out about the same time as POISONWOOD BIBLE and is a non-fiction horror tale of events in the Congo. On another note, or perhaps a segue on the issues of cultural misunderstanding/understanding. I have been seeking out books on the immigrant experience recently, with all the issues around our current immigration policy and thinking about my own parents and the experience of my Kenyan son-in-law......the nuances, the misunderstandings, all the losses and gains in the immigration experience and the struggle to make a place your own. I really enjoyed Wayson Choy's novel, ALL THAT MATTERS, about a Chinese family in Vancouver in the 1930's and 40's. It is a sequel to THE JADE PEONY, which I still want to read.”


MORE RECOMMENDATIONS

“Looking for a memoir about teaching to teach this semester,” writes Ingrid Hughes, “I came across TEACHER: THE ONE WHO MADE THE DIFFERENCE, a high school memoir by Mark Edmundson, a scholar with a reputation for literary and cultural criticism. It’s a terrific description of the people in his life, and the culture of his high school during his senior year in the working class suburb of Boston, Medford in 1969. It focuses especially on one teacher, Franklin Lears, whom he credits with turning him from a jock, a thoughtless supporter of the Vietnam War, and a weak student at a weak school, into a reader and thinker. The writing is good, the characters memorable.”

From Carol Brodtrick: “I want to tell you about a book I just found at the library and loved reading. It's called LAST DAYS OF SUMMER, written by Steve Kluger. It was first published in 1998, and if it made a splash when it came out, I was unaware of it. The 1940's story is that of twelve-year old Joseph Charles Margolis, the only Jewish kid living in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, whose bedroom overlooks Ebbets Field, home of the hated Brooklyn Dodgers. Yes, it's about baseball, and Joey's love for the NY Giants, but it's not about a game. It's about relationships; a father who divorced his family, a gentile third baseman who learns to love this kid in spite of himself, a mother, an aunt, a teacher and a principal who care, a Rabbi who bends, an interested psychologist, and even FDR, President of the United States. This book is for adults, and is that rare mixture of humor, pathos, and contradictions of human nature that has you laughing one second and crying the next. It's a bit of history, too, about the war years, and a delightful read.”


FOR WRITERS

John Birch recommends a book for writers. He says, “Sol Stein, author of nine novels, publisher, teacher and editor (he’s edited the work of James Baldwin, Jack Higgins, Lionel Trilling, W.H.Auden and Dylan Tomas), knows more than a thing or two about writing fiction. His 320-page book STEIN ON WRITING (ISBN 0312136080) has invaluable advice on every aspect of writing a novel.”

GOOD NEWS

The NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW gave a good review to West Virginia novelist Ann Pancake’s BURIED ALIVE.

Grace Paley’s Glad Day Books is reissuing EDGES: O ISRAEL O PALESTINE by Leora Skolkin-Smith. After selling out of two successive print runs, Leora Skolkin-Smith’s intoxicating novel about a young girl’s personal and political discovery in 1960’s Israel and Palestine is being re-released in a new edition by Glad Day Books. This new incarnation will include the author’s afterword and dedication to her mentor, Publisher and Editor of Glad Day Books, Grace Paley.

(Image to the left is of Grace Paley)

NEBRASKA PRESENCE, a new anthology from The Backwaters Press, is now out, and Marilyn Coffey is one of dozens of poets included.

Nathan Leslie's sixth book of short fiction, MADRE, has just been published by Main Street Rag Books. Visit Main Street Rag for more information on this collection.

Bob Heman reports that some of his "information" series of prose poems just went up on the site of a new e-mag called Clockwise Cat - if you follow the link below you can find them at:
http://clockwisecat.blogspot.com/2007/09/five-poems-by-bob-heman.html
Also recently, a group of 20 information pieces titled "Recent Information" was published as a special issue of Joel Dailey's long running New Orleans magazine FELL SWOOP

Theodore Rutkowski has a new prose poetry chapbook from BoneWorld Publishing, 3700 County Route 24, Russell, NY 13684. $6.

READ IT ONLINE

There is an interesting Interview with Gail Adams at http://www.prickofthespindle.com/interviews/interview.htm.

The latest issue of the Pedestal # 42 is up at http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/

Thaddeus Rutkowski has a whole string of new work to read online: "Bird's Eye," poem, Mobius, Vol. XXII, 2007 at www.mobiuspoetry.com ; "Captivity," story, Summerset Review. www.summersetreview.org/07fall/toc.htm ; "Hell-Bent," story, Arlington Literary Journal, No. 14. www.givalpress.com. Click on "Authors" or scroll to "Gival Press Authors" or "Arlington Literary Journal." ; "Nuts," story, Houston Literary Review at http://thehoustonliteraryreview.com/fall2007fiction.aspx ; "Bad Magic," "Serenity Prayer," prose poems, New York Spirit, Oct./Nov. issue www.nyspirit.com Click on "Illuminated Ink."


SUBMIT

Send one or two unpublished poems celebrating William Carlos Williams and North Jersey, no longer than two manuscript pages, to Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Executive Director, Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College, One College Boulevard, Paterson, New Jersey 07505-1179 or see www.pccc.edu/poetry Poems should have something to do with North Jersey and be written in the poets own style and not imitate the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Send two copies of each poem, one with and one without contact information. DEADLINE January 1, 2008. Include short third-person bio.


ONLINE GROUPS AND CLASSES

Do you want a poetry workshop without leaving home? Try try Neopoet! at www.neopoet.com, an online poetry workshop and community where you can meet poets from around the world, share critiques, and improve as a poet. Neopoet hosts a monthly newsletter, frequent contests, and an active forum.

Meredith Sue Willis will be offering an online writing class in January 2008, four sessions on Prose Narrative. For information, go to http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/ProseNarrativeJan2008.html


REAL TIME REAL PLACE NON-VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

"Finishing Touches" will begin on Monday evening, Nov. 5, at the Writer's Voice of the West Side YMCA. The course will encourage writers of fiction and creative nonfiction to complete works in progress. Substantial class time will be provided for individual critiques. Eight meetings. Open to all. Almost free for YMCA members. Contact Glenn Raucher at 212 875-4124, or graucher@ymcanyc.org.

UPCOMING READINGS

Bob Heman’s next CLWN WR reading will be Thursday, November 8, 7-10 pm, once again at the SAFE-T Gallery in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, featuring John M. Bennett (from Columbus, Ohio), Craig Czury (from Reading, Pennsylvania), and Brooklyn's own Elizabeth Smith - along with "special guests" Sheila E. Murphy (from Phoenix, Arizona), Jean Lehrman, Nathan Whiting, Liza Wolsky and a few others yet to be announced - so mark it on your calendar.

Thaddeus Rutkowski will be reading November 9, Friday, 7 p.m., Memoir Reading, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, 980 Briarcliff Road N.E., Atlanta, Info: jakers1@mindspring.com ; November 17, Saturday, 8 p.m. Berlin Poetry Hearings. Salon Rosa, Sophienstrasse 18, Berlin-Mitte, Germany. www.myspace.com/poetryhearings ; November 28, Wednesday, evening. Green Pavilion Restaurant, 4307 18th Ave., Brooklyn (F train to 18th Avenue); December 10, Monday, 7 p.m.; his story "Before the Move" will be read by an actor in Writing Aloud. InterAct Theater, 2030 Sansom St., Philadelphia. www.interacttheatre.org; January 4, 2008, Friday, 9:30-11:30 p.m.; Panel discussion: "Polish American Writing: From Polish Tradition to the American Identity." Polish American Historical Association, Washington, D.C.

JUST OUT

Fall 2007 issue of theBLRnow available in bookstores, by subscription,
or at www.BLReview.org . It is published by NYU's Department of Medicine twice a
year.

Phyllis Moore draws our attention to SURREAL SOUTH, twenty-seven stories and poems edited by Laura & Pinckney Benedict. It contains work by, among many others, Ann Pancake, Chris Offutt, Joyce Carol Oates, Laura Benedict, Lee K. Abbott, Robert Olen Butler, and Ron Rash.


THE NOTE ABOUT AMAZON.COM

Ingrid Hughes writes: “My union newspaper says, ‘Forget Amazon.com, which has engaged in union busting on two continents. Try Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com)- the largest unionized bookstore in America....An alternative way to reach their site is from http://www.powellsunion.com; prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go directly to the [Powell’s bookstore] union's benefit fund.’” But also see Jonathan Greene’s comments above and more of the discussion in Issue #98 and #97.


WHERE TO FIND BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER

If a book discussed in this newsletter has no source mentioned, don’t forget your public library and your local independent bookstore. To buy books online, I often go first to Bookfinder at http://www.bookfinder.com . I also like Alibis at http://www.alibris.com. A lot of people I know prefer to use the unionized bricks-and-mortar and online bookstore Powells Books at http://powellsbooks.com. Good sources for used and out-of-print books are Advanced Book Exchange at http://www.abebooks.com and All Book Stores at http://www.allbookstores.com/ . Both Bookfinder and All Book Stores both have a special feature that tells you the book price WITH shipping and handling, so you can compare what you’re really going to have to pay.

RESPONSES

Please send responses and suggestions directly to me. Unless you request otherwise, your responses may be edited and published in this newsletter. Please e-mail Meredith Sue Willis at MeredithSueWillis@gmail.com.


BOOKS FOR READERS is a free, independent newsletter written and produced by Meredith
Sue Willis. To subscribe, send a blank email to Readerbooks-subscribe@topica.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Readerbooks-unsubscribe@topica.com. Copyright 2007, Meredith Sue Willis

Now November

Tomorrow is my late father's birthday: we use his name for a password on my mother's email, and I sometimes type it in in order to see what's going on with her email (it's my way of finding out if she's off line again). It always feels like keeping him alive-- to type his name. A death of someone who you don't live with doesn't leave the same hole in you life as someone you do live with. There are a lot of people in my life who I don't see regularly or even very often, and they come and go in my imagination. So suddenly, when I type his name or note that it's his birthday coming up, he's there in a different way--as if he were still sitting in his recliner in Shinnston reading and watching t.v. And yet know there is no change, nothing to do with that image but hold it: his absence means there can be no new memories. New imaginings, new information, but no new memories.

I went Friday night into New York and met George and Connie Brosi and their son Eagle who has a play called America Perseveres off off Broadway through a New York/Kentucky exchange. It turned out that the theater is underneath the famous funky KGBG bar! We met at the venerable (but somewhat remodeled) Strand bookstore (George and Connie run a major Appalachian book business-- travel all over with their books), had a bite a Veselka, and then went to the play, which was about George and Martha Washington and Chief Pontiac and the Original American sin of violence and racism. Which does not capture how funny the play was. That was a treat-- to see friends, to see Eagle's play.

What I've been doing...

I've not been very good about writing in my blog/journal this month. We were in San Francisco, then catching up, then there has been major teaching! And Coalition events! And the social action committee is giving the platform at Ethical Culture!

I'm teaching Beginning Your Novels on Mondays at the Norman Thomas High school on East 33rd Street, part of NYU's extended empire, then Advanced Novel at the big library on WAshington Square on Mondays. I'm also working on scheduling school visits starting in January. I'm out at Playwright's Theatre teaching an adult Prose Narrative class on Thursdays, and most Thursdays either have Writers Group in New York in the evening or the Coalition's monthly Trustee meeting. Many nights there are executive committee meetings or other events (this Tuesday we have a Parent Advocacy Workshop). I'm not going to the demonstration in the city tomorrow because I have to prepare my part in a panel on health care issues and the presidential candidates on Sunday. Meanwhile, my garden needs fall cleanup and is still producing greens, and I've got a one day class next week end called Jump Start your novel plus a fancy celebration Saturday night for the Coalition-- and on Friday, Eagle Brosi's play.

I shouldn't have started listing. It makes me tired, and yet I'm having fun, and working on Safe Houses most mornings. I've chosen almost all of these things I do.

Bird Behind

Earlier today Andy was about to go out on a bike ride, and he was all dressed in his biking clothes with a helmet and a fanny pack (the little waist pack you strap on and slide around behind you). We were in the kitchen and Taxicab was at liberty. I suddenly realized I couldn't see the bird anywhere, and Andy couldn't either. We heard him-- it sounded like he was out in the hall or maybe had fallen behind the microwave-- but he didn't sound alarmed, just chirping cheerfully. It was totally weird--we looked behind the cookbooks and on the floor, and finally Andy turned toward the cabinets-- and I saw the bird.

He was on Andy's fanny pack happily singing to the zipper and kissing it. We laughed a long time about that.

Shaggy Trees

MSW in the Pacific

Back in shaggy-treed New Jersey, which is what I’m mostly noticing when I'm out: the untidy ground and street, the variety of trees, dense down very low. Of course we were in a city in California, so there was generally more pavement than vegetation, but even out in the country, there was less grass, and the trees mostly evergreen. The shaggy here comes from deciduousness, too, and while we are still mostly green, leaves are beginning to drift down, brown and yellow and burnt oranges, a slight crunchiness underfoot.

Back to putting up lawn signs for the Coalition’s Report to the Community. Back to getting the DSL back online, which took a long time and a lot of crawling under the table while talking to some lady in India.

Some pictures of us in San Francisco on the snapshot page.

Last Day in San Francisco

We’re still in the hotel room, but will pack and leave soon– Golden Gate park in the plans today, checked out, plane tonight. Yesterday Andy and I walked up up up to the Cable Car Museum and then up up some really steep hills to Coit Tower, which I liked for the Depression era works administration socialist realism murals– quite good ones, really, and the woman who gave the money for the tower had been a little girl in 1906 and cheered the fire fighters and was named their mascot.

From there, with the usual wash of brilliant light and lovely if slightly smoggy views, we took a bus down to Fisherman’s Wharf, which was super touristy with people selling tours and boats coming in and out and long lines for the ladies’ room. But we got Boudin sourdought bread bowls of good chowder, clam for Andy, crab and corn fo me, and then went to the submarine you can visit. I was only going along for Andy, but it was actually a very worthwhile even moving half hour– the audio tour had voices of guys who had been on this ship or others, old world war II American guy voices, those slightly thin Midwestern to movie tough guy from the west or Brooklyn voices, touching, especially the story of how they rescued a lot of British and Australian prisoners of war floating in the ocean after they had blown up the Japanese ship the prisoners were being transported on. As for the gray paint and compressed quarters– a claustrophobe’s nightmare. I kept imagining I smelled the eighty plus men with rare showers and too much heat with too little air.

From there, we made our way very slowly by cable car and muni subway over to Joel’s office on Mission and First Street, saw the office, which I had pictured, seven or eight guys with big computers, but also a “machine room” full of enormous computing power and air conditioners, and then a whole other office suite where they play “fish pong,” their own team sport based on ping pong, competitiveness, and group esprit..

Back to the hotel for a swim (me) and a shower, Joel joined us, we joined Sarah on the BART for a ride to La Taqueria in the Mission District, followed by a lot more walking in that rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, tons of restaurants and bars, more attractive bookstores, one with wonderful pages taped to the window of Memorials of people in the arts and politics by an artist that I really liked (see her page at http://www.veronicadejesus.com) . Many murals, which I liked a lot, especially on the Women Building that Sarah took us to. The next time I come out, I’m going to get a mural tour of the city, or maybe just the one a nonprofit called Pacita Eyes (?) gives of local Mission District stuff. Then back to the hotel, exhausted and sad again over Joel growing up and leaving. He’s a great host, but he doesn’t live with us anymore.

And now we've got a lot day ahead with a visit to Golden Gate park, museum, airplane.

San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge after we'd biked over-- photo by Andy Weinberger

October 7, 2007

It's Andy's birthday and we're in San Francisco visiting with Joel and Sarah. They are being just super with giving us time and attention. If anything, Joel seems disappointed when we want to take a break-- right now it's five thirty p.m. here, and we went out this morning and rented bikes and biked along the Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge which we biked over! A perfectly doable bike ride, not really challenging enough for Joel and Andy, but I had a great time, got tired, was stunned by the beauty of the bay, the sailboats, the birds. The bridge itself is such a familiar image that I was struck, as we rode along the bay, by how in the near distance was a flat grassy field, part of the park, and then on the other side the red hills with gray greenscrub--as if at that moment the bridge had nothing to do with water at all. We also had cable car adventures and lunch in Sausalito, ferry back to San Francisco-- and it was Fleet Week! The crazy Blue Devils or is it Angels doing tricks in the sky making us cover our ears while we rode the ferry, waited for the cable car.

Yesterday it was Mission Dolores, South Bay! Pacific Ocean! I waded in the ocean with some squealing little girls in bathing suits at a big golf resort with fancy condos where they permit the public access to the beach by law no doubt not the kindness of the capitalist heart. I loved the Mission, began to read a little about strange California History. Sarah and Joel so loving and fine.

Coalition Work

Well, it didn't feel like fighting racism. Andy drove me around South Orange and Maplewood after we went to Jersey City to the accountant to do our taxes, and I dropped flyers at the elementary schools to publicize a schools committee workshop on Parent Advocacy. I like doing it, pretty well, the survey of the schools, how they smell, the kids looking cute for the most part, the sense of how each of them is a bustling little world of its own, but it feels like being a PTA parent more than a political struggle. I know the connection of course, that we're working to empower parents, narrow the achievement gap, and thus make integration work and in the long run destroy racism-- but golly making flyers and distributing them feels far away.

What would feel more like it to me? Direct action, of course, marching,yelling. Singing is good.

But for ten years my largest single political action has been through the Coalition, and it works for me in a lot of ways-- I've made friends, I've had to deal with people in a different way, and people I would never have dealt with probably otherwise, but it isn't always easy to keep the long view--

September 25, 2007

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the first day the Little Rock teenagers actually got to stay in their high school--with U.S. troops protecing them. Here's an interesting reflection on the anniversary from commentator Juan Williams.

One Hundredth Newsletter!

This Newsletter is Number 100! My first one was written in December, 2000, and I still do them for essentially the same reasons I stated then: http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/bfrarchive1-5.html#1 . What has been an unexpected pleasure has been the response and contributions of the readers who have consistently contributed suggestions and even done whole guest columns– keep them coming!
And please do spread the word and invite friends to subscribe. I cannot, by the way, subscribe people; they have to ask for the newsletter. This is easy to do: just send a blank email to Readerbooks-subscribe@topica.com.

I want to recommend several books I’ve enjoyed in different ways over the just-ended summer. First is a brand new novel by Pamela Erens called THE UNDERSTORY. This is a finely written, rich short novel, about a man named Jack who is one of the quiet people moving around the streets of New York City– part of the “understory” of plants that grow under a great forest’s canopy. An obsessive compulsive, he has an upper west side brownstone apartment that is being rehabbed, which upsets all his routines. He is finally forced out of the apartment– he wasn’t there quite legally in the first place, but how he is made to leave is hardly legal either: there are fires, and the last one destroys all his possessions. Simultaneously, Jack’s carefully organized life is being disrupted by falling in love.

The loss of home and his love story alternate with the present story in which he is living in a monastery in New England, earning his way by working with bonsai. Previously, his special interest had been Central Park’s plant life, especially the saplings and weeds in the understory that gives a measure of the health of the woodland. The two time frames move forward in a nice tangle until an act of violence brings everything together at the end.

For me, the great value of this novel is Jack’s self awareness as he falls in love and falls apart– and how both things cause him pain. He, of course, is an important part of the understory of the city and society, and his distress is an indicator of the state of society’s health. As such people and plants lose their tenuous hold on their place, the world loses richness, and, in the end, the less marginal people are endangered as well. It’s an interior, precise, and carefully imagined novel that makes a powerful social statement in an oblique but focused way.

THE UNDERSTORY is not going to appear in a large stack near the cash registers at your local Barnes & Noble, so you'll have to look for it. In Barnes & Noble’s defense, I am confident that they would accept the thousands of dollars it would cost to have the book featured that way, but the only publishers with that kind of disposable income are part of the big commercial conglomerates betting on what is going to be a best seller. So make the effort to get hold of THE UNDERSTORY and other books like it– and share with us more such books at Books for Readers.

By the way, I want to report that I did read a best seller over the summer– one that I think actually deserves the accolades and income it generated-- Barbara Kingsolver’s THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. I really liked this novel, which isn’t perfect, although I don’t think big ambitious books are ever perfect. The last third in particular, in which the characters grow up and grow older, has a lot of weaknesses. It could have been shorter, and although it was gratifying to learn what happened to everyone, the various narratives are flaccid in comparison to the first two thirds. And those first two thirds are really splendid, powered by wonderful voices and interesting children and an incredibly gripping plot question: Which child is going to die? The mother says early in the novel that she left one child buried in Africa, and since we meet four daughters, we are caught up in the suspense of who will live and who will die.

Then, after we know that, and after the powerful action of escaping from the crazy missionary Father, the rest really is dénouement, unraveling the knots– important and gratifying, but probably best accomplished swiftly.

Among the delights of this novel– aside from the obvious ones of the suspense, the voices of the girls, and the thick specificity of life in the Congo in the early nineteen-sixties– are Leah and Anatole’s love story, and a skillfully inserted modicum of the history of Congo/Zaire. I also liked the dumb blonde sister (although her malapropisms are laid on too thick in the early part) who turns out to have in some ways the most interesting life. The final chapter told in the voice of the dead sister is artful and satisfying as an ending.

What puts this over the top for me as a truly successful book is that it is in the end a political novel. Yes, it teaches you a little about Patrice Lumumba, and it has a distinct ground level view of colonialism, but it has the novelistic political quality of allowing some of its characters to effect at least small amounts of change not only in themselves but in their environment.

I read on Kingsolver’s webpage in her FAQ’s that she actually did spend a year in the Congo when she was seven or eight (her parents were NOT missionaries, she hastens to assert). She also did ten years worth of research for this book. The finish of her writing shows it. When I wrote an essay on Kingsolver’s work for Appalachian Journal back in 1994, I said, “Some of the work seems to me to have been written too rapidly....Whether her work is at its most highly polished or relatively rough, however, she is consistently worth reading for her breadth of perspective and generosity of spirit....” THE POISONWOOD BIBLE is polished in all the good ways, and it carries some of the same themes I wrote about then: the creation of community, mother and child love, how people on the ground, as it were, react to, live with, live under, struggle against, oppression. I deeply admire Kingsolver’s commitment to literature that is socially engaged, and this is one book whose popularity is well deserved.

Okay, I read another best seller this summer: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. The first really hefty volume of the series, it moved just as fast as the others. It has the usual Enormous Confrontation with Evil at the end-- and even though Voldemorte resurrected seems to me less awe-inspiring that Voldemorte Almost Dead, it’s still a good read. I especially appreciate how the books get more complex and darker, as Harry and company get older. The appeal of Voldemorte to his followers, however, totally escapes me. Didn’t the wizards ever read about Muggles fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler?

Finally, I want to mention two books I read out of indulgence in my own interests, and I would certainly recommend them if the subjects interest you: Chrisopher White’s REMBRANDT, part of the Thames & Hudson World of Art series gave me a good overview of Why Everyone Talks about Rembrandt.

I picked up ANCIENT GREEKS FROM PREHISTORIC TO HELLENISTIC TIMES by Thomas R. Martin because the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has totally redone their Greek and Roman galleries, and I started to walk through, and realized I hadn’t the faintest notion of the differences among Archaic Greece and Mycenaean Greece and Ancient Crete. This book, excluding notes and bibliography, is just over 200 pages, and did exactly what I wanted: gave me a survey and will sit on my shelf for reference. I may even carry it to the museum with me the next time I go.

What have you been reading?

–Meredith Sue Willis

BARBARA RASMUSSEN IS READING..

Barbara Rasmussen writes to say, “I’ve just finished WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, and ELLA MINNOW PEA, which are just delightful flights of fictive fantasy. Who doesn’t want to work in the circus? Or live in an imaginary land where the dictator declares war on alphabet letters – respectively.”

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: RITA SIMS QUILLEN”S LATEST BOOK OF POETRY

Michael McFee says the book is “heartbreaking but also witty, feisty, sassy.” I say it is all that and really worth your time and money. It’s Rita Sims Quillen’s latest, HER SECRET DREAM. I sometimes have trouble finishing entire volumes of poetry– I hear a poet or am attracted to a poem, get the book, read a few, and then put the volume on my beside table stack. But this one I kept on reading. Some of it is imagined lives of Appalachian farm women, some of it is from Quillen’s own childhood, some of it is about trying to be a poet and a mother. The following is the beginning section of “Woman Writer:”

Spending the days attending to bodily functions
Our own and everyone else’s
Gives us a handicap.
Words crawl into the laundry basket
Hide among the socks
Circle and scream in the toilet
Hang in the closet and beg
For freedom.
While my son warms in my arms
A line that could make me famous
Leaps up in my face
Spits and leaves by the back door....

JUST OUT!

A WORKING MAN”S APOCRYPHA, short stories by William Luvaas has just been published. Luvaas’s work has power that comes from the rigor of incisive images and a serious journey through human minds and hearts.

Of Tamara Baxter’s ROCK BIG AND SING LOUD: SHORT STORIES FROM SOUTHERN APPALACHIA, Robert Morgan says: “These stories take us to places we did not expect to go, and just when we think we have seen what is strangest, most absurd, most alien and outrageous, we recognize something of ourselves.”

AGAINST WORKSHOPPING

Caol Bly has an interesting book out especially for writers and teachers of writing. It’s called AGAINST WORKSHOPPING, and you can find it at Bly and Loveland Press's site.

MORE GOOD NEWS

Suzanne McConnell has an excellent piece in the Hunter CUNY ENGLISH COMMUNITY PLACE http://fm.hunter.cuny.edu/english_dept/?p=28 on her memories of studying with the late Kurt Vonnegut.

Scott Oglesby is featured in the Fall 2007 issue of THE BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW.
Scott also will be one of their featured readers at the Fall reading on Sunday, October 14th, at Bellevue Hospital.

MORE ON BOOK BUYING, AMAZON, AND SMALL PRESSES

Phyllis Moore writes to say, “Jonathan Greene's comments [see http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/bfrarchive96-100.html#99 ] cover the facets of the topic very well. Often neither the local book store (we have one) or local libraries (we have three) have the books I want to read. Ordering them requires at least a short wait and a trip to pick up the books. Last week, I learned of an upcoming visit by West Virginia Author Anne Barnhill. After a futile local search for her memoir, AT HOME IN THE LAND OF OZ, I ordered it from Amazon.com. It arrived in my yesterday's mail. Receiving books quickly at a reasonable price is an Internet service I greatly appreciate. Because of Amazon.com and Powell, etc., I have quick access to many new-to-me authors.”

And my brother-in-law David Weinberger the Internet commentator and Harvard Berkman Center Fellow, featured Jonathan Greene’s remarks from Issue # 99 on small presses and Amazon up on his blog (See http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/amazon_and_small_presses.html)

JOURNALISM PRIZE FOR WRITERS ON MENTAL HEALTH

One of my students has suggested that those of you who write nonfiction take a look at the Roslyn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health in Journalism, information at http://www.cartercenter.org/health/mental_health/fellowships/index.html

ELLEN BASS WORKSHOP IN MALLORCA

Writing For Our Lives at La Serrania, a remote and gorgeous retreat center in Mallorca with Ellen Bass May 3-10, 2008 . “This week will be an opportunity to delve into our writing in an inspiring setting, to nurture the creative voice. There will be time for writing and time for sharing and response, hearing what our work touches in others. We'll help each other to become clearer, go deeper, express our feelings and ideas more powerfully. With the safety, support, and guidance of this gathering, you have the opportunity to create writing that is more vivid, more true, more complex and powerful than you've been able to do before.” Both beginners and experienced writers are welcome. Whether you are interested in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir or journal writing, this workshop will provide an opportunity to explore and expand your creative world. This size of the workshop is limited to 14 participants. The early bird fee for the workshop (which includes accommodations and all meals) is $1500 until December 31. After that the regular fee is $1750. A $550 deposit is required to hold your place. Most rooms are doubles, but there may be single rooms available for a surcharge. For more information about LaSerrania visit www.laserrania.com. For more information about the workshop and to register, please email Ellen Bass at ellen@ellenbass.com or call 831-426-8006.

SNAPFICTION.COM

There’s a new site that looks like a lot of fun at http://snapfiction.com/ The idea is that you get a writing challenge each week to try. So if you’re looking for writing exercises and some swift feedback, give it a try.

ANN PANCAKE ON TOUR!

Ann Pancake will be reading at various places this fall from her new novel, STRANGE AS THIS WEATHER HAS BEEN. The novel is about a family struggling with the fallout of mountaintop removal mining in southern West Virginia.
– September 28-29: Kentucky Women Writers’ Conference, Lexington, KY. Reading in the Carnegie Center at 1:30 on the 29th.
– October 22: Marshall University, Huntington, WV. Reading at the Marshall University Student Center at 8 p.m.
– October 23: Catawba College reading and community forum, Salisbury, NC, at 7:30 p.m.
– October 24: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC. Reading at the bookstore at 2 p.m.
– October 25: Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC. Reading in Shirley Recital
Hall, Salem Fine Arts Center, at 7 p.m.
– October 26: Malaprop’s Bookstore, Asheville, NC. Reading at 7 p.m.
– October 27: Taylor Books, Charleston, WV. Reading at 5:30.
– November 1: West Virginia Wesleyan, Buckhannon, WV. Reading at 7 p.m.
– November 5: West Virginia University. Reading in the Robinson Reading Room of the Main Library at 7:30 p.m.
– November 6: University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, PA. Reading in the chapel at 7:30 p.m.
– November 7: University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. Reading and question/answer session in Chuck Kinder’s class from 6:30-8 p.m.

OPEN READING IN BROOKLYN

First Unitarian Congregatonal Society: Wednesday Oct. 17th, 48 Monroe Pl. Bklyn. cor Pierrepont.From 7:00-9:15 PM Brooklyn Heights Poets (Pierrepont Players) Wide Open Reading + Feature: Jel Spiegelman, Author - Published poet...718-377-1253

THE NOTE ABOUT AMAZON.COM

Ingrid Hughes writes: “My union newspaper says, ‘Forget Amazon.com, which has engaged in union busting on two continents. Try Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com)- the largest unionized bookstore in America....An alternative way to reach their site is from http://www.powellsunion.com; prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go directly to the [Powell’s bookstore] union's benefit fund.’” But also see Jonathan Greene’s comments above and more of the discussion in Issue #98 and #97.

Monday entry

I slept an hour later than usual today, totally wiped out after yesterday, which included Leny, finishing two stories to send off. Then I did a really quick nordic walk, cleaned myself up, went to the Newark Museum for a gallery walk-through to prepare for my teacher training job there– that was fun! They have a new contemporary India exhibit opening tomorrow that promises to be really exciting– photos and installations mostly.

Then hurried back to prepare remarks for the forum last night, then to a lovely small dinner with the speaker and a few others at Les Saisons, Art and Libby Christensen’s bed-and-breakfast on Elmwood Avenue.

Then the forum, which I moderated. I had a sensation of channelling Carol and Audrey and others as they asked me to introduce people who'd just come in, etc. An interesting feeling, but I wasn’t listening to the words said as much as surveying the crowd and making things happen. Even if I didn’t attend as closely as I could to what was said, it felt like a good forum-- the Coalition's first big one since 2005-- more than 150 people, and this with no high school students required to come. They ususally add another forty or fifty to the crowd. We had the News-Record and the Star-Ledger there, mayor of East Orange and South Orange, also an Essex County freeholder. Good representation of political people, then, even though there was a school board meeting in process and some other meetings-- the youth task force maybe. So this was a grown-up but very attentive and interested good audience, including people I hadn't seen in years, lots of very quick conversations, some who’ve been around a long time but hadn’t really participated with the Coalition.

Professor john a. powell was inspiring, speaking about the spiritual value of integration– which I’m not sure I held onto, but at the moment was totally inspired by. Maybe inspiration is what we needed at this moment, though, with lots of bad news, as from Tuscaloosa. Professor powell insists that the spring Supreme Court decision has a silver lining, and perhaps another silver lining is that people may be realizing integration is under attack.

On being pale

Read Maude Newton's funny blog piece about growing up in Florida and not tanning....

09-11 Again

September 11, 2007

I didn't really want to go out to nigh to the South Orange Library's annual 9-11 remembrance. This was the second time I'd gone, representing the Coalition with Carol, but as the day progressed I kept hearing commentary on what was going on at Ground Zero etc, and was finally glad to be doing something to observe. Here are notes for what I finally said without using notes:

I came to South Orange dreading what I imagined the suburbs would be like, and a lot of the suburbs we visited did put me off– But then, in this community, I saw all the pretty houses and trees, but also 3 boys, white, black, and Asian, and and I thought–that’s the community for me.

Oddly, one of the times when I felt that community most intensely was in the weeks and months immediately after 9-11– discussions, parties, a sense of valuing each other. These intense moments can’t last, not in their full intensity.

But in the wars and misunderstandings that have followed, it has seemed clearer than ever to me that the work of the Coalition explicitly, and the culture of integration and inclusion that most of the people in this community profess– are indeed a way of fighting the attitudes that led to the terrorist attacks.

9-11 art by Mahasin Pomarico

It is the inability of people to imagine that the Other is also Human that leads to terrorist attacks as well as to the kind of ugly anti-Muslim attacks that have too often followed, and to war as well. The idea that some human beings are disposable , including themselves, that allowed those men to crash those planes into those buildings– that inability to imagine the other as human– that is the thing that I want to work to end.

In the United States, that failure of imagination, that inability to imagine that those who are different are truly human led to near-genocide of the indigenous native Americans and also to the horror of chattel slavery and to the hundred and fifty years of racism that have followed.

In some ways, the work of the Coalition seems at a great distance from fighting racism: we run tours, we have neighborhood associations, we give a pre school open house–next Monday we’re running a forum called Integration Matters!– these things are, in my mind, part of a broad, complex response to the dehumanization that allows us to think those who are different from us are not human.

Books for Readers Newsletter # 99

Newsletter #99
September 10, 2007

This issue continues the discussion about whether Amazon.com is doing more good or ill to writers and small publishers, this time with comments from Jonathan Green, long time publisher of beautiful books at Gnomon Press. There is also part of a review by Molly Gilman plus suggestions and responses from Norman Julian and John Yohalem. Don’t miss, as usual, lots of good news about new work and small presses. Please send me what you’ve been reading and thinking about in the world of literature– the next issue, to my astonishment, will be #100! Let me begin thanking you all now, friends and strangers, who have contributed to this newsletter.

–Meredith Sue Willis

JONATHAN GREENE ON AMAZON AND INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS

Just back from the [Kentucky] State House chambers and the uphill useless fight against legislation to give Peabody Coal millions in incentives which may very well result in more mountaintop removal devastation in the eastern coalfields.

But back to Amazon, this from the view of a small publisher (with over 40 years experience): The way the book world is set up is less than ideal for a small publisher. Amazon is not Evil in that in many instances it gives access to readers who want small press books that are not otherwise easily available. Certainly I agree with my friend Gordon Simmons: first support your local independent bookstore if you are lucky enough to have a good one in your neighborhood; they are a dying breed.

But not all such bookstores will go to the trouble to order a book that is not distributed by the near-monopoly of Ingram Book Co. Ingram takes the same deep discount (55% off of list price) that Amazon takes, but (unlike Amazon) Ingram often returns much of what it buys in beat-up condition which the publisher has to eat plus pay the UPS cost back to its door. I once got a hardback book returned by Ingram with a razor cut the length of its spine through both the jacket and the cloth. And had to pay for its trip back to my warehouse. As far as Amazon being non-union, I doubt many bookstores are union or pay what many would consider decent wages. Not right, but friends who work in stores complain to me about this fact without telling me their specific salaries.

Readers can also try to support publishers directly if their local store will not bother to order a book that Ingram does not carry. Research on-line and contact or buy from the publisher directly. Not all publishers take credit cards, a reason some would prefer to deal with Amazon. Barnes & Noble often will not order from small publishers directly, but often seem to give out their telephone numbers to those that want books from those publishers. Small Press Distribution and Consortium that distribute books for many small presses return even less to small presses that Amazon: they normally sell books to stores or chains at 40% - 55% then take half of the gross receipts of any payment and put the amount due the publisher in escrow for three months. And Consortium charges the publisher a re-stocking fee for any books stores or distributors return. In other words, it is almost impossible for a small literary publisher to survive without massive infusions of grants from NEA and foundations. Or increasingly asking for author subsidies. And this affects writers who want to be published by small publishers. The health of these publishers helps the writers they publish. The worsening condition is also caused by big publishers deciding to kill of their mid-list authors, authors who do not sell books at or above the 10,000 range. They would rather publish fewer authors selling more product (a ubiquitous hateful word now in the book trade).

Print-on-demand vendors are a new avenue for authors and publishers. Or in many instances now the author is the self-publisher. A complicated situation. Bashing Amazon is not really helpful. Bash Ingram, bash the fact that mainstream literary publishing is now dominated by multi-nationals. Knopf, Random House, Farrar Straus, etc. are now owned by German companies. Or lament the fact that just released figures state that 27% of Americans do not even read one book a year. One was quoted: reading made them sleepy. Well, then tout reading for insomniacs as much healthier than sleeping pills. That should boost book sales.

– Jonathan Greene, Gnomon Press

NORMAN JULIAN’S RECENT READING

Norman Julian writes to say, “I am trying May Sarton, among your recommendations. I much like her essays. She has a facile grace of writing which looks easy but, as we both know, isn't. Or at least it takes years and probably decades to get to the point where it isn't as hard.

“I am also reading ECHOING SILENCE – Thomas Merton on the vocation of writing. Edited by Robert Inchausti. Worried about whether you write for emotionally and spiritually healthful reasons? Try Merton. He'll get you properly directed, if you aren't already. He might also preserve a little of your sanity, no easy task when adrift in modernity. A fancy phrase of mine that last, no? I shoulda been a NEW YORK TIMES critic, instead of a toiler at THE DOMINION POST, but didn't have the time to get up there. Besides I didn't want to be away from my dog or garden....”

ON M.F. YOUNG’S BOOK, THE MEDICI

Two and a half years ago, I commented on a book by M.F. Young published back in the 1920's called THE MEDICI . I recently received the following note. This is one of the wonders of the Internet, that something I wrote all that time ago is now getting this thoughtful response. John Yohalem writes: “ I too have just read M.F. Young's THE MEDICI – I don't see how you can allege that he prefers simple soldiers to bookish types; he goes on and on about how much Lorenzo il Magnifico spent on books, and how much all of western civilization owes to him for it. Lorenzo is his hero if anyone was. His defense of Catherine (note that he quotes her own letters -- everyone's own letters -- wherever he can) is a response to the way she had been treated up to that time, and even later by Garrett Mattingly in his otherwise superb THE ARMADA: If you were Catholic, she was treacherous in opposing the Guises; if you were Protestant, she was doubly treacherous in plotting the Massacre and pretending to be for peace. No one ever looked at the woman and tried to figure out human reasons for her actions. (It is my opinion that she DID plan the murder of Coligny, and let the Guises pull it off, but that the general massacre took her entirely by surprise. As he notes: she did not plan it with Alva four years earlier, as many Prots said -- we have her letters and his, and they hated each other at that meeting. So this may be the first more or less objective treatment of her. (Young, of course, is clearly a Protestant, but fighting down his prejudices.) It is interesting that he goes out of his way to praise Fernando I for opening Livorno to Jews and Protestants, and for lending Henri IV money, but he holds himself back from condemning the priest-ridden policies of Cosimo III that sank the duchy in poverty. (He decided to have one monastery of each accredited monastic order. Leopold I closed most of them.) I would certainly recommend this book (if anyone can find it) for anyone who loves both art and history and plans to spend a lot of time in Florence."

THE DOGS OF BABEL REVIEWED BY MOLLY GILMAN

This review by Molly Gilman is available in full at Live Journal (http://halflingmerry.livejournal.com/ Scroll to the entry for Thursday, August 23rd, 2007).

This past Saturday, on my way to visit my cousin Rosie, I picked up THE DOGS OF BABEL by Carolyn Parkhurst from the free rack in my town's train station. In the ten minutes between waking up and catching the train (which hadn't exactly been my plan, but I made it!), I'd crammed two novels, a crossword puzzle book, and a sudoku book (gah, I've joined the throng) in my bag already but wasn't quite satisfied with any of them. Still, I'd expected just to add DOGS OF BABEL to their weight and shuffle between the lot for the four sets of 40-minute train rides ahead of me (New Jersey to New York Penn Station and Grand Central Station to Scarsdale, Scarsdale and back).

I didn't expect to use the total transit time that day (amounted to about five hours, including Shuttle time—which included the stranger sitting next to me asking about the book and getting into a semi-deep discussion—and a fifty-three minute wait back at Penn that night after just missing the intended homeward train) to read the book cover-to-cover, making it my second quickest full-length adult novel read after WATERSHIP DOWN. It would have been one sitting if not for the day of visitation in the middle....I completed the final page just as the train stopped at the station before my own, and used the last two minutes of train time to read the author's note and some "discussion questions"—still I'm left with the urge to review it a bit here. I think my reactions will be spoiler-free, but be warned that they commence after this point....The specifics of the story are unique, and some outrageous and unlikely to be encountered in anyone's life. But on the whole, every rare and bizarre story and incident, the moments of horrifying grotesqueness (only one, really; if more I may not have been able to read it), everything serves an incredibly realistic and relatable emotional experience (or thirty). The central bizarrity of the story is an understandable manifestation of the narrator's experience, once you get inside it. Which I found to be fairly instantaneous, in the general sympathetic way, though deeper understanding came to the reader at about the same pace as the narrator.

Who, by the way, I may or may not find detestable. Or at least unlikable, in a way that particularly resonates with me. Even in that, though, he's relatable and can be empathized with. And reading this story through his subjective eyes (which is also a reductive statement as it's as much the story of his reactions and experience as the events he goes through in the present and relates from the past), learning and experiencing as he does and forming your own judgments and conclusions in the wake of that... well, maybe feels real in a uniquely literary way... I'm not going to like any wording of this statement.

It does kind of segue, if I've managed to impart anything of what I mean, into some of the themes I found most compelling—and able to articulate. The [probably] central one [certainly to the narrator's development] is that of... not objectivity, not wishful thinking, but projection. Our perception is, in perhaps unquantifiable percentage, projection, and desire makes it more so. The reader sees the narrator do it throughout the novel, but also is presented with unignorable opportunity to do—and catches themself doing—it as well. Historical and legendary anecdotes to be found, selected and interpreted as evidence for an obsessive experiment. An unanalyzed dream journal. A list of book titles divided by ownership, left in perhaps an intended code by a character for another and perhaps an unintended [by the character] one reflecting on their owners' personalities for the reader. Indistinct sounds that may or may not be taken as speech. The behavior of a creature who cannot communicate in specific, humanly understood terms. A lover's whole knowledge and perception of their partner and their shared life.

Emotionally, I was quite invested in the exploration of grief, obsession, and depression. The stages of grief were not labeled, pointed to, or even overtly described, but the progression of timelines past and present [though that sort of storytelling is starting to seem bandwagonish, a symptom of current trends; still enjoyable and to a purpose here], the emerging picture of the other main character, the arisings and collapsing of mysteries and problems to solve, are... basically, what I meant by realistic and relatable emotional experience, which is putting it too cerebrally to match the intent behind it. As for obsession... well, here's where one of the book's most controversial (it seems) aspects comes into play....There are moments of horrendousness towards dogs, however much the book is written by a dog-lover and one of the main characters, intensely compelling, interesting, and empathetic, is a dog. But without those moments of horrendousness, I don't think the book would be as intense and full an exploration of the emotional core. It shows the difference between obsession and irrational thought and behavior when sparked by intense emotion in a generally stable person, and when those things are the manifestations of a clinically disturbed mind. ...And also, the moments of horror were far fewer than I'd feared when first reading the dustjacket. People who know me, the greatest endorsement I can give for this book not being too much to handle in the disturbance-area: I was able to handle it. There was only one section that was very difficult to get through from the disturbance/disgust angle, and as I said, I would not skip it or have wished it omitted.

The front cover of the book also mentions something cheesy about "love and loyalty", but, without quite knowing how to go into it further, I found it intrinsic, moving, and not cheesy or overemphasized at all... which is to say, another thing it's difficult to mention at all without feeling I'm being reductive. I guess I'll say: every level of emotionality in the book, from physically-trembling horror to almost crying-happy, was very much earned and natural and there because it was part of the whole.

So, I recommend it. ;-) But more than that, would love to chat about it with anyone else who's read it....

-- Molly Gilman

GOOD NEWS FROM IRIS PRESS

Bob Cumming, Publisher of Iris Press writes to say: “I'm pleased to report that another Iris Press poet has had a poem selected by Garrison Keillor to be featured on his American Public Media program, THE WRITER'S ALMANAC. Rebecca McClanahan's poem, ‘Autobiography of the Cab driver Who Picked Me Up at a Phoenix Hotel to Catch a Four A.M. Flight and Began to Speak in (Almost) Rhyming Couplets’ from her book, DEEP LIGHT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1987--2007, (Iris Press, 2007) will be featured on the program to be aired on September 25, 2007. APM currently distributes the program for broadcast to about 320 non-commercial public radio stations around the country. The program is also streamed and podcast from and archived on the APM website at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org and may be streamed, archived on carrying station websites as well.”

COMMENTARY ON FRANCES’ MADESON’S COOPERATIVE VILLAGE

Frances Madeson’s COOPERATIVE VILLAGE received some good press at the August 20, 2007 entry on http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2007/08/responding-to-t.html .

MARSH HAWK PRESS

Marsh Hawk Press has new books and good events in New York City. See their website at http://www.marshhawkpress.org/ .

MORE GOOD NEWS

John Amen had a poem in the August issue of STIRRING– see it at http://www.sundress.net/stirring/archives/v9/e8/index.html His poem "Triptych" appeared recently in RATTLE has been posted at www.myspace.com/johnamen. His books CHRISTENING THE DANCER and MORE OF ME DISAPPEARS as well as his first CD, ALL I'LL NEVER NEED are currently available through various sites, including Amazon and www.johnamen.com.

WRITE IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE WITH KRISTA MADSEN...

Novelist Krista Madsen writes that she has been offered “the chance to teach at the Abroad Writers' Conference, next stop the little southern village of Cassis, France. There will be workshops (I believe you take two, one lead by a lesser known soul like me, and one by a more established author) in which the focus is giving/receiving feedback on a good body of work. Each evening there are readings/programs offering the chance to further mine the minds of all these amazing folks. Along with food, lodging, private consultations, time to write & wander... I can't wait to go, perhaps you'll join me? I know June seems a long way off, but reservations must be made soon for this to happen...... [Get in touch with] Nancy Gerbault, abroadwriters@yahoo.com, http://www.abroad-crwf.com, and her number: 209-296-4050; tell her I sent you. Let me know if you decide to do this, and if you know anyone else who might be interested, pass it on!” ABROAD WRITERS' CONFERENCE--Authors without Borders at Camargo Foundation, CASSIS, FRANCE, June 14 - 28, 2008. Abroad Writers' Conference: http://www.abroad-crwf.com Camargo Foundation: http://www.camargofoundation.org/ Abroad Writers' Conference, 17363 Sutter Creek Road, Sutter Creek, CA 95685.

UPCOMING READINGS IN NYC

D. S. Nurske, Michael Graves, and Burt Kimmelman will read September 30, 2007 at Bengal Curry, 65 West Broadway betw. Murray and Warren Streets, 1½ blocks south of Chambers), NYC 10007 Phone: (212) 571-1122

Carol Stone and Burt Kimmelman will read March 25, 2006, 7:00 PM, Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield Street,Watchung Plaza
Montclair, NJ 07042 973-744-7177

THE NOTE ABOUT AMAZON.COM

Ingrid Hughes writes: “My union newspaper says, ‘Forget Amazon.com, which has engaged in union busting on two continents. Try Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com) --the largest unionized bookstore in America....An alternative way to reach their site is from http://www.powellsunion.com; prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go directly to the [Powell’s bookstore] union's benefit fund.’” But also see Jonathan Greene’s comments above and more of the discussion in Issue #98 and #97 .

Hillary, Revolution, and the Romantic Artist

There was an interesting article on the front page of the Times today about Hillary Clinton in 1968– I doubt it would have the same resonance for people of other generations than mine. She arrived at Wellesley a Goldwater Republican, did a senior thesis on Saul Alinsky, who she thought was one of the few radicals who was actually effective, worked on both democratic presidential campaign and for a republican in Washington (Melvin Laird, future defense secretary). This latter was as an intern (I wonder if Mel ever made a pass at her...).

But she realized pretty quickly that she wasn't a Republican. She visited from home the Demo convention in Chicago and smelled the tear gas. Was Wellesley student body president, organized a strike and attended some protests, but definitely wanted to work within the system.

She has been quoted saying various things about working within the system, about making change from within, compromise, etc. that remind me of my friend David Hardesty, outgoing president of West Virginia University-- but also of someone much younger, Joel’s Sarah, who is looking to do good concretely in the field of health care policy.

But the point for me is that the discussion is my generation's discussion--I've even had it with David-- doe we work from within, or work from outside? These ten years of effort I've put in with the South Orange Maplewood Community Coalition on Race have been as close as I’ve ever been to working as an insider. I've never made the transition fully, though, always envying the ones who still put great effort into mass protests, still belong to small left wing revolutionary parties that view everything as best they can through the lens of the oppressed.

It is of interest to me that the people who engaged in the conversation about where to work but assume that working for change is the real thing, those people really are in power now, although we’re beginning to retire.

I talked with Carol, the Chair of the SO/Ma CCR last night after our Schools Committee meeting about a piece we've been working on for the local paper, and she commented on how it’s gotten easier to write these pieces representing the ideas of the group, and it occurred to me how much satisfaction I’ve taken from drafting them. It is a special privilege and pleasure to write things that express (and of course influence) the thinking of more than just me. This is definitely not the recommended stance for a Romantic Artist. We're supposed to suffer in loneliness and then become famous.

But what if these pieces I've written for the Coalition about integration in the 21st century turn out to be the most powerful things I ever write? That makes me uncomfortable at best, but of course I won't really know in my lifetime. And I never really bought into the myth of the Romantic Artist. It is a narrative that has come to the end of its usefulness, and probably never applied to women even in the 19th century. What I do believe, most deeply, is that my friend Shelley's full time revolutionary partner Teresa and probably even Hillary are in some way on the same side. I know Teresa wouldn't stand that for a moment, and probably not Hillary either. But my deepest world view, when it isn't simply dark and despairing, has none of us knowing the truth, and all of us slogging through the mire with many missteps, but more of us that you might think slogging in a progressive direction.

That sounds incredibly fuzzy headed, vague, and optimistic if not mystical, but that's because I tried to say it directly instead of slant...

Back from the lake again

Well, I went up for 24 hours, and Ellen and I divided up the summer's left over cans and bottles and cleaned the kitchen (she did most of the cleaning, I carried things up to the cars). It was a beautiful week-end, and Andy was home, on, and Ann broke her foot, and we all ate too much pasta and came home.

Vacation poem

My throat's as long as a great white pine:
I breathe in gulps of mountain air.
A hill floats blue above the lake,
Hemlocks, birches, white and spare,

Waves of goldenrod and Joe Pye weed
Plus good Queen Anne’s exquisite lace.
Above– those white pines’ majesty,
Their simple lesson: lift your face–

Take the long view, stand always firm
But if you have to, lightly sway,
And thunderhead and meteor shower,
Will all soon fade and pass away.

More vacation blogs....

August 25

Still at the lake...

Last night was damp and warm and I woke repeatedly sweating. This morning was damp and warm and while I wasn't sweating, I felt yucky and logy. The first five nights were cold, and I slept very well, Andy’s body in the small bed cozy and warm. But this is what I remember bad about summer nights up here– unpleasant, buggy, sticky.

The big excitement yesterday was that Greg came for an overnight! We put together a big dinner– corn from the Whooooah place down the road from Taft farms, takeout ribs from the new Shaky Jake’s, pasta with the remaining tomatoes, cupcakes and a mesclun salad from Taft farms, bakery bread of course. I loved the ribs. I get so hungry for red meat, and never even know it. I don’t know if those ribs, Jamaican style, are especially good, but I was especially hungry for them.

So today Ellen came, and Greg left, and we all spent some time in the lake, and then Andy and I went to see Rough Crossing at Shakespeare & Co. by Tom Stoppard, with Jonathan Croy, Jason Asprey, Elizabeth Aspenlieder, and Malcolm Ingram, hung around a while and saw the actors coming out, Andy talked to Croy, told him about Joel still remembering his Bottom (“I die! I die!”– which Joel at the age of 4 ran around acting out for months), Tina Packer strolling around. We stayed for the second half of Scapin. It’s such a wonderful wholeness, feeling like we know the company, comparing this Dream with Nigel Gore as Bottom to that one with Jonathan Croy, wondering why Jonathan Epstein has moved over to the Berkshire Theatre Festival, discussing with Ann what has been gained and lost with the move from the Mount (out of doors and hard to hear but child friendly and will there ever be kids like Joel and Nathan and Leah and Jennie who got to play around and enjoy what they could of Shakespeare at the Mount?). An important part of our time up here: we skip Tanglewood and go to as many of the Shakespeare shows as we can.

More of my comments of Shakespeare & Company 's productions here and here.

I'm really missing access (easy access) to the Internet-- I've begun mentally rehearsing settlng in at home, running a wash, etc. But mostly my Internet activities.

August 23

David and Ann and Nathan left yesterday, and today, Thursday, Andy and I went to Williamstown to the redoubtable Clark Museum where we saw The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings. It was very interesting to read on the walls about his determination to be known as an open air Impressionist, painting out of doors, all color and light, but in fact turns out to have been a careful draftsman, maybe not as involved in his lines and hatching as, say, Rembrandt, but very serious about it. And his pastels apparently important in his development, the connection between color and line. There were several small pastels of horizontal landscapes that he made in his early twenties that were just spectacular, barely representational, showing sunset over water and three of the same same clump of trees to the right with field and sky central and left under different atmospheric conditions: just spectacular.

Also at the Clark, their new bequest of Constables, Turners, and Gainsboroughs-- who all turn out to be forerunners of the impressionists, Constable in particular with lovely splashes of color and sky. Saw one School of Rembrandt, beautiful face and hand, deep in shadows.

We hung out then in Williamstown a while, saw a student walking backwards in flip flops giving a tour to eager potential students and parents. I wasn't hungry (big breakfast at Uncommon Grounds) but Andy ate an Indian buffet lunch while I went down to a coffee shop called Tunnel City and got a cappuccino and a scone and used the wifi. Then we drove back down Route 8 via the touchingly turn of the twentieth century mill towns North Adams, Adams, and Cheshire. We got back, he biked, I nordic-walked and swam, and he's out taking a twilight turn on the lake with his motorboat to pick up a big chunk of floating styrofoam while I type this on the screened eating porch. It is all green this evening, the first day that hasn't been chilly, pleasant temperature, gray sky, green across the lake, green lake. Deep relaxation.

Grading Cleopatra

It seems that the Geller Weinbergers and the Willis Weinbergers went to entirely different performances of Antony and Cleopatra last night at Shakespeare & Company last night. David gave it a C minus (see his blog) and really didn’t like Tina Packer as Cleopatra; Nathan was disappointed, especially by the slo mo dance battles, which I found moving. Nathan gave it a C. Ann gave it a B minus and Andy refused to grade, but said it liked it. I agreed it was talky and static, (and for that reason it seemed appropriate that the battles were dance battles in slow motion), and I think it truly is in large part Shakespeare’s fault. I also agreed I suppose that Tina was too old, especially in the beginning when she’s kittenish, and then she becomes just teasing and with rather the style of an aging diva, but finally she convinced me, both of the performance it would be to be a queen, but also of how the character embraces being a legend, and stands up to become what she has been made and made herself. The love affair seems almost beside the point- and the history is, of course, assumed. What I took from this is that it is about being more than a normal sexual petty ambitious demanding or even brave person. It’s about being Great, or trying to be. Both Cleopatra and Antony (not to mention Octavius) are pretty unlikable. Somehow the play seems to me to be about creating your own immortality.

The most interesting question to me is why the five of us reacted so strongly differently: now David and Ann and Nathan had just been to see Midsummer Night’s Dream with a lot of the same players taking different parts, and they adored Dream, and I have to wonder that the fact Andy and I saw it weeks ago and weren’t really remembering the various actors from that– the mechanical who played Thisbe, for example, was brave warlike young Pompey here.
Antony and Cleopatra , much studied and not so much played, is a tough play, though. I was uplifted by Cleopatra’s rise out of spoiled (in many senses) sex kitten to bravely dying.

August 20

I’m on the porch again, everyone is in town, still cool, and grayer today. Dial-up internet access is poor at best, but I got messages from Joel and Chrissie and gave up on some others. I took the canoe out and since the wind was going what we call th "wrong" way, I canoed against the wind to beyond To-ho-ne Shores and coming back took a nice long drift with the wind and almost back saw a terrific great blue heron just standing in front of an empty house, moving just like Taxicab only a hundred times taller with the long neck and long beak, but the same silence in the face of danger, the intense stare. Beautiful animal.

August 19

At the lake, on the porch, the parakeet through the glass in the living room on my left, Andy on the beach in the sun, cool but not windy, glassy lake. David is out for a run, Ann and Nathan asleep or reading upstairs. Crows slip by on the other side of the point, silently aware of us as they go about their business. I’m pretty happy this morning, reading Ed's fantasy manuscript, although so far it has blessedly little magic/fantasy. Last night David made vegetarian Chinese with various things including my chard, Nathan and Ann celebrating shabbos. We had happy hour with some good wine and a discussion about drinking among teens and college students.

Now I've done my nordic walking and been out canoeing. Everything slows down for me, the pleasure of thinking over what I might do next. Drifting in the canoe, sun on my bare legs and forearms.

Tomatoes and Private Ryan

Tomato Season...the smoothness...the smell!

Andy and I finally watchedSaving Private Ryan. This is primarily interesting because we got the DVD from Netflix about eleven months ago and has been sitting around the house all this time. So we have a long history with the movie, starting with Andy bidding on an enormous framed poster of it, with autographs, and, when no one else bid, getting the darn thing, which hangs portentously in the stairwell.

We knew we wanted to see it, but couldn’t get ourselves to sit down for a three hour war movie. People kept saying it’s the best war movie ever, that the opening sequence on Omaha Beach is a masterpiece, and if you can get through that the rest is easy, etc. etc.

You certainly see why it got the Oscar, and you certainly admire the acting. Tom Hanks is a real American master, and Spielberg too: the emphasis is on the American, though because in the end, it really is maybe the best ever but still a war movie like the ones I used to watch with Daddy in black and white late at night on t.v. This one was more realistic in any number of ways– the core group included a Jew and a hillbilly but no black soldier. It had lots of blood and gore and the suddenness of death, but at its heart it is (is Spielberg's work always?) that all-American combination of shocking violence and sentimentality.

There is one truly cheesy part too: the German that the intellectuals, Hanks and The Kid, let go (rather than allowing the working class G.I.’s to just shoot him like a normal redblooded American would want to do) shows up at the final sequence kills the people who said if they let him go he’d just go on to fight some more plus plenty of others. Then the weepy wimpy Kid kills him, but is still left with the full horror of how his “weakness” has destroyed his friends.

I’m not saying you should be kind to people who are trying to shoot you– if you’re in a shooting war, you have to shoot, and if your nearest and dearest are in imminent danger and you have the means of offing the attackers, who wouldn't do it?

But the fact that this German is brought back neatly at the end as a monster is what I consider prime Hollywood cheese. Andy said he didn’t think it was the same German (he liked the movie better than I did), but we went back and looked, and it was.

Spielberg, I'd guess, identifies with the intellectual Kid who doesn’t fight very well and ends up with much guilt.

Well, it was entertaining (which is also what makes it Hollywood) and fantastically realistic (more Hollywood) and the Omaha Beach sequence had me holding onto the arms of my chair to keep me from running away. All Hail Hollywood.

Boat Dream

The keys on the computer are sticky this morning. We had thunderstorms in the wee hours, sickly sun now, the fan on me, heat misery ahoy.

But I had a satisfying dream, not quite a free flying dream, but a nice one: a lot of people around, big trestle tables with food, some people at a labor demonstration, bright light.

And suddenly I was driving a tall motor boat, ocean-going style, around a lake. Rationally, it was the wrong location for this big boat, but it was easy to steer even in shallow water, and when I misjudged a turn and ended up on a grassy slope, I just sort of hopped out and pushed it back into the water as if pumping a scooter.

There was no motor sound, just voices of pleasant crowds of people. I was up so high in the bright air.

Early August...

Bridge over Troublesome Creek, Hindman Settlement School, Hindman, Kentucky: Beloved of Appalachian Writers, web spinning
spiders, and many others

August 7, 2007

I had an easy trip on Sunday, listening to the Coal music and to some lectures on literature and the law. Now I've got a lot to catch up on before we go away. I cleaned dead leaves and dust off the porches yesterday, but had a Coalition meeting and didn't do anything in the garden but pick cukes and tomatoes and basil and beans. I cooked the beans my mother's way-- well, not quite. I put a little butter in the bottom of the pan and sauteed them for a minute, then added hot water to cover and cooked for a while. They were good. Andy got corn at a farmer's market, and I made a salad of cukes in yogurt and garlic sauce. Also grilled turkey cutlets on the George Foreman. Anyhow, except for the heat, it's always good to be back in your own space.

Joel has signed a lease on an apartment in San Francisco. He was so happy and said, "Now I can sleep in on week-ends and I don't have to go apartment hunting!" It's in a former Catholic hospital: actually, his apartment is in the convent section!

August 6, 2007

Today in 1945: The nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, followed on August 9, 1945 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. They are the only instances todate of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare, in this case, against a large civilian populations.

Appalachian Writers Conference

August 3, 2007

I'm in West Virginia after one of the magical Appalachian Writers workshops at the Hindman Settlement School. I realized when I stopped at a rest top on I-64, somewhere between Huntington and Charleston, that I was expecting the people smoking and buying drinks from the vending machines to nod and smile. I felt deprived of the warmth and welcome and general caring that underlie the serious work in poetry and prose that goes on there everything year.

Live Forever Now

Well, I'm heading for West Virginia tomorrow followed by the Appalachian Writers Workshop in Hindman, Kentucky. I'm teaching nonfiction, which I discovered I have more credentials in that I realized. I'm also working on a couple of Appalachian set stories, and my first villanelle maybe ever! Sort of a fun form, especially with the computer so it's easy to make small changes in the repeating lines.

This perfect crystal day with every perfect leaf
Cries, “I am here, I’ve always been–
Live forever now, no fear no grief.”

Sometimes the dim moist days continue in a sheaf
Until, replacing greasy orange and murky green–
This perfect crystal day with every perfect leaf!

But then I stop and think, It is so brief–
To which the brillant day says, so serene:
“Live forever now no fear no grief.”

The world-denying preacher’s firm belief
Dismisses my pagan day and her grand sheen,
My perfect crystal day with every perfect leaf.

Well, someone has to be a lying thief:
Preacher or the seductive day he must demean:
“Live forever, now no fear no grief.”

When we dwell on End of Days, there’s no relief
We’ll never own this white and green
This perfect crystal day with every perfect leaf.
Live forever now, no fear no grief.

What We Don't Know

This is my sister Chrissie's son Alex's 22nd birthday. I'm working mostly at home today, and found this beginning-of-an essay: It is largely blank, or at best some misleading pages, the story of the years ahead of which we have no previous example. The blank at the end of life, usually conceived of vaguely, as dark, the dark that falls, the eyelids that close. Fearful or velvety. But the real blank is not dying, which is in some ways highly imagined, far more familiar than how it feels to live inside our lives in the years before death. How to be old-- by which I do not mean ill or frail, but in that period of life that is not under girded with biological optimism: the intrinsically hopeful, forward-aimed fierceness of youth. Novels, movies, and certainly the advertisers and other students of commercial demographics are intent on the experience of young adults with their spending power, their rich blood and resilience, and above all, their genetically programmed belief in the future. This deep body belief in the future is what fuels sex, and what makes sex useful in selling. Whatever else we have made of sex (and we’ve made plenty), it is always about getting individuals of the species to commit resources to making future generations. That’s the engine at the heart of youth – the genetic material demanding replication and continuation. So when we continue on (the human female I'm told is unique in living many decades beyond her fertility) what is driving us? Partly the habits we learned early on, but also the wonderful generalizing ability; the drive (am I fooling myself here?) to do more for those future generations, one's own descendents, one's own species, perhaps one's own biosphere. This is my old tune, long may be sing it: learn to make your natural survivalist selfishness include greater and greater circles of beings. See my brother-in-law's blog entry on getting older: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/older_than_lennon.html

New Connections Via the Internet

Hot weather--wet parakeet

Joel and Sarah spent a night with my sister and by all accounts (Joel on cell phone as Sarah drove north, Chrissie by email) it was a happy visit. Joel especially liked the plums that grow in the backyard in San Luis Obispo. They didn't get into Hearst Castle-- too late for reservations-- so maybe if and when Andy and I go out to visit we'll do that with them and see Chrissie and Goro and Alex too.

This is Saturday morning, and Andy is off to run the two town bike ride. I’m trying to get the desk in order, and particularly papers “graded.

I’m increasingly getting from people with personal requests, usually for free critiquing. My writing exercises are now first up if you Google for "writing exercises." I'm proud and astounded, but on the other hand, so far this has translated into no money and various requests for help. This interests me a lot. It is partly an entitled people (I have a lot of trouble with that word: half the time it has to be shaken loose from my head– I get “privileged” but not the one I want, “entitled.”) It’s also partly, of course, how easy and low-risk and email is, but also the intimcacy that the internet fosters. The person doign the writing exercises feels close to me, as if I were an aunt or the lady down the street.

So many things are made easier by email and the internet– getting speakers for Ethical Culture is smoothed out by email, many kinds of quick thank yous and responses, and the instant gratification of photos and sharing an article you read. The down side, pretty obvious, is how easy it is to toss off an angry or ill-considered response to something, to forward a clever comedy routine or ugly political attack to hundreds of people (the virus effect).

I’ve resumed relationships in a meaningful way through email with certain people, but then there are all the strangers asking for free responses, free critiquing, free friendships. It is going to be really interesting to see what shakes out in politics and publishing. Those are the arenas I see most in flux: people writing letters and calling each other on the phone is something we’re familiar with, although maybe I' m underestimating the importance of this part-- I don’t use MySpace (although an article in the Author’s Guild publication suggests maybe I should– some genre authors are really using it in a lucrative way). Maybe I’m missing the friendship web side of this.

One odd thing: I avoided having a color CRT and internet access on my computer for a long time for fear I would lose the magic of my computer as a place for writing alone.

I was right: it is suddenly a place where I teach, shop, interact from people, get political pleas, do all kinds of business. And it is indeed a problem to be so connected and less deeply private to follow my own internal tunnels and shady byways. And yet–and yet– I also feel those voices welcoming me, that I am part of something very real, all around.

Heat, Riots, Literature

The heavy heavy heat is modified today by an overcast sky, which makes my office less of an oven, so I'm here today, having spent much of yesterday downstairs with my NYU papers. NYU is tonight, and I've also got a well-subscribed online class underway, followed by Hindman, so altogether it is not a relaxing, let-your-mind wander summer. I'm making a little money, working pretty hard also for the Coalition and the Social Action Committee at Ethical.

Yesterday I also cut grass and biked (slowly), but the extreme heat, up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit or so, doesn't seem to bother me when I'm active, just when I'm sitting at the computer.

There's a really interesting series in the Star-Ledger about the Newark Riots/Rebellion/Insurrection of 1967, just 40 years ago at which point I was finishing up my year in Norfolk as a VISTA volunteer.

I'm reading Orhan Pamuk's Snow, and it is an admirable book, but I'm getting a sense of it's going on too long. Or is it me with my lack of patience for books (see the article in todays New York Times about how Harry Potter fever has not translated into children reading other books). The whole changeover from books as the major form of entertainment is tough going for those of us with marginal careers in literature. On the one hand, if the publishers were making the right connections to small reading publics, we'd probably be doing as well as we were ten or twenty years ago, or forty, but they're not--they're still after the block busters. I'm going to do an issue of my newsletter on this.

Midsummer Again

At Lake Buel

It looks like a hot day, a scorcher maybe, coming at us today. The others have gone to town or perhaps biking, not sure, but it’s me and the parakeet this morning. Andy and I went to Shakespeare & Co.’s latest Midsummer’s Night Dream, rather unhearalded and with a no name cast, except for their new star guy Nigel Gore who did Claudius in their Hamlet last year. They all seemed good enough but somehow uninspired (how could they keep doing this play, especially without the magic of the white pine woods behind Edith Wharton’s house? With how many times they’ve done this) but there was something strange anyhow, even in the first half, I was aware that I was hearing the lines. I’ve been getting better and better at hearing Shakespeare, but last night, it all kind of opened for me, as if an undistinguished but competent production had somehow cracked the code for me and opened the language.

I’ve been seeing more and more Shakespeare and I listened to the cd’s too, with a lot of focus on lines of course, but last night I heard it, Andy did too, said he heard the rhymes. And the second half, after having half a coffee and some trail mix, I began to like the production too. The Helena and Hermia were excellent and their boys athletic and silly, Nigel Gore was an inspired Bottom, the coarse and randy Puck had a good time and so did we. Anyhow, it was a happy experience, nose bleed seats and all.

Calm lake, and I have the homesick feeling, wanting to get back to work. Sometime yesterday it hit me that the solution to my problem of too much to do is simply to suck it up: I'm teaching for the next two days, and doing Coalition stuff. Period. Won’t write, because I’m working. Be glad I don’t have to get up early in a panic and work. At least these will be at home. In the heat. But if I have to, I’ll work in the bedroom with a.c.

Food Court WiFi

Ah the wonders of technology! Andy and I are sitting at a table in a food court at the Prime Outlets in Lee, Massachusetts with a diet pepsi and free wifi. We had brunch at Norm and Nancy's in Otis, rather more of an adventure that we expected because as we drove the mile and a half from the paved highway we came across a dead tree fallen over the road, suspended on telephone wires! We called them by cell, climbed over the tree and started walking, and I simultaneously got a phone call from the Coalition and we began to be chased by two large black labs-- well, I exaggerate. They were actually just friendly barkers. THen Norm picked us up and we had delicious Challah french toast, enjoyed their house in the woods, and now we're here, buying walking shoes and doing email!

Keeping in Touch...

Well, with the wonders of cell phones, Joel has been in touch through West Virginia and Tennessee (they stayed in Memphis and went to Graceland this morning-- even liked the banana flavored Reese's cups ). Tonight they plan to stay in Oklahoma someplace, then make a run through Texas to Flagstaff and go to the Grand Canyon and Sedona. It sounds like a great trip, and eveyrone is cheerful. The crying seems to be over for the moment, and I do have to say that cell phones are helping. Andy and I are heading north tomorrow for the lake, taking the parakeet. That should be interesting.