With Or Without You by Caroline Leavitt

Forty-nine years into my relationship with my husband, I can attest that people change and grow and couples must learn to adapt to the changes. 

Typically, personal growth evolves over time. But imagine waking up to find your partner in a coma, and they recover they a totally different person. Imagine that your connection is broken, your shared loves lost, that you are strangers that quickly.

With or Without You by Caroline Leavitt is the story of Simon, a one-hit-wonder still lusting after fame, and Stella, a practical nurse. They have been in love for decades even though their dreams don't mesh. Early in their relationship Stella gave up following Simon on tour and took up a career. Now in her early forties, she wants permanence and a family.

A new star in music recognizes Simon's band as his inspiration they are invited to open for him in Las Vegas. On the eve of Simon's leaving to reboot his career, Stella isn't sure she wants to give up her life to go on the road again.

Bad decisions leave Stella in a coma. Simon stays at her side while the band replaces him and moves on. Stella's work friend and doctor, Libby, had never liked Simon before, but in their mutual care for Stella, they become friends.

Stella comes out of the coma and recuperates. Foods she loved she now hates. She volunteers at the hospital and no longer enjoys being there. What does engross and calm her is drawing, demonstrating an amazing talent. For her drawings do not only show the outside of a person, they capture their inner being.

Simon, Stella, and Libby work out their ever more complex relationships, all on a journey into healing, personal growth, and an opportunity for full and productive lives.

Each character's childhood has impacted their self-image, and once confronted, they are able to become happy and healthy. This aspect of the story has universal appeal, affirming the possibility for wholeness and self-realization.

I loved the exploration of the quest for artistic success and the lure of fame against the pure love of doing art leading to success.

A thoughtful, deep novel with fully formed characters and a happy ending which I read in 24 hours.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

See Leavitt's Virtual Book Tour here

With or Without You
by Caroline Leavitt
Algonquin Books
Pub Date  August 4, 2020 
ISBN: 9781616207793
Hardcover $26.95 (USD)

from the publisher

New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt writes novels that expertly explore the struggles and conflicts that people face in their search for happiness. For the characters in With or Without You, it seems at first that such happiness can come only at someone else’s expense. Stella is a nurse who has long suppressed her own needs and desires to nurture the dreams of her partner, Simon, the bass player for a rock band that has started to lose its edge. But when Stella gets unexpectedly ill and falls into a coma just as Simon is preparing to fly with his band to Los Angeles for a gig that could revive his career, Simon must learn the meaning of sacrifice, while Stella’s best friend, Libby, a doctor who treats Stella, must also make a difficult choice as the coma wears on.

When Stella at last awakes from her two-month sleep, she emerges into a striking new reality where Simon and Libby have formed an intense bond, and where she discovers that she has acquired a startling artistic talent of her own: the ability to draw portraits of people in which she captures their innermost feelings and desires. Stella’s whole identity, but also her role in her relationships, has been scrambled, and she has the chance to form a new life, one she hadn’t even realized she wanted.

A story of love, loyalty, loss, and resilience, With or Without You is a page-turner that asks the question, What do we owe the other people in our lives, and when does the cost become too great?

The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

...it was at that great moment in adolescence where you throw off what you think you ought to be and start imposing your true personality on the world, a moment of grace and strength and beauty and danger. ~ from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

My 50th high school class reunion was to take place next month but was cancelled because of COVID-19. One of my friends suggested the class post their photos from senior year on the class Facebook page.

I was the first to share, a panorama photo of the senior class trip to Washington D.C. Classmates shared pics from the trip, Senior prom, and the school musical.

Something happened along the way. One classmate talked about her memories of the Vietnam war and civil rights movement, the Detroit riots, the protest sit-ins.

People talked about how they were not in the popular group, were outsiders looking in. They talked about their life after high school. And then, a girl talked about the anxiety that crippled her most of her life, how she hid it in school. We had thought she was popular, pretty, a golden girl.

Suddenly the barriers were falling down. Social class, academic standing, beauty, achievement, popularity were revealed to be false delinations that separated us.

So, here I am in life looking backward to adolescence, those horrible, difficult, eventful years, and I pick up The Brother Years by Shannon Burke as if the stars had aligned to ensure I read this book at this time.

Burke writes about "the weird, poor family in the rich neighborhood' and how their childhood was a crucible that molds and toughens them. Central are brothers Coyle and Willie Shannon and the competition that makes Willie's life hell.

The boys' father strives for success, working multiple jobs and studying for a teaching degree. He works the sons as hard as he works himself, employing The Methods to toughen them for the world. The stress gives him a short temper and violent outbursts. Their mother is a housewife with a college degree who ineffectually tries to keep the peace.

Coyle's academic and sports achievements were a testament to his father's Methods. But there was always the awareness of being the poorest family in the rich 'hood.

...there was that familiar feeling of knowing there was something wrong with us--with our clothes or haircuts of the way we talked. ~from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

Coyle's antithesis is the wealthy Robert. Willie aligns with Robert in his bid to get on the tennis team. Coyle accuses his brother of being a suck-up. Robert and Willie use each other for their own purposes. If that pisses Coyle off, so much the better.

Memories of a friendship with a rich friend came back. Dad was a blue collar worker and mom a housewife. We had what we needed, but my clothes were from KMart and our special eating out treat was buying 15 cent burgers from a local chain. At fourteen, I wore mom's hand-me-down swing coat and dated bathing suit with boy pants and a bra.

When I was a freshman, a girl took me up as a project, much like Emma took up Harriet in Jane Austen's novel. My friend was wealthy, had been to Europe, and lived in a posh house  that her father had designed. Her parents had college degrees. She encouraged me to lose weight, flirt with boys, and become 'cool.' At least, cooler. In the summer I went to her house to swim in her built-in pool. Mom bought me a new swimsuit to wear.

One day this friend told me her mother thought I was not the right sort for her because of our economic status. I don't know if her mom really said that or if it was the start of my friend pushing me away because she soon took up another 'project.'

The energy it takes to rise above one's born class! It takes the Brennan dad years to get that degree. The boys had to be the best in everything to get into a top-notch college and to get the needed scholarships to afford it. Their childhood was brutal, the competition violent.

I was immersed in the story and the characters. The Brennan family is unforgettable.

Burke has given us a powerful coming-of-age novel, a story of class divide and what it takes to achieve the proverbial pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.

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

Read an excerpt here.

from the publisher

"In our family, there was none of this crap about everyone being a winner," says Willie, the narrator, who looks back on his teen years--and his nearly mortal combat with his domineering older brother, Coyle. In the Brennan house four kids sleep in a single room, and are indoctrinated into "The Methods," a system of achievement and relentless striving, laced with a potent, sometimes violent version of sibling rivalry. The family is overseen by a raging bull of a father, a South Side tough guy who knocks them sideways when they don't perform well or follow his dictates. Rivals, enemies, and allies, the siblings contend with one another and their wealthy self-satisfied peers at New Trier, the famous upscale high school where the family has struggled to send them. Evoking their crucible of class struggle and peer pressures, Burke balances comedy, tragedy, and a fascinating cast of characters, delivering a book that reads like an instant classic--an unforgettable story of the intertwining of love and family violence, and of triumphant teen survival that echoes down through the years.

The Brother Years
by Shannon Burke
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/Pantheon
Pub Date August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9781524748647
hardcover $25.95 (USD)

Covid-19 Life: Finishing Quilts, TBR, Beautiful Nature

Maybe it's the feel of mortality breathing down my neck, but I am focused on finishing all those 'UFOs' in my sewing room--Unfinished Objects, for the uninitiated.

Finishing The Great Gatsby quilt was major. I started it years ago! I hand quilted it.

The blocks are taken from 1924 advertisements and represent scenes from the book.

I was lucky to snag  fabrics from the Great Gatsby fabrics line.

 My sewing room is a creative mess of works in progress.

I am putting together Row by Row blocks from years ago. Quilt shops designed and sold these rows for quilters to collect. These are all Michigan lake scenes.

I am also working on a pattern I bought when I was first quilting! The Mountain Mist Water Lilies pattern! Lots of repetitious hand applique. I love it. There are eight blocks like those below. Then borders of lily pads and flowers!

Books in the mail include the Book Club Cookbook win The Second Home by Christina Clancy, pictured with a completed Row.

And three fantastic art quilt books from Schiffer Publishing! Look for the reviews in the coming weeks.

New galleys on my shelf include:

• Maniac: The Bath School Murder and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter, which occured in Michigan
• The View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe by Jeanne E. Abrams
• Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig

I have been coloring in my birthday books.

Sunny goes to 'day camp' three days a week. She loves playing with the dogs. Since my son and his partner are both working from home, it's hard for her to understand they have to ignore her demands to play during working hours.

I enjoy the beauty I see around me. The hawk circling on the updraft above the houses. The flowers I see on my walks. The painted clouds of sunset.

 Even the weeds in the grass are beautiful.

My brother went to Tawas Point a few weekends ago and reported record high lake levels. The year my family spent a week there lake levels were at a record low!

Note the lighthouse in the background.

Here are flowers my brother has seen on his walks in the woods.

And, here is my brother. His birthday is coming in a few weeks. 

Stay safe, out there. Find your bliss in this broken world.

The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne

After her breakout debut The Marsh King's Daughter, Michigan writer Karen Dionne returns with another psychological suspense novel set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The Wicked Sister is a dark fairy tale. The Cunningham Family has retreated to the deep woods after their eldest daughter Diana was identified with a mental deviancy. The youngest daughter Rachel adores her big sis and only playmate. But the games Diana directs cross the border into her sick world.

Their parents are found dead and after several weeks missing, eleven-year-old Rachel returns certain she murdered them. She checks herself into an institution. Year later, a newspaper article comes into her hands with proof of her innocence and she checks herself out and journeys back to the cabin in the woods, seeking the truth.

Now she is leery of her older sister, living with their mother's aunt who was always easily manipulated.

Because with a clarity that is almost frightening, suddenly, I remember everything.~from The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne

The story is told in two voices by the mother and the youngest daughter, the mother's insights sharing a backstory unknown by Rachel.

It's quite a thrill ride, as dark as a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Michigan's isolated woodlands is the vivid backdrop, an environment of deep beauty and danger. Complicated family relationships are not always what they seem.

The novel shares elements of The Marsh King's Daughter in setting and with a young woman whose life is in danger.

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

The Wicked Sister
by Karen Dionne
G.P. Putnam's Sons
On Sale Date: August 4, 2020
ISBN 9780735213036, 0735213038
Hardcover $27.00 USD, $36.00 CAD

from the publisher: 

She thought she’d buried her past. But what if it’s been hunting her this whole time. 

From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Marsh King’s Daughter comes a startling novel of psychological suspense as two generations of sisters try to unravel their tangled relationships between nature and nurture, guilt and betrayal, love and evil.
You have been cut off from society for fifteen years, shut away in a mental hospital in self-imposed exile as punishment for the terrible thing you did when you were a child. 

But what if nothing about your past is as it seems?
And if you didn’t accidentally shoot and kill your mother, then whoever did is still out there. Waiting for you. 

For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents’ deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns, in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family’s sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 

As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns—as her mother did years earlier—that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.

Karen Dionne

about the author:

Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter, a psychological suspense novel set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and in 25 other languages. Her next psychological suspense novel, The Wicked Sister, will publish August 4, 2020. 

Karen has been active in the writing community for over twenty years. She co-founded the online writers community Backspace, organized the Backspace Writers Conferences in New York and the Salt Cay, Bahamas Writers Retreat, and served on the board of directors of the International Thriller Writers. 

Karen enjoys nature photography and lives with her husband in Detroit’s northern suburbs.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts

I knew the entire endeavour had been inflected with a measure of madness.~from The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts

I was intrigued. Pianos and Siberia--what a strange combination.

I love piano music. I have played (poorly) since I was eight years old. I love the piano music of Rubinstein and Rachmaninoff. I love Russian composers, from Tchaikovsky to Rimsky-Korsakov to Stravinsky to Prokofiev to Shostakovich.

But--Pianos in Siberia? The far land of exile and punishment for millions known as The Prison Without a Roof?

Just the kind of book for me.

Sophy Roberts spent several years traveling across the breadth of Siberia tracing an unlikely, but rich, musical heritage. Her book The Lost Pianos of Siberia is part travelogue and part Russian history, filtered through the impact of music.

Franz Liszt's Russian tour "turned the Russian love of the instrument into a fever in the 1840s," Roberts writes.

The diversity of Siberia's people, from the indigenous people who underwent repression, to prisoners including serfs and the Romanov family, fill the pages as Roberts sought the rumored, legendary pianos, including the piano Empress Alexandra played while held prisoner.

The book is also a compressed Russian history, especially of the 20th c. revolutions, and a history of the piano, including the rise of Russian factories.

It felt about as far from home as I could get while remaining on this planet. ~from The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts

In the far-flung communities of Siberia, Roberts discovers the universal love of music. It is incredible to read about herders gathering to hear a brilliant pianist play a baby grand in a Mongolian gert.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia is a unique and mesmerizing read.

The publisher gave me a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher

From acclaimed journalist Sophy Roberts, a journey through one of the harshest landscapes on earth—where music reveals the deep humanity and the rich history of Siberia

Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.

Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.

How these pianos traveled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia is largely a story of music in this fascinating place, following Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of different instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos.

About the author

Sophy Roberts is a British writer whose work focuses on remote travel. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, was an English scholar at Oxford University, and trained in journalism at Columbia University. She regularly contributes to the Financial Times and Condé Nast Traveler. The Lost Pianos of Siberia is her first book.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia
by Sophy Roberts
Grove Atlantic
Pub Date August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9780802149282
PRICE $40.50 (CAD)

Where in the World is Swampdoddle?

Between 1959 and his death in 1971 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer of Milroy, PA wrote letters and articles published in the Lewistown Sentinel column We Notice That by Ben Meyers. Today I am sharing the article about the location of Swampdoodle.

*****

We Notice That by Ben Meyers
The Question for Today: Where is (Was) Swampoodle?

Natives Want to Know

Dear Ben:
Do you know the exact locale of a place once called Swampoodle? Was it up the east end of Kish Valley? That is, if it even actually existed.

Aunt Annie (Ramer) Smithers claimed that she as well as [her siblings] Howard, Emma, and Carrie were all born in Swampoodle. But none could verify the exact location.

It may even have been farther distance, anywhere in Mifflin, Union, yes, even Blair or Schuylkill Counties because Gramps Joe Ramer worked at clearing off the virgin timber in all those places.

Mrs. Alice (nee Ramer) Mickey sent me some newspaper pictures of a sawmill supposed to be located in Swampoodle. Gramps Joe, then aged and blind, wearing a broad-brimmed Amish-type hat, with full beard and cane, was sitting on a log near the sawmill, while playing around were some kids. Some mountain men and mules were there, too.

Won’t you see what you can find out about Swampoodle, as Aunt Carrie Bobb, near 92, wants to know where she was born for sure?

Sincerely,
Lynne O. Ramer

Who Can Help Them?

Dear Lynne: Personally we can’t be of much help in answering your questions. However, maybe some of the WNT readers can give an assist. If so we’d be glad to hear from them.

The very names itself implies Swampoodle was in or close by a swamp terrain—consisting of soft, wet, spongy ground. The handiest such place we know of in this immediate vicinity is of course Bear Meadows. There the land is boggy and unfit for growing much else than trees, bushes, flowers and suchlike. Also such a place isn’t so good for pasturage. And of course unsuited for human habitation, unless a person was to build his dwelling on piles, which sometimes is done.
Anybody know where Swampoodle is—or was?

*****

We Notice That by Ben Meyers

Yes, Virginia, There Are (or were) Swampdoodles

Several Turn Up

Yes, Virginia, there is indeed a Swampoodle!

At least, there was a Swampoodle, a flourishing little community. And it may be still existent.

Not only one such place, but actually three, have been reported by as many different readers.

This was all in response to Lynne Ramer’s yelp-For-Help appearing in the WNT column lately.

Tom Harbeson of Milroy, our ex-District Forester for the state, says that the Swampoodle he is familiar with was located in Buffalo Township, Union County.

“Some of my folks were born in the village known as Forest Hill,” says Tom. “Near by Forest Hill was another settlement. It was called Swampdoodle because it was situated on low, swampy ground.

“There wasn’t much to say in favor of Swampoodle as a site for a village to be located upon, but some folks actually did just that. One family I remember bore the name of Mook. There were quite a few members of the clan. I don’t know whether it is called Swampoodle any more.”

Pinpointing the locale as being in Union Country by Tom Harbeson fits in neatly with this having possibly been the place where Gramps Joe Ramer lived for a while when some of his children were born.

The old photo of Joe Ramer at his cabin quite definitely fixes the location as Union County and that was where he had lumbered on the virgin timber. Lynne Ramer’s Aunt Carrie Bobb could well have been born there, also Annie, Howard and Emma.

George Zeigler tells us he remembers the time when Joe Ramer hauled timber off the mountains in the far-eastern portion of new Lancaster Valley. That ties in with the general direction of the Swampoodle mentioned by Tom Harbeson as being in Union County.

George remembers there was a settlement in that section of New Lancaster. he isn’t too sure of its name, but it was a swampy, spongy place and might have been the site of another Swampoodle.

Another Swampoodle is reported by Jim McCafferty, ex-hotelman. However, its locale is too far distant in another direction to have been the one the Ramers are interested in.

However, Jim’s report verifies the belief that not only was Swampoodle once used as the name of a certain location, but it had a more general usage to describe sections that might be of a boggy nature.

In other words, Swampoodle was for real, not just something dreamed up.

“I remember Swampoodle well,” says Jim McCafferty. “It was when I was living in Philadelphia. The place was situated at a spot near 13th and Oxford Streets.

“The distinguishing feature of that Swampoodle was an old cemetery at a higher-than-average spot. It was some five feet higher than the street level and there was a fence around it. My aunt told me that the old name for the area was Swampoodle.

“I don’t suppose it’s still known as Swampoodle. Doubtless it was finally taken into the corporate limits of the city of Philadelphia, just exactly what has happened to various other areas which were absorbed into the city as its limits were pushed further outward.”

Joseph S. Ramer and his second wife
Rachel Barbara Reed

Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa De La Cruz

Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl & Melissa De La Cruz
with my Little Women Storybook Quilt
showing Jo March and Laurie

Jo & Laurie: A Romantic Retelling was a fun, escapist read that I looked forward to picking up every evening.

I don't read many YA books--this is rated for 7-9 grades--but I had a chance to read the beginning of the novel on BookishFirst and liked it enough to trade in my 'points' and claim a copy.

A good knowledge of Little Women and Louisa May Alcott was a must for this reader, and the authors passed the test. Nothing felt improbable, the characters were not twisted into someone unrecognizable.

The authors take up Alcott's characters, loosely based on her real family, and melds Alcott's family story onto the March family. It can get slightly confusing if you try to keep fact and fiction separate. You just have to trust the story, which is not fictionalized biography or wholly the fictional March characters of Alcott's books.

The novel begins after Jo's Little Women has been published to great success and her publisher has contracted her for a second book. She is to conclude the March sisters' stories with marriages. Unable to reconcile herself to such an end, Jo can't give her fictionalized self and sisters romance and a ring.

Jo & Laurie have been best friends but Laurie's feelings are deepening, driving Jo away. Meg finds John Brooke is interested in her, but she feels the need to marry money or to at least allow John to marry well. Beth has died, but not in Jo's story, and Amy is the pig-tailed child dreamer.

The foursome friends of Jo, Laurie, Meg, and John have a week in New York City, with Jo smashing all Laurie's dreams. He moves on to college while Jo struggles to write her sequel. And struggles. And struggles.

But Jo can't finish her ficitonalized story until she comes to grips with her real story. Can she be a writer and a wife? Can she trust to love someone who might leave her, as her beloved sister Beth did?

I found the book charming, easy to read, and a great escape.

I received a free book through BookishFirst in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:

1869, Concord, Massachusetts: After the publication of her first novel, Jo March is shocked to discover her book of scribbles has become a bestseller, and her publisher and fans demand a sequel. While pressured into coming up with a story, she goes to New York with her dear friend Laurie for a week of inspiration--museums, operas, and even a once-in-a-lifetime reading by Charles Dickens himself!

But Laurie has romance on his mind, and despite her growing feelings, Jo's desire to remain independent leads her to turn down his heartfelt marriage proposal and sends the poor boy off to college heartbroken. When Laurie returns to Concord with a sophisticated new girlfriend, will Jo finally communicate her true heart's desire or lose the love of her life forever?

Jo & Laurie: A Romantic Retelling
by Margaret Stohl & Melissa De La Cruz
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication June 2, 2020
ISBN-10: 1984812017
ISBN-13: 978-1984812018