Tag: family

Housekeeper’s Secret

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Schnakenburg, Sandra. The Housekeeper’s Secret: a Memoir. She Writes Press, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I often get to read interesting books. This was one book I inhaled.

Sandra Schnakenburg has always been good with numbers so it seemed like a natural fit for her to become an accountant, but an author? That seems a little farfetched until you learn that her childhood housekeeper of thirty years had a dying wish for Schnakenburg to tell her life story. Then when you read the stories Schnakenburg has to tell about her housekeeper and friend, Lee Metoyer, it all makes sense. This is an important story that needs to be told for many reasons. Lee’s life was as incredible as it was tragic. However, Schnakenburg’s own upbringing is just as compelling. Hers is a story worth telling, too. She grew up in an affluent neighborhood in an extravagant house with five siblings. This was a household where someone had to feed the koi that lived in the pond under the grand staircase. Someone had to iron the bedroom linen. Someone had to line up seven different breakfast juices so that the man of the house could take his pick. The list goes on. Hidden behind the curtain of Schnakenburg’s perfect childhood hides abuse, corruption, and fear. The Housekeeper’s Secret is a story of survival and triumph on multiple levels.
Confessional: sometimes I noticed little inconsistencies. In Housekeeper’s Secret Schnakenburg’s timeline becomes a little skewed. She was six years old when her father took the family to Disneyland, but in the previous chapter she is seven. [Schnakenburg also gets Disneyland confused with Disneyworld. I do, too.] In another scene Metoyer’s cup is empty but she takes a sip of coffee.

Quote of a quote to quote: “There is always that one summer that changes you” -Beth Merlin. Amen to that. I was 23. I experienced the first summer romance of my life and then my father died.

Music: Elvis, “Happy Birthday”, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, Glenn Miller’s “When That Man is Dead and Gone”, “We Are Family”, and “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers.

Orange Fish

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Shields, Carol. The Orange Fish. The Fourth Estate, 2004.

Reason read: June is short story month.

  • Orange Fish – a couple finds their marriage saved by a lithograph of a fish.
  • Chemistry – a group of people join the YMCA Winter Enrichment Program to learn the recorder.
  • Hazel – after her philandering husband dies of a heart attack, Hazel learns to live again. As an aside, my father was the same age as Brian when he died, at fifty-five.
  • Today is the Day – the planting of the blisterlily.
  • Hinterland – Meg and Roy Sloan of Milwaukie, Missouri travel to France.
  • Block Out – Meershank has writers block so travels to Portugal with his wife, looking for inspiration.
  • Collision – Marta is waiting for Malcolm Brownstone, the Recreation and Resort Consultant, to arrive.
  • Good Manners – Georgia Willow oversees instructing people on Canadian manners.
  • Times of Sickness and Health – Kay is surrounded by people always telling her what to do.
  • Family Secrets – when family secrets are all that you have, you tend to protect them.
  • Fuel for the Fire – a daughter lets her aging and widower father burn anything he can find in her glorious fireplace.
  • Milk Bread Beer Ice – Barbara and Peter Cormin are a sad couple with nothing to say after thirty-plus years of marriage.

Author fact: I found a Carol Shields Literary Trust website here. Really cool site.

Book trivia: Orange Fish is comprised of twelve short stories about friendships and relationships and won the Marian Engel Award in 1990.

Quote to quote, “How was he to know she would mistake a random disruption for lasting attachment?” (p 136).

Confessional: I just lost my Papa-in-law last week. When the protagonist of Orange Fish confessed that he wanted to run a dude ranch, I thought of Papa. He, too, had cowboy fantasies.

Setlist: Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Handel, and Vivaldi.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Where There’s a Will

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Stout, Rex. Where There’s a Will. Bantam Books, 1940.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November.

Unlike Nero Wolfe’s other mysteries to solve which usually involve death, Where There’s a Will starts with a potentially phony last will and testament. The family of Noel Hawthorne have hired Nero Wolfe to contest Hawthorne’s final wishes as they seem absurd and out of character. Who gives his mistress his entire estate while leaving his sisters each a peach, a pear, and an apple? True to form, Nero interviews a large cast of characters and uncovers corruption, illicit affairs, and even a few murders. Of course, Wolfe solves the case. Interestingly enough, it all came down to a flower.
The Crime Line Nero Wolfe series always includes an introduction by another author. Where There’s a Will was introduced by none other that Dean Koontz, an accomplished mystery author in his own right. Written in 1992, Koontz is funny and, dare I say, charming? As an aside, I have to wonder what he would say about our current administrative situation (he mentions #47 in his introduction).
The other fact about the Crime Line series is it boasts that not one word has been omitted from the original text.
Insult that had me scratching my head: “Go chase a snail” (p 21). Is that a roundabout way of saying someone is slow?

As an aside, Fred Durkin is a man after my own heart. He puts vinegar on things. So do I.

Author fact: Stout briefly attended the University of Kansas.

Book trivia: at the end of Where There’s a Will there are two recipes from Stout’s private collection: basic omelet and scrambled eggs. I will definitely try the omelet because I like the technique described.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Big Babies

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Kiraly, Sherwood. Big Babies: a Novel. Berkley Books, 1996.

Reason read: April is Brothers month.

Quirky is the only word I can use to describe Big Babies. The first person narrative is actually in the form of a letter. A.J. Fleger has discovered the identity of his birth mother and he wants to connect. Like any adopted child, he wants to know his roots and in the process of appealing to his birth mother, he shares his story. Except, as an encyclopedia salesman with lukewarm results with the ladies, it is more the story of his brother, Sterling Fleger. Unrelated to one another, A.J. and Sterling were adopted by the same couple. Even as a child, Sterling had the more interesting story. He was always pushing the envelope; trying to be the center of attention. For Sterling, acting became the only viable profession until a profound line flub in front of a live audience derailed and scarred him for life.
Head scratching moment: early on we are told Sterling “went flying over the Las Vegas Strip on New Year’s Eve in the Little Spudge-Face Baby Safety Suit”. What in the world is that? Keep reading to find out!

As an aside, there is a scene in Big Babies that described my family Christmases from years ago: as the ninth circle of hell.
As another aside, I am also reading Glittering Images by Susan Howatch and The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. The connection? Kiraly, Howatch, and McCullough all poke at the theme of children born out of wedlock. Children who are raised by someone other than their birth parents. A.J. knows he was adopted and seeks his birth mother. Charles from Glittering Images figures out he is not his father’s son and Dane, from The Thorn Birds is not Luke’s son.

Author fact: Kiraly has written at least four books, but I am only reading Big Babies for the Challenge. California Rush was Kiraly’s first novel. As an aside, there is no praise for Big Babies on the cover of the book. Apparently, California Rush was the hit story.

Book trivia: I have this pet peeve when the praise on the back cover is for a different one than the one I am currently reading. It always makes me feel like I am reading the wrong book. The praise on the back of Big Babies is for Diminished Capacity, which is not on my list.

Music: Beatles’ “Birthday”, “Blah, Blah, Blah”, the Monkees, Dinah Shore’s “Now I Know”, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” by George and Ira Gershwin, Bette Midler, “American in Paris”, “Rhapsody in Blue”, Mick Jagger, and “Goodnight, Irene”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Oh, Brother!” (p 180).

Thorn Birds

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McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds. Harper and Row, 1977.

Reason read: There is a festival in China called the Ching Ming festival that takes place every April. Read in honor of China. Except. There is nothing about China in this book.

Confessional: I have wanted to read this book for years. My grandmother gave it to my mother and father when it was first published and it has been on their bookshelf forever and ever (since 1977). Only recently was I able to steal their copy to read it for myself. I promise to bring it back, mom!
Seven chapters. Seven different characters from 1915 to 1969. One small compliant: the chapter called “Dane” was not from Dane’s perspective. He was barely in it, which was a disappointment because I wanted to get to know him better. Having said that, The Thorn Birds will give you an intimate portrait of the rest of the Cleary/O’Neill family over the course of fifty plus years. It all starts when Paddy Cleary’s sister invites him and his family to work on her farm with the promise of inheriting the sprawling plantation after her death. Paddy bundles up his wife and seven kids to for the Australian Outback. There they learn to love the land, if not each other.
My favorite part of The Thorn Birds wasn’t the plot. It was the characters; each one fully realized. McCullough was right to name her chapters after them. Mary Elizabeth Carson was a diabolical woman I truly adored. She knew the nature of greed. She knew the pitfalls of love. What if greed was to be pitted against love in a fierce battle? Out of jealousy, she decided to find out. Her actions after her death set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately alter the course of history for generations to come.

Confessional: I am currently reading The Thorn Birds alongside Glittering Images and Beyond Belief. It is a bit much to be reading three very religious books at the same time. While theology is a strong theme for two of them, they are all completely different.

Book trivia: No quoting from this book in any manner whatsoever. Whatever. I know that The Thorn Birds was also made into a movie starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. Guess what? I never saw it.

Author fact: Coleen McCullough also wrote a series about Caesar which is on my list.

As an aside, is there really such a bird that impales itself on a thorn?

Music: “Faith of Our Fathers”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust from the chapter called “Hong Kong Holidays” (p 118). The only reason why Thorn Birds was even mentioned in More Book Lust is because of John Lanchester’s Fragrant Harbor. Interestingly enough, The Thorn Birds did not make it into the index of More Book Lust. Author Colleen McCullough also did not make it into the index. Woops. Technically, I did not need to read this book, but I am glad that I did.

Bonny’s Boy

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Rechnitzer, F.E. Bonny’s Boy. Muriwai Books, 2007.

Reason read: April is national dog month.

Even though this is a book for children Rechnitzer addresses some adult themes. Davy Edwards and his parents are patiently waiting for Davy’s brother, Nat, to return from war. Nat is in the Navy and while he is away Davy was assigned to watch over Bonny, Nat’s sweet and very pregnant cocker spaniel. After Bonny dies while giving birth the family agonizes over how to care for the near-dead pup (who dad wanted to drown). It is up to Davy to save the pup he names “Bonny’s Boy.”
Besides war and death, Davy’s family confronts competitiveness, jealousy and even violence when Davy wants to enter Bonny’s Boy into dog show competitions. If he wins he could take Bonny’s Boy to the big leagues – all the way to Madison Square Garden! The only problem was he was going up against a wealthy and experienced neighbor who historically always won these events. This neighbor would stop at nothing to continue to do so, even resort to animals cruelty if he had to. I found myself getting anxious when Davy got the idea to show Bonny’s Boy in the first competition; a real David and Goliath situation.
When Nat finally comes home from the Navy readers get a taste of the dangers of warfare, but the real lesson is about doing the right thing no matter what. Throughout the entire story Davy exhibits honesty, friendship, integrity, and courage.

Author fact: F.E. Rechnitzer’s full name was Ferdinand Edsted Rechnitzer. He passed away in 1965.

Book trivia: Bonny’s Boy was illustrated by Marguerite Krimse.

As an aside, I was really excited when Davy’s mother announced that she was serving apple pie with cheese for dessert. That is my favorite.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Great Dogs in Fiction” (p 104). As an aside, neither the author nor the title were in the index. Technically, I could have skipped this book.

Saving Ellen

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Casey, Maura. Saving Ellen: a Memoir. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2025

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing. From time to time I get the chance to review interesting books. This is one of them.

On the surface, Saving Ellen is an intimate and intense dive into kidney disease. As an adolescent, Maura’s sister Ellen lost function of her kidneys. What follows in Saving Ellen is a series of medical appointments, hospital stays, prescriptions and side effects, a transplant, the hope of recovery by a large and chaotic Irish family that never gave up hope. At the heart of Saving Ellen is Casey’s relationship with life and everything good and bad that came with it. All the heartbreaks and triumphs of childhood. From coming of age and dealing with relentless bullying to watching an alcoholic parent poison his entire family with infidelity and addiction, Casey’s story is one of addiction survival, family forgiveness, grief acceptance, and ultimate love.
Set in New York’s city of Buffalo, I saw Saving Ellen as also a memoir of place. Buffalo in the late 1960s and early 1970s is like another impoverished character; struggling to live and breathe and grow up.

Confessional: I wish Casey had opened her memoir with the 5th and 6ths sentences as the very first sentences to Saving Ellen. They really pack a punch.

Author fact: even though Casey has written a few other books, I am not reading any of them.

Book trivia: Saving Ellen has a really cool cover.

Setlist: “One Fine Day”, “What a Frozen Little Hand”, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, Bach, Jean Sibelius, “We shall Overcome”, the Beatles, The Coors, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Mozart, Beethoven, Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring”, Rachmaninoff, Barry Manilow, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, and “A Parting Glass”.

Confessional: If I hadn’t discovered Dermot Kennedy’s music I would not have found “A Parting Glass” when I did. It is a beautiful song.

Caspian Rain

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Nahai, Gina B. Caspian Rain. McAdams, 2007.

Reason read: the Iran hostage crisis ended on January 20th, 1981. Caspian Rain takes place in Iran. Read to celebrate a moment in history.

Twelve year old Yaas tells the sad tale of her mother Bahar’s marriage to her father, Omid. Bahar had come from a poor family full of shame. Her mother was a seamstress who cannot sew and her father was a cantor who could not carry a tune. Why Omid would want to marry beneath him is anyone’s guess. Baha left school to get married during her eleventh grade year and not even a year into her marriage she was desperate to return to school. Iranian custom did not allow her to continue her education as a married woman. Like a child who keeps running away from home, Bahar kept trying to stretch her independence, only to be dragged back to the life of a housewife. One has to feel sorry for Bahar. The old adage is true: you do not know what you do not know. Bahar was so poor she didn’t recognize a poor gift as a snub or insult. Iranian culture states that a divorced woman is a shame upon the family. She who separates from her husband has no rights, no family, no home, no money; nothing to call her own. So when Omid starts a public affair with another woman, Bahar can do nothing but suffer the disgrace in silence. Nahai gracefully details the gender and religious expectations of life in Iran.
I think Americans have a difficult time with the characters of Caspian Rain because of the cultural divide. We cannot relate to a woman who suffers so much abuse. I know I had a difficult time with the sister who was repeatedly beaten and locked in a shed with pigeons. To escape cruelty she made the only logical decision available to her.

The best line in the whole book, “For every sin, a virtue; every cruelty, a measure of mercy” (p 229). So beautiful.

Author fact: Nahai also wrote Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith. I will be reading it in the month of June a few years from now.

Playlist: Nahai rarely mentions specific songs in Caspian Rain although there is plenty of opportunity. There is a character called the Opera Singer who tries to sing. There is a Tango Dancer who never names the songs she dances to by name. Of the music Nahai does mention: “On This Moonlit Evening”, Ringo Starr, and Doris Day.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “Iran” (p 109).

Twice the Family

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McGue, Julie Ryan. Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood. She Writes Press, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read really interesting books. This is one I couldn’t put down.

Twice the Family is a narrative nonfiction about what it is like to grow up enduring circumstances, both unique and challenging. McGue tackles the emotional and psychological toll of what it means to be adopted in the 1950s. In those days, adoptions had their pros and cons. One good practice was keeping siblings together as much as possible. One mediocre practice was the well meaning but naïve practice of insisting adoptive parents match the orphan’s race and religion to eliminate too many questions later in life. One bad practice was to seal adoption records. A closed adoption meant people like McGue would never know the names of their birth parents or the circumstances surrounding their abandonment, for better or worse. In keeping with these practices, McGue was placed with a family with similar heritage, coloring, and religion. Her sister would go with her to this family but the twins couldn’t know anything about their birth parents. [In this day and age, with the progression of science and genealogy using DNA, McGue could probably get answers to her adoption questions, if she hasn’t already.]
McGue also delves into the mysteriously deep connection of twins, starting with what it must have been like to experience their birth. From their first breath together, McGue and her sister, Jenny, were inseparable. However, McGue doesn’t delve too deeply into the emotional repercussions of detaching herself from her twin despite their intrinsic bond. They even went to the same college and lived on the same dorm floor for a while. Only after they pledged different sororities did the twins begin to live unique lives.
While I thought Twice the Family was a highly entertaining story, I was distracted by McGue’s writing tic of ending chapters with ominous cliffhangers. After a while they reminded me of season finales of daytime television dramas. I know it is a play to keep the pages turning, but I was invested in her story without the dramatic teasers.

Author fact: McGue is also a columnist for the Beacher Newspapers.

Setlist: “All Are Welcome All Belong”, Neil Diamond’s “September Morn”, Pachelbel’s Canon, “Ave Maria”, “Happy Birthday”, “Frankie Valli’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”” and “You Are My Sunshine”.

Carringtons of Helston

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MacDonald, Malcolm. The Carringtons of Helston. St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

Reason read: so…this is a weird one, so hang on. I am reading The Carringtons of Helston because it takes place in Cornwall. Every December 23rd the townspeople of Mousehole, Cornwall, celebrate a festival called Tom Bawcock’s Eve. Bawcock was a 16th century fisherman who was rumored to have saved the town of Mousehole from starvation by going fishing during a storm. His boat was small but his courage was mighty and he caught more than enough fish to save the entire village. There you have it.

This takes place right before World War I in Cornwall, England. To give you an idea – tomatoes have just been deemed nonpoisonous. It is a society where people dance around topics in a valiant effort to not say what they really mean to say – all for the sake of politics, politeness, or both. The cat and mouse games people play are humorous during this era especially when each party takes a turn being the cat. But, don’t be fooled by the prim and proper society of Helston, Cornwall! MacDonald makes sure to include very real human desires and jealousies of all his main characters. Leah, the Carrington daughter, is a young woman with modern thoughts. Old enough to be a spinster, she wants friends with benefits. She doesn’t want the marriage, just the intimacy with a good man. A good dose of humor is peppered throughout the story. Housemaids are saucy. Gentlemen are not above acting the fool on occasion. Characters are so well drawn I could see this being a PBS or BBC show (something a little spicier than Downton Abbey).

Lines I liked, “Of course, any old building must have been a silent witness to the whole gambit of human activities and emotions” (p 35).

Author fact: The Carringtons of Helston is the only MacDonald book I am reading for the challenge. He wrote many others.

Book trivia: The language and mannerisms of The Carringtons of Helston characters is so modern I kept forgetting what era the story took place.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cornwall’s Charms” (p 71)

Caught in the Web of Words

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Murray, Katherine Maud Elisabeth. Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary. Yale University Press, 2001.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month. It makes sense to include a book about words since words make sentences that eventually (hopefully) turn into books.

Elisabeth Murray wrote a biography of her grandfather. While it is a straightforward birth to death biography, I was hoping for a more personal memoir filled with stories of James Murray, the family man instead of just focusing on the fact he was one of the greatest lexicographers of all time. Katherine Murray reveals that her grandfather had wanted to write down “a narrative of his life and memories” (prologue). Maybe that is why I expected more. Anecdotes of Murray’s personal life were no more than a few sentences here and there and a smattering of black and white photographs of James (mostly at work in the Scriptorium). However, James was a religious family man and proud father of eleven children with a sly sense of humor.
Having said that, the most annoying pebble in my shoe: I couldn’t help but notice the number of times Murray put her grandfather on an extremely high pedestal: James had a higher standard of accuracy than with anyone else he worked alongside; James was too meticulous; James worked harder than anyone else and worked longer hours than anyone else. To be fair, James Murray did dedicate over thirty-five years of his life to editing the Oxford English Dictionary. He worked under trying conditions – never had enough time, space, or money for the endeavor. Every day was a constant struggle. He employed his own children when the project started to fall behind. Even though he died before the project was finished, Murray was without a doubt, the godfather of etymology.

Author fact: according to the back cover of Caught in the Web of Words Murray was Principal of Bishop Otter College of Education in Chichester, England.

Book trivia: there is a typo in the copyright statement of my version of Caught in the Web of Words. Mine is missing the word ‘not.’ It literally says “This book may be reproduced in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form…without written permission from the publishers.” Woops.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obvious called “Words to the Wise” (p 249) and again, in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 400s” (p 68).

Sense and Sensibility

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Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Everyman’s Library, 1992.

Reason read: Read in honor of Sense and Sensibility being published in October.

Marianne, rejected by John Willoughby, is impetuous and needs sense. Her sister, Elinor, is the sensible one who will not let on that she is crushed when Edward Ferras plans to marry another. Sense and Sensibility tells the story of two very different romances. Although both are rejected they deal with it in different ways. To utter the words extinction of the individuality is to imply that the price of marriage is a loss of one’s sense of self. Threaded through the story of romance is another, more societal, theme of male dominated lineage. Austen was extremely observant about the world around her. She chose to write abut the country gentry because they stayed in her head, sometimes for years. Like other women authors of her time, Austen published Sense and Sensibility anonymously.
As an aside, I have read a lot of critical reviews of Sense and Sensibility and I have to wonder if Jane’s ghost laughs at the critics who took their task too seriously. Is Jane a psychiatric radical? She is a philosophical conservative? How deep can one delve into the ideology of sense and sensibility? Did she fashion Fanny after the Shakespearean character of Iago?

Author fact: Jane Austen had Elinor and Marianne on her mind when she was twenty years old. She was thirty-six when Sense and Sensibility was finally published. That is a long time for characters to be floating around one’s head.

Book trivia: My version of Sense and Sensibility (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) has an introduction by Peter Conrad.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “An Anglophile’s Literary Pilgrimage” (p 20).

Jungle

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Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Robert Bentley Inc., 1946.

Reason read: Sinclair celebrated a birthday in September. Read in his honor. I also needed a book set in the Midwest for the Portland Public Library’s 2024 Reading Challenge.

In my version of The Jungle (Robert Bentley, Inc., 1946), Sinclair provides an introduction and in that introduction he describes how he came to Chicago at twenty-six years old and started visiting the meat packing district. The living and working conditions of the mostly immigrant workers prompted him to interview them at home, where conversations inevitably turn confessional. Sinclair even crashed a Lithuanian wedding and used the experience in the opening scene of The Jungle.
I will not lie. Reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was painful. Jurgis, with his haunting mantra, “I will work hard. I will work faster. I will work longer” was heartbreaking. The desperation for employment – children lying about their ages to get work, women giving out their bodies to find work and bringing bribes of their bodies to stay employed. Look up misery in the dictionary and you should find Sinclair’s The Jungle.
As an aside, pay attention to the words used in the socialist sermon. Monster. Exhaustion. Beaten. Starvation. Horror. Darkness. Obstacles. Threatening. Hostile. Destroy. Fury. Prison. Oppression. Grim. Toiling. Agony. Suffering. Difficulties. Trapped. Hideous. Pain. Wretched. Curse. Misery.
In the end, Jurgis fades into the background as the sermon on socialism, morality, the word of God, and the future of Chicago takes over.

Book trivia: Jack London endorsed The Jungle saying it will run away with you. He was right.

Quote to quote, “They trick you and then they eat you alive” (p 69).

Confessional: I would like to think everyone has read this best selling classic. However, until now I was not one of those people. I never had to read it in grade school, high school, college, or graduate school. It was not on any supplemental list supplied by my teachers.

Natalie connection: 10,000 Maniacs performs a song called “My Sister Rose” which depicts a family wedding. Natalie sings about “dollar dances with the bride” much like the dancing described in the early pages of The Jungle. Music can take you back to your homeland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “One Hundred Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1900s” (p 175).

Well of Loneliness

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Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. Anchor Books, 1928.

Reason read: Hall’s birth month is in August. Read in her honor.

When her parents were disappointed that their newborn had not been the boy they expected, they went ahead with the name they had picked out pre-birth: Stephen. For 1928 that was pretty progressive, especially since no one in their society circles really questioned it, not even Stephen herself. Her full name was Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude Gordon. It was a name that seemed to overshadow her true identity and caused her some confusion as she navigated her way through childhood. Living in an environment where societal norms and expectations were rigid, Stephen often found herself clashing with the traditional gender roles.
Hall uses all the clichés to make obvious Stephen’s sexual orientation even as a young child: Stephen developed a strong romantic attachment to her nanny, she wanted to hunt, climb trees, and ride horses like a boy. She instinctively needed to change her appearance by cutting her hair and building her muscles and wearing pants and ties. She thought dresses were ridiculous, girlish emotions even more so. These feelings and desires were contrary to what was expected of a girl in her society, leading to a sense of internal conflict and confusion as she tried to understand and accept herself. She knew she was different but could not articulate why. As a teenager, Stephen was thrilled to make the acquaintance of a boy with whom she seemed to have so much in common. Here was a person with whom she could be her true self…until he admitted he was falling in love with her. Of course she could not love him back in the same way, as her own feelings did not align with his blossoming romantic affection. All through her formative years, Stephen’s father could not tell her the truth about her “strangeness” and yet he knew. As a result, he was overprotective and sheltering. There is a naivete to Stephen throughout The Well of Loneliness. Even when she found reciprocated love with Mary, a young woman she met during the war, she was never secure in her feelings, often plagued by a persistent fear of rejection and misunderstanding.

Quotes to quote, “My God, child, you’ll have worse things than this to face later – life’s not all beer and skittles, I do assure you” (p 113) and “This will happen sometimes, we instinctively feel in sympathy with certain dwellings” (p 249).

Book trivia: Well of Loneliness includes a note from the author which assures the reader that even though a motor ambulance unit of British women existed in World War II, the particular unit Hall wrote about only existed in her head.

Author fact: Hall led the life described in Well of Loneliness. It is thought that many of Stephen’s experiences were actually Hall’s memories.

Music: “Ole Sole Mio”.

Nancy said: Pearl pointed out that Well of Loneliness could be the first novel to address homophobia.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 94).

Burning Marguerite

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Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. Burning Marguerite: a Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Reason read: part of Burning Marguerite takes place in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in the month of August.

Marguerite Ann Bernadette-Marie Deo, otherwise known as Tante, has passed away. Burning Marguerite starts with James Jack’s third person perspective, and at first, you think it’s going to be his story. However, Marguerite, in her own voice, tells the genesis of her nearly one hundred years and how the orphan James Jack came into her life. The reader gets to know Tante more James, which, in my opinion, is a missed opportunity. James Jack is a character ripe for exploration. As it stands, he is a thirty-plus-year-old man who has never strayed too far from his sheltered island home somewhere in Vermont. He rarely has romantic relationships. The reader does not hear of friendships. His only mission is to take care of Tante. She is all he has ever known since his parents died in a tragic accident when he was just a baby. Meanwhile, Marguerite has lived a colorful life, experiencing great loves and losses from turn-of-the-century Vermont to 1920s New Orleans and back to the island of her childhood to live out the rest of her days as a hermit. A word of caution: Marguerite’s history is harsh. The more I read, the more I wept for her. A third character is the island as it lives and breathes, influencing the townspeople as if it had a personality of its own. Its harsh winters and small-town gossip do well to feed a sense of unease.

Confessional: I had a little trouble with chronology. I’ve tried to make sense of it a few times. Because Inness-Brown moves the timeline around I am not sure of the order of events after Marguerite’s death. She and James Jack argue about a married woman, Faith, on a Sunday night. Faith is leaving the island Monday morning and Tante wants James to go to her. Because of Faith’s marriage James refuses and out of anger sleeps in a secondary cabin, away from Tante. In the morning he finds Tante dead. At first James Jack feels the need to report the death and goes to the sheriff’s office. He changes his mind after he’s sitting across from the sheriff. Tante would not want the law involved with her remains. Meanwhile, Faith had a flight to catch sometime on Monday but she would have to go the mainland first. So when does James Jack catch up to her and ask her for help with Tante?

Line I loved, “I wanted to interpret your look, to read that gaze, but I had not yet learned the language in which your eyes wrote their message” (p 41). Stunning.

Author fact: According to the back flap of Burning Marguerite Inness-Brown lives on an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont. I have to wonder if Grain Island is modeled after South Hero.

Book trivia: Burning Marguerite is Inness-Brown’s first novel.

Setlist: “It Was Just One of Those Things”, and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “First Novels” (p 88) and again in the chapter called “New Orleans” (p 168).