Daisy Jones and the Six

I have no nostalgic need to 'revisit' the Seventies, especially it's rock and roll scene with its drugs and sex. I basically missed it the first time. 1972 found me married at age 19, working while my husband finished his professional degree. For fun we took Ewall Gibbons to the woods, organic gardened, and listened to John Denver or Russian Orthodox chants while drinking Earl Grey tea.

I never heard Stevie Nicks or Fleetwood Mac or other bands who inspired Taylor Jenkins Reid. I had just heard their names. I am that clueless. So it took me a long while to warm up to the idea of reading Daisy Jones and the Six.

Then, the First Look Book Club shared the beginning of the book. I liked it. I had noted rave reviews the audiobook. So I went online to Libby and put a hold on an audiobook through my local library. And six weeks later I started to listen to it.

Twenty-four hours later I had finished all nine hours of the audiobook. And I don't really like audiobooks. I did not even have a lot of hand quilting to keep me busy while listening. Not only did I stay awake--I could not stop listening. I just sat there and listened.

The book is written like a documentary, a collection of oral histories pieced together to tell the story of the rock and roll band The Six, its lead singer Billy Dunne, and Daisy Jones who is beautiful and fragile and self-destructive and fierce.

People don't communicate effectively in real life, and miscommunication---and no communication---between self-absorbed people drive much of the angst in the book. But there is also strength and hope and the daily decision to do the right thing by the people we love.

If the tension between Billy and Daisy is central, it is Billy's relationship with his wife Camilla that is most interesting. Camilla knows what she wants and what she is willing to give up. When she gets pregnant Billy marries her and she is relentless in insisting on having the life she wants for herself and her children. Her faith in their future keeps Billy straight while he daily battles the lure of his past addictions, determined to be the man his wife believes he can be.

Billy has Camilla's faith. But the beautiful Daisy was never cherished by her folks or by the men she sleeps with. Since she was a young teen, she was allowed to party and do whatever she wanted. She has one friend who is there for her.  Daisy wants to sing and write her own songs. After signing a contract she discovers the studio wants to mold her image and repertoire. It is the price she must pay to be allowed to sing.

Fatefully, she ends up on a tour opening for Billy and The Six. One night she sings with Billy and a musical legend is born. Their voices are made for each other. Perhaps they are made for each other. But Billy can't go there, Camilla is his lodestar. And the attraction turns their relationship ugly as their music skyrockets to the top of the charts.

The other band member's stories are also complicated and interesting. Keyboardist Karen is determined to have a successful career, which for a woman in the 70s involves a huge sacrifice. Graham as Billy's younger brother willingly takes a back seat but is pushed away the one time he really needs Billy. The musicians in the band want a voice and equal time and resent that Billy is the self-appointed lead artist who makes all the decisions.

Success can't guarantee happiness. The band members spiral into their personal hells. In a heartbreaking scene, Billy is saved by a stranger. And Camilla, that remarkable woman, unmistakeably stakes her claim, yet with love and concern.

There is a surprise twist at the end. Poignant, but perhaps unnecessary.

I loved this story. I would read the book even after listening to it. The book I wanted to ignore wants a place on my bookshelf. Not because it is what the New York Times reviewer Eleanor Henderson calls "A Snapshot of the Bell-Bottoms Seventies" but because Reid has created characters of such depth that I care about them and remember them. 

Daisy Jones and the Six
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Publication March 2019
Ballantine Books
Audiobook
ISBN 1524798622 (ISBN13: 9781524798628)

Wild Wool & Colorful Cotton Quilts by Erica Kaprow

I could not resist looking into a book with such a fun and colorful quilt on the cover! I love the wonky houses, how every space is filled with applique details, but most of all, the pure joy this quilt exudes!

Erica Kaprow combines textiles in Wild Wool & Cotton Quilts, which I know is very popular in my weekly quilt group. Quilters love the ease of wool applique and the texture and visual interest added by wool.

Three quilt projects are included, all in a medallion style with exuberant layers of vines, flowers, and circles.

The cover quilt is House on the Hill, 43" x 43" with a central block of 17" x 171/4". The patterns employs prairie points, beading, and tiny circles made with a hole punch.

Birds of a Feather, below, is a whimsical birdhouse and mating pair. The 42" x 42" quilt has a 16" square central block. Embroidery and beading are used. That sinuous vine around the house is divine.

Birds of a Feather

House in the Middle, 46 1/2" square with a 14" square middle block, includes seed beads, paper piecing, and embroidery. Don't you just love the cat sleeping on the rooftop?

Kaprow's order of operations explains how to create the patterns and applique the pieces and is fully illustrated, and photographs give an up-close look at the quilts.

 

Kaprow is the author of Everything's Blooming and Summertime Sampler. A lifelong sewer, crafter, and wool dyer, Kaprow found that quilting brought together her love of color, fabrics, hand stitching, and creativity.

I was given access to a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Wild Wool & Colorful Cotton Quilts: Patchwork & Appliqué Houses, Flowers, Vines & More
Erica Kaprow
32 pages, plus pullout
ISBN: 978-1-61745-846-0
UPC: 734817-113546
(eISBN: 978-1-61745-847-7)
 Book ( $19.95  )
 eBook ( $15.99 )

William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life by Steve Almond

"Literature exists to help people know themselves," Steve Almond tells us early in his new book William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life. Almond delves into John William's novel Stoner and explores how he connected to the character of William Stoner and how the novel impacted his life.  

Steve Almond read Stoner a dozen times, grappling with its messages and why it brings him back time after time. He offers us a Stoner who shows the "devotion to the inner life," a lost art in a culture fixated on wealth and consumerism and entertainment.

I have read Stoner twice. I picked up an ebook on sale because I liked the cover art, a painting by John Singer Sargent. I got the 'Stoner' bug and was soon touting it, part of its rediscovery by readers.

Stoner is the story of a man whose hardscrabble farmer father sends him to university to study agriculture. Stoner is baffled by literature and is moved to understand. His professor understands that Stoner has fallen in love with literature and is destined to become a teacher. The story follows his career, his unhappy marriage, alienation from his daughter, his love affair, and departmental battles. And then--he dies of cancer. In the end, Stoner forgives his wife and himself and accepts that his choices were the only ones he could have made.

The novel breaks the rules for a best-seller, and Williams knew it when he wrote it. From the old-fashioned narration and the lack of page-turning action to the focus on a sad character whose choices bring him pain. And yet...we are carried away by the story. It is about the choices we make and don't make, how we marry for lust and are ruined by lovelessness, how sticking to our values can destroy our careers.

Almond becomes deeply personal, sharing his own decisions and failures and history and how William Stoner reflected his life back to him, helping him to understand himself and better himself.

Almond probes Stoner's wife, making her a more fully realized character for readers. Almond's wife would like to hear Edith's side of the story, how sexual abuse and the lack of choice for women in 1928 caged her into a life she did not want. Edith gives up their newborn daughter to Stoner's care; later, jealous, she reclaims the child and alienates her from her father. The child suffers but Stoner cannot see any choice but to allow it. The girl is broken by this and it destroys her.

Stoner's squabbles with the English department head, Lomax, shows "the difficulty of standing up for yourself in the world, the price you pay when you fail to do so, and the price you pay when you succeed." Stoner wants to uphold the "intellectual purity of the academy" but feuding with the powerful can't result in victory.

Was Stoner a masochist? Growing up on a farm, was he so used to being the victim of uncontrollable forces that he sought out failure? On his death bed, Stoner's daughter remarks, "things haven't been easy for you, have they?" to which he replies, "I suppose I didn't want them to be."

Almond looks at the theme of class in Stoner. Marrying Edith, a pampered girl from the upper classes and embracing a career as a teacher brings Stoner far up the ladder from the manual labor and subsistence life on his family farm. Almond writes that Stoner "show us what happens when the poor farm boy actually gets the rich girl, which is that he winds up in hell."

During WWI, Stoner's two best friends at university go to war while he is talked out of it by his professor. Stoner is perfectly happy in his cell, searching literature for truth and beauty.

There are moments of joy in Stoner's life, particularly when he falls in love with Katherine, a young instructor. Sharing the intellectual life leads to carnal love until Lomax holds the affair over Stoner's head to threaten his career. The interlude allows reflections on love. Stoner must choose between human love and the love of teaching.

It is teaching that Stoner loves the most, the idealized vision of preserving and passing on the heritage of literature. Over and over he chooses teaching--instead of enlisting, instead of divorce, instead of a good relationship with his boss. Literature is his first love and Stoner never abandons her.

On his death bed, Stoner asks if his life had value or if he was a failure. Williams wrote that Stoner "had dreamed of a kind of integrity, of a kind of purity that was entire; he had found compromise and the assaulting diversion of triviality." In a flash of insight, Stoner realizes that failure didn't matter. "He was himself, and he knew what he had been." And that is the beauty of the novel. It is enough to be oneself. To stay true to who one is. Nothing else matters in the end. In the battle for the inner life, Stoner had won.

Throughout the book, Almond connects his subject to contemporary American politics, concluding that "Americans are conflict junkies" and when politicians don't fight back we lose interest. "Going high" as Stoner did may win the battle but it loses the fight.

Almond's book was enjoyable for the insights into John William's "perfect novel" and also for a deep understanding of how a novel can impact a reader.

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

William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life
Steve Almond
IG Bookmarked Series
ISBN: 978-1632460875
Publication: June 18, 2019
14.95 paperback

Click on these links to learn more about John Williams and Stoner
The Man Who Wrote the Perfect Novel
 Stoner and rereading Stoner
Augustus
Nothing But the Night

WIP, TBR & News

The Bronte Sisters by Nancy A. Bekofske

I believe I have finished the Bronte Sisters quilt, latest in my series of Literary Quilts. I keep wondering about more embellishment. The Jane Sassaman fabrics were perfect for my vision of these writers.

I am playing with fabrics from Jane Sassaman I found at Tuesday Morning.

A quilter can find color inspiration ANYWHERE. I made my husband stop the TV so I could get a pic of Edgar Standish's sweater worn on Whiskey Cavalier. We loved the series Chuck and this show reminded us of that one. I loved that color combo. I found these Kona cotton fabrics that matched just great! Now to play...

The Standish Sweater and Kona Cottons

I brought in spring quilts to show and tell at the weekly quilt group and they were snapped up for display this month at our local library.

Stained Glass flowers from an unfinished block of the month quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske

Morning Glory was a Quiltmaker magazine pattern. Made by Nancy A. Bekofske

I won some book swag for reviewing Gold Digger: The Remarkable Story of Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg! Find my review here.

I received a Goodreads win, Lisa Genova's Every Note Played. It is shown against the center of an early Handkerchief Quilt I made with Lizst's Liebestraume!

I am LOADED with review books!

Reading now:

• This Tender Land by William Kent Kreuger 
• Kopp Sisters On The March by Amy Stewart

Books still to come in my mailbox include

• The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen, YA book that was an instant #2 on the NYT best sellers, from David Abram's fantastic blog The Quivering Pen 
• Inland by Tea' Obreht reimagines the Old West, from LibraryThing
• Archeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past by Sarah Parcak, from LibraryThing

On my Edelweiss TBR shelves:

• Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin by Jerome Charyn 
• Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War by Duncan White 

On my NetGalley TBR shelves:

• Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer 
• The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks fiction about Erik Satie
• The Long Call by Anne Cleeves by the author of Vera and Shetland
• The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar author of Central Station and Unholy Land
• The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal set during the 1850 Great Exhibition
• A Polar Affair by Lord Spencer Davis who was with the Scott expedition and studied penguins
• Inventing Tomorrow: H. G. Wells and the 20th Century by Sarah Cole
• Broke by Jodie Adams Kirshner about Detroiters after the city's bankruptcy
• The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer, author of Sherlock Holmes continuations including The 7% Solution
• The Book of Science and Antiquities by Thomas Keneally who wrote Schindler's List
• The Women of Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell set in Calumet, MI
• Out of Darkness Shining Light by Petina Gappah about the last days of David Livingston in Africa

And a win from Breathless, Bubbles & Books Facebook Group

• Wickwythe Hall by Judithe Little, WWII fiction inspired by real events

A new friend at our weekly quilt group showed us these gorgeous Hexie blocks made with vintage embroidered textiles! Way to go, Tammy!

Tammy's vintage embroidery hexies

On the quilt group free table I found a 1982 Quilt magazine with this article on a Charlie Harper quilt designed for a woman's group near Cincinnati Ohio. I shared on the Facebook group Quilts-Vintage and Antique and several people remembered this quilt and one even made a block. I have contacted the woman's group to see if they have any information in their records. Or...a pattern...

Cardinal Carnival Quilt designed by Charlie Harper
for the Montgomery Woman's Club Quilters

Our garden is blooming profusely because we had rain almost every day last month.

We had a landscaping company install the front garden last year. Bush roses, geranium, and hydrangea are blooming.

A section of the garden that floods was a perfect place for these iris.

The white rose was here, perhaps planted by my mother.

 The red rose bush was my husband's addition.

A squirrel was climbing my window!

We have a momma bunny in the yard. 

Now and then we see little bunny ears above the door wall to the patio.

A few days ago we puppysat our grandpuppy Ellie. She spooked up the baby bunny, which gave her a grand chase before ducking behind the garage, a temporary fence keeping Ellie out. Ellie was very excited. The baby was back the next day.

Ellie_theShibaInu has her own Instagram account

Today is a special day...my 47th anniversary!

My 1972 wedding photo

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermit

Just for fun, I read Val McDermid's recreation of Northanger Abbey, written as part of the 2014 Austen Project. I thought McDermid did a good job of updating the novel. I found the adaptation to be enjoyable and fun, a quick read.

Cat, as she preferred to be known--on the basis that nobody should emergy from their teens with the name their parents had chosen--had been disappointed by her life for as long as she could remember. Her family were, in her eyes, deeply average and desperately dull.~ from Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid

Cat (Catherine Morland) is a clergyman's daughter who has been homeschooled and overprotected. When her neighbors the Allens invite her to accompany them on their annual trip to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, it is the first time Cat has been away from home.

Mrs Allen runs into an old school friend, Maria Thorpe. The Thorpe children take Cat up, Bella instantly her becoming best friend and John her unwanted suitor. But Cat has also met young lawyer Henry Tilney and becomes besotted with him. And she admires Henry's sister Ellie and hopes to become closer friends with her. Cat is naive, natural and transparent, full of youthful idealism and joy in the discovery of the new and different, characteristics that make the Tilney siblings warm to her.

I thought McDermit did a good job updating the young people's culture. Bella and Cat are constantly Instant Messaging and the Tilneys play video games.

All of the classic Austen scenes are to be found including the discussion on novels as a vehicle for understanding human nature. Austen's original discussion of the word 'nice' (originally meaning fastidious) which became slang for agreeable becomes a discussion about the modern altering use of the word 'cool'. The discussion of the reading of novels and history has Cat admitting "I love novels that transport me into their world," mentioning her childhood love for Harry Potter and the Narnia books and noted her most recent reads were Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.

Cat finds that Northanger Abbey has mostly been modernized and redecorated in Scandinavian decor. But Cat's first view of the red sandstone building felt familiar, "similar to that of the parish church in Piddle Dummer, where her father held evening services every other Sunday." Then McDermid ads, "The only things missing were the parish noticeboard and the Oxfam posters." I loved these clever comments throughout the story.

Cat's reading obsession is vampire novels and it does seem unlikely a contemporary 17-year-old could actually consider vampires a reality. Henry Tilney, an insightful lawyer, too quickly zeros in on the motivation behind Cat's curiosity about his mother.

I enjoyed reading this reimagining of Austen's novel.

Helen Korngold Diary: June 9-15, 1919

Helen Korngold Senior Photo 1919 Hatchet Yearbook for Washington University

This year I am sharing the 1919 diary of Helen Korngold of St. Louis, MO. Helen graduated from Washington University.

Helen was on the girl's Hockey team as goal

Helen's Junior year Hockey team photo

Helen was a member of the Deutsher Verein Club at Washington University

Monday 9
Junior – Senior Luncheon. May Day Rehearsal.

Tuesday 10
May Day

Wednesday 11
Pilgrimage. Geology Luncheon. Fixed up my clothes – got some new dresses – my white is simply beautiful.

Thursday 12
Commencement – it was wonderful, but oh, so hot. Commencement Luncheon – home. Satellites Banquet at Elks – Went with Bill Weiser. After a marvelous time – Clara Marx, Hymen Stein, Bill & I went joy riding! Swell.

Friday 13
All tired out – slept all afternoon.

Saturday 14
East St Louis – not much success

Sunday 15
Valley Park with Clarence Hirsch. Swimming in morning – canoeing in afternoon – canoeing, dancing & talking in evening. Had a wonderful time, but all tired out.

Notes:

June 10
May Day celebrations were finally held, delayed because of the weather.

June 11
The Pilgrimage was one of the annual Senior Graduation week activities at Washington University.

White embroidered dresses were all the rage.

St. Louis Star ad, June 13, 1919

June 12, 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story

June 12 Commencement Day
According to the 1919 Washington University Record, the commencement took place at 10 o'clock in Francis Auditorium. A procession formed at Graham Memorial Chapel and proceeded to the auditorium. Helen was one of 71 graduates to receive a Bachelor of Arts.



William Joseph Wieser, born May 18, 1898 in St. Louis, appears on the 1917 St. Louis City Directory as a student residing on Eaton Ave. with his father Eugene whose business was ‘hardware.’ His WWI Draft Registration shows he was a student at St. Louis University, born May 20, 1888, and that he was short, of medium build with brown hair and eyes. The 1920 St. Louis Census shows his father was German, born in Austria, 63 years old, and was a retail merchant in hardware, married to Hattie, age 63, of German descent. Their son William J., age 21, worked as a bookkeeper in the telephone office. The 1910 St. Louis Census shows a daughter Rose, age 21, born in Illinois. Also living with them was Julia Levine, mother-in-law, was aged 86.

The 1930 St. Louis Census shows William was the head of household, working in collections, and living with his 76-year-old widowed mother and divorced sister Rose Lachman who was working as a commercial secretary. William shows up in the 1940 City directory married to Elizabeth and working as an inspector. William died on February 24, 1984, in Los Angeles, CA.

Hyman Stein could be one of several possible appearing in St. Louis records. One was born in England and was a porter for a printing company in 1930, married to Bertha and father to 4-year-old Sarah. Hyman G. Stein was born in Georgia in 1895 and shows up in the 1930 St. Louis City Directory and Census as a lawyer. He died in 1962 in MO. Another is buried in B’nai Amoona cemetery, born October 1898 and died in January of 1978.

June 15

Valley Park was a summer resort on the Meramec River at the southern boundary of St. Louis. It offered outdoor activities including swimming, horseback riding, paddling, and fishing. There were 88 trains a day bringing people to the resort at the time of Helen’s diary but was a day trip for automobiliers in St. Louis.

Helen's senior photo notes she was on the rowing team.

June 1919 story on women's bathing costumes

Clarence Hirsch could be one of several people in the St. Louis records.

Clarence son of Arthur, who was a salesman, was a clerk on the 1915 St. Louis City Directory. Clarence Adoph was the V.P. of Hirsch Distilling Co. on the 1919 City Directory, while Clarence E. appears as V.P. of Hirsch Co.

Clarence Hirsch on the 1920 St Louis Census lived with his widowed mother Sarah and family and worked as a salesman in ready-to-wear. He was 20 years old. His WWI draft card shows he was born in Tennessee in September 1896 and was of medium height and build with brown eyes and dark hair. The 1910 St Louis Census shows him living with his father Bernard, who was a merchant of shoes. Bernard was of Austrian German heritage who immigrated to America in 1880. Clarence died in Oct 1977 in St Louis.

*****

Uncle Wiggly characters were introduced to children in a coloring contest in the St. Louis Star on June 13, 1919.

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

"We lose ourselves...but we find our way back." from Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner is an emotional roller coaster about Baby Boomer sisters Jo and Bethie. Pop culture and political landmarks set the novel in specific times and places, beginning in 1950s Detroit. When their father suddenly dies, their mother Sarah struggles on her own, finding affordable housing and a job at Hudson's.

Jo was the rebel, resisting girly dress and activities and early becoming involved in Civil Rights protests. She also falls in love with her best friend Lynnette. Lynnette buckles under social pressure unable to accept her sexual orientation.

Younger sister Bethie was always the perfect Jewish middle-class girl, her mother's favorite. She becomes a victim of sexual abuse and begins to alternately binge eat and starve herself. She is in a school play with Harold, who is African American, but they do not act on their mutual attraction.

Jo goes away to the University of Michigan, meeting the love of her life, Shelley. Bethie comes to visit where she is picked up by an older, drug-dealing, man who turns her onto drugs and sex, beginning a long spiral of bad choices.

When Shelley elects to marry, Jo is devastated and allows a man to woo and marry her. She loves being a mom, but as the children grow so does the distance between Jo and her husband until he betrays and leaves her.

Passivity allows bad choices to take the sisters further from their true selves while misunderstanding and anger drive a wedge between them. Meanwhile, Jo's three girls grow up and her youngest, Lila, makes her own series of bad choices.

Their stories become a synopsis of women's history from the 50s housewives to the women who juggle career and family to the last question of what kind of death to choose.

As entertaining as the book was, for a long time I was not sure what its purpose was until near the end of the story when Jo summarizes a woman's struggle between expectations and self-fulfillment, how we find ourselves far from our deepest truths and struggle to come home again.

I was offered a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Read an excerpt at http://www.jenniferweiner.com/mrs-everything

Mrs. Everything
by Jennifer Weiner
Atria Books
Pub Date 11 Jun 2019 
ISBN: 9781501133480
PRICE: $28.00 (USD)

Note: The story takes place almost parallel to my own life and the cultural references were a trip down memory lane. We moved to the Detroit area in 1963 and I enjoyed all the references to the places and stores and radio stations mentioned. But...I take issue with one thing in the book--The sisters go to Suzy Q's for burgers. Burgers! It was known for its chicken! Why would they go there for burgers!