“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness”

When I was in graduate school, my friend Yumi was hit by a car and killed. The school newspaper published a rather crass photo of her backpack, spilled open to reveal linguistics textbooks and a small silver tea thermos.  Before the funeral, I tried to memorize an expression of sympathy in Japanese to tell her sister, but she was too sad and I too shy to say anything after all.

Death at 22 is shocking. When I set out to read The Opposite of Loneliness, I had no idea that the author, Marina Keegan, died in a car crash just days after graduating from Yale. Normally, I skip the introduction, but seeing that its author was Anne Fadiman (the mystery author I tried to recall months ago when my books were in storage), I gamely plunged in only to realize the book I held was even more poignant than the title promised.

Keegan's essays collected in this book describe an emotional attachment to a first car, her struggle with Celiac disease before gluten-free was trendy, a portrait of an exterminator, and her final piece published in the Yale Daily News about her fears of leaving the safety of dorm rooms and libraries. Even though the challenge of this book was to read a collection of essays, I was drawn more to her fiction pieces. Keegan takes familiar emotions, jealousy, regret, and centers them in situations that are relatable but unique.  Claire has to say something at the funeral of the boy she was sort of dating. Addie comes home for winter break and must divide her time between her family and a serious boyfriend. Karen at 62 is embarrassed to explain a tattoo she got when she was 19.

Although this first read of her work was colored by shock and an over-attentiveness to details relating to or mentioning death, mourning, or even middle-age, future readings will be just as successful in suspending the readers disbelief. Only in a slightly different way. 

Recurring Nightmares

I’ve never been a fan of scary movies or haunted houses. I’ve seen the The Shining. Once.  I tried watching it again a few years ago and didn’t make it through the opening credits. I’ve read some Steven King novels but they haven’t been as scary as books I’ve read about kidnapped children or this book by Anna Quindlen.

So it was with some trepidation that I chose a book for the horror category of the reading challenge I am working on. However when I saw David Mitchell’s Slade House under “Read a horror book” on this handy list from the NYPL, I realized I had found the perfect choice.

Slade House opens in 1979 in a voice reminiscent of characters from Mitchell's Black Swan Green. (This isn’t so bad, I thought.) Nathan and his mother have been invited by Lady Norah Grayer for an afternoon of music at her city residence Slade House. After some trouble finding the address, they step through an iron gate into a beautiful garden. Lady Norah’s brother Jonah befriends Nathan and they begin a game of chase around the house. After being frightened by a dog, Nathan runs inside and finds himself face-to-face of a portrait…of himself hanging on the wall. Nathan wakes up and finds himself with his father in Rhodesia. Has the previous scene been a dream? Or is this his dream now?

Mitchell keeps us guessing until the next section opens in 1988 when another unsuspecting guest of Slade House finds himself dreaming awake and sees his portrait on the stairs. Nine years later a group of college students in a paranormal society seek out the house hoping to find the guests who have disappeared in years past. They too meet their end at the hands of the crafty twins.

There is some comfort in the repetition. Upon meeting each new narrator, the reader expects he or she also will meet his or her demise. The suspense builds because we secretly hope they will escape or find a way to defeat these horrid twins who feed off human souls.  (I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t read the soul-feeding sections too closely.)

Breathing a sigh of relief, we find the next narrator, the sister of one of the students, not at Slade House but a local pub. She is meeting an informant who tells her the life histories of the Grayer twins. However, when she begins reading her texts from an increasingly frantic girlfriend, we realize the twins have simply projected a facsimile of the pub to lure her in. In the final section, a psychiatrist arrives on the scene hoping to be led through to the twins’ orison by an “astronaut.” In true Mitchell fashion, we get an action-packed final scene in which the twins’ weakened power is overrun by a time-traveling avenger.   

All in all, although there were a few hair-prickling scenes, I haven’t had nightmares and have had no trouble falling asleep. Though if someone invites me over for afternoon tea, I will be more than a little wary. 

Blue Sky

Taking on a new reading challenge this year found me in the biography section of our new library. Having just watched this movie with my kids, I was drawn to Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones. 

Starting with Henson's childhood, Jones illustrates both the nurturing influences of his fun-loving cast of extended relatives and the natural influences of a childhood spent exploring the creeks of Mississippi. An early fan of television, Henson soon sought out ways to appear on the small screen. He found an opening through puppetry and would spend the rest of his life fighting a reputation of being a children's performer.

Since I spent many of my own childhood afternoons watching repeats of this Muppet movie and introduced my own daughter to television with YouTube clips of this show, I was fascinated by reading the chapters outlining the debut of Miss Piggy’s karate chop and Fozzie’s bad stand-up jokes.

Even more striking, though, is the sheer amount of projects Henson was able to work on at one time. Although there are numerous accounts of Henson's gentle nature in directing these projects, Jones also points out Henson’s characteristic “whim of steel” that allowed many of his projects from The Muppet Show to Labyrinth to go forward.  

Fans of Fraggle Rock or The Dark Crystal will learn much about the script writing and creature crafting of these shows in reading this book. But they will also learn a lot about the determination, charisma, and joys of the man behind their creations.

Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather

Originally posted on December 24, 2008. Of the seven years I've been writing this blog, this is still one of my favorite posts (and stories). 

 With her Texas twang, my aunt does a perfect rendition of that line from Truman Capote's “A Christmas Memory.” After first watching the movie version at her house, several years later I encountered the audio version on a long car ride to Arkansas. It wasn’t until I bought a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at a church book sale that I read the print version. It’s always with a sense of delight tempered with melancholy that I turn to the story, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to follow Buddy and his friend as they buy whiskey from Mr. Ha Ha Jones, send fruitcakes to the White House, and craft homemade kites for Christmas morning.

 Every year different details in the story stand out. The year my mom made homemade fruitcake, I could taste the citron as I read their recipe. Last year, when my daughter was infatuated with dolls, I could picture exactly the wicker buggy with wobbly wheels they use to haul pecans. This year, I noticed the prices of things in the Depression era story – two dollars for a quart of whiskey, fifty cents for a Christmas tree, a dime for a picture show.

 This story sates that yen you had for something rich and sweet and Christmasy, and like fruitcake, endures December after December. So after you've set up the Advent wreath, made the gingerbread cookies, and assembled some 15-odd nativity sets, it’s time to curl up with a hot mug of cider and “A Christmas Memory.”

Very Merry (until it's not)

I probably have mentioned before that my daughter and I are suckers for any Christmas movie produced for ABC Family or the Hallmark Channel.  But when she goes to bed, every once in a while, I also like to watch a good feel-depressed holiday movie featuring a dysfunctional family.

When I’ve run out of those, there’s always a book or two to fill the void (or make it bigger).

Refund by KarenBender

Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Old Familiar Carols

When my grandparents lived in Bella Vista, Arkansas, we would often make the seven hour car trip to visit them the day after Christmas. After eating a lunch of leftover turkey and Jell-O salad, we would make the obligatory trip to Wal-Mart. Sometimes (if we were lucky), we would also stop off at a junk store on the outskirts of town. One of my favorite finds there was a pack of mini playing cards for a game called Authors.

Through this game, I discovered the titles of works by James Fenimore Cooper, Sir Walter Scott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Although I’ve read excerpts of Longfellow’s poems over the years, it wasn’t until I read Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini that I gave his personal life a second thought.  

The book opens with a harried choir-director, Sophia, rushing to make rehearsal on time at St. Margaret’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A featured piece in the program her children’s choir is singing is a song based on Longfellow’s poem. Throughout the novel, Chiaverini revisits the rehearsal character by character. Each of their stories reveals the hurts, fears, and longings they bring with them to the church on this wintery night.

 Interwoven throughout these modern-day stories is the story of Longfellow. We read about the crises he endures from his wife’s death to his son’s struggle to fight in the Civil War. Dark though it may be, his tale offers some perspective to the somewhat lighter tones of unrequited crushes and mischievous pranks of the contemporary story lines.  

I have long since misplaced that card game, but luckily the poetry of its authors is readily available. 

"Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it."

Between my local library's online request service for hardcovers and its digital service, I hardly spend any face time in the library these days.

With the cooler, rainer weather, the library has been a welcome alternative to the park. So, after school lets out and before the first volleyball practice, music lesson, or choir practice begins, we can spend a few minutes perusing the shelves.

Thus, we've discovered several of our favorite authors have released new books.

The Marvels by Brian Selznick
The fifth-grader (and her dad) love Selznick's other illustrated books like Wonderstruck and The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This one combines two narratives (in pictures and prose)that the reader must puzzle together.

Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami 
His forward to these two connected short novels was almost more fascinating than the stories themselves. 

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman 
This novel tells the story of Camille Pissaro's mother. What could be better for a gloomy, wintry day than a novel about a scandalous affair set on a tropical island?