Storymusing: "As long as I'm down here . . . I might as well put on my shoes: A Memoir" by Sandra Justice Hall

 

As long as I’m down here… I might as well put on my shoes: A Memoir

Sandra Justice Hall

Our book club’s theme for December was simply “sanity” because who isn’t just trying to stay sane with the holidays?

I realized I had the perfect book on my shelf. I had been meaning to read it ever since Sandra Justice Hall spoke at our library. She made a real impression with her sense of humor and her tale of tenacity in dealing with a brain tumor. I knew I wanted to read this book, so I bought a copy and put it on my shelf.

As long as I’m down here… is presented in short vignettes organized under the time frames of her first brain surgery, her second brain surgery, and the path back to health. The memoir is thin at only ninety-eight pages, with chapters just a scant few pages each, and eminently readable.

The stories are humorous, illuminating, and uplifting. There is also a strong cautionary note to the stories as she talks about not listening to her gut and having to fight to get properly diagnosed.

Hall had been under the care of a neurologist who diagnosed her with myasthenia gravis. “Secretly, my colleagues, friends, and family labeled me a “hypochondriac.”

After seven years of no improvement with treatment, unrelenting headaches led to the discovery of a tumor on her brain stem. Partially removed, it continued to cause problems. Finally, balance issues led her to another MRI and the recommendation of another surgery, this one high risk.

The writing style is just as humorous as her talk. One vignette is titled, “Were you normal before brain surgery?” A question that would make anyone gape, Sandy merely thinks it through and says, “Honey, I was never normal!”

The vignettes are filled with her gratitude for the support of so many people.

·         Her children and husband, including some exasperating times with her husband.

·         The nursing staff, such as the nurse who made ice chips for her from bottled water on her lunch because she couldn’t drink and there was an outbreak of legionnaires at the hospital.

·         The doctors, those she had to fight with and those she had to find.

·         Therapists, like the one who talked to her about Moby Dick.

·         Her friends who buoyed her on the way like the letters one wrote to open on certain days after the surgery, and the group who kept her from shutting herself away.  

After reading this book, I felt that the author is a kindred spirit, for so many reasons. 

It may be a small volume, but its impact is mighty, and I highly recommend it.

Storymusing Review: The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny

 

The Grey Wolf: A Novel

by Louise Penny

November’s theme for our book club was “places you’d like to visit.” I’m afraid I didn’t so much look for books that fit that theme, taking me outside my comfort zone, as pick books I wanted to read anyway that were set in places I wouldn’t mind visiting.

British village? Yes, please. The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald fit right in. I listened to that one on my commute and had many a laugh out of it. The characters were unique and quirky, bringing humorous twists to the traditional murder mystery. I highly recommend it.

My main read, The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny, is set in Canada, throughout many parts of the countryside and Montreal, plus has characters flying off to Washington D.C. and Europe. I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect book for our theme if I tried.

I have wanted to read The Grey Wolf for a month, but it’s hard to get your hands on a copy in my library, digital or print. However, I was in a little village near home with my daughter and decided to stop in at the library there while we were killing time waiting for the farm store to open. Their display of books held not one, but two copies of The Grey Wolf. Small libraries for the win!

I’ve been reading in hard print whenever I can lately to help me unwind so I happily checked one out and sat down in my chair with a cup of coffee to start reading right after lunch.

The book begins with short chapters. I found each scene to be an individual puzzle piece with a certain color or pattern, defining a certain plotline or subplot of the story. As I read on, new chapters attached another piece to the puzzle until it all took on a shape and began to make sense.

Though the village in the story, Three Pines, is fictional, I love visiting there each time a new book comes out. It sounds so peaceful, with the village bistro for community and the little church to sit in and reflect.

The story opens in the village with our hero, Armand Gamache, head of the Surete in Quebec, relaxing in his garden with his wife, Reine-Marie.

A persistent caller that Armand does not want to speak to provokes him and our favorite village residents are soon drawn into the story. There’s the old poet Ruth and her swearing duck, the retired psychologist / bookstore owner Myrna, Gabri and Olivier who own the bistro, and the artist Clara. (Though I will say that Clara finding candy in her hair and actually eating it is a little off putting. But maybe that’s just me.)

Gamache is also surrounded by his family as the story progresses, with his daughter and son plus their families. There’s his trusty co-workers Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabel Lacoste.

Many important characters from past stories are revisited in this book, but not all in the capacity that we’ve known them. I was so disappointed in the choices some characters ended up making, characters we had once loved. But that is the crux of the story.

One of the biggest difficulties for Gamache in this book is knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Who are the bad guys? It’s not a new situation for him, but it’s a painful one at times.

How far will someone go? Do the ends justify the means? And keeping fear from leading to inaction is one of the biggest tests people often face.

One of my favorite parts of the book begins rather abruptly with Jean-Guy saying, “Oh God, oh God, oh shit.”

A pilot has insisted it’s okay to take off but now Armand and Jean-Guy are in a small plane flying through a storm and afraid they aren’t going to make it. The pilot isn’t sure anymore either.

The handling of the subplot for about thirty-five pages, intertwined with the rest of the story, the tension, feels like a masterful touch to draw the reader onward.

I adore the little bits of French that are sprinkled throughout the text, and the reminders that though we’re reading in English, they often aren’t speaking in English.

The pacing is not frenetic but it does move at a good clip. I think part of that is the judicious use of a variety of sentence lengths and the fact that there are tensions falling and rising, keeping the characters on their toes. I can’t stand stories where the tension rises and rises but nothing ever happens. Penny has things happen that the characters have to work through. She puts the characters in hot water and we see how they struggle and emerge, usually changed in some way.

I highly recommend this book. Three Pines is a wonderful place to visit.

Storymusing: The Haunted Season by G.M. Malliet

 

The Haunted Season

by G.M. Malliet

Well, I actually picked up a book in hard copy from our library for a change! I read one chapter at lunch and often one in the evening. It was just what I needed to unwind.

Our book club theme for October was simply “Spooky Reads” and I grabbed The Haunted Season based simply on its’ title and that it was a mystery, number five in the Father Max Tudor mysteries. It was a very pleasantly relaxing, slow, read set in the English village of Nether Monkslip.

I will admit that a couple of things gave me pause in the reading of the book.

First, Father Max Tudor is introduced in the most exalted terms. I almost gave up after reading it.

“…if Max had a fault, it was that he had been born open and trusting, expecting and generally receiving the best from people. Along with his handsomeness, it was the equivalent of a one-two knockout punch as far as women were concerned.”

Oh, really? I’m just not a fan of overly idealized characters. I prefer characters to look interesting. This had also come just after the author spent a very lengthy paragraph (fourteen lines) disparaging a middle-aged woman for her looks and the way she was dressed. Yeah, I almost chucked the book right there.

But, I kept going. I’m not big on giving up on a book and I’d already had a good prologue to pique my interest. In fact, the introduction of the junior priest in the parish, the Reverend Destiny Chatsworth, in a sauna where she overhears some incriminating conversation, was lovely. Unfortunately, we don’t see her again until nearly halfway through the book, and then only as a much more minor character. Kind of disappointing.

The mode of murder was interesting and the explanation of how it was accomplished was solid. Father Max is a former MI5 agent so that gives him some interesting background to draw on, and he’s quite besotted with his new son and his wise wife. (She seems a bit idealized as well.)

The identity of the murderer was not really something the reader could have figured out for themselves, but I’m okay with that. I was a little more annoyed by the *shocked gasp* presentation of who it was. While I couldn’t figure it out ahead of time, it wasn’t in any way shocking to me.

There’s a subplot going on that’s very minimal so its use at the end was a bit of a surprise.

I like the police procedural style of Father Max going and interviewing people, getting a lead, and following up on it, then reporting in with the local police. The plot is solid and pacing is good, edging toward slow.

I think the setting and description is one of the strongest points of the book.

“It was fall, and the patchwork fields around Nether Monkslip were changing color from gold and jade to bronze and topaz in that strange alchemy of the turning seasons.”

It’s a solid book, enjoyable and relaxing, I’d give it 3 stars out of 5. I might read another, but I also might look for something a little more modern. 

Have you read any of the series? What did you think?

Storymusing: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

 

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

For September, our book club theme was “injustice.” I found Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead in our Hoopla catalog and that seemed to fit the bill, so I downloaded it and started listening, not realizing at first that it was about 22 hours long.

I have to admit, I almost DNF’d (Did Not Finish) it a couple times in the first half. It was just so bleak to begin with. I kept thinking of the book by sociologist Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities. That title seemed to fit here very well.

Demon Copperhead is inspired by the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It’s an updated version of the look at the inequalities of the criminal justice system, quality of schools, child labor, and class structure that bedeviled Victorian England, this time set in modern-day Appalachia and entrenched in the modern drug epidemic of prescription opioids.

Damon Fields, aka Demon, is born to a drug addicted young mother after his father dies in a swimming hole accident. Young Damon is watched over by the older next door neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Peggot, as much as they can, while they also take care of their grandson, Damon’s friend “Maggot.” Damon has far too much responsibility thrust on him at a young age, watching over his mother. Things get worse when his mother remarries, a hard man named Stoner.

It only goes down hill from there as Damon is put into foster care, which turns out to be a squalid tobacco farm where the boys are taken in for the check from DSS and the free labor. Eventually Damon ends up in a second placement that isn’t all that much better.

The story took a turn upward for me around the halfway mark as Damon set out to find his paternal grandmother. He meets some interesting characters along the way and fins his grandmother and her brother are decent people who find a place for Damon to live, back in his hometown with the football coach.

It’s an interesting story told in beautiful language through the eyes of Damon, whose saving grace is his way of seeing the world through his artwork. It also illuminates the trials and tribulations of addiction, though I can’t say how true to life that representation is.

Though one critic referred to it as “poverty porn,” I thought Kingsolver gives her characters dignity through even the most difficult situations. Good books often make people think hard and tend to receive a wide range of reviews. The book also received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, sharing it with Hernan Diaz’s Trust. 

I questioned where the author lives, as I'm always leery of people who write books of places well outside their sphere of knowledge, but Kingsolver lives in Appalachia so that does offer some credibility. 

It’s thought-provoking with some incredibly painful situations and some beautiful ones. Though long, it is a rewarding read and I recommend it. I have not felt my time was wasted. It has taken me on a journey and the characters will stay with me for some time to come.

I could say a great deal more about the story, but not without spoilers so I suggest you give it a try for yourself.

Storymusing: Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life by Ross Ellenhorn

 

Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life

by Ross Ellenhorn

First off, I have to confess, I haven’t finished this. In fact, I have decided not to finish it.

Our theme for writer’s group this month was “Dogs, Crayons, and Wellness.” I went to our Hoopla app, where I find audio books, and tried searching for “Dogs” and then “Crayons.”

This title caught my eye because it talks about Harold and the Purple Crayon, which I adored when I read it to my daughter as a toddler.

However, the reader is--not terribly enjoyable. Perhaps a little too clinical. Monotone. Boring. I find I enjoy a book when it sounds like someone is performing it, not when they are straight up reading it. That may be a fine distinction, but the amount of inflection and enthusiasm used needs to keep my attention. This reader did not do that.

Beyond that, I felt that the author gives some interesting background information which is useful in understanding where the author of Harold and the Purple Crayon came from and the social history of the time when the book was written. It can illuminate what influenced the artist, even if they themselves are unaware.

Then the author begins drawing some tenuous connections and making some very big assumptions.

The author ascribes some profound meaning to every aspect of how the book is drawn. I feel that is a mistake. Sometimes an artist decides to do something one way simply because they like it, and it feels effective to them.

I guess, in the end, I’m very leery of having a critic or anyone other than the artist explain how and why the artist did something, without drawing directly from a primary source of the artist’s own explanation.

I have found the reviews on Goodreads are equally mixed. I think a 3-star is appropriate and I would recommend it be read, rather than listened to.

Storymusing: Mango, Mambo, and Murder: A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery by Raquel V. Reyes

 

For book club this month, we had the theme of “summer heat” and what could be better than going south to Miami, Florida? I picked up a fantastically funny new series by Raquel V. Reyes set in Miami, called Caribbean Kitchen Mysteries.

The Spanish blended throughout with the English had my brain synapses firing and remembering words I’d long thought I’d forgotten from high school. I even found myself internally responding to things en Español. “Claro que si!”

Miriam is a food anthropologist who plans to publish a book, but in the meantime, she is on side quests to manage a move with her husband and child to Miami from New York, raise her sweet little boy Mani, AND do a weekly cooking spot on a talk show.

Her best friend from her teen years, Alma, is a very successful real estate broker and on a mission to reintroduce Miriam to the area. Miriam couldn’t manage half so well without her.

It’s Alma who gets her the guest spot on UnMundo doing a cooking segment. At first Miriam is dead set against it, being a scholar rather than a television personality or even a chef, but Miriam eventually realizes she is able to educate the masses about her beloved topic through this medium.

Alma also wants to introduce her to the successful people in the area. That means getting her in at the country club that Miriam’s mother-in-law belongs to. Of course, someone goes face first into their lukewarm mayonnaise and soggy chicken salad at the first luncheon she attends.

Miriam is sitting next to the unfortunate woman when it happens. The official story is the young woman died of a heart attack due to her drug use history, but Miriam is bothered by it all and can’t let it rest.

The author manages to keep things alternating between serious and humorous, alleviating the tension with great characters who have interesting reactions to serious situations.

Her mother-in-law becomes more clearly antagonistic, racist, and classist as the books progress. It’s presented as funny, but it’s serious too.

“…My mother-in-law appeared in my unfurnished living room. My mouth was faster than my good sense. ‘Did I leave the door unlocked?’”

The humor is real and relatable.

Then there’s the situation with her husband, Robert, who she refers to as Roberto. He’s always been a good guy but now he is working long hours and takes a job with a corporate firm, the antithesis of his goals as an environmental lawyer.

Miriam is understandably very worried when she begins to suspect that her husband is being pursued by a former girlfriend that her mother-in-law approves of far more than her.

It’s a very fun, fast-paced, and humorous cozy mystery series. There’s already two more— Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking and Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal. I think they get better as they go along. I’m looking forward to the next book this fall. And the audio es perfecta! 

Storymusing: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Last month, my thematic book club did something a little different — we all read a short story together for discussion.

I had always thought of The Yellow Wallpaper as a story where the main character is suffering from post-partum depression. Her husband locks her in an attic room to “rest” and she slowly goes insane, fixating on the yellow wallpaper. After reading it again, I have a very different perspective. This time I looked at it as a potential crime, and maybe even a ghost story.

One of the funny things that came out of the discussion was that two of us, who had read it before, had the same mistaken memory —that the main character had been locked in an attic room by her husband. Now, he does choose the upper-level room for them as a bedroom, but she is not locked in until she does that herself toward the very end.

The narrator and her husband have secured “ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate.” She says it might be haunted but laughs it off.

There’s a beautiful garden and nice rooms that open on it, but her husband insists they take the upstairs nursery because it is airy and big. The narrator thinks it was “a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.”

In the article “House of Horror” (linked at the end) there is even the suggestion that enslaved people may have been kept restrained in this room and “By the end of the story the narrator has spotted ‘so many’ women who she believes have scrabbled free from the garish yellow prison.”

About her husband, she says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” Which can be seen as being kind or nit-picking, depending on your perspective.

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency — what is one to do?”

She is able to go out and walk in the garden or down the lane a little, but as the story progresses, she spends more and more time resting in the bedroom. “It is getting to be a great effort to me to think straight.”

She says her husband loves her so much “But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there,” when she suggests a visit to her cousin. It sounded very much like house arrest.

She tries to convince her husband that she is not getting better and they should leave, but he insists on staying because they have three weeks left.

Of the wallpaper, she says, “It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” This was a light bulb moment for me. Green? Could arsenic be at hand?

The wallpaper is torn off in spots, the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, and there’s a heavy bed bolted down. Very strange for a nursery.

“But there is something else about that paper — the smell!” The rain makes it worse and it gets in her hair. She even notices it when she’s outside if she turns her head quickly.

A little searching around told me that it was widely known at that point in time that wallpaper with arsenic often had a “mouse-like” odor in damp rooms or smelled like garlic, especially in damp conditions.

I couldn’t help thinking that if he is such a learned physician, was he suffering from a God complex, or just stupid? I mean, did he really not even consider the fact that arsenic might be in the wallpaper, since it was widely known by the 1890s, or was he trying to drive her insane? Only his behavior at the very end seems to absolve him.

And she is stuck there, getting weaker, while he is out of the house working.

She mentions her husband threatening to send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall if she doesn’t get better. “But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, but only more so!” So, she does realize how domineering and condescending they are, I think. Gilman contended that her own experience with Weir Mitchell nearly drove her insane and this story resulted.

There are very distinct aspects of the story that merit a great deal of praise. The details are developed in beautiful fashion. It’s perfectly creepy and even quite horrific when you consider how much her situation is out of her control.

Here is a young woman suffering from post-partum depression, made to endure a rest cure in a house that may well be haunted by at least the collective trauma of enslaved people, and set up to spend most of her time in a room that has arsenic wallpaper, which can flake off and even become gaseous under damp conditions.

It's a master class of a story, from my perspective.

You can read the full short story yourself at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

I also read

The Feminist Gothic in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm

House of horror: the poisonous power of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/07/charlotte-perkins-gilman-yellow-wallpaper-strangeness-classic-short-story-exhibition

Death on the doorstep: Arsenic in Victorian wallpaper

https://www.slam.org/blog/arsenic-in-victorian-wallpaper/