March 2010

Here’s the Stuff I’ve Been Reading list. It appears more impressive than it is because I didn’t finish four books, but I listed them anyway.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (fun). It was pretty typical Fforde, meaning a pretty zany book, but it wasn’t about Thursday next, which made me nostalgic.
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (fun). I reread this in preparation for A Conspiracy of Kings, which was released this month.
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (Brit lit). Ironically, the good soldier of the title was carrying on a years-long affair with the narrator’s wife.
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (60%) (fun). I liked the Lilith’s Brood trilogy, but this one, about vampires, was a bit silly.
Night Watch by Stephen Kendrick (fun). Featuring a surprisingly spot-on Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. My only regret was that Watson wasn’t quite right.
Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life by Claire Tomalin (research). Even though it’s old-fashioned to incorporate the biography of one’s subject, I think it’s relevant in this case since Mansfield wrote so much from her life.
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye (50%) (fun). I got halfway through this 1,000 page book and needed a break. Never fear, I’m not defeated yet.
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas (form & theory). A memoir in fragments, when generally I like neither fragments nor memoirs.
In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (research). This was the book that made a name for Mansfield, though she would go on to publish even better work.
The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (fun). Book three.
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card (travel book). Philip and I finished reading this while driving back and forth to Oklahoma. It falls chronologically after Ender’s Game and before the Ender trilogy.
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (fun). Having read her memoir, I saw a lot of her biography in here, about the relationship between Haitians and Hatian-Americans.
The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera (51%) (form & theory). I hoped it would be more form and less theory, but alas.
The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick (form & theory). The so-called Bible of creative nonfiction writers.
Magician’s Ward by Patricia C. Wrede (fun). It was the day before A Conspiracy of Kings came out and I had to read something, so I reread this.
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (fun). Best and certainly most anticipated book of the month.
The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs (60%) (form & theory). I dislike nature writing as a rule.
Dubliners by James Joyce (Brit lit). It’s funny that we’re reading him in British literature, seeing as he loathed the English. But his stories are phenomenal.

Don’t I just look a lady of letters?

Dylan was disappointed that they were the first ones to arrive. He never looked forward to Independence Day, because it felt like the whole world was full of women. His mother and sister, his grandmother and great-aunt, and his four girl cousins. Dylan’s friends were having a cookout in their neighborhood, and Dylan had begged his mother to let him stay the night and spend the holiday with them, but she had gotten very angry and almost cried. Sullen, he scratched Esmeralda behind the ears when she rushed out to greet the car. “Good girl,” he whispered.

His uncle wasn’t even here yet with the food, so he had a long time to kill before lunch and a long time to kill after lunch while everyone was sitting around talking. He sat outside on the deck with the dog and his music, first Bob Dylan, then other stuff, wishing he were swimming in Jacob’s pool.

His grandmother came outside and handed him a brown paper sack and her cell phone. “Why don’t you go on down the hill?” she said. “Take Ezzie. Sneak away while you’ve got the chance.” She patted him softly on the shoulder. “We’ll probably eat about one-thirty or two, but I won’t worry about you until three o’clock.” The screen door latched closed.

He pocketed the cell phone and examined the sack lunch. Roast beef sandwich, chips, apple, three cookies, water bottle. He looked over his shoulder at the house. His grandmother had closed the solid door on the inside too, so no one in the house would notice the empty deck. He grinned. “Come on, girl.”

The path was steep and Dylan started sweating almost immediately, even though the trees provided plenty of shade. He took off his shirt and stuffed it through the back of his belt. This was good: a man and his dog, pioneering. Esmeralda trotted a little ways ahead of him, sniffing deer tracks in the low brush excitedly, and Dylan ran to catch up with her. She took one look at him and bolted, barking, hot with the joy of the chase. Dylan shouted and chased her.

In about an hour they reached the end of the trail. They had to wade through a field of tall grass to reach the pebbly edge of the river, and Dylan thought of his mother thinking of ticks and laughed. Esmeralda leapt, sending sheets of water sparkling up into the air. Dylan shed his clothes on the bank and waded in. It was colder than he’d expected, and muddier, too muddy to see any fish; even sitting, the water only came up to his armpits. He splashed the dog and swam around, upstream, downstream. When the sun was directly overhead, Dylan ate his lunch and lay on his back on the water-smooth pebbles. The sun still shone red through his closed eyelids, so he draped an arm across his face. He allowed the heat to make him drowsy and breathed a great sigh of relief from the women, relaxed, slept.

Part 2

“At the Cabin” Part 2

Jessica had been up since six getting ready for the party. The first thing she did was pack the cooler with all the hotdogs and hamburger meat that she had prepared the night before. She counted and recounted the bags of buns and arranged them in a separate box with the condiments that Brian’s mother already had at the cabin, but which Jessica always brought anyway, on principle. If they were going to do the meat, they were going to do the meat. Ketchup, mustard, and relish was simply part of the hamburger-hotdog package, just like the lettuce, tomato, and onion that they would also have too much of.

Jessica took a shower and did her makeup, then woke up Brian by turning on his radio-alarm. Then she started the griddle warming up and told the girls to get dressed. They’d chosen their red, white, and blue outfits last night, though Amber had not been happy about dressing to match her sisters again. Amber was going into sixth grade and getting far too smart for her shoes, quieter too, which worried Jessica. Once Amber learned self-control, there would be no way at all to tell what she was thinking.

But there was no rebellion today. Amber, Emily, and Amy ate their pancakes and shared the syrup courteously, without even dripping any on their star-spangled skirts. “When are we picking up Cassie?” Amber asked.

Brian, entering the kitchen, answered the question. “Lisa is bringing her over before we leave.” To Jessica, he said, “Actually, I think she’s driving herself, and Lisa’s driving back.” He shook his head. Driving already.

Jessica never spoke directly to Lisa unless necessary, preferring to communicate through Cassie or one of her own daughters. It hadn’t been an ugly breakup, but it had been an uncomfortable one, and Jessica never liked to be reminded that she had once been the other woman. Fortunately, Amber was all too happy to call her half-sister on any pretense. She was developing a pretty serious hero-crush.

Cassie arrived almost fifteen minutes late, which was exactly what Jessica had expected of Lisa, who knew that they had to drive two hours to get to Brian’s mother’s before noon. Cassie wasn’t wearing American colors either, though that couldn’t be helped, as the poor girl had probably dressed herself. Her makeup was heavy, her ponytail carefully disarranged. Her tight purple t-shirt barely met the hem of her jeans, and any time she bent at the waist, a cool, slim strip of flesh shone out.

“Pancakes?” Jessica asked.

“No thanks,” Cassie said.

Jessica didn’t eat any either.

Amber attached herself to Cassie’s side, and they conducted a technical analysis of the contents of Cassie’s iPod while Jessica washed up and then braided Emily’s hair into pigtails. When she started on Amy, Amy shook her hair free of Jessica’s hands. “You’ll get hot if you leave your hair long when you play outside at Grandma’s,” Jessica argued.

Amy pointed at Cassie. “Just one.”

Jessica consoled herself by decorating the single ponytail with a big red barrette.

Part 1

“At the Cabin” Part 1

Edith woke up on the Fourth of July at five-thirty, a little before the sun. She got out of bed immediately and made it up after herself, pulling out the decorative pillows from the closet and folding the extra blanket with precision at the foot of the bed. Then she went downstairs in her pajamas and bathrobe for her morning litany, a ritual as comfortable as catechism. Boil the water and crack the eggs, feed the dog her dry food and yolk, make up the tray with the rest of her breakfast: omelet, toast and jam, cantaloupe, tea. She took her breakfast and book out to the deck. For the last few years, she had been asking the librarians for very long novels because she liked the feeling of being caught up amidst an indefinite process, the mundanity of paradise, the reassurance that things will just keep going on. Now she was nearing the midway point of Gone with the Wind, but it would probably take her several more weeks to finish.

The deck was situated midway up a steep hill overlooking the majority of her property. A well-trodden path zigzagged downhill where it would eventually meet a wide, slow, shallow river, but the foliage obscured the gravel trail after a few hundred feet. The finches hidden in the trees chirped, Esmeralda lay across Edith’s slippers with a sigh, and Edith licked her finger and turned the page, licked her finger, turned the page. The sun rose.

Inside, Edith washed up and put twenty-five potatoes in the oven. She always made twice-baked potatoes and provided fruit and vegetables for snacking. In the shower, Edith checked off the items in her head, a list she’d had memorized for many years. Her son and daughter-in-law would do the hamburgers and hotdogs, and her daughter would bake dessert. Everyone else would bring drinks or chips or napkins and paper plates, except her sister Angela, who always brought deviled eggs with pickle relish, which no one else liked.

She was slicing onions when Angela called at eight o’clock. “I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Angela said when she heard Edith say hello. It was the first time Edith had spoken all morning, and her voice sounded thick. “I have a huge favor to ask you, well, not really ask you, but I wanted to let you know.”

“Oh?”

“Marcus is bringing a girl.”

Marcus was Angela’s only son’s only son, Edith’s great nephew. He was in school for a master’s in architecture and had never failed to call Edith on her birthday. Edith was glad that he had found someone he liked, but she had watched Angela resent her son’s marriage for thirteen years until the divorce and could only imagine the disaster she might wreak on her grandson’s. She decided to play it mild. “Well, that’ll be nice. Tell them to bring whatever she likes to drink.”

“You don’t understand.” Angela’s voice had dropped to a whisper, though she lived alone too. “Suzan is Middle Eastern.”

March 27

1. Small World. Today I traveled via hot air balloon to Victoria Island, where I drank hot tea and ate scones with Jane Austen. After we decided to co-write First Impressions, we took a turn through the Butchart Gardens, and I left her writing in a gazebo. I zipped over to Chicago in enough time to commission the new exhibit I donated to the Field Museum–twin woolly mammoths that have been in my family for years. I wrapped up the evening over dinner with friends on the stage of the Paris Opera House. I had pasta and chocolate cheesecake. It was lovely.

2. Talents. Also I read five-thousand-pages’ worth of all the books that I’ve been meaning to read for ages. I’ve also become fluent in several languages overnight. Scientists are giving me lots of money to figure out how I did it. But it’s a secret. If you want anything translated into Basque or Tagalog, let me know.And I finally wrote The Novel that I’ve been thinking about for a year. It’s been bought by a certain publisher for a several million dollar advance. I’m working on the sequel. It’ll be done tomorrow.

3. Oh, Ferret. Lastly, I taught Anastasia to leap through flaming circles and dance on her hind legs. She will pick the pockets of all the spectators and we will run away into the sunset. She will be going into business under the name of The Wallet Thief Extraordinaire.

March 25

1. A Conspiracy of Kings. It was everything that I’d hoped.

2. To-Do. Today and tomorrow I have quite a lot to do, possibly because I was frittering away my time these past three days reading the above. I have a stack of grading, a paper proposal to write, a book to read and write about, and some fiction to edit. This will take several hours. I’ll have to strategize my approach so that I’m not staring at the computer screen too long. Normally I would have the whole weekend to work through, but since my last few attempts to have a working vacation failed on both counts (I didn’t work and I enjoyed my vacation less because I was worrying about not working), I will try to cross off all the items on the to-do list before Friday night.

3. On Sluggish Drains. I have long, straight hair. It likes to hang out in drains. I need to call the apartment complex and see what they can do, because past experience has demonstrated that my hair is naturally healthy and Draino-resistant. As of this morning I have adopted a no-tolerance policy: I took a shower in our other shower because I’ve had enough of standing in soapy water.

4. Ah, Domesticity. Drains and washers and chores and tea. I’m as an exciting a blogger as cyberspace has ever seen. Maybe in my next few posts, I’ll lie.

March 24

1. German Woes. I did not pass. I’ll be retaking the exam in June…and possibly again in October.

2. University Writing Award. On the other hand, I won $750 for an essay that I wrote last semester. At least I know I can write in English.

3. Editing. And I finished editing the story that has been hanging over my head for the past couple weeks. Now I just have to write another one post-haste. I have an idea, but it’s for something rather long, and I would be unpopular if I subjected my fellow workshop participants to anything more than twenty-five pages. But I can’t help that I write long stories–I’m really a novelist at heart.

Month: March 2010