05/18/12

What I am Reading – An Unexpected Guest

“The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.” ― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

I bought An Unexpected Guest written by Anne Korkeakivi for two reasons: I fell in love with the cover and the story is set in Paris. I have tried to explain the affect that my trip, two years ago, to Paris had on me, but words always seem to fail me. You have to go. If you already have, you know what I mean.

An Unexpected Guest takes place over the course of one woman’s day. Clare Moorhouse, the wife of the British minister in France, second only to the British ambassador, learns at the last minute, due to the illness of the ambassador, she is expected to host a dinner at her home for the permanent under-secretary. If it goes well, it will result in the likely appointment of her husband, Edward, as ambassador to Ireland, a position that he has waited for and richly deserves.

Clare knows her job well and organizes this crucial event like a general mounting an army about to go into battle. Reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, we see her efficiently dealing with difficult servants, surly French flower vendors, last minute guests, and the unexpected arrival of her troubled younger son as she goes about her day. There is, however, much more going on with Clare.

Edward describes his wife as “Tall, cool, white, smooth and wonderfully classic.” Dressed in her beige cashmere cardigan, fountain pen in hand, carefully writing the place cards for her dinner, Clare is all that. The reader also knows from the first paragraph of An Unexpected Guest, that Clare is darker and more complicated. With skillful use of flashbacks, Korkeakivi tells the story of the young Clare who meets and falls in love with Niall, “some cousin” from Ireland who is staying at her uncle’s home for the summer.

Slowly, Clare’s youthful mistakes, mistakes that carried her to 83 Portobello Road, Dublin are revealed. As the clock ticks relentlessly down toward her dinner party, her past sins race to catch up with her.

I always know that I am reading a great book when I start to read faster. This was the case with An Unexpected Guest. The pace quickens as the story builds toward a surprising and (for me) deeply satisfying climax underscoring, that, while we cannot undo the mistakes of the past, we can, if we choose to do so, learn from them.

I hope you enjoy it.

05/14/12

Remembering my Mother

““Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.” – James Joyce

Last year, I wrote a blog post on Father’s Day about my dad. It makes perfect sense that I would write about him before I wrote about my mother because he was the sun around which the rest of us revolved. My mother was content to stand in his shadow. It wasn’t until after she was gone, I realized that he was the sun because she put him there at the center of our universe.

When I am stuck trying to figure out who a character is, I will take his or her first name and list all the adjectives beginning with the same letter that describe the person I am writing about. My mother’s name was Gertrude, and she hated it. She compromised by going through life known as Gert – never Gertie or Trudy. Here are some of the adjectives that describe her: gentle, generous, gifted, grateful, and gorgeous. But mostly, she was just good.

Picture of my mother — My mother - Gert Ferrari - probably taken around 1941

Good is one of those small, self-effacing word that gets stomped on by more glittery words like “Awesome” and “Amazing”. But it is the right word for her. I have a clear memory of my fourth grade teacher, fingering the collar of my school uniform blouse, saying, “Your mother starches this. She is so good.”

She was a good wife, a good mother, a good worker, a good Nana, and a good friend.

She taught me to always send a thank you note and to bring a meal to a home where someone was sick or bereaved. I still make her “from scratch” brownies because they taste so much better than the ones made from a mix, and because as soon as I begin to bake them, I am awash in memories. I see her carefully trimming the edges – “You never give those to guests.”- and placing the perfectly cut squares into a Filene’s box lined with wax paper. When she was satisfied with how they looked, she would stand back and smile.

She was not quite a year old when her mother died in the 1918 flu epidemic. She inherited her pedal sewing machine as well as her talent as a seamstress. She used this machine, considered to be state of the art when it was first purchased, from the time she was a girl. The sound of her feet pumping that sewing machine was the background music of my childhood. I believe now that she continued to use it, long after it had become obsolete, because it was her one tangible connection with her mother.

My mother sewed beautifully. She made slipcovers, curtains, clothes, doll clothes and supplemented her income for many years by making and selling Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. She could also knit, crochet, embroider, braid rugs and quilt. She tried her best to pass these talents on to me but I was a disappointment. Much to her frustration, I always had my head in a book. Fortunately, my sister would prove to be as talented as she was and carries on the tradition of making beautiful things.

The gift my mother gave to me was the example of her perseverance. She faced life with determination and grace. No matter how difficult her life was, she carried on, trusting God and her own ability to keep on moving forward, to make it through the day. She wasted no time feeling sorry for herself. Her faith never wavered. During the darkest days of my life, it has been mother ‘s voice, I have heard in my head telling me to get up and to keep going.

I am embarrassed to say I took her for granted, never stopping to realize that she would not always be there. There is not a day that goes by, I don’t think of her, and wish I were more like her.

Like I said before, she was good.

05/11/12

What I am Reading – One True Thing

“I realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display.” – Anna Quindlen

Still obsessed with Anna Quindlen, I went back and reread my favorite of her books, One True Thing. This is the story of a daughter who discovers who her mother really is when it’s almost too late. This Sunday is Mother’s Day. I thought I would suggest you read it or, if you already have, read it again. First, buy a box of tissue. You’re going to need them.

Daughters fall into two categories: those who want to be like their mothers and those who don’t. Brilliant, driven, self-admittedly cold, Ellen Gulden definitely does not. It is her father who she idolizes and wants to be like. And, it is his approval she craves. This need succeeds in dragging her from her exciting job as a journalist in New York City back to Langhorne, the college town where she was raised, to care for her dying mother. Not a role she wants, she does it for “Papa”, not her mother.

Reluctantly, with a bitterness that makes the reader wince, she steps into her mother’s shoes and attempts to run George Gulden’s house so that his world is disturbed as little as possible by the messiness of his wife’s dying. It’s all about George. Thoroughly unlikeable, it is only when Quindlen makes it possible to see him through the loving eyes of his wife that the reader is able to view him in a kinder light.

While the men, George, Ellen’s boyfriend Jonathan, and Ellen’s brothers, Jeff and Brian, play a role in this book, it is a mother-daughter story. Ellen learns the the cliche is true. You can’t tell a book by its cover. Sweet Kate Gulden, baker of pies, refinisher of furniture, reader of garish romance novels is not who Ellen dismissively thought she was. It is this discovery, played out against the relentless timetable of Kate’s dying, that will keep you reading until you’ve turned the last page. You may wonder if Kate and Ellen are really so different, after all.

One True Thing was published in 1994, before cell phones, laptops, Facebook and Twitter, but there is a timelessness about the story that makes it as readable today as it was then. All women have a mother and many also have a daughter. It should remind us all to look deeper.

As a writer, I can only wonder how much of Ellen is Anna. Only Quindlen knows for sure, but her experience caring for her own dying mother informs this story and makes it very real to her readers.

I also bought the movie (at my fingertips in the iTunes Stores) and watched as Meryl Streep and Renee Zellweger brought Kate and Ellen to the screen. Both performances are flawless. We are talking about Meryl, after all. But the story, as it so often is, was changed for the movie. The book is better, but I always think that it is.

If you do read this book, I hope it reminds you, this Sunday, when you stop to think about your own mother, to take a moment and let her out of the neat little box where you may have so lovingly placed her, and wonder who she really is or was.

One True Thing is dedicated to Prudence M. Quindlen, Anna’s mother.

05/7/12

The Chief in Charge of Keeping us Happy

“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aeschylus

I love rocks. There is something about them that speaks to me. They are all beautiful in their own way, even the forbidding, native granite ones found here in New Hampshire. I think that I like them because they demonstrate a stoic endurance in the face of whatever life dishes out. While it’s true, they are eventually worn down and reshaped by the elements around them, they hold their own for a long time, longer than most of us do.

You may not be aware of this if you’re not a rock person, but rocks are expensive. I suppose that’s only fair for something that will be around longer than I will be. My last trip to the rock store, I coveted a chalky white rock, large enough to sit on, shot through with veins of green, looking very much like a big chunk of cheese, only to discover that it cost $1200.

I am drawn to the pretty rocks, the pinks or the sparklers, but one particular stone kept calling me back, so I asked the rock man, or perhaps I should say the purveyor of rocks, which sounds more mysterious, how much it cost. He was delighted with my choice. He told me, “I picked out that rock myself.” And then he laughed, “Of course, I pick most of them out myself.”

Pink Quartz — Rose Quartz - one of my "Pretties"

My choice, it would seem, was one of a kind. It had been mined in Wyoming, (a long way from New Hampshire) on land that Native Americans held sacred. And, the rock man told me, very seriously, NO MORE would be mined there. This was IT. Slashed through with black tourmaline known as Schorl, the stone appears to be wearing war paint. The rock man said that it is very unusual to find the tourmaline laced within the rock and that the Native Americans believed this stone warded off negativity. Really.

The rock was in the group marked $3.00 per pound. It weighed in at 32 pounds but because the rock man liked me (he said so), he gave me a deal – $90. Fellow homeowner was not impressed . I ask you, who would not spend $90 to ward off negativity and live in harmony, sunshine and serenity? NOT ME.

I like to sit on the patio with my coffee and study The Chief in Charge of Keeping Us Happy. And he does make me happy just by being there.

Rock with black tourmaline — The Chief in Charge of Keeping Us Happy

I also bought this very small version of the cheese rock that “spoke” to my fellow homeowner. And right away the influence of The Chief could be felt because THAT made HIM happy.

Fellow Homeowner's Rock - you have to look hard for the green but it's there.

Have you ever bought anything on a whim?

05/4/12

What I am Reading- Defending Jacob

“Nothing you become will disappoint me; I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do. I have no desire to forsee you, only to discover you. You can’t disappoint me” ― Mary Haskell

Defending Jacob is a story about a man who loves his son.

What parent has not struggled against the news that his or her child has done something wrong? Lying, cheating on a test, unkindness to a friend or classmate, rudeness to a teacher – a parent’s first reaction is always, “not my kid.”

Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber insists that his son, Jacob, is innocent when he is accused of murdering a classmate. His horror and disbelief would resonate with almost any reader, but if you are a parent, this is enough to keep you reading until the book’s shocking conclusion.

Set in the affluent Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, the story unfolds as fourteen-year-old Jacob is arrested and brought to trial for the murder of Ben Rifkin. William Landay, a former district attorney, breathes authenticity into the legal aspects of the book that could only come from the halls of Boston College Law, his alma mater, and from his years of practicing criminal law.This is not a book where you will find irritating mistakes describing the way things are done.

Integral to this story of a family coming to terms with the unfathomable is the question of the possibility of inheriting a “murder gene”. Is young Jacob his murderous paternal grandfather’s true heir?

Defending Jacob is a brilliantly executed story that builds to a conclusion that was, at least for me, totally unexpected and, at the same time, understandable.

The question that lingers long after you finish the last page is: To what lengths will a parent go to save his or her child? To what length would I go to save my own?

I think you will find yourself unable to put this one down.

04/30/12

Circle of Girls

“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold.” – Lyrics from a traditional Girl Scout song

This was a weekend that reminded me about the joy that comes from sharing our lives with other girls. This circle of friendship, celebrated by countless girls in the song I have quoted above, is the true heart of women’s fiction. This is why I love writing it.

Much is written today about the culture of “mean girls” and the long-term damage that culture causes, so much that the other side, the positive side of female friendship is often lost. I am the first one to admit that it’s a long time since I was a girl; but the ability to establish those all important friendships with other women, friendships that sustain us as we move through life, begins with the discovery, when you are a girl, of how much fun sharing life with a girlfriend is.

My granddaughter came to visit this weekend. She will be eight years old in September. We had a lot of fun with her father and grandfather but she also insisted that we have “girl time”, carefully shutting the “boys” out, allowing only the dog (a girl) and the cat (a girl) into our inner sanctum. There was dressing up, dancing, yoga, a lot of giggling and sharing of secrets and cupcakes. Everyone wore a hat. There was a lot of pink. It was, she told me, “So fun.”

picture of a little girl — Feeling the power of being a girl!

Sunday morning, I had more fun with more girls, albeit older ones.

I was twenty-five years old when, shortly after moving into town, I joined the fledgling Bedford Junior Women’s Club. It was still okay then to refer to yourself as a girl even if you were not. I remained a member of “the Juniors” for the next eleven years, only resigning from the club when I went to work.

This was a group of smart, hard-working, compassionate women who strove to make a difference and fill whatever need they saw in their community. They had brains, talent and time. With that firmly in hand, they acted and things got done. They also took care of their own. When my husband died suddenly, the club provided my daughter and I with meals every day for the next month.

Ten of us met for brunch. Two of the women sitting at the table I count among my BFFs. One dropped her kids off with me on the way to the hospital to have her baby. I have not seen the other seven in more than twenty years. After greetings and exclamations about how great we all looked – amazingly true – we stood back and the years fell away. We were “the Juniors” once more.

Around the table we went, one at a time, sharing where our lives had taken us. The stories reached across the spectrum from joy to tragedy. Children and marriages had not always turned out as we had hoped, but grandchildren, exciting and sometimes unexpected careers, and new loves had.

Looking around the circle of vibrant, interesting women, it was clear that we had not only survived, but that we had thrived. We were happy to see and celebrate one another. Such is the power and the secret of the friendship of women; born and nurtured from the time we were girls.

It was, as my granddaughter had told me the night before, “So fun.”

04/27/12

What I am Reading – Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

“It’s that we’ve done a pretty good job of becoming ourselves, and that this is, in so many ways the time of our lives.” – Anna Quindlen

I admit that I relate to Anna Quindlen because we both were good little Catholic girls of Irish and Italian extraction, born in the 1950s. We came of age in the long shadow cast by the Vietnam War when America’s values were changing at a dizzying pace. We were the first generation of girls who voiced our belief that we had the right to be or do whatever we wanted to. I know because I was there and I remember.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, Quindlen’s new memoir, is written, first and foremost, for the girls of the fifties. In it Quindlen talks about what it meant to her to be a young woman making her way through those times. She also talks about how she feels now as she approaches sixty, reflecting on what she has achieved and where she is today.

Anna Quindlen is a writer’s writer. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column, “Public and Private”. She has written five best-selling novels, three of which have been made into movies. One True Thing (1994) is about a daughter called home from her exciting career in New York City to care for her dying mother. The movie version of the book stars Meryl Streep and Renee Zellweger. She has written numerous other essays, stories and opinion pieces and holds many honorary degrees. She is, as the saying goes, the real deal.

When you learn that at the age of nineteen, Anna Quindlen left Barnard to care for her own mother, dying of ovarian cancer at age forty, a light goes on. Oh. Really. Here again is another example of a writer’s life experience informing her work. The heart of the pathos, so beautifully captured in One True Thing, is explained in Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.

The reason that I love to write about women is that I feel that women, more so than men, carry parts of their mothers and grandmothers forward with them. Much has been written about the fact the many women today have chosen to leave their careers, enabled by expensive college educations, many at schools that once only admitted men. Instead, they choose to stay home, raise their babies and bake cupcakes as many of their grandmothers did. Many of their grandmothers did not have the right to make that choice.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is Anna Quindlen’s own story, but at the same time it the story of a generation’s struggle to make sure that women have choices. We fought for them. As one of those demur little white-gloved girls, frequently told to “ sit still and be good”, I am thrilled to be able to tell my granddaughters, “You can be anything that you want to be. Go for it.”

I loved Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. Let me know what you think of it, if you decide to read it.

Photo of Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake — Enjoy!

04/26/12

Finding a Balance

“There’s only one way to stop a MAD WATCH.” ― The March Hare, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

You probably realize that today is Thursday, not Wednesday, the day I usually post my second blog of the week. I have spent the last couple of months determined to figure out the secret of blogging. In an effort to do this, I have checked out numerous author blogs.

It has slowly sunk in that while bloggers are most certainly writers, not all bloggers are also writing a new novel. This probably explains why not many fiction writers blog three times a week. I have stumbled upon more than one writer’s blog that says, “Please forgive me, I am taking a break from blogging to write. Check back from time to time to see if I have returned.” Another admitted she had cut back dramatically on social media and blogging because she found it got in the way of her writing.

I am in the middle of my second book and my characters are definitely getting restless. It might be hard to believe if you have never written fiction, but they really do have a mind of their own. My crowd is definitely getting ready to run amuck.

After considering everything, I have made a decision to cut back to only two blog posts per week starting next Monday. The clock kept stopping last week for no reason the clock man could figure out. Finally, it dawned on me that it was the universe telling me to slow down and focus on the new book.

I will continue to blog on my writing life on Mondays. On Fridays, I will share with you what I am reading. For now, I think that will be about the right balance for me.

I have found that I enjoy blogging. I have also learned the following:

It is important to set a definite schedule for when you will post a blog. I have a list of blogs that I visit and I have found myself annoyed when the expected post is not there. (So I humbly apologize for yesterday. Life really got in the way.)
Bloggers do need to use their own voice, quirky or, in my case, snarky as it may be. Readers who follow a certain blog do so because they enjoy it.
Photos are always welcome. Readers like pictures.

One of the questions that you often see in author interviews is: Who is your writer crush? I have a new one. The amazing Anna Quindlen. Stop by tomorrow for my review of her new memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. She is a girl after my own heart.

04/23/12

The Power of Sex

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” ― Virginia Woolf

Is there any word in the English language that grabs the reader’s attention more than the word sex? The only one I can think of might be death, but I doubt it. Sex is on my mind this morning because of the reading frenzy around E L James’ trilogy, Shades of Grey.

A little more than a month ago, I posted about the first book, Fifty Shades of Grey, on my Facebook page. I asked who was reading it. Only a couple of my Facebook friends had heard of it.

Fifty Shades of Grey made the top of the New York Times Bestseller List this morning with the second and third book in the trilogy occupying slots two and three. So a lot of people are reading it now or at least buying it.

A self-published novel that was quickly labeled “mommy porn”, Fifty Shades of Grey centers on BDSM (bondage and sadomasochism) – in essence SEX, albeit a very specific type. I believe the phenomenal success of this book is tied to the fact that it was originally published as an e-book. This made it possible for readers to download it privately. Many of these readers would never dream of carrying the physical book through their local Barnes and Noble and sliding it across the counter or having the book in their homes. You can buy the books now at Barnes and Noble. I saw a huge stack of all three there last week. Social media drove the success of the first book by sending out the clear message: “You have to read this book!”

Let me tell you about my experience with sex. I enjoy it but I don’t like writing about it. It’s not easy to do it well. If you don’t believe me, try it. Everything that you put on the page comes into question. “Do you think she does that?” or “Nobody does that!” When I write about sex, I immediately see the faces of a number of people I would prefer didn’t know I was even engaging in it, never mind writing about it for all the world to see.

Why do it then? The flip answer is that it sells books as has just been proven by Fifty Shades of Grey. The more thoughtful one is that I believe it is a huge part of most women’s lives and deserves its place in the books that women are reading. The question remains. What is the best way to actually write it?

MacCullough’s Women has a sex scene in it. I like to think of it as a love scene where two characters are enjoying some pretty good sex. The first time I had to read that scene to my writers’ group we were still meeting in my living room. The only way I was able to do it was to turn my back to the group. Now we meet on the phone and the next time will be easier. I have had three specific compliments from readers on this scene but I have also had a number of requests to put MORE sex in the next book. I don’t treat sex like commas and sprinkle it everywhere, so we will have to see what the characters decide they want to do.

As far as Fifty Shades of Grey is concerned, the impact of its success in terms of sales and buzz generated cannot be understated. Once again, despite disclaimers, we are reminded that social media marketing is a force to be reckoned with and that self-publishing, like sex, is here to stay.

Okay, I will dare to ask. Who’s read Fifty Shades of Grey and what did you think of it?

04/20/12

What I am Reading – The Garden of Happy Endings

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth”

I write these recommendations from the perspective of a reader but I read the books with the eyes of a writer. Every reader follows authors whose work they love and eagerly await. If you are a re-reader like I am, you pacify yourself by reading again the books the author has already written. This is how I feel about Barbara O’Neal who also writes as Barbara Samuel.

Her latest book, The Garden of Happy Endings, is about a group of people, each with his or her own problems, banding together to create a community garden in an abandoned lot next to San Roque ‘s Catholic Church.

It contains all the signature elements that you will find in Barbara’s books: damaged people wrestling with messy problems, mystical dreams and visions, tantalizing food that makes you want to go find something to eat while reading, and dogs who steal your heart.

Set in Pueblo, Colorado, The Garden of Happy Endings carries an authenticity that comes from the fact that Barbara is a Colorado native who continues to live in that part of the state. It is a story about two sisters, Thomasina (Tamsin) and Elsa –named after a cat and a lion– who find themselves living once again in the modest house where they were raised. Elsa, a recovering Catholic, driven by the fact that she was forbidden to be a priest to become a Unity minister, is facing a crisis of faith. Tamsin, the beautiful sister, is confronted by the dawning realization that her marriage, along with all the comfort and security it has provided, is not what she thought it was. Working together, each sister finds her way back to a life that is both meaningful and joyous.

Deftly woven throughout the story, you will meet three delightful little boys, an earnest priest who once was in love with Elsa, a sexy contractor who is desperately trying to make amends for past sins, Tamsin’s spoiled daughter, Alexa, and an medicine man named Joseph.

It would not be a Barbara O’Neal book without the dogs. Charlie, the flat-coated retriever, is the star, but it is the elderly black lab named Joe who got to me. If you have ever had a dog you have watched grow old, you will love him, too.

Barbara O’Neal’s books often contain elements of the mystical, crossing easily between the worlds of the living and the dead. The Garden of Happy Endings is no exception. This book contains that and more.

Finally, there is appendix that lists the recipes that are mentioned throughout the book.

In the last two weeks, I have offered you a novel based on an ancient Greek poem and an admittedly disturbing story of a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The Garden of Happy Endings is my idea of pure comfort reading. I hope you walk away, as I always do, from reading Barbara O’Neal’s books believing that it is possible to make a difference in some small way and that life is essentially good because in my heart I believe that it is.

Picture go The Garden of Happy Endings — Make sure you get a snack to go with this.

I love all Barbara’s books but my favorite remains A Piece of Heaven written under the name of Barbara Samuel. If you like this one, then I encourage you to read it. I don’t think you will be sorry.

Now I am going out to buy the ingredients to make Elsa’s Split Pea and Barley Soup.

Kathleen Ferrari

Author: Kathleen