Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

 

I was lucky to be able to still grab a galley of the much talked about thriller/mystery Who is Maud Dixon? I needed a plot-driven, page turner to get my reading mojo back. And this clever, twisted debut novel did the trick. I stayed up reading past my bedtime!

Florence had been raised to believe she was special and would accomplish big things. She did leave Florida and her single mom for New York City and the world of publishing. But, instead of being a big name writer, she works for an editor who has just sold her first book. Florence is frustrated and imagines another life, the life she *should* have, the success she deserved.

After sleeping with her boss's boss, she becomes obsessed with the man's family, stalking his wife and studying her, imitating her. It lands her in hot water, and without a job.

Then an opportunity arises for her to be the assistant to the best-selling author whose book was a major influence in her life. Maud Dixon was a pen name, and only one person knew who the real person behind the novel was...until Florence is hired to become her personal assistant.

Maud is really Helen Wilcox, only six years older than Florence. Helen is not a nice person. She is blunt, self-centered, cold-hearted, and sarcastic. Florence manages Helen's finances, correspondence, and types her work in progress which arrives in indecipherable handwriting so Florence has to insert her own words. It is also damn poor writing; Florence could do as well.

Helen makes the sudden decision for them to go to Morocco for research. When Florence wakes up in the hospital, a policeman calling her Ms Wilcox, she learns there was a car accident she can't recall--and Helen has disappeared. Florence does not correct the assumption of her identity, and hatches a plan to take over Helen's life for herself. 

Florence becomes embroiled in far more than she expected, and with several more plot twists, instead of gliding on Maud's fame and riches, she must escape prison and death.

The success of the novel rests on plot. Helen and Florence feel like 'types' and even the idea of assuming another's identity is not original. It took me more than half the novel to be hooked into that late night reading to finish the story. Still, it is a fun read. And, truly, there are few of us who never fantasized about the life we believe we are owed, or were jealous of another's success. 

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Who is Maud Dixon?
by Alexandra Andrews
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date March 2, 2021
ISBN: 9780316500319
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

Florence Darrow is a low-level publishing employee who believes that she's destined to be a famous writer. When she stumbles into a job the assistant to the brilliant, enigmatic novelist known as Maud Dixon — whose true identity is a secret — it appears that the universe is finally providing Florence’s big chance.

The arrangement seems perfect. Maud Dixon (whose real name, Florence discovers, is Helen Wilcox) can be prickly, but she is full of pointed wisdom -- not only on how to write, but also on how to live. Florence quickly falls under Helen’s spell and eagerly accompanies her to Morocco, where Helen’s new novel is set. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the wind-swept beaches of the coast, Florence’s life at last feels interesting enough to inspire a novel of her own.

But when Florence wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night — and no sign of Helen — she’s tempted to take a shortcut. Instead of hiding in Helen’s shadow, why not upgrade into Helen's life? Not to mention her bestselling pseudonym . . .

Taut, twisty, and viciously entertaining, Who is Maud Dixon is a stylish psychological thriller about how far into the darkness you’re willing to go to claim the life you always wanted.

One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021

GoodReads * LitHub * CrimeReads * Town & Country * New York Post * Wall Street Journal

about the author

Alexandra Andrews has worked as a journalist, editor and copywriter in New York and Paris. Who Is Maud Dixon? is her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers

Why She Wrote lifts up the stories of women writers of the 19th c., highlighting the contributions they made and the challenges they faced. In these pages, the women become super-heroes of their time, breaking down barriers. 

Presented in groups of three writers under a specific theme, the authors share a brief biography followed by an illustrated episode from their life. A full reading list is offered that includes each author's works and books about them for further reading.

It is a combination of a traditional biographical sketch with the graphic novel form, which I expect would appeal to younger readers. 

I wholeheartedly approve of any venture that brings classic writers--especially women writers--to the attention of readers.

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers
by Hannah K. Chapman and Lauren Burke, Illustrated by Kaley Bales
Chronicle Books
Pub Date:  April 20, 2021   
ISBN: 9781797202099
hardcover $19.95 (USD)

from the publisher

In Why She Wrote, dive into the fascinating, unexpected, and inspiring stories behind the greatest women writers in the English language.

This compelling graphic collection features 18 women—including Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Anne Lister, and more—and asks a simple question: in a time when being a woman writer often meant being undervalued, overlooked, or pigeonholed, why did she write?

Why did Jane Austen struggle to write for five years before her first novel was ever published? How did Edith Maude Eaton's writing change the narrative around Chinese immigrant workers in North America? Why did the Brontë sisters choose to write under male pennames, and Anne Lister write her personal diaries in code?

Learn about women writers from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, from familiar favorites to those who have undeservedly fallen into obscurity, and their often untold histories, including:

• The forgotten mother of the gothic genr
• The unexpected success of Little Women
• The diaries of the ""first modern lesbian""
• The lawsuit to protect Little Lord Fauntleroy
• The personal account of a mastectomy in 1811
• Austen's struggles with writer's block
• And much, much more!

Why She Wrote highlights a significant moment from each writer's life and retells it through engaging and accessible comics, along with biographical text, bibliographies, and fun facts. For aspiring writers, literary enthusiasts, and the Janeite who has everything, this new collection highlights these incredible women's hardships, their influence, and the spark that called them to write.

The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken

The stories in The Souvenir Museum  are a delight. Elizabeth McCracken's cleverness had me laughing out loud, but her quirky characters also elicit emotional investment and deeper reflections on life and love. One paragraph, I would be laughing and quoting lines to my husband, and another paragraph I felt my heart tugged. 

McCracken's characters struggle with love, finding it or losing it, committing or running away.

A woman with a broken heart checks into a hotel and meets a well-known radio personalty who dealt out terrible advice. He suggests that she is young and that she must 'change her life, and to be kind, even when life is cruel. 

A father takes his river-loving son rafting at a theme park, embarking on a fearful journey, imagining "The Raft of the Medusa at the Waterpark." 

A boy runs away to study with a ventriloquist. The story gave me my 'Sunday Sentence' on Twitter:

His body hadn't changed yet, but his soul had: this year he had developed delusions of grandeur and a morbid nature and a willingness to die for love; next year, pubic hair and broad shoulders.~ from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken 

A children's program actress imagines suicide, and on a cruise falls for a man who makes balloon animals. 

What could be sadder in a marriage than incompatible feelings about bagpipes? Ought they still marry?~from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken 

You can read one of the stories, Two Sad Clowns, published in O the Oprah Magazine here. It begins with the the marvelous sentence, "Even Punch and Judy were in love once." The story is the beginning of Jack and Sadie's love affair; the couple appear in four of the stories.

Who can predict the vicissitudes of life?~ from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken

Twenty years into their relationship, Jack convinces Sadie to marry and they honeymoon in Amsterdam. Discovering they are going the wrong way through a museum, the reluctant bride asks, Do you think we should start at the beginning?  Her new husband answers, no; let's fight the current. Stick to your mistake."

Perhaps that is the best way to live. Own your mistakes. Own going against the current. Why question things we can not change? Love the unsuitable. Embrace our imperfect life.

Entertaining and thoughtful, these stories are wonderful.

I received a free galley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Souvenir Museum: Stories
by Elizabeth McCracken
Ecco
Pub Date: April 13, 2021 
ISBN: 9780062971289
hardcover $26.99 (USD)

from the publisher

A Most Anticipated Book From: OprahMag.com * Refinery 29 * Seattle Times * LitHub * Houston Chronicle * The Millions * Buzzfeed

Award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to date

In these stories, the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a craggy Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children’s game-show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat half brother. A mother, pining for her children, feasts on loaves of challah to fill the void. A new couple navigates a tightrope walk toward love. And on a trip to a Texas water park with their son, two fathers each confront a personal fear. 

With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken traces how our closely held desires—for intimacy, atonement, comfort—bloom and wither against the indifferent passing of time. Her characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed—and so do her readers. The Souvenir Museum showcases the talents of one of our finest contemporary writers as she tenderly takes the pulse of our collective and individual lives.

Things I Never Understood #2: Great Rooms

The Great Room 

A dozen years ago I found myself arguing with a church committee in charge of designing and building a new church parsonage. They had planned for the front door to open into a great room that encompassed the living, dining, and kitchen area.

I was appalled. No parsonage family wanted a parishioner to come to the door and be able to see their private living space. And parishioners did sometimes come to the door to see the pastor. Sometimes strangers with needs came looking for the pastor.

I imagined myself snuggled down in my robe and slippers for a long evening's quilting when the doorbell rings. I would have to scurry into hiding before the door opened, and remain in hiding until they left. What about the toys scattered about, or the dog fur that still needed to be vacuumed up? I would be open to judgement. 

No, I explained, a door opening to show the entire house was against parsonage codes requiring privacy for the pastoral family. They changed to plan to include an entry hallway and a french door to the great room.

Today's Detroit Free Press has an article by Carol J. Alexander about housing trends to come, and she wrote that "open floor plans are out." The pandemic has people working at home and she notes that 

"This year, expect to see homeowners spending less time knocking down walls to open up shared areas, and more time transforming spare rooms or nooks into dedicated spaces. That might mean adding a home office or home theater, for instance, or transforming a nook into a space for distance-learning.Closets have been turned into offices, and extra bedrooms, and basement nooks. People need a room of their own to work in." 

Will the pandemic knoll the end of the Great Room trend?

For most of history, people lived in a shared space, and in many cultures and social strata, shared one bed. The idea of a room of one's own came much later in history. "Privacy was an eighteenth-century innovation," Fernand Braudel wrote in The Structures of Everyday Life. Houses became divided into receptions rooms for entertainment, a public room for show, and private family rooms. Samuel Pepys had his closet where he wrote his diary and kept his books, which he often mentioned in his diary. The concept of privacy gave us houses with many rooms.

So why the Great Room trend? According to television reality show home buyers, it's so that mothers can work in the kitchen and see what the children are doing.

Golly. When I was a tot, Mom set me into a chicken wire fenced area in the yard, gave me some toys, and went back inside to do whatever she was doing. When I became tired and complained, she threw a baggie of crackers out the window. (Of course, those were also the days when parents spanked kids for whining and being defiant and I don't recommend this.)

Me in the yard

When our son was playing outside in the sandbox, I kept an eye on him from the window or the enclosed porch. But when we were indoors, I generally could tell what he was up to without seeing him every minute. And if need be, I set him up with Mr Rogers or Reading Rainbow or Mary Popkins for a while. The hyper-vigilant 1990s Moms thought we were awfully lax. 

And so, open spaces became listed as the number one must for all home buyers. You could watch the kids. You could visit with company while preparing the meal. Women were not isolated in the kitchen while everyone else socialized.

But, all I could think of was the noise! The echoing, endless noise! 

I grew up with walls and rooms in houses built in 1900 and 1920. Our current 1966 home has a living room separate from the eat-in kitchen, which is open to the family room with doors to the patio. This is as 'open concept' as we can tolerate. Hubby complains he can't hear the TV in the family room over the electric tea pot boiling. 

My office is in the largest bedroom, furthest from the television room, with several walls and a hall between me and the kitchen. I can look out the front window and see the pear tree in bloom, watch for deliveries and the mail. And I can write in peace.

What a luxury! To have a room of my own. (And note the colorful walls, also on trend!)

Covid-19 Life News

The weather has cooled again, but the chard and spinach we planted is coming up. The pear tree is in blossom and the apple trees are in bud. We have been busy with yard work. 

Covid cases in Michigan are the highest in the nation, and Oakland County has been in the 'red' zone. Our small town of under 12,000 has had over 200 cases in the last month...out of 600 total cases! And most of those are school related.

Meanwhile, people all over the state are acting irresponsibly. 

After being vaccinated, we donned masks and did a few errands, but now are back to delivery. One errand was to mail the First Lady signed handkerchiefs to the presidential libraries. 

Another poetry book I purchased arrived. Made in Detroit by Marge Piercy.

I 

Algonquin Books sent early reviewers a print of the cover of Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenridge. Isn't it a beauty! The book has been much touted and I recommend it.

There is an eagle in town! People have been reporting it lives on a high apartment building downtown. We have seen it on our walks.

This spring, the Mourning Doves have been hanging out in our yard. One particularly likes to sit on the edge of the bird bath! Years ago, when dad had a platform bird feeder, they were constantly in the yard. They liked sitting in the apple tree when the heat pump blew warm air in the winter. But we have not seen them in our yard for quite a few years.

Sunny the Shiba Inu and Gus the cat have really bonded. Sunny loved to play with kitten Gus, and now they are cuddle buddies. Gus was in a tunnel toy and Sunny tried to figure out how to join him!

No bed is too small to share.

Goggle is ending feedburner so anyone who read my blog via email will no longer get it! Goggle+ ended a few years back. I need to find a new way for email following but it is all very complicated. I wonder if its time to just give up on Blogger and blogging, and share via social media. I started blogging in 2008. It's a different world, now.

I have until July 1 to figure it out.

Stay safe. Find your bliss.

The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross King

It was an age when scholars studied the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers in search of answers to contemporary concerns. Book collectors scoured monasteries and abbeys across Italy and Europe seeking rare and neglected books. 

Golden Age Florence was a a republic, a literate city that educated boys and girls, a place where both wealthy and tradesmen ordered volumes for their personal libraries. 

It was also an age of cruel acts of vengeance, political intrigue and family wars, a time of plague, while the Ottoman empire threatened from the East. The church was in turmoil, powerless girls were married off or sent to an abbey, either way locked away from the world.

While some sought truth in Plato and Aristotle, others rejected anything but the Holy Bible and traditional Christian beliefs. 

As one bookseller in Florence wrote,"All evil is born from ignorance, Yet writers have illuminated the world, chasing away the darkness." He was Vespasiano da Bisticci. He started life as an eleven-year-old assistant in a book shop, a stationer and bookbinder, doing manual work that required great strength. He went on to be renowned as the "king of the world's booksellers", a trusted friend to the wealthy and powerful and the scholar. 

The Bookseller of Florence is the story of  Vespasiano's career, set against the story of bookmaking during the shift from hand written and illuminated manuscripts bound in velvet and jewels to the mass production of the printing press. And it is the history of Florence and Italy during the early Renaissance.

Saving ancient manuscripts, copying them, and distributing them for scholarly study did not protect the texts. Without libraries to store and protected them, many sat neglected or where destroyed by fire and warfare, or carried off to disappear.  

King covers a lot of territory! I was only vaguely familiar with Italian and Catholic history previously---and found it fascinating. I will read more! (Such as King's Brunelleschi’s Dome, on my Kindle TBR shelf.) I learned about every aspect of book making, the switch from papyrus to parchment to paper, the advances in writing fonts, how printing presses work.  

Yes, the book is filled with a huge cast of  historic people and events, but my interest never flagged. I was swept up in this epic history.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

I read Ross King's last book Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies, reviewed here.

The Bookseller of Florence
The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
by Ross King
Grove Atlantic/Atlantic Monthly Press
Pub Date April 13, 2021
ISBN: 9780802158529
hardcover $30.00 (USD)

from the publisher

The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings—the dazzling handiwork of the city’s skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence’s manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.

At the heart of this activity, which bestselling author Ross King relates in his exhilarating new book, was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called “the king of the world’s booksellers.” At a time when all books were made by hand, over four decades Vespasiano produced and sold many hundreds of volumes from his bookshop, which also became a gathering spot for debate and discussion. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included a roll-call of popes, kings, and princes across Europe who wished to burnish their reputations by founding magnificent libraries.

Vespasiano reached the summit of his powers as Europe’s most prolific merchant of knowledge when a new invention appeared: the printed book. By 1480, the king of the world’s booksellers was swept away by this epic technological disruption, whereby cheaply produced books reached readers who never could have afforded one of Vespasiano’s elegant manuscripts.

A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, Ross King’s brilliant The Bookseller of Florence is also an ode to books and bookmaking that charts the world-changing shift from script to print through the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history—one of the true titans of the Renaissance.

Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extradordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli

I was in my early twenties when we moved to Philadelphia in 1975. I don't know exactly when we discovered National Public Radio, it seems to have always been part of our life. 

We listened to Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Thistle & Shamrock, World Cafe, Piano Jazz, Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Diane Rehm, and later Here and Now, 1A, plus classical music and folk music and jazz. 

I recognized the voices of our virtual friends on the airwaves. But I did not know much about them.

Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie is the story of  the "founding mothers" of NPR, whose voices we know like old friends. Lisa Napoli has written an entertaining, highly readable book that tells their stories and the barriers they broke. These women were integral to the rise of public radio. They were different in background and personality, but each rose to the top, bonded, and supported each other. 

I remember my first full time job in 1972 and the sexism in the workplace. A coworker discovered her salary was far less than the salary of the man who had the position before her. He had a family to support, she was told; her husband was her support. Another coworker told me to get a credit card in my name, and a credit rating. When her husband passed, she was unable to get a car loan. It was a time when women were judged by their appearance and attraction. A black coworker was chastised for wearing 'ethnic' earrings. I was fired for a fashionable frizzy perm.

This was the world Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie encountered when forging their careers. 

When a young Linda Cozby (later, Wertheimer) saw trailblazer Pauline Frederick reporting the news, it was a revelation. "To hell with being Edward R. Murrow's secretary," she thought. "I'm going to aim higher."

In 1959, Susan Levitt Stamberg's "blue-chip" education wasn't as important in the workplace as her ninety-nine words a minute typing speed. She started as a secretary for the new 16 magazine where she chose the winner of the "I Miss Elvis Contest" when Elvis entered the U.S. Army. She advanced to secretary at The New Republic, which gave her a "crash course in Washington." When start-up station WAMU-FM needed a full time producer, at low pay, she found the challenging job she needed.

As a girl, Nina Totenberg, daughter of an eminent violinist, was inspired by Nancy Drew. It struck her that "journalism seemed as close to detective work as she could imagine." Her first job in journalism was working on the women's pages of a daily newspaper.

Cokie Boggs came from an elite background of democratic, Southern, Catholic, politicians. But when she fell in love with the Jewish Steve Roberts, who planned a career in journalism, she knew a political career was out. Cokie found employment in television, including Meet The Press. After Steve and Cokie married, she had a checkered career as her husband was assigned across the world.  While having babies and raising her children, she worked with Steve. While abroad, reporting breaking news for CBS made her mark and her career.

NPR's development, advances, and economic woes is a major part of the book. 

Susan earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Cokie became one of the best-known women in America. Nina's coverage of the Supreme Court, including the Anita Hill sexual harassment suit against Clarence Thomas, earned her top awards. Linda was with NPR from its beginning, integral to All Things Considered, and reporting on Washington politics.

The book is as inspirational as it is informative.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley and won a free book from the publisher through Goodreads. My review is fair and unbiased.

Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

by Lisa Napoli
Abrams Press
Pub Date:  April 13, 2021
ISBN: 9781419750403
hard cover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR

In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages.” But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.

Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli’s captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. 

Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. 

Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author’s deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.