The last two books I have read had one thing in common: a blurb on the back cover by Pat Conroy. And since I liked these books, and have always enjoyed Pat Conroy's books, I suppose that in the future when considering a book, I should first check and see if Pat has a quote on the back cover.
First I read Rick Bragg's memoir, "All Over but the Shoutin'." In the blurb, Conroy calls it one of the best books he's read, a work of art. If "art" is that which reflects to us our lives but in a way which makes sense our of the chaos, I would agree that it is a work of art.
Rick is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist. His writing style is beautiful, and his stories moving. In the second paragraph he claims, "This is not an important book. It is only the story of a strong woman, a tortured man and three sons..." later he states that he had "put off" telling this story for ten years, because "dreaming backwards can carry a man through some dark rooms where the walls seem lined with razor blades."
And so Bragg begins to delineate the story of his family, about a beautiful woman who loved a man damaged in the Korean conflict and went down the the self-destructive path of alcoholism. How the man abandoned his family, and the woman picked cotton to clothe and fed her three sons.
Rick Bragg is not a Depression-era child. We are used to hearing these stories from that time period. But to read about someone my younger brother's age growing up in poverty rearranges my view of the world.
Bragg calls himself lucky, just a guy in the right place at the right time. His climb up the ranks, from writing sports stories for the local paper to feature writing at the New York Times is presented without bravado, not a jot of egoism sneaking through the words.
Bragg's descriptions of life in Haiti are chilling. While on the staff of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, my husband had visited Haiti several times between 1985 and 1989. Bragg's first trip was in 1991. Bragg writes, " I had come to believe that I was good at one thing, writing about people in trouble. As it turned out, I was a rank amateur I didn't know what misery was, but I would learn." Bragg was over-whelmed by the poverty and garbage, death and despair around him. Three years latter he returned to find "not much had changed." Political upheaval and deadly repercussions still ruled the lives of the citizens. The poor were still maimed-- or killed, their bodies stolen and held for ransom.
Real Life rarely has happy endings tied up nice and neat. So it was sweet to read about how Bragg repaid his mother's sacrifice by purchasing her a home of her own. "And I am grateful I could give her this much, before more time tumbled by lost. There ain't no way to make it perfect. You do the best you can for the people left..."
Bragg's father, on his death bed, asked his sons to see him, and he tries to make amends for years of abandonment. He tells his son, "It's all over but the shoutin'."
The second book I read last month was "America, America" by Ethan Canin. I bought the book for 50 cents at Big Lots. It sat on my shelf for at least a year. I picked it up and fell in love. I did not want to read it too fast, yet did not want to put it down. In his blurb, Pat Conroy confesses "I love this book." Well, Pat, I do too. I finished it over a week ago, and the characters and images live in my mind's eye as if I had lived the story myself.
Corey, the son of a blue-collar, working class man, shares his father's high standards of careful workmanship. While helping his father replace a drain, and saving the roots of an aged oak tree, he is noticed by Liam Metery, who has inherited the wealth accumulated by his Gilded Age grandfather. Corey is asked to help around the Metarey estate, and as Liam Metary and his family come to respect Corey, he is invited into their lives. Liam himself is a man who loves workmanship, and the simple pleasure of hands-on industry. He is also a progressive liberal who decides to back the great Liberal senator from New York State, Henry Bonwiller, in his run for the presidency in 1972.
As Corey becomes involved with the behind-the-scene machinations of politics, his world widens. Corey is especially taken by a journalist, who becomes his role model, leading him to his life's work in journalist. Corey is also affected by Liam's dreams of a better country, the end of the war in Viet Nam, and a government that aligns itself with the common man's good. Liam recognizes the boy's potential, and assists him with a scholarship to a private school, and later leaves him money for a Harvard education.
The fairy tale unravels, dragging Liam and Corey into the ambiguous black hole created by Bonwiller, and their loss of innocence reflects the national loss of idealism in the 1970s.
What would you do to protect your most sacred dream? How reliable are the human vessels in whom you place your dreams? Can you live with the knowledge that you have compromised yourself?
One reviewer I read thought that the title "America, America" should be heard like a sigh for what might have been, knowledge of what has been lost.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query this is how it begins. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query this is how it begins. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, April 21, 2019
The Dinner by Herman Koch
The novel begins slow, and well, is actually boring, the narrative voice telling how he and his wife are getting ready to meet another couple at an upscale restaurant. They are not looking forward to it.
We learn that the other couple is the narrator's brother and sister-in-law, and the brother is going to run for Prime Minister. The brothers have a strained history and relationship. The narrator had a 'meltdown' in the classroom when he was teaching and was on medication.
There is a scene before the dinner where the narrator looks at his son's cell phone and is not pleased with what he discovers.
How would this evening, our dinner at the restaurant, have proceeded, had I indeed quit right then and there? from The Dinner by Herman Koch
There is a lot of description of the meal and the staff and how the sister-in-law is wearing dark glasses to hide that she has been crying.
And when we discover what it is that brought these parents together, you may wish you were not reading this book. It's too late--you have to keep turning pages. The crime is so horrendous! And the cover-up is even more disturbing.
The plotting is masterful.
But I wish I had not read this book!
Did I mention it is DISTURBING?
What would YOU do if your fifteen-year-old son had committed a crime? How far would YOU go to protect your child?
Would you rationalize your child's behavior? Hide the crime? Smooth the way without repercussions? Or make the child own up to his error, support their turning themselves over to the authorities? Would consider bribery or threats or violence? Or set a standard of morality and law?
Maybe we don't take that seriously enough...How young they are. To the outside world, they're suddenly adults, because they did something that we, as adults, consider a crime. But I feel that they've responded to it more like children. from The Dinner by Herman Koch
So be forewarned--you will encounter some nasty folk, and if you pick the book up, be prepared for a slow simmer that comes to a roiling boil!
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Domestic Noir: From the Notting Hill Mystery to The Girl on a Train
I have learned about a new genre category.
The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams is purportedly the first full-length modern English-language Detective Novel, serialized in 1862-3 and published in 1865. It predates Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone, which was serialized in 1868. Poison Pen Press's new edition of The Notting Hill Mystery includes an introduction tracing the history of the Detective genre, establishing the novel's place in the genre.
Adams wrote under the name of Charles Felix and had published an earlier crime novel Velvet Lawns in 1864. Adams was the proprietor of the book's publisher, Saunders, Otley, and wrote the novels to help his foundering business; it couldn't save the publishing house and it closed in 1869.
Modern readers may find Notting Hill archaic and tedious. This is the age of lightning quick plot lines and "page turner" best sellers. I just finished The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins for my book club--it's twice the length of Notting Hill and yet both took me two days to read. I enjoyed Notting Hill as much as Girl.
Girl features first person narratives, including a diary, to tell the story through three points of view. It is a suspense novel, a thriller, and a mystery. Rachel may be considered a 'detective' so it is also a detective novel. As an 'unreliable witness' due to alcoholic blackouts, the police have discounted what Rachel has seen. So she conducts her own 'investigation' and finds herself in deep water.
Notting Hill tells the story through depositions, diary entries, chemical reports, and letters collected by a Life Assurance Association employee who is investigating the death of a woman with 5000lb in insurance taken out by her husband. The story is told in pieces according to each person's knowledge of the persons and events in question.
Notting Hill incorporates themes that in its time thrilled readers. Illustrations by George du Maruier highlight the Gothic elements of the story. Twin girl orphans are separated in childhood when Gypsies steal one and sell her off. The other twin, Gertrude, grows up, marries, and with her husband becomes involved with mesmerism. Mesmerism involved controversial techniques considered unsuitable between a man and a woman. Their mesemerist Baron R** brings in Charlotte who undergoes the treatment and transfers it to Gertrude. The women have a special bond. Gertrude begins to experience biweekly illnesses that eventually claim her life. Her husband in his grief does himself in. Meantime, Baron R** has married Charlotte who also suffers a similar illness and death.
Girl on the Train also has its melodrama. Rachel turned to alcohol after she failed to conceive; her husband Tom preferred to go to Vegas with buddies rather than to spend more money on IVT. Tom dumps Rachel for his lover Anna, who has given birth. Rachel daily rides the train past her old home now occupied by Anna. A few doors down she has seen a young couple (Megan and Scott) and has imagined a perfect marriage for them--the one she still longs for with Tom. What Rachel imagines is far from the truth: the girl Meagan disappears and her husband is the prime suspect in her murder. Rachel had seen another man with Meagan, and also has flashbacks of a confrontation that may be related. Readers are given a few red herrings along the way, and although some may have suspicions the mystery is not revealed until the crisis.
The horrible implication in Notting Hill will be understood by today's readers rather early. I expect that the first readers, having never encountered the genre, would have had a later "ah-ha" moment.
Both novels revolve around women who are manipulated by men. Notting Hill's Mesmerist Baron R** is consistently described as a wonderful husband by the women who have observed his behavior towards his wife. The wife is severely judged for her coldness and bad temper. Wouldn't every woman want such a tender helpmate?
Mesmerism was believed to give complete power over the patient. And yet these witnesses never concluded that the Baron was manipulating his resistant wife. The women in Girl on a Train are all involved with a man who is charming and handsome. They all love him to the point of being blind to his faults and lies. They are all victims of Tom's manipulative and self-centered personality.
Victimization by men in the 19th c was a common theme. Women had little power, and the meek and loving soft-hearted woman was idealized. The women in Girl are harder to identify with. Is Tom really worth it? Why does Rachel hold a torch for the man who couldn't support her desperate desire for a child, who couldn't love and support her when she was in deepest need? His second wife Anna found herself mirroring Rachel: drinking a lonely glass of wine while waiting for Tom to come home. And why did Meagan put up with Scott when he monitored her Internet activity and email? I frankly was not given enough information about Tom to understand why these women continued to care about him. Or why Megan put up with Scott.
My book club was very divided about Girl. It was a huge turn out with 27 members in attendance. One hated it, several gave it two stars, a number three stars. Most readers gave it five stars.
The biggest complaints about Girl concerned unlikeable female characters who readers could not relate to. They thought Rachel "weak", that Anna was a manipulative bitch, and that Megan had no redeeming qualities. One complained of clichéd and predictable plot lines. Some didn't like the melodramatic ending. And quite a few found the non-linear plot line confusing; one even gave up reading it. Those who loved the book found it hard to put down. These readers found the characters very human and real. One woman understood Rachel and related to her very well. Many readers compared it to Gone Girl but were divided about which was the better novel.
My reaction was in the middle. The book was an 'easy read', it moved along quite well, and I had no problems following the time line and characters. I liked the device of alcoholic black outs creating an unreliable character. I liked how the first person narratives slowly gave the reader glimpses of the story that built on each other. I was not a fan of the ending. I wish I had learned more about Tom and his relationships with the three women; I was not convinced he could keep their "love" after his selfish abandonment. But this is not a book that will stick with me over time.
Several ladies liked the idea of Domestic Noir when I shared it; they said that was exactly what they wanted to read. I believe that writers will continue to crank such books out. There is a huge market.
I expect the market for The Notting Hill Mystery is far smaller. It was fascinating to read considering its historical place in the genre and as Victorian era literature. Each witness had a distinct voice and character coming through. Pretty amazing considering one book club reader of Girl complained that Rachel and Megan had voices so similar she couldn't remember which character she was reading about! The conclusion was unexpected. But we know who was behind the murders, even if the Life Assurance agent doesn't have enough concrete evidence to decide.
Notting Hill is not an 'easy beach read' and won't keep you up past your bed time. But if you are interested in the history of genre fiction, curious about mesmerism and the Victorian Age, it is an interesting read. And I really believe it was an early example of Domestic Noir.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Notting Hill Mystery
Charles Adams
Poison Pen Press
Publication August 4, 2015
ISBN:9781464204807
"Domestic Noir takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants." http://juliacrouch.co.uk/blog/genre-benderAn article in The Guardian on The Girl on the Train refers to "domestic noir" novels.
Literature can be entertaining, but it can also be informative, and these books work in some small part towards dissecting the shame and powerlessness, the psychological and often violent manipulation that abused women experience to keep them trapped in this most toxic of relationships, away from prying eyes, and in the environment we expect to be the most loving and nurturing. The Independent "Domestic Noir is Bigger than Ever
Adams wrote under the name of Charles Felix and had published an earlier crime novel Velvet Lawns in 1864. Adams was the proprietor of the book's publisher, Saunders, Otley, and wrote the novels to help his foundering business; it couldn't save the publishing house and it closed in 1869.
Modern readers may find Notting Hill archaic and tedious. This is the age of lightning quick plot lines and "page turner" best sellers. I just finished The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins for my book club--it's twice the length of Notting Hill and yet both took me two days to read. I enjoyed Notting Hill as much as Girl.
Girl features first person narratives, including a diary, to tell the story through three points of view. It is a suspense novel, a thriller, and a mystery. Rachel may be considered a 'detective' so it is also a detective novel. As an 'unreliable witness' due to alcoholic blackouts, the police have discounted what Rachel has seen. So she conducts her own 'investigation' and finds herself in deep water.
Notting Hill tells the story through depositions, diary entries, chemical reports, and letters collected by a Life Assurance Association employee who is investigating the death of a woman with 5000lb in insurance taken out by her husband. The story is told in pieces according to each person's knowledge of the persons and events in question.
"I submit for your consideration the facts of the case as they appear in the depositions of the several parties from whom my information has been obtained." The Notting Hill MysteryThe contemporary novel Girl wraps up the mystery with a suspenseful climatic scene. Notting Hill leaves us hanging, asking the reader to decide.
"My tasks is done. In possession of the evidence thus placed before you, your judgment of its result will be as good as mine. Link by link you have now been put in possession of the entire chain." The Notting Hill MysteryA definition of mystery from Writer's Digest reads, Mystery: a form of narrative in which one or more elements remain unknown or unexplained until the end of the story. But...wait...Adams never solves the mystery for us! We are told to decide for ourselves! Another definition states that in a mystery the plot is geared towards solving a problem, usually murder, but problem must be resolved.
Notting Hill incorporates themes that in its time thrilled readers. Illustrations by George du Maruier highlight the Gothic elements of the story. Twin girl orphans are separated in childhood when Gypsies steal one and sell her off. The other twin, Gertrude, grows up, marries, and with her husband becomes involved with mesmerism. Mesmerism involved controversial techniques considered unsuitable between a man and a woman. Their mesemerist Baron R** brings in Charlotte who undergoes the treatment and transfers it to Gertrude. The women have a special bond. Gertrude begins to experience biweekly illnesses that eventually claim her life. Her husband in his grief does himself in. Meantime, Baron R** has married Charlotte who also suffers a similar illness and death.
Girl on the Train also has its melodrama. Rachel turned to alcohol after she failed to conceive; her husband Tom preferred to go to Vegas with buddies rather than to spend more money on IVT. Tom dumps Rachel for his lover Anna, who has given birth. Rachel daily rides the train past her old home now occupied by Anna. A few doors down she has seen a young couple (Megan and Scott) and has imagined a perfect marriage for them--the one she still longs for with Tom. What Rachel imagines is far from the truth: the girl Meagan disappears and her husband is the prime suspect in her murder. Rachel had seen another man with Meagan, and also has flashbacks of a confrontation that may be related. Readers are given a few red herrings along the way, and although some may have suspicions the mystery is not revealed until the crisis.
The horrible implication in Notting Hill will be understood by today's readers rather early. I expect that the first readers, having never encountered the genre, would have had a later "ah-ha" moment.
Both novels revolve around women who are manipulated by men. Notting Hill's Mesmerist Baron R** is consistently described as a wonderful husband by the women who have observed his behavior towards his wife. The wife is severely judged for her coldness and bad temper. Wouldn't every woman want such a tender helpmate?
Mesmerism was believed to give complete power over the patient. And yet these witnesses never concluded that the Baron was manipulating his resistant wife. The women in Girl on a Train are all involved with a man who is charming and handsome. They all love him to the point of being blind to his faults and lies. They are all victims of Tom's manipulative and self-centered personality.
Victimization by men in the 19th c was a common theme. Women had little power, and the meek and loving soft-hearted woman was idealized. The women in Girl are harder to identify with. Is Tom really worth it? Why does Rachel hold a torch for the man who couldn't support her desperate desire for a child, who couldn't love and support her when she was in deepest need? His second wife Anna found herself mirroring Rachel: drinking a lonely glass of wine while waiting for Tom to come home. And why did Meagan put up with Scott when he monitored her Internet activity and email? I frankly was not given enough information about Tom to understand why these women continued to care about him. Or why Megan put up with Scott.
My book club was very divided about Girl. It was a huge turn out with 27 members in attendance. One hated it, several gave it two stars, a number three stars. Most readers gave it five stars.
The biggest complaints about Girl concerned unlikeable female characters who readers could not relate to. They thought Rachel "weak", that Anna was a manipulative bitch, and that Megan had no redeeming qualities. One complained of clichéd and predictable plot lines. Some didn't like the melodramatic ending. And quite a few found the non-linear plot line confusing; one even gave up reading it. Those who loved the book found it hard to put down. These readers found the characters very human and real. One woman understood Rachel and related to her very well. Many readers compared it to Gone Girl but were divided about which was the better novel.
My reaction was in the middle. The book was an 'easy read', it moved along quite well, and I had no problems following the time line and characters. I liked the device of alcoholic black outs creating an unreliable character. I liked how the first person narratives slowly gave the reader glimpses of the story that built on each other. I was not a fan of the ending. I wish I had learned more about Tom and his relationships with the three women; I was not convinced he could keep their "love" after his selfish abandonment. But this is not a book that will stick with me over time.
Several ladies liked the idea of Domestic Noir when I shared it; they said that was exactly what they wanted to read. I believe that writers will continue to crank such books out. There is a huge market.
I expect the market for The Notting Hill Mystery is far smaller. It was fascinating to read considering its historical place in the genre and as Victorian era literature. Each witness had a distinct voice and character coming through. Pretty amazing considering one book club reader of Girl complained that Rachel and Megan had voices so similar she couldn't remember which character she was reading about! The conclusion was unexpected. But we know who was behind the murders, even if the Life Assurance agent doesn't have enough concrete evidence to decide.
Notting Hill is not an 'easy beach read' and won't keep you up past your bed time. But if you are interested in the history of genre fiction, curious about mesmerism and the Victorian Age, it is an interesting read. And I really believe it was an early example of Domestic Noir.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Notting Hill Mystery
Charles Adams
Poison Pen Press
Publication August 4, 2015
ISBN:9781464204807
Thursday, February 25, 2021
The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them by Euan Angus Ashley
I have been interested in genome research since I first heard about it. As a genealogy researcher, I am curious about what we inherit from our ancestors. I seek out family resemblances and inherited traits, finding my eyes in one relative, my body type in another.
I wonder what health issues I inherited, or did not inherit. My mother had autoimmune diseases, and so do I. My grandfather had horrible ragweed allergies, and so does our son. My father had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and so does my cousin. My aunt and her two children struggled with alcoholism. Two grandfathers (aged 52 and 68) and an uncle (age 34) died of heart attacks.
For some people, their genes are secret time bombs. A healthy athlete suffers a sudden heart attack and dies. A baby's normal progress stops, and even regresses.
What if there was a test that could warn us of impending or likely health issues so doctors could be prepared to remedy or even cure them? What if it was affordable for everyone? What if if was part of our normal preventative health care insurance?
This could be reality.
The Genome Odyssey is a fascinating narrative of Dr. Ashley's research in genome sequencing and how it was applied to solve medical mysteries.
The science is very accessible in presentation, so that even non-medical folk like myself can understand how genes and sequencing works. The personal stories of those whose lives were changed through genome sequencing and genetic therapy are affecting. For some, simple OTC supplements changed their life.
The author addresses the current Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, telling how the scientific community swung into action even as governments floundered, and explaining how vaccines was developed and how the different kinds work on the virus.
"Could even more widespread use of genomics have gotten us further ahead of this pandemic to begin with?", he asks. He notes that wastewater can predict which community will have the next rise in infections. If we systematically tested wastewater the way we test drinking water, we could be prepared to prevent disease flareups.
In a capitalist, profit-driven health system, the question is who will pay. Will the rich only benefit, or those victims of rare diseases who are covered by research grants? Another issue to be addressed is the privacy of genome information and its use. Ashley adds, "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Nor does it mean that we can afford it."
Yet the possibilities of what doctors will be able to do in the future are endless.
I received an ARC from the publisher through Bookish First. My review is fair and unbiased.
The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them
by Euan Angus Ashley, MD, PhD
Celadon Books
Publication Date: February 23, 2021
by Euan Angus Ashley, MD, PhD
Celadon Books
Publication Date: February 23, 2021
hardcover $26.99; ebook $14.99
ISBN 9781250234995
ISBN 9781250234995
from the publisher
“This wonderful page-turner captures the excitement, peril, wonder and anticipation of the so-called “genomics” era — the era that has begun us to allow us to sequence the entirety of DNA carried within our bodies, and to understand the functions of parts of this genome. Dr Ashley, one of the pioneers of gene sequencing technologies, writes with authority, elegance and simplicity to enable an in-depth understanding of the most exciting scientific developments of our times. Every curious reader must read this book.” —Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of Maladies and The Gene
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent, predict, and beat disease.
Since the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, the price of genome sequencing has dropped at a staggering rate. It’s as if the price of a Ferrari went from $350,000 to a mere forty cents. Through breakthroughs made by Dr. Ashley’s team at Stanford and other dedicated groups around the world, analyzing the human genome has decreased from a heroic multibillion dollar effort to a single clinical test costing less than $1,000.
For the first time we have within our grasp the ability to predict our genetic future, to diagnose and prevent disease before it begins, and to decode what it really means to be human.
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Ashley details the medicine behind genome sequencing with clarity and accessibility. More than that, with passion for his subject and compassion for his patients, he introduces readers to the dynamic group of researchers and doctor detectives who hunt for answers, and to the pioneering patients who open up their lives to the medical community during their search for diagnoses and cures.
He describes how he led the team that was the first to analyze and interpret a complete human genome, how they broke genome speed records to diagnose and treat a newborn baby girl whose heart stopped five times on the first day of her life, and how they found a boy with tumors growing inside his heart and traced the cause to a missing piece of his genome.
These patients inspire Dr. Ashley and his team as they work to expand the boundaries of our medical capabilities and to envision a future where genome sequencing is available for all, where medicine can be tailored to treat specific diseases and to decode pathogens like viruses at the genomic level, and where our medical system as we know it has been completely revolutionized.
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Northanger Abbey
This month my library book club read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I believe I last read it at university in my year-long course on Austen--in 1978! It is Jane's funniest novel.
Northanger Abbey was written with the title Susan in 1798 and was sold to a publisher in 1803 for 10 pounds. The publisher put it aside...paper had become too expensive...and Jane tried in vain to get the manuscript returned. She wanted to update it. It was not published until 1817, after Jane's death, when Cassandra changed the title to Northanger Abbey.
Jane knew the novel had become dated and wanted to rewrite it. So when it was finally published, it had become a story set in the past instead of a contemporary novel.
I laughed my way through the story. I was glad to hear another reader also laughed. I love Jane's wit and satire of social manners and parody of the popular Gothic novels.
Several readers felt the first volume was slow, and they hated Isabella's fawning over Catherine. But in the second volume, the readers found their interest piqued and sped through to the end.
Catherine is truly an innocent abroad. She has never encountered prevarication, flattery, wits, rattles, and gold-diggers. She has no idea of what is socially acceptable for a young lady and the Allens fail to give her advice.
The first people Catherine and the Allens met are the Thorpe family. Isabella Thorpe grabs hold of Catherine, declaring her warmest friendship. Her brother John, a school friend of Catherine's brother James, endeavors to impress her with his equipage. He curses (d---d) and twice uses the anti-Semite remark "rich as a Jew." He brags and lies and has nothing redeeming about him. Catherine soon gets his number and wearies of him.
When James shows up, it becomes clear that Isabella is trying to engage James's affection while her brother is after Catherine. The Thorpes believe the Morlands are well off and will be the Allen's heirs.
Catherine meets a young man destined to be her romantic hero, in the form of Henry Tilney, a clergyman seven years her senior. He is hardly a 'romantic' hero, not quite handsome, a tease who likes to show his superiority of experience at Catherine's expense. He is a reader who esteems the novel.
Henry teases Catherine and teaches Catherine, who does not mind. Her naivety and transparent preference for him engages Henry's attention and he begins to consider her as a likely wife. Miss Tilney befriends Catherine, a sensible friend for her.
Isabella and John do everything they can to keep Catherine and Henry apart. Catherine is 'kidnapped' by the Thorpes for a carriage ride when she was to meet Henry and his sister for a walk. She entreats John to stop, to no avail.
Catherine makes her apologies by going to the Tilney's residence and rushing in, unannounced. It a childish and impetuous act. It also shows her native goodness and honesty and complete lack of pretentiousness.
Catherine is invited to spend several weeks with Henry and Miss Tilney at their family home, Northanger Abbey.
On the journey to the Abbey, Henry fills Catherine's head with 'horrid' visions of the Abbey. Catherine is disappointed to find a modernized home instead of the Medieval ruins she had envisioned. Still, her she works herself into imaging horrid fantasies involving General Tilney and unawares reenacts a scene from Radcliffe's novel and is chastised by Henry for allowing her imagination to run wild.
The real horror is to come.
Mislead by John Thorpe into believing Catherine was a great heiress, General Tilney welcomes her into his home as a prospective daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, Isabella has managed to get engaged to James but discovers he has only a modest income. When the eldest Tilney son and heir flirts with Isabella she sets her cap to secure his affections. Her brother John informs General Tilney that the Morlands were not heirs to great wealth, and the General turns Catherine out. She is sent seventy miles to her home unaccompanied in a public carriage, a brutal and unfeeling slight. She could fall victim to any kind of evil--men abusing her, stealing from her, kidnapping her--
When Catherine arrives home unexpectedly, Mrs. Morland is nonplussed. She comments that Catherine was always such a scatterbrain, perhaps it did her good to have to take care of herself. Like the Allens, the Morlands are not very good parents.
Being an Austen novel, a wish-fulfillment ending brings Catherine her heart's desire.
During the time when Jane had sold her manuscript and was awaiting its publication, she lived in Bath where most of the action takes place. She was formed a deep friendship with her brother's governess, Anne Sharp, who was also an aspiring playwright. Read about their relationship in A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. To learn more about Jane's home in Bath read Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. See illustrations from Northanger Abbey editions at Molland's Circulating Library. Read about how Austen has been interpreted in illustrations, stage, and screen in The Making of Jane Austen by Devoney Looser.
My son gave me Polite Society: The Jane Austen Board Game for Mother's Day!
Jane knew the novel had become dated and wanted to rewrite it. So when it was finally published, it had become a story set in the past instead of a contemporary novel.
 |
| 1807 illustration of a gentleman inviting a lady to dance |
Several readers felt the first volume was slow, and they hated Isabella's fawning over Catherine. But in the second volume, the readers found their interest piqued and sped through to the end.
Jane parodies the typical novels of her time by presenting Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old with nothing 'romantic' about her. She was a tomboy until fifteen and now is 'almost pretty.' She had never had a crush on a boy since she only met those she grew up with. Her father is a clergyman and her mother has birthed ten children. Jane throws Catherine into the exciting social mecca of Bath, hosted by a childless well-off couple, the Allens.
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her."--Northanger Abbey
Catherine is truly an innocent abroad. She has never encountered prevarication, flattery, wits, rattles, and gold-diggers. She has no idea of what is socially acceptable for a young lady and the Allens fail to give her advice.
The first people Catherine and the Allens met are the Thorpe family. Isabella Thorpe grabs hold of Catherine, declaring her warmest friendship. Her brother John, a school friend of Catherine's brother James, endeavors to impress her with his equipage. He curses (d---d) and twice uses the anti-Semite remark "rich as a Jew." He brags and lies and has nothing redeeming about him. Catherine soon gets his number and wearies of him.
“Lord help you! You women are always thinking of men's being in liquor. Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this—that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for us all." (John Thorpe)
“I cannot believe it." (Catherine Morland)
“Oh! Lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help." (John)
“And yet I have heard that there is a great deal of wine drunk in Oxford.” (Catherine)
“Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now, I assure you. Nobody drinks there. You would hardly meet with a man who goes beyond his four pints at the utmost. Now, for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable thing, at the last party in my rooms, that upon an average we cleared about five pints a head. It was looked upon as something out of the common way. Mine is famous good stuff, to be sure. You would not often meet with anything like it in Oxford—and that may account for it. But this will just give you a notion of the general rate of drinking there.” (John)
“Yes, it does give a notion,” said Catherine warmly, “and that is, that you all drink a great deal more wine than I thought you did.”Isabella and Catherine are fans of the 'horrid' Gothic novels, especially Maria Radcliff's Mysteries of Udolpho. John, on the other hand, is quite illiterate.
"Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?”
“Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do...Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.”
“I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very interesting.”
“Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe's; her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature in them.”
“Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.
When James shows up, it becomes clear that Isabella is trying to engage James's affection while her brother is after Catherine. The Thorpes believe the Morlands are well off and will be the Allen's heirs.
Catherine meets a young man destined to be her romantic hero, in the form of Henry Tilney, a clergyman seven years her senior. He is hardly a 'romantic' hero, not quite handsome, a tease who likes to show his superiority of experience at Catherine's expense. He is a reader who esteems the novel.
Henry teases Catherine and teaches Catherine, who does not mind. Her naivety and transparent preference for him engages Henry's attention and he begins to consider her as a likely wife. Miss Tilney befriends Catherine, a sensible friend for her.
Isabella and John do everything they can to keep Catherine and Henry apart. Catherine is 'kidnapped' by the Thorpes for a carriage ride when she was to meet Henry and his sister for a walk. She entreats John to stop, to no avail.
 |
| Illustration by C.E. Brock. John 'kidnapping' Catherine |
Catherine makes her apologies by going to the Tilney's residence and rushing in, unannounced. It a childish and impetuous act. It also shows her native goodness and honesty and complete lack of pretentiousness.
Catherine is invited to spend several weeks with Henry and Miss Tilney at their family home, Northanger Abbey.
"She was to be their chosen visitor, she was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she mostly prized—and, in addition to all the rest, this roof was to be the roof of an abbey! Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney—and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire."
On the journey to the Abbey, Henry fills Catherine's head with 'horrid' visions of the Abbey. Catherine is disappointed to find a modernized home instead of the Medieval ruins she had envisioned. Still, her she works herself into imaging horrid fantasies involving General Tilney and unawares reenacts a scene from Radcliffe's novel and is chastised by Henry for allowing her imagination to run wild.
"Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you."
 |
| Illustration by Hugh Thompson; Catherine runs into Henry while investigating the abbey |
The real horror is to come.
Mislead by John Thorpe into believing Catherine was a great heiress, General Tilney welcomes her into his home as a prospective daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, Isabella has managed to get engaged to James but discovers he has only a modest income. When the eldest Tilney son and heir flirts with Isabella she sets her cap to secure his affections. Her brother John informs General Tilney that the Morlands were not heirs to great wealth, and the General turns Catherine out. She is sent seventy miles to her home unaccompanied in a public carriage, a brutal and unfeeling slight. She could fall victim to any kind of evil--men abusing her, stealing from her, kidnapping her--
When Catherine arrives home unexpectedly, Mrs. Morland is nonplussed. She comments that Catherine was always such a scatterbrain, perhaps it did her good to have to take care of herself. Like the Allens, the Morlands are not very good parents.
Being an Austen novel, a wish-fulfillment ending brings Catherine her heart's desire.
During the time when Jane had sold her manuscript and was awaiting its publication, she lived in Bath where most of the action takes place. She was formed a deep friendship with her brother's governess, Anne Sharp, who was also an aspiring playwright. Read about their relationship in A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. To learn more about Jane's home in Bath read Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. See illustrations from Northanger Abbey editions at Molland's Circulating Library. Read about how Austen has been interpreted in illustrations, stage, and screen in The Making of Jane Austen by Devoney Looser.
*****
My son gave me Polite Society: The Jane Austen Board Game for Mother's Day!
 |
| Polite Society Board Game against my quilt Regency Redwork, inspired by Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen |
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Historical Fiction as Story, Interpretation, and Illumination
I read three historical fiction books at once, each about 400 pages long. They were very different not just in subject matter but in how they presented history.
Historical fiction can recreate history through story. It can reinterpret history through an author's viewpoint. And it can illuminate history for deeper, timeless messages. To me, each book represented one of these uses.
Recreating History Through Story: Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly
Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly is the prequel to her first novel The Lilac Girls. The Lilac Girls tells the story of Polish girls sent to Ravensbruck where the Nazis perform disfiguring operations on their legs. After the war, American socialite Caroline Ferriday takes up their cause and brings them to New York City for corrective surgery.
In her new book, Kelly turns her attention to Caroline's mother Eliza who was friends with Russian aristocrats, cousins of the Romanovs. Like others of their class, they lead a decadent and luxurious life. Kelly draws the daughters and their father to be sympathetic, their stepmother less so. With the toppling of the Tsar and the uprising against the aristocrats, the family finds themselves at the mercy of the Reds. The brutality of the Reds is depicted through two former prisoners who hold the family hostage.
Any 'White Russians' who could fled Russia. Meeting these refugee women, Eliza had compassion and organized to find them homes and employment.
The focus is on the aristocratic Sofya's search for her son who was both rescued and separated from her during the uprising. The boy was in the care of a peasant girl, Varinka, who disappears with him. It allows us to see two sides of the revolution while engaging our sympathy.
The novel was the May Barnes and Noble Book Club Choice. At our local group, several readers were swept into the story. Others wished there was a better grounding in the historical background of the Russian Revolution. It was agreed that family trees would have helped them.
Kelly fell in love with the Ferriday family while researching her first book. She is writing a second prequel about the family set during the Civil War. This book adds to the Ferriday family's history.
The novel is the May Barnes and Noble Book Club selection. I purchased a copy.
Reinterpreting History: Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard
At the same time, I was reading Courting Mr. Lincoln, which the publisher offered me. Louis Bayard's novel is about the pre-marriage relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd and Lincoln and his friend and roommate Joshua Speed. The novel is based on the myth created by gay activist Larry Kramer that Speed and Lincoln had a sexual relationship. Kramer claimed to have evidence but he never made it public.
I have read several books on Mary Todd Lincoln and had my own idea of her personality.
The novel begins when Mary arrives in Springfield to her sister's home to find a husband. The frontier town of 1,500 is described as primitive. I had read that Mary was well pursued and admired as a girl, but Bayard gives us a woman tipping into spinsterhood, surrounded by inferior suitors--except for Joshua Speed, who is dapper and handsome but standoffish with the ladies. Mary is at times audacious and has an unwomanly interest in politics.
Speed introduces Lincoln to Mary. Lincoln is stereotyped as a country bumpkin who must be educated to fit into society, a job Speed takes on. Bayard does not really convince me why Mary becomes attached to Lincoln. His character is the least developed. I had read that Mary strongly believed in Lincoln's political future. The book includes their falling out and coming back together leaving the lovelorn Speed to marry a woman who is happy to avoid the physical obligations of marriage.
I ended up speed reading through half the book. I do hope readers understand this is fiction! The portrait of Mary may surprise some readers who only know the yellow journalism view of her later life, the mad widow reduced to selling her clothing and sent to the asylum by her only surviving child. In the end, I see this as Joshua Speed's story, assuming he was in love with Lincoln.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Courting Mr. Lincoln
by Louis Bayard
Algonquin Books
Pub Date 23 Apr 2019
ISBN 9781616208479
PRICE $27.95 (USD)
Historical Fiction as Illuminating: The Guest Book by Sarah Blake
The third novel I was reading at the same time was an ARC sent to me by the publisher, The Guest Book by Sarah Blake. It caught my interest early with beautiful, descriptive language and interesting characters. It is about the culpability of silence and the Milton family secrets, how wealth and privilege control the gates of power, and the acceptance of prejudice, racism, and anti-Semitism.
It is a family drama covering three generations of a wealthy, white family of privilege with deep American roots. There was a Milton in the first class at Harvard. They built a banking empire and thrived even during the Depression.
The first chapter is set in 1935 when young wife Kitty is filled with the joy of spring and ends with a horrible tragedy. I was hooked and compelled to read on.
The Guest Book recalled to mind E. M. Forster's Howard's End, one of my favorite novels. Forster's novel set in Edwardian England considers class and inheritance. Blake's novel considers prejudice and inheritance. Some characters can not give up their protected status of privilege and some rankle against it, hoping for a more just and equitable system.
In 1939, at the height of the Depression, Ogden Milton purchased an island retreat in Maine. Ogden hopes to begin anew with his wife Kitty after a tragic accident shattered their world. The island becomes part of their lives, representing all that is good and beautiful. It also holds them to the past, a place that resists change, from the upholstery and wallpaper to the ghosts that haunt it.
Milton's banking concern survived the Depression and continued to thrive during the war--partly because of German investments in steel which lead to business with the Nazis. When the steel magnate's daughter, who married a Jewish musician, asks Kitty to keep her child, Kitty turns her down. They return to Germany and are never heard of again. It is a guilty secret she keeps for decades.
Kitty and Ogden have daughters Joan and Evie and son Moss.
Evie behaves correctly, going to college and marrying the 'right kind' of man.
Joan has epilepsy and believes she will never marry. Then she meets Len Levy, a self-made man hired by her father's bank. He is a man of vision but his idea of opening the stock market to the middle and working class is rejected. Len is Jewish and people like the Miltons stick to their own kind. They keep their affair secret.
Moss is to inherit his father's position but chaffs under the expectations and prejudices of their aristocratic social class. He dreams of writing music for a new America and the changes he hears humming just out of reach.
On a fatal night in 1959, the family gathered on the island for Evie's wedding, two outsiders arrive at Moss's invitation. Len Levy and his Chicago childhood friend, Reg Pauling, an African American writer. Although they went to Harvard with Moss, these men know there are walls and gates that shut them out. In spite of Moss's vision of a new America of inclusivity--in spite of the passionate love between Len and Joan--they understand they are outsiders. The Miltons can be benevolent but they stick to the standards of the past.
What happens on that fateful day is kept secret. It is only known as the day Moss died.
After the passing of their grandparents and parents, Joan and Evie's children and their cousins must decide what to do with the Milton island home. Joan's daughter Evie can't bear to let go of the place, vivid memories mooring her to the island. But the family has run out of inherited money and the grandchildren have chosen idealistic careers that don't come with a large income. Evie's husband Paul, who is Jewish, can't understand her need to hang on to the island.
Evie is tormented by questions. Why did her mother Joan ask that her ashes be scattered on the rocky beach on the island? What was the story behind the photograph of their grandfather Ogden with a Nazi? How did Uncle Moss die? Why did her grandmother Kitty want the stranger Reg Pauling to get Moss's inheritance? Clues impel Evie to detangle the past until the family secrets are finally revealed.
In Howard's End, Forster asks who is to inherit Britain. In The Guest Book, the question of who is to inherit the island is at stake. The island becomes a symbol of the monied, white elite's world of privilege. Can they keep it?
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Guest Book
by Sarah Blake
Flatiron Books
On Sale: 05/07/2019
$27.99 hardcover
ISBN: 9781250110251
Historical fiction can recreate history through story. It can reinterpret history through an author's viewpoint. And it can illuminate history for deeper, timeless messages. To me, each book represented one of these uses.
Recreating History Through Story: Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly
Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly is the prequel to her first novel The Lilac Girls. The Lilac Girls tells the story of Polish girls sent to Ravensbruck where the Nazis perform disfiguring operations on their legs. After the war, American socialite Caroline Ferriday takes up their cause and brings them to New York City for corrective surgery.
In her new book, Kelly turns her attention to Caroline's mother Eliza who was friends with Russian aristocrats, cousins of the Romanovs. Like others of their class, they lead a decadent and luxurious life. Kelly draws the daughters and their father to be sympathetic, their stepmother less so. With the toppling of the Tsar and the uprising against the aristocrats, the family finds themselves at the mercy of the Reds. The brutality of the Reds is depicted through two former prisoners who hold the family hostage.
Any 'White Russians' who could fled Russia. Meeting these refugee women, Eliza had compassion and organized to find them homes and employment.
The focus is on the aristocratic Sofya's search for her son who was both rescued and separated from her during the uprising. The boy was in the care of a peasant girl, Varinka, who disappears with him. It allows us to see two sides of the revolution while engaging our sympathy.
The novel was the May Barnes and Noble Book Club Choice. At our local group, several readers were swept into the story. Others wished there was a better grounding in the historical background of the Russian Revolution. It was agreed that family trees would have helped them.
Kelly fell in love with the Ferriday family while researching her first book. She is writing a second prequel about the family set during the Civil War. This book adds to the Ferriday family's history.
The novel is the May Barnes and Noble Book Club selection. I purchased a copy.
Reinterpreting History: Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard
At the same time, I was reading Courting Mr. Lincoln, which the publisher offered me. Louis Bayard's novel is about the pre-marriage relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd and Lincoln and his friend and roommate Joshua Speed. The novel is based on the myth created by gay activist Larry Kramer that Speed and Lincoln had a sexual relationship. Kramer claimed to have evidence but he never made it public.
I have read several books on Mary Todd Lincoln and had my own idea of her personality.
The novel begins when Mary arrives in Springfield to her sister's home to find a husband. The frontier town of 1,500 is described as primitive. I had read that Mary was well pursued and admired as a girl, but Bayard gives us a woman tipping into spinsterhood, surrounded by inferior suitors--except for Joshua Speed, who is dapper and handsome but standoffish with the ladies. Mary is at times audacious and has an unwomanly interest in politics.
Speed introduces Lincoln to Mary. Lincoln is stereotyped as a country bumpkin who must be educated to fit into society, a job Speed takes on. Bayard does not really convince me why Mary becomes attached to Lincoln. His character is the least developed. I had read that Mary strongly believed in Lincoln's political future. The book includes their falling out and coming back together leaving the lovelorn Speed to marry a woman who is happy to avoid the physical obligations of marriage.
I ended up speed reading through half the book. I do hope readers understand this is fiction! The portrait of Mary may surprise some readers who only know the yellow journalism view of her later life, the mad widow reduced to selling her clothing and sent to the asylum by her only surviving child. In the end, I see this as Joshua Speed's story, assuming he was in love with Lincoln.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Courting Mr. Lincoln
by Louis Bayard
Algonquin Books
Pub Date 23 Apr 2019
ISBN 9781616208479
PRICE $27.95 (USD)
Historical Fiction as Illuminating: The Guest Book by Sarah Blake
The third novel I was reading at the same time was an ARC sent to me by the publisher, The Guest Book by Sarah Blake. It caught my interest early with beautiful, descriptive language and interesting characters. It is about the culpability of silence and the Milton family secrets, how wealth and privilege control the gates of power, and the acceptance of prejudice, racism, and anti-Semitism.
It is a family drama covering three generations of a wealthy, white family of privilege with deep American roots. There was a Milton in the first class at Harvard. They built a banking empire and thrived even during the Depression.
The first chapter is set in 1935 when young wife Kitty is filled with the joy of spring and ends with a horrible tragedy. I was hooked and compelled to read on.
The Guest Book recalled to mind E. M. Forster's Howard's End, one of my favorite novels. Forster's novel set in Edwardian England considers class and inheritance. Blake's novel considers prejudice and inheritance. Some characters can not give up their protected status of privilege and some rankle against it, hoping for a more just and equitable system.
In 1939, at the height of the Depression, Ogden Milton purchased an island retreat in Maine. Ogden hopes to begin anew with his wife Kitty after a tragic accident shattered their world. The island becomes part of their lives, representing all that is good and beautiful. It also holds them to the past, a place that resists change, from the upholstery and wallpaper to the ghosts that haunt it.
Milton's banking concern survived the Depression and continued to thrive during the war--partly because of German investments in steel which lead to business with the Nazis. When the steel magnate's daughter, who married a Jewish musician, asks Kitty to keep her child, Kitty turns her down. They return to Germany and are never heard of again. It is a guilty secret she keeps for decades.
Kitty and Ogden have daughters Joan and Evie and son Moss.
Evie behaves correctly, going to college and marrying the 'right kind' of man.
Joan has epilepsy and believes she will never marry. Then she meets Len Levy, a self-made man hired by her father's bank. He is a man of vision but his idea of opening the stock market to the middle and working class is rejected. Len is Jewish and people like the Miltons stick to their own kind. They keep their affair secret.
Moss is to inherit his father's position but chaffs under the expectations and prejudices of their aristocratic social class. He dreams of writing music for a new America and the changes he hears humming just out of reach.
On a fatal night in 1959, the family gathered on the island for Evie's wedding, two outsiders arrive at Moss's invitation. Len Levy and his Chicago childhood friend, Reg Pauling, an African American writer. Although they went to Harvard with Moss, these men know there are walls and gates that shut them out. In spite of Moss's vision of a new America of inclusivity--in spite of the passionate love between Len and Joan--they understand they are outsiders. The Miltons can be benevolent but they stick to the standards of the past.
What happens on that fateful day is kept secret. It is only known as the day Moss died.
After the passing of their grandparents and parents, Joan and Evie's children and their cousins must decide what to do with the Milton island home. Joan's daughter Evie can't bear to let go of the place, vivid memories mooring her to the island. But the family has run out of inherited money and the grandchildren have chosen idealistic careers that don't come with a large income. Evie's husband Paul, who is Jewish, can't understand her need to hang on to the island.
Evie is tormented by questions. Why did her mother Joan ask that her ashes be scattered on the rocky beach on the island? What was the story behind the photograph of their grandfather Ogden with a Nazi? How did Uncle Moss die? Why did her grandmother Kitty want the stranger Reg Pauling to get Moss's inheritance? Clues impel Evie to detangle the past until the family secrets are finally revealed.
In Howard's End, Forster asks who is to inherit Britain. In The Guest Book, the question of who is to inherit the island is at stake. The island becomes a symbol of the monied, white elite's world of privilege. Can they keep it?
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Guest Book
by Sarah Blake
Flatiron Books
On Sale: 05/07/2019
$27.99 hardcover
ISBN: 9781250110251
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Homer the Ghost and other Juvenalia
After we moved from Tonawanda I was lonely and created an imaginary friend, Homer the Ghost. Now, I was cognizant that Homer was a fiction of my imagination, in many ways a continuance of the make-believe play Nancy Ensminger and I enjoyed. I was still spinning tales. I was story telling.
I drew pictures of Homer and the ghostly gang and wrote stories.
Homer!
First you must know who Homer is. He is a ghost friend of mine. He's about 1,500 years old. Homer has three cousins, Greta, Herman, and Gertrude. His best friend is Irving.
Homer is nice but sometimes troublesome. Like the time he rode my bike without asking me. It was 4:40 pm when he rode it. How would you like to see a bike going by itself! Well, I'll tell you what Mr. White did.
Mr. White was very superstitious and read lots of science fiction books. He was reading Invaders from Pluto in his living room. He read out loud to himself; "Suddenly, the creature disappeared! He turned invisible, said Capt. Monroe." Mr. White looked up and out the window saw a bike going by itself! Of course, it was just Homer.
"Help! Police! Help!" yelled Mr. White. He ran into the next room and dialed the phone. "Police give me the operator! I mean, operator, give me the police!"
"Soon the police where on. "Yes," said Mr Blocker, the Captain.
"There's an invisible bike, er, man, I mean a creature from Pluto riding a bike!" said Mr. White.
"What?" said Capt. Blocker.
"An invisible creature from Pluto on a bike!"
"What? A creature on an invisible bike?"
"No! A thing from Pluto!"
"I can't understand you, calm down! Talk slower!"
"Details! This is of national concern! We've been invaded! I just sighted an alien creature in the street!"
Capt. Blocker made a face of exasperation at the phone, and to humor the man, replied, "I'll send a car over to investigate..."
This story ends there. I also wrote many more stories including A Martian Fairy Tale, "The Three Gooks," Adventures on Atom, To Mars! Sail On!, The Creature from Beyond, The Very Last Goodbye, and Eve of Destruction.
I have a letter written by classmate Mary W. that reads,
Dear Homer,
Hi! Do you remember me? I am Rudolph the Reindeer. I came down to see you on Xmas evening. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. Did you like what you got for your Xmas presents? Don't forget to write me back, OK? Give my letters to Mary W. I am 2 years old in Reindeer life, and 14 years old in human life. Are you human? Or what are you? Love, Rudolph. PS this isn't the way I really write [all caps print] by I want you to read it.
I found my Larry Peterson mystery story. It begins,
"I was walking in a wood, near a riding stable. It was a beautiful day, and would be perfect for horseback riding, but I didn't have any money. I was 16 and didn't have a job and I spent my allowance on a mystery book.
"Just that morning my mother had told me, "Larry Peterson, if you spend one more dollar on a mystery book, I'll swear you'll have 2,000."
I had quickly added, "I spent my allowance on a $3 mystery book today. Now I have 345 and a half."
"A half?"
"Me and JR put our allowances together to buy a mystery book so we each own it until I pay him for the other half."
I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a leopard frog sitting on a slab of limestone. As I watched it I saw something behind it--a garter snake? Yes, it was. He came closer and closer. He was just about to strike it when I heard the loud noise of a horse.
I turned around. There stood a sorrel horse with a white mane, tail, and socks. It was saddled, but no one was in sight. I remembered the frog and turned to see the snake with a big lump in him. "Frog legs, huh?"
The horse nuzzled me. "Where did you come from, boy? The stable? The horse pawed the ground and neighed.
"Well, seeing your rider left you, I'll return you. Come on."
I took the rein and led him in the direction of the stables. As we approached I saw a group of people talking with the owner.
"That's her horse!" said the woman.
"Where's Diana? What did you do with her? Where is she?" the man cried.
"These people say their daughter came here and took this horse to go riding, then she just disappeared."
And so started my mystery.
One of my first poems was named The Poem, perhaps written for school.
I stand here packing up and down
and walking all around
thinking, "What, oh what, should I put down?"
I'm no good at poems,
no ideas have I,
so I pace up and down
with an occasional sigh.
What should I write?
What should I say?
Should I write about a horse
or a girl named Kay?
Or what about a sunset,
a bird or a plane?
How about a teacher
who won a basketball game?
So after about three hours or so
at 10 o'clock and time for bed
it came to me --
just what I read.
Another early poem was written in 1967.
Black is Black.
White is White.
They will always be that way.
For nothing can change them,
They are what they are to stay.
Love is love.
Hate is hate.
It will always be that way.
With one for good, and one for bad,
They are what they are to stay.
I am I.
You are you.
It will always be that way.
I love you; you love me not.
It will always be this way
And I regret that I must say
We are what we are to stay.
I had told Nancy Ensminger when we were nine that I wanted to be an author when I grew up. I had earlier wanted to be an art or music teacher, and for a few days a nun, but in the wisdom of age had decided that authors were the most powerful influences in the world. For they could make one cry or laugh, change their ideas, and reveal new visions.
I drew pictures of Homer and the ghostly gang and wrote stories.
Homer!
First you must know who Homer is. He is a ghost friend of mine. He's about 1,500 years old. Homer has three cousins, Greta, Herman, and Gertrude. His best friend is Irving.
Homer is nice but sometimes troublesome. Like the time he rode my bike without asking me. It was 4:40 pm when he rode it. How would you like to see a bike going by itself! Well, I'll tell you what Mr. White did.
Mr. White was very superstitious and read lots of science fiction books. He was reading Invaders from Pluto in his living room. He read out loud to himself; "Suddenly, the creature disappeared! He turned invisible, said Capt. Monroe." Mr. White looked up and out the window saw a bike going by itself! Of course, it was just Homer.
"Help! Police! Help!" yelled Mr. White. He ran into the next room and dialed the phone. "Police give me the operator! I mean, operator, give me the police!"
"Soon the police where on. "Yes," said Mr Blocker, the Captain.
"There's an invisible bike, er, man, I mean a creature from Pluto riding a bike!" said Mr. White.
"What?" said Capt. Blocker.
"An invisible creature from Pluto on a bike!"
"What? A creature on an invisible bike?"
"No! A thing from Pluto!"
"I can't understand you, calm down! Talk slower!"
"Details! This is of national concern! We've been invaded! I just sighted an alien creature in the street!"
Capt. Blocker made a face of exasperation at the phone, and to humor the man, replied, "I'll send a car over to investigate..."
This story ends there. I also wrote many more stories including A Martian Fairy Tale, "The Three Gooks," Adventures on Atom, To Mars! Sail On!, The Creature from Beyond, The Very Last Goodbye, and Eve of Destruction.
I have a letter written by classmate Mary W. that reads,
Dear Homer,
Hi! Do you remember me? I am Rudolph the Reindeer. I came down to see you on Xmas evening. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. Did you like what you got for your Xmas presents? Don't forget to write me back, OK? Give my letters to Mary W. I am 2 years old in Reindeer life, and 14 years old in human life. Are you human? Or what are you? Love, Rudolph. PS this isn't the way I really write [all caps print] by I want you to read it.
I found my Larry Peterson mystery story. It begins,
"I was walking in a wood, near a riding stable. It was a beautiful day, and would be perfect for horseback riding, but I didn't have any money. I was 16 and didn't have a job and I spent my allowance on a mystery book.
"Just that morning my mother had told me, "Larry Peterson, if you spend one more dollar on a mystery book, I'll swear you'll have 2,000."
I had quickly added, "I spent my allowance on a $3 mystery book today. Now I have 345 and a half."
"A half?"
"Me and JR put our allowances together to buy a mystery book so we each own it until I pay him for the other half."
I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a leopard frog sitting on a slab of limestone. As I watched it I saw something behind it--a garter snake? Yes, it was. He came closer and closer. He was just about to strike it when I heard the loud noise of a horse.
I turned around. There stood a sorrel horse with a white mane, tail, and socks. It was saddled, but no one was in sight. I remembered the frog and turned to see the snake with a big lump in him. "Frog legs, huh?"
The horse nuzzled me. "Where did you come from, boy? The stable? The horse pawed the ground and neighed.
"Well, seeing your rider left you, I'll return you. Come on."
I took the rein and led him in the direction of the stables. As we approached I saw a group of people talking with the owner.
"That's her horse!" said the woman.
"Where's Diana? What did you do with her? Where is she?" the man cried.
"These people say their daughter came here and took this horse to go riding, then she just disappeared."
And so started my mystery.
One of my first poems was named The Poem, perhaps written for school.
I stand here packing up and down
and walking all around
thinking, "What, oh what, should I put down?"
I'm no good at poems,
no ideas have I,
so I pace up and down
with an occasional sigh.
What should I write?
What should I say?
Should I write about a horse
or a girl named Kay?
Or what about a sunset,
a bird or a plane?
How about a teacher
who won a basketball game?
So after about three hours or so
at 10 o'clock and time for bed
it came to me --
just what I read.
Another early poem was written in 1967.
Black is Black.
White is White.
They will always be that way.
For nothing can change them,
They are what they are to stay.
Love is love.
Hate is hate.
It will always be that way.
With one for good, and one for bad,
They are what they are to stay.
I am I.
You are you.
It will always be that way.
I love you; you love me not.
It will always be this way
And I regret that I must say
We are what we are to stay.
I had told Nancy Ensminger when we were nine that I wanted to be an author when I grew up. I had earlier wanted to be an art or music teacher, and for a few days a nun, but in the wisdom of age had decided that authors were the most powerful influences in the world. For they could make one cry or laugh, change their ideas, and reveal new visions.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
A Talk with Philllip Lewis, Author of Debut Novel "The Barrowfields"
I was pleased on January 5, 2017 to talk to Phillip Lewis about his first book The Barrowfields.The Barrowfields propagandist Henry escapes an unhappy home life with a distant, alcoholic father with failed literary aspirations. But Henry discovers that to be free of the past one much confront it.
The book is full of the presence of author and North Carolina native Thomas Wolfe, the father's idol.
Lewis grew up in Northwestern North Carolina, close to Virginia and Tennessee, but only a few hours away from Wolfe's hometown of Asheville. "I've spent a lot of time on Mr. Wolfe's porch, I can tell you," Lewis admitted.
We talked about Wolfe's fall from off the radar; the writer who influenced such diverse writers as Ray Bradbury, Maya Angelou, Pat Conroy, Betty Smith, Philip Roth, John Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson (who lifted 'fear and loathing' from Wolfe) is rarely read today.
"I think Wolfe is difficult for a lot of people to read compared to most commercial fiction these days," Lewis commented, adding "I find that so often, but not always, the books I truly enjoy and want to return to are the more difficult, are challenging books. For example, Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy] is a book that I am proud to have read and finished partly because it was so challenging to me...You really have to concentrate on what he's saying or you can miss so much. But you feel like you've grown somehow by the end of it. It's really and extraordinary book, but it's not an easy book."
I told Lewis that I had read that Wolfe commented that his books all were about the search for the father [http://ow.ly/QB6i307PQ6W] and I saw that theme in The Barrowfields.
Lewis: "That was definitely an important theme for me," he replied. "I had a very complicated relationship with my father, and still do. This was the genesis of much of the material in The Barrowfields. He has suffered from a combination of alcoholism and depression for a number of years. He is also quite a literary fellow himself...I think he is a true writer but his struggles with other things have made it difficult for him to do much with it (other than inspiring his children, perhaps.)"
Nancy: "This explains why Henry the father is such a vividly drawn character."
"So everything in the book comes from a very emotionally honest place, and it was extraordinarily difficult and often painful to write for that reason.
"It's always impossible to know how all of that is going to translate to readers--because I think it is easy to assume that you're reading a book that's just been written for commercial enjoyment. But so far I've seen a few reviews by people who seemed to find aspects of it resonant with their own emotions."
Nancy: "That's when a book really gets to you when the author says things you cannot put into words yourself. I'm pretty blown away right now. The courage, as a writer, to struggle with demons!"
Lewis: "It truly was a very difficult process for me. And of course, it is a very lonely process, too. You spend a hell of a lot of time sitting somewhere trying to write what it is that's inside of you, and all the while not having any idea whether anyone other than you is ever going to read what you've written!"
Nancy: "In your book the son escapes the past but realizes he must return and confront his past. Is that what your book is--confronting the past?"
Lewis: I think that is an accurate description. Henry, our narrator, is in large part coming to terms with all that has transpired. He's somewhat of an expert at repressing past events, I think.
Nancy: "Yes, even abandoning Threnody." [Henry's sister].
Lewis: "Exactly."
Nancy: "I was thinking about Poe being another of the father's favorite [authors]. I just read in Mary Oliver's Upstream her essay on Poe. She says "life grief was his earliest and deepest life experience" and it made me think about Henry's father and what ghosts he was struggling with."
Lewis: "I have the sense that certain people experience anguish and tragedy in a different way than perhaps others do."
Nancy: "I wanted to say that two scenes from The Barrowfields that stay with me are the book burning and Henry and Story and the horses at night."
Lewis: "Thank you. I think those were probably the scenes that took the longest to write, and required the most effort.
"In regard to the horse scene, we had horses growing up and we were fortunate enough to have a good-sized field for the horses to enjoy. And one of my favorite things was when all the horses would take off running through the field and thunder away and then come charging back up the hill. And so I had memories of that, and that is what I drew on to describe that scene."
Nancy: "So, putting a memory into words, getting it just right--it's a lot of pressure."
Lewis: "It really is. And imagine this: my mother had horses from the time she was a child, and still does. I was writing those scenes with the horses knowing that she would be reading it, and knowing that it had to be just exactly right.
"I think authenticity is so incredibly important when you are writing fiction. And above everything else, I wanted The Barrowfields to be authentic. I wanted the characters and the scenes and the events to be authentic and deeply real. The horse scene late in the book, in addition to the horses, was also partly for the purpose of describing that part of the country at night--which I believed was important, or even critical, for that sense of authenticity."
Nancy: "There is a strong sense of place in your book, whether the mansion on the hill, so Gothic and dark, or Henry's university days, where it felt so contemporary and modern."
Lewis: Sense of place has always been important to me as a reader. Have you ever read a book, and in the book is a scene, and you're reading along and you realize that you have no idea where the charterers are, or what it looks like?"
We chatted about books we had read or were planning to read. Lewis' TBR shelf includes The Nix by Nathan Hill, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleeve. Books he recommended to me include The Tinkers by Paul Harding, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and James Salter, "who has his own writing style." He also enjoys J. R. R. Tolkien and fantasy novels.
Lewis is a working dad who spent five years working on The Barrowfields which is coming out in March 2017.
Read more about Lewis at his website http://www.philliplewisauthor.com/
from the publisher:
The Barrowfields is a richly textured, deeply transporting novel that traces the fates and ambitions of a father and son across the decades, centered in the small Appalachian town that simultaneously defines them and drives then both away.
Just before Henry Aster's birth, his father--outsized literary ambition and pregnant wife in tow--reluctantly returns to the remote North Carolina town in which he was raised and installs his young family in an immense house of iron and glass perched high on the side of a mountain. There, Henry and his younger sister grow up in thrall to their fiercely brilliant, obsessive father, who spends his days as a lawyer in town and his nights writing in his library. But when tragedy tips his father toward a fearsome unraveling, Henry's youthful reverence is poisoned and he flees, resolving never to return.
During his time away at college and then law school, Henry meets a young woman whose family past is shrouded in mystery and who helps him grapple with his father's haunting legacy. He begins to realize that, try as he might, he, too, must go home again.
Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, The Barrowfields is a breathtaking novel that explores the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparation power of shared pasts.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
What happened? Life. Marriage, jobs because we needed money, a child.
"If I told you the whole story it would never end...What's happened to me has happened to a thousand woman."--Ferderico Garcia Lorca, Dona Rosita la Soltera: The Language of FlowersThis quote appears at the beginning of The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, along with a quote from Olive Schreiner advising "live for that one thing" which is your aim in life. I recognized the story. I am one of the thousands who did not 'live for one thing.' But I do not regret my decision to put love first.
Joan Ashby, the heroine of Cherise Wolas' novel, was sidetracked away from her 'one thing,' that which she was born to be, which she had single-mindedly worked for and achieved before she allowed her life to be claimed by others and their needs.
This is the story of how Joan allowed love to determine who she was, and how love betrayed her, and the journey that brought her back to herself.
Within pages, I was mesmerized by Wolas' writing. The beginning of the novel recalled to mind an old movie, like Citizen Kane, with clips of news stories giving one an idea of the person they are going to explore. The novel begins with an article in Literature Magazine entitled "(Re)Introducing Joan Ashby" in which we learn that Joan was a prize-winning writer in her early twenties, a genius, but that it has been three decades since she last published. Next, we read several of Ashby's stories and excerpts from an interview with Joan.
"Love was more than simply inconvenient; it's consumptive nature always a threat to serious women." Joan AshbyWhen Joan meets Martin Manning she tells him right away that her writing will always come first and that she has no need to be a mother. Martin is smitten and appears to support her wholeheartedly. But when two months after their marriage Joan finds she is pregnant, Martin tells her, "I've never been so happy."
Martin makes her happy. Does Joan grant him this baby, which obviously will lead to another child? Or should she hold fast to her commitment and dedication to her art, have an abortion, even if it means losing her newly wed husband?
The decisions Joan makes over the next thirty years put her husband and children's needs before her own artistic life. She does love them, but they take everything she has and offer back little.
She feels a kinship with quiet Daniel and his love of books and story telling, but who opts for an unsuitable career. Eric is brilliant, testing the limits, achieving early success which he cannot handle. She is drained by their need, while longing to return to the one thing she wanted and needed above all else: the solitude of the creative life.
After a horrible betrayal, Joan packs up and leaves her life behind to find out who she is and what it is she wants. In India, practicing yoga, Joan contemplates her marriage and her children, and the role of motherhood in all its manifestations, slowly growing into an understanding of how she wants to spend the rest of her life. The 500+ page book, for me, slows in this last third as Joan goes on an internal journey, including sections of the novel she is writing.
Joan's passivity and inability to carve out what she needed is a great part of her failed life. She is not completely a likable character when she accuses her husband of selfishness, for she did not stand up for herself and give him a chance to accommodate her needs. Their lack of communication indicates a flawed marriage. And Joan's need for secrecy about her writing life, novels and stories written in hours when she was alone, ends up harmful.
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby is an outstanding debut. I adored the nontraditional story telling which incorporated Joan's stories. The theme of the female artist's struggle to combine love and work will appeal to many women. I will be thinking about this book for a long time, and expect I will return to read portions as I grapple with my understanding of Joan.
I thank the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
Cherise Wolas
Flatiron Books
Publication August 29, 2017
Hardcover $27.99
ISBN: 9781250081438
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed
If she told her family the truth, death would get on everything.~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah ReedSecrets. Children who don't really know their parents. Parents who don't really know their children. Trauma, consciously forgotten or unspoken, eating their souls.
Ninety-one-year-old Violet Swan's secret was not just the cancer killing her; guilt had dogged her life since a girl. A fire had killed her beloved father and sister. Evil men took advantage of the unprotected child. She escaped, a teenage vagabond crossing the country to the West Coast, pursuing a fragile dream of finding her place in the world.
Violet became famous for her abstract paintings. She lived in her art studio tower, her loving husband Richard protecting her solitude and running her business.
Their son Frank (Francisco, named for Francisco Goya) grew up imprisoned in himself, his silence smothering his marriage, his dutiful wife growing increasingly resentful. Their son Daniel had loved his Grand, Violet, but also felt his father's distance and had stayed away from home for years, living in LA as a filmmaker.
An earthquake begins the story, a premonition of the changes that will shake their relationships nearly to the breaking point. Daniel returns home bearing a secret. Violet finally agrees to allow her grandson to make a film interview; she will spill her secrets at last.
Deborah Reed saturates Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan with visual details, seen through an artist's eye. Music and literature enrich Violet's life.
Violet's story is unravelled throughout the novel, lending an urgency to keep reading, like a mystery novel; we want to understand the intricacies of life experiences that have brought this family to crisis.
I will warn that Violet's life includes trigger events. Violet is a survivor, a resilient woman. She finds salvation in the beauty of this world and in her art that endeavors to capture it.
Frank is mired in anger, addicted to television news. "How on earth was a person supposed to live a normal life?" he wonders, in despair.
Into their lives comes a small child and she changes everything and everyone.
An ordinary happiness runs through me...This is everything beautiful, this is love. Are you listening? Do you hear?~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed
I was very taken by this novel that glows under Reed's capable hands and beautiful writing.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
from the publisher:
The story of a famous abstract painter at the end of her life—her family, her art, and the long-buried secrets that won’t stay hidden for much longer.
Ninety-three-year-old Violet Swan has spent a lifetime translating tragedy and hardship into art, becoming famous for her abstract paintings, which evoke tranquility, innocence, and joy. For nearly a century Violet has lived a peaceful, private life of painting on the coast of Oregon. The “business of Violet” is run by her only child, Francisco, and his wife, Penny. But shortly before Violet's death, an earthquake sets a series of events in motion, and her deeply hidden past begins to resurface. When her beloved grandson returns home with a family secret in tow, Violet is forced to come to terms with the life she left behind so long ago—a life her family knows nothing about.
A generational saga set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America and into the present day, Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan is the story of a girl who escaped rural Georgia at fourteen during World War II, crossing the country alone and broke. It is the story of how that girl met the man who would become her devoted husband, how she became a celebrated artist, and above all, how her life, inspired by nothing more than the way she imagined it to be, would turn out to be her greatest masterpiece.
Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan: A Novel of a Life in Art
By Deborah Reed
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication October 6, 2020
ISBN: 9780544817364
paperback and audiobook $15.99 (USD); $9.99 ebook
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Vintage Sheet Music: Novelty, Nonsence, and Humor
A hundred years ago people loved a silly song, a song that made one laugh. Today I am sharing a selection novelty, nonsense, and humor sheet music.
No, No, Positively No by Chris Smith and Harry Brown was a 'great hit' in 1907, here performed by Thomas H. Cullen. Hear a 1927 recording here. 'Just say no' is good advice.
If there's such things as Jonahs, I must be one for fair
When good luck had been issued I guess I was nowhere there,
I went to see a hoodoo man to have my fortune told,
He said, "no give me ten bills, and you'll find a pot of gold."
But I said, "no, no, no, oh, no positively no!
When I say no, no, no, oh, no,
then I mean that word to go
I use some judgment now and then,
I'd be a fool to give you ten,
So no, no, no, oh, no, emphatically no."
How well I can remember when I was but a child,
My mammy had some beehives in the back yard quite a while,
So brother Jim took me with him, one day to steal some hon',
Said sure, I like you, Jim, but I can't agree to let bees make pincushions out of me, (chorus)
Once Barnum Baily circus had come to town one day
A lion and a tiger got a fighting during the play,
Said I, "don't let them fight no more, you folks know right from wrong,
Then one said, "you go separate them, you look big and strong." (chorus)
Some friends of mine had asked me to go with them to dine
A swell cafe we strolled in, I thought I'd have a scandalous time,
We'd all been drinking gin and beer and were full of fun and glee,
And when the waiter showered the check they all looked right at me (chorus)
***
Humor a hundred years ago was far from 'politically correct;' targets included women and immigrants and African Americans.
The Preacher and the Bear by Joe Arizona published 1904 manages to be offensive to clergy and African Americans at once. Or at least African American clergy. And yet it was recorded over and over again, including by Andy Griffith and The New Christy Minstrels. Alan Lomax collected it in Kentucky. Listen to a 1908 Victor recording here.
‘Twas on one Sunday morn.
It was against his religion,
But he took his gun along.
He shot himself some very fine quail,
And one little measly hare,
And on his way returning home,
He met a grizzly bear.
The bear marched out in the middle of the road,
And he waltzed for the coon to see.
The coon got so excited that he climbed a ‘simmon tree.
The bear set down upon the ground,
And the coon climbed out on a limb.
He cast his eyes to the God in the skies,
And this is what he said to him:
Chorus: “Oh, Lordy, you delivered Daniel from the lion’s den.
Also delivered Jonah from the belly of the whale and then
Three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace,
The good books do declare.
Now, Lord, Lordy, Lord, if you can’t help me,
For sakes, don’t help that bear.”
This coon stayed up in that there tree,
And I think it was all night.
He says, “Oh, Lord, if you don’t help the bear,
You’re gonna see an awful fight.”
Just about that time the limb let go,
And the coon came tumbling down.
You should have seen him get his razor
Before he hit the ground.
He hit the ground a-cutting right and left,
And he put up a very game fight.
Just then that bear, he hugged this coon,
And he squeezed him a little too tight.
The coon, he lost his razor,
But the bear held out with a vim.
He cast his eyes to the God in the skies,
And this is what he said to him: (Chorus)
***
Dance crazes have been around for a long time, and the Shimmie was one of the early ones.Everybody Shimmies Now by Joe Gold and Edmund J. Porray with lyrics by Eugene West was introduced by Sophie Ticker and her 5 Kings of Syncopation in 1918. Hear the All Star Trio Victor recording here. This Tin Pan Alley song made Mae West famous and the sheet music was also published with Mae on the cover.
Sweet tootie, let us do it now
That nervous sort of movement like Saint Vitus dance,
Sweet Mama won't you show me how
That dance that I love best,
The dance the folks are doing with their chests.
'Cause everybody shimmies now
Everybody's learning how
Brother Bill, Sister Kate, Shive like jelly on a plate,
Shimmie dancing can't be beat.
Moves everything except your feet.
Feeble folks mighty old shake the shimmie and they shake it bold
Oh! Honey won't you show me how
'Cause everybody shimmies now.
Honey baby, can't you hear the jass [sic] band play,
Oh, dearie, I just can't keep still
That syncopated music make me feel so gay,
I just must sway against my will
Now babe, don't be afraid
Come on and to the dance that's up to date.
'Cause everybody shimmies now (chorus)
***
The Shimmie was scandalous and sexy. Ragtime was obviously the work of nefarious creatures.The Ragtime Goblin Man by Andrew B. Sterling and Harry von Tilzer from 1911 was a virtual warning. Ragtime was out to take prisoners and there was no escape. Hear a Victor recording here.
I know he followed me, he'll catch me sure,
And then there'll be a ragtime swoon,
He's beside me, hide me, hide me,
I can' feel his breath, Oh I'm scared to death,
He will take me, shake me, make me join his raggedy band.
That goblin man, that goblin man.
Look out for the goblin man, that ragtime goblin man,
Look out for the book in his hand, that great big book in his hand,
There he is, there he is, he is there,
see his eyes, see his eyes, see his eyes glare,
Mister bugaboo, if he catches you, he'll beat you, then he'll eat you,
Run, run, just as fast as you can from the ragtime goblin man.
Hide, hide, or he'll give you a ride, just hear him shout
Look out, look out, for the rag, rag, rag, ragtime goblin man.
That ragtime goblin man was mild, what was it drove him wild?
A ragtime tune, on dark nights just look out
He'll catch you if you sing about a ragtime moon,
If he grabs you, grabs you, jabs you, you won't get away
Cause you'll have to stay, then he'll bring you, sting you, fling you
To his raggedy band, see, he, want to get me, that goblin man. (chorus)
***
Maggie!"Yes Ma'am" Come Right Up Stairs by Leslie Moore and Johnny Tucker dates to 1922 and was performed by Smith and Stritt in Vaudeville. Hear a 78 recording here.
There's a family right next door
Wakes us up at three or four
When the daughter comes home with her beau
First they stand outside and chin
After they tiptoe in and begin their spooning down below
Then when all is quiet in the hall, downstairs you hear her mother call
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Who's with you there?
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Stop that affair!
Why does it take you so long to say goodnight?
You know I've told you always, it's not safe to stand in hallways.
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Give him his hat.
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Just leave him flat
I forgot what mother taught me, that is how your father caught me.
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Come right upstairs
Maggie doesn't care a bit what the neighbors think of it.
She declares that lovin' is no crime
Even tho' her sweetheart Dan was always a union man
Maggie has him working overtime
Now and then they lean against a bell
Then the whole darn house begins to yell
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Who's with you there?
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Stop that affair!
You'll wake the neighbors the way you carry on.
I'm gonna get a copper to chase that young finale-hopper.
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Give him his hat.
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Just leave him flat.
Give his face a darn good smacking if he starts to be wisecracking
Maggie! (Yes, Ma'am?) Come right upstairs.
***
One of Tin Pan Alley's greatest hits was the 1920 Oh By Jingo! was written by Lew Brown and Albert Von Tilzer. Listen to recordings here.
It appeared in Linger Longer Letty, sung by Charlotte Greenwood who created Letty as her alter ego. The song has been recorded by many artists over the years. Hugh Laurie sang it as Bertie Wooster in the Jeeves and Wooster television series.
The story is set in San Domingo and the lyrics note the lovers "both were collared" and that "the gang" insisted the fleeing lovers take one of them along.
In the land of San Domingo,
Lived a girl called Oh! by Jingo,
Ja da Ja da da da da da, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a,
From the fields and from the marshes,
Came the old and young by Goshes,
Ja da Ja da da da da da da, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a,
They all spoke with a diff’rent lingo,
But they all loved Oh by Jingo,
And ev’ry night they sang in the pale moonlight.
Oh! by Gee! by Gosh, by Gum, by Jove
Oh by Jingo, won’t you hear our love
We will build for you a hut
You will be our fav’rite nut
We’ll have a lot of little Oh by Gollies,
Then we’ll put them in the Follies
By Jingo said, By Gosh, By Gee
By Jiminy please don’t bother me
So they all went away singing
Oh by Gee, by Gosh by Gum, by Jove by Jingo,
by Gee, you’re the only girl for me.
Oh by Jingo had a lover,
He was always undercover,
Ta da da da da da da da, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a,
Ev’ry night she used to meet him,
Oh how nice she used to treat him,
Ta da da da da da da da, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a, ump-a,
They eloped but they both were collared,
And the gang stood there and hollered,
Don’t raise a fuss, you’ve got to take one of us.
Chorus
Oh! by Gee! by Gosh, by Gum, by Jove
Oh by Jingo, won't you hear our love
We will live out in a tent
Cheat the landlord of his rent
We'll have a lot of little Jiminy Crickets,
We can use them for meal tickets
By Jingo said, Now boys don't rave
I have put four husbands in the grave
So they all went away singing
Oh by Gee, by Gosh by Gum, by Jove, by Jingo,
By Gee, you're the only girl for me.
Home they went with spirits wilted
On account of they were jilted
(All the By-Goshes, with hearts down to their galoshes!)
All winter long they brooded—that is, all but very few did
(They left to join a fan club for Lana Toyn-a.)
The rest wrote to Beatrice Fairfax
Got the how-to-make-him-care facts
So came the spring
They sailed once more to sing:
Oh by Gee, by Gosh, by Gum, by Jove
Oh by Jiminy you're the one we love
We will build for you a hut
You will be our favorite nut
Then we'll have a bunch of Oh-By-Gollies
And we'll put them all in the Follies
(Oh) By Gee, by Gosh, by . . . [improv segment]
By Jiminy you're the one for me!
***
Good-night, Nurse is a Comic Song by Thomas J. Gray and W. Raymond Walker, 1922. Hear a Victor recording here.
Was taken to a hospital,
And there he met a swell Nurse Gal
And right away our Sam got gay
He soon forgot about his ills
Made love when she brought him pills,
Ev'ry night when she would go off duty
Sam would hollar out, "Come here, my Cutey,"
Good-night nurse! Tell the doctor I'm no better;
Good-night nurse! write my folks a letter
Say I need a rest and you fear I had better stay here a year,
Feel my pulse, hold my head a little longer,
How's my heart? Don't you think it's getting stronger?
Call me in the morning or I'll get worse!
Kiss your little patient, Good-night Nurse!
This tale they tell, How Sam got well
The day he left his cozy bed he met his old girl and was wen,
But married life, Sam and his wife,
Soon agreed to disagree,
When he said "That nurse for me!"
Pots and pans his wife then started throwing
Sam'd back in the hospital a crowing (chorus)
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