"good strong words"

Rewatching many of my teen favorites, I find myself now identifying more with the parents than the teen protagonist. However, despite my age, whenever I watch any version of this movie I still identify with Jo. Until I discovered these two titles which tell the familiar story from the point of view of the parents.

 March by Geraldine Brooks

Marmee by Sarah Miller

In both, we get a better sense of the toll of the Civil War and the ardent abolitionist beliefs of both the father and mother. In the first we glimpse the horrors of battle and slavery firsthand. In the second, Margaret March’s diary entries tell the familiar stories pierced with a deeper layer of worry, doubt and love of her family. Both Brooks and Miller flesh out the lives of the secondary characters and expand the narrative from the domestic to the economic, social, and moral issues of the day.

Here for the Drama

With two teenagers in the house, I know drama. I think that’s partly why I was intrigued by the title of Kate Bromley’s latest.

Winnie is an aspiring playwright. Her boss/friend Juliette invites her to London to help with the production of Juliette’s play. Seeking new material, Juliette convinces Winnie to go out with three strangers while they are in town. After that ends as badly as you might expect, Winnie finds herself attracted to Juliette’s nephew Liam. He and others help Winnie realize her relationship with Juliette needs stronger boundaries, and she begins to seriously consider a job offer back in New York.

Not all romances are created equal, but in this one, indeed, the play’s the thing. Bromley’s strength is her snappy dialogue, and she sets up multiple scenes for Winnie to show off her wit. There’s humor, a little spice, and star-crossed lovers that get their happy ending.

"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

Someone at work the other day was reminiscing about the first musical theater production our church put on: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Although I’ve never seen the play, I’ve read and reread the book and (apparently wrote about it in 2016).

The Herdmans are notorious for smoking cigars, setting things on fire, and having a pet that requires a “Beware of Cat” sign. As the narrator says in Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, “We figured they were headed straight for hell by way of the state penitentiary…until they got themselves mixed up with the church, and my mother, and our Christmas pageant.”

Lured to church by the promise of free refreshments, the six Herdman siblings show up at the first rehearsal for the Christmas pageant. Before anyone realizes it, all of the starring roles have been assigned to the various Herdmans. “And there they sat. The closest thing to criminals that we knew about, and they were going to represent the best and most beautiful.”

There’s only one problem. They’ve never heard the Christmas story before. As the pageant director patiently tells the story, the siblings interrupt asking her to explain manger, swaddling clothes, Wise Men, and myrrh.

“’And, lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them,’ Mother went on, ‘and the glory of the Lord shone round them, and ---‘

‘Shazam!’ Gladys yelled, flinging her arms out and smacking the kid next to her.”

Eventually they make it to the dress rehearsal but fail to run through the whole play. On the night of the pageant, the whole town shows up to see just what the Herdmans are going to do. When Joseph and Mary are late for their cue, everyone figures they forgot. However, a few minutes later the disheveled couple show up in the doorway. Mary pauses to burp the baby and they make their way up the aisle. Some are appalled that Jesus gets burped, but the narrator comes to some realizations that will change her perception of the Holy Family forever.  Jesus could have been a colicky baby. After all he “was born and lived…a real person.” And Mary “is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby.”

The story is not about a peaceful scene you might find on a Christmas card, but it’s “about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble - no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew."

And long after your daughter has finished the book, she’ll randomly, gleefully yell out the Angel of the Lord Gladys’ immortal words,” Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

Books We Love

My favorite book searching tool has posted! This year, I'm gravitating towards these biographies and memoirs.

Mr. B by Jennifer Homans 

Scenes from My Life by Michael K. Williams

Solito by Javier Zamora

Dear Denise by Lisa McNair

Star Child by Ibi Zoboi

"no one in the world is a reliable source for their own story"

Recently my library curated a list of novels based on historical figures. From that list, I found two completely engrossing reads.

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

Fowler takes us into a deeply troubled, yet fascinating family. Although the action culminates in the event that made this name infamous, the stories of John’s siblings are equally, if not more, dramatic. Nothing less would be expected from the offspring of a Shakespearean actor.

The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight

In this novel, we enter the world of Nancy Mitford. A struggling, though not impoverished writer, Mitford longs for acclaim. As her 30^th birthday approaches, she enters into a marriage of convenience and soon discovers her husband lacks what it takes to be the breadwinner. So Mitford turns her family’s foibles into the perfect plot for her next project. Fast forward to the present, Lucy, a young library curator, travels to London on assignment. She lands in Mitford’s bookshop and begins searching for clues to solve a long-running mystery in her own family.

For more titles, see this list. 

Bad Sisters

Anyone else still reeling from the season finale of Bad Sisters? If you need something to fill the void, try Sally Hepworth’s The Good Sister.

Fern, a librarian, is our protagonist and narrator. When her sister Rose finds out she can’t have a baby, Fern decides to remedy the situation. She does this, in part, because of the guilt she still carries - but doesn’t quite  understand - from a tragic event from their childhood. When Rose’s overbearing personality grates on her, she has this to say:

“Still, the illogical irritation is there. But illogical irritation is something one is allowed to have with one’s sister. I have read enough books about sisters to know that is true.”

But in this particular book, revealing what’s true makes for a stunning plot twist.

Murder She Wrote

Reading this remembrance of Angela Lansbury this week took me back to my grandparents’ house in Arkansas where the tv always seemed to be loudly playing Murder She Wrote. It was also at my grandmother’s house that I first discovered Agatha Christie. I still love a good mystery, and if it’s a little quirky, so much the better. Today’s repost reminds me of an author I need to revisit, Emily Arsenault.

Not since reading the Flavia de Luce mysteries, have I been so intrigued by the amateur sleuths that crop up in Emily Arsenault's books.

 In What Strange Creatures, Theresa Battle writes copy for a candle company catalog by day and procrastinates writing her dissertation by night. When her brother is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, she tries to prove his innocence.  By seeking out the girlfriend’s current and former acquaintances she often draws inspiration from her dissertation subject, Margery Kempe. Weaving Kempe’s story with Theresa’s, Arsenault ventures to ask us to examine our own vocations.

 Miss Me When I’m Gone centers around Gretchen Waters, the author of Tammyland, a memoir of the author’s love of female country music stars. When Gretchen turns up dead after a reading, everyone is shocked, including Jamie, her best friend from college. Gretchen’s mother asks Jamie to be her literary executor and turns over the journals, files, and notes Gretchen was working from for her second book. Originally intended to be a book about the men of country music, Jamie discovers that this second book is actually Gretchen’s attempt to find out more about the identity of her father. As Jamie pieces together the notes left behind, she travels into Gretchen’s past and finds out more than the murderer bargained for.

The Broken Teaglass follows two young dictionary editors as they start finding random citations from a  mysteriously quirky story called The Broken Teaglass.  As the excerpts turn up out of order, they intriguingly reveal a corpse, a guilty conscience, and a love affair all set in the very dictionary offices from which they are working. What could be better than a novel that combines unrequited love, murder, and words? Arsenault builds up the suspense with each excerpt, and helpfully puts them all in order in the later chapters revealing that context matters.