During the Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe was invited to dinner at the White House. When she was introduced to President Lincoln, his eyes twinkled and he said, “So this is the little lady who made this great big war.” Stowe, of course, had authored Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published originally in 1852, and it was probably one of the most influential books ever published in the United States.
Category: books i’ve read
La La (Means I Love You)
Good morning. It’s a lovely Sunday morning in New Orleans, as I look at the start of a relatively easy and short week for me at work. Good Friday is a paid holiday for me, so I only have four days to get through, and I have short days on both Monday and Thursday (horrifying long days on Tuesday and Wednesday, of course), so it’s kind of a ‘win some lose some’ kind of week. I ended up not writing much yesterday; instead I read Underground Airlines (which I am enjoying) and when Paul got home from his errands, I made dinner and we watched Rogue One and then the first two episodes of Five Came Back, a wonderful documentary about five Hollywood film directors (Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, and George Stevens) who spent World War II making documentaries about the war rather than directing films in Hollywood. It’s narrated by Meryl Streep, and is based on the book of the same title by Mark Harris (who also wrote the documentary). It’s very well done; and it does a really good job of capturing the era it’s about, while at the same time not only exposing how easy it is for film to be used as propaganda, but raising questions about the ethics of making propaganda during a time of war. As we as Americans are currently wrestling with the notion of news as propaganda, and how to tell what is real and what is not–a horrifying place to be, quite frankly–and how the news was controlled for the American public during the Second World War to keep them behind the war effort (which was prodigious) as well as buying war bonds to finance it, it raises difficult questions about truth, ethics, and the media. I cannot recommend it enough; I’m really looking forward to viewing the final episode.
I will undoubtedly spend today in a mix of cleaning, writing, and reading. My friend Stuart is in town, and hopefully we’ll get to have lunch or an early dinner together today, if not, it will be tomorrow.
Underground Airlines, like The Underground Railroad, is not an easy book to read. I’ve never read much alternate history (Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle being one of the few exceptions), and that’s what this book is; alternate history, and one that, as you learn more about the ‘history’ of the United States and its ‘peculiar institution’ the deeper you get into the book, is terribly disturbing because you can see how it might have gone this way.
American history, as it pertains to questions of race and equality, is difficult; and the truth of American history, as opposed to the deeply sanitized version we are taught in public school (or at least, the deeply ‘rah-rah-rah’ version I was taught in the 1960’s, predicated on the manifest destiny of white Europeans to take dominion over the Americas while eradicating the natives and enslaving Africans, required a lot of unlearning; I told one of my co-workers the other day that I’ve spent most of my adult life unlearning everything I was raised to believe while re-educating myself on the truth), is actually kind of ugly. I remember reading James Michener’s Centennial when I was in my teens, and realizing everything I’d been taught, read, or seen in movies about the native Americans, and their clash with white Europeans, was actually incredibly biased against the native ‘savages’. (If you’re interested in re-educating yourself on American history, please read Howard Zinn’s histories of the United States, starting with A People’s History of the United States.)
Anyway, when Underground Airlines was released, there was some controversy, given the subject matter and that author Ben H. Winters was white and writing from the perspective of an African-American who worked as a runaway slave catcher. Questions of cultural appropriation often dog the work of white people who write from outside their own experience; yet at the same time there is also a clamor for diversity within fiction and there has long been a Twitter hashtag #weneeddiversebooks. I don ‘t think–and I could be wrong–that the problem is so much cultural appropriation as it is that authors of color do not have the same easy access to publishing that white people do; it’s easier for a white author to get a book published with a person of color as the main character than it is for an author of color to do so. I’ve personally enjoyed seeing the progress made by film and television to cast people of color; when I was a kid I would have loved to find books or television shows or films where gay men weren’t tragic figures doomed to die, or the butt of the joke, or figures of contempt; I can only imagine the positive impact this is having on young minority children to be able to see characters like themselves on films and television shows, or finding them in books.
This is not a bad thing.
The book is very well-written, and I am enjoying it tremendously, but it’s not an easy read, as I said earlier. I had always, as I’ve said before, intended to read it and The Underground Railroad back-to-back, to get a sense of comparison and to see how the differences between how an author of color deals with the issues of race and white supremacy vs how a white author does. Both books have made me think about these issues–the racial divide/conflict that is so deeply woven into the fabric of our society and culture, and how it always has been there from the very beginning.
That’s not a bad thing. Being made to think, to reexamine your values and beliefs, to unlearn things you were taught that are wrong and to reeducate yourself is never a bad thing. I think we, as a country and a society and a culture, can do with some reexamination.
Heavy thoughts for a Sunday morning before I head back into the spice mines.
Here’s a happy Sunday morning hunk for you, Constant Reader.
I Wish It Would Rain
Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and it looks lovely outside. I may clean the windows today. I have to get the mail, pick up some prescriptions, make a grocery run, and I also want to get the car washed, and of course, as always, there is laundry to do. I also want to spend some time reading today, and cleaning the kitchen and living room. Yes, I am feeling rather ambitious today; we shall see how it turns out.
I forgot my book (The Nest) at the office on Thursday night; I worked at the other office yesterday and it’s French Quarter Fest, so getting down to Frenchmen Street would be a nightmare and would make me tired and cranky, so I decided to just start reading another book–Ben H. Winters’ Underground Airlines, recently named a Thriller Award nominee for Best Novel. I’d always intended to read The Underground Railroad and Underground Airlines back-to-back for comparison sake; I forgot and started reading something else when I finished reading the Whitehead. The Winters book was controversial when it was released; it, like the Whitehead, is sort of magical realism/alternate history; Winters’ premise is that the Civil War was never fought as yet another slave-owner appeasement compromise was reached in 1860 that prevented secession and the war; and other compromises were reached over the years since. It’s an interesting concept, and at the time the book was released there was some controversy; the main character is a free man of color who works as a slave-catcher. I’m not very far into it, but it’s well-written and I’m enjoying it thus far.
I also got a lot of work done on “Quiet Desperation” this week; the story is now well over four thousand words. I stopped working on it the other day (Thursday, to be exact) because I felt that I was getting impatient and rushing the ending, so I decided to pull back from it for a few days and then get back to it over this weekend. I also think the story may have meandered a bit. The goal is to finish it and the chapter of the new Scotty I’ve been working on, so I can really get going on both the Scotty book and another short story next week. Ambitious goals, yes, but do-able.
And I want to get to the gym tomorrow morning.
A truly ambitious plan for the weekend, no?
We’ll see how it all works out, won’t we?
Here’s a hunk to see you through your Saturday.
Cry Like a Baby
Well, I finished my essay for Sisters in Crime finally yesterday and got it all turned in. Woo-hoo! That’s something–the first thing I’ve really finished this year since turning in the last manuscript, and I am going to ride that particular triumph all week, and hopefully get the other things I want to get written finished this week as well.
I can hope, at any rate.
I’m not really sure why I struggled so much with that essay; I’m not really sure why I am struggling so much to write in general since I turned in my last manuscript. Even this blog sometimes seems like a slog; although I do suspect in some ways it has everything to do with my usual inability to focus on what I am working on; deadlines can certainly make focus much much easier to deal with. But I really want to get these stories finished this week, and I am also wanting to get some editing done and some work on the book as well. Maybe I am overestimating what I can get done reasonably in a week, I don’t know. But it will be enormously satisfying, for example, just to get one of these stories finished. I actually was rereading one yesterday, also incomplete (“The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”, for the record) and it’s actually quite good. It’ll probably need to be edited down some, but not bad–there’s about three thousand words or so already, and that’ll probably need to be sliced in half at the very least since there are at least several thousand new words needed to finish. I also have no idea where I would publish the story–I don’t know where I would publish any of the stories I’ve written/am writing. But I am enjoying working on them, so there’s that.
One of the things I am trying very hard to do is remember that I actually do ENJOY writing. It’s so easy to hate doing it, really–and that often has to do with the pressure of deadlines, or the frustration of it not going well, or it not going at all. I don’t miss the pressure of deadlines, in all honesty, but I am starting to get concerned about not getting enough done.
Heavy heaving sigh.
But we finished watching Big Little Lies last night, and got deeper into this final season of Bates Motel–which is so deranged it’s amazing! I am going to miss this show, and seriously, if Freddy Highmore is NOT recognized by the Emmys this year…I don’t know what is wrong with the Emmy voters. PAY ATTENTION.
I am still digesting The Underground Railroad (and the show Big Little Lies), but I hope to blog about both relatively soon.
And on that note, back to the spice mines!
Here’s a Twofer Tuesday hunk fest!
A Beautiful Morning
Well, I finished reading The Underground Railroad yesterday, and will most definitely be blogging about it, once I’ve digested it some and thought about it some more. It was, to say the least, very powerful, and not only did it made me think about the subject matter–it also made me think about a lot of other things, which I will be more than happy to discuss once I’ve digested them. I also started reading The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, which I am enjoying as well.
We were supposed to get heavy weather yesterday, but it arrived over night instead–everything out there is wet and dripping, which is always a joy. Ah, well.
I didn’t write yesterday, or at all over the weekend, which is, of course, terrible. I did get some cleaning done and some organizing–not as much as I would have liked–but we’re also working on getting caught up on our shows and I did want to power through and finally finish the Colson novel, which I did manage to do, and then we got caught up on The Walking Dead, watched last night’s Feud, and then it was bedtime.
I am greatly enjoying Feud, and am very impressed with how it’s taking on the issue of how Hollywood/entertainment treats women; which also, in some ways, goes along with another show I am looking to finishing watching–the season finale of Big Little Lies was also last night; which we will undoubtedly watch tonight as well as continuing to get caught up on Bates Motel (a show that is KILLING it now in it’s final season). The way two of my favorite old Hollywood actresses–Bette Davis and Joan Crawford–are being depicted is brilliant, and the two women playing them, Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, are turning in stunning, award-worthy performances. Last week’s episode, in which both Davis and Crawford are still not fielding any offers before the movie opens–and then it becomes a huge hit–was particularly brilliant; the moment when Joan Crawford, leaving the theater after the preview of the film that ended with a standing ovation, is recognized in the lobby and then mobbed with fans–when this happens, the look on her face–surprise evolving into pure joy at being treated like a star again, is so poignant it’s heartbreaking.
Last night’s, Oscar night when Crawford was snubbed in favor of Davis, was also almost painful to watch; the naked need Davis had for that third Oscar, the pain and anguish Crawford felt about being overshadowed once again by her rival (the scenes where Crawford talks to Geraldine Page and Anne Bancroft, asking them if she can accept for them, and the pity and sympathy Page and Bancroft feel for her, agreeing to let her do it because she needs to…wow)–and Judy Davis is also killing it as Hedda Hopper.
And last night, for the first time, Catherine Zeta-Jones actually delivered as Olivia de Havilland.
I got the idea for an essay yesterday about women’s fiction–using three novels to not only compare and contrast to each other but also to talk about how fiction by, for, and about women is so regularly disdained and dismissed as somehow lesser–the three being The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, and Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. I’ve been toying with the idea for quite some time, and I thought about it again yesterday, partly because of Feud, but also partly because of Big Little Lies. Of course, I have no idea where to publish the thing…and it’s not like I don’t have a million other things to write as well.
Heavy heaving sigh.
And on that note, back to editing.
Love is Blue
Monday morning. I didn’t want to get up this morning, and in fact, hit snooze repeatedly for over an hour before finally dragging my sorry, lazy ass out of bed shortly after eight. But I do feel rested, which is a dramatic improvement over how I felt last Monday when I started out the week already tired. Which is fortunate, because this weekend is TWFest/Saints and Sinners. Paul will be abandoning me on Wednesday to check into the hotel, and I don’t have to go till late on Thursday. I took Friday off as well, and am coming in late on Monday as well. So, I trust I can survive the weekend in one piece and without being completely exhausted by the time I return to work on Monday. We shall see, I suppose.
The weekend wasn’t as productive as I would have liked–then again, when is it ever–but it did accomplish its primary purpose: getting rested for the new work week. I read some more of The Underground Railroad, which is slow going. Partly because the subject matter is so intense, partly because it’s written so simply yet beautifully I want to savor the experience, and I am constantly having to put the book aside to think. The best books always make me think. It really is quite extraordinary, but not a quick or easy read.
So, I made my weekly to-do list this morning, and am proud to say that I only had to transfer half of last week’s list to this week’s; which is always a good thing. I really need to get back into the habit of making the weekly to-do list. I don’t know when or why I stopped in the first place, because there is ever-so-much satisfaction in crossing things off the list; even when you don’t finish everything on it, you know? It felt really good this morning crossing off the things I got done last week, and even in adding the uncompleted tasks to this week’s list was, rather than ‘oh, you lazy bastard’, more of a ‘oh, this will be easy to get done.’ We’ll see how it goes, of course, but at least making the list this morning wasn’t daunting and didn’t make me feel even more tired, the way it did last week.
Last Monday, as I worked on my story “Happyland” for a submission deadline the very next day, I suddenly realized the reason–despite several rewrites already–the story kept getting rejected every time I submitted it anywhere was because the way the story was structured it simply didn’t work–and I hadn’t even gotten to the scary part yet. I realized that the entire story needed to be overhauled; I had developed a bad case of the ‘lazy edits.’ This happens to me from time to time; an attempt to make small tweaks to a story that doesn’t work rather than starting over again from scratch while retaining the best bits. “Happyland”, as originally envisioned and written, simply doesn’t work. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing original, it’s nothing fresh, it has nothing clever to say for itself. It’s based on something that happened to me as a kid–one summer when my immediate family, along with aunts, uncles and cousins on my father’s side–were staying for a week at a beach house in Panama City Beach, Florida, only about three blocks from the water. There used to be an amusement park, the Miracle Strip, that we used to go to every time we stayed at the beach, and one time I got stuck with my youngest cousin who wanted to ride the haunted house ride and was also too small to ride the rollercoaster–so every time we rode the coaster someone had to stay off and mind him. I was annoyed and angry, it was hot and humid, and the haunted house ride–which was, even to my eleven year old mind, lame–this time it was actually intense and scary. There was something different about the interior that time; and I’ve had nightmares about it ever since. That was why I wrote the story in the first place; to dislodge it from my subconscious as well as to follow Stephen King’s admonition to ‘write about what scares you.’ But the story as I wrote it doesn’t work, and on Tuesday I started, slowly but surely, to rebuild the story from the very first line. It may not work this time, either–but I want to get it done this time.
That way it’s ready the next time a call I want to submit to comes around.
The new Scotty isn’t going as well as it should be either; again because I was trying to make it easy on myself rather than recognizing that the framework can stay but the story is new and different. Ugh, such an idiot, really. But every once in a while lightning strikes and I wake up.
Heavy heaving sigh. And I got started on my taxes!
And now back to the spice mines.
Grazing in the Grass
Good morning, Friday! How are you doing? I slept late again; it’s lovely to be able to sleep again but I would so love a happy medium; somewhere between insomnia and oversleeping would be somewhat lovely.
But I’ll take oversleeping over insomnia any day of the week, thank you very much.
The cold snap of the past few days has come to a merciful end, thank you Jesus, and our temperatures are supposed to go back up into the 70’s today, which will make for a lovely weekend. I didn’t take the car into the car wash the way I’d intended because I overslept this morning, but it will be a lovely chore for the weekend, most likely Sunday while everyone’s at church.
I made some progress on the book yesterday, which was a lovely feeling. Not as much as I would have liked, but I’ll take 1200 words. My writing machine is a bit rusty, so I am still working out the rust and kinks and having to warm up and stretch the muscles. The thought also crossed my mind last night that maybe I should put it aside and write something else first…but that’s probably just crazy talk.
But getting good sleep has made me feel energized again, and I am looking forward to all the things I need to get done this weekend. I even started pulling together my expenses for my taxes yesterday (RIGHT?), and may even be able to get all of that finished by Monday (rather than sitting down and making myself do it all at once, I am going to go slowly and do some here, some there, etc. until it is all finished and I am emailing my accountant). I also want to get my story “The Terrortorium” finished this weekend, and I want to start editing a secret project I can’t talk about publicly yet.
Never a dull moment around the Lost Apartment.
Here’s a hunk to slip you into the weekend:
Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
Another glorious night of sleep, and I feel terrific this morning. I’ve already done one load of laundry, am well through a second, had breakfast, and am about to put the dishes away. I have a shorter than usual day at the office today; I logged some extra time earlier in the week so I can go in later–which is truly lovely; I have my morning free both today AND tomorrow (tomorrow morning I will be getting the car washed on my way to work). I decided to wait until next Friday to get my new outfit for the Tennessee Williams Festival opening party (I’d debated going this weekend, but I really don’t want to face any mall on the weekend). My breakthrough on Crescent City Charade definitely is working; I am very pleased with the flow now, and I am also hoping to get the rewrite of the short story finished up this weekend. All in all, a win all around.
I also got some book mail this week: Lisa Unger’s In the Blood and Jonathan Beckman’s How to Ruin a Queen. Constant Reader will remember how much I enjoyed the first Lisa Unger novel I read last year, and I am definitely looking forward to reading more. The Beckman book is history (although that would make a great title for a noir about someone obsessed with revenge on a drag queen); it’s about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a huge scandal from the 1780’s that helped set the stage for the French Revolution. I’ve always been vaguely aware of the story, but not in any great detail. Someone from an old noble house of France, the Cardinal de Rohan, claimed to be an agent of Marie Antoinette’s in order to buy a fabulous necklace for her–once the necklace was purchased the Queen claimed to know nothing about it, and a trial ended up happening. Marie Antoinette was so hated by this time that popular opinion was solely on the side of the Cardinal de Rohan; he was eventually found not guilty and there was a massive celebration at this public humiliation of the Queen. Every step of the way the royal family mishandled the situation, but I’ve never read enough about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace to know exactly how it played out and it’s never made a lot of sense to me. So, I am really looking forward to diving into this one (I also recently acquired a book about an enormous scandal at the Court of Louis XIV, The Affair of the Poisons, which I am also looking forward to reading). As you can tell, Constant Reader, right now I am going through a French history period.
I also want to get this essay about being a gay crime writer finished this weekend, and I also need to do the deep clean of the Lost Apartment.
I also can’t believe it’s almost April. Then again, time flies at the beginning of the year always, as it’s one thing after another in New Orleans. We’ve been having a slight cold snap this week–temps in the 50’s and 60’s–which after the gloriously beautiful spring days we had for Carnival seems completely unnecessary, wrong, and flat-out vile.
As this is also the last weekend before the Festival kicks into gear next week, I doubt Paul will be around much; as it is, I’ve barely seen him the last few weeks. He gets home after I got to bed and sometimes leaves after I do, so he’s still sleeping when I leave the house. He’s already out the door this morning; I got to see him awake for all of ten minutes. Sigh. But soon enough things will be normal around here again. Heavy heaving sigh.
Or what passes for normal, at any rate.
All right, I suppose I should return to the spice mines.
Here’s today’s hunk.
Suspicious Minds
I had insomnia both Sunday and Monday night, and the sleep assistance I usually rely on did not work. So both days I was tired, sleepy, crabby and miserable, unable to focus on anything. I was trying to finish a short story for a submission call with a deadline of yesterday; Monday as I worked I realized the story, as it stood, simply didn’t work and needed a complete overhaul. Ordinarily, two days to overhaul a story where the basic framework was already in place wouldn’t be a problem for me (whether it would have been accepted, of course, is a whole other ball of wax), but tired and unable to think clearly? No, that made it completely impossible. I’ve also been kind of stuck on the Scotty book–but last night, as I kept dozing off in my easy chair, it came to me how to get past the place where I am stuck with the Scotty book; as I suspected, I simply hadn’t gotten back into his voice. So, I am hoping to make some progress on it this week as well as rewriting the story–that way the story will be ready the next time something it might be appropriate for rolls around.
Win-win.
There really is something horrible about the inability to sleep. I can’t afford to have sleepless nights, as I am always juggling so many things that I really can’t have a day where I get nothing done. And while I didn’t sleep through the whole night–I woke up around five, and then slept on and off until it was time to get up for Wacky Russian–those six or so hours of deep, restful sleep have certainly made an enormous difference today.
I may even start pulling my taxes together. #madness
I’ve also been too tired to read, so I am also hoping I can get back to The Underground Railroad this week and get it finished. I think I am going to read Ben Winters’ Underground Airlines next; I thought it would be interesting to read the two books back to back for a compare/contrast kind of thing.
My goal is to write/revise a short story every week while working on the Scotty book. We’ll see how that goes, but hey, best intentions and all that. I am also going to start revising a secret project as well; getting back to it is long overdue, and I am kind of excited.
Again, it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for someone.
So, here’s a hunk for you to get you through Hump Day.
Crystal Blue Persuasion
A gloomy Monday morning with the threat of rain hanging over our heads; needless to say, the chill in the air and the gloom weren’t exactly the right combination to get me leaping out of bed this morning, ready to get to work and face a new week with good cheer and optimism. It is astonishing to me how little I actually managed to get done this weekend; part of it is because I wasn’t sleeping well; I don’t function on little sleep and so am trying to mix up the sleeping assistance since it’s no longer working. Heavy heaving sigh.
I didn’t get started on my taxes this weekend, which is terrible. I really need to get going on that; it’s not fair to my accountant to make her wait until the last minute…although I suspect it doesn’t take her very long to actually do my taxes, to be honest. It’s such a tedious chore, though, tallying up my expenses. It does make me feel rather homicidal, to be honest. But it generally only takes me a couple of hours to get it all done…maybe if I get a start on it and do a bit every day I can get it finished this weekend and be done with it. ’tis a thought.
While I was cleaning the house this weekend–I am really looking forward to doing the deep clean that this weekend’s cleaning was a preparation for–I also started doing some researching for some book ideas I am currently sitting on. I always do this; it’s also an interesting way to learn about my own past by finding out historical stuff about the places I am from or have lived. I learned some really interesting Alabama history this weekend by doing that; I also found some really interesting criminals on a website–The Most Notorious Criminal from every country in Alabama, which was fascinating. I am also interested in Kansas history, and found some interesting things there.
I also got the first issue of a new comic book series featuring the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew: The Big Lie.
Rebooting the Hardy Boys as a hard-boiled/noir style comic book is a great idea, quite frankly; just as the rebooting of Archie comics as a dark, moody noir style television show was a great idea. I’ve read all of the original Hardy Boys mysteries in their blue-spined editions; I’ve not kept up with the various reboots/restarts over the years. The premise of the comic–that Fenton Hardy was a police detective who was fired and accused of taking bribes and being corrupt; and then was murdered–and his sons are the prime suspects–is quite clever; plus making the two brothers not quite as close as they were in every other iteration was also quite clever. I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
I doubt that the original series will get revised again; in the 1950’s the earlier books started being revised; I think all of the originals were eventually revised before the series was sold off in the late 1970’s. Those books are still in print and still sell, even though they are kind of archaic and incredibly dated now…I’ve always wanted to write a Hardy Boys book. Maybe once I have an agent…
And now, back to the spice mines.
