Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Ron Rash
(Ecco, $24.99, 256 pages)
Who is this author?
Ron Rash, whose novels and stories often are set in the wild and beautiful mountain region of North Carolina, writes about Appalachia and legacies of Southern pride and prejudice with the grit and grace that only a native can possess. His novel “Serena” was a 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, and three others — “One Foot in Eden,” “Saints at the River” and “The World Made Straight” – also were prizewinners. He has published three poetry collections and four of stories, including “Burning Bright,” which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He also has won the O.Henry Prize twice. Rash teaches Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University.
What is this book about?
It’s a collection of 14 short stories set in Appalachia, from the Civil War years to the present, featuring characters struggling in one way or another, and in some cases, for their very lives. “The Trusty,” which you may have read in The New Yorker, is about a chain-gang prisoner who hopes to get a beaten-down farm wife to help him escape. Another features two druggies out to steal a former boss’s disgusting war souvenirs. In another, a Scottish ballads researcher does some bragging that turns out to be spectacularly ill-advised. A darkly humorous story involves a bear trap. Each story is powerful in its own way; all are memorable.
By the way, if the title sounds familiar but you cannot place it, here is the entire Robert Frost poem from which it was taken:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
Why you’ll like it:
Rash get kudos from reviewers for the way the beauty of his prose mitigates the dark violence that runs through these stories like a gorgeous but dangerous mountain torrent. He writes with authority about a much-maligned, frequently misunderstood part of America, where swollen pride and festering race-related anger keeps people with one foot in the past and another in the present. Too often the hill people of the Appalachian South are treated as comic caricatures, a la “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Rash makes them complex, human, occasionally appalling and always real.
What others are saying:
Says Janet Maslin in The New York Times: Ron Rash’s new short story collection… is excitingly versatile, covering time periods from the Civil War to the present and ranging in mood from wryly comic to brutal. The 14 stories are united by clean, tough specificity, courtly backwoods diction, and a capacity for sending shivers”.
“With ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay,’ Ron Rash cements his reputation as one of the foremost chroniclers of that mythic uber-America known as the South. Rash’s new stories depict, with almost anthropological precision, a proud, poverty-scarred milieu “where checkbooks never quite balanced and repo men and pawnbrokers loomed one turn of bad luck away,” says The Washington Post .
Publishers Weekly says: “Rash’s latest short fiction collection explores the often harsh vicissitudes of life in North Carolina. …“Night Hawks” features a former teacher with a self-inflicted facial scar who seeks refuge as a late-night radio DJ. Rash’s period stories, though, make the biggest impression, like the Depression-era “The Trusty,” in which a con man on a chain gang seduces a lonely farmer’s wife in the hope of using her to aid in his escape. In “The Magic Bus,” a 16-year-old country girl encounters two San Francisco hippies in a flower-painted VW microbus who entice her to run away with them. “The Dowry,” set immediately after the Civil War, relates how a pastor’s surprising sacrifice allows a young Union veteran to marry the daughter of a Confederate officer who lost his hand in battle. For a change of pace, in the humorous “A Sort of Miracle,” an accountant on an illegal bear hunt finds safety in the hands of his two slacker brothers-in-law. Although too many of the stories rely on the same basic dynamic, Rash impresses with clear-eyed, sympathetic writing about flawed and troubled characters.”
Says Library Journal: “His previous novels “Serena” and “The Cove” are set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, so it is no surprise that Rash … sets this collection of short stories in the same loosely defined but culturally abundant geographic region of the eastern United States. …Rash’s short stories thematically paint Appalachia not as a definitive place but as a series of many interconnected ways of relating to human and environmental frailty. VERDICT Another fine addition to the Rash bibliography, and a great entry point for the uninitiated reader…”
When is it available?
Nothing Gold Can Stay can be borrowed now from the Downtown Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Tapestry of Fortunes
By Elizabeth Berg
(Random House, $26, 240 pages)
Who is this author?
Elizabeth Berg, who once lived in New England but is now a resident of suburban Chicago, could be said to actually live in women’s minds. Her best-selling evocations of women’s friendships, love affairs, marriages and heartbreak resonate powerfully with her readers. Her breakout book was “Durable Goods,” which was followed by many novels, including “Talk Before Sleep,” “Joy School,” “The Last Time I Saw You, Home Safe,” “The Year of Pleasures” and “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue.” She also has published two short story collections and two nonfiction books.
What is this book about?
Like many of Berg’s books, this is a story of women’s friendships and of women finding themselves through friendship. Here Cecelia, a motivational speaker in Minnesota, which is where Berg was born, is rocked by the death of a close friend and decides to re-examine her life. She sells her house and moves into another one with three roommates who also are dealing with transitions involving family and careers. When Cecilia gets a letter out of the blue from a former love, she is challenged to discover whether she has the courage to pursue abandoned paths and tie up the loose ends of her life.
Why you’ll like it:
Berg had me at “Talk Before Sleep,” one of those novels you read in one sitting and re-read with pleasure. Before she was an author, Berg was a registered nurse, and the compassion necessary for that endeavor carries over into her writing. One of her gifts is her ability to get into the minds of her female characters and take her readers there, too. Another is her skill at writing dialogue that rings true and is funny when it needs to be and tender when it ought to be. It is this wonderful confluence of true-to-life characters and circumstances and authentic dialogue that animates her stories and keeps her large and loving readership eager to pick up the next Berg novel.
Here is what Berg told a Chicago Tribune reviewer about her work:
“… I think you have to write a lot of books before you know what it is you’re writing about, and as I look back, I consistently write about relationships, love, loss, resiliency — about life, really. It’s beautiful, life, but it’s really hard, too, and I want there to be both sides in every book I write. I want there to be humor and I want there to be pathos. In this particular book, though, there’s some poignancy in it, but it’s not as serious as some things I’ve written. This is kind of my women-just-want-to-have-fun book. After all, who doesn’t want to have a little fun?”
What others are saying:
Library Journal says: “Craving change, Cecilia Ross takes time off, disposes of her home, and moves into a grand old house in St. Paul with three roommates. The four women decide to take a road trip, one to connect with the daughter she gave up, another with a former husband; a professional chef wants to check out other restaurants. As for Cecilia, that unexpected letter from former heartthrob Dennis Helsinger has her sailing on the wind. Who better to tell this story than quintessential women’s author Berg?
“Maybe Freud didn’t know the answer to what women want, but Elizabeth Berg certainly does,” says The Seattle Times.
Says Booklistonline.com: “Any woman who has ever longed to shake off her life and embark on a road trip with female companions will love “Tapestry of Fortunes.” Cecilia Ross, a motivational speaker who teaches others to live their truth, is unable to follow her own advice. When she receives a postcard out of the blue from the one man she never got over, she realizes it’s time to turn her regrets around. She seeks guidance from the fortune-telling devices that she stores in a box in the bedroom closet. Acting on their messages, Cece puts her house on the market, moves in with three women who are equally restless, and takes off with this newfound pack of friends, each on a mission to find the people and opportunities they missed. This book has all the ingredients for a highly satisfying read: a backroads journey, a testament to the power of female friendships, and the possibility of second chances. Berg strips her writing down to what is essential and takes an unflinching look at lifelong regrets. The characters are so completely realized, even the bit players will settle in your heart.”
When is it available?
It’s your good fortune that Berg’s latest is at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Blue Hills, Goodwin, Mark Twain and Ropkins branches.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand
By William J. Mann
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30, 576 pages)
Who is this author?
William J. Mann is adept at writing biographies of the famous and talented. His 2006 book, “Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn,” was a New York Times Notable Book. He’s also the author of “How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, 1941-1981,” “Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger.” “Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood” and “Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines.” Mann has homes in Provincetown on Cape Cod and New York City.
What is this book about?
Barbra. Babs. La Streisand. You may think you already know everything there is to know about this iconic singer with the face that launched a thousand quips and the voice that still mesmerizes, but William J. Mann’s biography will prove you wrong. He takes a deep and detailed look at her early years, showing how it contained the seeds that would blossom into one of the most successful and respected careers in American show business. Here is how he welcomes readers to the book:
“Just five years after arriving in Manhattan as a seventeen-year-old kid without money or connections, Barbra Streisand was the top-selling female recording artist in America and the star of one of Broadway’s biggest hits. Twenty-two years old, her face graced the covers of Time and Life. That was only the beginning of a career that has marched its band and beat its drum for half a century, but everything Streisand has accomplished in that time can be traced right back to this first half decade of her professional life.”
Why you’ll like it:
Mann is a meticulous researcher who writes with verve, a winning combination for any biographer. I had the pleasure of interviewing him about his Hepburn book, and I recall that his enthusiasm for his subject and respect for her achievements was contagious. According to its many positive reviews, he brings the same skills to “Hello, Gorgeous.” Streisand fan or not, you are likely to be impressed this book, which offers deep insights but is not hampered by a stuffy academic approach.
What others are saying:
Says Booklist: “Before she was Barbra, she was Barbara, a homely Brooklyn kid who had an unshakable belief that she would be a star. What she didn’t think was that fame would come through her singing voice. Streisand wanted to be an actress; she saw Shakespeare in her future, not Fanny Brice. Mann takes readers from the day Streisand took the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan and ends with her as the toast of Broadway. He seems to have gotten closer than most to some friends and co-workers of the early Streisand—first love Barry Dennen, first husband Elliott Gould, manager Marty Erlichman—and he’s lucky that she left a paper trail of interviews. Mann seems to have combed through every one, looked at the old videos, and has even gone as far as to check Noël Coward’s schedule for 1960 to prove he could not have seen Streisand sing at Bon Soir. Though some of this is well-trod ground, Streisand fans will come away feeling they’ve had a ringside seat at her early career, and they will leave the show applauding.’’
“In previous biographies, William J. Mann has chronicled the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn, two talented actresses whose riveting beauty seemed to ensure their fame. With “Hello, Gorgeous,” he turns his attention to Barbra Streisand, who has been described impolitely as an awkward ugly duckling who gate-crashed her way to fame. That image, which Barbra herself reinforced with her early choice of roles, conceals her multiple talents, her extraordinary drive, and her complexity. In this full-bodied exploration of Streisand’s early years, Mann describes the rise of the Brooklyn-born singer who began her career in “off-off-off Broadway” productions and small gay Greenwich Village nightclubs. A fascinating biography that tells us how Barbara became Barbra,” says Barnes & Noble.
“…Mann does something a little different here, focusing on Barbra Streisand’s breakout years: the early Sixties, when she vaulted from hopeful nobody to the star of “Funny Girl” on Broadway and singer with three platinum albums. …Theater lovers will swoon,” says Library Journal.
Kirkus Reviews
“…Barbra Streisand is such a cultural institution that it sometimes seems as if she sprang fully grown from the head of the entertainment industry. Not so, argues the author in this surprisingly suspenseful and masterfully paced biography. …Mann appropriately gives credit to the agents, accompanists, directors and mentors who brought her idiosyncratic style to a generation hungry for new idols. He also delves into her paradoxical mixture of self-confidence and -doubt, disclosing that she privately felt insecure about her looks despite publicly flaunting an outlandish flair for fashion and a loopy sense of humor. …Even though we know the answers to most of the questions–Will our heroine win the coveted role of Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl”? Will she live happily ever after with her Prince Charming, Elliott Gould?–this book makes getting to them a treat, says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
People who visit the Downtown Hartford Public Library are the luckiest people in the world: this book is on its new book shelf.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Cover of Snow
By Jenny Milchman
(Ballantine, $26, 336 pages)
Who is this author?
This is the debut novel by Jenny Milchman, who lives in New Jersey and is a psychotherapist. On her website, she says she first began “writing’ at age 2, when she would dictate bedroom stories to her mother, who dutifully wrote them down. Milchman says it took her 11 years to get published, and this novel, her “first,” is actually the eighth one she has written.
What is this book about?
Set in the Adirondack mountains, it is the story of Nora, a young wife – make that widow – who awakes one cold morning to find that her husband Brendan, a police officer, has killed himself. But as she begins to come out of her grief, she cannot but notice odd things that just do not add up. Why was there no suicide note? Why did no one see this coming? Why are Brendan’s police buddies, best friend and even his mother so reluctant to pursue answers? Nora must do some investigating on her own, and what she discovers – and risks – make this an absorbing thriller.
Why you’ll like it:
Reviewers are praising this story’s intriguing twists and turns and Milchman’s understanding of grief and how it clouds the mind and hurts the heart. While this book is a thriller and follows the path of that genre, it also offers insights into the causes of suicide and its effects on those left behind, and it does a nice job of exploring the ways life in a small town can be both comforting and claustrophobic.
What others are saying:
Bookreporter says: “Milchman is one of those authors who is capable of painting a mood of foreboding within an opening sentence or two. …Lest one think that they have stumbled into a modern-day version of “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Cover Of Snow” fires a shot across the bow within a first couple of pages with Brendan’s sudden and totally unexpected suicide. Nora is beside herself, having no idea what might have driven her husband to commit such an act when their lives seemed almost idyllic. It is only in the aftermath of Brendan’s death that Nora gradually begins to uncover her husband’s past history and realizes how little she knew about the man she thought she knew so well….”Cover Of Snow” is quite dark in tone and mood, which in turn contrasts with the backdrop of ever-present snow literally blanketing every scene. The weather is not a friend to Nora; rather, it is cold, treacherous, concealing and unrelenting. One does not think of Christmas, sleigh bells or family reunions but rather of frostbite, hazardous traveling, and chills from within and without. And of course, much can be concealed under a “cover of snow.” This is a memorable debut from an author who promises much and delivers.”
“Well-defined characters take us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through the darkest night, with blinding twists and occasionally fatal turns. This is a richly woven story that not only looks at the devastating effects of suicide but also examines life in a small town and explores the complexity of marriage. Fans of Nancy Pickard, Margaret Maron, and C. J. Box will be delighted to find this new author,” says Booklist in a starred review.
The New York Times says: “Milchman reveals an intimate knowledge of the psychology of grief, along with a painterly gift for converting frozen feelings into scenes of a forbidding winter landscape.”
“Milchman makes [readers] feel the chill right down to their bones and casts a particularly effective mood in this stylish thriller,” says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
You can uncover this book at the Downtown Hartford Public Library or its Mark Twain Branch.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Abide With Me
By Sabin Willett
(Simon & Schuster, $16, 384 pages)
Who is this author?
Sabin Willett, a lawyer who lives in Natick, Mass. and spends a lot of time in Vermont, is also a novelist. He studied Classics at Harvard, and worked as a police reporter before earning his law degree. His previous three novels are “The Deal,” “The Betrayal” and “Present Value.” His current book, “Abide With Me,” was inspired by Willett’s experience as a defense attorney at the Guantanamo military base. It was there, he writes, that he began developing the main characters of the book, Roy and Emma.
What is this book about?
Think “Wuthering Heights,” if that classic romantic novel had been set in the hills of Vermont, not the English moors.
Roy Murphy, a wild and sometimes violent kid, grows up fast in Afghanistan, but one thing never changes. He’s still in the grip of a deep romantic fascination with his hometown’s lovely rich girl, Emma Herrick, who was briefly his high school girlfriend. She, not coincidentally, lives in the Hoosick Falls mansion known as “the Heights,” which has seen better days.
When Roy comes back from the war, he aims to grab some of the Herricks’ fame and fortune. And Emma, even though she has married while Roy was gone.
Why you’ll like it:
Tales of star-crossed lovers have universal appeal, and this one, which is underpinned by scenes that capture the grimness of the war in Afghanistan, is out to break your heart. Not every reviewer liked the book, however. The Washington Post was particularly unimpressed and Kirkus Reviews snarked thusly: “Too much wuthering, too few heights…” Nevertheless, other reviewers found it a good read.
What others are saying:
“Sabin Willett mines his settings of Afghanistan and small-town New England with equal gusto. “Abide with Me” is a big, generous, tasty, funny, rich novel,” says author Stewart O’Nan.
Library Journal says: “Roy Murphy left his Vermont hometown of Hoosick Bridge as the local bad boy. He returns as a veteran of the Afghanistan war. When he departed, he was madly in love with Emma Herrick, and this soldier still pines for her when he walks back into town. Emma is a member of Hoosick Bridge’s first family… Gossip quickly begins to swirl as Roy seeks to rekindle what he had as a young man even though Emma has married and moved on. VERDICT Willett’s reinterpretation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” adds a fresh contemporary take to a classic love story by detailing the very real consequences of men returning to normal society after being subjected to the terrors of war.”
Kirkus Reviews says: “He’s a bad boy from the trailer park; she’s a princess in small-town Vermont; but their electric connection spans class and time. Sound familiar? The second-best thing that happened to young Roy Murphy was being sent to juvenile detention after firing a gun to scare off the drug dealer preying on his mother. The best thing was his magical 10-week teenage affair with Emma Herrick, the beautiful blonde daughter of Hoosick Bridge’s first family. In his fourth novel, Willett updates the star-crossed love story of “Wuthering Heights,” while adding dashes of Homer, “Jane Eyre” and a “Band of Brothers”–style camaraderie. The looping narrative, full of foreboding and forewarning, is at its strongest during scenes of Murphy’s five-year military term in Afghanistan. Returning, he learns of Emma’s father’s financial disgrace and suicide and Emma’s engagement to nice, preppy lawyer George. Roy now devotes himself to making money, so successfully that two years later he can buy Emma’s family home, the Heights, which he shares with Emma’s half-demented mother and George’s boho sister Izzy, who is now Roy’s occasional lover, until a mysterious fire redraws the landscape. Too much wuthering, too few heights in a story that describes eternal passion but doesn’t give it life or a satisfactory ending.”
When is it available?
“Ábide With Me” is at the Downtown Hartford Public Library now.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
The Re-Enactments
By Nick Flynn
(Norton, $15.95, 320 pages)
Who is this author?
Nick Flynn, 53, is a poet, playwright and memoirist who grew up in Scituate, Mass., and once worked at a homeless shelter in Boston. Flynn now lives in Brooklyn and Houston, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. His three poetry collections include “Some Ether,” won the inaugural PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry in 1999. More recently, he’s become known for his three penetrating memoirs, the provocatively titled “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” (2004),which won a PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and “The Ticking Is the Bomb” (2010) and “The Re-Enactments.” He is married to actress Lili Taylor.
What is this book about?
Nick Flynn knows who would play him in a movie about his life, because that has already happened. The actor Paul Dano played him in “Being Flynn” (based on his best-selling “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” whose title evidently was considered too raunchy for the multiplex marquee), and Robert DiNiro took the role of Flynn’s mercurial alcoholic father. Julianne Moore played his mother, who ended her life with a shotgun suicide. Out of this tragic family have come books about various stages of Flynn’s life
This book is a memoir about a movie about a memoir, and it is a brilliant exposition of the intricacies of grieving, of representing reality and of making art. Imagine being on a movie set where the most dramatic, painful and occasionally funny experiences of your life are being re-enacted by strangers. Flynn captures the surreality of that reality in a deeply thoughtful way.
Why you’ll like it:
Remember, Flynn is at heart a poet. That pretty much guarantees the writing in “The Re-Enactments” will be lyrical and supple, and it is. He knows that memory is unreliable and that what we recall comes in bits and pieces that confuse as much as they comfort, but he is adept at using these fragments to create a powerful whole. These insights, as well as his command of beautiful language, give this book its power.
What others are saying:
Writing in the Boston Globe, Clea Simon asks: “How would you cast your life, if Hollywood were making a film of it? What would it mean to have a huge star play your alcoholic con man father? A famous actress your suicidal mother? …And so, on the set with Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore, and Paul Dano (who played the author), he chronicled and examined the 2011 experience, exploring the regrets and absurdity of seeing your worst days portrayed by others for the silver screen. The resulting book, “The Reenactments,” is a kind of memoir about a memoir, a study of art and process, and also a reexamination of trauma that must have once seemed safely filed away……In Flynn’s hands, however, these memories and updatings become something more. It helps that this book isn’t entirely about the film. Flynn digresses frequently, into post-memoir updates on various characters, as well as meditations on the science of phantom limbs and Harvard’s famed glass flowers. It also helps that his writing, always specific and honest, can be dryly funny, as well.”
SFGate.com says: “What could be more disquieting than to work in a homeless shelter and have your long-estranged father turn up one night for a bed? For Nick Flynn, very little, other than sitting on a movie set and watching the moment re-created by celebrated actors.
The Massachusetts-bred memoirist hit the writer’s jackpot in 2004, recounting his bizarre homeless-shelter reunion in “Another Bull- Night in Suck City,” the memoir that dare not speak its full name in so many media outlets. Chronicling an operatic family history that included his mother’s shotgun suicide and his alcoholic father’s stints in the slammer, it seemed a natural for big-screen treatment. …In “The Reenactments,” his moving reflections on the weirdness of serving as a movie consultant on your own life, Flynn is digging for deeper treasure than might be mined in a DVD supplement on the making of a movie. Abetted by a poet’s divining rod for the illuminating metaphor, he probes the most fundamental questions about the nature of memory and the terrible urge to revisit and preserve one’s past in the aspic of art….”
Kirkus Reviews says: “Flynn …. writes about having his memoir made into a movie. ….This new memoir is told as a series of short, almost pointillist vignettes–most a page or less–creating a complex patchwork of thoughts and ruminations on memory. Flynn systematically tries to make sense of his roiling emotions as he cycles through episodes from his and his parents’ lives. The inherent surreality of having your life portrayed by actors is a major theme. Describing a table reading of the film script, Flynn writes, “De Niro opens his mouth and my father comes out, then Dano opens his mouth and I come out, then Julianne opens her mouth.” Several times, Flynn uses a quote from another writer–Joan Didion, Friedrich Nietzsche, Simone Weil and others–as a springboard to a new thought or to sharpen a previous one. ….Flynn’s determination to better understand his life through the act of writing and remembering has yielded a truly insightful, original work.”
When is it available?
Flynn’s memoir is on the shelf at the Downtown Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures Of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives
By Becky Aikman
(Crown, $26, 352 pages)
Who is this author?
Becky Aikman has a solid background in the news biz: she earned a degree at the prestigious School of Journalism at Columbia University, and then worked as a writer and editor for Business Week and a reporter for Newsday. But sadly, what really qualified her to write this memoir was losing her husband to cancer while she was in her early 40s. After experiencing widowhood and researching the American way of grieving, she remarried and lives in New York City.
What is this book about?
Becky Aikman felt she was too young and too contemporary-minded to behave like a traditional widow, but nevertheless, that is what she was. Her book is a memoir of how she coped in unconventional ways with the sadness and dislocation that losing her husband brought to her life, and how, after remarrying, she and a group of five widows around her age came together as friends to navigate their way in a world they never expected to enter so young.
Becky was the group leader. The others included a mother of two who was in the process of divorcing her alcoholic husband when he succumbed; another who struggling to cope; a tough lawyer; a businesswoman with two kids whose husband died in a sporting accident and a housewife who discovered her husband’s suicide. They met once a month for a year and learned how to live again.
Why you’ll like it:
Aikman writes with compassion and humor about the highly emotional peaks and valleys these women experienced, and her account is valuable and comforting to women who have gone through this sadness and to those who fear it may come their way. Here is what she told an Amazon.com interviewer about her book:
“Losing someone close to you has to be one of life’s most universal experiences, but it wasn’t until it happened to me at a relatively young age that I realized our culture doesn’t provide much guidance about how to reinvent yourself afterward. I hoped that by joining with other young widows, we could lighten the task by facing this daunting transition together.
“I had joined a traditional support group before, but the goal seemed to be to sit in a circle and talk about how sad we were. And there weren’t even any snacks! So I put together more of a renegade group, looking to the future, and focused on doing, not talking. Although we did wind up talking our heads off, too, we also cooked together, volunteered, invited widowers to meet us. We went through the family home of one of the women when she was packing up to move. We even went lingerie shopping together when some of the women started to look for love again. Ultimately, we took a transforming trip to a place none of us had visited before. Along the way, we shared a few tears, but a lot more laughter.”
What others are saying:
“Compelling….Along with the stories of six remarkably resilient and admirable women (ranging from an entrepreneur to a housewife), the book offers an arresting analysis of the literature of grief….A compassionate, inspirational and deeply personal read, “Saturday Night Widows” is relevant for a wider audience than the grieving. This book is for anyone who has faced adversity but refuses to let it define them,” says BookPage.
“For those who are ready to emerge from the darkness of bereavement, Aikman’s book defines five new phases – Bonding, Laughing, Dating, Traveling and Buying Lacy Underwear. “Saturday Night Widows” should become required reading at support groups everywhere,” says Newsday.
Kirkus Reviews says: “How to cope with tragedy with the help of good friends. “I didn’t seem to fit anyone’s definition of a proper widow, least of all my own,” writes former Newsday writer Aikman, “you know, the Ingmar Bergman version, gloomy, pathetic, an all-around, ongoing downer.” Five years after her husband died …the author realized she wasn’t ready to quit living just yet and surmised that there must be others just like her. She gathered together five other women, all unknown to each other, and they formed a support group–not just to move past their grief, but hopefully, on to new and richly fulfilling lives. Meeting once a month for a year, “on Saturday night, the most treacherous shoal for new widows, where untold spirits have sunk into gloom,” the group tried cooking together, going to an art museum, a day at a spa and other activities. Engaging and entertaining but not maudlin, Aikman shows a side of life that many readers probably don’t think about. A compassionate narrative about how one group of friends helped each other thrive after the deaths of their spouses.”
When is it available?
The Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Camp Field and Goodwin branches have copies of this book.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories
By Kij Johnson
(Small Beer Press, $16, 300 pages)
Who is this author?
What kind of background prepares an author to let her imagination soar into worlds of fantasy? In the case of Kij Johnson, her resume includes running bookstores, being a radio announcer and engineer, editing cryptic crosswords and waitressing in a strip bar. Eclectic enough for you? You can add to that list being an assistant professor of writing at the University of Kansas, as well as Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction there. Johnson has won the Sturgeon, World Fantasy, Hugo and Nebula awards for her stories and is the only author to have won Nebula Awards three years in a row. She also is the author of two novels, “The Fox Woman” and “Fudoki.”
What is this book about?
The 16 stories in this book often have animals as characters, and Johnson reminds us that humans are animals, too. Even the titles are intriguing, such as: “At the Mouth of the River of Bees ,” “Schrodinger’s Cathouse,” “The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles,” “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change,” “My Wife Reincarnated as a Solitaire” and “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss.” Many have appeared in such anthologies as “The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror,” “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year” and “The Secret History of Fantasy.”
Why you’ll like it:
Johnson has a magic touch, creating stories that are fantastical but relatable, mystifying yet compelling. Some are set in what seems to be Japan; others in present-day America. Some draw on classic mythological tropes: a fox becomes enamored of a man and employs her magical wiles to capture him; a woman dies and becomes a bird. Johnson makes her stories powerful by employing her own magic: beautiful writing, clever ideas, enthralling imagination.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly says: “In her first collection of short fiction, Johnson covers strange, beautiful, and occasionally disturbing territory without ever missing a beat. Several tales take place in mythical Japan—or a place very much like it—featuring fox spirits in “Fox Magic,” a prophetic empress who acts as a tool of the gods and lives outside of time in “Empress Jingu Fishes,” and a cat carrying stories on a long journey in “The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles.” Others, such as the title story, are made stranger by their familiar contemporary settings. Her young heroes in “Ponies” and the previously unpublished “The Bitey Cat” are particularly intriguing for both their innocence and their loss of it. Johnson’s language is beautiful, her descriptions of setting visceral, and her characters compellingly drawn. These tales, most collected from Johnson’s magazine publications, are sometimes off-putting, sometimes funny, and always thought provoking.”
Says www.npr.org: “In the story called “Fox Magic,” which Johnson created out of her research into the nature of the fantastic in Japanese culture, the unfolding of the story — about a vixen who falls in love with a feudal nobleman and bewitches him into thinking she is a royal personage who has fallen in love with him — comes in bursts of events that I found bewitching in themselves, as when the she-fox first begins her campaign to cloud the man’s mind and win his love:
“The fox-path was long and wandering. We walked along it until we saw lights. ‘Home,’ I said, and took his hand and led him the last few steps. He was lost in the magic then, and didn’t notice that he had to enter my beautiful house by lying belly-down in the dirt and wriggling under the storehouse.”
“In this highly anticipated collection from the Nebula, Sturgeon, World Fantasy, and now Hugo Award-winning Johnson delivers a broad range of stories to appeal to most sf fans. Ancient Japan, modern Seattle, quick moments in time, vast multigenerational epics, all are covered in this intensely varied volume. Whether they feature a young girl trying to make sense of her parents’ divorce (“The Bitey Cat”), a man whose wife becomes an extinct bird upon her death (“My Wife Reincarnated as a Solitaire”), or an exploration of possibilities (“Schrodinger’s Cathouse”), the stories are original, engaging, and hard to put down. Two standouts include “Fox Magic,” Johnson’s award-winning story of a fox who falls in love with a man and uses her magic to ensnare him, and the transcendent title tale of a woman who follows a river of bees through the American desert with her dying dog. VERDICT Johnson has a rare gift for pulling readers directly into the heart of a story and capturing their attention completely. Readers who enjoy a touch of the uncanny in their reading will love this collection,” says Library Journal.
“Johnson’s writing whispers of the fantastic, sneaking up to surprise the reader with emotional connections in worlds sometimes dark and lonely. This is the other hallmark of these stories: the desire for connection,” says www.bookslut.com.
When is it available?
Johnson’s book is buzzing on the shelf at the Downtown Hartford Public Library.
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The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat
by Edward Kelsey Moore
(Knopf, $24.95, 320 pages)
Who is this author?
Edward Kelsey Moore, an accomplished cellist in Chicago who also writes fiction, makes his debut as a novelist with “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat.” Moore’s shorter fiction pieces have appeared in such literary journals as Indiana Review, African American Review, and Inkwell. One of his stories, the intriguingly titled “Grandma and the Elusive Fifth Crucifix” was an audience favorite on NPR’s “Stories on Stage” series.
What is this book about?
You can’t hurry love, and you can’t hurry a good story, either. While the three women at the center of “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” aren’t the famous Motown trio, they sing their stories from the heart as they look back over 40 years of their lives in Plainview, Indiana, where on Sundays they met for dinner at Earl’s diner. Known around town as “the Supremes,” Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean launch a friendship in the ‘60s that endures, even as they suffer family troubles, straying husbands, a cancer diagnosis, drinking problems and all the seemingly ordinary ups and downs that are anything but ordinary when they happen to you.
Why you’ll like it:
Evoking such popular fiction as ‘The Help” and “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café,” this is a down-to-earth story about the positive power of friendship, the negative but intriguing power of gossip and the way women survive the difficulties of life. Lightened by plenty of humor, some of it raunchy, and full of heart, this is a novel full of endearing characters and situations that readers can relate to.
What others are saying:
Says Publishers Weekly: “Each of the central characters brings unique challenges to the tables at Earl’s diner: Odette battles cancer while her pothead mother communicates with famous ghosts; Clarice tries to salvage a crumbling marriage with her cheating husband; and beautiful Barbara Jean, who married for money, drinks to forget a youthful affair and her dead son. In a booth at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, a short walk from Calvary Baptist Church, these women lay bare their passions, shortfalls, and dramas. …Despite meandering points-of-view and a surplus of exposition, Moore is a demonstrative storyteller and credits youthful eavesdropping for inspiring this multifaceted novel. …. Moore’s take on this rowdy troupe of outspoken, lovable women has its own distinctive pluck.”
Kirkus Reviews says: “Well, not Florence, Mary and Diana, but rather three close friends from Plainview, Ind., who, from their adolescence to their maturity, meet to gossip and consolidate their friendship at a local eatery. Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean have been inseparable since the late 1960s, when they met in high school. … The novel opens some 40 years after their salad days, when Odette hears of the death of Big Earl, founder of the eponymous black-owned-and-operated restaurant. …we learn of the trio’s personal problems and the rise and fall of their relationships…. Throughout the Supremes’ intertwined stories is one constant–meeting and eating at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, now run by his son Little Earl, a place where relationships are forged, scandals are aired and copious amounts of chicken are consumed. A novel of strong women, evocative memories and deep friendship.”
“The author uses warmhearted humor and salty language to bring to life a tight-knit African-American community. . . . along with an event-filled plot that readers will laugh and cry over, this is a good bet to become a best seller,” says Library Journal.
“Edward Kelsey Moore has written a novel jam-packed with warmth, honesty, wit, travail, and just enough madcap humor to keep us giddily off-balance. It teems with memorable characters, chief among them Odette, as unlikely and irresistible protagonist as we are likely to meet. “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” is that rare and happy find: a book that delivers not only a good story, but good company,” says Leah Hager Cohen, author of “The Grief of Others.”
When is it available?
You can visit “Earl’s” at the Albany, Barbour, Blue Hills, Goodwin or Mark Twain branches of the Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
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