Tag: Austin

I Hear You Knocking

I really wish I had discovered how marvelous audiobooks are for long drives years ago. My God, listening to audiobook rather than music makes the drive so much more enjoyable; sure, I do zone out every once in a while when I am driving and listening–I always go off on some kind of mental tangent at some point or another when I am highway driving for a long time, which means I sometimes have to rewind because I missed something–but my old fears of audiobooks in the car (I would get so involved in the story I’d stop paying attention to the driving, or the driving would require so much attention I wouldn’t be able to listen to the book anymore) also proved to be for naught. The drive is still the worst part of the trip (other than the not-being-able-to-sleep thing), but audiobooks have dramatically improved the entire experience so much that I almost don’t mind the drive anymore….almost.

I also wish I’d started reading Carol Goodman a lot earlier. I don’t recall how or why I first discovered her work, but I am a big fan and I was delighted, after reading (and enjoying the hell out of) The Lake of Dead Languages recently to go ahead and download The Night Villa for the trip.

It may just be my favorite Goodman to date.

When the first call came that morning I was with a student, so I didn’t answer it.

“Don’t worry,” I told Agnes Hancock, one of my most promising classics majors, “the machine will get it.”

But it stopped after the third ring.

“I guess whoever was calling changed his mind,” Agnes said, relacing her fingers to conceal the ragged cuticle on her right thumb. She’d been gnawing on it when I found her waiting outside my door–ten minutes early for my eight o’clock office hours. Most of my students were sound asleep at this hour, which was why I held my office hours so early: to discourage all but the most zealous. Agnes was definitely a zealot. She was on a scholarship, for one thing, and had to maintain a high average, but Agnes was also one of those rare students who seemed to have a genuine passion for the material. She’d gone to a high school with a rigorous Latin program and gotten the highest score on the national Latin exam in the state. Not shabby for a state as big as Texas. She wasn’t just good at declensions, though she had the ability to translate a line of ancient poetry and turn it into poetry again, and the agility of mind to compare the myths from one culture to those of another. She could have a successful academic career in classics or comparative literature. The only problem was that her personal life was often chaotic–a result, I suspected, of her looks.

So far, the majority of the Goodman novels I’ve read all have to do with private schools and usually involve a Classics professor; just as in The Lake of Dead Languages, our main character in The Night Villa is a professor of Latin, who can actually sight-read (translate as she reads), but unlike the others, (set in Ne England) when The Night Villa opens we realize our main character is actually a professor at the University of Texas and lives in Austin. The others also were more Gothic in nature; brooding old buildings that used to be family mansions, now converted into schools and dormitories, slightly older heroines with dark secrets in their past that come back to haunt their present, the “woman in danger” trope replayed and revamped beautifully, with poetic writing and vivid settings you can see in your head (had Goodman published back in the 1970s and 80s, I guarantee all the books would have a young woman with long hair and long nightgown running away from a creepy mansion with a light on in one window). Our main character is Sophie Chase, a young woman teaching at UT with a sad backstory–orphaned young, raised by her grandparents and her aunt (M’Lou); she also had a long term relationship with a young man named Eli that ended up badly after she lost their baby in a tragic fall and he became involved with a mysterious, cult-like group. The opening of the book is a lot more violent and in-your-face than what I’ve become accustomed to with Goodman’s work; Sophie and some other professors are interviewing students for a possible internship with an archaeological dig going on in Herculaneum (a city which suffered the same fate as Pompeii and by the same volcanic eruption, but didn’t the press Pompeii did). During Agnes’ interview a troubled young man she used to date comes into the interview room with a gun and starts shooting–Sophie is shot in the chest and loses a part of her lung, but she ends up going on the trip to Italy as one of the other professors who was supposed to go was killed by the gunman. They are being hosted on the island of Capri in the bay of Naples by a billionaire software designer with an interest in archaeology. He has built his own villa on the island as a replica of the villa they are excavating in Herculaneum, the Villa della Norte, the Night Villa. A discovery of some papyrus scrolls in the ruins that reveal some information about an ancient slave girl from the time also has intrigued Sophie, which is part of the reason she has agreed to go–as well as wanting to get away from Austin for a while. (Sophie wrote her dissertation on the slave girl; this discovery offers to give her more insight and information about the girl for the book she is writing.)

The book is, if you’ll pardon my language, fucking amazing. Not only do we have Sophie dealing with the aftermath of a massive emotional and physical trauma (getting shot and losing part of your lung is a serious fucking trauma), but also the fallout from the end of her relationship many years earlier; a kind of feeling of responsibility for Agnes and how she is dealing with the guilt and trauma of the boyfriend going nuts and on a shooting spree (it ended with him shooting himself); and of course the mystery of the scrolls. The scrolls also give a beautiful insight into life in ancient Herculaneum and in the Roman Empire and also tell a story about the slave girl. It’s an exceptionally good novel, literate and smart and complex and multi-layered; and I haven’t even covered everything in the story here. Sophie is strong and likable and vulnerable; she makes for a great heroine, and she also has so much empathy for other people you can’t help rooting for her.

The book, set mostly on Capri, reminded me a lot–in a good way–of Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic with its Corfu island setting; Goodman is also exceptional about setting and place. I could see the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius; the ruins of the city buried by the eruption; and I also love how she weaved mythology and the ancient mysteries as an integral foundation of the story. I would even go so far as to say Goodman is the modern equivalent of Mary Stewart–which is high praise indeed.

You’ve Got a Friend

Monday morning and back to reality. The bipolarity of my existence is just one of those things that, when I think about it, always kind of makes me laugh. But the one lovely thing about this bipolarity is that it keeps me humble, methinks. It’s hard to become an egomaniacal author when you spend your Monday thru Friday in a lower-level position in a sexual health clinic.

I am very tired this morning and could have easily stayed in bed for the rest of the morning–but at least I slept well last night. (My last night’s sleep in Albuquerque was the best night of the three I was there as well.) The trip home was relatively painless as well; every flight on time (well, there was a slight delay of about forty-five minutes in Albuquerque, but all that did was shorten the layover in Austin) and there was no irritations or annoyances on either of the flights. Delightfully, Meg Gardiner landed in Austin on her way home from some event in Florida while I was there, so I got to see her! That was pretty cool, frankly. I also started reading Catriona McPherson’s A Gingerbread House, which is creepy and weird and I have literally no idea where this book is going or how it is going to end. I hope to finish reading it tonight after I get home from work–and I may even go to bed early tonight to try to make up for all the rest I lost. I hate not being able to sleep. My work-at-home day this week will be Wednesday, so I’ll have to get up early tomorrow again, too. We’re back to four days in the office every week, so I’ll have to go in on Friday as well–but that’s cool.

I was a little overloaded this weekend; I’m not used to being around so many people anymore, and I am also not used to talking to so many different people in such a short period of time, either–but it was absolutely delightful. I can’t name everyone I saw and had fun with over the course of the weekend–I’d inevitably forget someone–and I also made a lot of new friends, too, which was awesome. There were a lot of highlights, and not really any lowlights. There was a bizarre thing that happened on Friday night–very very bizarre–but I don’t think I want to talk about it or tell the story, because it’s really embarrassing for someone I really don’t know and I’m really not into the “name and shame” thing when someone was, well, rather intoxicated, and therefore not in their right mind. But while it was weird and strange, I could at least see the humor in it–it was kind of funny–even if weird as fuck.

But I am feeling a bit invigorated and stimulated mentally, if physically exhausted, and I am hoping to carry this momentum into getting this short story finished this week. I read several great books on the trip that I’ll need to blog about, as well as a couple of others I won’t be blogging about as I didn’t enjoy them as much as the ones I loved–but it was delightful to get the chance to read a lot; one of the best things about air travel is the forced reading time involved.

But my own bed was lovely last night–and Scooter clearly missed me, as he wouldn’t let me out of his sight once I got home and kept demanding, as I loaded clothes in the washing machine and unpacked my bags, that I go sit in my easy chair to give him the lap to sleep in he’s been missing for four days–and hopefully, I will sleep well again tonight and be even more invigorated as I try to get adjusted back to the day to day.

Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Tired of Being Alone

So, in a little while I’ll be loading up the car and heading to the airport to catch my flight to Albuquerque for my first-time ever attendance at Left Coast Crime! Woo-hoo! I’m excited as well as a bit trepidatious, as I always am whenever I am going to an event I’ve never been to before. I have my journal and I will have books, so I shan’t ever be bored if none of the cool kids will talk to me or let me hang out with them. I am a bit concerned about sleep and so forth; I never sleep well when I am traveling (for a long time I thought it was due to the absence of Paul and Scooter; since Paul has travelled with me and I still had issues with sleeping, it must be the lack of Scooter that must be causing it; because when Paul isn’t home and it’s just me and Scooter…I don’t have the sleep issue. Then again, making people fall asleep is Scooter’s super power…)

I also saw a lot of people had delayed flights yesterday to Albuquerque, which doesn’t exactly fill me to the brim with confidence, in all honesty. When I flew up to New York in November (and back from Boston), I didn’t have any delays on either flight, which was marvelous (and increasingly rare). I cannot say the same for the previous time I flew, when I went up to Kentucky earlier last year. (What a fricking nightmare that trip was; at least the return went smoothly.) But I am up at my usual hour, and my suitcase is packed already. I just have to pack my backpack and my carry-on, do some things around here, and hit the road for the airport around seven thirty. Yay.

I am already having anxiety about traveling–not COVID related, just the usual: will the flights be on time? Will I miss my connecting flight in Austin? How expensive will a cab from the airport to the hotel in Albuquerque be? Did I pack proper clothing for the trip? Did I forget to pack anything? Will I have to sit next to someone horrible on either flight?

And of course, the long held horror of being late to the airport and missing my flight. I also have to work on Monday when I get back–so the trip home hopefully won’t be delayed and/or late since I have to get up at six Monday morning after getting home. (A co-worker asked me to switch my at-home day with him because he has a doctor’s appointment, and I am always willing to accommodate a co-worker because I I always need someone to cover for me at some point.)

But I am hoping I will make some new friends and there will be others there I can hang out with–worst case scenario, I go to my room and read in bed–and I plan on attending panels to listen to writers talk about writing. I have very good books coming with me on the trip, and I am sure I will buy even more books in the book room because I can never resist more books, you know? I also will probably get some books when I check-in for the conference and get my bag–there’s always books in the bags–and thus reading will never be much of an issue while I am there.

And on that note, I need to get some things done before I get cleaned up and head for the airport. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you later.