Lorene Cary launches Literally Speaking: Author House Parties

On June 30^th I launched my new event series: Literally Speaking: Author House Parties. My first guest was author Lorene Cary.

Lorene Cary is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, founder of Art Sanctuary, and author of the memoir Black Ice and the novel The Price of a Child, the 2003 selection for One Book, One Philadelphia.

The event featured Cary’s newly-published book, If Sons Then Heirs, which tells a complex story of family, race, and the challenges of reconciling the present with a persistent past. Publishers Weekly says: “Cary pairs generations of loving, and loyal individuals with social history, making for an absorbing and moving tale.”

The book is a compelling read, with lively, likeable characters and fabulous dialogue. Cary’s got a great ear for voices. I particularly liked Selma, the aging matriarch trying to hold together the family farm in South Carolina, fighting off conflicts from family, the law, racism, and a slew of memories from a life lived through a number of controversial periods in American history.

My great thanks to Lorene Cary for making the trip and sharing her time, her warmth, and her insights with the audience at Literally Speaking!

Patchett Again

The other Patchett book I read recently (in addition to the one discussed below, The Patron Saint of Liars) is her newest one, State of Wonder, just out and already on the bestseller lists. Patchett’s publicist calls this book “her best one yet,” but it’s no Bel Canto. Hard to imagine anything can beat Bel Canto. The students in my Hot Off the Press class liked this book, but my feelings are more lukewarm.

It’s a Heart of Darkness of a book, a fraught voyage down the Amazon to a deep, dark outpost where scientists are studying the amazing long-lasting fertility of a particular tribe. To this place goes Dr. Marina Singh, sent by her pharmaceutical company employer (whose president is also her lover) to a) find out what happened to the guy they sent before who never came back (Mr. Kurtz, he dead), and to find out what’s happening on the promised drug development front down there. The company wants a return on its extensive investment!

Why send Marina? Well, because she has to go, of course. That’s how the plot works. Never mind that she’s just some obscure scientist toiling away on researching lipids for a cholesterol drug, hardly an Amazonian warrior. Besides, it turns out (ta da!), that M’s deep dark secret is her mistake in medical school, a botched delivery while studying obstetrics, studying under the fearsome Dr Swenson—the very doctor now ensconced in said Amazonian outpost.

Marina goes, descends Orpheus-like to hell, and lives to tell the tale. On the way we meet doctors and scientists, local tribesmen, gatekeepers and hangers on-ers. An anaconda is wrestled, a baby is successfully and dramatically delivered (to make up for past mistakes), and the missing man’s whereabouts are accounted for. We also chew some tree bark and there’s the requisite Patchett tie-it-all-up-neatly twist near the end, but hey, I’ll leave you a surprise or two.

The Patron Saint of Liars

Just finished another Ann Patchett book, The Patron Saint of Liars. One more (Taft) to go in my campaign to read all of Patchett’s work! This one’s from 1992, and it has Patchett’s signature style: great storytelling that draws you in, richly-drawn characters, and beautifully-crafted sentences.

The book begins in the early 20^th century with a prologue in which a farmer discovers on his property a spring which appears to have healing powers, healing his animals and ultimately & miraculously saving the life of his young daughter. This draws crowds and a wealthy couple who build a fancy hotel at the site, which for many years is a popular destination. When the Great Depression hits, the spring dries up, as do customers for the hotel. The couple donates the hotel to the Catholic Church which uses it first as a convent and then as a home for unwed mothers.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s where we meet Rose, a nineteen year old Catholic girl lighting holy candles and praying for her sign from God to tell her what to do with her life. She meets a guy she thinks she’s meant to marry, marries him, and soon discovers her mistake. A few years later she finds herself driving away from life as she knows it. She’s leaving, she’s pregnant, and she’s heading for St. Elizabeth’s Home for Unwed Mothers, the above-mentioned former spa and hotel.

When Rose arrives at St. Elizabeth’s, the author carefully describes the somewhat shabby grandeur of the place. I picture a huge white-washed cedar-shingled Victorian, a quiet oasis where guests relax and read and ponder life. Sounds like a great place to be—I could use a retreat like that!

The book is in three sections, each narrated by a different character (if I tell you who the three characters are I’ll totally give away the plot!). Rose is the thread throughout, Rose the perhaps-failed Catholic who is the title’s patron saint of liars, who covers her tracks as she goes through life, sharing as little as possible about herself with those with whom she shares her life.

Rose, as presented through her own voice and then from the point of view of two other characters, is an interesting character. I liked her, while at the same time wanting to smack her on the side of the head and say “come on, give a little – a word, a hug – something!” Rose makes so many choices that seem so wrong. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m pretty mystified by many/most of Rose’s choices. This would be a great book club book, because it bears talking over. I need someone to discuss Rose with!Anyone out there read it?

My New Book Friend

I made a new friend yesterday.

A few months ago I joined a website called Paper Back Swap (www.paperbackswap.com). Someone in my classes had mentioned she gets lots of books from this source. Once you establish an account, you can post any books you have that you want to trade (and that are in good condition). If you post ten right away, you get two extra credits. After that, you get one credit for each book you post that someone wants. If someone requests it, the site sends you a PDF of a mailing label, and you mail the book and pay for the postage. Once the recipient posts that it’s received, you get your credit. And you can request any book you want that they have listed as available. Shipper always pays for the shipping and you send it Media Mail.

The first two books I got this way were a disappointment. The first one was rather shabbier than I would have liked, and the second, while in fine condition, clearly came from the home of a smoker. But then the fun began.

It’s easy to send an e-mail to the sender or recipient through the site, and everyone seems very polite. They always write a note to say “thank you” when they get the book! When someone requested a copy of a book I had posted by Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen, I sent her an e-mail asking what she knew of Allen’s other books, and mentioning that I had worked with Allen as her editor and later as her literary agent. This woman, Zoe, wrote back to tell me about a new non-profit she’s launching, Talking Leaves, which “gathers and donates books by and respectfully about Native Americans to Native communities and the institutions/organizations that serve them (e.g., schools, libraries, clinics, community centers) and active military and veterans." Isn’t that cool?

Yesterday I requested a copy of The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett. I’m determined to read all of Patchett’s books and I have only two left! The sender e-mailed me back to say she’d be sure to ship the book by Saturday. I wrote her back and asked if there was any way she could send it sooner, as I’m teaching Patchett’s new book, State of Wonder, in my Hot Off the Press class next Tuesday and I’d like to read it before then. She wrote back to say that she’d send it right away but that she hoped I was a fast reader because the book is 330 pages and by the way Bel Canto was her favorite Patchett book. And I wrote back to say that yes, I’m a very fast reader, and Bel Canto is also my favorite but what does she think of the ending because I was always troubled by the way Patchett wrapped the book up.

I’m still waiting for the reply from my new book friend Dona. This is fun!

Moving Backwards... (or perhaps Baxter-wards)

Finally finished First Light by Charles Baxter. (Yes, loyal reader, you are correct in noting that I began reading this book months ago. Life, and other books, intervened. But I persevered!)

Hmmm… shall I give away the concept? Yes, I think I shall. The book begins when Dorsey, her husband Simon, and their deaf son Noah are on a visit to Hugh, Dorsey’s brother, in the small-town Michigan house in which they both grew up. Hugh now lives in the house with his wife Laurie, who seems not too fond of him, and their children. It’s July 4^th. They buy fireworks. They think and talk a bit about their dead parents, and about the quirks of Dorsey’s husband, which Hugh finds annoying and Dorsey finds endearing. Dorsey wonders why Hugh’s wife doesn’t want him to kiss her; Hugh doesn’t want to talk about it. We learn that Hugh works in a Ford dealership and that Dorsey is a brilliant physicist.

In the next chapter, Dorsey, Simon, and Noah are on their way to Hugh’s house for the July 4^th holiday. In the chapter after that, Hugh is at work at the Buick dealership, anticipating Dorsey’s visit, which is still a few weeks off. And so we move backwards through the life of the siblings, and the book ends at the moment of Dorsey’s birth, when Hugh is brought to the hospital by his father to meet his new baby sister for the first time.

It is brilliantly done, this backwards movement in time (in a book whose main character is a physicist obsessed with the movements of astral bodies in space and time). And well before before the film Memento! (The book was published in 1987; the movie came out in 2000). As we go along, we learn details big and small: why Hugh’s wife is cold & why Dorsey’s husband is odd; why Noah is deaf & why and where he bought his uncle a sea shell; when and why the parents died & what life was like for the siblings when they were young. Each new detail adds meaning to something we read earlier but did not, when first reading it, realize was significant (the motel key on Hugh’s keychain, for example, or the photograph on Dorsey’s wall).

I waited along the way for stunning revelations, skeletons in the closet. I don’t think they were there. It was just the gentle and gradual unpeeling of lives back to the point where they began, where a relationship began, the innocent point where all that was to come was unknown and unanticipated – except by us, the readers, who, by the time we get to the end (which is really the beginning) know all that is to come.

This is Baxter’s first novel, which followed two published short story collections. His strength as a short story writer is evident in this book, where each separate chapter could stand solidly on its own, so packed with nuance and detail is it. Baxter has since published several more books, including novels and books about writing. This past January he published Gryphon, a collection of short stories, some of which are new.
http://www.amazon.com/Gryphon-Selected-Stories-Charles-Baxter/dp/0307379213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306165405&sr=1-1

See the rave front page New York Times Book Review by Joyce Carol Oates http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/books/review/Oates-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=charles%20baxter&st=cse

I think Baxter is a writer to add to your reading list!