Sunday, October 11, 2015

The Rilke of Ruth Speirs: New Poems, Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus & Others

I fell in love with the poetry of Ranier Maria Rilke nearly forty years ago. We were living in Philadelphia and going camping in Maine. I brought along the Duino Elegies. I read the poems while sitting on Otter Cliffs in Acadia National Park, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the trawlers checking their lobster traps. The endless sea, the summer sun and unclouded sky, the fresh salt breeze, the rugged cliffs, and the raucous cries of the gulls were the backdrop.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the order 
of angels? and even if one of them took me
suddenly to his heart: I should fade in his stronger 
existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning
of terror which we can scarcely bear,
and we marvel at it because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.
The First Elegy, translated by Ruth Spiers


To this day, the remembrance of reading those opening lines in a place of such rare beauty sends a shudder down my spine.

I was thrilled to receive The Rilke of Ruth Speirs through NetGalley. Speir's translations of the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was considered "lucid and pure as water" by Lawrence Durrell in his 1943 review of her Selected Poems.

After his death, Rilke's German publisher authorized one translator, J. B. Leishman, limiting rival translators from publishing in book form. Now the translations by Speirs (1916-2000) have been collected  into one volume, edited by John Piling and Peter Robinson.

The introduction of this book explains quite nicely how Speir's translation compares to the original, and to other's translations. It makes an impression.

The poems are a delight to read, clear, sharp, and accessible. The forward notes that Speirs aimed at exactness and to make the poems 'a little less forbidding'. She wanted to make Rilke's poetry sound as if written in English.

My book was published in 1978 by Norton and translated by David Young.

Here are the last lines of the Eighth Elegy translated by Young:

Who has turned us around this way
         so that we're always
                       whatever we do
in the posture of someone
          who is leaving? 
                       Like a man
on the final hill
           that shows him
                       his whole valley
one last time
         who turns and stands there
                    lingering--
that's how we live
           always
                  saying goodbye.

And Speirs:

Who had thus turned us around that we,
whatever we may do, are in the attitude
of one who goes away? As he,
on the last hill which once more shows him
all his valley, turns and stops and lingers--
we live, for ever taking leave.

For someone like myself who flunked out of high school German it is wonderful to have another translation available, another avenue that just might bring me closer to Rilke's original voice.

from the publisher's website:

Here for the first time are all the surviving translations of his poetry made by Ruth Speirs, a Latvian exile who joined the British literary community in Cairo during WWII. Though described as 'excellent' and 'the best' by J. M. Cohen on the basis of magazine and anthology appearances, copyright restrictions meant that during her lifetime, with the exceptions of a Cairo-published Selected Poems (1942), Speirs was never to see her work gathered between covers in print.

Her much-revised and considered versions are a key document in the history of Rilke's Anglophone dissemination Rhythmically alive and carefully faithful, they give a uniquely mid-century English accent to the poet's extraordinary German, and continue to bear comparison with current efforts to render his tenderly taxing voice.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Rilke of Ruth Speirs
John Piling, Peter Robinson
Inpress Books, Two Rivers Press
Publication October 5, 2015
ISBN:9781909747128

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The 2015 Annual Quilt Walk in West Branch, MI: Art Quilts and Old Quilts

I returned to my brother's cabin outside of West Branch, MI so I could participate in the 31st annual Quilt Walk which raises money for Hospice of Helping Hands. The quilts are displayed throughout the downtown area and includes locally made, antique, traditional, and art quilts.

I enjoyed seeing quilts by Jan-Berg Rezmer last year. This year I got to meet her! Her quilt Blue Season was in the American Quilt Society show in Grand Rapids this past August.

Jan-Berg Rezmer with Blue Season
  

Jan told me she was a painter before she started quiltmaking. Her quilts include abstract as well as representation art.

 This quilt was very cool!

 Her felted wool quilt won recognition at this year's American Quilt Society show in Syracuse!



Jan belongs to a local quilt guild. She made this lovely Sunflower quilt as their raffle quilt.

 The simple pieced background sets off the golden flowers nicely.
Antique and vintage quilts were displayed in several areas. 


The West Branch Historical Society had several interesting quilts. The top of the  quilt below was found in the basement of the Rose City, MI Methodist Episcopal church in 1991 and finished.

The Historical Society is in an old house that is nicely being restored.



 There were several crazy quilts.
 And a functional quilt made of wool.

The building has a nice wide porch with a rocker and a quilt. I would like to spend my evenings there!

I got to bring home my own old quilt! I found it at a thrift store for $10.00!

The top is in acceptable shape with a few tears, wear along several edges, and shifting cotton batting. But overall the fabrics are in good shape. I am guessing it was a kit quilt since it is not scrappy but uses a limited number of fabrics. The yellow calico seems transitional since the other fabrics have definite Depression era colors and prints.

There is a large sale of books, magazines, patterns, fabrics and other paraphernalia--all donation and all for Hospice. I brought home some old magazines and books myself.


Thursday, October 8, 2015

Grandfather's Memories of Boyish Play, Pranks, and Paddles

My grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote articles for his hometown newspaper, the Lewistown Sentinel of Lewistown, Mifflin Co., PA. In one article he recalled that from 1900 to 1920 the Brock family boys of Milroy, PA were loaded with play things:
circa 1911: Gramps at play, about 8 years old, with cousins. He is pretty well dressed in a 'middy' sailor inspired suit.
 A year later he was an orphan dependent on aunts for his care.
Play Things around 1910

"First they had a home-made merry-go-round with a grand organ that produced music. It was all hand operated, much to the delight of the teens and preteens who flocked, some invited and some not, to come and enjoy the fun.

"The play room—we’d call it the recreation room nowadays—was the storage room off the kitchen. There among the pies and cookies cooked for the family use, but shared with the youngsters who came calling between meals, were the home-made playthings.

"There were hand-carved spreading fans inside of Mason jars, continuous chain links carved from one billet of wood*. There were two spinning cylinder wire cages housing chipmunks who chattered gaily all day long.

"Besides these and dozens of other games to play there were stacks of comic strips from the Williamsport Gazette and the Philadelphia North American. These consisted of the adventures of the Katzenjammer Kids, Jiggs and Maggie, Enoch Periwinkle Pickleweight, John Dubbalong and the like.

"On a rainy day there would be no less than 10 or 12 little boys deeply at their work-play reading the old “continued funnies,” grinding the hurdy-gurdy carousel and intently watching the chippies race around the insides of their wire cylinders.

"There were stacks of paperbacks of adventure characters, such as the Liberty Boys of ’76, Jesse James, Fred Fearnot, A No. 1 and every known Horatio Alger tale, Andy Grant’s Pluck, From Rags to Riches.

“And so it went for many happy hours or boyhood daze. So once more, it’s thanks to Robert, Albert and Luther Brock, not forgetting their doting mother and a kind father [James S. and Minnie Melissa Maben Brock] who realized how to keep kids happy and busy, making and using their playthings.

"The lessons learned well by the youngsters of that time. Long since grown to manhood and womanhood, is this:

“It isn't necessary to buy one’s children expensive and attractive mechanical toys, but something requiring participation. And never forget children are fondest of things they improvise themselves---cooking pans and saucers, empty thread spools, old tin cans, a handful of bright, shiny horse chestnuts.”

The Brock family included parents James S. and Minnie Melissa Maben Brock and sons Oscar Ream (b. 1890), Luther J. (b. 1902), Albert (b. 1894) and Robert (b. 1903).  Dad was a carpenter, which explained the wonderful contraptions the kids had.

Pranks around 1910

As to trouble, boys a hundred years ago had all kinds of options. Gramps wrote,

"This little story verifies the truism that “there is no perfect crime.” Somehow or in some way the wrongdoer always leaves tell-tale evidence at the scene, which betrays him. The tell-tale evidence on the occasion given herewith was a certain color. A maroon color. Not too bright. Not too brilliant, but still a dead giveaway for the wearer of it.

"The incident itself happened not a few years ago, but there are many who will still remember it when we recall it to their attention. We recite it here especially for today’s dads who are wont to claim, “Now when I was a boy, we didn't do things like you kids today!”

“We were all old enough to know better, but just old enough to think we knew best. The scheme arose from nowhere and ended in nothing—luckily—when a small band of Reedsville lads idly watched a fall threshing from Cow Field Hill.

“As the wind blew the chaff, and some grain, farther and farther from the barn, the hungry chickens kept advancing under cover of the barrage, to gobble up the banquet. Well, the poultry advance edged nearer and nearer. An idea began to form in the minds of the boys---fresh stewed chicken, mingled with tender, unripe field corn from some farmer’s fields.

“One quick grab and we had a plump, squawking Rhode Island Red rooster. His neck was quickly twisted to stop his racket. Up Cow Field Hill we scrambled fast, but not fast enough to escape the ire of the farmer whose rooster we were snatching.

“Unbeknownst to us, the farmer had obviously been watching us—and the rooster. He had taken time to arm himself with a shotgun. When we were slowed down by a barbed wire fence, the pellets began to rain mightily close, it seemed. So it was that wisdom outscored valor and we left the rooster and fled to the near-by woods, finally returning to town by a detour, around the upper end of the mill dam at Tea Creek.**

“The irate farmer guessed our devious route and he met us head on, on Main Street, and easily he spotted the maroon sweater that one of the boys was wearing. It was a case of his being known by the color—and the companions—he kept.

“It seemed the farmer had failed to see us* close enough to identify any of the boys, but he did manage to catch a good view of the maroon-colored sweater. Which proved our downfall—the one clue that showed this was no perfect crime.

“The chicken costs only one dollar. But the lesson could have been more painful if the shoguns pellets had landed you know where.

“One of that group, but this time a highly-respected Reedsville citizen, carried this experience to the grave recently. But there are others in the village who will recall it. Simple moral seems to be avoid wearing colored sweaters on escapades. But here’s a better moral: Stealing is breaking one of the divine commands—so refrain from it always.”
Maroon boy's sweater circa 1900
* Here, using the word 'us', Gramps betrayed that he was one of the culprits!
**The dam was built in 1870 by the Reedsville Milling Company. It was 14" ft high and 47 ft. long, creating a duck pond.
****
As a teacher Gramps found students could be troublesome. Actually he WAS one of those troublesome students. Later he got back what he had given. Gramps recalled,
Hartwick Seminary
"At old Hartwick Seminary in Otsego County, New York—near Cooperstown—where I taught from 1926 to 1930—about mid-June the student sneaked squibs into their rooms. Then at night they lit these firecrackers and tossed them out the window. Imagine how it startled the faculty, including me.

"There was a fire law against such things, so I watched windows one night. I caught a Philadelphia dentist’s two sons in the act. As soon as I saw one of them light a squib I yelled, “Hold it!” He did just that. It exploded in his hand. It wasn't hard to find who it was next day, for he had his hand bandaged.

"That wasn't the end of the incident. In the wee, small hours of a later night, I was suddenly aroused by a six-inch squib exploding on my chest!

"Nasal reactions to the “sulfur and brimstone” lent the impression I wasn't on earth. Needless to say we could never prove who did it. It’s very likely that he too is a Philadelphia dentist, or doctor, by now.

"The student had climbed on a ledge outside my dormitory window and tossed in the fire cracker. Before I could gather my wits, he had climbed away.

"But school boy sport was going over on long before old Hartwick days. In 1917 at Milroy High School [in Milroy, Mifflin Co., PA] some energetic boys would apply snowballs to the thermometer and Prof. Stanley Morgan would excuse the school when he read the mercury read 29 degrees at the time we called his attention to it.

"You can image the prof’s chagrin when the temperature leaped back to the 70s after everybody was on the way home. But I can’t recall we ever played with matches or explosives of any sort in MHS.

"Now to update this matter: Last Thursday at Lawrence Institute of Technology [in Southfield, MI] in a calculus class, I began to make an erasure. Suddenly the eraser exploded into a thousand Roman candles in my hand! Some energetic student had fitted a row of match heads in the felt. Friction did the usual.

"Only a few hours before that one of our college chemistry profs had a piece of chalk light up when he wrote H2O on the board. It was a match head (old fashioned kitchen kind) which had been fitted into a hole in the chalk end.

"That was quite a surprise for him and so was mine. Needless to say a good laugh was had by all and sundry, including me. But had the burning felt fallen behind my specs I likely would not be seeing so clearly—as in a mirror.

"When I was a kid we boys used to ‘find’ chickens and sweet corn for our dough bakes, but we never demolished rural mailboxes on KV’s [Kishacoquillas Valley, Mifflin Co, PA]back mountain road or stole $100 from an 80 year-old-widows.

"The State superintendent of schools in New York remarked (and that was back in 1950): “They are not bad boys and they aren't good boys either. They are just busy!” To which I add: Ain't we all! Except the ‘busy-ness” is getting to acquire some funny new formats.

*****
In another article on 'pranks, Gramps wrote about punishments no longer in use.

"The old school teacher listened patiently while the ancient mill worker related the tales of pranks that misfired in the industrial world. Then he spoke up: “And that reminds me of the pranks which boys in schools and colleges used to do and in which the present generation still indulge. Some of these happened in Mifflin County, others elsewhere that I taught.”

"In Burnham high school, the first principal to serve there punished six boys alike, whipping them for pulling one girl’s pigtails. One boy was very angry and remained so for over 50 years, because he was innocent. He was just “doodling along behind, minding my own business,” he said. In fact, he died holding the grudge. And the principal died too, never knowing one boy was still angry at him. Moral: Don’t walk behind naughty boys, said the narrator of this tale.

"This happened in the fifth grade of the Armagh Township school. A certain boy provoked the anger of the teacher, who instead of waiting to apply her oak paddle at the right spot and at closer quarters, let it fly at his head as he sat in his seat. He ducked. His companion who shared the desk in common with the other boy got whanged with the missile. Said his sympathetic grandma: “You shouldn't set with him anyways.” Moral: Be careful whom the teacher assigns you to sit with.

"In another fifth grade the text asked: “What amount of dirt is in an excavation 100’ x 100' x 50’?” One boy wrote on his slate, “None.” Said the teacher: “You’re the only one who got the wrong answer.” He replied, “I’m the only one who got the right answer. There is no dirt in an excavation.” "The book answer says 500,000 cubic feet, which proves you’re wrong,”declared the teacher. She sent him home until he could learn the correct answer. He must have never learned it, for he never came back.

"It was the custom among the older students to check their traps both before and after school. One found a skunk in his trap. Contents of the animal’s cologne sac were placed in a standard empty perfume bottle. This he proudly displayed to all the girls and then visibly hid it in his school desk. At recess he left it unguarded. Three maids who lingered shared the contents on the front of their waists. School was let out, not just for a day, but till the stench was eradicated. The lad was beat up by the girl’s males relatives—brothers, fathers, uncles. Also by his own mother, the teacher, and the principal, all using their paddles. He never forgot it. He learned his lesson. But then the girls never forgot it either.

"But paddles weren't the only weapons used on boyish pranksters. Some boys had told teacher a fib. Said she, “If you lie to me just once more, I’ll put red pepper on your tongues.” It’s human to err. Came the time to administer the punishment. There was a lot of scrambling and bawling. But that all ended abruptly, for the hot stuff turned out to be merely ground cinnamon. Proving that imagination is stronger than realization. But the kids didn't forget. Teacher got straight answers after that.

"The exam question was, “What is 6 feet wide and 1 feet deep?” One boy wrote on his slate, “It's an outhouse.” Teacher sent him home, “until you learn to be respectful.” Days later she readmitted him. Came another exam. Same question. Seeing the lad reach for his hat and jacket, she said “Where are you going?” “Home,” he replied, “I still believe it was an outhouse.” He never returned to school.

Read more Grandfather stories:


Sunday, October 4, 2015

The Compulsive Storyteller: Wilkie Collins

The high Victorian age saw the rise of the novel as we know it. Taxes on paper had been abolished and advances in printing technology led to an increase in book production. Circulating libraries and monthly magazines offered affordable access to literature to the masses. "Shilling Shockers" were hawked for reading on the trains. Millions of working men and women were buying up cheap penny journals.

The new class of readers wanted a new kind of novel. Sensationalism, sentimentality, and melodrama were in demand, and stories about crime and murder. They wanted Genre fiction that took readers on a wild ride, with great plots to keep things moving along.


And Wilkie Collins was a genius at just this kind of novel.

Peter Ackroyd's short biography Wilkie Collins, A Brief Life succinctly covers the life and art of the author of The Women in White and The Moonstone

With a "painter's eye" and brilliant plotting he became the fourth greatest writer of his generation. He wrote the first English detective story and created the first female detective. A social liberal who disdained Victorian values, he tackled controversial issues, writing about the underclass, vivisection, illegitimacy, and 'fallen women'. His female characters were strong and self sufficient, the opposite of the idealized Victorian female.

He suffered from bad health and was in pain most of his life. He used laudanum in ever increasing doses, grateful for the relief it brought. Later he added calomel and colchicum and inhaled amyl nitrite. Wilkie Collins used a cane in his thirties and by his sixties his health was so deteriorated people thought he looked twenty years older. And yet when working on a book he kept up a diligent pace, even dictating from his sick bed.

Collins determined not to marry, but had a long term mistress Caroline Graves (who already had a child) and later a second mistress who bore him children. The two women never met although their children sometimes mingled at his home.
Caroline Graves, from The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins by William Clarke
At university I had a Victorian Studies course in which we read the important books published in 1859. That was the year in which Charles Dickens, in his magazine All the Year Round, published his serialized A Tale of Two Cities. The November issue saw the conclusion of Two Cities and the first installment of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. (This was also the year Origin of Species was published!)

I later read The Moonstone. I also read a lot about Charles Dickens and learned about his collaboration with Wilkie Collins to write The Frozen Deep, inspired by the lost Franklin expedition which never returned from the frozen north. Franklin's widow didn't give up hope and sent an expedition to find her husband. Collins and Dickens were great friends and collaborated in other plays as well, even acting.

But I knew nothing of the man Collins. And what an odd man he was! He was completely unconventional. He wore flashy clothes, was oddly proportioned, and loved French cooking. Medical science could only offer him remedies that today we shudder to consider, and likely ruined his health even more.

I am left wanting to explore his life in greater depth, to know him more vividly. I also an curious to re-read again Women in White, which spawned quite a fan club, and books I have not read especially Heart and Science which Ackroyd contends is one of Collin's "most unjustly neglected novels" with more characterization.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for the free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Wilkie Collins, A Brief Life
by Peter Ackroyd
Doubleday Books
$12.99 ebook
Publication date: October 6, 2015
ISBN: 9780385537407

Friday, October 2, 2015

The First King of Hollywood: Douglas Fairbanks

He was a teenager when he left home to act in a traveling troupe and hit Broadway before he was 20. He shot to fame in film, reigned at the box office for fifteen years, and retired at age 51.

He was not a particularly handsome, but had a winning smile and a charismatic personality. In his closet were up to 70 suits and 35 overcoats, 50 pair of shoes and 300 neckties.

He signed a vow to not drink as a boy and kept it until the last ten years of his life. He avoided overt sexuality yet loved nude sunbathing in privacy.

He did his own amazing stunts, and even when a stunt man was requested by the producer (who knew that an accident would delay the filming), he would demonstrate the stunt to the stand-in.

He was the inspiration behind Batman and Superman.


He mythologized his own life with idealized, made up stories of his family and childhood. He downplayed his achievements, even listing his name last in the credits.

He supported charitable causes. President Wilson nixed his volunteering for service in WWI, saying he was more valuable on tour promoting Liberty Bonds.

He married the love of his life, and lost her, and neither ever really recovered.


Tracey Goessel's new biography The First King of Hollywood  contends that Douglas Fairbanks is relatively unknown today. His film career shot to the top and held its own for about 15 years. Then "talkies" changed everything and Fairbanks lost his heart for making movies. At 51 he was a "has-been". He wanted to enjoy life. Always on the move, he decided to travel around the world.

His second wife--and love of his life--Mary Pickford was a workaholic who didn't enjoy traveling. She wanted to continue her career as a talking actress. She was also a closet alcoholic.

Mary and Doug were the first Hollywood power couple, creating crowds and turmoil everywhere they went. She was "America's Sweetheart". Doug was not threatened by her success, but gloried in it.
Mary and Doug on Honeymoon
Fairbanks was complicated and interesting. He was a decent man. Yet his impetuous and impatient nature could cause difficulties and even harm to others. He befriended the common man and hobnobbed with royalty. Charlie Chaplin said Fairbanks was his only friend. Fairbanks was able to persuade his first wife to plead his case to his second wife Mary Pickford. And after ignoring his only child Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as he grew up, he forged a decent relationship with him in later years.

I was heartbroken over how Mary and Douglas lost each other. Differences in goals and temperament, coupled with jealousy, came between them. What if marriage counseling had been around, would they have understood before it was too late that they still loved each other? When Mary at the last minute offered to drop her divorce suit Doug was already on his way to marry another woman and Mary was waiting for her lover's divorce to finalize.

Neither found true happiness. Doug died ten years later of a heart attack, and Mary's drinking became toxic. She died in 1979, lonely and forgotten.

Mary and Doug in happier times
I so enjoyed reading this book. I already watched one Fairbanks movie online and plan to see more.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks
by Tracey Goessel
Chicago Review Press
Publication October 1, 2015
ISBN: 9781613734049
****
At an antique mall many years ago I found a piece of silky fabric with a photograph of Mary Pickford. Using heirloom laces and pins, and vintage handkerchiefs and buttons, I made my first 'crazy quilt' collage wall hanging. It remains one of my favorite quilts.

made by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail of Mary Pickford quilt by Nancy A. Bekofse

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Thirteen Days in 1962: A Place We Knew Well by Susan Carol McCarthy


I am excited to be a part of my first Blog Tour! The publisher is hosting a Rafflecopter book giveaway. You can enter to receive one of five books here. 

I wanted to read A Place We Knew Well because it was a family drama set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was just ten years old in 1962 and had little understanding of world politics. I only knew that the adults in my life were fixated on the small black and white television screen and I knew they were frightened and worried. So I was worried. It was years later that I associated those days of fear with the Crisis.

Author Susan Carol McCarthy had her own memories of those thirteen days which inspired her to write this book. In her own words,
Where do books come from? I can’t speak for anyone else but, I know for sure, each of my three books grew out of very specific, very personal life events.
Inspiration for my first book, Lay That Trumpet In My Hands, arrived in a manila envelope containing clippings from The Orlando Sentinel, about a series of shocking race crimes that occurred in my central Florida hometown the year I was born, and an 8-page letter from my father saying, “Everyone in town knew the local KKK was involved, but no one was willing to do anything about it. I want you to hear, from the horse’s mouth, what I did and why.”
My second book, True Fires, grew out of the first, when I discovered, with my father’s help, the one time that the powerful racist sheriff in the county north of ours, a minor character in Trumpet, was forced, by strong women in his community, to do the right thing. It may have been the only time during his 28-year reign that the love of power capitulated to the power of love. I was genuinely inspired and privileged to tell that story. 
My third and newest book, A Place We Knew Well, was, in all seriousness, a nightmare—a recurring nightmare which I began to have soon after the events of September 11, 2001. In that dream, I was desperately afraid and powerless because the end of the world was at hand; but oddly, I was back in Florida with my parents and only ten/eleven years old. It took me awhile to realize that my subconscious had somehow melded my childhood memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis with the attack on the Twin Towers. Nearly four decades apart, my response to 9/11—shock and outrage, anxiety and fear—sent me back to a place that I, and anyone who was in Florida in late October 1962, knew all too well.
So many books have been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis from the political, military, and historians’ perspective. My inspiration was to capture what it was like to be an ordinary family trapped in the swath of that extraordinary, uniquely terrifying time. This book began as a way of setting down my own vivid childhood memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it would never have been finished without the generosity of so many others, whose shared recollections helped me grasp the larger, communal story. I’m truly grateful to them for their insights; and to you, kind reader, for your interest in this seminal time.  


The novel starts in 2009 with a woman returning to what was her father's gas station, now closed after his death. She notes the "lingering smells of petroleum, cigarettes, and strong coffee that, as long as I can remember, meant "Dad's work." She sees the cash register and the red-and-green Texaco star, finds her father's work jacket which smells of Old Spice and oil. The woman is jolted to October 1962, her senior year in high school.

The description of the station jolted me back to the gas station my father ran until 1963 when he sold the business. I wrote about The Station in a post you can read here.


For my family the Cuban Missile Crisis passed and was never spoke of. McCarthy was older at the time and her novel is a cathartic work to organize and control the experience of the events of October 19, 1962 and the thirteen days that followed.

Wes Avery runs his gas station in Orlando, Florida, not far from McCoy AFB. Wes was a navy pilot in WWII; he understands that unusual things are going on. Such as the arrival of  top-secret U-2s at the field and an alert of DEFCON 2, meaning imminent war with the Strategic Air Command.

His wife is active in promoting fall out shelters. She is frustrated and depressed, popping pills to fight a nervous breakdown. Wes had flown over Japan after the atomic bomb attack and saw the destruction. He knows there is no surviving an atomic war.

Meantime, Wes's daughter is on the Homecoming Court at school. Her date is a Cuban refugee his once wealthy family remain in Cuba. He hates Castro but encounters prejudice because he is Cuban and poor.

On top of everything else Wes is visited by someone who is supposed to be 'dead' and who threatens to destroy his family just as surely as Fidel Castro threatens to destroy America.

I liked Wes Avery. He is a good man who sees things straight but is forced to prevaricate to protect his family. He wants to protect his daughter from knowledge that her world may be about to end, allowing her to enjoy the simple pleasures of being on the Homecoming Court. And he must protect his wife from knowing that a person from her past is returned, a person who could destroy his family.

The novel delivers a lot of history and background information on the political and social climate of the time. Wes's flashbacks do become intrusive and slow the momentum of the story. McCarthy has a lot she wants us to know, but not all of it fits seamlessly into the story. It is my main criticism of the novel.

For readers younger than we Boomers, the novel offers insight into a time when mainland America first felt the threat of war on their home turf, long before the attacks of 9-11. They will wonder at America's nativity. As Peter Pan told Wendy, "You see, children know such lot now." A sad wisdom indeed.


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

A Place We Knew Well
Susan Carol McCarthy
Random House-Bantom Dell
Publication Date September 29, 2015
$27.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9780804176545