Category: NonFiction

Fifth Chinese Daughter

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Wong, Jade Snow. Fifth Chinese Daughter. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

I have to start of with a confession: Chinese culture makes me think Americans are unspeakably rude.

Fifth Chinese Daughter is an autobiography written in simple and straightforward language in the proper Chinese third person. As a result I read it in two day’s time. It covers the first 24 years of a Chinese-American girl, Jade Snow Wong. From the very beginning, growing up in San Francisco, California, Wong struggled with cultural differences between modern America and the Old World Chinese of her parents. Everything from food, physical contact, gender discrimination, mourning the dead & burials, order of names, to education was contradictory and Wong had to wade through it all during her most formative years. While she didn’t mean to disrespect her parents she struggled with independence in a new world, especially when she sought an education normally expected of males in her culture.

I am borrowing this book from a school so it shouldn’t surprise me that someone has drawn in it, and yet it bugs me just the same.

Favorite moments in the book: first, I love the cat in the illustration on page 22. Second, I found the description of the treatment of rice (p 58 – 59) to be very interesting.

Book Trivia: Fifth Chinese Daughter is actually the first volume in a two-volume autobiography. The second volume is No Chinese Stranger but, sadly, Pearl only recommends Fifth Chinese Daughter.

Author Fact: Wong was an accomplished potter and some of her pieces made into museum shows.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Asian American Experiences” (p 26).

Catfish and Mandala

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Pham, Andrew X. Catfish and Mandala: a Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. New York: Farrar. Straus and Giroux, 1999.

It has been several years since I read a bicycle memoir (the last being Where the Pavement Ends by Erika Warmbrunn). I was very excited to start Catfish and Mandala. So much so that I started it two days before May began. Even though May is Bicycle Month I read this for Memorial Day. I’m glad I went that route because it’s not really about the bike.

Catfish and Mandala is more than an adventure story about biking across Vietnam. It’s a cultural exploration and by turn, an explanation. Comparing American versus Vietnamese differing viewpoints on mundane topics like when a child should move out of his parent’s home after reaching adulthood. And yet. Noticing similarities: we all want our fathers to be proud of us, in any culture.
The story of Pham’s father’s imprisonment in the Labor Camp is brief, but heartbreaking just the same. After reading pages 16-20 I will never look at catfish the same.
Pham’s ability to weave past with present is brilliant. He recaptures his family’s flight from Vietnam to the U.S. when he was a small child seamlessly while recounting his own journey from the U.S. back to Vietnam as an adult. His confusion over what he remembers is intertwined with his inability to articulate what he is really looking for. Pham finds himself asking “what am I doing here?” time and time again. As he faces prejudice and violence and corruption I asked the same question.

Favorite lines: “Somehow they got by on love and rice” (p 17),” Everything could shift, and nothing could change” (p 107), “I have an urge to kick myself in the head” (p 158), and “A stray mutt curls up at my feet and shares his fleas with my ankles” (p 200).

Author Fact: I have to start of by flirting. Pham is a good looking guy! My next fact is actually a question – how can you be a “starving” restaurant critic?
Book Trivia: Catfish and Mandala is Pham’s first book.

Things that need further explanation: what, exactly, are “angry egg-eyes”, and what do they look like? Pham mentions five different types of bananas. Now I want to know their names and characteristics.

Pham mentions Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. I’m so excited it’s actually on my list. Sad to say I won’t be reading it until probably May 2016 though!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Bicycling” (p 36). Simple enough.

ps~ I enjoyed Catfish and Mandala so much that I added Pham as a favorite author on LibraryThing.

To Sir, With Love

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Braithwaite, E.R. To Sir, With Love. New York: Jove Publishing, 1959.

Confession: whenever I hear the words “to sir with love” I do not think of Sidney Poitier. I do not think of LuLu. I don’t even think of Braithwaite. I think of MTV’s 1993 inauguration ball for President Clinton. Natalie Merchant sang ‘To Sir, With Love” accompanied by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. What this says of me, I’m not sure!

E.R. Braithwaite is in the company of a select few: teachers who make a difference. Leaders in education have no trouble touching the lives of one or two of their students. That happens all the time, but to change an entire class is no small feat. I think that’s why they make movies like “Dead Poet’s Society” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Such teachers are an inspiration to the of world education. Braithwaite enters the world of teaching by default. As an out-of-work engineer who cannot get a job due to the color of his skin he is forced to apply for positions outside his area of expertise. A chance meeting with a stranger leads him to apply for a position with the Greenslade Secondary School in London’s ill reputed East End. There, Braithwaite meets children more callous and uncouth than any adult he’s ever encountered. They are defiant and daring, determined to run Braithwaite out of  school, just has they had done before. Only Braithwaite is not so easily cowed. And so begins the odyssey of E.R. Braithwaite and his remarkable story. He is able to turn thieves and would-be prostitutes into respectful, intelligent individuals.

Book Trivia: To Sir, With Love was made into a 1967 movie starring Sidney Poitier.

Author Fact: Braithwaite became a popular teacher by applying two fundamental philosophies to his teaching: treat the children with respect and relate everything they learn back to something they already are familiar with. Both tactics engage the children emotionally and intellectually.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 231).

Note: In the index of Book Lust Braithwaite is listed as Ricardo and not Edward Ricardo. Even though Braithwaite went by “Ricky” or “Ricardo” it would have been a show of respect to list his full name.

Good Daughter

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Darznik, Jasmin. The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2011.

There is a third party detachment to the way Darznik tells her mother’s story. It’s cool and aloof, without personal reaction or reflection. The Good Daughter reads like a novel because Darznik does not offer us any emotion. She includes so many fly-on-the-wall details about her mother’s first marriage and first born in such a way that the story could have been about anyone – friend or colleague. But, having said that – this is a story worth telling. In the early 1950s Iran, Darznik mother is barely into her teen years before she marries and has a child. After suffering abuse at the hands of her husband she does the unthinkable for a woman in Iranian culture: she arranges for a divorce. She is forced to abandon her daughter when she remarries moves to America. Upon having a second daughter she drops hints about the “Good Daughter” she has left behind. It’s a passive aggressive tactic to make Darznik behave, but the “Good Daughter” is never explained until Darznik discovers tangible evidence of her mother’s secret past.

Favorite line: “I was often lost those days and almost always the happier for it” (p 314).

May 2011 is…

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THE LIST:

  • To Sir with Love by Edward Ricardo Braithwaite ~ in honor of National Teacher Day (May 3rd)
  • Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann ~ in honor of Brockmann’s birth month
  • A Child’s Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner ~ in honor of graphic novel month
  • Antigone the play by Sophocles ~ in honor of May being the best time to visit Greece.
  • Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong ~ in honor Asian-American Heritage month
  • Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham ~ in honor of Memorial Day
  • Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ in honor of Eeyore’s birth month (I’ll explain that connection within the review). I’m listening to this as a training book.
  • House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre ~ in honor of May 5th being Cinco de Mayo
  • City of Light ~ by Lauren Belfer ~ in honor of May being History Month

Lastly, for the Early Review program for LibraryThing – Art and Madness by Anne Roiphe.

I put so many books on my list because a) a few of them are really, really short so I know I can read I can read them in 1-2 days time and b) I don’t have plans to travel anywhere until May 20th so I should have more time to curl up with several good books, and c) AFTER the walk I have ten days of NOTHING to do. I am picturing myself on the back deck, a glass of wine in one hand and a good book in another.

Confession – Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham looked so good I started reading it on April 28th. Sue me.
May is also (finally) the Just ‘Cause walk. I am not confident I did everything to train (but then again, there is only so much walking one can do), and I know I didn’t fund raise as hard as I should/could have. I am $100 off from the amount I raised last year. I am guessing not asking aunts, uncles, cousins, (mother), grandparents….anyone from my mother’s side to donate played a big part. C’est la vie. Or, to quote mom, “whatever.”

April ’11 was…

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April was a gentle thaw in more ways than one. My grandfather finally passed away. I have to admit, the event was bittersweet. Saying goodbye was easier than I expected, if only because I knew, for him, life on this earth had ceased to be everything it could be. It was time. April was also the end of snow (although Maine still had giant piles of dirty, dripping snow in places). For books it was alot of really good stuff:

  • Flint’s Law by Paul Eddy ~ read in April to finish the series started last month (although there is a third Flint book that is NOT on the challenge list that I want to read…
  • “Two Tramps at Mud Time” by Robert Frost ~ in honor of April being poetry month and Monhegan’s mud season.
  • A Drinking Life: a Memoir by Peter Hamill ~ in honor of April being Alcohol Awareness Month. This was my first audio book for the BL Challenge and here’s the cool thing – I didn’t feel like I was cheating! Yay!
  • “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Alice Springs by Nikki Gemmell ~ in honor of Australia and April being the best time to visit. This was lyrical and brassy. Just the way I like ’em.
  • “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall” by Terence Winch ~ in honor of poetry month. Sexy poem by the way!
  • Great Fortune: the Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ~ in honor of April being Architecture Month. This was fun to read because it ended up being about more than a building.
  • “At Marlborough House” by Michael Swift ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System by Jeffrey Kluger ~ in honor of April being the anniversary month of Apollo.
  • “Blue Garden” by Dean Young~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Bear Went over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle ~ in honor of April Fool’s Day and something silly.
  • “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years” by Dean Young ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Skin of Our Teeth” a play by Thornton Wilder ~ in honor of April being National Brothers Month.
  • “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa” by Billy Collins ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Dear Derrida” and “Strip Poker” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry Month

For the Early Review Program (LibraryThing) it was The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik.

Great Fortune

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Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. New York: Viking, 2003.

There is something to be said about a man with a vision, especially when that vision becomes the great and unparalleled Rockefeller Center in New York City. Great Fortune captures not only the man behind the vision and the epic journey of John D. Rockefeller and his team, but the society and political arena of their era. The 1930s are the beginning of urban sprawl going vertical in the form of skyscrapers. As the buildings start reaching higher and higher they become more grandiose and complicated; as do the people responsible for this growth at such an unlikely time in history. The founders of Rockefeller Center are egotistic, artistic, ambitious visionaries. Despite being mired in the Great Depression luminaries such as architect Raymond Hood believe in the grandeur of the project with unwavering faith.

The first thing I noticed about the copy of Great Fortune that came to the library was the cover. If you aren’t looking closely you would miss it. The cover with the ISBN of 0670031690 has a collage of four photos, all in tinted black and white. A photograph of a couple dancing. Below that, a picture of the Rockettes standing in a circle. Below that, iron workers presumably working on the construction of RCA building. Along side these three photos is a larger one of the RCA building. In my copy of Great Fortune the dancing couple featured in the upper left hand corner are Mary Rae and Naldi doing a waltz in the Rainbow room…except something is different about them. They do not hold the same pose. Mary Rae and Naldi are nose to nose in my cover shot. I’m not even sure they are the same dancers. Why was this one photo swapped out for another? Curious. For an illustration of what I mean click here. Take note of the photo of the two dancers. Look at their gentle pose. Then click on the cover and see how the photo changes. The dancers become more dynamic, more passionate.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Building Blocks” (p 38).

A Drinking Life

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Hamill, Pete. A Drinking Life. Narrated by Jonathan Davis. Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, 2003.

As a first-time audio book listener, here are my perceptions: there are pros and cons to listening to an audio book. For the cons, it is less imaginative when someone fills in the voices and sounds effects of the story. You also can’t take note of a favorite line or phrase. Things that make you laugh out loud are between your ears and not on a page you can quote from later. You miss out on illustrations, photographs, the feel of paper between your fingers as you don’t get to turn the pages…
But here is the benefit to an audio book: you can walk for hours and hours on a treadmill and be thoroughly entertained. Such is my life in the middle of April. But, a review:

A Drinking Life is an odyssey. It is an autobiographical examination of alcoholism where the drinking escalates slowly, sip by sip, drink by drink. For me, it dragged on in places. Hamill spends two thirds of the book setting the stage for his lead performance as an alcoholic. Starting with Hamill’s early childhood in the early 1940s he recounts his formative years living with his Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father’s own battle with the bottle is omnipresent, a constant in Hamill’s life. That lays the groundwork for the excuses Hamill will make and his ultimate drinking downfall. Bars and beer are in the background as Hamill describes other obsessions in his life: comics as a child, newspapers, art and fighting as a teen, sex throughout the ages, and later as an adult, traveling, politics and writing.  Alcohol is the one constant through it all.

I am going to sound like a prim, prissy, panties-in-a-wad puss, but I really believe A Drinking Life should have come with a disclaimer. Rap artists have to slap a sticker announcing “explicit” when they swear, mention drugs or sex, on an album and yet Pete Hamill can do all those things, describe sex scenes with detailed wild abandon, he can use every swear word (included the dreaded “c” word), and remember violent beatings he would receive and give…all without some kind of heads up to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

Journey Beyond Selene

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Kluger, Jeffrey. Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

If astronauts and spaceships fuel the imaginations of little boys, Journey Past Selene more than ignites the scientific minds of grown men. Kluger takes us back to the early 1960s – just before man walked on the moon. Back to the beginnings of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its spaceships. These unmanned rockets were going on extraordinary expeditions, traveling to the unthinkable ends of the solar system. Journey Beyond Selene takes us to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune and beyond. We get a first class trip to fantastical moons with names like Despina, Titania and my favorite, Ophelia. We get to meet the ambitious scientists and engineers and hopefuls behind the project. We get ensnared in the red tape of government funding. As readers, thanks to Kluger’s straight-forward, no-nonsense approach, we have the luxury of keeping our feet firmly planted on terra firma while our imaginations soar beyond Selene.

Author Fact: Kluger coauthored Lost Moon: the Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. Time Magazine has a bio on Kluger and their slightly outdated picture of Kluger reminds me of Steve Buscemi for some odd reason. Maybe it’s the stare…

Book Trivia: Journey Beyond Selene has some of the coolest pictures of moons.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “The Moon’s My Destination” (p 158).

House of Blue Light

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Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Clean Food

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Walters, Terry. Clean Food: a Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source With More than 200 Recipes For a Healthy and Sustainable You. New York: Sterling, 2009.

A friend gave me a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. Happy birthday to me! Except I have a weird relationship with B&N. On the one hand, I’m a librarian through and through. I borrow my books. Sending them back is in my blood because I really don’t have the space for keepers. Wait. Let me rephrase. I am picky about my keepers because my space is limited. There. That’s more honest. Quite simply, I do not have the luxury of holding on to every book. When I was a child my father and I belonged to a mail-away book club. Every month we would pour over the selections, pick out a few we thought we could read in 30 days and then wait anxiously for their arrival. The package would come, heavy with books, complete with a postage-paid return label as well as a crisp, new padded envelope to send everything back in. Even in high school I couldn’t keep my books. I had to pass them onto my younger sister in an effort to save the family some money. In college I returned my textbooks to pay the phone bill. You could say I’ve never been comfortable with book ownership.

But! But. But, when it comes to gift certificates to book stores I make exceptions. I make exceptions, but there are rules. I can keep books I will use over and over again (like cookbooks). I can keep books I consider educational, something I can learn from each and every time I pick it up (think reference).

The book I purchased with my gift certificate exemplifies both attributes of my exceptions: Clean Food is a cookbook and a reference book. It goes beyond vegetarian eating. Probably the best thing about Clean Food is that it will put an end to struggling to use all the produce we get from the farm share. Every year it’s the same thing – what do you do with 15lbs of bok choy? There’s only so much stir fry one can eat!

March ’11 was…

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What can I say about March? The snow is (finally, finally) beginning to melt and kisa and I are starting to think spring even though it’s still cold, cold, cold and more snow is expected for tomorrow. We made some pretty sobering decisions. No huge projects for Hilltop and no expensive vacations. We’re taking a year off from spending. It’s a good choice, I think, given all the work drama we both have been through recently. Family life is starting to even out. For awhile I wasn’t feeling the proverbial pressures, but then again I had been shutting my phone off at night! March was also a Natalie night with the best company a girl could ever have.  Here’s the list for March books:

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ~ in honor of Book Month. I had forgotten about all the sighing and sobbing! *sigh*
  • Blind Descent by Nevada Barr ~ in honor of Barr’s birth month. I will never look at cave exploring the same way again!
  • Flint by Paul Eddy ~ in honor of Eddy’s birth month.
  • The Bold Vegetarian: 150 Innovative International Recipes by Bharti Kirchner ~ in honor of March being “noodle month.” I kid you not.
  • Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ~ in honor of Florida becoming a state. This was made into a movie…interesting.
  • God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane~ in honor of African American Writers Month.
  • Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks ~ in honor of March being family month. This was a behemoth to read – over 700 pages!
  • Raising Holy Hell by Bruce Olds ~ in honor of family month (read with Cloudsplitter because they were on the same topic).
  • Cosi fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin ~ in honor of March being Dibdin’s birth month.

Confessional: I skipped Famished Road by Ben Okri and added God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane instead. Somehow I had forgotten that I had already tried that book a few years ago. It just wasn’t my thing. However, I did write a review for LibraryThing. I just wish I had remembered that before ordering it a second time. I hate making more work for librarians! Here’s what I said for LT:
The Famished Road by Ben Okri is all about spirits. Azaro is a child in Africa struggling between two worlds: that of the spiritual and that of the Earthly. His parents on Earth are well meaning, but poverty driven, people. the basic theme of Famished Road is the definitive difference and ultimate struggle between good and evil. Azaro’s personal struggle is with spirits that can only exist if Azaro is dead. Azaro’s father struggles with abuse and power. Starting as a boxer he soon delves into the world of politics to gain power. Madam Kato is a simple bartender who begins her part of the story by wanting more profit but as a result of greed, sinks lower and lower. Along with the ever-entwining magical realism is the drifting of morality.

Other books I read in March not on the BookLust list: Miss Timmins School  for Girls: a novel by Nayana Churrimbhoy ~ an Early Review book for LibraryThing. This was great! Definitely one of my favorite reads of the month. I also started reading Clean Food by Terry Walters and Now Eat This by Rocco Dispirito (reviews coming soon).

Raising Holy Hell

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Olds, Bruce. Raising Holy Hell. New York: Harry Holt & Company, 1995.

At first glance this book scared the crap out of me. For starters, the cover. It’s an illustration based on a photograph of John Brown. It’s blurry and staring and Mr. Brown looks like he’s on fire. Maybe he is? I’m not sure. Then there’s a blurb from Robert Olen Butler on the back, “…is a brilliant novel about the complexities of hatred…the hatred of hatred…” The hatred of hatred sounds, well, harsh. But it’s the truth.

Defending Raising Holy Hell: I have to say this upfront. I read this along side Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks so I find myself making comparisons instead of writing a review strictly about Raising Holy Hell. Since I have such a persistent problem I think I should list the comparisons, if only to get them out of my system and move on:

  1. Cloudsplitter is long – well over 700 pages whereas Raising Holy Hell is barely over 300.
  2. Cloudsplitter is long winded – long sentences, long chapters, heavy with words and details. Raising Holy Hell is choppy – pages of lists, pages with 2-3 simple quotes. One page contained less than a dozen words “One year before the Ferry. One year and counting down” (p 196).
  3. Cloudsplitter is told from the point of view of Owen Brown, John Brown’s third son. Raising Holy Hell comes at the reader from every angle. Told from the point of view of wives, sons, interviews, prayers, articles, diaries, etc. It’s this last point I want to focus on the most.

Raising Holy Hell is unique. Bruce Olds tells John Brown’s story from every direction. Quotations, mythology, folk tales, court transcripts, lists, poetry,  diary entries, letters, interviews, Bible quotes, historical data, advice, agreements, and the perspectives of stepmother, father, first wife, second wife, eldest son, younger sons, daughters, neighbors, friends, Frederick Douglass, past Presidents, all piece together to tell not only the tale of Harper’s Ferry, but of the biography of John Brown, the man. Perfect for someone with a short span of attention!

Book Trivia & author fact: Raising Holy Hell is Bruce Olds’s first book but not his last.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 38).

Cloudsplitter

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Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Aside from its daunting size (well over 700 pages) this was fascinating to read. Owen Brown, the third of John Brown’s sons, tells the story of his father’s controversial life, beginning with Owen’s own childhood. Cloudsplitter opens with a written apology to Miss Mayo, a young Columbia University student who had been rebuffed by Owen after she traveled to his remote mountainside home in Altadena, California in hopes of inviting him to a reception. After chasing Miss Mayo away Owen is feeling the pressures of mortality, for he is not a young man anymore, and decides to tell his entire story from start to finish. While he is apparently ambivalent to his father’s tragic path of life he is deeply reflective and apologetic, detailing the process of how his father become of of history’s most complex antislavery agitators and martyrs. Owen desperately wants to appear open and honest by saying, “I will tell all” over and over again. Seeing as how Cloudsplitter is told from the point of view of John Brown’s surviving son it is safe to say the story was not meant to be yet another retelling  of the famous yet failed raid on Harper’s Ferry specifically. It is more accurately an illustration of how one man’s religious beliefs can grow to become the catalyst for one of the most well known events in history, in this case, the anti-slave movement. While Banks’ style of writing is, at times, rambling and contradictory (a reflection of Owen’s ability to tell the story) he is able to seamlessly weave nonfiction into fiction; reality into imagined to create a vivid political and cultural 19th century landscape.

One of the reoccurring themes of Cloudsplitter is guilt, guilt driven by religion, guilt driven by family obligation and guilt driven by society. As the child of John Brown, Owen is pulled in many different directions by his guilt and it apparent in every story he tells.

Profound lines: “I was, during those first few weeks…precariously balanced between opposing commitments which were set to create the shape of the rest of my life, and I knew that not to chose between them would lead me inescapably to a resolution that expressed not my will, but my father’s” (p 199), “It was the year that Lyman Epps and I finished our elaborate dance, and I went howling into the wilderness, leaving wreckage and smoldering ruin behind me” (p 536), and “Our specialty would be killing men who wished to own other men” (p 549).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 38).

ps~ I have read four out of five of the Russell Banks books on my list.

Cross Creek

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Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. Cross Creek. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942.

Cross Creek is an examination of place, first and foremost. The early pages remind me of conversations tourists have had with us Islanders; as natives who have stubbornly defended our “inconvenient” and “curious” ways of life. Cross Creek is a rural parse of Florida where alligator, snake and toad hunting is the norm. The bugs bite more than the snakes and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is in the thick of it all. Set in the early 1940s when racial inequality was at an all-time low Rawlings’s story is cringe inducing and belly splitting. Her employees are one step away from slaves and she views them as such. Poverty is a way of life in Cross Creek and yet Rawlings embraces it. Her humor outweighs the poor and the prejudice. If you need proof, read the chapter called “A Pig is Paid For” (p 97). How Rawlings blithely explains the pleasure of shooting her neighbor’s pig is funny.
Cross Creek is full of one-liners. Here are a few to illustrate what I mean. “Madness is only a variety of mental nonconformity and we are all individuals here” (p 2), “It is always bewildering to change one’s complete way of life” (p 18), and “I do not understand how any one can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to” (p 37). My favorite line comes after Rawlings conquers her fear or snakes, “I had done battle with a great fear, and the victory was mine” (p 174).

Author Fact: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is a big deal to the people of northeast Florida. In 1983 Universal Pictures released a movie of her life. In 2007 her home at Cross Creek was declared National Historic Landmark (for $6 you can enter the national park named after her and have a guided tour of her house). In 2008 the United States Postal Services released a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings commemorative stamp.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade By Decade (1940s)” (p 177), and also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Florida Fiction” (p 89), which is misleading because Pearl is including Rawlings in the chapter because of The Yearling, which is fiction and mentions Cross Creek which is not.