Beach Music to my ears

When's the last time it took you a month to read a book? WAIT. Don't answer that. The real question is, when's the last time it took me a month to read a book? A fairly modern, fiction, popular author, page-turner kind of book.

Not nonfiction. Those sometimes take me years because I have this bad habit of randomly flipping to a page that looks interesting and starting there, reading until I'm bored, then starting somewhere else the next time. Harder to do that with fiction.

Not classics, which I'm trying to "catch up" on so late in life. And I was even an English major in college. I went for as many classes involving modern lit or creative writing as I could get away with. Some of my worst college memories took place in BS&K ... Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Or was it BK&S? Dr. VD, as we fondly called our professor behind his back (Dr. VanDevender to his face), truly cured me of any love I *might* have developed for those three unfortunate fellows.

Now I'm discovering and rediscovering some of the "greats" on my own terms and in my own timing. Currently engrossed in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (because you have to be pretty engrossed to read around the pretty language and find the story!) and I've been working on it about six weeks. I'm all the way to page 71, I believe. On the other hand, I read Kate Chopin's The Awakening before that and finished it in only a day or two. That was some truly fascinating reading. Can't believe I missed that one.

But where was I? Oh, yes. I've finally arrived at the last chapter of Pat Conroy's Beach Music. Yep, the one and same book that went into the emergency tornado basket several weeks back.

Has it taken me a month because it's a horrible, stilted, wordy, incredibly long and boring book that I still insist on finishing? (I have been known to do that. I'm one of those weird people who can't stand to not finish a book, because I've just got to find the redeeming value that allowed it to be published.)

Nope, it's not that. It is incredibly long for commercial fiction (more than 600 pages), although it has a seriously literary bent. But, I can usually read two to four books, three to four hundred pages each in a normal week.

Horrible? NO! Stilted? NO! Wordy. Maybe ... but what beautiful words they are. The thing is, this book has taught me more about different cultures, different eras, different people, different historical events in ONE volume than I might have in my usual 8 or 12 books a month.

This is the only one of Conroy's novels not to have been made into film, I believe. (Hang on, let me go check that out to be sure! I'm back .... I think that's correct.) I completely understand how impossible it would be to make this story into film, and yet one of the subplots is that the characters have been hired to write a mini-series about their story.

It's more like 20 stories in one. And somehow, as different as each is from the others, they all enterwine magically, not creating an episodic feeling (the death knell for the middle grade fiction story I attempted a few years ago), but somehow maintaining a slow, increasing tenstion, building to a conclusion I have yet to read. I've come this far, I don't see how I could possibly be disappointed. Something tells me the conclusion will have turtles.

Twice this weekend, I retold the story of the main characters' experience with a larger-than-life manta ray in a small boat in the open ocean. My husband saw the book lying on the edge of the tub the other day (can't remember why, haven't read in the tub in years!) and I said, "Oh, that book is mesmerizing."

He said, "Beach Music? Sounds like a romance!" I don't read much traditional romance, and he knows it. I flipped it over and showed him the photo of Conroy and said, "Romance? I don't think so. You would even like this book." Then I told the manta ray story.

Told the same story to my son this weekend. I mentioned that what was so crazy about that story was exactly that. It was crazy! But, I raced through the pages, my heart pounding, believing every minute of it.

A string of Holocaust stories runs throughout, and they were so vivid and horrible, I've had to put the book down several times until I had enough energy to pick it up again.

So, what am I saying here? Maybe that you shouldn't wait any longer to read this book, too? (It's already 13 years old, why waste any more time?) Maybe that I hope if you do, you are as mesmerized by this master of metaphor, this king of storytellers? That you won't want to throw it across the room, even if it takes you a month or longer?

I think mainly I want to say this is a book I will be remembering and thinking about for a long, long time. I don't usually review books I haven't even finished yet.

From the trenches

We're in the midst of Texas tornado season. When it's tornado season in Texas, you've gotta be prepared, right?

I have this little O/C routine when the television radar says bad weather is approaching. You can't miss it--it's like a national crisis. All the tv stations go to special weather reports. Usually, the radio stations igore it, though. I haven't figured that out. Oh, and the sirens don't always sound, as I've mentioned. Perhaps the always elusive "they" figure the world is glued to American Idol, anyway, so other warning systems are irrelevant.

Wednesday night, we got the radar reports and I started my routine. I am convinced if I follow it to the letter, the bad weather will pass, leaving us unscathed. So far, it's worked, so I say it's a good routine, even if my husband thinks I'm a little off.

Here's how it works. I fill a small laundry basket with the things I would miss most if my house fell down around me. Into the basket goes my laptop computer and charger, my external hard drive with old files and photos, my purse with my i.d., cards, and cell phone, my old cell phone that functions like a tiny flashlight, and, of course, my wedding and honeymoon albums.

I place the basket in the floor of the laundry room. (The amount of faith I put in the laundry room is nothing to be sneezed at. If it's in the laundry room, it will be fine, okay?) I have an additional plastic tub full of other family pictures, and it slides in beside the laundry basket. If these things survive, along with my husband and children, all will be well. Nearly everything else can be replaced.

Well, this year, I've started adding additional items to the basket as time allows. I mean, if you've got 20 minutes until the storm arrives, why not add a pair of tennies? Socks? Favorite pillow. Water bottle. All practical stuff, right?

When the warnings pass, I unpack everything, and life goes on. If the weather is iffy for the next day or so, I'll sometimes leave the things I don't immediately need in the basket. Takes less energy to pack the next time.

So, we had that kind of night Wednesday. Todd was out of town, and we talked on the phone about how everything had calmed down again, but the rest of the week was sketchy. I went back to my regularly programmed computer surfing and eventually headed for bed. I usually read for a while before I go to sleep, but couldn't remember where I'd put my books.

I'd taken them along to the girls' piano lessons earlier that afternoon, and thought I remembered bringing them in the house along with the fast food we always get when Todd's out of town. Alas, they weren't in the usual spots I drop things.

Oh, well, I thought, I'll get them out of the car tomorrow.

I grabbed another book (after all, I'm reading about 30) and read it instead.

Yesterday, I never made it to my car. Didn't have carpool duty at any time of the day for a change, so never emerged from the house. Late last night, I wanted to read again, and was so frustrated with myself for waiting until it was too dark and creepy outside again to check the car.

Oh, well, I thought, I'll get them out of the car tomorrow.

A few minutes later, I was distracted by other things, but walked by my little emergency laundry basket. Huh, I thought. I had never unpacked the extras. Tennies ... socks ... hard drive ... bottle of water ... yep ... all there. And ...

Pat Conroy's Beach Music. Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel.

I would like to flatter these two men by saying theirs are the two most important books in my life. Unfortunately, it would be a lie. What it boils down to is I get bored sitting anywhere with nothing to do. I always take a book. I guess in my reasoning the other night, I figured if the house fell down around us, I'd be happy to have the two books I was most engrossed in while we were sitting in a shelter.

Or maybe if the tornado was only an F1 or F2, I'd read until it was over.

Your Blues Ain't Like Mine

I have read more books this year that have really, really made me think. More than in who knows how long--maybe ever. I've double posted a few times lately on both my blogs,and I'm going to have to do it again tonight.

Over the weekend, I finished the latest--Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, by Bebe Moore Campbell. I happened to see this while browsing at the library a few weeks ago, and remembered a reference to the author in a blurb on Carleen's book, Orange Mint & Honey, of course! And I did not know until just this minute when I went searching for a book link that Campbell is deceased, having died of a brain tumor in 2006.

If you've known me very well in "real life" for long, you know racism (i.e., trying to eliminate it) is one of my soapboxes. And yet, my eyes were opened even a bit wider reading this book. I felt such a mixture of anger, shame, and hope while reading. I think the premise behind the book is that we all have our burdens to bear, and that it's far too easy to judge others, believing that our own burden is just a little bit heavier because of what or who we are. You might come away with something altogether different if you read it. And, of course, there are so many big ideas in the book, and that's just one.

But, I want to talk about those emotions a little more here.

Anger. If you can read this story without feeling anger, I am afraid for you. The fictional events are based on a true story, where a young African American man in the deep South, right at the beginning of the civil rights era, was lynched for allegedly speaking inappropriately to a white woman. Lip service was paid to justice, almost making it worse than if it had never been brought up at all. The rest of the story entails the unfolding of the lives of those surrounding the event over the next 30 years--African American, white, and mixed-race characters.

Shame. I had to ask my mom over dinner Saturday evening what happened in our own family to stall racism. I loved my maternal grandma--she was truly one of my favorite people when I was growing up--yet I cringed and felt physically ill every time I heard her or one of her generation in my family use that horrible word you can guess at here.

For some reason, though, my mother wasn't like that. Over dinner, she told me that when she was growing up in New Mexico, they were beginning to talk in the public schools about civil rights and putting a stop to racism, and she guesses she just took it to heart. This suprises me--it was in the 40s and 50s, and that seems pretty progressive to me! She remembers a time when her father was furious with her for accepting a ride home from camp from the family of an African American girl, and another when she went on a date with a Hispanic boy.

Unfortunately, others in my extended family of her same generation weren't influenced like she was, and I am sorry to say some are no different all the way down to my generation. You could say we are not close today. :-D

On the other hand, my father's family was a strange contrast. I was under the impression my paternal grandmother was racist, too, although I did not know her well, but it turns out she was selective--she was prejudiced against Hispanics, but not African Americans.

This could be because, as it turns out, she fell deeply in love with an African American boy when she was in her late teens, and her father forced an end to that relationship, sometime in the 1920s, I guess. Grandma was an unhappy person as long as I knew her, and that went a long way in explaining her personality to me. She also bore the stigma of being one quarter Cherokee. At least, we think it was Cherokee. The family never talked much about it back in those days. It was a stigma, after all, and the guy responsible for that quarter was never publicly in the picture. I think there is a great story idea in there somewhere, and in fact, did a character sketch for a writing class last year based on the few details I knew.

Anyway, all I knew was the story I heard for years--when my father called to tell her he was engaged to a girl at the university he attended in New Mexico, Grandma's first question was, "Is she a Mexican?" And yet, she also sponsored a Jewish family in the displacement camps after WWII to come to the United States--including their grandbaby who had been fathered by a Nazi soldier who was in love with the daughter.

So, shame because I hate the way people related to me acted sometimes, and how some probably act to this day. But also hope.

Hope because I saw how my parents were able to stop this cycle in one family, in one generation, simply by saying to themselves and to us, their children, "This is never, ever acceptable." My dad worked with international students at the University of Colorado when I was a kid, and we had visitors of every race and religion in our house from the earliest time I can remember. It was just the norm.

My brother's best friend called my mom "Mom," too, and frequently asked my mom to give him and his bike a ride home from our house when it got too dark. He said, "White people don't like to see me riding my bike in your neighborhood after dark, sometimes they shoot at my bike license with BB guns." He was my brother's best man in his wedding. I spent the day I came home from the hospital with my middle baby with a broken heart. Alan had tried really hard to build a good life for himself, serving in the military, and trying to raise his son right, eventually as a single parent. Yet, somehow things went seriously awry. We learned that day I came home with my new baby that Alan, a victim of severe poverty and a childhood home in Five Points filled with crime, drugs, and despair, had cracked--he had murdered his own 10-year-old son, whom we had held as a baby, because the little guy had become involved in a gang. At least that was his reasoning.

The story was more horrible than we ever could have imagined, and yet, he wasn't just another statistic to us, he was our big brother, our son, our best friend. And I don't mean that in the sense of those who say, "I love black people. Some of my best friends are black." I admire your intention, but really, are they your best friends? On the other hand, I am not tooting my own horn here. I am sometimes reminded of the instances where I am myself racist, in some form or another. You know how I know? That still, small voice in my heart that whispers to me.

It occurred to me as I wrote that paragraph that one of the overriding themes in the manuscript I'm currently revising comes directly from my experiences. Several of my characters have a big "difference"--they are deaf. In my story, my main protagonist is deaf, but some of the other deaf characters do bad things. It is impossible to identify the "good guys" or "bad guys" simply based on their physical characteristics. In one scene, my character's granddad reminds him that in the world, there are really only two types of people--those who really care and those who really don't. I know that's pretty broad, but it's also pretty true if you think about it.

Anyway, I encourage you to locate this book. I think this would be an excellent book for a mandatory high school reading list. It's quite graphic, but probably no more graphic than they see every day on television and in movies, if more disturbing.

Sorry for going on so long, but this was on my heart. And how appropriate, the following quote just showed up on an email digest I get.

"People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun's out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light within."

—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Orange Mint and Honey

I finally received my copy of Orange Mint and Honey, Carleen Brice's fiction debut, last Monday from Amazon. I was in the middle of another book when it arrived, so didn't get started until late in the week. (Don't tell Ann Patchett, but I cheated and snuck a few chapters in early!)

Can I just say it was well worth the wait? I loved this book. I read until the wee hours Saturday morning, then was back at it again when I woke up later, and stuck with it until I finished.

Here's a description from Carleen's website:

What would Nina Simone do? That’s the question 25-year-old Shay Dixon asks of her de facto spiritual adviser, the late great High Priestess of Soul, when she finds herself depressed, evicted from her apartment, and about to flunk out of grad school.

The answer - move back home to live with her recovering alcoholic mother Nona - leads Shay back to Denver where she is shocked to discover a new Nona, sober, healthy, raising a 3-year-old, and growing a lush, healing garden.

Though reconciliation seems a hard proposition for Shay, something unmistakable takes root inside her, waiting to blossom like the flowers in Nona's garden.

Soon Shay finds herself facing her first real romantic relationship and exciting possibilities. But when a crisis hits, even the wise words and soulful melodies of Nina Simone may not be enough for solace. Shay begins to realize that, like orange mint and honey, life tastes better when
bitter is followed by sweet.

Writing teachers speak of "setting as a character." Well, let me tell you, for me anyway, setting was a major player in this story. It would be hard for me to make an unbiased determination of whether it was Carleen's doing or it was because these are the neighborhoods where I grew up. East High School, Five Points, Colfax Avenue, Colorado Boulevard, Park Hill, The Tattered Cover—if you could Mapquest my junior high and high school memories, these would be the physical boundaries. It's been nearly 20 years since I've been back to Denver, and it wasn't the best period of my life, but the unique experience created by that geography felt so familiar, I was homesick. I had a similar experience when I read Little Miss Strange by Joanna Rose—which is to say, I was mesmerized.

Orange Mint and Honey intersects the lives of women in so many ways, however, that I'm not sure any of us could read this novel without identifying at some point.* Mothers and daughters, sisters, addictions, trust issues, growing up, absent fathers, self esteem, identity, and most of all, forgiveness and reconciliation—these are a few of the issues the story touches on.

One scene that just won't leave my mind is a confrontation between Shay and Nona, her recovering alcoholic mother. The setting for this scene causes a hullabaloo for sure. I won't give it away, but when it's said and done, you think, "Yes. That's right. This is what should happen in this place."

Brice's characters are funny and quirky and human. On one page, you think, "Hey, I know that guy." Other times, you blush when you recognize yourself. My husband and I were eating out last night, and I pointed to a girl in a booth across from our table. I said, "That's exactly how I pictured the girl in the book I just finished this morning." She had no idea, but she was Shay (after she finally got her hair done).

And, of course, if you know me at all, you know that a book without music is somehow lacking. There is no shortage in Orange Mint and Honey. The story starts off when Shay is visited by the spirit of Nina Simone, and music really becomes another character as well.

What really grabbed me, though, is that for all its prickly issues, this is such a joyful story. My own work tends to be darkish, or as Diane Chamberlain put it the other day about her own work, s-e-r-i-o-u-s. I believe there is a place for mostly serious, heavy books, but if readers and writers lived there all the time, we'd all stick our heads in ovens, right?

Brice manages to weave a story that deals, at its core, with some heavy, heavy issues, yet I found myself grinning like an idiot for nearly 300 pages. Even smiling through my tears.

Run out and get your copy and read this book.

* By the way, this novel deals with some touchy issues. I would allow my own mature 14-year-old to read it, and would be glad I read it first. I'd want to talk with her about it when she was finished.

Mish Mash

Some days, I have nothing to say, others, it's hard to choose. So here's a hodge podge, mish mash blog post.

I'm proud of my friend, Gail, who is a good writer, but doesn't allow herself time to do it as a general rule. She asked me to keep her accountable to at least writing one blog post a week, because writing on her blog is better than no writing at all. (And heck, it's fun, too!)

Anyway, she posted her blog tonight, the eighth day, after I pestered her enough times in the comments of her last one, I guess. :-) Go read her post about one of her movie faves, and leave her a note of encouragment while you're at it!

I read The Kite Runner over the weekend. I've added it to my Feast of Books list. As my mom said earlier today when she was telling me she had just finished reading Pillars of the Earth, I'm missing the characters. I find myself wondering about them. Where are they now? What happened after that? A sign of a great book, huh? Wonder if anyone will miss my characters one day?! This is a moving book, truly, and I will be looking for A Thousand Splendid Suns, soon. Also hoping to catch The Kite Runner movie at the Inwood before it's gone.

Feast of Love, by the way, was poetic, as Amanda Eyre Ward said in her author notes for How to Be Lost. I'm glad I read it. It was closer to the movie than I expected, having read some reviews that indicated otherwise. The multiple first-person POVs in this story are amazing. Having the movie voices in my head probably helped, but still.

Had another weird timing, "coincidence" thing tonight. I'm starting to think my brain is working like Field of Dreams. "If I think it, it will come." Hmm. I think I will lose 30 pounds in the next three days and be able to eat all the chocolate torta and Godiva cheesecake I want to all the time forever without gaining it back. I'll letcha know how that works out.

Feast of Books, 2008

My friend Gail asked me how many books I've read since 2008 started, and I really had no idea. I've seen other bloggers keep a list as the year progresses of books they've read, and I thought that might be fun to try this year. I can't figure out a simpler, less obtrusive way to do this, so I'm just going to start a list here with all the books I can remember finishing so far in 2008 (although I'm coming up blank about what I read earlier in January). Lucky for you, it should eventually drop off the radar, but I'll just keep going back and adding to it so I can tally it up at the end of the year. Feel free to comment if you've read any of these and want to say something about one, or if you have any recommendations.

FICTION
Whitethorn Woods/Maeve Binchy
The Yokota Officer's Club/Sarah Bird (Check out The Flamenco Academy, also by her, great books)
Water for Elephants/Sara Gruen
The Memory Keeper's Daughter/Kim Edwards
Breaking the Silence/Diane Chamberlain
The Last Summer (of You and Me)/Ann Brashares (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants author)
All the Numbers/Judy Merrill Larsen
How to Be Lost/Amanda Eyre Ward
Of Sound Mind/Jean Ferris (a YA book I read for research, but really good!)
The Feast of Love/Charles Baxter
The Kite Runner/Khaled Hosseini
Bel Canto/Ann Patchett
Orange Mint and Honey/Carleen Brice
Souvenir/Therese Fowler
Flirting with Pete/Barbara Delinsky
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine/Bebe Moore Campbell
The Alchemist/Paolo Coelho
The Mermaid Chair/Sue Monk Kidd
The Things We do for Love/Kristin Hanna
The Awakening/Kate Chopin
Dream When You're Feeling Blue/Elizabeth Berg
Pieces of My Sister's Life/Elizabeth Joy Arnold
Beach Music/Pat Conroy
the girl who stopped swimming/Joshilyn Jackson
Cypress Point/Diane Chamberlain
Salem Falls/Jodi Picoult
Still Summer/Jacquelyn Mitchard
Promise the Moon/Elizabeth Joy Arnold
Before the Storm/Diane Chamberlain
Riding Lessons/Sara Gruen
Family Tree/Barbara Delinsky
Promise Not to Tell/Jennifer McMahon
Tell No One/Harlan Coben
Plain Truth/Jodi Picoult
The Pull of the Moon/Elizabeth Berg
The Year of Fog/Michelle Redmond
Love in the Time of Cholera/Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Peony in Love/Lisa See
The Lace Reader/Brunonia Barry
The Secret Between Us/Barbara Delinsky
Ask Again Later/Jill A. Davis
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: and Other Small Acts of Liberation/Elizabeth Berg
Barefoot/Elin Hilderbrand
Catching Genius/Kristy Kiernan
Where the River Runs/Patti Callahan Henry
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase/Joan Aiken (re-read of a childhood favorite!)
Child 44/Tom Rob Smith
Lottery/Patricia Wood
Matters of Faith/Kristy Kiernan
Change of Heart/Jodi Picoult
The Pilot's Wife/Anita Shreve
The Secret Life of Bees/Sue Monk Kidd
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox/Maggie O'Farrell
After You'd Gone/Maggie O'Farrell
The Fields of Fortune/Jessica Stirling
Bride Island/Alexandra Enders
Reunion/Therese Fowler (UK edition bought in England, not out in US until 2009!)
About a Boy/Nick Hornby
The Shack/William P. Young
Flying Changes/Sara Gruen
A Patchwork Planet/Anne Tyler

NONFICTION*
Eat, Pray, Love/Elizabeth Gilbert
The Forest for the Trees/Betsy Lerners
Firstlight/Sue Monk Kidd
Finding Water/Julia Cameron
Story/Robert McKee
The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary/Richard A. Tennant and Marianne Gluszak Brown
American Sign Language: The Easy Way, 2nd ed./Barron's
Finding Your Writer's Voice/Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall
Writing the Breakout Novel/Donald Maass
The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction/Michael Seidman
Dynamic Characters/Nancy Kress

* I rarely read nonfiction cover-to-cover, and I feel quite guilty (haha) putting them here if I didn't read every single page. So, here is a disclaimer. If a book appears here, it means I read most of it ... or perhaps half? :-D