books

Remembering Doug

/ Tracy Abell / 20 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I learned I’ve lost a friend.

We met Doug in the summer of 1999.
Zebu had just turned three and Wildebeest was about five-and-a-half.
We were new volunteers at the spaghetti dinner and several old-timers
weren’t happy having young kids underfoot.
But Doug wasn’t one of the cranky ones.
He always made us feel welcome.
Doug had a smile that came from deep inside; you felt his warmth.

Doug sometimes cooked the spaghetti and sometimes served it out in the dining room.
Many called him Noodles.
Others called him Montana.
Something to do with a t-shirt he wore the first day he walked into our director’s
used bookstore.

Doug loved books.
Maybe more than anyone I know.
Signed-first-editions kind of love.

When Doug learned I’d written a novel, he gushed all sorts of compliments.
Told me I was amazing and that he was in awe.
He begged to read it.
I gave him the three-ring binder holding the single-spaced manuscript.
My first novel.
My mess-of-a-novel.
He didn’t finish it.
I got mad and demanded he return the manuscript.

He gave it back without a whole lot of apologies.
But then when he turned me onto so many great writers like
Larry Brown and Larry Watson
Pete Dexter
Sherman Alexie,
and I shared these new-to-me writers with my parents and brother
who loved them, too,
I understood why Doug couldn’t read my book.
Doug knew his literary shit.

When I mentioned I was submitting a short-story to the Boston Review
Doug was already familiar with the work of the fiction editor, Junot Diaz.
Junot Diaz who five years later won the Pulitzer for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Doug knew his shit.

I think I was responsible for Doug reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
He’d already heard of it, of course,
but I’d like credit for one literary assist.

But Doug wasn’t just about the books.
He struggled with addiction.
Heroin.
He was clean when we met and I later learned
his brother had taken Doug into the woods
and belted him to a tree while he went through withdrawal.

 A few years back something changed for Doug
And he started using again.
I’m trying to remember what, if anything, I did to reach out.
I think I sent some emails and left a few unreturned voice mails
But mostly I kept out of the way.
I knew it was something Doug had to do himself
And I waited for him to get back in touch after he’d beaten those demons.

On March 5, the demons won.
Doug died of an overdose.
In an alley.
54 years old.

I can’t believe he’s really gone.

Last night I broke the news to the boys.
Zebu said he had no memory of Doug.
Wildebeest told us about conversations he and Doug had at the spaghetti dinner.
Jokes they shared.
Wildebeest told Zebu, “You would’ve liked him.”
I told Zebu, “You did like him, you just don’t remember.”

My heart hurts with missing Doug.
He was an extraordinary person
And now he’s gone.
Forever.
But I’m grateful he’s no longer in pain.
I hope there’s some enormous bookstore in the sky
where Doug is kicked back
discovering the next great voice.

May he rest in peace.

Writing at the Intersection of Past and Present

/ Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

I feel guilty sometimes.  Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories.  My daughter Kathleen tells me it’s an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony.  In a way, I guess she’s right:  I should forget it.  But the thing about remembering is that you don’t forget.  You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present.  The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up in your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets.  As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you.  That’s the real obsession.  All those stories.
                                                             
                                                                        – – – from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien

           

The Big Splash by Jack D. Ferraiolo – discuss!

/ Tracy Abell

The treacherous, hormone-soaked hallways of Franklin Middle School are the setting for this sharp, funny noir novel about tough guys and even tougher girls. “The Frank” is in the clutches of a crime syndicate run by seventh-grader Vinny “Mr. Biggs” Biggio, who deals in forged hall passes and black-market candy. Double-cross him and your number is punched by one of his deadly water-gun-toting assassins. One hit in the pants and you are in “the Outs” forever. Matt Stevens is a proud loner with his own code of justice. He’s avoided being pulled into Vinny’s organization until now: Mr. Biggs has offered him a job he can’t resist, one that leads to the surprising downfall of Vinny’s top assassin, the beautiful and deadly Nikki “Fingers” Finnegan, at the hands of an unknown assailant. Matt thinks he was used, and he becomes determined to find the trigger-guy or -girl, even if it means bringing down one of his oldest friends.

 

I just read this book.
I liked it very much. 
It made me laugh and remember how much I love reading Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
But.
This book wasn’t written for me, it was written for children (shelved as YA in my library).
Zebu, who is twelve, read it.
When I told him I’d finished it and thought it was great,
he replied, "Really?"
Wildebeest also read it.
He wasn’t all that thrilled with the book, either.

So I’m wondering if this is one of those children’s books that mostly appeals to adults.
Adults who love hard-boiled noir detective stories.
My kids haven’t read any of those stories so the sly references in The Big Splash went over their heads.

Have any of your children read this?  Have you read it?  What were your reactions?

EDITED:  I checked with Wildebeest and my memory was incorrect.  He liked the book just fine but didn’t get any of the hard-boiled detective references.  So maybe I’m off-base with my ponderings; either kids like the book or they don’t (same as any other book).             

New Project, New Notebook

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Bad lighting and big shadows can’t obscure this recommendation.
THE POCKET MUSE: ideas & inspirations for writing By Monica Wood
is a fine little book.  Filled with black and white photos and quotes
and story starters and snippets of genius such as

There is a special throne in heaven
for poets, who labor in obscurity.
The rest of us harbor an unexpressed
hope for fame and glory.
You might be tempted to write
for a market.  You might be tempted
to ride the crest of a trend.
That kind of writing is about as stable
and fulfilling as day trading.
Write what moves you.  Write what
interests you.  Write what frightens
you.  Write what thrills you.  Take a
cue from the poets, bless their
underfunded little hearts.

Two days ago I happened upon a name that resonated with me.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that name.
I pulled out THE POCKET MUSE and started turning pages.
I found what I needed.
My new project has a new notebook.
I’m excited again.

         

Leaning Tower of Books

/ Tracy Abell


I keep track of books read in a notebook I carry. 
I’m not doing such a great job staying on top of the situation. 
And since I don’t return books to my shelves until they’ve been recorded,
and since I don’t have time to write my usual lengthy book review,
and since the pile of books next to my bed has reached frightening proportions….

I grabbed a handful and will list them here. 
Maybe some day I’ll go back and write that lengthy review.
Or not.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt 
Non-fiction that reads like a novel.
Incredible setting and eccentric characters.
I want to go to Savannah.

Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy
Better than watching the movie again where I’d be reminded
that Jon Voight is a complete tool.
RIP Rico "Ratso" Rizzo

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Second reading with 20 years in between.
Lewis is still a master.
Georgie Babbitt is a real piece of conformist work.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
Murakami is a successful novelist who also happens to run a marathon per year.
Running helps his writing and writing helps his running.
I could tell this is undoubtedly gorgeous writing in the original Japanese but the
translation was a bit choppy.
Still, a good read for writing runners.
Or running writers.

           

Confidence

/ Tracy Abell / 13 Comments

The most significant dreams came to me shortly after my friend Pete died.  He was actually murdered.  One night I entered into a dream and Pete was there.   He said, "I want to take you to this place where I live."  I thought, Well, that’s interesting.  When we arrived, I saw it was a wonderful idyllic setting with a lot of creatures flying around: elephants, camels, people.  I said, "I’d like to try flying myself."  And he said, "Sure, but since you’re not dead, you have to go over to that booth there and rent some wings.  They’re only a quarter."  I said, "Great," and I went and rented the wings.

I took off, and I was flying around with all the other people, having a wonderful time.  All of a sudden, I realized, "This is ridiculous.  How can I fly with these twenty-five-cent wings?"  Immediately I started to fall.  I was terrified I was going to die.  Then I thought, Wait a minute, I was just flying a minute ago, and I started flying again.  I went back and forth with this — falling and flying, falling and flying — until it finally dawned on me what this was about.  I said to myself: It is not these wings that enable you to fly, it’s your own confidence.
                     
                 – – – Amy Tan in WRITERS DREAMING: Twenty-six Writers Talk About Their Dreams
                        and the Creative Process

                 

Congratulations to Paul Krugman

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

My favorite economist, Paul Krugman, who writes about economic issues in a way I can understand, just won the Nobel Prize for Economics.  This makes me quite happy.  Early on, Paul Krugman spoke out against the atrocities of the Bush administration, and I remember crying tears of gratitude as I listened to him on the radio while he eloquently put into words much of what I felt but couldn’t verbalize.

He wrote a book called The Conscience of a Liberal which I highly recommend because of his ability to condense complex issues and history into an enlightening read.  He explains how despite the demonization of the word "liberal," the majority of people in the US embrace liberal policy positions (such as universal health care).    

I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty.  I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.  That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it. – Paul Krugman from The Conscience of a Liberal.

If you’re interested, here’s Paul Krugman’s blog.

               

Apropos of Nothing

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

“As an autobiographer I don’t seem to have to dream. There’s a place I get to that’s a little like dreaming. Almost dreaming but I’m awake. It’s an enchantment.
You know, from the age of seven and a half to twelve and a half I was a mute. I believed at the time that I could make myself, my whole body, an ear. And I could absorb all sound. Those years I must have done something to my brain, or with it, so that the part of the brain which would have been occupied in the articulation of speech and the creation of sound, those electrical synapses, did something else with themselves. They just reinvented themselves so that I’m able to remember incredible amounts of data. I would say I get along reasonably well in about seven or eight languages. I have spoken as many as twelve. I have taught in three. I seem to have total recall or none at all. And so, when I need to get inside myself, I can do it without going to sleep.”

—Maya Angelou in WRITERS DREAMING: Twenty-six Writers Talk About Their Dreams
and the Creative Process

(Sometimes I pull a book off the shelf and see what jumps out at me. This is what I found today. Possibly the universe is suggesting I shut up and listen a bit more. Today’s goal: become an ear.)

Why I’ve Always Loved Pippi

/ Tracy Abell / 16 Comments

kellyrfineman got me thinking about books I loved as a child.  She’s currently going through some old favorites, identifying those positive story elements that might shape and inform her own writing projects.  

As I read her posts, I wondered if I could remember why I connected with certain books.  Some of those books and the person I was as I read them, feel so long ago and far away.  Those connections feel faint.

Except for one character who stands out:  Pippi Longstocking.

And this excerpt from Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren says it all:

The arithmetic lesson was interrupted by Captain Longstocking, who came to announce that he and the whole crew and all the Kurrekurredutts were going off to another island for a couple of days to hunt wild boar.  Captain Longstocking was in the mood for some fresh boar steak.  The Kurrekurredutt women were also to go along, to scare out the boar with wild cries.  That meant that the children would be staying behind alone on the island.

"I hope you won’t be sad because of this?" said Captain Longstocking.

"I’ll give you three guesses," said Pippi.  "The day I hear that some children are sad because they have to take care of themselves without grownups, that day I’ll learn the whole pluttification table backward, I’ll swear to that."

That pigtailed, free spirit made me laugh then, and she makes me laugh now.  All hail Pippi!

                      

Sons and Haters

/ Tracy Abell / 11 Comments

No, the subject line doesn’t refer to Wildebeest and Zebu.  That’s a blog topic for another day.  Ha…..

Last night I finally finished reading D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers but I think a more appropriate title is Sons and Haters. 

(Before I continue I have to say that I really, really wanted to like this book because last week when I had the good fortune of visiting in person with the funny and wise

[info]linbinwriter

, she said she’d  loved this book when she read it in high school.  Sorry, Linda, but I didn’t feel the love).

I don’t understand the fuss over this book and why it’s on all those 100 Best Books In the Universe lists.  It was so much telling and very little showing (not to mention the POV shifts happening so frequently I got jumpy).  Lawrence point-blank told the reader what the characters were feeling, and much of the time the characters were hating on each other.  He hated her; she hated him; he hated him; they hated her.  (Don’t take my word for it.  Go here to read chapters online and do a search for “hate.”  I highly recommend Chapter XIV, The Release, for some fun examples).

This book made me so crabby that Zippy laughed whenever he saw me still reading it.  He couldn’t understand why I didn’t just quit, and neither could I.  I guess I kept hoping for some type of aha moment in which I’d understand the book’s classic status.  I’m sorry to say it never happened. 

               

A Book to Change Your Life

/ Tracy Abell / 26 Comments

My friend once teased that rather than a birder, I was a “ducker” because I was never quick enough to identify birds but could usually, eventually ID a waterfowl as it paddled about. I felt somewhat intimidated by people who knew grosbeaks from finches from sparrows from the multitude of other little brown jobs. No way was I cut out to be a birder.

But somehow in the past year or so I began watching the pigeons that flock near a neighborhood intersection, taking great joy in their synchronized flights and landings. They always made me smile as I sat at the red light. Then I started seeing crows in certain cottonwood trees as I drove Zebu to school each morning, and they made me smile. And then I started watching for birds everywhere I went because I realized birds made me feel good. Calmer and more centered. They give me hope.

Which is what How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes is all about. Basking in the wonder and delight of birds, and then easing into the understanding of identifying who and what you’re seeing. In the beginning, he warns, you’ll make mistakes. Embrace those errors.

From page 94: “You start by blundering about and making a good few blunders, too. Everybody does. My advice is to carry on blundering in a totally unembarrassed way. The more you look, the more blunders you will make, and the more blunders you make, the more you will see, and you find that slowly a pattern has been building up without you realizing it. This building up of patterns is one of the deeper joys: once you begin to understand the rhythm of birdwatching, you are beginning to understand the rhythm of birds themselves. Which is nothing less than the rhythm of life.”

I happened upon this book in the library and cannot recommend it enough. It’s funny and poignant and life-affirming. The travesty is that the book is out of print. Really, that makes my heart hurt. The good news, though, is there are used copies available. I can’t wait for mine to arrive so that I might read it again, marking the many passages that brought me joy.

Simon Barnes doesn’t go birdwatching. He is birdwatching. And so am I.

Mature Writing Advice

/ Tracy Abell / 21 Comments

Paging through WRITING IN FLOW by Susan K. Perry, Ph.D., I came across a passage from author Tom Robbins that I’d highlighted (with an ! in the margin) during an earlier reading.  I’m going to share it here not because it’s a practice I share (really!  truly!) but because the whole thing makes me laugh:
 

        “You should spend thirty minutes a day looking at dirty pictures.  Or thinking about sex.  The purpose of this is to get yourself sexually excited, which builds tremendous amounts of energy, and then carry that into your work….Keep yourself in, not necessarily a frenzied state, but in a state of great intensity….You should always write with an erection. Even if you’re a woman.”

Having read his books, this advice shouldn’t surprise me.  In fact, it explains an awful lot about how Sissy Hankshaw came to be. 

And I’m thinking there might be other fun advice out there in LJ-Land on losing yourself so completely in your writing that you enter some altered state in which time disappears and you’re tapping into the creative core of the universe.  

Anyone want to share?
           

                 

How many Whiteheads can there be?

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

Zebu is home with the flu and is listening to the audio version of HARRIET THE SPY.  I loved this book as a child and read it over and over.  However, Zebu just asked a question I don’t think I ever pondered:

What relation, if any, is there between Harriet’s classmate, Pinky Whitehead, and their teacher, Miss Whitehead?

Do you know?

             

         

Lessons From a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles

/ Tracy Abell / 15 Comments

I read this book a couple months ago but couldn’t bring myself to blog about it.  Why?  Because the subject matter was so difficult for me.  Here’s the summary:  “After her former friend Leah dies in an automobile accident, Laine remembers their troubled relationship, dating back to elementary school when Leah convinced Laine to ‘practice’ in the closet with her, and Leah controlled her every thought.”

Even though I never had a Leah in my life, at least not that exact model, I’ve known and experienced Laine’s fear and confusion at the hands of supposed friends.  It’s a horrible place to be.  And Jo Knowles’s spare and deliberate storytelling took me right back there.  There is no way I could have finished reading such a painful story if it hadn’t been written so well; I was practically looking for an excuse to put down the book.  

From page 66:  When we get back to the house, Leah acts especially cheerful, urging everyone to have a second piece of birthday cake.  She makes sure Paige has a seat next to her.  Later we climb into sleeping bags spread out on Leah’s bedroom floor.  Leah puts Paige’s sleeping bag next to hers before I can spread mine there.  This is it, I think.  Paige is the new me.  Maybe I should be relieved.

Typing out those words just now made my heart pound as I remembered the conflicting feelings I’ve had for friends/tormentors in my own life.   Your head tells you one thing, your heart another, and pretty soon you don’t know up from down.

Knowles does a superb job of putting us in Laine’s head, sharing all those tipping moments when she could have (should have?) stepped away and escaped the hurt.  But no matter how loud I yelled for Laine to run the other way, it didn’t matter.  Because this was Laine and Leah’s story, not mine.   Life’s lessons are learned in many different ways.

Congratulations to the courageous 

[info]jbknowles

 for wading into those lives and writing Laine’s story so that it felt like my own.    

                        

Oh my.

/ Tracy Abell / 23 Comments

I just finished reading a truly bad book that was NOT written by anyone here in LJ land but was a random YA I grabbed at the library. 

Now I’m really motivated to write well during my revisions today.  

Bad literature can be inspirational, don’t you think?

                             

 

Lost in Translation?

/ Tracy Abell

This morning I was reading the newspaper and came across an article on the television show “Ugly Betty.”  Now, I haven’t watched the show and don’t especially care about the show.  But I do like something to read when I’m drinking my coffee, so I read the article.  Apparently the U.S. show is based on a Columbian telenovela called  “Yo soy Betty la fea” and in Columbia, “Ugly Betty” is seen as a pale imitation of the original.

No arguments here since I haven’t seen either show.

But I practically spit out my coffee when I came across this:  “Watching the gringo version [of “Yo soy Betty la fea”] would be like reading “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” in English,” says Fabian Sanabria, an anthropologist at the Universidad Nacional who studies television.  “It makes no sense.”

WHAT?

I’ve read the English translation of “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” several times.  The book is gorgeous and incredible and I’ve said many, many times that if the book is that gorgeous and incredible in translation, it must be beyond belief in its original Spanish.  I acknowledge that things are lost in translation but the book still made perfect sense to me.  I love that book.  And even though I was once nearly fluent in Spanish, I know I couldn’t read that book in Spanish; the Spanish wouldn’t make enough sense to me and I’d miss too much.

?Yo soy Tracy la loca?

                        

Beating its wings in my face

/ Tracy Abell / 8 Comments

I’m still working on my JoNoWriMo+1.5 project.  Despite being ahead of schedule, I’m experiencing almost daily bouts of Help, my book has fallen and it can’t get up!

Last night I felt the need to take a break from children’s literature so I started reading Edith Wharton’s THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON.  The Nick Lansing character is writing his first novel, and Wharton begins her seventh chapter with this:

 Of some new ferment at work in him Nick Lansing himself was equally aware.  He was a better judge of the book he was trying to write than either Susy or Strefford; he knew its weaknesses, its treacheries, its tendency to slip through his fingers just as he thought his grasp tightest; but he knew also that at the very moment when it seemed to have failed him it would suddenly be back, beating its loud wings in his face.


Ain’t that the truth.

 

                     

Planting a Flag

/ Tracy Abell / 27 Comments

My office somehow became the family office and then the family dumping ground.  I’d post a photo of what it looks like today but it’s too damned scary.  Visualize piles of papers, stacks of books next to full bookshelves, a dead computer on the floor, various cords and plug-ins, dust, tax files, homework, more dust, bins and boxes, magazines and unpaid bills.  Did I mention the dust?  

Believe me when I say there’s not a whole lot of space for creativity.

Well, I read

[info]dotificus

 notes on Laurie Halse Anderson in which LHA said writers must create a sacred writing space.  Dot quoted her as saying “Writing space creates focus. You’re planting a flag.”

I thought, yeah.  But how?

Then today I was flipping through Monica Wood’s THE POCKET MUSE (a great book, by the way) and came across Ingredients of a good writing space which includes  “The space should be marked as yours by the decor: a favorite vase, a framed photo, a special charm or knick-knack.  Put up a sign, a flag, a fence; pee on it if you have to.  It’s yours.”

So I mulled over the possibilities before moving a little desk out of the office and putting it in the weight room.  I figure I’m safe in there since I’m the only one in the family who lifts weights.

And I didn’t even have to pee to make it mine.      

Lessons From a Dead Girl

/ Tracy Abell / 13 Comments


Look what I’ve got in my hot little hand! 

Finally!

I pre-ordered way back when 

[info]jbknowles

said the book was available but there was some sort of delay.   I’m hoping Amazon sold so many copies they had to run out and get more before shipping mine out to me!

CONGRATULATIONS, Jo!  Can’t wait to read this beautiful book.

What Book Are You?

/ Tracy Abell / 20 Comments

Okay, I usually avoid these quizzes but this one appealed to me and not just because I ended up with this:


You’re Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.

When I was fifteen, my parents let me skip school one day to wait in line for Bob Dylan tickets.  He was touring for the first time in years and it was a huge deal.  I’d requested permission to camp out but the best they could do (which was still pretty cool) was let me get in line at 5:30 in the morning.  My best friend, S., and I got to the Dane County Coliseum and were amazed by the many tents and the many, many bedraggled people who’d been waiting in line for several days.  Bottles, cans, paper bags, and sleeping bodies were scattered about.  Among all that general debris was a copy of WATERSHIP DOWN.  It didn’t seem to belong to anyone so I picked it up. 

After hours of anxiously waiting and hoping, S. and I got tickets just minutes before they sold out (we felt bad for but were also grateful to the “disoriented” folks who hadn’t made it back into line).  Our excitement was temporarily dampened because our tickets were stamped “Limited Vision” and were for seats behind the stage but then we decided to just be ECSTATIC.  And when the time came, Mr. Zimmerman didn’t let us down.  He turned and played much of the night to his fans seated behind him, giving us nearly front-row seats.  The show was phenomenal.

Well, somewhere in that timeline I read and fell in love with my newly adopted copy of WATERSHIP DOWN.  And I guess after that maybe I did a lot of talking about talking rabbits because S. and other friends started calling me Bigwig (which they continued doing throughout high school).

My ticket stub is in my scrapbook.

That copy of WATERSHIP DOWN is on my bookshelf.

And S.?  He’s in my heart.

  

STORY OF A GIRL by Sara Zarr

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

The story begins:

I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.  Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darran.
I didn’t love him.
I’m not sure I even liked him.

We’ve all done things we regret but most of us are fortunate enough to keep our indiscretions private.  Deanna Lambert isn’t so fortunate.  When Deanna’s dad catches them in the backseat, Tommy doesn’t keep his mouth shut but broadcasts the story to the high school population.  Deanna is labeled at school but even more painfully, at home where her dad hasn’t really spoken to her in the almost three years since catching her in the Buick.

With perfect pacing, Sara Zarr reveals bits and pieces of the pain Deanna feels during the summer after her sophomore year.   Deanna explores her version of events – not Tommy’s, not her father’s, not the stupid boys’ at school – but her own version of why she got into that Buick with Tommy, and as she comes to a greater understanding of the circumstances, begins to see herself, and Tommy, in a different light.

From page 125:  It was both sad and funny, you know, how two people’s memory of the same thing could be so different.  And that was the whole problem, really, that this thing had happened between us, and to Tommy it was one thing and to me it was something else, and once my dad got involved it became something else again.  Three people at the scene of the crime, each with a different story.  Add onto that the whole jury known as Terra Nova High School and who knew anymore what had really happened?

This is a powerful story of forgiveness and redemption, and not just Deanna’s redemption.  Every single character is real and has a story of her/his own.  I was blown away by this book, literally gasping aloud when reading a particularly exquisite sentence.  After I finished STORY OF A GIRL, I read it again (jotting down page numbers and sentence references because the writing is that good).  Then I bought my own copy.

I don’t know what else to say except Deanna could be me or you or someone you know.  Her story is unique but in Sara Zarr’s capable hands, Deanna’s pain and struggle are universal.

Revisiting High School and a Friendship

/ Tracy Abell / 36 Comments

Last night I finished reading TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (EX) BOYFRIEND by

[info]carriejones

.  Throughout the book, I thought of S. who was my best friend and then in seventh grade, briefly my boyfriend.  We broke up a few days later when we realized “going together” had flipped some sort of switch so that we no longer talked and had fun.  We remained best friends throughout high school. 

In the ten years after graduation, S. and I were in and out of touch.  He once sent me a letter written on toilet paper, another scrawled on the back of an old history quiz.  At one point I tracked him down and we had a marathon phone conversation.  He told me he was gay.  I said something like “Really?”  He said something like “You must’ve known.”

Did I? 

Like Carrie’s character, Belle, maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. 

All I knew was S. was loyal and funny, charismatic, sarcastic.  Smart.  He was my friend and that was all that mattered.

Dylan’s sexuality, however, is much more an issue for Belle.  She and Dylan are in love, they’re physically intimate, and plan on getting married someday.

As I read Carrie’s book and took the journey with Belle in the week after she learns Dylan’s truth, I suffered alongside her as she faces one new painful reality after another.  I wondered how Belle would survive.  How Dylan would survive.  How anyone survives high school which is an excruciating experience for most everyone, no matter who they are. 

We’ve all had Mimis and Eddies in our lives.  People driven by fear and ignorance, anger and frustration.  Carrie’s words put me back in the high school hallways filled with those whispers and rumors, intimidation, ostracism, and peer pressure.  S. and I grew up in a small community, much smaller than Carrie’s Eastbrook, and TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (EX) BOYFRIEND helped me understand even more than I already did how very difficult it was for S. in that setting, and why (maybe) it was too scary for him to tell me then about his sexuality.

Thank you, Carrie Jones, for writing this story.  I lost S. fourteen years ago to AIDS just four months after he performed my wedding ceremony, but your words have given me another window into his life via Dylan and Belle’s story.

Dylan is Belle’s friend, always was and always will be.  And that’s all that matters.

  

Name that Book!

/ Tracy Abell / 28 Comments

I got this from

[info]newport2newport

.  The following first lines are from books on my nightstand and in the bookcase next to my desk in the office.  Here’s hoping you do better guessing the sources than I did with Melodye’s list.  (Sigh).

 1)  In the fall of 1995, after resigning from my last academic post, I decided to indulge myself and fulfill a dream.

 2)  When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind:  Paul Newman and a ride home.

 3)  You grow up with a kid but you never really notice him.

 4)  First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.

 5)  To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

 6)  “I thought you said you read The Book,” said Sam.

 7)  Mum says, “Don’t come creeping into our room at night.”

 8)  A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.

 9)  All you fish, listen up.

10)  Popularity is a drug.

 11) Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file.

 12) I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.

13) In one of my earliest memories, my mother and I are on the front porch of our rented Carter Avenue house watching two delivery men carry our brand-new television set up the steps.

Find the answers here:

 1)  READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi
 2)  THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton
 3)  LOSER by Jerry Spinelli
 4)  THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien
 5)  THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
 6)  THE NOT-SO-JOLLY ROGER by John Scieszka
 7)  DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT by Alexandra Fuller
 8)  A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole
 9)  HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher
10) SO NOT THE DRAMA by Paula Chase 
11) AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
12) GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson
13) SHE’S COME UNDONE by Wally Lamb