We Hope for Better Things: Detroit 1967

The summer I turned fifteen a neighbor girl and I stood in our street in Royal Oak, MI watching planes and helicopters flying overhead. They were carrying National Guard from Selfridge Airbase to Detroit.

My dad and his worried coworkers at the Chrysler plant in Highland Park left work early. My church was collecting food and blankets to distribute to people whose homes had been burned.

I heard strangers at the grocery store saying, 'kill them all.' Mom came home from coffee klatches with neighbors, fuming after being told "you don't know, you never lived with 'them'."

I was aware that five miles due south the world was very different from the one I lived in. My dad stopped at Woodward and McNichols to pick up his lab's African American janitor so he didn't have to walk from the bus stop to work. Mom visited a hospital roommate at her Detroit home, and returned ashamed of her working class 'wealth'. And, thanks to my teachers at Kimball High School, I understood the issues behind the riot: housing, jobs, poverty, racism, and dreams deferred.

from Detroit 1967, tank in Detroit

1967, the summer of the Detroit riot, began a descent into hell, ending with the following spring's assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Before I turned 16 my childhood version of America had been turned on its head, my faith in humanity challenged. I wrote in my diary, "I expect to see an ark any day now."

We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes. Detroit motto

Reading Detroit 1967 for me was important and often emotionally draining.

The Historical Context

The twenty essays follow the history of African Americans in Detroit, showing the deep roots of Detroit racism.

How many Metro Detroiters know the personages behind our street names--Livernois, Dequindre, Grosbeck, Campau, Cass, John R-- and that these men were slave owners?

Michigan became a 'free state' when it entered the Union in 1837. And yet, The Free Press, started in 1831 with investments by Joseph Campau and John R. Williams, opposed the freeing of the slaves and did not support Lincoln.

Detroit became a crossroads of fugitive slaves, slave catchers, and the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves arrived in numbers after the War of 1812. In 1833 there was a riot over runaway slaves. The Underground Railroad helped runaways cross the river to Canada. In 1863,"the bloodiest day that ever dawned upon Detroit," saw a pogrom against African Americans when a white woman falsely reported she was raped by a black man.

European immigrants competed with blacks for jobs and housing, another source for racial tension. And immigrants resented being drafted into the Civil War to fight for black freedom. "If we are got to be killed up for niggers then we will kill every nigger in this town," a rioter proclaimed.

Henry Ford became the largest employer of African Americans in the country, but housing was limited; a wall was even erected. The auto industry whose jobs drew Southern blacks and whites left Detroit for Hazel Park, Dearborn, and Macomb County.

The KKK and Black Legion were active in Detroit in the 1930s. In 1943 there was another Race Riot. "Urban Renewal' destroyed African American neighborhoods. After the 1967 riot the white population fled to the suburbs.

Where the 1967 riot began

The Riot

The 1967 Riot is considered from many vantages, with eye witness memoirs, a time line, commentaries after the event, and viewpoints from a historical perspective. The first-hand accounts of how the riot began were especially revealing. I also appreciated the detailed timeline of events.

I had not known of the controversy over calling the event a riot or a rebellion; it is contended that when white Europeans protested it was called a rebellion, but when African Americans rose up it was labeled a riot.

I was interested in learning about Detroit before we moved here in 1963, how the progressive policies of Jerome Cavanagh and his police commissioners were unable to change grass roots racism, the rebellion against Police Commissioner Hart's attempt to integrate the police cars, and the failure of "top-down reforms."

The later essays address Detroit's death and rebirth. Will all Detroiters be included in the progress?

Learning that I live in "one of the most fractured regions in the country, with more than 150 separate municipalities" that "encourage extreme balkanization" was disturbing. But it is true. In the 1960s I grew up in an all white city, and now 50 years later I live a few miles away in a city with a non-white population of only 11.6%. Oakland County has the highest employment rate and one of the highest median incomes in the country. I live in a bubble.

When I recently blogged about summer 1967 people shared their memories of the riot. Several were returning through Detroit from Canada and saw the fires, or were stopped and checked at the tunnel, worried about getting home. Some recalled tanks going down Woodward. People who worked downtown saw kids carrying things they had stolen or drove by cars on fire. All recalled being afraid the riot would spread out of Detroit and worried about friends living in the city.

Clearly, the summer of the riot was a pivotal event in our lives.

Reading Detroit 1967 helped me to understand the riot from the inside. I am concerned that the conditions that sparked it have not improved.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies
Thomas J. Sugrue, Joel Stone, et. al.
Wayne State University Press @WSUPress
Publication Date: June 5, 2017
$39.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9780814343036, 081434303

For more Detroit history I recommend,

Detroit Historical Museum- Detroit 1967 at http://www.detroit1967.org

One In A Great City by David Marianis, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/09/once-in-great-city-detroit-story-by.html

Terror in the City of Champions by Tom Stanton, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/murder-and-baseball-in-depression-era.html

Nancy Gets an A and a Fiancee

Sophomore year at Adrian

Summer of 1971 ended. I was excited to be back at Adrian and reunited with Gary. We had a whole semester together before he graduated.

The night before Gary took me back to Adrian we played Scrabble with my family. I had a call from my old friend Pat, the girl who in freshman year had been my first Michigan best friend.

Gary and me. That's my Give Earth a Chance button from
the first Earth Day teach-in at Kimball.
 Yes, Gary was a nerd with a pocket protector.

The first semester I was rooming with Marti again in the same first-floor room in Estes Hall. She and Sam were still an item. We did a lot of  'double dating.'

Marti, sophomore year at Adrian

Back on campus our friends, his and mine, became a new mixed group: Gary's Euchre friends, Tim, George, Jack, Marti, and me.  I was happy to hear that George and Nancy were going steady. 

Marti, Sam, Me, Gary, John in the back. Note the smile pins!

Gary started the week with tonsillitis but in a few days we were at Shakey's Pizza in Ohio where Adrian kids went for the legal light beer. I had a root beer. Then he took me to the Franklin Park Mall in Sylvania, looking for a Hot Sams to get a pretzel. 

September 15 I wrote that Gary and I helped Jack collect "nature stuff" for an art class. I tried to collect poison ivy! 

I joined Gary at the library when he played classical music records and listened on headphones. He shared his favorite music with me including Beethoven and Ravel's Bolero. He also showed me Picasso's Guernica, one of his favorite works of art.

At the end of September, there was a Talent Night and it appears I played the piano. We went to a football game and Gary took me to a sleazy Mexican restaurant for tacos.

The Adrian College Chapel

Gary and I talked about everything: life, religion, eternity, people, what we loved. We studied in the library or the Mahon Hall's teacher's lounge at night, drinking the bitter dregs of black coffee hot enough to melt the plastic spoons. 

October 7, 1971, was our fifth month anniversary. On October 10 we were studying in the library and goofing around, talking about how we both loved banana bread. We decided to become engaged.We joked about a wedding in the Pub where we had met. But we didn't tell anyone yet that we were engaged.

Gary bought tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar by Webber and Rice in the original concert presentation appearing at the Toldeo Masonic Auditorium in November. It was amazing. Gary bought the piano score for me to learn. I played the songs on the piano and sang some with the guitar.

Gary had good study habits and I studied with him, and I spent less time hanging around in the Pub meeting new people, so my grades improved.

Chapel Choir 1971-2. I am in front  row center,
and Marti is in back row center.

Gary, Marti, and I were all in the chapel choir. We performed A Ceremony of Carol for the Christmas Concert. In the spring concert, we performed Zoltan Kodaly's Te Deum and Vaughn Wiliam's Five Mystical Songs. AJ was our fun and fearless director.

Gary and I signed up to take Anthropology with Prof. George Sommers. What a great guy! Gary had friendly conversations with his professors. I had always been intimidated. We got to know Prof. Sommers, who was an ordained UMC minister before earning his Ph.D. in Anthropology.

I never forgot a story Prof. Sommers told the class. It went something like this: There were the people who lived near the shore and there were the people who lived over the mountain in the valley. Each called themselves God's Real Chosen People, and the other group was seen as inferior and hardly human. That simple story summed up all the wars and religious persecution and hatred humans have been cursed with. We see people not like us as others, subhuman, the 'unchosen.' I got an A.

I was in Religion of Mankind in the fall. I loved the class but at 2 pm I drifted off to sleep--Just like I did at 2 pm in Mr. Heald's high school chemistry class! My hand would keep writing notes, scribbling across my paper. But I still got a B. In the spring I took Ancient Philosophy were we read Greek and Roman primary sources. This was more like Mr. Botens class!

Required English Lit was not boring. I discovered Chaucer, Restoration Comedy, and the early novels of Fielding and Richardson. I became obsessed with these early novels. My interest pivoted from Modern American lit to English Lit, especially the early novel.

I signed up for Ecology in the fall and Oceanography in the spring. I loved both classes, but especially Oceanography. I fantasized about becoming a Marine Biologist. If only I could handle the math! I got an A.

I took Politics of Development with Dr. deLepinasse. The class read a book a week. I believe one book was sci-fi. Another was Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a book that left an impression on me with its thesis that every new discovery must overthrow the old paradigm of thinking before it becomes accepted.

I remember Prof. deLepinasse invited the class to his house and started a conversation about offering amnesty for men who had fled to Canada to escape being drafted into the Vietnam War.

I took Creative Writing with Dr. Jay. One a poem I wrote grappled with the sadness I felt every spring, plagued by memories from 1968 and the horrible events of that year. It was a theme I would later return to.

My poems were not very good; in fact, they had actually become lousy. I was trying to be avant-garde but instead was vague and too self-referential. I barely scrapped by with a B. My professor noted that I was 'not that bad' but I had not done significant rewriting.

I wrote one good poem, Third Window Scene, inspired by a window view I saw during a class on the third floor.


The long tall tops
of the pine trees
outside the window

perform a frantic
wind dance
seeming wild creatures
possessed by demons.

Clouds rumble and roll
like gray giants wrestling,
dusky shadows obscuring
what sunlight momentarily brightened.

The wind pushes the dense
rain-packed stormclouds
over the heaven's day-face

its breezy bottom edge
trailing across the 
pointed top boughs
of dancing pines.

It inspired a fellow student to write a poem in response. She became a professor and poet. I can at least feel proud that I once inspired her!

I only got into the Seminar in Modern Literature, a 400 level lit class, because I pleaded to be allowed to. I had not taken 200 or even 300 level coursework in English.

The focus was on Black Comedy, which I had never heard of. We read Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, John Barth's Sot-Weed Factor and The Floating Opera and Chimera, The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and other novels I can't recall. I had never read anything like them. I got another A.

As a matter of fact, my grades were so improved that I was given a grant from the college for the spring semester, which added to my state scholarship and Rotary grant, was a real help.

Girls from the dorm, Tim, and George.
Note the Smile poster on the wall!

On Sundays mornings Gary took me to Big Boy where we had breakfast. Then he bought a Detroit Free Press and we sat in Estes Hall's living room and read the paper together. My dorm mom really liked Gary because he was going into the ministry.

My Grandmother Ramer sold her home and moved in with my parents.  The bedroom Mom had redecorated in blues and purples with a Mod daisy bedspread was no longer mine when I came home. It was now Grandma Ramer's room and I slept on a folding cot in my brother's bedroom!

Mom had decorated with this pattern!

Christmas came. Marti gave Sam a long scarf she had knit.

Marti and Sam with the scarf she knit him

I gave Gary a rocking chair and my photograph.

Me and Gary at Christmas 1971. I gave him the rocking chair.

The oil tinted photograph I gave Gary, Christmas 1971

My grandmother decided to sell the house in Berkley and move in with my parents. They wanted to buy a new house that would better accommodate the blended family.

second semester, freshman year ID

Gary graduated mid-year. Beginning in January 1972 he would study for his MDiv at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, known as METHESCO, in Delaware, Ohio.

Gary's senior photo for college graduation

At some point, we told our folks that we were engaged to be married. First, we were going to wait two years until I graduated. I thought about transferring to another school, like Kent State, to be near him. But by going to school in Ohio I would lose my grants.

Finally, I suggested we marry after the end of my school year. That way, I could be with Gary during seminary and 'figure out' what this minister thing was all about. I would try to take classes at Ohio Wesleyan or finish my education after he graduated. At first, we thought about September, then we settled on June 17. We had met on the 7th and became engaged on the 10th, so 7+10=17!

In January my parents moved into a newer brick ranch in Clawson, just about two miles further north up Main Street. There was a living room and family room so my grandmother could be separate from family activities. Dad finished the basement in a hurry so it would be ready for the wedding.

My Mom and Aunt Nancy and Grandma Ramer ganged up on me to get a wedding planned.

We contacted my high school journalism teacher Mr. Rosen to take the photographs. Mom said for years he had some of my photos on display.

Mr. Rosen's card shows $125 price for the wedding photographs

My home church was too expensive to rent because they had no record that I had recently tithed. So we went to St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Ferndale where my grandfather had been a deacon.

Gary and I decided on simple daisies for flowers.

I did not want an engagement ring or a wedding gown. I had no interest in a diamond and was too practical to waste money on a dress to be worn once. Gary and I chose gold wedding bands engraved with a floral vine.

Mom was exasperated by my wanting a street dress and convinced me to rent a wedding gown. I found one I liked; they had to order one in my size so I had a new dress anyway. My folks planned for a reception in the back yard. I asked my Tonawanda second cousin Debbie Becker, daughter of my dad's Uncle Lee, to be my bridesmaid.

My second semester at Adrian was long and boring and yet I was content. I spent most of my time alone, sometimes talking with a friend in the Pub. I studied and read and waited for weekends when Gary would visit. He would crash with someone at the men's dorm. He had no money to buy meals and made peanut butter and pickle sandwiches from the open counter foods. 

Spring came and then school's end. Sam had left school and joined the service, and he and Marti had broken up. Marti and Jack became an item and later married. Lynn had left school and she later she joined the service. George had to find a job and save money to continue his schooling. He did marry Nancy. Other friends were graduating. Had I stayed at Adrian it would have seemed empty.

The People Collecting Club roster spring 1971

Two summers previous I had felt in limbo with Kimball in the past and Adrian in the future. Now, Adrian was to be in the past. Gary was my future. I had little idea of what that really meant.  

I spent the two weeks between school's end and our wedding reading War and Peace on the patio of the new house while Mom and Grandma agonized about the wedding. The dress did not arrive until the last minute. I wasn't worried; I figured I could just wear the going-away dress. I was unfazed and deep into the world of Pierre and Prince Andrei, Natasha, and Sonya.

Mini-Reviews: Troubled Families

Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread was my book club's May pick. I had two friends, and a spouse, who didn't finish the book because it lacked a compulsive narrative.

I found that around page 140 things got very interesting, and in the last sections, devastating. What seems to be a boring family is revealed to be a sad failure spanning generations.

There are remarkably funny scenes. I laughed at loud at the complaint asking why people only bring casseroles to the grieving; why not wine?

And in the end, there is hope that, regardless of how messed up our family is, we will survive and perhaps learn to do better ourselves.

Several of my book club members enjoyed the book, but others who read Tyler's other books were disappointed. In the end, I was glad to have read the book.

The Bronte family had more than its share of troubles, and Charlotte was not spared.

Brian Wilk's Charlotte in Love: The Courtship and Marriage of Charlotte Bronte considers the famous writer's relationships with the important men in her life: her father, The Reverend Patrick; her brilliant but doomed brother Branson; her teacher Professor Heger, who Charlotte fell for; her young publisher George Smith who introduced her to the literary world; and Arthur Nicholas Bell, her father's lowly curate who fell madly in love with his boss's plain and dutiful daughter, even if she was a brilliant novelist.

The story of Bell's patient courtship and how Charlotte turned from ridiculing the curate to pity to accepting him as the love of her life is also the story of a strong and controlling father protecting against the loss of his only surviving child.

Although the writing is a bit stodgy, the information is fascinating. Make no mistake about it: Charlotte was a woman of independent spirit and high passion and desperate to connect emotionally and physically.

Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman

I have loved the poetry of Walt Whitman for most of my life. 

One of the earliest volumes of poetry I bought myself was Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I was sixteen years old and read the poems over and over. Many years later I was in a choral group that sang Ralph Vaughn William's Sea Symphony, based on Whitman's poetry, a work that endures as one of my favorites. 

The idea of bringing Whitman's poetry and vision of human experience to children is dear to my heart. And today, the birthday of Walt Whitman, I was glad to read the newest  Poetry for Kids volume on Walt Whitman. Thirty-five poems or poem excerpts include Whitman's favorite poem, A Noiseless Patient Spider, and his well-known poem upon the death of President Lincoln, O Captain! My Captain! 

An Introduction, commentary on each poem, and definitions are included as parent/teacher helps. The illustrations are beautiful.

When I came to On the Beach at Night I was moved to tears. 

"On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky./Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading.
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky.
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and ale the lord-star Jupiter.
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades."

Seeing the stars and Jupiter buried under the clouds, the child weeps. Her father comforts the child, saying, "Weep not, child,/Weep not, my darling,/With these kisses let me remove your tears,/The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious." And the father continues, "Something there is more immortal even than the stars."

Children watch as the world descends into darkness, the clouds of war obliterating happiness and peace. I remember sensing my parent's fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the feeling of vulnerability when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember watching the second tower fall on 9-11, and helping my son pack his most precious things in a bag in preparation. I had hoped he would grow up in a better world. 

And here is Whitman telling us that there is something more powerful than darkness, something eternal that tends toward clarity and light that we can trust in.

I look at the world today and how we are tending toward darkness, how the center is not holding. What can we say to our children about the future? 

Whitman has given us a voice. It is the gift of poetry to say what we long to hear, what we need to believe, but are unable to articulate. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman

Edited by Karen Karbiener and illustrated by Kate Evans

Moondance Press

$14.95 hardcover

ISBN:9781633221505

Adults who want to understand Whitman's vision would enjoy Song of Myself: A Complete Commentary from University of Iowa Press. Read my review here.

The Last Neanderthal Reimagines A Shared Past

In her new novel, The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron draws on new scientific information to recreate the world when our human ancestors and Neanderthals coexisted. Of course, DNA sequencing of Neanderthals has proven that they are also part of our ancestral heritage. No longer can we imagine that human superiority overcame an animalistic, inferior group. So what then did cause the extinction of the Neanderthal population?

In this novel, Girl is part of a small family group that just survives, living in isolation on their territory. Big Mama is in her early thirties and her body is failing. An older sibling has already joined her mate's family. Girl has a younger brother, Him. They have allowed a hanger-on, Runt, to join the family. Runt is small, talks too much, and is without the Neanderthal musculature and bone structure. But if he is weaker than Girl he also is brave and resourceful.

During the time of the fish run the local Neanderthal population gathers at the river to feast on spawning salmon, intermingle, and mate with individuals outside of the family group. This year will be Girl's time to mate and leave.

In alternating chapters, the contemporary foil to Girl is the archaeologist Rose who is excavating Girl's skeleton. Rose is independent, strong, and a leader, like Girl. Rose is also pregnant, as was Girl.

The two stories lines offer a contrast and comparison. The one difference is that Rose has a support group around her, for human society evolved through a social contract beyond the family group. Girl, on the other hand, has lost her family and finds no one at the summer river. She is vulnerable and alone--and doomed.

Humans' larger social groups allow them to share innovations and new technology. The Neanderthals' isolation limits their advancement, but they seem to have an instinctual race memory as well as acquired knowledge that is passed through generations. Girl pushes away abstract thinking when it arises as it interferes with the alertness that guarantees her survival.

Readers will compare this novel to Jean Auel's 1980 blockbuster The Clan of the Cave Bear. I have not reread the Auel book since it's debut and will not comment on a comparison. I will be interested to hear how Auel fans will react to Cameron's novel based on new research, but also on how her characterization of Girl and her presentation of Neanderthal and human interaction compare to Auel's book.

I have read some reviews by Goodreads readers who did not like Rose. Another reader pointed out that being a female scientist in a male-dominated field is hard. Rose needs to be dedicated, single-minded, and protective of her work. I liked Rose as a foil to Girl. Both are dominant, capable women. They allow readers to connect the similarities and differences of women's experiences across the millennium.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this novel. I did have questions about Girl's concrete vs. abstract thinking and asked Ms. Cameron if she would clarify. I wrote,

Dear Ms. Cameron,
I have read your new book through NetGalley. I was hoping you would answer a question I have about Girl.  

At times she seems to draw on instinct, focused on the concrete and the 'now'. But at times she also shows an ability to imagine another's motives. For instance, she sees a calf and thinks "From his skitterish eyes, it was clear that he would have crawled back inside her belly if given the chance." This abstract thinking is what I am wondering about. 

Can you clarify your understanding of the Neanderthal mind and if this is an ability unique to Girl or if this is a new understanding of the species as a whole? 

I received a nice reply.

Hi Nancy,
I often get the same questions over and over. I don't mind at all, as I understand that they are fundamental to the experience of reading the book. Occasionally, though, I get a question that shows how thoroughly a reader has engaged with what I was trying to do. Your question feels like this to me. Thank you for asking. 

My idea was that Girl has a stronger connection between her mind and body than we do. For example, she would never get angry at herself for eating at extra cookie. If she could witness me scolding myself for eating a cookie, as many of us do, she would wonder who I was talking to-- there is only one me? I've often wondered why we have this split sense of ourselves, of the mind vs. the body. Girl would just simply eat a cookie.  

But, Girl is also a hunter. I read about animals and the new theories about how their minds work. One book that I particularly love is Frans De Wall, ARE WE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW HOW SMART ANIMALS ARE? He talks about how we think of intelligence as a cognitive ladder, that the smarter are at the top. But when breaking down the different skills that animals have, this clearly isn't true. One of his frequently cited examples is that squirrels can remember where they cached hundreds of nuts a season, whereas a human could never do this. Does this mean a squirrel is smarter? No, but it does show the difference between their intelligence and ours. 

When you apply this kind of non-hierarchical thinking to hunters, the more they can get into the mind of their prey, the more successful they will be in making a catch. The hunter, be it either a leopard, Wildcat, or Girl, has to anticipate what their prey might do. What does the prey want? What might it do next? Girl was such a good hunter because she was also good at anticipating others needs. 

That is the long answer. The short one is that I was trying to think of Girl has having a different kind of intelligence that wasn't necessarily better or worse than ours. Just different. In reality, we know very little about how Neanderthals thought, so I extrapolated from what we know about the mind to imagine my own answers.

I hope that answers your question. Thank you, again, for it.
Best,
Claire

Cameron discovered she has 2.5% Neanderthal DNA and this novel is not an exploration of 'the other' as much as an imagining of our common ancestry.

I expect this book to interest many readers and be a big hit.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Neanderthal
Claire Cameron
Little, Brown & Company
ISBN: 9780316314480
$26.00 hardcover

The Reminders by Val Emmich: Love Victorious Over Death's Oblivion

Memories and remembering are at the heart of Val Emmich's first novel The Reminders. The Beatles music provides the thematic structure. The heart of the novel is love.

Nine-year-old Joan Lennon can't forget anything that has ever happened to her. When her grandmother Joan's Alzheimer's disease took away her memory it frightened Joan to be forgotten. Now she wants to create something so no one will forget her again: she wants to write a song.

Joan's father is a struggling songwriter; her mother works to pay the bills. Her parents have decided to close her father's studio and rent it out; her father will work in his dad's construction business. Joan is despondent. She hopes to win a songwriting contest so her dad can keep the studio.

Joan's parents' friend Sydney has died, and his partner Gavin, a television show actor, underwent a very public meltdown. Joan's mother had introduced Syd and Gavin. They invite Gavin to come stay for a while.

Gavin thinks he wants to forget everything about his true love Sydney. When he learns that Joan can recall every time she met Syd, down to the details of his clothes and conversation, they agree to help one another. Joan will tell stories about Syd. Gavin, who had been in her dad's band, will help Joan write a song.

Gavin's grief over Syd's death is complicated by doubts about Syd's activities prior to his death: he made several secret trips, meeting with a woman he never mentioned. Was their life a lie?

The story is told from Joan and Gavin's viewpoints in alternating chapters which offer a nice balance between Gavin's grief and doubt and Joan's determined, naive, hopefulness.

Joan is beautifully drawn, a lovable, adorable, kid. The book is worth reading just to know Joan! The story is about grief and yet what remains after reading is the joy. I am sure this uplifting book will become a best seller, well beloved by book clubs.

Emmich draws from his career as an actor and singer/songwriter, and his life as a dad, to create a charming and warm story of the power of friendship.

I was excited when Emmich agreed to answer some questions for me in February.

Nancy: What motivated you to write The Reminders? What came first--story, character?

Emmich: The character came first. Specifically, the character of Joan. I was a new father and I was frustrated by the lack of progress I'd made in my life and in my career as an artist. Fatherhood felt like an impediment to where I wanted to go. That finally changed when I attempted to write from the point of view of a little girl. If I wasn't the father of a girl (two little girls now), I probably wouldn't have tried something like that. Once I did, though, all sorts of new possibilities opened up for me, both creatively and as a parent. Drawing on my family life for materials finally put me in a place where I could start to accept my new reality and embrace it.

Nancy: Is the creative act for you an endeavor to, as Joan believes, ensure people remember you?

Emmich: No. I create because I have to create. I feel compelled to. It's probably the only time I feel happy. And at times, it doesn't even feel healthy. It can feel like an obsession or addiction. But after I create something, if I think it's any good, I feel this strong desire to share it with people. I created the thing first for myself--to try to process life and understand it better--but I still feel I need some validation from others. I shouldn't need it. But I do. I crave applause and feedback. I wish I didn't.

The whole idea of being remembered, which is a huge part of the book, is related to the above (and certainly in the book, the two are directly linked), but it's also, for me, a whole separate problem. It bothers me that we're so focused on what's happening today and what will happen tomorrow that the past is often too easily forgotten. I'm certainly guilty of forgetting. And I'm not talking about the distant past only, but even the recent past, as in last week, or yesterday. Now, when someone close to us passes away, which is what happens to the character of Gavin in the book, there's a feeling of guilt that comes with forgetting. Forgetting feels like a betrayal. That's how it feels for Joan. To forget her is unfair, because she would never forget you. But some amount of forgetting is helpful, and even necessary. It allows us to heal. It's a complicated thing, which is why I love the quote by James Baldwin that begins the novel: "it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both."

Nancy: We know so much these days--the relationship between Gavin and Joan could have been considered suspect. What considerations helped you ensure the purity and healthiness of their relationship?

Emmich: I understand what you mean, but I also hate that I understand what you mean. In other words, it's a shame that's where our minds go. I've always loved stories where two very different sorts of people are placed together. It's a good starting point for conflict and misunderstanding. So I didn't want to avoid that uneasy feeling completely. But in one of my earliest drafts, the character of Gavin was straight and I did find that there were moments between his character and Joan's that felt strained in a way that was distracting from the narrative. Once I decided to make Gavin gay, I found that it relieved a lot of that unintended pressure. Also the fact that Gavin is pining for his lost love and Joan is helping him reach that lost love helps, I think, maintain that feeling of purity that you mentioned.

Nancy: What were the challenges and rewards of writing a book as compared to writing and performing your songs and acting?

Emmich: There are different challenges with each, too many to list here. But I will say that so far writing a novel has been the most challenging thing I've ever attempted in the arts. In terms of rewards, a song can be written in minutes, recorded in a few hours, and uploaded online where it can be streamed instantly. So, it's a much more immediate sense of satisfaction, both with the creative act and the sharing.

Writing long-form fiction is a slog that can stretch for many years. And it's a lot lonelier. I can write and perform songs with others, but a novel is written alone Writing prose is rewarding in a different sort of way than more communal activities like music and acting. Maybe it requires a little more confidence and faith, I don't know. You'll have to ask me this question again when I'm a little farther along. My book still hasn't been published yet. Most people in m life still haven't read it and I've yet to do my first public reading. So, I haven't had much feedback from readers. All this buildup scares me. Wish me luck.

Val Emmich

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

See the trailer at http://ew.com/books/2017/02/14/reminders-book-trailer-val-emmich/

The Reminders
Val Emmich
Little, Brown & Co/Hachette
Publication May 30, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9780316316996

Theft By Finding by David Sedaris

"In the U.K., if you discover something of value and keep it, that's theft by finding."

I kept a diary for long periods in my life. So, I like to read diaries. I read Samuel Pepys' diary. It took me two years. I read it in bed so every night the last line I read was usually, "And so to bed."

I thought it would be great to read David Sedaris's diaries. I have read several books by Sedaris and I've heard him on the radio. The first book I read was on recommendation by a library staff person.

I was living in a teeny rural town where the police chief had his own untrained militia and was armed with ex-military weapons, including a Hummer. I heard the KKK left flyers on driveways. The local church was splitting because the denomination was not strongly anti-abortion and anti-gay and anti-anything else progressive liberal. I went to the library and asked for funny books to raise my spirits, and I was given Holidays on Ice.

Its no wonder funding to libraries has been on the cutting block under the current administration.

Consquently, I should have known what I was getting into when I requested Theft by Finding, excerpts from his 156 volume diary kept between 1977 and 2002.

I had no idea.

"What I prefer recording at the end...of my day are remarkable events I have observed.."

And he has observed some pretty strange events.

At times I thought, what did I get myself into? Other times I laughed out loud, but no way was I going to tell anyone what was so funny. It's  embarrassing to laugh at something so incorrect.

And yet, I realized, Sedaris's stories were, well, pretty believable for all their bizarreness. I lived in Philadelphia and seen some pretty weird stuff myself. But that's another story.

Also, Sedaris has some pretty spot-on insights.

One of my favorites is from November 17, 1987, Chicago. The police had caught a man who had smashed windows and painted swastikas on Jewish businesses. He was a skinhead with tattoos, Sedaris writes,"which is strange, I think, because Jews in concentrations camps had shaved heads and tattoos. you'd think that anti-Semites would go for a different look."

His self-knowledge is also commendable. On January 26, 1999, in Paris, he is called a misogynist. "No," I corrected her, "I'm not a misogynist. I'm a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally."

Sedaris is thoughtful. On December 31, 1998, he wrote that his dad, visiting him in Paris, had the evening before leaned near a candle and set his hair on fire. He wrote, "This morning we went to buy him a hat." Such a good son. Helping Dad keep his dignity by covering up the scorched hair.

In his forward, Sederis suggests readers peruse the book, sampling here and there, now and then. Good luck with that. Frankly, it's hard to put down.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"Raw glimpses of the humorist's personal life as he clambered from starving artist to household name... though the mood is usually light, the book is also a more serious look into his travails as an artist and person... A surprisingly poignant portrait of the artist as a young to middle-aged man." —Kirkus (starred review)

Theft By Finding
David Sedaris
Little, Brown & Co.
Publication May 30, 2017
$28 hardcover
ISBN: 9780316154727