Olive Kitteridge

Most people know I grew up in Kansas, and although Wichita is not a particularly small town, it sometimes felt that way. Family trips up to Ipswich, MA to see my cousins, or summer vacations to Santa Fe, Colorado or Italy confirmed to me that the world was bigger and I needed to see it.  I couldn't imagine why everyone didn't want to leave.  I moved to Boston after graduation and hardly looked back.   I thought reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout reminded me of the insularity I sometimes felt growing up.

Olive is the main character connecting a dozen or so stories set in small town Maine.  She's a curmudgeon, large and unattractive, overbearing and overall mean.  In short, not a sympathetic character.  The people in her town are gossips and un-motivated.  Her son manages to escape first to California, and then to New York.  The other men in the book seem broken and the women seem to get by mostly by being crazy and/or drunk.

It's been more (ahem) than 10 years I've lived in Boston and I can recall Wichita fondly.  I'm happy to still have close friends I grew up with; some moved away, and some stayed there.  But they're happy and successful.  I'm better able to connect with fellow midwestern ex-pats and appreciate that friendliness.  And I've come to realize that New Englanders are just as insular, if not more, than midwesterners.  The discomfort I felt reading Olive Kitteridge came from my own feeling of being sucked in to Boston.

Ms. Strout is a wonderful writer. Her scenes and characters are evocative to a fault.  So it's not the writing, but the subject matter.  Last spring I met a woman in my neighborhood and upon telling her that we like to recruit a geographically diverse housestaff to my hospital, her response, "But why would that matter?" seemed to summarize my overall frustration with Olive Kitteridge.

Netflix stars: 3/5.

Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Everyone has some experience eating alone. Perhaps you were a BU student and sat in the G.S.U. during a break in your afternoon classes and ate a BK chicken sandwich. Or perhaps you travel for business and order room service. Maybe you just moved to a new city and go out to eat regardless if you have friends yet who will join you.

In Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant, Jenni Ferrari-Adler compiles essays by such noted writers as M.F.K. Fischer, Amanda Hesser, Steve Almond, Ann Patchett and Laurie Colwin, about cooking and dining alone (or in one case, the desire to cook and dine alone!). Each essay provides a glimpse into a personal life and often, a recipe.

I picked up this book book because most evenings I eat alone so I wanted to find out how other people did it. Did they overcook like I tend to? Do they snack their way through a box of crackers and a bottle of wine? Did they forego any pretense of nutrition and instead devour a pint of ice cream?

Far from being a sad book on lonliness, nearly all the contributors looked upon their eating alone days as some of the best in their lives. Each essay made me smile and at least half had me laughing out loud.

What do I eat when I eat alone? I'm not a take-out kind of girl and prefer my own lunches to those of the hospital cafeteria where I work. So I cook on Sundays-- lots of quiches and gratins, soups, stews and things that can last a week or live awhile in the freezer. And the nice thing about eating alone IS that I can eat when and what I want. A few summers back I craved a BLT made with one of the juicy heirlooms I'd just picked up from the farmer's market. But rather than buy bread, I decided to make my own. Nearing midnight, my bread hot out of the oven, I made myself the best BLT I've ever had. And reading this book reminded me why, in part, that was. We are our own best company.

Netflix stars 5/5.

Flower Children

A few weeks ago, in a post dentist high, I bought a bagfull of books at the Booksmith. It's been a dreary spring and early summer and I was craving some beach reading, even if it's too rainy to go to the beach. The cover of Flower Children, by Maxine Swann, showed a 70s era photo of kids romping in a field of flowers. A small volume, it looked promising, and in fact, it was light and if not completely engaging, at least harmless.

The "children" in questions are the offspring of a pair of hippies, living in a ramshackle old country home. The book is comprised of related short stories taking place over the children's lives. The children go on ski and road trips with their father, divorced from their mother, and generally make life difficult for his girlfriends. They go to their grandma's and swim in the pool while the adults have cocktails. They ride ponies with the neighborhood boys and have their first kisses.

But this book lacked the magic the glowing cover seemed to offer. There was no hook and the characters lacked depth. In all, though, it wasn't terrible. If you were to find it on the bookshelf of your beach house on a rainy afternoon, it would suffice.

3/5 netflix stars.

The Lone Pilgrim

I just finished my second Laurie Colwin book: The Lone Pilgrim, a collection of short stories. What I love about short stories in general, and Ms. Colwin's stories in particular, is the way the main characters are in sharp focus and the secondary characters are in soft focus-- kind of like a close up of a flower, where you can see fuzzy green and other colors and shapes around it, framing it, but it's the flower you really notice.
In "The Lone Pilgrim", the narrator comments, "But steady as I am, why am I so solitary? No matter how orderly, measured, and careful my arrangements are, they are only a distillation of me, not a fusion of myself and someone else. I have my domestic comforts, except that mine are only mine." In "Travel", our heroine notes her independence. "The food I lived on was eccentric. I strained yogurt through cheesecloth to concentrate it, and I ate it with pickled cabbage and salted Japanese plums...the odd tastes of a solitary person." When she gives this meal to her future husband, it never occurs to her "that he might have the same odd taste, or his own odd taste."
But as lone and solitary as Ms. Colwin's characters are, they aren't immune to heartache. Miss Greenway, in "Saint Anthony of the Desert", laments a lost love who has returned for a final farewell. "His ease in my apartment broke my heart. I wanted to say, like Saint Anthony of the Desert, 'Why do you do harm to me when I harm none of you? Go away, and in the Lord's name, do not come near these things again.' He did go away, and that was the last I even saw of him."
Ms. Corwin writes with the honesty of Andrea Lee and Nell Freudenberger and her books will surely hold a point of reference for me for years to come.
netflix stars 5/5.

The View From Castle Rock

I was afraid I'd picked a dud for book club. Our turns roll around every 6-8 months or so and so I've usually thought of something that I think everyone will enjoy or benefit from but that they wouldn't necessarily pick for themselves. I hadn't given it too much thought so picked A View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro, a book my mom had loved and passed along to me. I'd tried it awhile back but couldn't get into it so put it aside. I thought having the book club read it would be good incentive. And ultimately it was, but it was a rough time getting there.
Ms. Munro bases these loosely connected short stories on her family's emigration from Scotland to America. She starts with a very great grandfather's journey in the 18th century by boat to Canada. Following stories tell of her pioneering family taming and settling woods. Husbands, wives and children die and someone passes the stories along orally or in journals and letters. Ultimately the stories become more connected to Ms. Munro: her parents meeting and raising fur foxes, her own forray into love and employment and finally her own brushes with death of those most close to her.
About half way through the book I figured out why my mom loved it, and why I ultimately would love it. It's my family history. And just as Ms. Munro's interest in her family history was piqued as she grew older, my interest in the book piqued as generations passed and I started to feel connected to them. I understood the quite austerity of this family of Presbyterians and identified with them. I smiled at their value of education, but not at the expense of hard work.
My grandma happened to call right after I'd finished the book, saying she had been looking through pictures and letters and thought of me. I immediately told her of A View From Castle Rock and said I'd send it to her. It's our kind of story.

Unaccustomed Earth

My first job out of college I worked with a woman named Alo. Originally from India, she and her family had lived in Newton for nearly 20 years. She worked so that her children would have access to her employee discount of education. Once her youngest was through school, she would retire. Despite her years in the US, she always wore a sari and beautiful jewelry to work. Even in winter she would wear colorful, sheer and silky saris, covered with a thick cardigan. Alo had a vast network of fellow Indians and when she learned that I had loved Jhumpa Lahiri's book Interpreter of Maladies, she divulged that she was friendly with her family and thereafter took every opportunity to share with me stories about Ms. Lahiri. "Baby", she would say, "Jhumpa wore the most gorgeous sari to a wedding shower." She would tell details of her clothes and how she styled her hair, telling me how beautiful she was. But I couldn't imagine her clothes being half as beautiful as her stories.

Unaccustomed Earth takes advantage of Ms. Lahiri's distinguished writing style. In a sense, it picks up where Interpreter of Maladies leaves off; a book of longer short stories which can be read individually, but when combined tell a larger story. Her stories explore the relationships between generations of immigrant familes, and their relationships with people outside their immediate circle of friends and family. But far from playing the race card, Ms. Lahiri's stories commentt on the universal feeling of otherness. How losing a parent or spouse can be the most lonely feeling in the world. Or the feeling when you are untethered with no permanent home. And by the regret that comes with age, over decisions and actions made when younger. She writes capably of love and loss, but also resentment and fear.

Ms. Lahiri's stories are beautiful, but less like a brightly colored chiffon sari, and more like Alo's sweater-- old and dependable, meant to comfort and warm, holding the knowlege of its owner's years.

Netflix stars: 5/5

Later, At the Bar



When I'm not reading books off my shelf, I sometimes refer to the New York Times list of notable books. It's nice to have a short list of well reviewed books that may deviate from what I would normally choose to read. A "novel in stories" called Later, At the Bar, by Rebecca Barry, however, appealed to me immediately for it contained two of my favorite things: short stories, and a bar.
Based in a small town in upstate New York, each story chronicles the lives of a small group of down and out townies, with blue collar jobs, who usually end up at the bar, Lucy's. They sometimes aspire to something more (a longer marriage, a successful job), but know no matter what they live in a community where they are accepted without regard to their shortfalls. The cast includes Harlin and Cyrus Wilder, hard partying twins for fall hard for cheating women. There's Grace, one of the cheating women who marries Harlin. Linda writes an advice column for some small papers, and usually drinks vodkas while composing her answers. My favorite is Elizabeth Teeter, a woman whose husband recently left her for another man. She admits to being annoyed by people who talk to their pets, but once her husband leaves, she finds herself having conversations with her cat, Roger.
Ms. Barry does a wonderful job of giving human qualities to otherwise unsympathetic characters. The stories can be read separately, but taken as a whole, they really provide a snapshot of some sort of Everytown, USA. The stories read kind of slow at times, but otherwise I enjoyed them, and will give Later, At the Bar 4/5 netflix stars.

The Girl on the Fridge

In a perfect world the 29 or so books that I've read over the past year for this project would all have come directly from my bookshelf. I would not have bought books for a "nice price", nor would I have taken recommendations from friends and acquaintances. I certainly would not have checked out books from the library! But it's not a perfect world and I did all these things.

No one can write about the imperfect world more concisely, and with such dark humor as Etgar Keret, whose book of short shorts, The Girl on the Fridge, I just finished.

Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer and I read his book The Nimrod Flipout a few years back and surprisingly loved it. Soon thereafter I saw a movie based on his writing, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and despite its unfortunate name, it was a wonderful movie which perfectly captured the essence of his style. He writes with a baudy humor-- frequent subjects are suicide and break ups and terrorism. The situations in which his characters interact swing back and forth between reality and the fantastic or dreamlike. Most of his protaganists act on impulses that most of us would check. The orderly who glibly can't recall the name of a recently deceased patient is attacked and strangled by the patient's roommate. A young man realizes he has the power to yell "freeze!" and then direct people to do whatever he desires. A magician's power to pull rabbits out of his hat is suddenly disrupted and the rabbits he pulls out are sometimes headless or bodiless, dripping with blood. Underneath all the id directed actions, however, are underlying fears and insecurities, making the stories honest and wistful.

I think the short story is the hardest thing to write-- to contain a scene or characterization in just 1000 words or so takes immense talent. Plus, Etgar Keret writes from a uniquely Israeli experience-- guns and violence are a major way of life there, and he doesn't gloss over that. I give this book 5/5 netflix stars.

Lucky Girls

One of my favorite literary exchanges took place in this book, Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger. It's a small volume of short stories about young American women living mostly in foreign countries, or at least exploring their own foreign feelings.

In 'Outside the Eastern Gate' the narrator, a young woman currently living in the U.S., gets a call from her sister who asks, "Are you lying on the couch?" The narrator responds, "I just finished with that. Now I'm thinking about whether to make a sandwich." This simple phrase epitomizes the will and ultimate resolve, often while under personal duress, of all the characters in the book. One woman may have been assaulted while studying in Thailand, but maybe there was just a misunderstanding. One woman moved to India to be close to her married lover, and after his death, may move back to the U.S. But maybe not. And there are girls who are thinking about who to have sex with the first time. They may decide, or maybe not.
This book was lent to me by my friend Rashmi. We agree on many things-- politics, clothes, drinks after work (always yes). But we often have different taste in movies and books. I hated The Emperor's Children and she loved it. I loved Lolita and she hated it. But we agree on books about strong women who make their own decisions and don't apologize for them. We agree on Nell Freudenberger and we agree on Andrea Lee.
Lately I've been lying on the couch a lot. But I know if Rashmi calls, I can tell her that I'm done doing that, and that I'm deciding whether to make a sandwich, and perhaps to meet for drinks after work.
Netflix stars: 5/5.

Fictions

I've recently been reminded that just because I can read English, doesn't mean it's always easy to comprehend. After my trip to Costa Rica I picked up a Latin American author, Carlos Fuentes (from my bookshelf) and although just 30 pages into the book, felt stymied. I can often read more than one book at a time (taking one with me for my commute and keeping the other on the bedside) so I picked up another bookshelf book-- Proust's Swann's Way. Not a difficult read, but dense and long. I was getting nowhere fast. Mihee had the bookclub pick and sent us three choices: Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White , A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee and Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges . Thankful for a distraction, I ordered all three from the library. I looked them all over and felt like all would be worthwhile reads. Mihee picked Fictions and as soon as I started it, I felt over my head. Since I felt like the difficulties in my personal life were intruding into my reading, making it less fun than it should be, I started reading A Gesture Life, which was less onerous. I'll report on that one soon, but in the meantime, I gave Fictions the old college try. Which was fitting because I found a Spanish lit text from college and saw that I had read two stories (in Spanish) and apparently understood them enough to take notes in the margins. We focussed on one story for book club and you can see Steph's synopsis below. I went ahead and read the rest of the stories and appreciated the common themes of labyrinths, secrets, math and philosophy. His stories are timeless and take place in both real and imagined locations. Alternate and multiple realities are presented in many stories and heroes and villains are one in the same. When I was struggling with the stories, I talked to my mom and she assured me I'd feel accomplished once I finished the book, and sure enough I did. But just as one cannot watch foreign films and good for you documentaries all the time, one sometimes needs a cheap read. In case, I have this sitting on my bedside table to break open in case of emergency.

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

In the very olden days, before mass media-- tv, movies,and the internet (ie, back in the 1930s) stories were told as entertainment and a means in which to pass along useful information. Many cultures have their prized storytellers and stories. Many native tribes pass stories down, and verses were memorized in song format (ie, a ballad) to preserve their integrity. Not just anyone can tell a story-- the CNN headlines get the info across but in a boring fashion.
Carson McCullers was a wonderful, captivating storyteller. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe takes a liberal stand with the literal "ballad" but it does describe a folk tale of romantic origin. Seeing a rundown building in an old town, one often wonders about its past. Ms. McCullers describes the building's past-- how it went from a general store under the stern eye of Miss Amelia, to a proud cafe when Miss Amelia found love, to its eventual demise when that love is lost. The story is told with exaggerated characters and dubious truths: an evil, murderous ex-husband, a mysterious and mischeivious hunchback, a gaggle of funny named townspeople, and folk remedies prescribed to the ailing by Miss Amelia herself, tested on herself first!

The remainder of the book's short stories are told equally well, and draw on Ms. McCullers' life of lonliness (divorce and separation) and illness (including alcoholism). I still believe her masterpiece is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, so I will give only four stars to this collection.