Bewitched by Madeline Miller's Circe

Madeline Miller's new novel Circe was mesmerizing. I did not want to stop reading! It was unexpected, this absorption in a book about a Greek mythic figure.

I had read the Greek Myths (Robert Graves's two volumes!) and Homer and Virgil--all the classics-- long ago in high school and college. I knew Circe from these tales.

But Miller's book is more than a retelling of the myths. Circe comes alive in these pages. And if, yes, the characters are Titans and Olympians and heroes, it took no trouble for my suspension of belief to accept them. Perhaps due to the prevalence of magic and witches and superhuman power in literature and film today. But I credit Miller's amazing writing.

Circe's world holds to a tenuous peace between the powerful Titans and the upstart Olympians. These gods are vengeful and imperious, all-powerful and eternal. She is the daughter of Helios, a golden-eyed child overlooked and dismissed, her very voice offensive to the gods.

She has been fascinated by mortal humans ever since Prometheus gave them fire, earning the punishment of eternal torment. Secretly, she brings the bound Prometheus a cup of nectar. Circe the dejected is also a girl of will and defiance.

She also makes many mistakes.

She discovers her gift for witchcraft, the use of herbs and will to cause transformation. She employs her power to transform the mortal man she loves. But he loves another and Circe transforms her rival Scylla into her true form--a man-eating multi-armed monster. The gods punish Circle by exiling her to a deserted island.

On her island, Circe spends centuries perfecting her craft with herbs, her friends the wild beasts and the occasional exiled nymph. She is visited by the gossip Hermes who becomes her lover, and the inventive Daedalus who gifts her a magnificent loom. Later, Daedalus needs her to help him entrap her sister's monstrous child, the Minotaur.

Sailors sometimes land on her shore; she learned not to trust them and turns them into swine. Then arrives the weary Odysseus; his enemy Athena has beset his journey home from the Trojan War with cruel trials. He stays with Circe for a year, changing her life forever.

I need to read Miller's previous book The Song of Achilles! I already have it on my Kindle. She is a marvelous story teller.

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

Circe
by Madeline Miller
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 10 Apr 2018
ISBN: 9780316556347
PRICE: $27.00 (USD)

Puss in the Corner Antique Quilt Top

Last week I shared an antique quilt top gifted to me by a friend. I have another early 1900s quilt top in my collection, purchased many years ago at the Royal Oak Flea Market.

The block pattern is Puss in the Corner. The blocks are set side by side with a wide sashing in a mourning print, popular around 1890 to 1925, and cinnamon pink squares at the corners. Double or cinnamon pink was common between 1860 and 1920.

The block pattern is very simple, consisting of a center square, four rectangles, and four corner squares.

What made this quilt stand out for me was the sashing fabric, a busy black, white, and gray print of circles and filigree shape. Seen close up, the border print keeps the eye moving across the quilt. From a distance, it almost looks gray.

Mourning prints, also called Shaker Gray, Lenox Gray, and Silver Gray, were popular until 1925. In her book Making History, Barbara Brackman quotes a Montgomery Ward catalog as calling them appropriate for 'elderly ladies.'

The fabrics in this top are typical of the late 1900s and early 20th c. Mourning prints, navy and cadet blue prints, shirtings, woven checks, and double pinks make up the majority of the fabrics, with some browns and wines.

In the photo below is a white on navy floral print, a blue check, and a mourning print.

In the center of the quilt is a yellow calico print, a splash of brightness used in only two blocks. Perhaps it represents a glint of hope.

Turkey red was a colorfast dye that was highly popular through the 1920s when it was replaced by newer dyes. In the photo below are two turkey red prints, a cadet blue polka dot fabric, and a black and white mourning print in a floral stripe.

Below is a block with several cadet blue fabrics, typical of 1880s to 1910. Also, a navy blue with a print in small dots forming a background image for a floating floral shape. The center square is an interesting mourning print in bubble shapes.

 There are also woven checks and a few brown prints.

There are not as many fabrics in claret or wine on this quilt, which was typical of quilts 1880-1910. Below, upper right, is an example.

 The top was hand sewn with with thread.

These fabrics are in quite good condition and the top was not washed.

Free online patterns for Puss in the Corner can be found at

http://qacdg.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Block-9P-Puss-in-A-Corner-PAIR.pdf

https://www.all-about-quilts.com/support-files/pussinthecornerrotarycutting.pdf

A downloadable pattern for $6 is available at
https://www.keepsakequilting.com/puss-in-the-corner-digital-pattern

After Anna by Lisa Scottoline

There was life before Anna, and there was life after Anna. There was a happy marriage, then there was distrust and heartbreak. And it all fell apart, after Anna.

Lisa Scottoline's After Anna is a riveting story of the destruction of a marriage, innocent imprisonment, and a mother's deep love.

Noah and Maggie have created a happy life together, both having overcome past tragedy. Maggie's postpartum mental state led to her being institutionalized, her husband divorcing her, taking sole custody of their infant daughter. Noah lost his wife and raised his son alone until falling for Maggie. They are truly happy together.

Maggie is ecstatic when her daughter Anna, now seventeen, contacts her. With the death of her father and step-mother, Anna wants Maggie in her life and asks to be taken in. Noah is supportive. They will be a happy blended family.

Maggie is desperate to make up for failing Anna as an infant, and Anna uses that guilt to manipulate her. Noah insists that Anna follow house rules and parental guidance. Anna is not pleased.

Everything goes wrong. Anna accuses Noah of sexual advances and takes out a restraining order. And when Anna turns up dead, Noah is the prime suspect and is convicted of her murder. Maggie is devastated and preparing to sue for divorce when she is contacted by Anna's school therapist and everything Maggie thought she knew is turned upside down.

The novel is told in two time lines, Noah and Maggie before Anna's arrival and leading up to her death, and Noah on trial and in prison 'after Anna.'

It is an entertaining read that I didn't want to put down. As usual, Scottoline delivers a novel with suspense, human interest, and a twist of contemporary social concerns, with lots of courtroom and legal scenes.

I received a free e-book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

After Anna
by Lisa Scottoline
St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 9781250099655
PRICE: $27.99

Voices From the Rust Belt

Voices From the Rust Belt is an offering of essays edited by Anne Trubek on the legacy of a post-industrial world in the once great manufacturing centers including Buffalo, Detroit, Flint, Akron, and Chicago.

I found these essays to be beautifully written and personally moving. I savored each essay, reading them one at a time. The stories are about places I know, stories I am familiar with.

These are stories that break my heart.

Getting Personal

I am a Rust Belt girl.

I spent my first ten years of life just north of Buffalo until 1963 when my family moved to the Detroit suburbs so my dad could find work in the auto industry. With a high school education and hands-on experience, he was able to get a good job with benefits. My grandfather was a GM engineer, my brother is a Ford engineer, and other family members worked on the line.

My husband is from outside of Flint, MI, where his father worked at Fisher Body and his grandmother, a GM employee, was in the Woman's Brigade during the famous sit-down strike. My husband's brother was the third generation to be a Flint resident and he raised his children there.

Union pins that belonged to Valdora 'Girl' Bekofske

As a young wife, I lived in and around Philadelphia, including in one of the earliest industrial centers, surrounded by empty factories. We returned to Michigan, for a while living in Lansing a short way from the downtown GM assembly plant. At retirement, we moved into my family home in Metro Detroit.

Our families were lucky. Dad often mused that he had seen the best days of working in the auto industry.  Dad survived several downsizing cuts thanks to his seniority. My dad-in-law took advantage of early retirement and lived into his nineties, spending more time retired than in his career. But he had to watch the Flint and Grand Blanc plants die.

Looking Deeper Between the Pages

The book is divided into thematic sections.

Growing Up

• Jaqueline Marino's A Girl's Youngstown begins with memories of the 1970s pollution that made her and her sister hold their breath when crossing the Market Street Bridge. It made me recall the smell of entering Tonawanda, driving up the River Road past the Ashland gasoline storage tanks.
• The Kidnapped Children of Detroit by Marsha Music recalls White Flight and ponders how today Detroit can move forward without the crippling divisions of the past. 
• Busing, A White Girl's Tale by Amanda Shaffer considers what she gained from the experience. 
• North Park, With and Without Hate by Jeff Z. Klein recounts growing up Jewish in Buffalo when prejudice was out in the open. 
• Life on the "slag heap of society" is presented by David Faulk in Moundsville. In Love and Survival: A Flint Romance, Layla Meiller admits her hometown taught her a pervasive sense of vulnerability.

Day to Day in the Rust Belt

• Dave Newman talks about starting over in mid-life in A Middle-Aged Student's Guide to Social Work as he learns the limitations of social work. 
• Fresh to Death is Eric Woodyard's recounting of his double life drinking in a Flint neighborhood bar at night while working as an award-winning sportswriter by day.  
• Ben Gwin shares a heartbreaking story of addiction in Rust Belt Heroin Chic. Henry Louis Taylor Jr. asks Will Blacks Rise or Be Forgotten in the New Buffalo, proving that the racial division of progress plagues Rust Belt cities other than Detroit. 
• Aaron Foley asks Can Detroit Save White People? 
• Huda Al-Marashi writes about Cleveland's Little Iraq community.

Geography of the Heartland

• John Lloyd Clayton remembers a Cincinnati gay bar in A Night at the Golden Lion Lounge. 
• The lack of identity in assimilated white European families is addressed in Ryan Schnurr's Family Bones. 
• The Fauxtopias of Detroit's Suburbs by James D. Griffioen discusses Henry Ford's legacy, from the Rouge plant to Greenfield Village's idyllic nostalgia that whitewashes history. Eric 
• Anderson juxtaposes working in the steel mills, gentrification, and art in Cleveland in Pretty Things to Hang on the Wall. 
• I learned that "redneck" came from the red bandannas worn by Matewan unionizers in King Coal and the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum by Carolyne Whelan. 
• Martha Bayne questions accident or intention in Seed or Weed? 
• On the Evolution of Chicago's Bloomingdale Trail 
• Ecologist 
• Kathryn M. Flinn realizes the diversity of Rust Belt ecology in This Is A Place. 
• Mobility as benefit or detriment is considered in That Better Place; or the Problem with Mobility by G. M. Donley. Donley looks at how historic suburban growth impacted downtowns and offers ways to improve where we live instead of chasing the 'dream home' elsewhere.

Leaving and Staying

• The pursuit of a relationship brings Sally Errico to move in Losing Lakewood. Notes from the Expatriate Underground by Margaret Sullivan is about nostalgic Buffalo natives looking for connection. 
• Confessions of a Rust Belt Orphan; or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Akron by Jason Segedy recalls the 'smell of good jobs' when Akron was the Rubber Capital of the World. 
• Our idealistic image of an upward line of progress must be replaced with the cycle of boom and bust. 
• And Connor Coyne talks about what it is like to bath a baby in Flint Water in Bathtime.

Thoughts

Voices from the Rust Belt will be poignant reading for those of us associated with these cities. We will connect with some readings, and definitely will learn we are not alone. I was surprised how Buffalo's experience of white flight was not too unlike Detroit's.

The stories will inform those who want to understand the Rust Belt experience on the personal level. There are essays that dig deeper, dissecting a history of public policy and boom and bust economics that contributed to the decline of these cities. Best of all, included are suggestions for moving forward.

This book would be a good discussion starter in the classroom or in a book club.

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

Voices from the Rust Belt
by Anne Trubek
Macmillan-Picador
ISBN 9781250162977
PRICE $16.00 (USD)

The Opposite of Hate: Learning to Find Commonality in a Divisive World

The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guild to Repairing our Humanity by Sally Kohn was a hard book to read, delving into the roots of hate, and yet I was given hope by stories of recovered haters and the offered toolkit of how to move beyond hate.

I was a freshman in high school in 1967 when my Civics teacher Mr. Warner taught us that there is no such thing as 'race', that we are all one 'race'--the human race. I was a sophomore in college when Dr. Sommers told my anthropology class the story of a community who believed they were God's Real People and across the hill lived sub-human others. Two stories that succinctly sum up social conflict: are we connected or are we disconnected?

In my late 20s, working in an all black office, I learned that, even raised in a home and school culture that did not teach hate towards perceived 'others', hate is so ingrained in our society that one cannot escape it. To rise above hate one must be on perpetual guard, thoughtful of our unvoiced thoughts and emotions as well as our spoken words and deeds. We all hate. It is a choice every day what we do with this knowledge.

Kohn reflects on her own childhood acts of bullying and her training as a community activist who found hate was a "useful tool in their civic-engagement tool belt." Catching herself in hateful hypocrisy made her reflect on hate--its universality, its manifestations from name calling to hate crimes, and how the dehumanization of  'others' creates a deadly climate.

Kohn sat down and talked to people who held beliefs that were diametrically her opposite, learning their story. We all know how hard this is to do. We cut off Facebook friends and even relatives, and avoid certain gatherings were we may run into people whose opinions we object to--even hate. Kohn shares a technique from Compelling People by Matt Kohut and John Neffinger. Instead of arguing or telling folk they are wrong, follow ABC. Affirm: find a mutual concern; Bridge with an 'and' statement and follow with Convince, in which you present your view. She calls it connection-speech, a friendly and respectful way of communicating.

Several times over the last year I have found myself fumed at something an acquaintance has said. I stated my case and apologized if they felt attacked, saying I feel passionate about the issue. Reading ABC makes me recall a professor, who when a student said something he did not agree with, calmly said, "that could be" or "that is interesting" and then stated his convincing argument. I have been forgetting to affirm.

Each chapter addresses aspects of hate:Why We Hate, How We Hate, Hating Is Belonging, Unconscious Hate, When Hate Becomes Pandemic, Systems of Hate, and The Journey Forward.

The opposite of hate, Kohn contends, is not love or even liking those we don't agree with. It is not giving up one's passionately held ideals. It is connection--treating others with respect as fellow human beings.

I appreciated Kohn's honest confession, how she drew lessons from the people she interviewed, and especially for a blueprint of how to overcome America's most dangerous threat.

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

The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity
by Sally Kohn
Algonquin Books
Pub Date 10 Apr 2018 
ISBN: 9781616207281
PRICE: $27.95 (USD)

Ads to Catch the Eye of the Homemaker in the October 1952 Good Housekeeping Magazine

What did the 1952 Homemaker want in her house? Perhaps these Good Housekeeping ads filled out her 'wish list.' Starting with the kitchen.

I have to wonder what came first, the desire or the ads that created a need?

Youngstown kitchen cabinets are sought after by the Retro Renovation crowd. Some of our early parsonage kitchens had metal cabinets with cool features like a flour bin.

A modern kitchen needed to have a gas or electric range. Growing up, I actually knew a family who still used a wood burning stove until the later 1950s.

This range could bake and broil at the same time!

Mom always had Revere Ware. I did too, but I would get distracted and end up burning them up. I was better off using cast iron!

Wear-Ever is still around. 

I did not have a Chromcraft table and chairs growing up, but I still have my childhood table that Dad bought and finished. 

Mom bought Melmac dishes when I was a kid in the 1950s.

Anchor Hocking Fire King ovenware, made in Ohio.

I don't recall the name Styron from Dow Plastics. Made in Michigan.

What about the rest of the house? There were innovations in the bedroom, including 'bibb' or 'snug' fitted sheets.

Wallpaper was found in most houses. I recall my first bedroom had paper with black and white kittens playing with pink and blue balls of yarn. The whites of their eyes glowed in the dark and disturbed me.

Mom favored nylon sheer curtains.

Vinyl and linoleum flooring were easy for the 'weekend remodelers' to install. Dad installed tile in our house in 1963.

Back to the kitchen...What was for dinner in 1952? During the war America bought oleo, but now butter was trying to come back to the table.

 Macaroni Squares was an inexpensive meal to make.

 Spanish Rice Pronto is not too different from one of Mom's favorite recipes.

A Mixed Bag of Mini-Reviews

Thanks to the local library I was able to read Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing.

As I read Sing, Unburied, Sing, I kept worrying that something horrendous was going to happen, something I could not bear. The feeling of impending tragedy was ominous. The characters were well drawn, their stories heart-rending. They will live with me for a long while.

#Hockeystrong by Erika Robuck

My family was never into sports. We were given tickets to see several hockey games at Michigan State but that is my sum experience with the sport. But I can appreciate a good social commentary.

This book dissects the crazy things parents will do when their kids enjoy a sport, making a game into a fetish and giving up all control to the machinations of an obsessed coach. I’d have laughed at the extreme things they do...except I was so appalled. Over the top, hilarious, and disturbing—the novel left me grateful we were never #Hockeystrong.

I purchased an ebook.

Book Club Reads

Both my book clubs have recently read Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue much to my pleasure. Overall, everyone enjoyed the book. Here is the review I wrote after reading it in 2016:

I was thrilled to win Behold the Dreamers on Goodreads Giveaways! After reading it, I am grateful to have won it. It is a beautifully written, deep, and thoughtful exploration of the oldest theme in American literature: The American Dream. What makes this treatment stand out is the juxtaposition of the dreamers who hope to achieve the dream against the family who already lives the dream.

Jende and Neni have come to New York City hoping for a better life. Neni is a strong-willed woman who defied her father to marry Jende. She is determined to get an education and a career. Jende was forbidden to marry Neni, and when she became pregnant her father had Jende imprisoned. In 2007, now together and living in Harlem, Neni is in school and Jende has landed a posh job as a chauffeur to a Lehman Brothers executive. They are full of hope for the future. All they need is to become permanent residents.

Jende's boss Clark and his wife Cindy are successful, rich, beautiful people, who have come up from the lower and middle classes. In truth Clark is a workaholic whose moral sense must be suppressed as he conforms to the business ethics of Lehmans, while Cindy obsesses over fitting in, passing as one of the 1% to maintain her status.

As the two couples struggle with their personal demons, watching their dreams unravel, choices are made that will alter their lives forever.

I enjoyed this book on so many levels. Mbue is a wonderful storyteller, her characters are vivid and unforgettable. The treatment of the immigrant experience and American immigration law is relevant and revealing.

I loved how Jende and Neni were hard-working idealists about America. The battle between Clark's Midwest values and the realities of Wall Street destroy him while his wife escapes into the oblivion of drugs and alcohol. Cindy and Clark's son Vince understands the spiritual death of American society, dropping out to find a life worth living. I loved the ending as Jende and Clark meet a final time, no longer boss and servant, but as men recognizing their mutual struggle to do what is best for their families.

It impressed me that Mbue, born in Cameroon and living in America for ten years, has a masterful writing style and a deep and intelligent insight into the psyche of both immigrant and American. This is her first book, and I can't wait to read more from Mbue.

I received a free book from Random House in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. (less)

Another book club selection this month was Barbara Kingsolver's 2001 book Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

Had I read this when it came out it would have made a bigger impact on me. Most of my library book club was not inspired and many did not finish the book. Several of us admitted the information was no longer fresh. The inserted essays seemed to put people off from reading it.

I commend the message of the book to eat local, to raise your own food, and to be concerned about the impact of factory farming and processed foods.