"Only Connect"

Oakland County, MI is one of three area counties included in a State of Emergency declared by Governor Rick Snyder. Record rainfalls were recorded Sunday night, topping a hundred year record.

Sunday evening while it was raining hard my son had noticed an unusual amount of traffic going down the street. We looked out and saw there was flooding at the end of our block. The water covered the tires of trucks pushing through. Streets all over the area were blocked by flood water and drivers were looking for alternate routes. Some left cars and walked home in the driving rain.

Detroit expressways were filled with water. A thousand cars were abandoned. A 100 year old woman drowned. The news coming in on Monday was devastating.

Yesterday I went to a quilt shop some miles away. Everywhere along the streets are piles of what were once finished basement family room comforts: home theater chairs, couches, mattresses, bookcases and media storage, children's toys, suitcases, boxes of Christmas ornaments, mementos.

Just a block away houses were flooded.

The block behind us was hard hit. 

People have told me about the water reaching their front door, new trucks totaled, newly finished basement family rooms destroyed. Washing machines, dryers, furnaces, hot water heaters no longer functioning and not repairable. None of which is covered by typical homeowner's insurance.

In June we had a serious foundation crack filled. It required cutting out and repairing drywall. It cost about $800. We had no water in the basement on Sunday. It was a lucky break we had the work done when we did. We are on a long hill side. Work had been done on the city sewer and the line from the house. We were so lucky.

I had just switched insurance carriers days before the rain. I knew we had $5,000 coverage for sewage backup. That would not cover much I now realize.

I cry when I see the piles along the road. I imagine the pain people are feeling. Had it been us, I would have lost my quilts, my new and vintage fabric stash, my Bernina, my handkerchief collection, my books, my family photos and slides, my quilt patterns, my writing files, my genealogy papers. My quilt "I Will Lift My Voice", which was in the 2013 American Quilt Society shows in Lancaster and Grand Rapids, was appraised for several thousand dollars. And it is only one of many still in pillowcases in boxes downstairs.

"Only connect" E. M. Forster wrote in one of my favorite novels, Howard's End. I can connect to the loss of these families because I can imagine what my loss would have been.

Last fall articles appeared about a study showing that literary fiction by writers such as as Don DeLillo, fosters in readers a psychological awareness and social empathy that carries over into real life. Genre and popular fiction leads what you are to feel while reading. Literary fiction allows the reader to fill in the blanks, co-create the character.

I have just finished reading two books about families dealing with crisis, grief and loss. In recent months I read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and Don DeLillo's White Noise. Could my constant tears be rooted in having read such books?

I am no psychologist. I have no idea if there is a connection. Perhaps I just have an overactive imagination... which would be feed by having read so many books...

Caught Up with Jane Austen Family Album!

Cross Patch for Mary Lloyd, wife of James Austen

Indian Star for Warren Hastings,patron of Jane's Cousin Eliza Hancock

Well I finally caught up with the block of the week Barbara Brackman has been doing, Austen Family Album.

Each block represents an Austen family member, and Barbara includes a great little bio. 

Survival Mode in Michigan: The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison

The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison is set in the fictional resort town of Port Manitou, on the Jib River feeding into Lake Michigan. Neil Kazanzakis is a popular Physics teacher and running coach. His son is a senior weighing his future, Western Michigan University or culinary arts school. Neil cares for his wife's aging mother, and for his wife who is in a vegetative state after a swiming accident.

Neil has fallen in love with his mother-in-law's nurse, but has not told his son about their relationship, believing he is protecting his son.

When a student You Tube prank video goes viral, Neil faces the loss of his job, his girlfriend, and the love of his son.

I requested this book from NetGalley because it was set in Michigan, and in the kind of small Lake Michigan resort town I have lived in: four hours from Lansing, with a marina. It also had very good reviews from the hardbound publication.

The story is told in Neil's voice. I connected to the character right away. I was impelled to read the last hundred pages, all in one sitting.

The back story of his wife's accident is withheld at the beginning, a great impetus to continue reading. Little by little we learn about Neil and Wendy. Anyone who has dealt with a horrendous loss will recognize Neil's post-accident plummet into despair, depression, self-medication, and withdrawal. His son Chris had lost two parents, and turned to his uncle, a Chicago chief, for support.

As Neil's life falls apart again, he is able to draw on the experience of his choices after his wife's tragedy to find strength to face his new challenges.

The author Jon Harrison was born in Michigan. The book is full of Michigan references, including the Metro Detroit IKEA were we just bought our bookshelves (and even a reference to the Philadelphia IKEA, the first in the US, where we bought furniture for our home in 1980!).

Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date Sept 23, 2014
Paperback $14.95
ISBN 978147785235

Vintage Books, Frozen Climes and the High Seas

One of the pleasures of setting up out bookcases and taking all our books out of boxes is seeing our entire library in one place. We had books in two houses and an office before. I "saw" books I had not seen in a long time.

I have an oak barrister from the 1920s, which my grandfather Lynn O. Ramer bought as a student at Susquehanna University. Gary has a bookcase from his folks.

Balzac set from late 19th c, many pages uncut

In them are a complete edition of Balzac, my nine volume Diary of Samuel Pepys, our Heron Books anniversary edition of the works of Charles Dickens which we bought in our first three years of marriage, and both a vintage set and a new set of Jane Austen.

Arabian Nights 

We have 19th c edition of the complete One Thousand and One Arabian Nights by Burton, my grandfather's set of Edgar Allen Poe, and a two volume 1835 edition of Tobias Smollett's novels.

Volume One of Tobias Smollett works 1835

In the family room we have novels, nonfiction, children's literature, Gary's professional library, reference books, and more heirlooms. I have Little Journeys Into the Homes of the Great from Roycroft Press, Elbert Hubbard's press, that came from my Grandfather.

Little Journeys Into the Homes of the Great

Some books may surprise you. I have had a lifelong interest in Arctic and Antarctic exploration and in sailing days of old. The former interest may have its roots in Mr. Poplar's Penguins, a favorite book from elementary school days.

 I May Be Some Time: Ice and the Enlighten Imagination by Frances Spufford is a beautifully written book on Arctic exploration in the 19th c. and its influence on British society, literature and art. I read it over a long time, enjoying the writing style as much as the subject.

illustration from Cradle of the Deep by Joan Lowell

Cradle of the Deep enchanted me as a girl. Joan Lowell  wrote about growing up as on a merchant ship with her dad. I did not know it was meant to be an autobiography and read it as fiction. It was exposed as a "hoax". Still, ever since reading it I have enjoyed romances of the high seas, including the Horatio Hornblower books by C. S. Forster. And yes I did love the TV series with Ioan Gruffudd.

Horatio Hornblower novels

I read The Great White South about Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration as a girl and he became my romantic hero when I was about 12. I know today that Scott made serious mistakes but as a girl being stranded in the Antarctic and freezing to death seemed an  awfully big adventure.

The Great White South 

Then there are all the other books, some which I have had since the later 1960s and very early 1970s.

"Nest" by Esther Ehrlich, a Beautifully Written Young Adult Novel About Grief

"Chirp" loves birds, especially the elusive Red-Throated Loon. She rises at dawn, grabs her knapsack with binoculars, notebook and pennywhistle, and heads for the shore.


It is 1972 and she is in sixth grade. Her dancer mom, psychologist dad and older sister Rachel have an idyllic life. Unlike her neighbor Joey Morell whose dysfunctional family locks him out of the house when he does not meet his father's expectations.

Illness comes into their lives as the mother is diagnosed with MS and falls into a deep depression. When hospitalization and shock treatment fails, she is found drowned. The story of how the family copes, or does not cope, spirals into a satisfying climax.

When I was sent an invite to read The Nest by Esther Ehrlich I was surprised. I took a peak at the book and read it in one day.

I was impressed by the vivid portraits of Chirp and her family, fleshed out and realistic. Chirp is child enough to still use the power of imagination to escape or magically try to change reality. Rachel's sarcastic and contrary teenage life is changed as she tries to take on a mother's role in her sister's life. Rachel is on the brink of womanhood, sometimes able to play like her little sister, but trying to fit into older teen society.

Chirp's relationship with the sympathetic Joey was also very true. I remembered my experience at that age with a neighbor boy. His mom was not mentally well, and would lock the kids out of the house when she went shopping. The two older kids, a year and two years younger than I, would play together. The boy and I would take Dad's telescope out at nights and look at the moon, making up stories about outer space. At twelve I was oblivious to the fact the kids were not clean and were a bit wild. I was very sad when the children moved in with their dad and missed our friendship.

There is a blossoming of understanding as Chirp and Joey when they decided to run away. Chirp wants to return to the scene of a happy memory, only to find that memories can deceive. They.They shyly agree that some day they will kiss. They understand their friendship has been built on a deep, shared experience that will bond them for a long time.

I was filled with nostalgia by the references to the culture of 1972, the Tab and Oreos, the music, the peacoats and tie-dyed shirts. Novels today seem to be filled with specific references to the culture of the time.

Serendipity: the story resonated with my own experience growing up with a mom who was debilitated by psoriatic arthritis, severe psoriasis compounded and Sjogren's syndrome. Normal for Mom was waking up, taking her pain pills, returning to bed until the meds took effect. Her joints were frozen one by one until her hands were permanently curled. Doctors had her on medications without consulting each other and in 1968 she was hospitalized, taken off meds cold turkey to prevent further organ damage, and became so ill my family was worried she would die. So I know something with moms with illness.

The book is marketed for upper elementary students, but adult readers will enjoy it as well.

This was a pleasant surprise and I am grateful to the publisher for sending me this book.  I have been auto-approved for all Lake Union Publishing books and saw a number of titles I was interested in, including a book by Catherine Ryan Hyde who I have read and enjoyed.

Latest Handkerchiefs!

I have been on eBay again and bought two great hankys for my collection. I love Pat Prictard's designs and was glad to add this one.

I also collect little known Erin O'Dell. We tease she is a relative as my mother-in-law was born an O'Dell! I could not pass up a hanky that looked like an album quilt.

I was given an Amazon gift card and bought this book on handkerchiefs. This collector offers completely different examples than are in the other books that have been published. Most I had never seen before. 

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by by Rhonda K. Garelick

Mademoiselle by Rhonda K. Garelick was the most riveting biography I have read in a long while. Chanel's stranger-than-fiction life, her unique vision, and her many lovers alone make for fascinating reading. But Garelick's biography probes deeper and delivers a complex portrait of the 20th century's most distinctive fashion voice.

Chanel was driven by a need for legitimacy and power, willing to do what it takes. She was a dictatorial and unsympathetic boss. She romanced friend's husbands, her friendships were fraught with competitive tension, and she could change alliances as it suited her. Yet men and women were charmed by her, attracted to her like moths to a flame.

Chanel's greatest creation was Chanel. She shed her past and rewrote it. She bought off and distanced her relatives in an effort to reinvent herself. Born to in the lowest class, she found work as a chorus line coquette. She became attached to in a playboy's harem where she learned the ways of the upper crust and met her true love, Boy Capel. Boy support Chanel's nascent millinery business which grew into her Chanel brand clothing.

Chanel knew the great avant garde lights of the 20s and 30s, artists of all disciplines. She lost her true love and a fiancée, had many lovers, but never achieved the one thing she desperately wanted: marriage--preferably to a titled man.

1927 little black dress in wool jersey

I had not realized that every 20th c. fashion trend started with Chanel: the boyish sleek dresses, the bobbed hair, the acceptance of costume jewelry and fake furs, the use of jersey for day wear (previously used for men's underwear only!), the bathing suit, the cardigan sweater, the sailor blouse, the pleated skirt, the little black dress, beach wear loose pajama pants, and even her legendary Chanel No. 5, a complex perfume that was not overtly floral.

Chanel believed clothing should enhance the natural body, have impeccable fit that allowed full range of motion, with an elegance of style.

Because larger, older women did not look well in Chanel clothes, the cult of youth was also her doing. Chanel herself proudly kept her figure and muscle tone.

Chanel was anti-Semite and supported the philosophy of the rising Nazi regime. Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg, The Duke of Windsor Edward and Wallace Simpson were all sympathetic to fascism. Chanel closed her house in 1939. During the Nazi occupation of France she became involved with an SS officer and was part of a clandestine mission to broker peace with Churchill, offering peace for capitulating to Germany's demands. Was her motivation political or was she doing what it took to survive? Her nephew, perhaps son, was imprisoned and she was desperate to have him released. 

http://theladyinwaiting.org/2013/01/09/channelling-jackie-kennedy-with-simplicity-5320/

When Christian Dior's "New Look" returned to corsets and padding Chanel reopened her house to battle what she saw as a return to the overwrought styles she had reacted against in her early career. Jackie Kennedy wore a Chanel suit when President Kennedy was assassinated.

Garelick's style and presentation of the material is accessible and a pleasure to read. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good biography, is interested in fashion or history, or is fascinated by complex characters. I can not say I like Chanel as a human being, but I enjoyed every page of this biography.

I appreciate NetGalley and Random House allowing me access to the prepublication e-book.

Mademoiselle by Rhonda K. Garelick

Random House, publication September 30,2014 

608 pages

ISBN 978-4000-6952-1

$35.00