A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

After reading Wiley Cash's fantastic historical fiction novel The Last Ballad I bought A Land More Kind Than Home. I sped through this Southern Gothic novel, its dark and unsettling sense of dread drawing my interest. The details of place and culture are outside my scope of experience, but the insights into human nature are universal.

A con-man turned preacher takes over a church. Hidden from view by newspapers taped over the windows, worship involves faith healing, poison, fire, and snakes. Also hidden from view is the pastor's abuse of power over his parishioners and their blind trust that allows him full rein.

"It was like Mama was lost in the desert and had gotten so thirsty that she was willing to see anything that might make her feel better about being lost." from A Land More Kind Than Home

One woman dares stand up to the pastor and demands the children stay out of worship. She teaches them in Sunday School in her home. It is her way of protecting them. She knows first hand that the pastor is a dangerous false prophet and has singled her out as his enemy.

"People out in these parts can take hold of religion like it's a drug, and they don't want to give it up once they've got hold of it." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Most affecting in the novel are the stories of the children. They see things that are hidden and confusing, and ultimately are targeted by the pastor.

When a child dies during worship an investigation ensues; the action rises to propel the reader to the conclusion, in which a form of justice dealt out, after which the community begins to heal.

"It's a good thing to see that people can heal after they've been broken, that they can change and become something different from what they were before. Churches are like that. The living church is made of people, and it can grow sick and break just like people can, and sometimes churches can die just like people died...A church can be healed, and it can be saved like people can be saved." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Cash was inspired by a true story. 

Getting Personal

A pastor can have so much power because of his position, and abuse of that power can become easy. Pastors are lionized, congregants sometimes flocking around like groupies. They are allowed into the homes and souls of their congregants. When my husband was in active ministry, the denomination required education in boundaries and sexual abuse. A pastor once asked if that meant that clergy could not ever date a parishioner; basically, the answer was sure, if you intend to marry them. We knew several pastors who did marry parishioners. And we heard of pastors who had sexual relationships that were illicit. Some, not all, lost their ordination.

The title is from Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again:

"Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying: “To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending-a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”

Roots of Understanding: Thomas Wolfe and "Home"

My life has evolved into homesickness.

My homesickness started when my family moved just before I turned eleven. I have still never lived anywhere longer. Moving involves the loss of the known, the certainties we depend on as children. The world becomes foreign and alien. The children have different playground games. You don't understand the things they laugh about because you were not there when it happened.

In the new place, after some years, you carve out a niche for yourself. You are happy, have friends and make new memories. Then you visit your old neighborhood. There is talk about people you don't know and laughter over memories you can't share.

And then it comes to you that you never were at home in the first place, never will be in this world. That the ideal of home is a delusion.

After living in Philadelphia and its suburbs for many years we returned to Michigan. It was a sad good-bye. I struggled with the notion of 'going home' to Michigan,. We would be near family. But also were leaving the home of our young adulthood forged in the city life of the East Coast.

“My Home.”

Heart's warmest flames fan at the breath

of spoken words

whose meaning

we are never quite sure of.

I wrote a series of poems considering the meaning of home, the rootlessness of itineracy, and the costs involved.

I first read Thomas Wolfe when I was sixteen years old. I would stop off at Barney's Drugs on the way home from school. Sometimes I would buy a pen, a notebook for my journal, some makeup or a magazine. Sometimes I bought a paperback book.

 

“You Can't Go Home Again.” Oh, how that title intrigued me. And one day I bought it, and read it, and then I read everything else Wolfe wrote in his short life.

I loved Wolfe's lyrical and poetic language with its Biblical cadences: “All things belonging to earth will never change—the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again...Only the earth endures, but it endures for ever.” 

 

And his storytelling! I never forgot scenes from this novel. "The Promise of America” chapter where Wolfe describes men 'burning in the night' for their chance at fame and success. The story of a New York society party interrupted by a fire, exploring the class differences between the party goers and the elevator men who die, trapped in the elevators and on their way to rescue the partyers. The description of a suicide jumper's remains on a New York City sidewalk with gawkers gathered around. And the Fox, based on Wolfe's first editor, the legendary Maxwell Perkins, whose philosophy was based on the Book of Ecclesiastes. (Which I then read.)

Wolfe wrote that men were wanderers throughout the earth, in search for a place to belong. He wrote about a world changing too fast. He wrote about people trying to get rich quick in the stock market, the real estate boom, and about the crash. He wrote about how fame was a disappointment, about people who lionized him, misquoted him, used him. He wrote about a Germany changed because of Hitler's Nazism and warned America.

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and fame, back home to exile...back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and Stalin were to Wolfe the rise of an old barbarism that could also be seen in America.

“Its racial nonsense and cruelty, its naked worship of brute force, its suppression of truth and resort to lies and myths, its ruthless contempt for the individual, its anti-intellectual and anti-moral dogma that to one man alone belongs the right of judgment and decision, and that for all others virtue lies in blind, unquestioning obedience—each of these fundamental elements of Hitlerism was a throwback to that fierce and ancient tribalism which had sent waves of hairy Teutons swopping down out of the north to destroy the vast edifice of Roman civilization. That primitive spirit of greed and lust and force that had always been the true enemy of mankind.”

Prophetic! Nearly a hundred years later we still face the same threats from other tribal entities. There is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes warns.

Aswell ended the book with lines that are both beautiful and eerie.

“Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying:

“To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth--

“--Whereupon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending—a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”

 

Several years ago I reread Look Homeward, Angel. When I was a teenager the theme of loneliness and isolation was so reflective of youth's struggling need to connect. I always remembered the theme of the book:

“a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.

Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh we have come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.

Which of us has known our brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

O waste of lost, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this weary, unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost land-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind most grieved, ghost, come back again.”

When I made a quilt based on photographs of doors, I bordered the blocks with some fabrics with a print of leaves. I scanned stones and printed the images on fabric, and appliqued them onto the quilt. I added artificial leaves. And printed some of the lines "a stone, a leaf a door" and "remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language." 

There are many reasons we do not feel at home. Relocation, change, death and birth. A world that seems to have gone spinning off into some alternate universe. Political strife, social turmoil. The loss of certainties, the loss of love. We are constantly reinventing and reevaluating what “home” means. Perhaps it is only in losing one's life that one will find a perfect home.

Up North and Back

This past week we took a trip 'Up North', which is an area in Michigan demarked by an invisible line but which is universally agreed (by Michiganders) to be where there is more wilderness than shopping malls. 

We traveled about four hours from Metro Detroit to Baldwin, in the middle of a state forest. We stayed overnight at the Red Moose Lodge on the Pere Marquette River, perhaps the only visitors not there for the Salmon fishing.

The Pere Marquette River in Baldwin, MI

We spent a few minutes sitting beside the river, from which a fish now and then jumped with a splash.

We dropped off the innards of my husband's Victrolia and Edison Disk Player with the only repairman in the state. I stopped at the Fabric Peddler quilt shop in Baldwin and picked up a panel and matching fabric. My sudden interest in panels is from reviewing Creating Art Quilts with Panels by Joyce Hughes. I can't wait to try her techniques out on these large flowers!

Next, we stopped in Farwell at the Elm Creek craft and garden shop. We bought a patio set of two chairs and a table that fold up. Perfect for our front yard garden! I found another panel I had to get.

At the Surry Road quilt shop in Clare, I bought some fabric for a special project.

We then headed to West Branch where my brother has a log cabin, complete with Indian, outside of town.

The trees were coming into full color when we arrived.

 Every day we headed into town to the West Branch library for the WIFI.

The cozy sitting area in the West Branch library

And of course, we shopped at their fantastic used bookstore. I found some goodies. I had Armor Towle's Rules of Civility on ebook but prefer to read 'real' books. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann has been on my TBR list, and I have heard a lot about Elena Ferrante's My Brillant Friend, and I love Andrea Barrett's writing. The Val McDermid rewrite of Northanger Abbey just looked like fun. And the William Maxwell stories was on the FREE shelf!

I stopped at Aunt Effie's Craft Closet in downtown West Branch, where I found friendly service and terrific selections.

This wall was just the SALES fabrics! There are tables of fat quarters and precuts and walls of bolds of fabric. They offer machine quilting and classes. One group is working on the Bee-autiful quilt from MODA, which I made last year.

I saw the cutest fabric on sale. I snapped a pic and sent it to my Gamemaster son, who also loved it. So the next day I returned and bought fabric to make him a quilt.

 We also stopped at the wine store.

We had rainy days, and after our daily treks into town, we stayed in the cabin reading books. We ate out for lunch and then had soup for dinner.

At the Lumber Jack restaurant, we had the most delicious bread pudding after a pot roast. The decor is quite Up North, down to the vestibule greeter.

 We love the food at the China Inn.

We hit a few of the antique shops. In the Potato Barn Anqitue Store, I found sheet music for One Meat Ball, a song my mother used to sing! It came out when she was thirteen years old.
I did not know that it was sung by Josh White and was from Cafe Society.

The lyrics go like this:

A little man walked up and down

and found an eating place in town.

He looked the menu thru and thru

To see what fifteen cents could do.

One meat ball, one meat ball, 

He could afford by one mean ball.

He told a waiter near at hand

The simple dinner he had planned,

The folks were startled one and all

To hear that waiter loudly all,

One meat ball, one meat ball,

Hey! This here gent wants one met ball!

The little man felt ill at ease

And said, "Some bread, sir, if you please!"

The waiter's voice roared down the hall,

"You get no bread with one meat ball!

One meat ball, one meat ball,

You get no bread with one meat ball!

The little man felt very bad,

But one meat ball was all he had.

Now in his dreams he hears that call,

"You get no bread with one meat ball,

One meat ball, one meat ball,

You get no bread with one meat ball.

It was very quiet at the cabin, but one day deer ran through the yard. Every day the colors grew more intense.

We bought bread at the bakery in town, successfully avoiding the doughnuts and sticky buns and blueberry pie. Outside, we met the local vet.

South of town, coming off the expressway, one can see the water tower which is painted yellow with a Smiley face, the most popular tourist attraction seen on the road Up North.

The land is hilly with fields and farms and pockets of trees and open land.

While driving we listened to a book on tape, Siracusa by Delia Ephron.

When I got home I had two books waiting for me. One was Haruki Murakami's newest novel, Killing Commendatore-- a surprise package from A. A. Knopf! I must have won some giveaway.

 And Dover Publications sent me My First Book of Sewing, which I requested for review.

I read non-review books while away: Marlena by Julie Buntin while away (review to come!), Stephen Fried's book on restauranteer Fred Harvey, Appetite for America, and started Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.

While away, NetGalley informed me that I was approved for In the Eye of the Hurricane by Nathaniel Philbrick! I have enjoyed all his books. Also on my NetGalley shelf are All the Lives I Never Lived by Anuradha Roy, The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King by Jerome Charyn, Big Bang by David Bowman, and Daughter of Molokai by Alan Brennert. I read Brennert's Honolulu years ago and have Molokai on my Kindle to read before the new book. From Edelweiss I have Learning to See by Elise Hooper.

Also, while away I got the good news that I had won a special Book Club win: A Skype visit with author Wiley Cash to discuss his novel The Last Ballad. My feet were hardly touching the ground for a whole day! WILEY CASH! You can read my reviews on The Last Ballad here, and A Land More Kind Than Home here.

Coming home we drove out of the clouds and into the sunshine! The trees had some color, but mostly we saw green. We stopped for lunch in my husband's hometown, driving by his childhood homes and school.

It was nice to be away for six days, but even nicer to be home again! I have some sewing to do!

Over There: WWI Sheet Music

WWI songs reflect a spectrum of reaction to the Great War, from patriotism and support to homesickness,  mothers and children worried for their menfolk, and even pacifist songs.

One of the most well known WWI songs is Over There by George M. Cohen. An article from the Library of Congress gives the song's history:

George M. Cohan, a successful Broadway producer, playwright, performer, lyricist and composer, wrote "Over There" on his way into work. The headlines that inspired him the morning of April 6, 1917, were not ordinary. They announced that the U.S. had abandoned its isolationist policy and entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers against the Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire).

Cohan’s gingery song took its opening verse "Johnny, get your gun" from a popular American song published in 1886. He based his music on a three note bugle call. Although Cohan tested the song on a group of military men at Fort Meyers, Florida, without much success, the general public loved it.

"Over There" was first performed publicly in the fall of 1917 by Charles King at a Red Cross benefit in New York. But it was the popular singer and comedienne Nora Bayes who made the song famous. Cohan, it is said, personally chose her to premiere his song on stage. Bayes also recorded "Over There" for the Victor Talking Machine Company on July 13, 1917 (in a 78 rpm format).

On June 29, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Cohan the Congressional Gold Medal for this and other songs.

Listen to George M. Cohen sing Over There here.

The cover illustration is by Barbelle. See other covers by Barbelle here.

Johnnie get your gun, get your gun, get your gun
Take it on the run, on the run, on the run
Hear them calling you and me
Every son of liberty

Hurry right away, no delay, go today
Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad
Tell your sweetheart not to pine
To be proud her boy's in line.

CHORUS (repeated twice):
Over there, over there
Send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming
The drums are rum-tumming everywhere

So prepare, say a prayer
Send the word, send the word to beware
We'll be over there, we're coming over
And we won't come back till it's over over there.
Over there.

Johnnie get your gun, get your gun, get your gun
Johnnie show the Hun you're a son of a gun
Hoist the flag and let her fly
Yankee Doodle do or die

Pack your little kit, show your grit, do your bit
Yankees to the ranks from the towns and the tanks
Make your mother proud of you
And the old Red White and Blue.

CHORUS (repeated twice):
Over there, over there
Send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming
The drums are rum-tumming everywhere

So prepare, say a prayer
Send the word, send the word to beware
We'll be over there, we're coming over
And we won't come back till it's over over there.

Over there.

***

Hooray for Uncle Sam, 1917, words and music by Della Williams Paine, is another patriotic rabble-rouser with a march tempo. Uncle Sam is featured in many songs. This one is particularly interesting for its invocation of God and how it imagines the whole world singing Uncle Sam's praises.

We are the boys of the USA,

We stand for unity always,

We pledge ourselves to you,

the Red White and Blue

and to you we'll be true.

We love each star and stripe to day

As o'er our heads you proudly wave,

We are your sons so staunch and true

And we are proud to fight for you.

Chorus:

Then Hooray for Uncle Sam

The bravest in the land,

We all salute you ev'ry day

The glorious flag of USA,

And may you never cease to wave

O'er this land of the free and brave,

United all we stand or fall,

We will be ready when you call,

For we are loyal o'er this land

Then Hooray for our dear Uncle Sam.

We give our all to you to day

As soldiers of the USA

And we will loyal be

on land and on sea,

Sweet land of liberty

To thee we sing our songs of praise

And to thy God our voices raise,

We ask thy help and aid today

To save our brothers o'er the way .(chorus)

When we from war come marching home

And lay our victories at your throne

You will be proud to see

the flag of the free

Still floating on the breeze,

So glor'ous will it wave that day

That other nations all will say,

Three cheers for you, the USA

May God your noble work repay (chorus)

***

America Here's My Boy was introduced in 1917 as reflecting "the sentiment of every American Mother." The prolific Andrew B. Sterling had a song for every new development from Ragtime to wartime. The music was by Arthur Lange. Here the recording here, complete with a bugle introduction and martial music. The cover illustration is by Andre' De Takacs. See his wonderful covers here.

There's a million mothers knocking at the nation's door
A million mothers, yes and there'll be millions more
And while within each mother heart they pray
Just hark what one brave mother has to say

America, I raised a boy for you
America, you'll find him staunch and true
Place a gun upon his shoulder, he is ready to die or do
America, he is my only one, my hope, my pride and joy
But if I had another, he would march beside his brother
America, here's my boy!

There's a million mothers waiting by the fireside bright
A million mothers, waiting for the call tonight
And while within each heart there'll be a tear
She'll watch her boy go marching with a cheer

America, I raised a boy for you
America, you'll find him staunch and true
Place a gun upon his shoulder, he is ready to die or do
America, he is my only one, my hope, my pride and joy
But if I had another, he would march beside his brother
America, here's my boy!

***

Just a few years earlier in 1915 the song I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier came out, with lyrics by Alfred Bryan and music by Al Piantadosi. It was the first pacifist anti-war songs plus it had a feminist bent. Teddy Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman hated the song and many parodied it. Listen to an Edison cylinder recording here. The subtitle is "A Mother's Plea for Peace." Read more about the music here.

My copy has a photo of Chel 'Toy of the Ching Ling Foo Co. What is a Chinese lady doing on this sheet music? The Ching Ling Foo Company was a traveling vaudeville magic act troop out of China in the last years of the 19th c and into the early 20th c. Read more here and here. Although Chinese were prohibited from immigrating to the United States Ching Ling Foo was considered an artist and allowed into the country. He started a craze for Chinese magic acts. 

The various issues of the song featured minorities on the cover: Chinese, Native American, and African America.

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,

Who may never return again.

Ten million mothers' hearts must break

For the ones who died in vain.

Head bowed down in sorrow

In her lonely years,

I heard a mother murmur thru' her tears:

Chorus:

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,

I brought him up to be my pride and joy.

Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,

To shoot some other mother's darling boy?

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,

It's time to lay the sword and gun away.

There'd be no war today,

If mothers all would say,

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."

What victory can cheer a mother's heart,

When she looks at her blighted home?

What victory can bring her back

All she cared to call her own?

Let each mother answer

In the years to be,

Remember that my boy belongs to me!

Repeat Chorus 2x

***

The boys were sent off to war 

So Long, Mother, 1917, lyrics by Raymond Egan and Gus Kahn with music by Egbert Van Alstyne, was made famous by Al. Jolson and it was advertised as "Al Jolson's Mother Song". I can't find a vintage recording but hear it here. Read about the music here.

Oh mother dear a little tear is gleaming in your eye
Your lips are all a tremble as you hear me say "goodbye"
The Stars and Stripes are calling now
On every mother's boy
From Maine to dear old Dixie
They shoulder arms with joy.

Chorus:
So long my dear old lady
Don't you cry
Just kiss your grown-up baby goodbye
Somewhere in France I'll be dreaming of you
You and your dear eyes of blue
Come let me see you smile before we part
I'll throw a kiss to cheer your dear old heart
Dry the tear in your eye
Don't you sigh
Don't you cry
So long, mother
Kiss your boy good-bye.

Oh mother dear each volunteer must say good-bye today
Some leave a love who may forget
When he has march'd away
But I leave one who'll not forget
That's why I'm mighty glad
For you're the only sweet-heart 
That I have ever had. (Chorus)

***

Once the boys were overseas their thoughts returned to dear old Mother. There's a Picture in My Old Kit Bag by Al Sweet .

A soldier boy was writing home to his Mother o'er the sea
Telling of the strange and awful sights in this war for humanity
He told his love for loved ones so dear
As he brushed a tear away
And through her tears a Mother read
these words for her alone.

There's a picture in my old kit bag, in a worn old leather frame
It's a dear to me as our grand old flag and I'll cherish just the same'
On the long, long trail to No Man's Land,
When my weary footsteps lag,
There's a cheer all the while in my Mother's smile
In that picture in my old kit bag.

***

For Your Boy and My Boy Buy Bonds! Buy Bonds! "Hear the Bugle Call!" was another WWI song written by Gus Kahn and Egbert Van Alstyne. Listen to a recording here.  War bonds allowed the government to borrow funds for the war effort.

Hear the bugle call
The call to arms for Liberty
See them one and all
They go to fight for you and me
Heroes we will find them
Ev'ry mother's son
We must get behind them
'Till their work is done

Chorus:
For your boy and my boy and all the boys out there
Let's lend our money to the U.S.A. 
And do our share
Ev'ry bond that we are buying
Will help to hold the fighting line
Buy Bonds
Buy Bonds
For Your Boy and Mine

Hear the bugle call
The call to those who stay at home
You are soldiers all
Tho'  you may never cross the foam
Keep Old Glory waving
Proudly up above
Praying working saving
For the ones you love
(chorus)

***

What Are You Going To Do To Help the Boys? Buy a Liberty Bond!, 1918, is another Gus Kahn and Egbert Van Alstyne song for war bonds. Hear a recording here. The lyrics

Your Uncle Sam is calling now on ev'ry one of you

If you're too old or young to fight there's something else to do

If you have done a but before don't let the matter rest

For Uncle Sam expects that ev'ry man will do his best

Chorus:

What are you going to do for Uncle Sammy?

What are you going to do to help the boys?

If you mean to stay at home

While they're fighting o'er the foam

The least you can do is buy a Liberty bond or two

If you're going to be a sympathetic miser

The kind that only lends noise

You're no better than the one who loves the Kaiser

So what are you going to do to help the boys?

It makes no difference who you are or whence you came or how

Your Uncle Sammy help'd you then and you must help him now

Your brothers will be fighting for your freedom over there

And if you love the Stars and Stripes then you must do your share.

(Chorus)

 ***

The super-patriotism of these last songs were not the only kind popular during the way. Some songs did reflect the pathos suffered by families whose menfolk were in harm's way. 

Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight for her Daddy Over There, words by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young, and music by M. K. Jerome, 1918, has a Barbelle illustrated cover of a girl praying for her daddy. Hear Henry Burr sing it here. It is a sentimental and sweet song.

I've heard the prayers of mothers,
Some of them old and gray
I've heard the prayers of others
For those who went away

Oft times a prayer will teach one
The meaning of good bye
I felt the pain of each one,
But this one made me cry

Just a baby's prayer at twilight
When lights are low
Poor baby's years
are filled with tears

There's a mother there at twilight
Who's proud to know
Her precious little tot
Is Dad's forget-me-not

After saying "Goodnight, Mama"
She climbs up stairs
Quite unawares
And says her prayers

"Oh! kindly tell my daddy
That he must take care"
That's a baby's prayer at twilight
For her daddy, "over there"

The gold that some folks pray for,
Brings nothing but regrets
Some day this gold won't pay for
Their many lifelong debts.

Some prayers may be neglected
Beyond the Gold Gates.
But when they're all collected,
Here's one that never waits;

Just a baby's prayer at twilight
When lights are low
Poor baby's years
are filled with
There's a mother there at twilight
Who's proud to know
Her precious little tot
Is Dad's forget-me-not

After saying, "Goodnight, Mama"
She climbs up stairs
Quite unawares
And says her prayers

"Oh! kindly tell my daddy
That he must take care"
That's a baby's prayer at twilight
For her daddy, "over there."

***

After the War is Over Will there Be Any "Home Sweet Home" by E. J. Pourmon and Joseph Woodruff, 1917, has none of the bravado of the patriotic songs. THe lyricist instead writes about the somber realities of war. The composer's photo is featured on the cover.

Listen to a piano version here. 

Angels they are weeping o'er the foreign war,
Transports are sailing from shore to shore.
Brace heroes are falling to arise no more,
But will the bugle's calling every man to war.

After the war is over and the world's at peace
Many a heart will be aching after the war has ceased
Many a home will be vacant,
Many a child alone,
But I hope they'll all be happy 
In a place called "Home sweet Home."

Changed will be the picture of the foreign lands,
Maps will change entirely to diff'rent hands.
Kings and Queens may ever rule their fellow man,
But pray they'll be united like our own free land.
(Chorus)

Being Rapunzel: Everything, Everything by Nicola Joon

Maddy is eighteen years old. She has spent her life in the safe and sterile 'bubble' home her mother has created. Maddy has never been outdoors, breathed fresh air, touched another human being other than her mother--after her mother has gone through a sterilization process that removes outside containments. Anything foreign could bring on an allergic illness that could kill Maddy. And the family has already lost Maddy's father and brother in a tragic accident. Maddy has SCID, Severe Combined Immunodeficiency.

Maddy has accepted her reality until a new family moves in next door. From her bedroom window she watches them, especially the son Ollie. From their bedroom windows and through instant messaging the teens communicate and fall in love.

Maddy is like Rapunzel in her tower, Ollie thinks. Unattainable, locked away from the world.

Nicola Joon's young adult book Everything, Everything  keeps one's interest and is an enjoyable read. Maddy's voice is charming. I liked her very much. There are cute illustrations of Maddy's thoughts and drawings, keeping things upbeat and funny. Love interest Olly has an interesting back story with his own family secrets and tragedy. Teenage girl readers will love Ollie. My early hunch about the ending proved correct, but teen readers will be surprised by the twist at the end.

(SPOILER ALERT!)* The couple find a way to meet, they run away to Hawaii, discover sex, and Maddy has a near death experience. *(Alert Ended)

The story of young love and impending doom, the interlude together, and the inevitable separation sounds like The Fault in Our Stars , but with a happier ending. I am sure it was meant for the same market. I don't much care for the message that true love sex is 'everything'. But this book was not meant for me. It's meant for romantic young teenage girls who like wish fulfillment and fairy tale endings and characters that are likable. A story with just enough philosophy, nothing too deep, not too much angst. This book will suit them just fine.

I am interested in the mother's need to protect her daughter from the world and keep her to herself. The theme has a long literary tradition: The girl child forced to remain at home, dependent, protected, and safe, or to be the parent's companion and compensation for other losses. Ollie brings up the image of Maddy as Rapunzel, foreshadowing a reality not yet discovered.

"...she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought: "He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does, and she said yes, and laid her hand in his." 

"Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. "What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!"

from Rapunzel

The 1844 short story Rapaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about a daughter kept in a poisonous garden by her father; the daughter will poison anyone who touches her. She meets a man, they fall in love, and he discover's the father's selfish plot to keep the girl for himself. The story of a poisonous girl can be traced back to ancient India.

In Poldark season one Ross's cousin Francis is against his sister Verity marrying an 'unsuitable' man: he is not their kind and he is associated with scandal. After she runs off to marry her man, another reason arises: the family and servants are all ill with 'putrid throat' and Francis bemoans that his sister should have been home to care for their needs. He has kept Verity single and dependent for personal interests.

Sometimes daughters are wanted at home to be servants, to run the household or play hostess. Or to play nurse to aging parents. Sometimes parents desire to protect them from the world. And sometimes they are wanted at home because a parent is afraid of being alone.

Sadly, children, especially girl children, have often been victims of a parent who demands their life time loyalty. As a girl in the 1950s we had a neighbor who never married. Her mother had died, her brother went to war and then out West. Her father demanded she stay home and care for him. She lived in her unchanged childhood home all her life, her last years alone and in worsening poverty. She cleaned houses. She sold off her family heirlooms, which had become valuable antiques, and the land that had been the family farm, even the barn and garden plot surrounding the house. We loved her father, but now I see his old world values had defrauded his daughter of a life.

Maddy's mother undergoes therapy to deal with the trauma of loss and her over-protectiveness of her only surviving family member. Maddy's life began at age eighteen, when she gained everything, everything.

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

Everything, Everything
by Nicola Joon
Random House Delacourt Press
Publication date September 1, 2015
ISBN 9780553496642
$18.99 hard cover

"Yoon gives readers complex characters and rich dialogue that ranges from humorous to philosophical. This heartwarming story transcends the ordinary by exploring the hopes, dreams, and inherent risks of love in all of its forms."

— Kirkus, Starred Review

Covid-19 Life: TBR, New Quilt Project, More Trillium

I decided to start a hand sewing project for summer--The Cherish Quilt by Jodi Godfrey at Tables of Cloth. It is an English Paper Piecing quilt with nice big centers for special prints. There were several cool looking EPP projects I have seen on Instagram, including this one.

the Cherish Quilt https://www.talesofcloth.com/epp-kits/cherish-quilt

Now to get prepared.

I have managed to clear my June 1 reading shelf! I have two summer books to read. But over summer I have 11 books to read for September and October! (So far...)

New on my NetGalley shelf:

• Legends of the North Cascade by Jonathan Evison for an Algonquin blog tour
• Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, short stories by Hilma Wolitzer. I found the title story online at the Saturday Evening Post website and loved it! Wolitzer wrote stories for women's magazines in the later 20th c.

• When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash, whose The Last Ballad and A Land More Kind Than Home I read and reviewed.

• Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor about an Antarctic expedition gone wrong

• The Return of the Pharaoh: From the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD by Nicholas Meyer whose last Watson book The Adventures of the Peculiar Protocal I reviewed (I have read his Watson novels since the Seven Percent Solution came out in the 1970s)

Coming in the mail from Catilin Hamilton Marketing is

• The Artist Colony by Joanna FitzPatrick

We returned to Tenhave Woods in Royal Oak, MI to see the trillium in full bloom.

The woods is carpeted with the flowers.

And other flowers as well.

And of course, I must end with a pic of the fur grandkids, Sunny and Ellie enjoying the sunshine in their back yard.

Stay safe. Find your bliss.