Review: THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY by Susan Patron

Middle-grade fiction

Atheneum, 2006

134 pages  $16.95

Newbery Medal Winner

One thing I love about certain writers is that they say so much with so little. Susan Patron is one of those writers. In this spare, lovely story, we meet ten-year-old Lucky, who lives in a desert town of few people (Pop. 43) with her guardian, Brigitte, and her dog, HMS Beagle. (How could you help but love a dog with such a name?) Lucky is a unique and lovable character who strives to find a Higher Power to help her make sense of her fractured family and sometimes bleak circumstances. But like all good writers, Patron doesn’t bludgeon us with despair but lifts us up with humor. In many ways, this little girl is lucky—and so are we for meeting her.

Writers will learn what a pitch-perfect voice should sound like and how characters can be so exquisitely drawn in a very few pages. Readers will cheer for Lucky and her friends, who we bond with on first meeting. Parents will love that a serious story can be told lovingly and humorously. Kids will love that Lucky carries a survival backpack and that her friend Lincoln can tie any knot known to man.

Censorship Alert!  Widely challenged for its use of the word scrotum, this wonderful novel contains nothing any sane person would object to. As a point of information, the scrotum in question belongs to a dog, and Lucky herself isn’t even sure what a scrotum is. This is hardly a controversial story.

 

It's a Problem

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It's true. I can't walk into a library and come out with one book. My late fees have paid for at least two or three shelves at my local branch.

Review: Pride and Prejudice

The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In this 1813 novel, Austen creates one of literature’s most enduring heroines in Elizabeth Bennett, one of five sisters whose mother is frantic to marry off. But in true Austen style, Elizabeth refuses to hasten her choice of a mate. She will not marry for any reason but love, despite the fact that her family’s fortune is modest and that even the family estate will be entailed to a distant relation on her father’s death. She receives proposals from two eligible bachelors—the ridiculous Mr. Collins and the prideful Mr. Darcy—and disdains them both.

Mr. Darcy is, of course, Jane Austen’s most beloved hero. It is no coincidence that he was voted the Austen canon’s most eligible bachelor on the pbs.org website, where viewers were encouraged to pick their favorites. His aloof manner, his struggle against his love for Elizabeth, and his eventual redemption make him a far more attractive catch than even Mr. Bingley, whose easy manner and jovial nature win over Elizabeth’s sister Jane.

It is said that some women—most women?—love a project, and Mr. Darcy certainly qualifies. His first proposal to Elizabeth outlines all the reasons he should contain himself, despite his feelings, prompting his beloved to ask why “you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?” (My husband summed up this proposal as “I love you, but you suck.”) But, as Elizabeth concedes later, Mr. Darcy “improves upon closer acquaintance.” He is in fact somewhat prideful, but also a socially uncomfortable person; some of what Lizzy mistakes for pride can be attributed to the fact that, as he admits, he has “not the talent which some people possess … of conversing easily” with strangers.

Eventually, Elizabeth will realize that her own pride and prejudices have been at least equal to Mr. Darcy’s, and that she is not as infallible a judge of character as she thought. And Mr. Darcy will, of course, get the girl.

The modern reader will need to slow down the constant chatter of the world that has shortened our attention spans. This is a book to be savored in its complex plot (only lightly traced here), its beautiful language, and its subtlety. No character screams, throws fits, or snatches up a pistol. Insults are veiled in civility; in some cases one must read between the lines. Read slowly by the fire and you will be satisfied.

One edition I recommend is The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, edited by David M. Shepard (Random House, 2004). Presented with the text in a side-by-side style, the annotations are helpful in understanding certain mores of the times as well as obscure vocabulary. Sometimes the notes are superfluous (don’t most of us know what effusion and stately mean?), but not intrusive. This edition also includes maps, a chronology of the story, and an interesting bibliography.





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One of the reasons I've always loved Linus.

Writer's Bookshelf: A WRITER'S PARIS by Eric Maisel

living the dream in the Place des Vosges

Reference / Writing

Writer's Digest, 2005

 224 pages  $18.99

A popular movement in the last few years touts the idea of visualizing your desires. That idea may be the subject of some other post; it isn’t the topic of this one. But I will say that sometime in the fall of 2005 I devoured Eric Maisel’s A Writer's Paris like a crème brûlée. His promise that anyone, anywhere, could achieve the dream of taking at least a little time to write in Paris had me salivating. I dreamed of it; I lived and breathed it. By summer 2006, I was sitting on a bench in the Place des Vosges with a notebook in hand.

Eric Maisel is a renowned creativity coach, author of books like Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist's Personality, and Career from America's Foremost Creativity Coach (New World Library, 2007) and Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art (Tarcher, 1995). I’ve often thought how nice it would be to have such a coach to cheer me through the lonely days of writing (and there are plenty). A Writer’s Paris comes pretty darned close. Subtitled A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul, Maisel’s book is both a love letter to the most beautiful city on earth as well as a reminder of how privileged we are to be able to write. Each of his 34 essays explores a different theme of how staying in Paris, a city that has always revered artists of all stripes, can affect your craft. Some advice is practical—where to go, what to do—and some addresses your creativity (don’t forget to write while you’re there). His prose transports you, whether he’s describing a stroll to the Île St-Louis or comparing writer’s block to the perfectionism of picking only the best apricots from a market stall. Somehow a modest footbridge, a seat in the Luxembourg garden, and the steps of Sainte-Chappelle all become metaphors for the writing life.

Beautifully illustrated, bound in cloth and sized to fit easily in your tote, this book is an inspiration, whether or not you ever set foot on French soil. Yes, Maisel urges you to go to Paris. But more than that, he opens up the possibility of it. No dream seems unreachable, no goal elusive in his confident hands. Part travel memoir, part writing tool, A Writer’s Paris fills the heart and drives me to my keyboard. I find myself asking not “How?” but “Why not?” I can’t ask for a better coach than that.

If you’re experiencing déjà vu, don’t adjust your TV. A version of this post appeared in an earlier blog in 2008.

 

Review: WHAT ALICE FORGOT by Liane Moriarty

Contemporary Fiction
Amy Einhorn Books, 2011
423 pages
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm a firm believer in judging a book in context with its peers, which is one problem I have with a "star" system. I might have gone to 4.5 stars on What Alice Forgot if it were an option; does that mean I place it in the same category as Dickens? Well, no. But it's an excellent, compelling story, one that kept me up turning pages past my bedtime, and one that didn't have me groaning to myself, Why can't good storytellers learn to write?--because Liane Moriarty can write.

The story follows Alice Love, a successful, well-groomed mother of three who takes a fall and loses her memory--but not all of it. Brittle, driven Alice was once sweet, loving Alice ten years ago, and when she wakes from her accident, that's who she is: She's the Alice of 1998, not 2008--the Alice who still loves her husband, who's expecting her first baby, and who hasn't yet alienated the most important people in her life.

This isn't exactly a brand-new idea for a plotline, but that's okay. The story reminds me of the film Regarding Henry, starring Harrison Ford as a jackass whose memory is completely destroyed, and with it, his awful personality. Alice isn't an awful person, but before her accident, she seemed to have forgotten herself; now, post-accident, she's forgotten her "mature" self, and all to the good, it would seem. But somehow she has to cope with three children, a messy divorce, and the strange life she has adopted. The drama of it pulls you through from the first page to the last. I'm not a fast reader, but I was done with this book in about 3 days.

As to the writing, it's intelligent and not overwrought. The characters are genuine, three-dimensional people. You want to call them on the phone and set them straight. Parts of the book are quite funny, and other parts heart-wrenching. All in all, Moriarty's tale makes for a hugely satisfying read.

Review: THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC by Richard Russo

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I fell in love with Richard Russo when I read EMPIRE FALLS. This is a much smaller book, both in scope and in heft. While it didn't overwhelm me the way EMPIRE FALLS did, it did leave me a lot to think about. In the story, Jack Griffin attends two weddings, and in between them considers his marriage, his parents, and his past.

The first 30 pages or so didn't really grab me, and I might have put it down but for the fact that I was going to see Russo speak at an authors' event here in Kansas City, and I wanted to have the book read by then. I'm glad I stuck with it, because the story really picked up and became a page-turner. It also happens to contain the strangest and funniest story of a wedding rehearsal dinner I've ever read (or seen in a film).

Speaking of films, this book did echo a bit the films of Nancy Meyers (It's Complicated, Something's Gotta Give). Maybe I think that because I just saw It's Complicated, but when reading this book, I did rather feel I was watching another Meyers film!