Reading with Teddy...

Books about cars and trucks were found aplenty under the Christmas tree for Teddy. His favorites so far are Cars and Trucks and Things That Go and, the book he's reading in the picture above, Cars and Trucks from A to Z--both by Richard Scarry.

Reading with Mum on Christmas morning.

29: A Novel by Adena Halpern

Did you ever wonder what would happen if a birthday wish really came true?  That is the question answered in 29: A Novel by Adena Halpern.

From Publishers Weekly (via amazon.com)
The proverbial search for youth's fountain manifests itself in Ellie Jerome, a 75-year-old woman who has employed every available artifice to remain young. Identifying more with her stylish young granddaughter, Lucy, than with her abrasive middle-aged daughter, Barbara, Ellie's 75th birthday wish is to be 29 again, for just one day. When her wish comes true, hilarious problems arise, as the young Ellie must create a new persona in order to enter and leave her apartment in a neighborhood where everyone knows the old Ellie. Choosing to let Lucy in on her secret, Ellie persuades her to be her guide on a youthful adventure in pursuit of stylish looks and a trendy life. While the dynamic duo romp through Ellie's magical day, Ellie's daughter and her dearest friend, Frida, a 75-year-old worry wart, having decided that Ellie was kidnapped, embark upon their own misguided adventure before the old (now wiser) Ellie returns at the end of her big day. With this rollicking, if familiar, offering, Halpern...sets out to prove that you're only young twice.

Passages
On Gershwin
Whenever I hear Gershwin in my head it means I'm having a good time.  (By the way, if you're too young to be familiar with Gershwin, plese get yourself some CDs.  You'll thank me later.)
 
On that "moment"
A moment comes in everyone's life when they realize they're old.  I'm not talking about the day you see your first gray hair or the day you see the hint of a crow's foot.  What I'm talking about is the day when you realize you've grown out of being able to adapt to something new.
 
On lipstick (Hello, Lancome?  Why did you discontinue Risque?)
I almost had a heart attack when Lancome stopped making my favorite lipstick.  I was on the phone with Lancome for three hours, with four different operators, trying to get to the bottom of why they discontinued my color, when the last person finally said, "No one wears that color anymore, ma'am."  "I do!" I said.
 
On using your "stuff" 
I walk into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.  I put some water in the kettle, turn on the stove, and grab some tea bags.  I go into the cabinet and take out a cup and saucer.  I use my good bone china every day.  You should, too, if you don't have small children.  It's a lesson I've learned: enjoy the things you have.
 
In her acknowledgements at the end of the book, Ms. Halpern thanks, first and foremost, "...the amazing seventy-something women I interviewed for this book.  Your generosity, honesty, and frankness were more than I could ever have asked for.  I hope I've done you proud in creating a character that captures the best of who you are."  I think the author accompished this.  The dialog between Ellie and Frida as well as incidents in the story are all spot on.
 
Most of the wisdom passed on by Ellie Jerome was obvious, but it never hurts to be reminded again and again about the value of family and friends.
 
20th Century Fox has obtained the movie rights to 29, so let's play the "Who Would You Cast in the Movie" game.  Here are my choices:

• Ellie Jerome - Florence Henderson
• Young Ellie Jerome - Cameron Diaz 
• Lucy Jerome (Ellie's granddaughter) - Anne Hathaway
• Barbara Sustamorn (Ellie's daughter) - Susan Sarandon
• Frida Freedberg (Ellie's best friend) - Olympia Dukakis
• Zachary - Chris O'Donnell 

If you read 29, please come back and let me know your dream cast!
 
Rating:  3.5/5 (Fiction Scale)
Dedication:  This book is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Arlene Rudney Halpern
First Line:  I'm jealous of my granddaughter.
 
Book Extras
Visit the author's website here.
Visit the publisher's page here.
Read a review at Musings of a Bookish Kitty here and another at Book Addiction here.

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner

Several years ago I tried to read In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner. Perhaps being the mother of a single, out-on-her-own daughter colored my reaction, but I just couldn't bring myself to read past the opening sequence of events. So, I stayed away from Jennifer Weiner until I read the description of Fly Away Home. Granted, the pulled from the headlines plotline of the disgraced politician may have made this another pass; however, I put it on my library reserve list and did find the story good enough to keep me reading on a Saturday afternoon despite the less than enthusiastic editorial review from Publishers Weekly.

From Publishers Weekly (via bn.com)
Weiner weaves a forgettable family drama with three weakly connected storylines: mother Sylvie Woodruff long ago sacrificed herself to become the perfect politician's wife, but the revelation of her husband's infidelity sends her off to reconnect with her old self. Her daughters aren't faring any better: recovering addict Lizzie is pursuing an interest in photography, but a childhood incident continues to trouble her; and dutiful older daughter Diana, an ER doctor, is escaping her blandly offensive husband via her own affair. The three women's crises function in parallel, and Weiner is unable to keep the narrative tension going when she hops from one character to another, largely because their issues are so tidily resolved and the women are never in real emotional danger--Sylvie's husband's affair is a "one-day story," Lizzie's narcotic slip is to take a couple of Advil PM (and an apology resolves the unresolved past), and the breakdown of Diana's marriage is dispatched as easily as Diana making a resolution to change her life. The lack of conflict and strong characters, and the heavy dose of brand names and ripped-from-the-headlines references, make this disappointingly disposable.


When all was said and read, it was wrapped a little too nicely. I'm much more intrigued with watching the tensions in The Good Wife. How will Alicia Florrick handle things this year?

Rating: 3/5 (Fiction Scale)
Dedication: For Joanna Pulcini and Greer Hendricks
First Line: Breakfast in five-star hotels was always the same.

Book Extras
Visit the author's website here.
Visit the publisher's page here.

Les at Lesley's Book Nook has written a review of Fly Away Home which pretty much echoes my experience. Please click here to read her review. While you're there, be sure to check out Les's new wheels!

As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs

On the inside front cover flap, As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs is described as "a rare mix of wit, social satire, and suspense...an irresistible story about a love that just won't give up."  Happily, the book lived up to this description.

From Publishers Weekly (via amazon)
Bestseller Isaacs draws on tony Long Island, gritty New York City, and a tabloid-friendly murder for this smart-alecky whodunit/surprisingly sweet love story. Susan is left alone with her three boys, big suburban house, and nagging questions when plastic surgeon hubby Jonah Gersten turns up dead in a hooker's Upper East Side apartment. Though the police and prosecutors wind up their case against call girl Dorinda Dillon, it's far from settled for Susan. It simply didn't add up, in either my head or my heart, she confesses. And what better sidekick to track down the truth than Susan's rogue granny, Ethel. What follows is an intricate and fascinating dissection of Susan's marriage, family, husband's medical practice and partners, and the unwitting call girl at the center of it all. Isaacs (Past Perfect) brings it all together in this fast and furious ride through wanton greed, fragile relationships, and love worth fighting for.

Ms. Isaacs is the author of twelve novels; however, As Husbands Go was my first experience with reading one of her books, and an excellent one at that.  At first, I was put off by the stylish name dropping and scene setting, thinking, "Oh, here we go.  Another Gucci-Manolo Blanik laden story."  But not so.  Oh, there were style references aplenty written with pointed lifestyle skewering--not snarky, just obvious. 

I'll be looking to catch up on previous titles from Susan Isaacs as well as anticipating her next book.

Rating:  3.5/5 (Mystery Scale)
Dedication:  To St. Catherine and Bob Morvillo with love.
Epigraph:
   Here, take this gift,
   I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
   One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the
   progress and freedom of the race,
   Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
   But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as
      much as to any.
          -Walt Whitman, "To a Certain Cantatrice," Leaves of Grass
First Line:  Who knew?

Book Extras
Visit the author's website here.
Click here to read a review on Bookreporter.com

Moonlight Road by Robyn Carr

Moonlight Road, the final installment in Robyn Carr's Virgin River series, gives us the story of Erin Foley and Aiden Riordan and the complication of the return of Annalee Riordan, the woman Aiden believed was his ex-wife--emphasis on "ex."

From the publisher (via bn.com)
With her beloved younger siblings settled and happy, Erin Foley has empty nest syndrome. At age thirty-five.  So she's hitting the pause button on her life and holing up in a secluded (but totally upgraded—she's not into roughing it) cabin near Virgin River. Erin is planning on getting to know herself…not the shaggy-haired mountain man she meets.  In fact, beneath his faded fatigues and bushy beard, Aiden Riordan is a doctor, recharging for a summer after leaving the navy. He's intrigued by the pretty, slightly snooty refugee from the rat race—her meditating and journaling are definitely keeping him at arm's length. He'd love to get closer…if his scruffy exterior and crazy ex-wife don't hold him back.  But maybe it's something in the water—unlikely romances seem to take root in Virgin River…helped along by some well-intentioned meddling, of course.

Moonlight Road was the August selection for the Barnes & Noble (Burlington, MA) Romance Readers and has all the usual Virgin River characters--more babies are born, and there's more on the original perfect couple, Jack and Mel.  As readers, we may have dallied too long and will be somewhat happy to see the "Leaving Virgin River" in our rearview mirror.  But, then there's those two last Riordan brothers....

Rating:  3.5/5 (Romance Scale)

Dedication:  For Tonie Crandall, because the world would be a dimmer place without all the love you have in your heart.  Thank you for being even more than a friend--thank you for being a sister.

First Line:  In the two weeks Aiden Riordan had been in Virgin River, he'd hiked over a hundred miles and grown himself a pretty hefty dark red beard.

Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank

In Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank we return to Tall Pines Plantation and revisit the Wimbleys and other characters introduced in the 2001 novel Plantation.

From Publishers Weekly (via amazon)
Here's one for the Southern gals as well as Yankees who appreciate Frank's signature mix of sass, sex, and gargantuan personalities. In this long-time-coming sequel to Plantation, opinionated and family-centric Caroline Wimbly Levine has just turned 47, but she's less concerned with advancing middle age than she is with son Eric shacking up with an older single mom. She's also dealing with a drunk and disorderly sister-in-law, Frances Mae; four nieces from hell; grieving brother Trip; a pig-farmer boyfriend with a weak heart; and a serious crush on the local sheriff. Then there's Caroline's dead-but-not-forgotten mother, Miss Lavinia, whose presence both guides and troubles Caroline as she tries to keep her unruly family intact and out of jail. With a sizable cast of minor characters with major attitude, Frank lovingly mixes a brew of personalities who deliver nonstop clashes, mysteries, meltdowns, and commentaries; below the always funny theatrics, however, is a compelling saga of loss and acceptance.

Passages
On a hurricane meal
Orders were taken and eventually we sat down to what could be characterized as a hurricane meal, which would be one prepared with whatever could be found but with no electricity or water, having boiled the pasta in Evian on a charcoal grill or whatever we had on hand, although Trip would have been apoplectic if we had used bottled water to cook.  The cost, you know.

On a new-to-me word (scrying)
"Don't make me go scrying in my bowl this morning, you 'eah me?  What's going on 'round 'eah?" (Millie)
"Scrying?" Rusty said.
"The art of predicting the future by staring into water.  Nostradamus did it all the time.  Very handy for predicting the end of time and all that I [Caroline] said.

On mother's sending children off to wherever
...I turned around one day and saw that he had grown peach fuzz above his lip and on the sides of his face.  On and on it went until he towered over me and melted my heart every time I heard his man voice say, "I love you, Mom."
"I just hate for you to leave, Eric."  I couldn't help pouting.
"Yeah, me, too.  But you know I'll be back as soon as I run out of clean socks."
"All over the world, mothers depend on that."

On another foodie description
For dinner today, Millie had baked a fruited ham and made red rice, deviled eggs, green-bean salad, a zillion biscuits, and brownies that were so rich and chocolaty they made you literally drool for another cold glass of milk.

Revisiting and catching up with the Wimbley family and the goings-on at Tall Pines definitely fell into the category of a good summer read.  Most everyone was still doing what they do best, whether that be Millie's holding everything together or Frances Mae's wreaking havoc.  Add to that the less than genteel or appreciative daughters of said Frances Mae, and you have the makings of a good family-in-turmoil story. 

My only real problem with Lowcountry Summer?  Where was Dr. Jack Taylor?  When last we left Caroline Wimbley Levine in Plantation, she seemed to be in a committed relationship with Jack.  Fast forward to Lowcountry Summer, page 3, and we are introduced to her current beau, "a wonderful guy named Bobby Mack" without so much as a fleeting reference to the fate of Jack.

Rating:  3.5/5 (Fiction scale)
Dedication:  In loving memory of my sweet brother, Billy
First sentence:  It is a generally accepted fact that at some point during your birthday, you will reassess your life.

Extras
Click here to visit the author's website.
For more information on the Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto (ACE) Basin--the setting for Lowcountry Summer and Plantation--click here. 

Other Reviews & Information
Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews
Publisher's Page

Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank

Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank has been on the "gotta get to this book" list for some time. Now that a follow-up book, Lowcountry Summer, has just come out, I figured it was time to get to Plantation which I had downloaded to my Kindle last year.

From Publishers Weekly (via amazon)
...this colorful contemporary romance effortlessly evokes the lush beauty of the South Carolina Lowcountry while exploring the complexities of family relationships. When Caroline Wimbley Levine learns that her mother, Miss Lavinia, has supposedly gone mad, she leaves the big city bustle of Manhattan and returns to Tall Pines Plantation. Caroline originally left Tall Pines to escape her feisty, eccentric mother and her drunken brother, Trip, but when Miss Lavinia dies, Caroline is forced to come to terms with her family's troubled history as well her failing relationship with her husband. As Caroline reminisces about her past rebelliousness and her childhood, she realizes that her father's sudden and tragic death many years before served as a catalyst for the family's disintegration. Caroline and Trip also learn that their seemingly selfish and self-assured mother was not so uncaring after all. While most of the story is told from Caroline's point of view, journal entries written by Miss Lavinia open several of the chapters, providing the narrative with additional texture and warmth. Although the novel is short on plot, readers will enjoy immersing themselves in the lives of these deftly drawn, heartfelt characters.

Passages
On bookshelves
Turning out lights, I looked around at what Richard and I had built in the last thirteen years. We had six rooms of travel memorabilia from our wanderings. Our bookshelves were crammed with learned opinions on every area of psychology and psychiatrics in and out of print. Those were Richard's. They were his library and his weapons. My books were on textiles from around the world, Japanese gardens, obscure religions such as the cargo cultures of West Africa. Sometimes it seemed that he focused on the mind of man whereas I studied the spirit and what man held sacred. Our bookshelves were as good a starting place as any to see the differences between us.

On a doctor's office
His walls were covered with diplomas and citations and photographs of what appeared to be open-air-market people in Istanbul and Greece. He apparently liked to travel and to read. In addition to bookshelves of reference materials on various skin diseases, he had a small collection of leather-bound old books--classics--probably first editions. He treasured books. He couldn't be all bad.

On appreciation and simplicity
But when the red ball of the sun slipped under the Edisto River that evening, I was pretty sure that life didn't get much better than being in the place you loved most, surrounded by the people closest to your heart.

Plantation was a story of a family finding its true self again after years of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. I enjoyed seeing Caroline Wimbley Levine find her heart and home, although it seemed at times that she certainly was taking a lot of needless side trips along the way.  I have put Lowcountry Summer on my library reserve list; however, I see from many reviews that this follow-up to Plantation is getting some of the same bad reviews as did Return to Sullivan's Island. Sometimes, unless it is clear that the author set out to write a series, characters may be best served by our remembering them as we last knew them in print or as we, the readers, chose to imagine what happened next.


Rating: 3.5/5 (Fiction Scale)

Dedication: For Peter

First Sentence (from Prologue): This story I have to tell you has to be true because even I couldn't make up this whopper.

Personal note: Lavinia Boswell Wimbley took a fancy to the poetry of Rod McKuen.

Father's Day

John Murphy, the original "Owl"

(Rockport, MA ~ October, 1965)

In one of the stars I shall be living.

In one of them I shall be laughing.

And so it will be as if all of the stars

were laughling when you look at the sky at night.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Heart of the Matter, the latest from Emily Giffin--what can I say?  I had a coupon and the cover is purple, and so went my pledge to library more/purchase less.

From Booklist (via amazon)
Tessa Russo is celebrating her wedding anniversary with her handsome husband, Nick, a pediatric plastic surgeon, when his pager goes off. At the hospital, he meets his new patient, six-year-old Charlie, who has been badly burned while roasting s’mores. Charlie’s mother, Valerie, a high-powered lawyer who has raised Charlie on her own, is wracked with guilt. As Charlie goes through various grafts and surgeries to repair the damage done to his face and hand, Nick and Valerie become close. Tessa, a stay-at-home mom who has misgivings about leaving her professorship, recognizes the distance growing between her and Nick but isn’t sure what to attribute it to or what to do about it. The premise is a familiar one, but Giffin injects freshness by getting inside both Tessa’s and Valerie’s heads and by making both sympathetic, fleshed-out characters. Giffin’s talent lies in making her characters believable and relatable, and readers will be enthralled by this layered, absorbing novel.

Passages
On becoming your mother
On Sunday afternoon, Nick, Ruby, Frank, and I are shopping for Halloween costumes at Target--our idea of quality family time--when I realize that I've officially become my mother.  It's certainly not the first time I have sheepishly caught myself in a "Barb-ism" as my brother calls such moments.  For example, I know I sound like her whenever I warn Ruby that she's "skating on thin ice" or that "only boring people get bored."  And I see myself in her when I buy something I truly don't want--whether a dress or a six-pack of ramen noodles--simply because it is on sale.  And when I judge someone for forgetting to write a thank-you note, or driving a car with a vanity license plate, or, God forbid, chewing gum too enthusiastically in public.

On what women do  (My comment:  They do?)
...all women compare lives.  We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex.  We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, miding their manners, getting into the right schools.  We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game.  We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artifically.  We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all.  We digest it all and then discuss with our friends.  Comparing and then confiding it is what women do.

My plot summary?  Take a single mother with a badly injured child and mix with a somewhat happily married renowned pediatric surgeon. Toss in a the surgeon's wife who's wondering "is that all there is," and you have the Heart of the Matter.

While Giffin explored in depth the single attorney mother and the former college professor housewife and made each of these characters evoke sympathy from me, I felt some annoyance that the story never really got inside the doctor's head to understand what he was thinking and feeling. 

Next time, I'll be strong and remember my pledge...or I'll just honestly admit that I may have aged out of this kind of story regardless of the come hither purple cover.

Rating:  2.5/5 (Fiction Scale)

Dedication:  For Sarah, my sister and lifelong friend

First line:  Whenever I hear of someone else's tragedy, I do not dwell on the accident or diagnosis, or even the initial shock waves or aftermath of grief.

Playlist
Lullaby of the Leaves, Vince Guaraldi
Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers
Jupiter Symphony, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Johann Sebastian Bach
Night Swimming, REM
Sarah Smile, Hall & Oates
Beck CD (unspecified)
Georgia on My Mind, Willie Nelson version

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope

The Other Family is the latest from Joanna Trollope who has been writing fiction for more than thirty years--The Rector's Wife, A Village Affair, Marrying the Mistress among many others.

From Booklist (via amazon)
When popular crooner Richie Rossiter dies, his longtime partner, Chrissie, is left bereft and angered that she never got Richie to divorce his first wife and marry her, providing security for her and their three daughters. In addition, money becomes a serious issue since she was his manager. Then she learns that Richie amended his will to leave a treasured piano and the rights to songs he wrote early in his career to his first wife, Margaret, and their son, Scott. Chrissie, who refused to ever fully acknowledge Richie’s first family, is left to wonder whether he actually loved her, while Margaret finds herself enormously relieved to discover that she was remembered. The prolific Trollope skillfully engineers a heartwarming story of renewal and hope as she brings the two families closer together. Scott reaches out to Chrissie’s youngest child, providing her with both comfort and a link to her dad’s childhood in Newcastle. Hurt feelings and issues of abandonment vie with the impulse to forge ahead and to heal in this intelligent and moving novel of modern family life.

Passages
On a tea caddy
Tamsin was taking tea bags out of a caddy their father had brought down from Newcastle, a battered tin caddy with a crude portrait of Earl Grey stamped on all four sides.  The caddy had always been an object of mild family derision, being so cozy, so evidently much used, so sturdily unsleek.  Richie had loved it.  He said it was like one he had grown up with, in the terraced house of his childhood in North Shields.  He said it was honest, and he liked it filled with Yorkshire tea bags.  Earl Grey tea--no disrespect to His Lordship--was for toffs and for women.

On Dawson, the cat
Today, he had ignored his breakfast.  It was untouched and he had removed himself to his favorite daytime place, stretched along the back of the sofa in the bay window of the sitting room, to catch any eastern sun there might be, and also any passing incident.  He would not, Margeret knew, involve himself in anything that required exertion, but equally, he liked to know what was going on.

On ablutions
A bath, an application of this and that to her face, a prolonged session with the immense variety of toothbrushes the fierce young hygienist at her dentist now insisted on, a vigorous hairbrush, a well-laundered white cotton nightdress with picot edging--they all added up to something that, some days, Margaret looked forward to almost from the moment she woke in the morning.

My first experience with Joanna Trollope was in 1999 when she was writer-in-residence for Victoria magazine and her novella Daughter Number Three was serialized in that publication.  Since then, I have been entertained by several of her domestic dramas, but alas, not so with The Other Family.  The story dragged on and meandered, and I found some of the characters annoying.  This was a story of a family's grief and their journey to reconciliation; unfortunately, I did not care enough about the characters to take comfort in the resolution of their story.

Rating:  2.5/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source:  Library
Dedication:  To Jason
First Line:  Looking back, it astonished her that none of them had broken down in the hospital.

Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt

There was a lot of pre-release buzz about Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt.  I will readily admit, however, that this was a the-cover-got-me book (Still Life with Kettle, 1977, by Lennart Anderson).

From Publisher's Weekly
Family tragedy is healed by domestic routine in this quiet, tender memoir. When his daughter Amy died suddenly at the age of 38 from an asymptomatic heart condition, journalist and novelist Rosen-blatt (Lapham Rising) and his wife moved into her house to help her husband care for their three young children. Not much happens except for the mundane, crucial duties of child care: reading stories, helping with schoolwork, chasing after an indefatigable toddler who is “the busiest person I have ever known,” making toast to order for finicky kids. Building on the small events of everyday life, Rosenblatt draws sharply etched portraits of his grandchildren; his stoic, gentle son-in-law; his wife, who feels slightly guilty that she is living her daughter's life; and Amy emerges as a smart, prickly, selfless figure whose significance the author never registered until her death. Rosenblatt avoids the sentimentality that might have weighed down the story; he writes with humor and an engagement with life that makes the occasional flashes of grief all the more telling. The result is a beautiful account of human loss, measured by the steady effort to fill in the void.

Passages
On learning to speak (this theory fascintated me!)
Bubbies has been attending to his own education, proceeding from one word, to several, to two-word sentences, to three and more.  Some say that children learn to speak in order to tell the stories already in them.

On an IBM Selectric typewriter (I remember clearly the day in 1966 when the first IBM Selectrics were brought into Katharine Gibbs School in Boston to replace the Royal Standards)
Jessie wants to know how my IBM Selectric typewriter works.  It fascinates her to see me at it--one antique using another.

On reading
In a rare tranquil moment on a March afternoon, I sit on the green couch in the lower-level play area, rereading Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist.  It is around four-thirty, and the light has gone from the day.  Jessie comes downstairs and asks why I am so quiet.  "I'm reading," I tell her.  She takes one of her own books from the coffee table and sits beside me, extending her long legs over the front of the couch.  We sit in silence, reading, five feet from where Amy collapsed and died.  I look up from time to time, then return to my book.

On Yeats
She [Amy] had a gift for custom and ceremony--the qualities Yeats wished for in "A Prayer for My Daughter."

This narrative of the events following the sudden death of Ginny and Roger's daughter Amy is full of those peeking-through-windows moments for the reader.  There's the expected sad, grieving and empty moments; but there's also the sweet and healing* moments that let you know that this family will be ok.

Les at Lesley's Book Nook has written a very touching review of Making Toast which you can read here.

Rating:  3.5/5 (Non-Fiction Scale)

*5/7/10 Update:  If you read the comments for this post, you will see Nan's spot-on comment regarding "healing."  I've been thinking about what she wrote for several days now, and I think the more correct word I should have used would be "mending"--mending in the sense of an attempt to hold things together.  I'm still thinking about this; might have to return yet again with more thoughts on this. 

Dedication:  For Amy

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

Quotidian (adjective)
1.  daily
2.  usual or customary; everyday
3.  ordinary; commonplace

The first half of Every Last One by Anna Quindlen is best described with the adjective quotidian.  Mary Beth Latham and her family (husband, Glen; daughter, Ruby; twin sons, Alex and Max) go through the daily routine so familiar to anyone who has had kids in middle school and high school and who remembers (fondly or not) the soccer games and practices, the having to be at opposite ends of the town at the exact same time, the crises of young love, etc.  And so, the first half of Every Last One lulled me into this family's life, enjoying the conversations between Mary Beth and Glen as they handled the ups and downs.  Then, suddently, I am post-quotidian and launched into the unfamiliar needs of healing and rebuilding hope and love.

Here is where I normally post an editorial review by either Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, or Booklist.  After reading the reviews of Every Last One, I have decided they give away too much information.  Every Last One is a book that every reader needs to experience as it happens.  I do hope, however, that you will check out the wonderfully thoughtful review Les posted at Lesley's Book Nook and the video files posted here.

Passages
On prom attire
Kiernan found a sky-blue tuxedo at the thrift store at which Ruby struck out on a dress.  It came with a ruffled shirt, a cummerbund, and an enormous bow tie.  Ruby said the bow tie looks like a butterfly.  I know exactly what Kiernan will look like.  He will look like James McGhee, the boy who took me to my prom.  He wore that self-same tuxedo.  I remember finding an old photograph of the two of us posed in front of two freestanding Styrofoam Corinthian pillars that had been set up in the hotel hallway, and thinking what a good thing it was that the classic black tux had come back into style, and that the sort of Empire-waist dress I was wearing had gone out of fashion.  Now Kiernan is wearing the blue tux, and Ruby and all her friends wear dresses with Empire waists.  I am trying to learn to take nothing for granted.

On family changes
My brother, Richard, and I were two people related by blood, with little in common.  When he left for college, it was as though the pond of our family had rippled slightly, then closed around the disturbance and become smooth again. 

On lovers' ghosts
Kiernan will finish his senior year in high school, and he will go away to college, and he will become something fine and true:  a beloved teacher, perhaps, or the sort of lawyer who represents the indigent.  He will have a life in which this one seems merely like the sort of dream that is vivid at the moment of waking and has vanished by the time you've had your coffee.  But this day my daughter has cast him out of the closest thing to paradise he has known, our kitchen.  To us it seems so ordinary, so little to have, but I have seen in his eyes...the glitter of yearning, and felt sad that the best we could offer was a kind of borrowing.  Kiernan had believed he could turn the borrowing into ownership.  And from time to time as he grows older, he will remember Ruby Latham, and how he loved her, and how he lost her.  Every other girl will have a Ruby ghost hovering over her without her knowing it.

On a window on the world
There were four panes of bright light aslant on our ceiling from a white June moon.  The light through this window, the smell of the air, the witchy line of a tree branch that has insinuated itself into the sight line of my side of the bed:  this is how I track the seasons.  I can't say why, but when I see those squares of light on the ceiling I feel as though all will be well.

On the butterfly effect
Once Ruby and I were sitting in the yard, watching the monarchs swarm the bee balm.  It must have been early September, one of those slow late-summer days when school had just begun yet everything felt tentative--the textbook unopened, the sweaters still packed into their plastic beneath the bed.  Ruby loved to tell me things I didn't know, and that afternoon, as we sipped lemonade and scuffed our bare feet through the shaggy grass, she had told me about the butterfly effect, how the beating of their wings in Mexico could cause a breeze in our backyard.  "That's kind of terrifying," I replied.  But even as I spoke I realized that that was what we had all believed from the moment we had children.  The breast-fed baby became the confident adult.  The toddler who listened to a bedtime story went on to a doctorate.  We flapped our wings in our kitchens, and a wind blew through their futures.

This was a one-day read for me.  I was completely drawn in to the Latham family and sat rivited, tissues in hand, while seeing how everything came out on the other side. 

Rating:  4.5/5 (Fiction Scale)  Note:  My copy of Every Last One is on its way to my friend Suzanne.  I have a very personal question to ask her after she finishes, and her answer could mean a change in my rating.

Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon

The cover was what first attracted me to Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon.  For some reason, I immediately thought of my mother and her signature lipstick, Cherries in the Snow.  Turns out, the author's grandmother and my mother (who were of an age) had something in common as they both advised, "Never go without lipstick; it only makes you look washed out."

From Cover Flap
When Suzan Colon was laid off from her dream job at a magazine during the economic downturn of 2008, she needed to cut her budget way, way back--and that meant home cooking.  Her mother suggested, "Why don't you look in Nana's recipe folder?"  In the basement, Suzan found the tattered treasure, full of handwritten and meticulously typed recipes, peppered with her grandmother Matilda's commentary in the margins.  Reading it, Suzan realized she had found something more than a collection of recipes--she had found the key to her family's survival through hard times.

Notes and Quotes
First reactions:
Put up soup; that's what my family says when times get tough. Some people batten down the hatches, others go to the mattresses--whatever your family's code phrase is, it means bracing yourself and doing whatever will sustain you through rough going until things get better. In my family, we put up soup.

When your known world is shaken:
Being in this recession feels like watching a nature film about the disintegration of a major polar ice shelf:  Huge chunks of everything we thought was solid keep breaking apart and disappearing into an abyss, the depth of which no one knows.  Fear is palpable, and worry about how much worse it's going to get is the main topic of conversation.

On Nana's love of words and writing:
Nana was in love with words.  In school she read the dictionary, a page a day, and she bought new, updated dictionaries the way some people buy novels.  In the box with the recipe file I find envelopes and folders full of papers--some related to her work as a secretary for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Coliseum, a convention center in New York.  But most of it is her personal writing.  She didn't keep a diary but wrote about her life in a series of essays and articles she hoped to send to magazines, and her Everywoman subject matter was ahead of its time.

The cherries:
One night in the middle of December, the fruit vendor had the winter cherries.  They were pricey all right, but Matilda didn't hesitate.  It wasn't that cold out, so mother and daughter walked to the park and sat on a bench to enjoy their extravagance.  "Is there anything better in the world," Matilda said, "than being in Manhattan in Central Park and eating cherries in winter?"

The rationalization for the cherries:
The women in my family have certain traits:  height, prominent noses, and the ability to rationalize spending extra, just once in a while, when there is no extra to be spent.  Because.  I got some of their height and all of the nose, but I thought that last characteristic was missing in me.  It wasn't; I just didn't realize that it only wakes up when we begin to measure ourselves by money, or the lack of it.  It's not a reflexive kick of denial about having less.  It's a deep breath reminding us not to become miserly in spirit.  We may be broke, but we're not poor.

You're unemployed, you need a trip to the hairdresser (you no longer go to a "hair stylist"), you need to make decisions:
Of course, there's no decision to be made.  I'd give up my hair appointments forever and become the Wild Woman of Borneo before I'd let my cat be in pain or even have to forgo the cruncy kibble she likes so much.  Nor will I repurpose my monthly donations to the ASPCA and the local food bank for this expense.  I've have to cut down on the amount I give, but I refuse to cut charitable donations out completely.  There have been too many stories of pets left behid in abandoned homes and last year's food bank donors becoming this year's recipients.  Not giving while I still have something to give, no matter how little, is an inner beauty routine I won't do without.

I've never in my life had a $300 hair cut or shopped in stores as exclusive as those Ms. Colon frequented, so my adjustment to unemployment has been on a lesser scale.  However, the reality of unemployment is a blow to ego and psyche; and the adjustment, whether large- or small-scale, is daunting and a bit scary.  Many of the thoughts and fears expressed by Ms. Colon rang true.  I didn't put up soup, but there was a pot of beef stew to lend comfort on that first day of imposed leisure.

And--as my daughter reminded me--when you're feeling bad, there isn't a better picker-upper than a new tube of lipstick.  Do you think Revlon still sells Cherries in the Snow?

Rating:  3.5/5 (Non-fiction scale)

Dedication:  For Mom, Dad, and Nathan

That Old Cape Magic

Much like memories of Cape Cod, Richard Russo’s That Old Cape Magic played with my mind as I travelled up and down Routes 6/6A and 28 with Jack Griffin. There’s something about the Cape that can do that. Are these the bright, cloudless days with hydrangeas a color of blue that can’t be described or the gray, misty days with everything hidden in rolling fog banks? Were the vacations there as happy and carefree as I remember them?

Book Description from Amazon
Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest. And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that’s now thirty years old and has largely come true. He’d left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they’d moved into an old house full of character; and they’d started a family. Check, check and check.

But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, their beloved Laura’s, on the coast of Maine, Griffin’s chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large, unruly family, and both he and she have brought dates along. How in the world could this have happened?

That Old Cape Magic is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has. The storytelling is flawless throughout, moments of great comedy and even hilarity alternating with others of rueful understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and its ending is at once surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written.

Passages
On happiness (real or perceived): …he’d tried but failed to keep his parents out. Right from the start (of the story, of his marriage), despite his best efforts, they’d managed to insinuate themselves. When Joy suggested they honeymoon on the Maine coast, Griffin convinced her that what they needed was a dose of the old Cape magic, that weakest of marital spells. In Truro they’d made plans for a life based on what they foolishly thought were their own terms, Joy articulating what she wanted, Griffin, tellingly, what he didn’t want (a marriage that even remotely resembled his partnes’, as if this negative were a nifty substitute for an unimagined positive). Even as he rejected their values, he’d allowed many of their bedrock assumptions—that happiness was a place you could visit but never own, for instance—to burrow deep.

Cape Cod vs. Coastal Maine: The rugged maine coastline was stunning, Griffin had to admit, the light so pure it almost hurt. He couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if his parents had fallen in love with this part of the world instead of the Cape. Certainly it would have been more affordable, but that begged an obvious question: would they really have wanted something they could afford? After all, much of the Cape’s allure was its shimmering elusiveness, the magical way it receded before them year after year, the stuff of dreams. Coastal Maine, by contrast, seemed not just real but battered by reality. Where Cape Cod somehow managed to vie the impression that July lasted all year, Maine reminded you, even in lush late spring, of its long, harsh winters, of snowdrifts that rotted baseboards and splintered latticework, of relentless winds that howled in the eaves and scoured the paint, leaving gutters rusted white with salt.

The perfect Christmas tree: Griffin came to understand that the perfect Christmas tree was a lot like the perfect house on the Cape, first because it didn’t exist in the real world, and second because all the imperfect trees fell into two categories. The first was the all-too-familiar Wouldn’t have It As a Gift, and the second applied to just one tree: Well, I Guess It’ll Have to Do.

Predictability: Late middle age, he [Griffin] was coming to understand, was a time of life when everything was predictable and yet somehow you failed to see any of it coming.

Being Plumb: …he became aware of an unfamiliar but extremely pleasurable feeling. How to describe it? Plumb. He was feeling plumb. Okay, may not completely, but no more than half bubble off. Plum some. As good as could be expected. He wondered if plumb might be another word for happy.

I struggled through parts of That Old Cape Magic I thought tedious. In retrospect, I realized that my reading of Griffin’s travels needed to be tedious while waiting patiently for him to sort everything out—the ties of parents, in-laws, friends, and career. In the end, it’s not the perfect Christmas tree, the perfect vacation destination, or perfection itself. It’s a "moment of grace" that comes unexpectly and demands that you sieze it.

Finished on August 14, 2009

Rating: 4/5 (Fiction Scale)

Pages: 261

Publisher: Knopf

Copyright: 2009

Format: Hardcover

Dedication: For Barbara, always

*****

While reading That Old Cape Magic, I spent a day with the GrandDogs. Louie (while he has learned to be very quiet) does not yet differentiate between good things to chew on vs. bad things to chew on. As Groucho Marx said, "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

The Beach House

The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe had been languishing on Mt. TBR for some time, and a bookmark at page 32 marked an earlier attempt to read about Caretta Rutledge and her coming of age story. I say coming of age because despite the main character age in years one immediately thinks of when a book is described as such, I think we can come of age at any time in our lives when we shed what came before and look ahead with renewed purpose.

From Publishers Weekly

After losing her high-powered advertising job in Chicago, Caretta Rutledge grudgingly returns to her low-country roots at her mother's behest. Cara has long resented her mother, who focused her maternal efforts more on looking after the annual loggerhead turtle spawn than on protecting herself and her children from their abusive father. But when Cara learns that her mother is ill, she must lay her bitterness aside and try to make amends. Cara starts by restoring her mother's small beach house and joining the same turtle brigade she resented while growing up. In the process, she reconnects with an old friend and finds love in the arms of a local boat owner and naturalist. This poignant read won't disappoint fans of so-called "Southern Fiction;” the South, which represents both poison and tonic, is eloquently portrayed here, and its healing properties inevitably come to the fore. Just enough information about the loggerhead turtles and their spawning cycle opens each chapter, swiftly engaging the reader from the outset, and all of the integral characters are richly developed. With its evocative, often beautiful prose and keen insights into family relationships, Monroe's latest (following The Four Seasons) is an exceptional and heartwarming work of fiction that is bound to please fans of women's fiction and romances alike.

I finished The Beach House this morning after we’ve been through a week of the coldest weather in years and as another six inches of snow was blanketing the yard; however, I felt the warmth of the South Carolina sun, felt the sand between my toes, and heard the steady and true sounds of the ocean. The book opens with this passage:

It was twilight and a brilliant red sun lazily made its hazy descent off the South Carolina coast. Lovie Rutledge stood alone on a small, rolling sand dune and watched as two young children with hair the same sandy color as the beach squealed and cavorted, playing the age-old game of tag with the sea. A shaky half smile lifted the corners of her mouth. The boy couldn’t have been more than four years of age yet he was aggressively charging the water, the stick in his hand pointing outward like a sword. Then, turning on his heel, he ran back up the beach chased by wave. Poor fellow was tagged more often than not. But the girl… Was she seven or eight? Now there was a skilled player. She danced on tiptoe, getting daringly close to the foamy wave, instinctively knowing the second to back away, taunting the water with her high laugh.

What memories that stirred up for me. Has it really been twenty-five years since I stood and watched my son and daughter playing the same game on a Cape Cod beach?

This book stirred up many memories not because my mother and I were ever at loggerheads, but because on these cold wintery days I have read how Cara learns not to fight what her mother is going through but to help her through it. As daughters, our first instinct to fight the inevitable and it does take strength to step outside ourselves to help. Even after many years have passed, a turn of phrase in a book of fiction can pop the top on the box safely stored in our hearts, and the raw emotions claw their way back.

My family life and circumstances are and were nothing like Cara’s, but the exploration of the mother-daughter bond, that most dynamic of relationships fraught with loggerhead moments, made this a standout reading experience for me.

Prologue EpigraphLoggerhead. 1. Latin: Caretta caretta. A tropical sea turtle with a hard shell and a large head. 2. A stupid fellow; blockhead. 3. At loggerheads; in disagreement; in a quarrel.

DedicationThis book is dedicated to my fellow members of the Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island Turtle Team [list of names] and to all Turtle Volunteers here and elsewhere who walk the beaches every morning to help our beloved loggerheads.

EpigraphPerchance you have worried, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seem rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with the turtle’s pace. The young turtle spends its infancy within its shell. It gets experience and learns the way of the world through that wall. While it rests warily on the edge of its hole, rash schemes are undertaken by men and fail. French empires rise or fall, but the turtle is developed only so fast. What’s a summer? Time for a turtle’s egg to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. They have no worries, have no cares, yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?

-Henry David Thoreau Journal August 28, 1856

Finished January 18, 2009

Rating: 4 of 5 (General Fiction)

Pages: 477

Publisher: Mira

Copyright: 2002

Format: Trade Paperback