Summer of radio plays

In honor of our new summer tradition of podcasts (and more podcasts) and puzzles, today’s post is a review of Flora by Gail Godwin, reposted from 2013.

It's the summer of 1945 and Helen is ten. Her father is spending the summer overseeing construction for the war effort in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Helen is less than thrilled to find out her mother's cousin Flora will be spending the summer with her. To make matters worse, Helen's best friend contracts polio, and Helen and Flora must spend the remainder of the summer quarantined. They quickly befriend the young man who delivers their groceries, plying him with lemonade and cheese straws. Finn in turn starts showing up daily to give Flora driving lessons.  

 The peaceful routine of the summer is shattered in August when the household discovers an atomic bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima and Helen's father's work at Oak Ridge is somehow involved. That same night Helen's discovery of Finn's true feelings for her "simple-minded" cousin triggers a series of events that will have devastating consequences for everyone in the family.

Godwin's story, narrated by Helen, looks back with nostalgia and retrospection to that lonely summer of radio plays, daydreams, and a temptingly unread packet of her grandmother's letters. Helen discovers that what at first appears to be simple-minded in Flora's teaching is actually simple-hearted. And it is a distinction that the reader will also take to heart. 

Adam and Eve

Over the holidays I slowly made my way through Ahab’s Wife. I say slowly because there’s much to savor in Sena Jeter Naslund’s writing. However, when my professor referenced #3 on this list in his lecture last night, I wondered if cannibalism counts.  

In preparation for last week’s snow storm, yes, we did get bottle water. But more importantly we stopped at the library to stock up. So while the temperatures dropped, I found myself in a Middle Eastern oasis while rereading Naslund’s Adam and Eve.

Here’s what I said about this book in 2011:

Your mother is always right. Well, at least mine is. She's been recommending Ahab's Wife forever. And I keep relegating it to the bottom of the to-read list. But then I came across Sena Jeter Naslund's new book, Adam and Eve.

Lucy is a recent widow. Her late husband was a physicist studying extraterrestrial life. His work threatens those who believe proof of alien life forms would debunk their own creation myths. Just before his death, he leaves Lucy his flash drive containing his latest proof. Shortly thereafter, one of her husband's friends recruits Lucy to fly an ancient codex out of Egypt. Her enemies now have two reasons to find her.

Adam is an American soldier living in Eden. Having survived a brutal beating, he has made a primitive home for himself in a lost corner of the Middle East. His prayers for a companion are answered when Lucy's plane crashes into his midst.

Naslund's description of Adam's awakening breathes new life into the story as old as Genesis. Other authors have tackled the subject, but placing the characters in a future world reminds us we probably always strive for the forbidden fruits. And after we've taken the first bite, a mother will be there to say "I know." Then you will listen.

"There's no turkey in it"

Since I'm quite swamped with writing papers for my classes this week, I decided to dust off and repost this Thanksgiving recommendation from 2009. I'm very curious to ask what the now 13-year-old thinks of her four-year-old self. Although, I have to say she's still somewhat picky judicious in her reading material.


This was my four-year-old’s assessment after sitting down with the first Thanksgiving book in our stack - Nickommoh! - and flipping through the pictures. Then as soon as I began reading the first page (“Kautantawwitt, the Creator…”), my listener exclaimed, “English please!” After stumbling through the pronunciation of “Taqountikeeswush” and “Qunnekamuck” I too was thinking, “English please!”

Unfamiliar language aside, Jackie French Koller weaves together an intriguing story of a Narragansett harvest celebration. We watch as they build the lodge, prepare the nasaump pudding, swim in the river, and dress in paints for the singing and dancing in the Sacred Circle. The illustrations by Marcia Sewall are a pleasure to look at – from bold black lines outlining photorealistic features on one page to the rough figures sketched around a bonfire on another.

The other book we were able to procure from the library two days before Thanksgiving was Word Bird’s Thanksgiving Words by Jane Belk Moncure and illustrated by Chris McEwan. Despite the inclusion of a turkey, my (picky) listener decided this one is “not really cool because that turkey’s not cool.” Cool?

We decided to stick with this week’s Pre-K issue of the Weekly Reader for our Thanksgiving reading.

Gobble up some fun Thanksgiving Facts here.

A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer

When the book jacket reviews include those by the author of Loving Frank and Glamour, I’m going to pick it up. Then when I read the inside summary and learn the main character is a Life photographer working in the 1940s, I’m sold.

Clare Shipley is assigned a story on a new wonder-drug, penicillin. She falls for the doctor on the case and is resigned to a long-distance romance when he accepts a government job in Washington. She diligently follows up on both the romance and the story. But when her father, a millionaire, buys into a pharmaceutical company, Clare learns how cut-throat the industry can be in guarding lucrative discoveries.

After pinning up my hair in a Victory roll, I’m going to be spending the afternoon rifling through old magazines. Then I might look for some of the reference books Belfer cites in her notes: The Enchanted Ring by John C. Sheehan, The Women Who Wrote the War by Nancy Caldwell Sorel, and No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

"Vindictive Meter Maids"

She is dressed in "wishy-washy" clothes. He has a "funny smell."Such are the first impressions of two who meet in a cemetery.

In Katarina Mazetti's novel, Benny and Shrimp, the characters alternate telling the rise and fall of their relationship. Desiree is a librarian and recent widow. Benny runs a dairy farm single-handedly after his mother dies. Differing on everything from decor to politics, they find themselves a surprising match in bed.

Humorous, off-putting, and familiar, this book will have you reading far into the night. Pickled herrings are meant to be eaten as a midnight snack, aren't they?

In the Beginning

Your mother is always right. Well, at least mine is. She's been recommending Ahab's Wife forever. And I keep relegating it to the bottom of the to-read list. But then I came across Sena Jeter Naslund's new book, Adam and Eve.

Lucy is a recent widow. Her late husband was a physicist studying extraterrestrial life. His work threatens those who believe proof of alien life forms would debunk their own creation myths. Just before his death, he leaves Lucy his flash drive containing his latest proof. Shortly thereafter, one of her husband's friends recruits Lucy to fly an ancient codex out of Egypt. Her enemies now have two reasons to find her.

Adam is an American soldier living in Eden. Having survived a brutal beating, he has made a primitive home for himself in a lost corner of the Middle East. His prayers for a companion are answered when Lucy's plane crashes into his midst.

Naslund's description of Adam's awakening breathes new life into the story as old as Genesis. Other authors have tackled the subject, but placing the characters in a future world reminds us we probably always strive for the forbidden fruits. And after we've taken the first bite, a mother will be there to say "I know." Then you will listen.

Stamp of Approval

Flavia's passion is poison. Most days she's hunkered down in her chemistry lab recreating experiments she studies in old chemistry texts. With her mother dead and her father wrapped up in his stamp collection, she's left to her own amusements - aggravating her older sisters, avoiding the housekeeper's custard pie, and solving murders.

Following a trail of clues that includes a snipe, a penny stamp, and a schoolboy prank, Flavia doggedly stays on the case to vindicate her father and satisfy her own curiosity. She is, after all, eleven.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is just one of the books I found out about here. I'm eager to read the others. On a related note, I'm also salivating over a new set of postage stamps. Although it's highly unlikely I will ever be a chemist like Flavia, maybe I'll turn out to be a philatelist like her father.

Humble Pi

My grandmother was a math teacher. My college roommates were math majors. My kindergartner loves the “dot game” at school. Although I am not a Mathlete like my husband, I did enjoy The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.

The professor in the story is a renowned mathematician who can’t remember anything after 1975 for more than 80 minutes. He dons a suit each morning with tiny notes pinned all over it to remind him where his medicine is, who he needs to thank for the cake, and that he has a new housekeeper who has a son.

The professor greets the housekeeper each morning with an inquiry about her birthday or shoe size. He then informs her of the significance of whatever number is the answer. Throughout her employment, he teaches her and her son about everything from factors to triangular numbers to Euler’s formula. When he’s not lecturing, he’s solving the latest puzzler from his math journals or enjoying the baseball broadcast with the young boy.

As the housekeeper begins seeing the beauty in the numbers surrounding her, you will appreciate Ogawa’s work for its elegant balance of sweet plus intriguing. And then you will send this book to your grandmother.

A Picture is Worth...

When I was little, I had a book with a picture of a girl holding a book. On her book was a picture of a little girl holding a book. On her book...When my youngest sister was little, I found a book called Zoom. On each page, the camera zooms out and you realize some detail of the previous picture is part of a larger picture. Recently I discovered a book for my son called Flotsam. A boy finds a camera on the beach. He develops the film and finds a picture of a child holding a picture of a child holding a picture...until you see a picture of the camera's original owner.

Although it is not a picture book, Click is a book of layered stories. Each story takes us a step deeper, a stop closer, into the life of a photojournalist and his family. As each of the ten stories is written by a different author, details shift from the background into the spotlight. And back again. We zoom into a Russian prison, an Australian beach house, and a French village. Along the way, we also see the photographer's impact on his grandchildren and watch them grow into adulthood.

On a side note, the jacket for this book notes that the purchase of this book benefits Amnesty International. Let's give it more exposure.

Gin Vida

Some may go giddy over free publications like this, this, or even this. Me? I do a little happy dance when I see this for the taking at the library.

The latest edition mentions Vida by Patricia Engel. It is a collection of stories, tied together by a central narrator, Sabina. Sabina's parents are from Colombia, but she has grown up in New Jersey. On 9/11, she finds refuge at the home of her married guitar teacher. She watches her aunt die of cancer. She befriends a former prostitute. She battles anorexia. Not all at once. The stories shift back and forth in place and time and boyfriend.

Strangely enough, as I was reading Vida, I kept confusing it with another book I picked up this week, Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison. When her grandmother dies, Stella discovers her mother has a sister no one has heard from in years. Stella finds Tilly living in a ramshackle trailer - with more than a few empty gin bottles stashed in the closet. The pair go to live with Tilly's son to try and beat her drinking habit. Stella, too, has her ghosts - a former eating disorder, a married boyfriend, a string of dead-end jobs. Sound familiar?

Dysfunctional, gritty, "crazy-ass," and all those other buzz words to describe this kind of fiction apply. Trust me, you'll be hooked.

Marvelous Muddle

Precocious Victorian children grew up and came of age in a time of war. A.S. Byatt examines this age in The Children's Book. Centered around the family of Olive Wellwood, the novel follows would be potters, writers, and suffragists as they embrace and discard the burgeoning social movements of the day.

After her husband leaves the banking industry, Olive supports the family by writing scary stories for children. She leaves the upbringing (and sometimes even bearing) of her own children to her spinster sister. For each of her children, Olive has written a personalized storybook with an ongoing tale. But closest to her heart is the story she creates for her eldest, Tom. Without consulting Tom, Olive takes Tom's story public as a play. Her collaborator on the play just happens to be a fantastical German puppeteer and the father of one of her daughters.

Questionable paternity appears often in this tale. Into the muddle of an extensive cast of characters (and bedfellows) goes pages from Olive's stories, an excerpt from a randy novelist advocating free love, letters from boarding school, poetry from the tranches, and entreaties by world leaders. Out of the muddle comes an ending which ties up nicely. Quite satisfying, really.

When a Drowning Isn't the Worst Thing

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

Mary Beth is a landscaper and mother of three. She worries about what to throw together for dinner, whether her son is depressed, and if she should be having more sex. She has best friends who call her for parenting advice and old friends that don't speak to her anymore. She fights with her daughter. She calls her mother occasionally. Then, she wakes up in the hospital.

Despite the tragedy that upends the whole thing, I fell into this life. One adage I took especially to heart (along with the recipe for chicken tetrazzini): "small children, small problems, big children, big problems."

So after reemerging from that life into my own, I hugged my son, made a cake for my husband, and read my daughter a bedtime story. One with a happy ending.

Who's your daddy?

Fathers these days teach a lot of essential skills. They teach their children how to tie shoes, ride bikes, make the perfect Sunday morning waffle, and drive a stick shift. Fathers of long ago perhaps had a more daunting agenda. They were in charge of teaching their offspring how to shoot an arrow for protection and the midday meal, ride a horse, and savor the finer bouquets of monster blood.

Fire by Kristin Cashore features a cast of fathers ranging from game wardens to battle commanders to kings. And monsters. As the story unfolds, many of the characters discover their fathers are not what or even who they thought them to be.

Fire is raised by her birth father, the monster Cansrel, and in his absences, a former royal commander named Brocker. Fire, like her father, possesses mind manipulating powers. She struggles to emulate her father in honing her powers but also to follow the guidance of Brocker in respecting those under her power.

Her struggle is put to the test when Prince Brigan arrives. His brother, King Nash, is working to reverse the unjust practices of his father. He and the royal siblings need her help in uncovering the plots of traitorous lords in the north and south.

As the plot and battle unfolds, the pages turn swiftly through encounters with raptors, sure-shot archers, salacious spies, and a distastefully devious boy with two different colored eyes. Cashore deftly balances the blood and fury with quieter scenes that examine regret, honor, and responsibility. For this, maybe we have her father to thank for teaching her the importance of including both rage and reflection.

Faking It

Up to forty percent of artworks being bought and sold are fakes. So I learned while listening to an interview with the author of Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art.

While waiting for my library request for this book to go through, I came across this article about a man who proposes to authenticate art through fingerprinting. Thus, when the book arrived last week, I was primed to read more about the art underworld.

Provenance, by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo, opens with the dramatis personae. Topping the list are John Drewe, mastermind, and John Myatt, painter. Together they attempted to pull off a scheme that duped art dealers, archivists, and collectors. Myatt painted the “Giocomettis” and “Turners.” Drewe created the provenance for each work. Like one of the detectives in the case, I too was not familiar with this term.

Provenance refers to the documents that track an artwork’s history of ownership. Comprised of receipts, invoices, letters, and catalogs, the provenance not only authenticates a piece but affects the value. If someone can prove a work belonged to a celebrity or was scandalously stolen and retrieved, he can negotiate a higher price for it.

Here’s how the scheme worked. After commissioning a work from Myatt, Drewe created meticulous documents to show records of ownership from the painting’s supposed inception to the most recent deal. He slipped mock catalogs into archives at institutions such as the Tate Gallery and changed sales records. He made stamps and insignias for documents. He doctored canvases to age them and used period wood for the framing. And he made thousands from unwitting dealers and collectors.

But in the end Drewe was framed – by an ex. Just as fascinating as the heist is the unraveling of the operation by the detectives and skeptical archivists. To the end, Drewe proves just as adept at feigning health problems as he was in forging gallery invoices to postpone his trial. He acts as his own counsel and weaves in arms dealing and government conspiracy to prolong the trial.

Ultimately, both men end up serving time for their deception. Though it is not made clear what Drewe is up to these days besides media interviews, his tools have ended up in Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum. Myatt, much more repentant, appears to be doing quite well by selling Genuine Fakes and starring in his own TV series.

As the book asserts, maybe crime does pay. Or at least pave the way to infamy.

Before I Was Gone

The summer I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I read The Living by Annie Dillard.

Before I moved to Japan, I read everything I could by Banana Yoshimoto.

Since my husband recently accepted a neurology fellowship in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I reread Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love. This time I was attuned more to place names and landmarks than silly things like character and plot. Thus, I noted when someone was walking along Stadium Boulevard ("GO BLUE!"), attending a backyard barbecue in Burns Park, seeking out the tarot card reader in Ypsilanti, or playing in Allmendinger Park. Unfortunately no one mentions elementary schools or where to get a decent vegetarian meal.

Searching for more clues, I picked up Baxter's collection of stories called Believers. Although the stories aren't explicitly set in Ann Arbor, the characters have Midwestern backgrounds. The collection opens with a story about Glaze and Jodie. Jodie's wish to fall in love is granted by a genie at a breakfast counter. In the next, a dinner party has turned to talk about reincarnation. Were you a swan or a swain? Following that one is Harry's story about his finding a would-be-bomber's sketch on the street. Everyone he shows it to is confident they can identify the location. I would have liked to have read more, but the library's copy started smelling a bit too musty around page 123. I'll be sure to purchase a copy before we go.

that calculating a person

It's been ages since I had to resort to reading the large print edition for a popular new title. I'd forgotten, or maybe never noticed, that words that would be italicized in a regular edition are bolded (emboldened?) in a large print edition. In the textbooks I use in my reading class, I'm accustomed to seeing the bold words as target vocabulary words. I was easily distracted then by the stark she donates fiancée playwright is dotting the pages.

In a way, Sue Miller's The Lake Shore Limited redefines is. It reexamines the familiar, revisits the past, rethinks impulse. Four characters, loosely connected, watch, perform, and write a play. We sit through opening night, rehearsals, the true life events that inspire the lines, and talk on the phone about what it all might mean after the curtain falls.

Leslie is in Boston to see a play written by Billy (short for Wilhelmina). Billy was dating Leslie's brother Gus, who was killed in the 9/11 attacks. After the play, Leslie has invited Billy out for drinks along with an old friend, Sam.

Before we meet Billy, we read lines with the play's lead, Rafe. On stage, Rafe's character's wife is on a train that has been attacked by terrorists. In real life, his wife has ALS. Prior to opening night, Rafe goes out with Billy, and they delve into an ulterior motivation for Rafe's character.

After Rafe's performance, Billy meets Leslie, Leslie's husband Pierce, and Sam for drinks. After bidding Sam a rather unpromising goodnight, she reminisces about Gus. Before his death, she was a few weeks away from breaking up with him. Instead she finds herself playing the role of the distraught not-quite-fiancée when he dies. Soon after the play, Sam asks her out. They go for a walk that ends in a sprained wrist, tears, and a lost earring.

Sam had had to call Leslie for Billy's number. They discuss the play. Everyone thinks it's about him or herself. Sam is reminded of his divorce and then about the time he loved Leslie. He takes his son to see the play. Billy icily dismisses him. And then he finds her earring. (Curtain).

Applause.

A Room of One's Dead

A small, quiet dimly lit room. The walls adorned only by the portraits of the dead. This is the place Viji slips into first thing in the morning before her triplets have awoken, or her father-in-law has peed on her roses, or her professor husband has left to flirt with the undergrads he teaches.

Shanthi Sekaran's The Prayer Room examines the life of Viji and George Armitage. After meeting in an art history class in India, they marry a short time later, and find themselves on a plane back to George's home in England. After a tense stay with George's parents, they soon board another plane to the land of pudding pops and flip-flops.

Viji and George's triplets are eleven the summer George's widowed father Stan comes to Sacramento for an extended stay. They are soon won over, as are the neighborhood women, by his British charms. Viji , alone, is not amused and spends even more time cleaning her prayer room. However, Stan's presence attracts the visit of an Indian expatriate neighbor, Kamla. Soon Viji's laughter is again filling the kitchen over cups of tea with her new friend. Kamla's friendship also gives Viji the confidence to take her children for a long-put-off visit to her sister in Madras. Viji's absence proves taxing not only to her marriage vows but to her own self-perception.

If you've shooed your own on-summer-vacation kids out into the backyard, and are looking forward to a few moments of quiet, somewhat dark, contemplation, The Prayer Room may just be the refuge you seek. No dusting required.

Lent

This is not about giving up chocolate. It's about sacrifice, mourning, and forgiveness. And a cello.

Jeffrey Lent's After You've Gone tells the story of Henry and Olivia. And Henry and Lydia. And Henry and his cello. Henry takes us from his childhood in Nova Scotia, to his marriage and professional career in New York, and finally to a sabbatical in Amsterdam. But not in that particular order.

Having read Lent's works A Peculiar Grace and Lost Nation (in that order), I braced myself for tragic clashes, piercing descriptions of setting, and even bloodshed or rape. However, this story seems mellower, though it does contain its fair share of heartache. Before reading this novel, I've never had a particular desire to travel to Amsterdam. If anything remains of Lent's account of its 1920s beauty, I probably should add it to my list.

I'm still mulling over the ending. Not to give anything away, I'll just say it was all wine and roses - and even chocolate- in none of the right places. But since it's Lent, all is forgiven.

A Cultural Revelation

In 1979 China, it's a fresh torment at every turn in Muddy River.

First we follow Teacher Gu. His daughter Shan has been sentenced to die. Gu seeks help from the Huas to give her a proper burial.

The Huas, having lost their own adopted daughters, cannot help Shan, but they try to help the crippled girl Nini when they can.

Nini, twelve, eats wall paste to ward off hunger. She is being courted by nineteen -year-old Bashi.

Bashi woos Nini with a roasted hedgehog and poisons a dog called Ear just to see if he can.

Ear's master, Tong, attends a memorial rally for Shan coordinated by Kai. Tong signs his father's name to a petition.

Kai is the voice of Muddy River's radio station. She is married to Han, the son of a well-connected political family.

Han moves out with their son Ming-Ming.

Ming-Ming doesn't attend the denunciation ceremony of his mother Kai.

Yiyun Li's The Vagrants will not lift your spirits. It will not serve to pass the time waiting in the dentist's office. Instead, the novel demands constant vigilance. Your first seemingly watertight impression of either place or character will soon be found flawed. And therein lies the humanity of Li's characters.

Berne by Berne

I first heard of Suzanne Berne last November. Although The Ghost at the Table is about coming home for Thanksgiving, it proves timely no matter what the season.

Cynnie lives on the West Coast writing historical fiction for girls. Her latest book is about Mark Twain's daughters. Her sister Frances (decorator/homemaker) lives back East. Their father has recently suffered a stroke and their step-mother no longer wishes to care for him. Cynnie agrees to visit for Thanksgiving to help her sister transport their father to a rest home.

Through Cynnie's eyes, the author takes us from her arrival on Frances' doorstep back to her teenage years and her mother's illness and then returns us to a train wreck of a holiday. As the novel progresses, I found myself trusting Cynnie's version of events less and less. And as the drunk Cynnie tells a devastatingly sad tale of Twain's treatment of his family, we find ourselves revising our own opinion of Cynnie from the sad, charming cynic to just sad cynic.

Taught my lesson not to trust appearances, I turned to an earlier work of Berne's called A Perfect Arrangement. Mirella is a lawyer. Howard is an architect. Their house is a mess, their son Jacob's not talking yet, and their daughter Pearl frequently throws hair brushes. In short, they need a nanny.

Randi arrives on their doorstep, entices Howard with visions of home-cooked meals, and has Jacob talking in no time. She even cleans out the cellar. But as we follow Mirella, Howard, and Randi through their days, we realize that (in no particular order) false references, unwanted pregnancies, and intern affairs will soon knock the perfect balance out of whack again.

Berne achieves an admirable level of suspense that will keep you reading -leaving your own kitchen a shambles. But you'll be thankful for the mess.