TLC Tours: The Cottage at Glass Beach

What better reading for the first official summer weekend than a book titled The Cottage at Glass Beach? Heather Barbieri’s beguiling story about mothers and daughters and secrets of the past, all wrapped up in the enticing atmosphere of  a rustic cottage on a tiny island in Northern Maine, was the perfect way to while away some time in my lawn chair under a shady tree.

The story stars Nora Cunningham, whose husband is Boston’s youngest district attorney. When he is caught in a public scandal involving another woman, Nora flees the tempest with her two young daughters and retreats to Burke’s Island, a remote place where she was born and lived for the first five years of her life until her mother mysteriously disappeared. Nora’s Aunt Maire provides the loving support she needs to get back on her feet. A mysterious fisherman washes up on shore and offers some romantic interest. A strange old woman drops clues about the circumstances leading to Nora’s mother’s disappearance, which was never resolved. Meanwhile, Nora’s daughters Ella and Annie are struggling with their new circumstances, and all the storylines come to a head when the two of them embark on a dangerous quest, and the powers of the sea are finally revealed.

The real star of any good beach book is, of course, the beach. The craggy coasts of Maine, the charming little cottage, the salty sea air and the incessant crashing of waves – all these create a wonderful atmosphere of life at the coast, one we Midwestererns can only dream about. Although I was in my backyard in Michigan, Barbieri has a gift with description that placed me right on those sandy shores.

The Cottage at Glass Beach was a wonderful way to kick off my summer reading. Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this lovely novel.

Stories About Rusty Solomon

Guest Post by Cor For as long as I can remember, my favorite thing to do has been to get lost in a good story. Reading has always been an escape for me, a chance to be whoever I want, visit faraway lands, and meet magical creatures and cooky characters. When I was younger and wanted to read a new story, I would always have to find someone to take me to the library. There was something magical about those trips that I wouldn’t trade for the world, but I must say it is also pretty terrific that these days I have limitless stories at my fingertips. The Internet has made it possible for me to feed my insatiable appetite for reading at just the click of a button. I can read all of the classics, new up and coming talents, short stories, novels, and more without ever having to leave my seat. Lately I have been reading a lot of amateur short stories that people have submitted to various sites. It is kind of a hit or miss genre, because some times you can find a real gem that you know should be picked up and published immediately, and sometimes you come across some poorly written garbage. It is like reading roulette! Yesterday I read two stories that involved a character named Rusty Solomon. The first was a fairytale (probably one of my favorite genres) that took place in the imaginary town of Landsdowne. Rusty Solomon, the hero of this story, is in love with a princess from an enemy town. His love is kidnapped while he looks on by two cloaked men. Rusty Solomon disbarred from his love, must fight against mystical elements in order to find his true happiness. The second story was about two men traveling through the woods in search of a place they have seen in a photograph. They are hoping to get closure on what might have happened to the two men in their picture and along the way contemplate nature and life. Rusty Solomon disbarred from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, imagines the world the two men from the photograph might have lived in and speculates on what may have become of them.

The Sunday Salon: My Great Summer Re-Reading Project

Ever since I cleaned and rearranged my bookshelves last week, I’ve found myself drawn to them more and more often. Each time I peruse all those volumes lined up so neatly, I see another book I’d forgotten all about.

It seems reasonable that if I’d forgotten I owned them, I’ve probably forgotten a lot more about them.

Like the plot.

And the characters.

And the message.

So I’m embarking on a Great Summer Re-Reading Project. In the spirit of those library reading programs I enjoyed so much during my childhood vacations,  I’m setting myself a goal of re-reading three books from my shelves every month this summer. I’ll even keep a little list, just like I did when I was small. But this time, instead of printing it with a stubby pencil on the mimeographed sheet from the library, I’ll enter them on the designated page here at the Blog.

My, how times have changed.

I’m thinking my impressions  of these books will be changed, too. In some cases, it will have been more than three decades since the original reading. So I might like the book more – or less. I might empathize with the same characters, but for different reasons. A character I once admired, I might now disdain. Part of the challenge in re-reading will be to try and remember what was going on my life the first time ‘round, and how that might have effected my interpretation of the book.

Don’t worry, I’ll share all my thoughts with you, my bookish friends. Look for posts on Thursdays beginning June 14.

I’ve chosen these three books for my June selections:

Crossing to Safety, by Wallage Stegner: Published in 1987, this is a “grand, beautifully written novel about a long, not-always-easy friendship between two couples.”

Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym: Published in 1952, this novel of manners features Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman’s daughter, and mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. Mildred is one of those “excellent women,” the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors—anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, and Julian Malory, the vicar next door—the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.

Her Mother’s Daughter, by Marilyn French: Published in 1987, this novel by the author of The Women’s Room is an “enthralling narrative about the lives of four generations of women,” especially the “primal, inescapable bond between mothers and daughters.”

And if you’d like to embark on a Great Summer Re-Reading Project of your own, please let me know, won’t you? I’d love to find out what you’re re-reading this summer.

Thursday Thoughts

Well, hello.

It’s me, peeking out from behind the covers.

I have obviously been keeping my bookish thoughts to myself for the past week, but you’ll be happy to know I’m ready to share some of them with you on this fine Thursday evening.

One of the things keeping me too busy to write has been a basement sorting project, in which every trash day (which happens to be Thursday) I spend an hour or so hauling junk from my basement directly to the curb. It’s likely that none of you have lived in your current house as long as I’ve lived in mine, and my husband lived here long before I came into the family. In fact, my in-laws built the house in 1949.

That should give you an idea of how much detritus has collected in my basement.

The nice thing about my cleaning project is that I was able to gather all the books I’ve amassed over the years and fit them onto shelves. The bookshelves happen to be in two different parts of the basement, but at least my books are not in piles on the floor or even stacked in layers on the shelves. They are all standing neatly in proper rows, just as good little books should do.

And such treasures I uncovered! All the Susan Howatch books about the Episcopal priest (the “High Flyer” series), all of Gail Godwin’s novels, Virginia Woolf’s diaries and letters, a serious collection of classics from all genres, dating back to my college days in the early 1980’s, and everything ever written by or about Sylvia Plath with whom I was obsessed for most of my 20’s.

At breakfast this morning with another of my reading friends, I was telling her about all the great books I uncovered that haven’t been read in years and that bear re-reading.

“I haven’t kept any books,” she told me. After I picked my jaw up off the floor -for this is a woman who never went into a bookstore empty handed, and I assumed her collection was vast – I asked why.

“I don’t have time to re-read them, so why should I keep them?” she said. “There’s too many other books out there I want to read.”

Here is a woman who has been reading ravenously for over 60 years and has nothing concrete to show for it.

The thought of all those books gone by the wayside was dizzying.

It’s good that I was sitting down.

So I’ve been making mental lists about where my re-reading will take me. One of the nicer things about being over 50 is that books you read 20 or 30 years ago often take on an entirely different meaning when read with the insight and wisdom of “older” age and the experience that comes with it.

I’ll admit, I’ve made more than a few trips down into my basement to admire my collections, all assembled neatly in one place. I’ve been pretty ruthless with the things that have gone into the trash the past few weeks, none of which included books.

And I know that wherever I end up living, the books will definitely be going with me.

How about you? Have you saved books over the years? Do you plan to re-read them, or do you just like knowing they’re in your possession? 

 

 

TLC Tours: My New American Life

She wanted to stay in this city with them, she wanted to have what they had. She wanted it all, the green card, the citizenship, the vote. The income taxes! The Constitutional rights. The two cars in the garage. The garage. The driver’s license. My New American Life, by Francine Prose

Because my daughter in law immigrated to the United States in 1999, I’m always interested in books about the immigrant experience. But I have to hope that My New American Life would not be the book that best describes her journey. Satirical, cynical, and somewhat silly, the plot involved Lula, a 26 year old Albania woman who is living surreptitiously on an expired tourist visa in New York, acting as a pseudo-nanny to a rebellious high school boy (really?) Things are going along quite well for Lula – she doesn’t have to do much except keep this sullen teenager company when he’s home – until some shady members of the Albanian “Brotherhood” show up with an offer she can’t refuse.  They ask her to hide a gun for them, and insinuate dire consequences to follow if she doesn’t cooperate.

What’s a girl to do? especially when one of the thugs is so darn good-looking.  She hangs on to the firearm, thereby insuring an extension of this already far-fetched plot.

Lula is not a good example of an American immigrant – she lies to everyone about her background, she even lies to herself. She seems feckless, without real ambition to better herself. With the exception of the stories she writes, thinly veiled vignettes of her own life, she has nothing with which to occupy her time. And the Americans in the novel don’t fare much better – Mister Stanley, who made his fortune working for the big banks, and has now hired this girl to keep watch over his teenage son. Or Don Settebello, the attorney who serves as the Greek chorus in this rambunctious novel.

For all that, there is a certain charm to Lula, one that made me smile indulgently, as one would at the antics of a spoiled toddler. But like that spoiled toddler, you know there will be nothing left but a big mess to clean up once the cuteness is over. As an example of satire, the book is fast paced and cleverly written, and if you enjoy that genre, you would most likely appreciate it more than I did.

 

 

TLC Tours: The Year of the Gadfly

Contrary to popular belief, high school did not run according to a horizontal social hierarchy with the nerds as serfs to the popular despots. The alliances and antagonisms were more complicated than the political dealings of a Third World country. In high school, you never knew who was your enemy and who was your friend. The Year of the Gadfly, by Jennifer Miller

Iris Dupont knows all about the social hierarchy of high school. A budding journalist who channels the spirit of Edward R. Murrow, Iris transfers to the historic Mariana Academy after her best friend commits suicide. Mariana is known for it’s honor code, it’s pledge to treat everyone as equals. But a secretive underground group threatens the reputation, even the very existence of the entire school.

Iris, in her best investigative reporter role, is determined to break into the ranks of the group’s underground newspaper. There, she uncovers the source of all it’s blackmail schemes and rumors, some of which involve her favorite teacher, others which point to an albino girl (whose home Iris’ parents happen to be renting) who disappeared from school under strange circumstances.

I compared this novel to Harriet the Spy for grown -ups, and Iris is quite Harriet-like with her single minded determination, her quest for the truth, and her belief in her ability to affect change with the written word.

She is also Harriet-like in her otherness. Iris is different, and so are most of the other students featured in The Year of the Gadfly. Astoundingly different, actually, for author Jennifer Miller has peopled her novel with a cast of characters that are almost outrageous in their uniqueness.

But then again, almost every teenager feels their differences are exaggerated to the point of ludicrousy. It can be a painful time, one when mistakes are made from which it’s impossible to recover.

Does Iris make those kinds of mistakes in her quest for truth and justice?

You’ll have to read The Year of the Gadfly to find out.

In the tradition of some of the most popular “school” novels – like Prep and The Secret History – Miller explores the seamy underside of adolescence, and reminds us how this time in our lives can affect our futures in unbelievable and powerful ways.

Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this interesting novel.

Simply Reading: Web of Angels

Sunday afternoon I spent some time on a sunny park bench alongside the St. Clair River, and despite the blue water vista before me, my head was bent deeply into the pages of a book. So engrossed was I that it took a moment to register that someone was standing in front of me and had in fact posed a question.

“That must be a heckuva book,” the elderly man said. He stood before me, hand in hand with his lady friend, as they walked the boardwalk on an afternoon constitutional.

“It definitely is,” I answered, emerging from my reverie.

“I bet it’s a love story,” he said with a smile.

“Well, not exactly – not a conventional love story.” I held the book up so he could see the title. “It’s called Web of Angels and the author is Canadian,” I offered, which seemed appropriate to state since we were staring across the river at Canada.

“Canadian, eh!” he quipped (quite a jokester, this one.)

“Plus she’s a friend of mine,” I said, although I wasn’t about to try explaining that we had met on the internet and were blogging friends.

“Well then,” he went on, “if she’s a friend you have to like her book whether it’s any good or not!”

We all laughed good humoredly. “It doesn’t matter, because I would love this book no matter who wrote it,” I replied.

From the first absolutely gripping chapter (and I defy anyone who reads that first chapter to put the book down without going further), Web of Angels catches the reader by the heartstrings and keeps you enthralled. Lilian Nattel takes us into the world of multiple personalities (or DID-dissociative identity disorder)  and illuminates this disorder in ways no one has yet to do in popular culture.

The novel centers around a normal domestic situation – Sharon Lewis, a wife and mother of three, who lives with her family in the historic neighborhood of Seaton Grove. Sharon’s childhood was anything but idyllic – it was in fact marred with so much violence and abuse that she created multiple personalities to help her manage all the horror she was forced to live through. These personalities have remained with her even though her emotional situation has stabilized. But they move almost seamlessly in and out of her life, so subtly that no one really knows they exist.

Things change, though, when Heather Edwards, a 16-year-old pregnant neighbor, commits suicide. The girls younger sister Cathy is a friend of the Lewis’  and as she spends more and more time with Sharon and her family, Sharon begins to sense a familiarity about the girl which indicates she might have “others” too. And when the reason for Cathy’s DID comes to light, it is more horrific than one could even imagine.

What is so stunning about this novel is the way Nattel makes these people and their situation so real, so true to life that you feel as if you might know them. And so we realize that this disorder could be all around us, that people who develop DID are not “certifiable,” but are often normal folks in every other way. In fact, it is because Sharon and Cathy have multiple personalities that they has been able to survive, so in many ways DID is viewed not as a disorder to be eradicated or cured but as a positive way to manage extreme stress and trauma.

And although Web of Angels is not, as I told my friend in the park, a “conventional” love story, love plays an important part in the outcome. Because Sharon has finally learned about love from her family, she is able to offer it to Cathy (and her “others”) and set them on the road to healing.

From reading Lilian’s blog, I knew she had a natural gift for description and a beautiful writing style. What I didn’t know was that she was such a good story-teller, or able to create such vivid and sympathetic characters. Web of Angels proves she is all capable of all that and more. It’s a fascinating book, but also an important book, allowing us a glimpse inside secret lives we might not otherwise ever see.

It’s a heckuva book, alright.

For additional background on the inspiration and writing of this book, visit Lilian’s website, here.

To purchase Web of Angels from Amazon, go here.

The Sunday Salon: My Top Five Reads in April

I’ve come to like the notion of a monthly reading wrap-up, and what better place to do it than here in the salon on a sunny Sunday morning?

Top off your coffee cup, and take a peek at the favorites from off the top of the stack...

The World Without You, by Joshua Henkin: You know I’m a fan of family sagas, and this one was right up to speed. Henkin plunges the reader into the midst of the Frankel family as they’ve come to memorialize their only son, a journalist who was kidnapped and later killed in Iraq. Despite the tensions and disagreements, it’s obvious this family cares deeply for one another. Henkin aptly portrays that even a family this fractured can find ways to connect in the end. (This book will be published on June 19, 2012).

Some Assembly Required, by Anne Lamott: As a new grandmother, how could I resist Lamott’s “journal about her son’s first son”? Written with her trademark humor, whimsy, and insight, the book made me laugh and cry in equal measure.

Ninepins, by Rosy Thornton: I’ve loved Thornton’s other novels, and this story of a mother and daughter living deep in the Cambridgeshire fens fits right in with her other books. Once again she gracefully explores the family dynamic and the relationship between modern women and those they love.

Digging to America and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler: These are both re-reads, so I’m lumping them together, even though from a plot standpoint they were nothing alike. But both of them have Tyler’s delighfully quirky and sympathetic characters. I went on a bit of an Anne Tyler binge in eager anticipation of her new novel, which is just out in stores.

Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian: This smoldering story of a small town minister, a young mother’s suicide, the secrets they shared, and (of all things) angels, made me remember why I like Chris Bohjalian’s books so much. He takes ordinary characters and places them in rather microscopically extraordinary circumstances, then shines the magnifying glass of his writerly perception on them until they burst into flame! I’m looking forward to his new one too (The Sandcastle Girls), due out in July.

What I was missing last month? A good audio book – any recommendations?

All told, I completed 9 books in April, even though I was also busy trying to catch up on a lot of television shows that had accumulated on my DVR. We had a minor meltdown with our recorder a couple of weeks ago, and I never realized how much I depended on it and on Direct tv. We use the dx3 direct tv system to schedule and record all our favorite programs, and I never have to think about when anything is on..the dx3 does it all for me. Without it, I was literally lost. But all is in working order , and I’m a happy watcher once again.

And up next for May – oh, I’m excited.  I have a library stack and a review stack, and both of them contain some goodies – for instance…

The Year of the Gadfly, by Jennifer Miller

The Book Lover, by Mary Ann McFadden

The Cottage at Glass Beach, by Heather Barbieri

Other Waters, by Eleni Gage

Kindred Spirits, by Sarah Strohmyer

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m back to my current read, Web of Angels, by Lilian Nattel. This is a fascinating novel about an ordinary wife and mother who has DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), better known as multiple personality disorder. Compelling and heart wrenching, I was hooked from the first stunning chapter.

Now tell me – what were your favorite April reads, and what’s on the stack for perusal in May?

TLC Book Tours: An Uncommon Education

Oh how I loved this book.

It’s a quiet book, a coming-of-age story about a brilliant only child who thinks she can save the people she loves from harm.

Author Elizabeth Percer introduces us to Naomi Feinstein when she’s a young girl, an introverted, lonely child who is extremely close to her father. (Her favorite pastime is going with him to visit the John F. Kennedy Historical site in Boston, the home where Kennedy was born.) One day while they are at the museum, Naomi’s father suffers a heart attack, and although he recovers, she determines to become a cardiologist someday, to learn all about the workings of the heart to prevent such things from happening again.

With this goal in mind, and with her father’s encouragement, Naomi studies almost obsessively with the goal of attending Wellesley College. I can feel the hopes they both have for Naomi – that once she gets to Wellesley, things will fall into place for her, she will make friends, her social awkwardness will disappear, she will retain her brilliance but also become more like a “normal” young woman. But Naomi finds it hard to penetrate the layers of social strata and competitive behaviors that abound. She is still lonely, still on her own, lost in her quest for knowledge.

Until a chance encounter leads her to The Shakespeare Society, the oldest “club” on the Wellesley campus. The passionate, unconventional students she meets in this ancient group with its rituals and secrets, introduces her to another world and another version of herself.  Then one of her new friends is unjustly accused of misconduct and is threatened by the scandal, and Naomi – who wants so desperately to save her – is forced to learn the most difficult of lessons in all of her education.

Naomi’s penchant for trying to “save” people – especially her parents – drives this novel. Her mother, chronically ill and depressed, hovers around the edges of Naomi’s childhood, and becomes a major figure at the end of the novel. Her one childhood friend, Teddy, who needs her friendship as much as she needs his. Her college roommate, Jun, who chooses to leave the college rather than bring any hint of dishonor to her family. In her lonely, awkward way, Naomi tries to save them all.

What she learns while caring for her mother during her final illness, what is finally the most important lesson of all, is that she must first save herself before she can make a difference to others.

I began to tell her everything I could think of that was real and foreign to me about the Wellesley outside of the house, how that realness and foreignness together kept me there, forever trying to solve them both. And then I told her about everything before then, about being her child, how I sometimes thought I’d already spent my life missing her, how I’d marveled at her beauty and poise and wondered how it could be mine, how I finally understood why she hadn’t wanted me to be a part of her sickness, a part of the uglier parts of her life. And finally, I told her how I’d tried to save Teddy, then Jun, and had always been trying to save her, and that by not allowing herself to be saved she had probably saved me.

Elizabeth Percer (a Wellesley graduate, and past president of The Shakespeare Society), has given us a debut novel that is poignant and full of heart. An Uncommon Education is a wonderful and wise book about learning the lessons we most need, about finding our way in a world where we never exactly fit, about being able to accept our human limitations.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this delightful book. The complete tour schedule is here.

TLC Tours: Make It Stay

“Only – how to – make it…stay.”

He meant us. Mike believed in us, I saw then – saw it somehow for the first time. Believed and loved without complexity or qualification, and this quality must have been true of him all their lives together, Neil’s and Tilda’s with him…

In the tree-nestled Northern California town of Mira Flores, writer Rachel (“an aging typist with an unprofitable hobby”) and her Scottish husband Neil prepare dinner for a familiar “crew” of guests – among them Neil’s best friend, the burly, handsome Mike Spender, an irrepressible hedonist – and Mike’s wife, the troubling Tilda Krall, a hard-bitten figure who carries her dark unknowability like an accusation.

Make It Stay, a slender, evocative novel, describes the arc of friendship between Mike and Neil, a deep and unequivocal bond that is sometimes proves difficult for their families to understand. It also tells the love story of each man with his wife, and how their friendship effects that relationship. Joan Frank’s reflective, character driven novel provides much food for thought about adult relationships and how they permeate our lives. Here are two men who appear as different as can be – larger-than-life Mike, with a huge appetite for life, and Neil, a Scottish attorney who seems conventional and emotionally curtailed – yet who develop a strong friendship which outlasts time and circumstance.

Although Make It Stay is definitely a study of characters and relationships, it is also definitive of time and place. Set in northern California (a topography I’m very attracted to) Frank shows off her descriptive chops with paragraphs like this:

It was one of those afternoons the townspeople cherish about autumns here: sky a deep, aching blue, motes of gold in the air…Leaves had begun to flush crimson, wine, umber; days filled with a warm-sugar smell. Around and through lazed scents of cola, hot pretzels, smoke from leaf fires (still legal), cut-grass, geraniums. Tips of trees barely stirred. In the hills the vines had given up their precious roe and turned to ridge upon brimming ridge of tarnished gold. Gardens hung heavy with their last great loads, tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers. Light felt spun, the color of whipped honey, hovering over the stillness. The whole town, the county, the whole world seemed briefly suspended inside one of those globe spheres – except instead of crystal, the sphere might be one big fire opal.

There is a bittersweet, autumnal scent to this entire novel, in which events don’t seem to happen so much as people experience them. Reading Make It Stay reminded me of looking at a deeply detailed series of paintings, where experience, personality, and environment are reproduced in gorgeous and vivid hues. As the novel recounts the “glory days” of the friendship between the two couples, time and circumstance have its way with them and we come face to face with the inevitable changes that aging brings and the difficulty of “making it stay.”

Make It Stay is Joan Frank’s 5th work of fiction. She is the recipient of many writing awards and grants, and has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University. She lives in Northern California.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this book. Other reviews can be found here.